Category: Uncategorized

Another missive from the drawer. I was thinking about this the other day when I was reading about Jen’s trouble getting Baby Girl to sleep on MUBAR, and about Mimilou’s night-time adventures. What really made me realize I had to share this, though, was this lovely little search hit from the referral logs. Yes, some poor soul had Googled “cry it out deaths Canada.”

I assure you we survived, although I will grant you that actually making the decision to let Tristan cry it out (CIO) and then carry through on the decision was one of the most arduous parenting tasks we’ve faced. Yes, it runs quite long. Sorry about that, but heck, what else have you got to do on a Sunday?

Prologue
I should start out by saying that at 11 months old, Tristan is already a pretty good sleeper and always has been. However, we wanted him to be able to go to sleep on his own, and our previous (albeit pathetic) attempts to put him down awake were embarrassingly unsuccessful. So, in the same manner we approached everything else to do with getting married, conceiving a child, dealing with infertility, IVF and parenting, we stripped the local library shelves clean of every book on nighttime parenting we could get our hands on.

We read everything from “put your baby down, close the door, let him cry and don’t go back in until the next morning” to “your child is crying and needs you and you will crush his little psyche if you don’t respond to his cries fast enough.” So, after careful consideration (read: neurotic obsessing) we finally agreed that Dr Ferber’s approach was best suited for us.

In general, the idea is that you wait increasingly long intervals of time before going in to comfort baby, and he will eventually fall asleep on his own. On the first night, you go in after 5, then 10, then 15 minutes, and every 15 minutes thereafter until he falls asleep. In the interest of science and the fact that misery loves company, I thought I’d document the whole thing.

DAY ONE
I’m edgy all day, worrying about how bedtime will go tonight. I try to be extra cuddly and loving to compensate. Consider giving him cookies for dinner to show my love, decide sugar rush will not help the situation at bedtime. Substitute cookie dinner for myself instead.

7:30 pm, Tristan finishes his bedtime bottle and instead of usual routine of cuddling him to sleep in my arms, I bring him upstairs and rock him for five to ten minutes. Worrying he might fall asleep during rocking thus violating cardinal rule of putting baby to bed awake, I poke him several times.

7:40 pm, Place Tristan awake into crib. Before I can pull blanket over him, he has flipped over and is pulling himself up the side of his crib. Step out the room and by the time I make it to the stairs he is already howling in protest.

7:43 pm, Think “this is not so bad” as I sit rigidly on the dining room chair, staring at the digital clock on the mircowave. At the 4 minute mark, I am standing at the bottom of the stairs, willing the clock to flip to 7:45 so I can go back upstairs.

7:45 pm, The book says to comfort your child without picking him up for a few minutes, then leave quietly. Try patting Tristan gently on the head as he bounces up and down in frustration. Gently put him back down into lying position, from which he springs back to his feet like a marionette on a string. Do this four times. Leave the room to indignant howls.

7:52 pm, Minute 6 of the first 10 minute interval of crying is the longest moment of my life. The only thing that reassures me is that I can tell by his crying that he is not hurt, not sad, not lonely, but pissed off, righteously so. Am grateful that he has his mother’s temprament, and realize that more than anything, tonight will be a battle of wills.

8:10 pm, Have to go upstairs again only 10 mins into first 15 min interval as I just can’t stand the crying. He cries harder the minute I walk into the room, but stops within seconds. No teary hiccups or drawn out sobs, but he does give me a good chewing out. I love him more than ever, knowing he will be very very good at getting his own way in life. He is hot and sweaty from the exertion of his angst.

8:27 pm, Wondering just how long he can hold out. Beloved is in the next room watching Friends, but I can see him occassionally checking on me out of the corner of his eye. Marvel at how men can detach themselves from the screams of their progeny, and begin to wonder if he doesn’t have the right idea.

8:39 pm, Cry along with Tristan for a minute or two.

8:56 pm, Beloved and I go upstairs together, and Beloved begins to pick Tristan up to quiet him. “No!” I exclaim, explaining how ‘the book’ says we shouldn’t do that. Beloved walks out of the room, saying maybe we should throw the book away. I listen to my own comment reverberating around the room and realize that sometimes daddies are smarter than we give them credit for. Pick Tristan up and cuddle him for a few minutes.

9:18 pm, Tristan’s wails have decreased in volume and intensity, but he is still crying. He redoubles his angry protest wails when he sees me. When I pick him up he so instantly quiets and curls into my body that I think he has fallen asleep. I cuddle him for a minute, and when I leave he has once again taken up his sentry in the corner of the crib, wailing and stomping with renewed enthusiasm.

