Thin skinned and stretched taut

Most days, I have a pretty tight grip on my emotions, and I tend to the cheerful more often than not. For the most part, I am in control. Some days, though, I can really relate to the emotional whirlpool that is my toddler.

Lately, I feel like my emotions are driving the truck. They are driving the truck through a really bumpy field, and I am holding on to the back bumper by my fingertips, trying not to get thrown off and run over. I’m all strung out and covered in bits of manurey straw, emotionally speaking.

You get the idea.

Do you think it’s possible that we get emotional viruses just like we get physical viruses? This is a new theory of mine. A regular virus is some sort of bug that invades the body, reproduces alarmingly and manifests itself with physical symptoms like a hacking cough, runny nose, fever and the like.

What if there are emotional viruses, too? Viruses that somehow get into your system and completely mess up your emotional responses to things, so you are inordinately crabby for a couple of days, or sensitive to the point of hysteria. Ever noticed how emotional instability sometimes spreads through the family just like a virus, and a family that is perfectly well-balanced and content one day can be a typhoon of overwrought emotions the next?

What do you do on days like that, when know you’re on the edge? Any coping strategies you’d like to share? Don’t worry, I’m not heading for a bell tower with a rifle (not yet, anyway)… it just seems that everything gets under my skin immediately, instead of giving me a bit of a grace period to see it coming and dial down the burners. (Ugh, what a stew of mixed metaphors. And you know what, I’m not even going to go back and edit them out. Ha!)

Oh look, I’m officially rambling at this point. Time to wrap this one up, cohesive ending be damned. Comment if you want to. Or don’t. See if I care.

(I care.)

Change is good, Donkey

Bah! I don’t care how much credibility you give a seven foot animated ogre, change is never good.

The good news is, Beloved’s part-time teaching looks like it might be morphing into a full-time position in the relatively near future. The term “tenure” has even been dangled tantalizingly, as the school’s current staff of baby boomers drift toward retirement.

“That’s great!” you say. “Congratulations to Beloved!”

And I say, “Yeah, but…”

I’m glad that he’s getting some respect from his school, because he’s worked hard to prove himself. It will be nice for him to have a regular, guaranteed day job instead of a patchwork of courses that are subject to cancellation and change on a whim. (It seems every semester leaves us scrambling as last minute schedule changes are made, courses are added and subtracted, and we struggle to balance three jobs in two provinces with daycare priorities.) And let me tell you, the extra cash certainly won’t hurt.

Except if Beloved is working full time, that means he can’t stay home with the boys part-time anymore. And that breaks my heart.

For three years, I’ve been able to temper my role as working mother with the thought that the boys are only in daycare part time, and spend more of the week with at least one of their parents than they do with the daycare provider.

The irony is that it took me a very long time to get over my resentment of being at work while Beloved was at home with the boys. I wanted to be the part-time worker, and at the beginning I know Beloved was a little overwhelmed by being a primary caregiver. I used to worry that Beloved wasn’t doing things the right way (read: my way), that the boys watched too much TV and didn’t get outside enough and that the dishes got stacked backwards in the dishwasher.

And then somewhere in the last few months I realized that it’s been working out great for all of us. The boys are thriving and Beloved makes a great stay-at-home dad. While I still wish it were me working part-time, it no longer feels so terribly wrong to be at work while the rest of them are at home or out and about. I don’t worry about them anymore.

Nothing is finalized yet, but there is actually more than one potential position opening up for Beloved, so the chances are good he’ll be in a full time position within a few months. However, I’ve learned not to count on anything until the contracts are signed!

I know we’ve been lucky, that Beloved’s staying home with the boys this far has been a gift. I know Simon is almost two, and Tristan will actually even be going off to school in the fall. I know that even if I’m not 100% satisfied with our current daycare arrangements (a blog for another day), the boys are treated like members of the family there and are genuinely loved.

But it still sucks. Change is not good.

Great site for new moms

I remember the first few months after Tristan was born, but only vaguely. It was a scary and exhilerating, but it was also a very isolating time in my life. I remember how our week revolved around going to the well-baby drop in, where I could actually talk to other mothers of babies the same age and realize that so much of what we were going through was just garden-variety infant mothering and not the crisis that each day seemed to be.

I wish I had seen something like Wee Welcome back then. It’s a new site for Canadian moms, especially moms of babies under one who live near Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa.

In their own words:

Our goal is to help Canadian moms get the most out of their babies’ first year – to have a baby and a life. To that end we are:

* Shining a light on baby-welcoming locations through our print and online guide.
* Helping moms connect through our moms’ group community.
* Providing no-crap, original articles that don’t pander.
* Leading events that make sure you get out and have a good time.

