Monthly Archives: April 2012

There is sugar in Nutella? What?

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We should all be relieved to know that the makers of Nutella have lost their class-action lawsuit and are now slated to pay $2.5 million to consumers who thought – misled by the company’s “part of a healthy breakfast” claim – that Nutella was a healthy food.  Because it was purported to be “part of a healthy breakfast”. 

Sock it to the man! you might be saying.  Down with the big corporation misleading the public! you may cheer.  Occupy the breakfast table! you say as you raise your clenched fist.  Or, you may be responding the way I did: weary acceptance of the stupidity of the general public, and expecting to see many, many more of these kinds of lawsuits.

I know.  I’ve written about this before, when the lawsuit was just being launched.  Personally, I think that Nutella is as much part of a balanced breakfast as Cocoa Puffs or Froot Loops – i.e., it is worthy of being a very occasional treat, but it is not a healthy, everyday item.  Full disclosure: I buy Nutella maybe once every couple of years, usually as an ingredient for a decadent dessert or baked good.  I never buy things like Cocoa Puffs or Froot Loops because in spite of their claims of being part of a balanced breakfast, I have the ability to read the label and conclude that no, those foods do not provide the kind of energy that I want my children to have first thing in the morning.  I’m empowered due to my ability to read labels.  So are you.  So is the general public, even if they are too swayed by advertising to see it.

And this is what I find especially infuriating: parents being too swayed by advertising to make intelligent, informed decisions about the optimal foods to feed their children.  The issue being that Nutella, while similar in nutrition to peanut butter, is very high in sugar, leading to obesity and Type 2 Diabetes, and that, of course, is never mentioned in the commercials.  There’s sugar in Nutella?  But they don’t say that on TV!

Well, it is a chocolate spread.

As I see it, commercials are an opportunity to discuss with your children that not everything is as seen on TV.  When my kids were little, they became obsessed with a certain Hot Wheels track set commercial.  The tracks fed into dinosaurs, which, in the commercial, chomped the cars and launched the cars and it was amazing.  Amazing!  My children coveted these tracks so very much.  Then Mark received this track set for his birthday, and was eventually gravely disappointed in the flimsy plastic tracks and the easily-broken snapping dinosaurs.  Wait – the cars don’t fly through the air!  The commercial was WRONG.

This sparked many discussions about how not everything is as cool as it seems on TV.  Until the day that there is 100% truth in advertising, it is up to us as consumers to decipher and make informed consumption decisions, and it is up to us as parents to educate our children about this.  This is true for children’s toys, for Happy Meals, for products purportedly intended to make our lives easier, healthier, and happier.  

We need to take responsibility for our choices.  What are we teaching our children, if we simply throw up our hands and say we were lied to, despite the easy-to-read label on the jar.  They said it was healthy!  It’s not!  Now I will sue!  What we are saying is that we have no personal liability; our choices are someone else’s fault. 

I want to shake the people who are actively wasting resources that could be much better spent, the people who are participating in this suit.  I want to say: read the label.  Make a choice.  Take responsibility.  

Warning: Shinpads Will Not Prevent Injury From Getting Run Over By A Wayward Car On The Soccer Field

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The past few days have been unseasonably warm, record-breaking warm, and yet yesterday at 5:30 pm – one hour before the first soccer practice of the season – the sky grew black and the rain started to pour.  It was, as always, a festive start to the season.  The practice was held in the rain, the kids warm with exercise, and the parents standing grim-faced under a sea of umbrellas. 

You can probably expect nine weeks of weather-and-soccer-related complaints from me.

I did, however, get a smile out of the warning label on Mark’s new shinpads – shinpads that fit an eight year old boy.  “Warning: no shinpad can prevent all foreseeable injury.  Severe injury may still occur.  Dangerous play should be discouraged.”  Thank you, shinpads!  I appreciate the warning.  I will remember that even though Mark is wearing a shinpad, should he get stampeded by elephants on the soccer field, or should the soccer players decide to scrimmage with chainsaws, the shinpads will not prevent injury.  This is U8 community soccer.  I think he’ll be okay.