9:26 pm, Silence. No wind-down, no on-again-off-again sputters, just cry then silence. I realize I am holding my breath and let it go. Resist the urge to go directly upstairs, but wait 5 long minutes first. Realize these 5 minutes far longer than the first 5 of the night. Also realize time is as elastic as my poor nipples after 11 months of breastfeeding.

9:32 pm, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I back out of the room and do both. I quietly call Beloved upstairs and show him what I’ve found: my little man, sitting on his butt against the crib rail, his legs stretched out straight in front of him, and his body folded double so that he is sleeping face down with his head between his knees. I gently turn him on his side and cover him with the blanket, and he never stirs.

DAY TWO
Okay, the example in the book says the baby fell asleep after just a few minutes on the second night, right? And that it should get shorter and easier each night? Apparently Tristan hasn’t gotten around to reading the book yet.

7:15 pm, Freshly bathed, jammied and bottled, we take the long walk upstairs. Kind of like our own little “Green Mile”. Tristan seems content, not suspicious of the evil intentions of his once-trustworthy mother. He almost dozes as we rock and cuddle, and as I stand up he is in that “zoned” state with the thousand mile stare. As soon as his body crosses the threshold of the mattress, however, his desertion radar kicks in and he is instantly, hysterically, fully awake. I can just hear his little brain saying, “Oh no you don’t! Not this again!”, as I stride out the door, head held high, swaddled in the courage of my convictions. Dr Ferber would be proud.

7:40 pm, First 10 minute interval done and I am congratulating myself on how much easier it is the second night. Back upstairs I go, and we commence the “pat, pat, pat, murmur, murmur, murmur” routine.

7:43 pm, Getting much braver tonight. Actually sit on sofa next to Beloved and stare sightlessly at TV while analyzing every nuance of Tristan’s cry, waiting for the blissful silence. Surely there will be silence soon. Since digital clock on microwave no longer in my sightlines, am clutching cheap Ikea kitchen timer like a talisman. Don’t have the heart to set it to 15 mins yet, so try another 10.

8:05pm, Into our first 15 minute interval, ask Beloved, “Isn’t this supposed to get easier?” Beloved, engrossed in TV program, shrugs nonchalantly. Crying is not so indignant as last night, but still going on strong. Tristan’s, too.

8:17 pm, A few minutes after regretfully setting timer to 20 mins, I realize Tristan has stopped crying. Do a silent dance of glee in my head, and am just about to go up and check on him when crying begins again in earnest. Crumple into boneless heap of dismay.

8:22 pm, Tristan wails “Mamamamamamama!”, effectively severing my heart in two and nearly taking my resolve along with it. Beloved tries to tell me he is just blubbering, but in my heart of hearts I know he is saying his first word. Okay, second word, the first was calling the dog. Realizing this helps me recognize my place in his personal heirarchy. Decide to send the dog in for the next comfort session.

8:30 pm, Manage to convince Tristan to stay in laying down position long enough for me to cover him with blanket. He is obviously exhausted, and does not cry when I leave the room. Tiptoe into living room, just as fresh wails rain down from above. Crying continues sporadically, stopping just long enough to elevate my hopes each time. Decide stop-and-start crying is worse than continuous crying.

9:00 pm, After an hour and a half of telling us what he really thinks of us, Tristan once again lets me place him down on the mattress and cover him. He is so tired that I have to practically run from the room before his eyes close. AHA! We did it! He went to sleep alone in his room. Well, almost alone. I don’t think my left foot cleared the doorjamb before he was out. But it counts, right?

DAY THREE
I am spineless. Seeing Tristan’s eyes droop and close during his bedtime bottle, I “accidentally” let him fall asleep in my arms. I creep carefully up the stairs and am almost halfway there when I look down to see him watching me with quiet suspicion. I retreat guiltily to the living room to cuddle him back to sleep. Every time his eyelids start to flutter, he thrashes himself awake again. I tolerate this for 45 increasingly agitated minutes, and he finally falls asleep in my arms again. Halfway up the stairs, and once again I’m staring into his bright baby blues, wide awake and regarding me with “Where exactly are we going, mother?” in a thought-bubble over his head.

Exasperated and out of ideas, I leave him howling in his crib while Beloved and I have a 10 minute argument in the hallway on the merits of CIO and exactly how long we are prepared to do this. You know, one of those whispered arguments you usually have in somebody else’s kitchen during a party, when one of you is really drunk and the other one is letting you have it for… well, you know what I mean.

We’ve really worked up a whispery head of steam before we realize that a roaring silence we neglected to notice is pouring forth from Tristan’s room. I check my watch and it has been less than 15 minutes. We pause and look at each other, and discover we’re trapped upstairs and afraid to creep past his bedroom. We wait it out in vaguely embarrassed apologetic silence for another couple of minutes, then decide to risk creeping down the stairs. While Beloved rounds the corner and heads for the relative safety of the living room, I take a deep breath and ever so q-u-i-e-t-l-y peek into Tristan’s room, and just about jump out of my skin when I see him standing in his crib placidly sucking on his soother and waiting for me.