And that’s just the beginning.

We’re working to create a more baby-welcoming society, where moms breastfeed longer, are more connected to other moms, and are busy, active and happier. Happy moms make for happy babies.

I love their “Go” feature. It lists local places that are “baby welcoming”, and provides a list of ammenities offered by each location. There are also places to form online mom’s groups, and some great articles – including some written by one of my favourite authors. Even if you don’t live in Vancouver, Toronto or Ottawa, it’s worth a few clicks just to page through and see a great idea well executed.

(P.S. In the interest of fair disclosure, I should probably mention that I found this site because one of the co-founders, Jody, sent me a note and told me to feel free to mention Wee Welcome on my blog, if I felt so inclined. After I came down off the high of being considered a big enough fish to have blog mention solicited, I clicked through and realized that I would have promoted this site even if I’d stumbled upon it independently. But it sure was nice to be asked!)

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Welcome, Danis of the Internet!

When I was growing up, I was the only Danielle I knew. I was the only Danielle in my grade school, and there was one other one in my high school. Well, she was a Daniela, actually, but that’s about as close as it got. When my folks won a trip to Paris when I was fifteen, my mom brought me back a gold charm with ‘Danielle’ written on it, simply because none of the personalized trinkets in late 1970s / early 1980s southern Ontario ever featured my name.

I remember being enthralled with the covers of Danielle Steel’s books when I was young, because she was a Danielle and she was a writer. Even as a hopelessly romantic preteen, I couldn’t stomach her writing – give me Stephen King any day! – but I could at least see she was making a living with words, and I knew I wanted to do that, too.

I was living here in Ottawa before I actually encountered another Dani. Ottawa, across the river from La Belle Provence, has a much higher concentration of French names, and now there are Danielles everywhere I go. One of my co-worker’s daughters is named Dani, and there’s another one who works in the IT branch of my organization.

Given that rudimentary analysis of the volume of Danis in my universe, it must be that every other Dani on the Internet has visited my blog this month. In the first seven days of November alone, I’ve had 41 hits on the keywords “Dani needs”. Remember that meme?

I’ve met some really cool Dani bloggers, after they linked to me through the meme. There’s Dani from the East coast, also a mom of two preschoolers. She’s got a girl, though (she said covetously). She writes at The Yellow Wallpaper, a very funky-looking blog, and plays regularly in the comment sandbox.

There’s another 30-something Dani from Long Island who writes a knit-blog at Yea, I Knit. (I’m beginning to think all the Danis have cooler blog designs than me. Hmmmm…)

Perhaps most endearing, I have found my inner 14 year old blogging thoughtfully more than 2000 km away. This Dani is a high school freshman in Forth Worth, Texas, and her profile includes the line, “I can do anything I put my mind to.” She’s smart, thoughtful, and she’s a competent writer… but reading her blog is like reading me 20-odd years ago, and it feels so very odd!

Who knew there were so many Danis out there? Welcome! Maybe we could form a Dani Blog Ring or something?

What not to wear

You’re about to lose some respect for me. (If you had any to begin with, that is.) I’m about to confess to something particularly shallow.

Not only do I watch TLC’s What Not to Wear on occasion, but I’d love to have someone do that wardrobe makeover thing to me. Not so much with the humiliation on national TV – lord knows there’s more than enough humiliation right here on the Interweb – but I’d really like someone who knows clothes and quality and makeup walk me through the whole style thing. I don’t have a style. Where do you get one, anyway? Can I buy it on eBay? And one day I’d like to spend some serious money on real clothes, instead of collecting separates pell mell like a magpie building a nest.

I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. For example, I have this addiction to striped turtlenecks. I buy at least one every season, each one worn a few times until I catch sight of myself in some passing reflective surface and realize how unflattering a look it is for me. I’m a curvy sort of girl, and stripes are not always kind to curves. And turtlenecks? Let’s just say the push-up effect works better in a bra than it does as a turtleneck supporting my chin(s). I can rationalize this is the cold light of day, but once I get into the mall and see all those long-sleeved striped turtleneck sweaters in the seasons brightest colours I can’t help myself.

I went to Winners the other day, and promised myself I would try on anything except a striped turtleneck. I tried on 12 black sweaters and tops (did I mention I just this year discovered black on black? Where have you been all my life?) and not one of them was worth buying. Last weekend, I was in the mall with the boys and got sucked into Northern Reflections (of all places – so much for urban chic at the office) by a conspicuous display of – you guessed it – striped turtlenecks. I bought two. I am incorrigible.