I just typed that and had a terribly ominous feeling that I just jinxed the entire season and that something terrible is going to happen.  Given the league’s penchant for never ever calling the game, no matter what awful weather, that terrible thing is probably lightening striking the field or concussions due to softball sized hail.  The shinpad people are right; no shinpad will protect a kid from a lightening strike.  Oh god, is there metal in those shinpads?  Maybe the shinpads will actually be a conductor for a lightening strike.  Why is THAT risk not listed on the package?

Now I’m getting all worked up. 

Also getting me worked up is that, in addition to our basement being repainted, my husband has decided to entirely rearrange it, including new shelving units, turning the office into storage space and the main area into a living room/workout area/office.  This is, as my good friend always says, a good problem to have, a problem of abundance, and it is a much needed improvement in our space usage.  However.  Right now we are at the stage of moving items around and purging items that things are going to be much, much worse before they get better.  The basement is currently a disaster of epic proportions.  It will get better, though, and when it does, I will post pictures, I promise. 

I was reading an article in Brain, Child about a family with four girls and one boy, the boy being the fourth, and not, as some might conjecture, the fifth.  It was an interesting read with regards to gender preferences and something I found relevant ever since I had Jake.  For years, I was questioned about if I was going to try for a girl, something I always found repellant in every way.  I always feel sorry for those kids who were the “wrong” gender (I’ve heard people say, about their own children, “He/she was supposed to be a girl/boy”, which is insensitive and also stupid) and I also think that having two boys is very cool and fun and I’m completely satisfied with my life as is.  I hadn’t heard that line of questioning for a while, since my youngest is in Grade One and after a while, people just stop asking.  But then the other day a salesman, of all people, asked if I was going to “go for a girl” and I was completely startled.  Let me tell you something, if I woke up tomorrow, pregnant: a) I would not be happy, and b) I would have a lot of explaining to do.  It wouldn’t matter if it was a girl or a boy, this would not be a cheerful prospect.  So when the salesman said that, I and my shrivelly, uninterested ovaries just looked askance at him.

I’m not really sure about his salesmanship.  What a strange tactic.  It’s even stranger than my “Puss in Boots” shoe-shopping adventure and my “Wow, you’re way cooler than my mom” pursuit of non-mom jeans, which is saying a lot. 

Birthday and Earth Day and Painting the Basement

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Today is voting day in Alberta and, as luck would have it, my polling station was located at my kids’ school, making it easy to slip in after drop off and vote.  You know you are at the polling station early when you beat the sea of seniors flooding in. 

How was your weekend?  Mine was absolutely fabulous, and I just have to mention the weather – warm, hot even, and sunny.  It was perfect birthday weather!  I am now older than Mrs. Robinson and yet I feel just as saucy.

I look just like this, minus the smoking and the (I think) fur coat.  Honestly, I kind of love her hair.  I would cut mine like this but I am committed to growing it out, because I regret it every single time I cut my hair.  Hoo boy, here’s a hot picture:

I would totally not trust Dustin Hoffman to fasten my bra.  He looks way too befuddled.  Come on, Mrs. Robinson, you’re better than that. 