Thoroughly unnerved, I pick him up and cuddle him for a minute, then put him back down again. He whimpers a few times, and I sing him a lullaby – likey stunning him into submission by my singing voice – and while he is lying quietly I creep from the room. When I go back 10 agonizing minutes later he is asleep exactly where I left him. I have no idea if this is a breakthrough or not as I am now so completely stressed that I feel worse than the two nights he cried for 90 minutes. Spend the rest of the night composing spam e-mail to Ferber.

DAY FOUR
7:50 pm, Tristan is freshly bathed, jammied, bottled and cuddled, but as wide awake as me after two jolt colas. I cuddle him on the sofa for a couple of minutes, but he is wired. Oh man, I think, here we go again.

7:55 pm, Lift Tristan into his crib and am rewarded with the usual cry of indignation. I pat him and coo at him for a minute as he springs to his feet. He is wailing as I walk out of the room, but I’m getting a bit cavalier about the whole thing now. Settle on to the couch in the living room and set the timer for 15 minutes.

7:59 pm, Silence. Check timer – elapsed time, two minutes. Shake timer. Look at Beloved in shock. Press ear to baby monitor. Can hear him moving around, but no crying. Sit on sofa in disbelieving anxiety.

8:08 pm, Still silent. Desperate for cup of decaf from freshly brewed pot in kitchen upstairs, but afraid noise of pouring will break spell.

8:13 pm, Timer buzzes to indicate end of first 15 minute interval and I nearly throw it through the window in surprise. Now I am flummoxed. Am I supposed to go upstairs? Can still hear Tristan moving around, but he hasn’t uttered so much as a whimper. Dehydrating for want of coffee. Decide to go up and check on him. Learning lesson from last night, not surprised to find him maintaining silent sentry in his crib. Feel rather silly patting him on the head and comforting him when he doesn’t seem the least bit upset. Lie him back down, and he cries again as I leave the room.

8:15 pm, Crying stops before I reach the bottom of the stairs. Coffee tastes wonderful.

8:45 pm, Timer indicates end of second interval. Sporadic crying of less than 1 minute duration and some shuffling from above. Have no idea whether to go up or not. Decide must investigate. See 8:13 entry for details. Manage to convince Tristan to stay lying down, and he doesn’t cry as I leave the room.

9:05 pm, Sweet golden silence. Peek into room and baby is fast asleep. As I sit here an hour later, my ears are still straining to hear him. It couldn’t be over, could it? Woo hoo! Does this mean we’ve done it? Now I never, ever have to do it again, right? Now he will always sleep through the night and go down with no problems, right? RIGHT?! I can’t hear you! Are you laughing at me?

Ten years ago tonight, I walked into a bar and fell in love. Everything about how we met danced with cliché: we met in a bar; he told me he was an artist and offered to show me his sketches (I said yes and followed him home); it truly was love at first sight.

If I can’t remember my life before the boys, I certainly can’t imagine life without Beloved. We were living in different cities when we met, and I spent the better part of a year making the six hour drive from Ottawa to London and back every second weekend to be with him. We started seeing each other in March, started talking about him moving to Ottawa in early summer. In September 1995, we planned for him to move up in May 1996. In October we bumped it up to February. We finally settled on New Years Eve, 1995. We were married on July 3, 1999.

I remember the day I knew he was The One. Before we met, I had planned a backpacking trip through Europe. It was to be my big adventure, a trip through five countries all by myself – no tourguide, no travelling companions, just me and my Let’s Go Europe. The trip itself was amazing, terrifying and wonderful – fodder for another blog.

But on the very last day, I got lost in the Paris RER and missed my flight home. Beloved had driven from London to Ottawa to meet my flight, and was staying in my apartment. I called him at 7 am Paris time – sometime in the middle of the night in Ottawa – and tearfully sobbed that I had missed my flight, I was stranded, and the only way I could get home was to fly into Toronto later that day. Would he drive back to Toronto to meet me? He never hesitated.

I knew if he could calm hysterical, exhausted me with an entire ocean in between us, he was The One. And I was right. There is no one who could be a better father to my boys than Beloved, no one I would rather see at the beginning and end of every day. I am a lucky, lucky girl.

How did you know it when you met The One?

Yesterday’s rant on my bloggy obsessions started to run a little long, so I shut myself down. (See, there are editorial processes at work here, just very very loosely applied ones driven mostly by whimsy and caprice.)