And things are further complicated by the fact that I’ve recently realized that as a 36 year old mother of two, I’m a woman of a certain age. Just how firm is that “no miniskirts after 35” rule? Damn, one of my best features is my legs! How mini is mini? I also have an addiction to plaid skirts cut about four inches above the knee – not Britney Spears don’t-bend-over short, but certainly shorter than the matronly to-the-knee length I’ve been seeing all over town. Please tell me I don’t have to give those up yet!

So there’s the media-savvy part of me that is horrified by shows like What Not to Wear, where you expose your inadequacy on national TV and eat a good helping of humiliation for the edification of the armchair-fashionista potato-chip-snarfing audience at home. But there is a part of me who wants to be Cinderella, to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club. Despite the fact that I am mostly a confident, satisfied, happy woman, there’s a marginalized teenager deep in my heart who would love to find out she’s more beautiful and stylish than she ever imagined.

So if you see me in the mall, please do us both a favour and drag me away from the striped turtleneck sweaters that I will inevitably be coveting. I am weak.

Proud mommy moments

It’s been an extremely validating day in Mommy Land.

Remember back a couple of weeks ago, when I was angsting over Tristan’s swim lessons, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to pass?

I was wrong!

Behold the latest graduate of Preschool AquaQuest Level One. I’m so proud! I can only imagine what a mess I’ll be some day when he does something really exciting, like graduating from Kindergarden. (whispers) And you know what the most delicious part is? (looks over shoulder) The teacher said he was the best in his class! (insert radiant beam here)

And then, as if that weren’t enough to make any mummy radioactive with pride, look what he did tonight:

If you look really closely, you can barely make out the TRISTAN through the chicken scratch (three times, no less!) It’s the first time he’s ever tried to write his name, and he was so adorably excited and proud of himself.

It’s so cute when he makes the Rs – he draws the legs first, then sits a ball on top of them. The first half a dozen times or so, he started from the right and wrote to the left, almost like mirror-writing. Is that common when they first start to make letters? Also, he starts at the bottom of the page and works his way up (you can see he improves as he warms up – these are takes six through nine, I think. Like his mother, once he finds something he likes, he’s rather obsessive about it.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Sunday evening…

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Wiggle Night in Ottawa

It wasn’t so much that I forked over nearly $200 to watch the Wiggles, as it was I forked over $200 to watch my kids watch the Wiggles. And you know what?

It was worth every penny.

Our seats were toward the back of the floor section, but right on the aisle. Which was a good thing, because Simon did not spend a moment actually sitting in his chair. I wish I could find a way to stream the video I took of him dancing his little heart out in the aisles, in the lovely way not-quite-two-year-olds heave themselves back and forth to the music.

I was just barely quick enough to catch a three second video of the moment Jeff Wiggle (the sleepy guy in purple) came down our aisle and right past an astonished Simon. The look on Simon’s face is truly priceless. (Anybody know how I might somehow stream some short video clips through Blogger?)

Simon has always been the real Wiggles fan, so I was thrilled to see Tristan dancing and singing along as well. He was mostly content to sit or stand in his Daddy’s lap, while Simon danced up the aisles and wandered around the sound crew, saying hello to the security staff.

Toward the end of the night, for what turned out to be the finale, I gave up trying to corral Simon and brought both boys right down to the stage. It was a gorgeous chaos of excited preschoolers, who seem to be all standing stock still in this photo, but were in fact a darting, dancing, singing mass of highly torqued munchkins.

This last one is my bad mommy picture. It’s not a very good photo, but you can just see the beginnings of an “oh no you don’t” expression on Anthony Wiggle’s face. That would be the look he is shooting my son as Simon lifts the curtain hanging over the edge of the stage and contemplates diving underneath while his inattentive mother snaps photos in blissful oblivion.

Yes, a Wiggles not only noticed, but disciplined my child. How’s that for a claim to fame? It’s almost as exciting as the time when, at the tender age of 15, Corey Hart sprayed me (and about a thousand other overwrought teeny-boppers) with a garden hose at a particularly steamy July concert.

I didn’t actually catch most of the concert myself, but would pay the $200 again in a heartbeat to see my boys dancing together, their little faces bright with excitement. Through the whole night, there was not a single tantrum, not a single tear, not even a defiant word. And they didn’t even fall asleep on the car ride home.

How could it get any better than that?

The Internet is freaking me out lately

Did you know that if you post a picture on your blog, it gets indexed under Google Images? I figured it out when I was playing in the referral logs (I know, I know, but it’s like potato chips – I know it’s bad for me, but I can’t help myself) and I kept seeing Google hits like this one. Those are all my pictures from Tristan’s Day Out with Thomas.