I do wear a similar amount of makeup though.
So it was my birthday and it was a very happy one, complete with a date night on Friday, new Pandora beads from the boys – including a dog one, from the dog – on Saturday, ice cream cake, and a visit with my grandma, who is in town!  I also treated myself to homemade cosmopolitans which, while delicious, left my Sunday morning yoga practice a bit to be desired.  Well, as Bridget Jones says, if you can’t splash out on your birthday, then when can you?
Our Earth Day celebration took the form of a seeding and raking party with the neighbourhood parents over at the school’s naturalization area (read: area that has been planted with native grasses and plants; an “outdoor learning area”, if you will).  Did I mention it was hot and sunny?  It was a fabulous day; the kids were riding their bikes, playing in the playground, and blowing bubbles while we raked and seeded and chatted.  The day was only slightly marred by my apparent development of allergies to all the grass and dust.  I took some Benadryl for my sore, itchy throat and then slept like the dead.  LIKE THE DEAD.  I woke up, startled, when my alarm went off and it took me a while to shake that groggy feeling.  Who knew that Benadryl was so deadly? 
Speaking of saving the earth and whatnot, we had our basement painted last week.  Well, that really had nothing to do with saving the earth with the exception that we used special non-smelly paint.  But our basement!  It’s now blue!  I’m so happy with it, and will get around to posting pictures soon.  Years back in the dead of winter I wanted to paint our whole house blue – so cheerful!  Who could be sad in a blue house?  But I met with some resistance, and now we have compromised on a blue basement and wow, it’s lovely. 
We had hired a guy to do the painting, and it turned out that he was the type of guy who preferred to work without even the company of the radio, which meant that I completely forgot he was there.  Normally when we have had people working on our house, things have been very noisy and disruptive – i.e., the hardwood – but painting in the basement?  Silence.  Which meant that I would come in from my errands, and walk around the house singing.  Because, you know, I seem to think my life is like a musical theatre, the way I burst into song at any given time of the day.  Remember my impromptu Christmas duet with the old man at the liquor store?  It’s like that.  The problem was that the songs going through my head were twofold: Linger by the Cranberries, and Over My Head by Fleetwood Mac.  So throughout the day I found myself bursting out with “You’ve got me wrapped around your FINGER, do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it LINGER?” or “You can take me to paradise, then again you can be cold as ice, I’m over my head – OVER MY HEAD – but it sure feels NICE.”  Then I would remember, I’m not alone.  I would stop abruptly, and all I would hear is the near-silence of the paint roller.  It was kind of ominous. 
It turned out that the painter’s girlfriend is a mail carrier, and coicindentally she was substitutng for our mail carrier last week!  She brought him a Jugo Juice and the two of them sat on our step for lunch.  Cute!  Young love!  I’m sure he had better things to talk about than the crazy singing lady-client.  Right?

Volunteer Fatigue and Mrs. Robinson

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The boys went to Aggie Days with their school yesterday.  They came home, alternately raving with excitement about it and complaining about the crowds.  Those are my boys!  They talked about the sheep shearing – sheep are, Jake informed me, very good listeners – and the corn mazes.  The parent volunteer for their group was a friend of mine and was apparently very fun and even let them go through the corn maze a lot!   Note that I was not volunteering.  I received the permission forms and quickly sent them back without checking the “I can help!” box.  Just the thought of riding on a school bus with sixty first and second graders made me feel nauseous, let alone spending the day in a crowded, giant facility looking at livestock.  Not to mention the anxiety I feel spending the day in a crowded, giant facility and being responsible for someone else’s children.

I am also at the point where if one more person asks me to do one more thing on a volunteer basis, I am going to stab that person.  I feel pretty maxed out, volunteer-wise, as I do every year at this time.  One would think that I would have learned my lesson by now.  But no.  This is the bane of the stay-at-home mom’s existence.  The general assumption is that stay-at-home moms have nothing better to do, so they may as well volunteer, and in some ways that’s true.  I certainly have much more time to volunteer than a mother with an actual paying job, and I have much more time to volunteer than a mother with very small children at home.  And so I tend to take on a lot of volunteer related jobs – chairing the PA, for example, or writing for the community newsletter (putting the FREE into free-lance, that’s me), or running the school’s book fairs, or scheduling the community soccer games for, god help me, four years running (THERE WILL NOT BE A FIFTH, I SWEAR, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST).  But none of these are small undertakings, and by mid-April of each year I have extreme volunteer fatigue.  And so when I get asked to chaperone a field trip, for example, I become unreasonably enraged and stabby, and self-righteously think that someone ELSE can do it for a change, although there is never a shortage of volunteers for field trips and, other than the one time I went to the fire hall with Jake’s preschool (which was for entirely cougar-licious, self gratification reasons), I have never chaperoned a field trip. 

It turns out that my friend who was in charge of Mark and Jake’s group was much more fun than I would have been, anyway.  I probably would have gotten very bored of the corn maze.