But the question still remains… if you can’t blog at work, and you can’t blog at home, then where the heck do you blog? The answer is, everywhere. I’m constantly blogging in my head. It’s shameful to think about how many brain cells are dedicated to blog thoughts on a given day. I think about blogs (yours, mine, the ones on my blogroll, all the ones that I might add to my blogroll if only there were about six more hours in the day to explore the blogosphere) pretty damn near all the time. I do the mental blog while I am waiting for the microwave to beep, while I am making photocopies, while I am showering, while I am walking the dog. Don’t tell the boss, but I have been known to think about blogging during staff meetings. But only during the boring parts.

I’ve been thinking about what Ann over at Mother of All Blogs wrote recently about being WriterMom, and while I am not presumptuous enough to categorize myself with her as a writer, I know for a fact I have drifted in conversation to the “I’m here but not really here” thousand yard stare as I contemplate my inner-blogger. Actually, what Ann wrote is just a really great excuse for absentmindedness IMHO, for I’d rather be accused of contemplating exciting writing projects than just contemplating my navel, which is equally likely to be true.

Sometimes I even lie awake at night, thinking about things I’ve read, or things I could write. I am such a droll and witty blogger at 3 am, you wouldn’t believe it. I tried leaving a pencil and paper beside my bed, but when I read it the next morning the only word I could decipher was ‘pickle’ and despite my best effort I just couldn’t make a clever blog from that paucity of material.

True confessions time: where do you do your best blog-thinking? How many hours a day do you dedicate to blog thoughts?

My name is Dani, and I am a blog junkie.

Phew, it feels soooo good to finally admit it. But, the only problem is I don’t want to recover. I love blog and all things bloggy – my blog, other people’s blogs, articles online and in the print media about blogging, talking to my friends about what they’ve read in blogs. Blog is good. Blog is life.

Unfortunately, some key people in my life feel a little differently about blog. My employer, for one. Don’t worry, I’m not about to go all Dooce on you and get my ass fired. But, I suspect the IT support guys are on to me. I can only imagine the reports I must trigger with even the most mundane blog content. The smut filters must rev into overdrive on all those references to poop, nipples, sperm, breasts and vaginas, to mention just a few less than innocuous terms I trip over daily on the Mommy Blog circuit.

“No really, I read this stuff for work. I’m compiling a study on, on, (thinking fast, wheels spinning) on the use of blogs to reach a wider audience on the Internet.” Nope, they won’t buy that. How about, “I’ve been analyzing language use in online users, to make sure we are wording our outreach products in terms to which the users can relate.” Hmm, gonna have to work on that one… Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

The only way I can get any amount of work done at all is to set little performance goals for myself throughout the course of the day. “If I respond to these three urgent e-mails from last week, I can look at one blog.” And, “Since I posted today’s blog entry from home last night, I can follow someone’s blogroll list to TWO new blogs today. Only two. And I’m only allowed to read the most recent post on each. Absolutely NO ARCHIVES. Okay, maybe archives on one. But only if they’re really good blogs. Or mostly good. Or showing a lot of potential, that I will probably find in the archives.”

Well, you’re probably thinking, why don’t you just do all your blogging at home? Ah, but it were that easy. Even if I suppress my bloggy urges until the kidlets are in bed, there is still Beloved, my blog widower. I don’t think I’m fooling him anymore. I think he realizes that it doesn’t take me 20 minutes to “check the laundry” (did I mention the computer is in the basement beside the laundry room?) or an hour to “pop on to the Internet to see if that cheque cleared”. (Nancy mentioned the same pathetic attempts at subterfuge in her comment last week.) We are sad indeed.

Beloved has so capitulated to the fact that blog is simply an irresistible force in our lives that he is in the process of mounting a campaign for us to acquire a laptop. He dangles tantalizing tidbits like “wireless network” and “you can blog from anywhere in the house” – he is almost as insidiously evil as the bus people. The idea of spending a couple of grand on a laptop simply to feed my blog habit is wrong. It is very wrong. It is oh so wrong. It is unimaginably wrong. And no, that is not a Best Buy flyer open on my desk. (But we could probably do without groceries at least one week a month, right?)

I’m sorry, bus people. Are you listening? I take it back. I didn’t mean to criticize the great, powerful and all-knowing bus people.

If you hear nothing else I ever tell you, hear this: don’t mess with the bus people. When they say revenge is a dish best served cold, they mean it. As in leaving you stranded at the bus stop in pre-dawn subzero temperatures waiting, waiting, waiting, while your legs, protected only by the thinnest filament of nylon and the shortest skirt you own, slowly begin to lose all sensation as you freeze from the bottom up. Coincidence? I think not.

Taking the bus is the highlight of my day, and any decision the bus people make as to how to schedule services is the right choice. I can’t imagine a day without bus. The bus people are benevolent and indulgent. I am nothing.