It indexes all the pictures posted on Flickr, too. When I key “Tristan and Simon” into Google Images, this picture of the boys with their cousin is the fourth image on the list of search returns.

I dunno why this is so unsettling to me. Maybe because it’s one thing to place the images deliberately in one space, and another to have them added to the giant Rolodex that is Google. I put those images up in context to show you, the people who read my blog, but having them churning out there independently is just wrong. I’ve been getting tonnes of hits from those Thomas images, too. I think it’s the first time a spike in traffic ever freaked me out in a bad way.

As if that weren’t weird enough, a friend recently pointed this out to me. Yes, that’s right, I seem to have my very own official page on Answers.com. How the holy hell that happened, with my full real name no less, is a complete mystery to me. I register for absolutely everything as DaniGirl, so I can’t imagine how blog got hooked up to my real name. I guess I don’t mind so much, but I sure would like to know how it happened.

Who would have guessed it? Even attention-whores and media sluts have boundaries.

When I started writing this blog, I didn’t even use the boys’ real names. I called them Frankie and Luigi (pet names from their middle names, Francis and Louis) but I couldn’t stand writing about them without using their real names. My mother continues to be rather anxious that I post pictures of the boys at all, especially the one in my profile that shows Tristan in nothing but a diaper – to say nothing of the nudie shots I posted this summer of adorable boys running nekkidly rampant through my backyard.

The Internet is such a big place, and I am such a naive girl. What do you think? Is having your personal information out there a bad thing? Would you be as freaked out about the pictures as I was?

Sigh….

The Renaissance of chivalry

I was coming out of Tim Horton’s the other day with one extra-large coffee in each hand. Not only did one gentleman hold open the door for me, but another guy just stepping out of his car reached over and opened the passenger-side door for me as I tried to work my fingers underneath the handle and pull it open without dropping my coffees.

It confirms a theory I’m working on – chivalry is back.

Just in the past few months, I’m noticing a lot more doors being held, seats being relinquished, and “no-you-go-okay-I’ll-go-no-really-I-insist” dances with total strangers. It’s been quite refreshing!

Now, it could be that since I spend a lot of time with both hands full and a preschooler or two dangling from my limbs, people are just more prone to take pity on me, or are trying to help me out so I don’t do damage to any innocent bystanders, but I’ll take it nonetheless.

I was getting a ride home from a work colleague recently, and as we approached his car he actually came around to my side of the car first and opened the door for me. I have to admit, that’s the first time anyone has ever done that and I loved it. Such a simple gesture, but so very classy.

I never understood the argument that courtesies like this were somehow demeaning to women. Maybe it’s because I’m secure in my ability to open my own door that I don’t feel threatened when someone else offers to do it for me? I admit, though, to feeling rather bad the few times that a gentleman has stood back to let me get on the bus first and I ended up getting the last seat, leaving him to stand for the 35 minute ride home. It’s sometimes a little embarrassing to be an able-bodied recipient of someone’s kindness when you feel you are really no more deserving than they are.

I’m proud of the boys’ manners, inasmuch as preschoolers can have manners. Tristan’s “thanks” whenever I hand him something is now so ingrained that I can see he doesn’t even think about it, and Simon is the most adorable toddler ever with his similar sounding “here-go-mummy” and “thang-u-mummy” whenever he gives me something or gets something from me. It’s important to me that they grow up to be the kind of boys who think of others, and who are respectful and courteous.

What do you think? Is chivalry back? How important a role do manners play in your opinion of someone? Is it still appropriate for a man to step back and let a woman go first, or is it insulting?

Share your experiences in a new parenting book!

My sweet friends Cooper and Emily of Been There are writing a book. These are the same two wonderful women who launched the Hurricane Katrina Clearninghouse that continues to run as a meeting place for people who need help and people who can offer help.

Cooper asked me if I would share their questions with you. You can reply in the comment box if you like, or you can e-mail Cooper and Emily directly at parentingbook@comcast.net.

1) Describe a time (s) of great meaning that you experienced with your family (as a parent, as a child or both.) Details, please!

2) What gets in the way – if anything – of spending time with and truly being in the moment with your kids? What are the biggest time drains on family life, for you? Is it hectic lives, too much to do, other parents/family? Please be specific, a story or two to describe would be wonderful.

3) Along those lines, what do you see as the greatest challenges to you in your parenting or in childrearing in general? What are the roadblocks? Again, specifics and anecdotes are encouraged!

4) Describe something (s) you and your family are doing well. What is it you are best at and why (communicating, having fun etc.)? Please describe with stories if possible.

Thanks!