Instead of going to Aggie Days, I went shopping with my mom for my birthday, which is in two days!  I need to unpack my tiara and my “It’s My Birthday” sandwich board.  But my mom and I had fun shopping, and she bought me this sweater, among other things:

I like this sweater, but am currently worried that I am bringing to mind that awful saying regarding mutton dressed as lamb.  It’s a crop top, after all, and although I have no intention of starting to wear crop tops with Daisy Dukes, I still feel slightly self conscious.  I mean, I’m going to be thirty-seven in a couple of days.  It’s hard to know what’s appropriate.  It’s hard to be stylish without crossing the line from “fashionable” to “desperate-looking cougar”.  I have an aunt who I recall thinking she was hard-core styling when I was around eleven, but looking back, I think that those hot pink suede miniskirts and tasseled jackets were actually not appropriate for a woman in her thirties.  Although, it was the eighties, so who knows.  Maybe that was appropriate back then.  I had permed hair; who am I to judge anyone?

Here’s a little tidbit for those of you who are in your late thirties or beyond – Anne Bancroft was thirty-six when she played Mrs. Robinson.  THIRTY-SIX.  The thought makes me feel a little faint, to be honest.  As of Saturday, I am going to be older than Mrs. Robinson.

It makes me feel a little self-conscious to go to the firehall to drop off my bag of old batteries, that’s all I’m saying.

Fear Leads To Anger, Anger Leads To Suffering

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I had a fairly eventful weekend, social-wise.  On Friday I had dinner guests, and I made a roasted vegetable lasagne – look for the recipe over at the cooking blog in the next couple of days – and it was absolutely delicious.  I was raving to a friend over the pure delight that is roasted zucchini, and it is so delicious, and had she ever tried it, and her response was “Of course!  I’m Italian.”  Aha!  The lightbulb goes off.  I am just going to say this: the popularity of cookbooks based on Scottish and/or Norweigan cuisine is very low.  In fact, I’m not sure there ARE cookbooks based on those cuisines, with the possible exception of the Lutheran Ladies’ Family Favourites, which I have in my possession. 

Then, on Saturday, I attended a baby shower.  I haven’t been to one of those in YEARS.  It has also been years since I was the lone stay-at-home mom in a room.  Represent!  It made me realize that the overwhelming majority of my friends are also stay-at-home moms, and the overwhelming majority of them have at least one child older than mine.  But in this situation, I was the seasoned mom in the room, with my cares of feeding/diapering/sleeping/swaddling far, far behind me.  I felt wise, like Yoda.

Have I mentioned my children are very interested in Star Wars right now?  They are watching the movies in order from 1-6, and they have finished Attack of the Clones.  A few things occurred to me while they watched it: a) they have a way better idea of what is actually going on in those movies, while I’m like “Who’s that guy?  Is he bad?  Oh, he’s GOING to be bad?  Oh.  Who’s that guy?”, and b) they were actually not at all upset when Anakin’s mother was killed.  WHAT?  Mark, especially, surprised me since he was quite distraught when Anakin left his mother in The Phantom Menace, and also almost every movie upsets him if there is some kind of sadness or unkindness displayed, i.e., Ice Age, Shrek, Cars 2, Lion King.  But Anakin’s mother being brutally murdered?  He’s okay with that.  HEY NOW.

There has also been much talk about fear leading to anger which leads to suffering.  Good times over at the Boyhouse!  Not to be all check out all the wisdom in Star Wars, but honestly, that is kind of true.  Fear DOES lead to anger; often I notice the angriest people are the ones who are the most resistant to and fearful of change, or new people, or the world in general.  They’re all out to get me. Yoda is wise – just like me, dispensing all my parenting knowledge at the baby shower. 

I kid.  I kid.  I dispensed no knowledge at the baby shower, except when asked specifically about a topic.  I didn’t want to be one of those moms, especially since I can’t really remember all that happened when my children were babies.  Hey, I had my kids really close together, I essentially am missing everything that happened between 2005 and 2007.  Hell, I didn’t really sleep through the night until 2010, due to various reasons, and given that my first child was born in 2004, that is a lot of sleepless nights. 