They will say that bus service was reduced for March Break, but I know better. They saw my letter, and it pissed them off. So they took revenge, not only on me but on an entire suburb, by cutting service this morning. That’s just how they are.

You were right, oh mighty and omniscient bus people, to mete out such a carefully considered punishment for my transgressions. It is a long, long ride in from Barrhaven to downtown when you are standing in the aisle, and I had plenty – PLENTY – of time to repent for my sins.

I think I’d better lay low for a while, lest they really hit me where it hurts and mess with the service to get home again in the afternoon. Commuters of the world, unite -but do it quietly, so the bus people won’t hear you!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I got my knickers in a twist over an article in the Ottawa Citizen that threatened to cut bus service to my end of suburbia, so I cranked out a letter to the editor.

They ran my letter this morning, and a picture to go along with it. Can I take a minute to say how much I hate being edited? (Yet more reasons to love blog.) Oh well, it’s still fun to be published. My only real complaint is that I ended my letter with “if it ain’t broke…” and they finished the axiom for me by adding the “don’t fix it.” Just makes it seem more trite, IMHO. They also changed a couple of key words, and even changed the intro where I originally mentioned the bus I was riding was the bus they were talking about cutting — it sounds like I make it a habit of reading the morning paper out loud to the other people on the bus just for fun.

Funny how just a few changes can alter the tone of it ever so slightly… or maybe it’s having had a few days to cool down that reading my own letter gives me the impression I come off as a bit of a lunatic? I think I’ll stick to blog from now on. Until the next time I get my knickers in a twist…

You might accuse me of being a bit of a media slut after this. You might be right.

I got my knickers in a twist yesterday when I was riding the bus to work, reading the morning paper. (Editorial aside: morning paper almost as much a source of mischief as search engines.) There was an article about how the city is considering eliminating the “express” routes that run directly from the suburbs to the core in favour of a system more like Toronto’s, where local buses run to hubs on the outskirts and secondary buses bring commuters to the core from the hubs. The only route specified in the article was the one I happened to be riding.

So when I got to work I was good and fired up, and cranked out a letter to the editor and sent it off and promptly forgot about it. Late in the afternoon, the photo editor from the Citizen called and asked if they could run my letter, and if they could send out a photographer to take my picture to run with it. They’re coming by the house after work tonight, where I assume they are looking to get a nice picture of me freezing my ass off in front of a bus stop sign. I’ll post a link if they publish it.

The need to share my opinions through the media is a thread that runs through my life. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid, and this satisfies an unfulfilled part of my psyche. Or maybe it’s an approval thing. My first published letter to the editor was in Grade 12. My teacher promised to upgrade my A to an A+ if I got published by the end of the semester, so I did.

I’ve had a few letters published since then, most notably with a picture of then-four-month-old Tristan and Beloved when I replied to another letter that had equivocated the embryos lost through in vitro fertilization to abortion. IVF also played a part in us getting interviewed on CBC Newsworld, once before we cycled in 2001 and again on the day I was due with Tristan. Poor Beloved, a quiet and shy kind of guy, has had the most private parts of his life examined in the national media because his wife can’t control her exhibitionist compulsions.

The blog seems like a natural extension of my exhibitionism. And heck, there is no editor on the blog to censure or censor me! No matter how inane or relevant my thoughts, I’ve got a forum to bounce them around. I guess I’m still that kid in school, hand in the air waving to get the teacher’s attention while she tries to ignore me and choose somebody, anybody, else to comment.

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m trying to read the morning paper and drink my first sacred cup of coffee, but Simon is climbing up my leg and telling me in no uncertain terms that it’s time for breakfast. Just as I’m putting the paper aside, having read a scant page and a half, I notice on the cover of the weekend Style section something about mommy blogs. So I put Simon in his highchair and feed him a couple of spoonsful of breakfast, but I’m still thinking about the mommy blog article, so I fold open the paper on the table to read it while I’m feeding Simon.

Hey, I’m thinking, I know these people! The books editor has pulled together 28 excerpts from mommy (and daddy) blogs, one for each day in February. As I’m scanning, I’m nodding and smiling because I’ve read a lot of this stuff already. There’s Jen from MUBAR, and Ann D, and Alice from Finslippy and Suzanne from MotherInChief. There’s DC Mom and of course there is Dooce.

So I say to Beloved, “Hey, I know a lot of these people… too bad I didn’t — HEY! THAT’S MY BLOG!!!!” And whadda ya know, there I am, my very first blog entry ever, right there on February 2.

I guess I should say thanks to the Ottawa Citizen for the free publicity, although it would have been nice of them to drop a courtesy note and let me know they’d be publishing me. And if you’re dropping by as a result of that article – Hi and welcome! Grab a coffee and stay a while. And drop me a note in the comment box to let me know you were here and what you think, if you please.

Edited to append the article itself, as I like Jen’s argument that since the article consists primarily of other people’s intellectual property (including mine), I think that it is quite alright to quote the article which quotes me.

Feed. Burp. Change diaper. Blog. The new reality of parenting
New kids on the blog
BY SUSAN ALLAN
Susan Allan is the Citizen’s books editor.

We announce the arrival of newborns in pounds, in ounces and, more and more these days, in blogs. We know it’s a trend — a development milestone — because the New York Times deemed it so in a recent report on the approximately 8,500 websites devoted to life after birth. In a recent blog entry, Alice Bradley explained the need for the online chronicles.

“We’re after, I think, some representation of authentic experience that we’re not getting elsewhere. We sure as hell aren’t getting it from the parenting magazines, which provide canned information about vaccines and discipline and baking nutritious muffins that look like kitty cats, but will never help you feel less alone, less stupid, less ridiculous,” she writes at Finslippy (finslippy.typepad.com). “This is the service we try to provide — we share our lopsided, slightly hysterical, often exaggerated but more or less authentic experiences. If one blogger writes about her traumatic doctor’s visit, then maybe at some point, some freaked-out new mother is going to read that and feel a little better — less stupid, less ridiculous — about her own breakdown at the pediatrician’s.”

All that said, here’s an authentic look back at February featuring 28 blogs in 28 days:

Name: Ann Douglas, author and parenting guru Address: anndouglas.blogspot.com Feb. 1: Another reason to let dads pitch in: Researchers have discovered that changing diapers is good for the fatherchild relationship.

Name: DaniGirl, a 35-year-old Ottawa mother of two Address: www.momm-eh.blogspot.com Feb. 2: To blog or not to blog? Does the world really need another soccer-mom wanna-be sending dispatches from suburbia, trying to strike a voice somewhere between Erma Bombeck, Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Cosby, but in the 21st century, not Jewish, not male and not black? And potentially not really funny? Why the hell not.

Name: Brian, 32, writer, poet and father to a three-year-old, a.k.a. The Girl. Address: www.beingdaddy.com Feb. 3: If The Girl, while sitting at the dinner table, excuses herself after farting loudly, but does so while her mouth is still full of food, do I praise her good manners or correct her bad ones?

Name: Christine, 33, “100-per cent, stay-at-home mother” of two boys 4 and 6 Address: christine.typepad.com/usually_frazzled/ Feb. 4: Spent a large part of the morning playing with and then cleaning up our vintage Meccano set. That thing has about a zillion tiny pieces! Took said son for a haircut after that, then wasted a lot of time on the computer in the afternoon while wishing hard (but in vain) that child would nap.

Name: Jessica, wife of Eric, mother of Jake and Nate Address: www.verymom.com Feb. 5: Eric insists on home hair cuts to save money. My poor child now has to walk around looking like someone cut his hair with a Flowbee.

Name: Jenn, 31, mother of Sam Address: inkpen.typepad.com Feb. 6: How do you make an almost three-year-old listen to you? He just averts his gaze, like if he cannot see me, he cannot hear me and that’s that. I am not much of a yeller, to be honest, so I have been practising my “Stern Voice.” Which also makes me laugh.

Name: Janene, mother of Alexa and Luke Address: www.spasticmommyhead.com Feb. 7: I could probably write a whole bunch of stuff, but I don’t have the energy. Lexa was up at 5 a.m. and I’ve been at it ever since, minus the five seconds that I fell asleep on the sofa before she jumped on me and woke me up.

Name: Jen Lawrence, a Toronto mother of Baby Girl, born November 2003 Address: tomama.blogs.com/mubar — MUBAR, as in Mothered Up Beyond All Recognition Feb. 8: Baby Girl is teething. At least I think she’s teething. It’s not like I’m going to reach my fingers into those piranha jaws of hers — I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

Name: The Munchkin, son of Kira, a 34-year-old, married, slightly neurotic SAHM (Stay-at-Home Mom) to a two-year – old boy.” Address: crankymommy.blogspot.com Feb. 9: Woo Hoo! My kid finally used the potty today … Crouching on it on all fours on his potty, but it all went in the little bowl. Yay, my little man.

Name: Julia, mother of Patrick Address: julia.typepad.com Feb. 10: Patrick suddenly turned two about five minutes ago, a Capital T, double-barreled Two. The age that is more attitude than a measurement of time and the sort of thing people mean when they shrug apologetically and say, “He’s Two.”