But who wants to talk about that, am I right?  I do not like to even mention my sleeplessness in a room full of non-mothers or soon-to-be-first-time mothers.  The voice of terror…I had a baby, and then I never slept again!  Not super helpful information, in my opinion. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how women can get pretty judgy and condemning of other women, especially when it comes to children and parenting.  Honestly, I hate that, but I think that it’s much more ubiquitous among new, first-time mothers, possibly because everything is so new and scary that we tend to get angry about issues (see also: Yoda).  This is why we tend to get all worked up over breastfeeding and co-sleeping and cribs and crying and baby-wearing and toilet training and rice cereal versus pureed vegetables, and it’s because everything is new.  New to us, I should say, because the human race is pretty much doing fine in terms of procreating.  But parenting is scary, and newborns are, quite frankly, terrifying with their wobbly giant heads and their flailing skinny arms and that cry that pierces every mother’s soul.  I have found as I have gotten older and have found a circle of beautiful mothers who I am blessed to have as friends, things get so much less scary.  As we grow into motherhood we realize that each day we can start anew.  Each day we can change something if we don’t like it.  We can wipe the slate clean and do our best every day, and if we have a bad day, it is not the end of the world. 

I feel a bit sheepish that I am actually using Star Wars as parenting wisdom, especially since I STILL don’t really know who Count Dooku is, but it’s true.  Let’s try to be less fearful, and therefore less angry.  And tell me about your weekend!  Unless you are going to tell me it was beautiful and warm, because it snowed here, and that is enough to spiral me into anger.

When I say "kind of a dick" I mean in a good way.

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Here’s proof that I have a very confident husband: he was completely unfazed by my shameless male objectification as I ranked the cast members on last night’s Grey’s Anatomy, based on hotness.  For anyone interested, here are my top two:

And here is who I rank at the bottom:
“Too young for you?” my husband asked.  Exactly.  Call me in 20 years, Dr. Avery.  Well, actually, in 20 years I will be almost sixty, so probably my tastes will have altered somewhat.  But theoretically call me in 20 years.
A while back, I heard someone say that if there was a Hooters for women, it would just be men in business suits walking around holding up their impeccable credit scores, and I have to say, that really spoke to me.  If I was to say I had a “type”, it would be an older, salt-and-pepper haired man in a business suit who is kind of a dick, but yet inwardly romantic.  Fortunately my husband fits into this genre.  It would be a bit strange if he didn’t, just as it would be strange if he suddenly announced that he prefers petite blonde women with big breasts, rather than crazy artificial redheads who really like to make lists and drink wine.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure that there are too many other crazy list-making wine-tippling artificial redheads that he is particularly enamoured with, but still.
Last night we watched Grey’s Anatomy and I engaged in sexist behaviour while the snow came down, giant fluffy flakes.  It turns out we had a record snowfall!  Today the snow is melting and the grass is looking much less brown.  Springtime in Calgary!  The wet snow is making the grass greener!  Hooray for giant wet snowfalls!
Another sign that it is springtime, other than the festive April snowshowers, is that my dog is behaving like an imbecile.  I’m guessing this is spring-related, anyway.  Yesterday before the snow I went with some friends and their dogs to the off-leash park.  We walked and chatted, and as we were almost finished our walk, I noticed my dog way behind us, sniffing and happy and rolling enthusiastically in the grass.  When he caught up to us it became evident that not only was he enthusiastically rolling in the grass, he was enthusiastically rolling in some other dog’s poop.  I’m not going to lie to you, people.  I pretty much hated my dog at that moment and in the moments that followed.  I especially hated him as we had driven to the dog park, and the ride home, though brief, was without a doubt the worst olfactory experience I have ever had.  My very good friend who was with me not only rode home in my rancid-o-mobile, but she gave me some no-rinse foamy dog shampoo when I dropped her off.  I can never repay her for this kindness.  I need to buy a case of this no-rinse foamy dog shampoo, to have on hand just in case such a horror ever occurs again.  Did I mention my dog is very fluffy?  Three applications later and he was back to his normal, non-smelly self.  However, it has taken me until now to fully forgive him for being so disgusting. 

It’s a good thing he’s so cute.

Heated Seats are Blessings, Like Children.

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My husband had heated seats installed in my minivan, and I am not exaggerating even a little bit when I say that this is the greatest gift I have ever received, with the exception of my children, without whom I would not likely even have a minivan.  I mean, there are not too many non-parents zooming around in minivans, are there?

But, my goodness, heated seats are possibly the greatest invention since the fucking wheel, especially for someone like me who is always cold and who is in the car at five in the morning.  Let me tell you something: at five in the morning, it doesn’t matter what month it is.  It’s cold. 