Name: Trixie MacNeill, born July 31, 2003 Address: www.athomedad.com Feb. 11: Trixie is back in daycare today after so far missing three out of eight scheduled days due to stomach problems. … The situation makes me think that there may be a market for daycare sickness insurance … It might sound crazy now, but this time next year we’ll see Superbowl Ads for DaycareHedge.com.

Name: Lori, mother to Zachery, 4, and Kailyn, 3 Address: 2littlemonkeys.blogdrive.com Feb. 12: I know I’ve been boring!!! There’s just so much going on in my life right now, I haven’t had a chance to update … We got the kids a bunk bed last weekend along with bedding. Zachery got Shark Tale bedding and Kailyn got Princess bedding.

Name: Julie, 33, mother of Charlie Address: www.alittlepregnant.com Feb. 13: When he dropped off my breast a while later and still looked hungry, I investigated the bottle I’d been trying to give him when our peaceful mealtime went to hell. I thought maybe the milk had gone sour, so — I can’t believe I did this, much less that I am confessing it — I put the nipple in my mouth and gave it an experimental suck.

Name: Melissa, mother of Madison and Max Address: www.suburbanbliss.net Feb. 14: About seven years ago, over Valentine’s Day weekend, Logan and I went to the Old Shillelagh and later got unexpectedly pregnant with Madison, just seven months into our marriage. While on the pill. I am terrible at these types of holidays.

Name: Byron a.k.a. Milkbreath il Magnifico, born June 19, 2003 Address: www.webamused.com/milkbreath Feb. 15: This is mostly for my own reference, to remember what he sounds like these days: Pancake more? Hi guys! Down me! Read it. Sausage more? Off it! Please nicely? Nap puppy? Peach more? Fire on? Move it! No kicking! Two minutes! More more?

Name: Suzanne Galante, mother of an almost two-yearold Address: www.motherinchief.com Feb. 16: All our lives we believed that having it all was attainable and worth attaining. Holding onto that notion has been the grown-up equivalent to believing in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

Name: Trixie, mother to Ewan Address:www.distracteddiva.blogspot.com Feb. 17: Ewan has decided that napping is quite out of style, which has made my days quite busy (and my entries here scarce).

Name: Mr. Nice Guy (“My wife is pregnant. I have nothing else to do. Leave me alone.”) Address: bonnehomme.blogspot.com Feb. 18: Every other parent-tobe in this city has their shit repulsively together: One week after finding out wifey is expecting, they’ve enrolled their unborn child in baby yoga and Portuguese lessons. At two months, they’re interviewing at the 92nd Street Y and arranging for the proper shady stock analyses to be issued. At five months they’re banging out the details of their wills, their child’s trust fund, the philanthropic foundation that will bear their baby’s name. At six months, they request applications from Harvard and Yale. You get the picture. Us? Forget even coming close to competing with our type A supermommy Manhattan cohort of genetic mutant freakparents. We don’t have any baby gear yet.

Name: Gerah Dutkiewicz, 26, mother of 18-month-old Kyra A Address: poopandsuits.blogspot.com Feb. 19: Well, I’ve done it. I’ve joined the world of geeks (I say that in the fondest terms) that spend their free time sitting at their computer that they already sit at for way too many hours of the day, writing down their inner most thoughts, then publishing them to the web for the whole world to see. Strange, yes. But, oh well, here I am.

Name: Kelly, 29, mother to Nathan and Austin Address: kelly.typepad.com/kelly/ Feb. 20: Talk about baggage. I recently decided to switch purses, which usually doubles as a great time to get rid of all the crap that gets collected. You have to multitask when you have kids!

Name: Anathea, 27, mother to Maya Address: www.zenlunatic.com Feb. 21: Busy. Exhausted. Crazy. Mommying. Wifing.

Name: Peter John, born June 1, 2002 Address: www.babyblog.co.uk Feb. 22: Today at school I may (or may not) have cut a little bit of my own hair off. Apparently I’ve made a little bare patch, but I can’t see it so I’m not bothered.

Name: D.C. mom Address: elb.typepad.com/ halfchangedworld Feb. 23: There’s a Jewish tradition that you’re supposed to carry a slip of paper with a message in each pocket. On one side, you carry “You were created in God’s image” and on the other side, you carry “You came from dust, and to dust you shall return.” When you get depressed you look at the first, and when you get cocky you look at the second. I think the parenting version of this is that on one side you carry the start of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care: “Relax. You know more than you think you do,” and on the other side you carry the start of Philip Larkin’s This be the verse: “They f—- you up, your mom and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do.”

Name: Kris, mom to Ben and John, wife to Brian. Pregnant with baby 3. Address: wondermom.blogspot.com Feb. 24: Overall, I give a big thumbs down to pregnancy. But I do love: 10. Parking in the for “for pregnant women” spots. 9. Not being able to do killer workouts. 8. Eating a bowl of ice cream every night. 7. Having a baby that makes no noise and requires no diaper changes or midnight feedings …

Name: Sheryl, mother of Emily, Haley and Will Address: papernapkin.typepad.com Feb. 25: I haven’t posted in almost a week! But I have been travelling through the blogosphere.

Name: Gina, web designer and mother of Amelia Address: www.momblog.com Feb. 26: Guilt descends about how much further Amelia would be if I just spent the time and really sat down, an hour or three, every day, turned off the tube permanently and taught her things like colours and the alphabet, and isn’t she supposed to be spelling her name by now??

Name: Alice Bradley, mother of Henry Address: finslippy.typepad.com Feb. 27: I should post more, but then I don’t post more. I know, I know. It’s just that I’m all over the place these days. I haven’t been able to sit down long enough to figure out what’s on my mind.

Name: Heather B. Armstrong, mother of one-year-old Leta Elise Address: www.dooce.com Feb. 28: Leta has the chicken pox. Sort of. It has to be the worst mild case of chicken pox on record. Her pediatrician said she might get a few bumps from the vaccine, but he didn’t mention the fever or the grumpiness or the fact that it would make me want to run head first into a brick wall. Without a helmet.

Today, we whine. Consider yourself warned. If you’re not in the mood for it (and I certainly don’t blame you), move along and we’ll see you again in a few days when I’ve gotten over myself. But today, we whine. We whine because I am tired and grumpy and in just a bit of a state and it’s my damn blog and if you don’t like it stop reading then. See, just a little bit cranky.

We are whining because I am so very sick of having to be responsible all the time, to be careful, to be cognizant, to have to keep impulses under control and be mindful of the bottom line and think of the consequences of my actions. (Hmmm, maybe this is my inner 14 year old having a rebellious day? In reading this, it sounds like what I want to be is a teenager.) I’m so very tired of being on the run all the time, hurrying to get to work, to get my work done, to make it to the bus on time, to get home, to get dinner ready, to get the kitchen cleaned and spend some ‘quality time’ (gag) with the kids, balancing my guilt for not being with them all day with my desperate desire to get them into bed so I can just stop moving for a few minutes. My life is a freakin’ treadmill powered by guilt.

Another thing that has me royally pissed is that I’ve gained SIX pounds since I started back to work. SIX! There should be a rule, if you are feeling really stressed you should be able to self-medicate with chips and cokes and oreos and not gain weight. So not only do I have to watch what I eat, but now I have to find some time to exercise to halt and reverse this unseemly trend.

There is a gym in the mall I walk through to get to work, but even if I did commit to getting up an hour earlier a couple of times a week to work out (which, while it pains me to lose more sleep, has a certain appeal as I do miss regular workouts in my life) I don’t think we have room in the budget for a gym membership.

So there’s not enough time, not enough sleep, not enough money and too many calories. I think that about covers it.

(If you’re still here, thanks for reading this far. I feel better now. Come back tomorrow and we’ll have a nice civilized discussion about preschooler idiosyncracies and the wonders of Google . I’m going to hide under my desk and and drink my coffee and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist for a little while.)

I was playing around in the referral logs (another exciting Friday night – who needs a date when there is technology to while away the hours?) and I noticed one of the referrals was a Google query. (Tangent: My blog is Google-able — I had no idea! I’m almost as excited about this as I was about seeing my name in the phone book for the first time. It gives me such a feeling of legitimacy. I’m an official denizen of cyberland now – my blog is on Google!)

So anyway, I clicked on the link, and it shows the Google search return, including the keywords. Someone had keyed in “lonely mommies ottawa ontario.” This really struck a chord with me, and I’ve been thinking about it all weekend. Isn’t the Internet truly amazing? You’re having a rough night, you really just want someone to talk to, so you key a few words into the search engine and see what comes up. (Beloved, realist that he is, suggested that perhaps the person was looking for lonely mommies for scurrilous reasons, but I chose to eschew that possibility.)

I’ve met some of my very best friends through the Internet. A few of us going through IVF treatments met on a messageboard, and decided to go out for dinner one night. I remember being so nervous – meeting people I met on the the Web seemed risky and impetuous. Fast forward four years and there are more than 20 of us in a loose online playgroup stretching through four provinces and two states, all of us having travelled the infertility highway and come out the other side, whether by assisted reproductive technology, adoption or surprise. Aside from exchanging e-mails, laughs and parenting tips, those of us who live in the same city get together regularly with and without the kids. These women have completely changed my life and I can’t imagine a day going by without reaching out to them, or being touched by them.

Who would have guessed your life could be changed by what pops out of a search engine one night, when you are overwhelmed and alone and needing a friend?

Categories: infertility