The heated seats have improved my quality of life vastly, not that my quality of life was particularly suffering before this, but still.  The last time I had this kind of increase in my life quality was when the boys were babies and I got a lightweight Chariot double stroller.  That, my friends, was paradise in a stroller.  Prior to that I had a heavy Evenflo back-to-front double stroller.  There was a very awkward phase in my children’s lives: Jake outgrew his baby bucket seat at around four months, and was too little to sit up on his own, and if I needed to get groceries, I had a floppy little four month old and a busy little twenty two month old to work with.  It was January when this phase began.  Snowy, cold January.  My options were a) bundle the children up, push them with all my strength in the heavy, cumbersome stroller through the unshovelled sidewalks, get as many things as I could possibly fit in the stroller basket, push the stroller back home, and then collapse with exhaustion, b) drive to the store, put the toddler in the seat of the cart, and strap the screaming baby into the Bjorn in the icy parking lot, while baby was in a gigantic snowsuit and I was in a gigantic coat, and then take the wailing and subsequently overheated children into the grocery store while I lost my mind, or c) stay home.  More often than not I opted for C, which led to a depressing period of loneliness and isolation.  But occasionally I would have to go out immediately, such as the time when Mark had just recovered from a ten day bout of the rotovirus and subsequent explosive diarrhea, and I actually ran out of diapers.  Let me tell you, the day I acquired the Chariot, with its lightweight frame and big wheels that could even go through snowbanks, my life improved dramatically.

Just writing that makes me thankful that the only calamities that now occur when I take the boys grocery shopping are the constant debates as to whether or not Caramilk bars are a staple item, or my concern that their running through the aisles is going to result in someone knocking down and breaking some old lady’s hip, and subsequently, me being shunned from the community.

Speaking of being shunned from the community, I was at the hair therapist this weekend, getting my roots done, and NOT getting my hair dramatically cut, since I’m growing it out, although the growing it out process is somewhat trying.  I also caught up on my pop culture, since I forgot my book, and besides, the book I am reading is Anna Karenina – still – which is not exactly a nice light read for the hair salon, especially when I find myself high on the fumes from all the hair colour.  But I learned a few things by reading the magazines at the salon: Sophia Vergara is three years older than I am – and it’s my birthday in ten days, squeeeee!, The Hunger Games movie is amazing and/or terrible, and Alicia Silverstone feeds her baby by chewing his food for him.  I know.  I know.  I’m late to the party. 

I have to admit, it does squick me out a bit to think of chewing food for my children, but then again, I am easily squicked out.  I don’t even, and never have, kissed my own children on their mouths.  Judge me if you will, but the thought of kissing anyone on the mouth, unless I am getting it on with that person (JUST my husband, thanks) gives me the heebs.  But I know I’m in the minority on that one. 

However, in the case of Alicia Silverstone, well, meh.  Who cares.  Except for the addition of saliva, isn’t that just what baby food is – mushed up regular food?  I mean, yeah, it’s not my thing, but who really cares.  Kids put way worse things in their mouths than their mother’s saliva.  Once, I had to put baby Jake down on the grass at a playpark and dart off to grab Mark as he climbed up a teetery, not-really-safe slide, and by the time I got back to Jake he had put a cigarette butt in this mouth, my god, people, who butts out a cigarette at a children’s playpark, you should all be ashamed of yourselves.  He also used to try to eat the gravel at playparks.  Mark used to chew on his own socks.  They both have thrived despite such horrors, so I’m sure Alicia Silverstone’s child will be just fine.  His name is Bear, though, which gives me pause.  I find the strange naming techniques of today’s celebrities to be quite unnerving, especially considering the rash of copycat names we are sure to see.  When I’m a flame-haired, overly-made up old lady in the nursing home, will my doctor be named BEAR?  Or Indiana, or even Neveah?  Because that will be odd.  Just think about it – a whole generation could be named things like Rats, because that is Star backwards, or maybe Alaska, or Giraffe.  Where does it end?  It makes me long for the innocuous hippie names of the sixties, like Starlight or Sunshine or Rainbow, because at least they are a) not things spelled backwards, b) a state, or c) a wild animal.