Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Passionate Choices

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I’m passionate about many things: Ashtanga yoga, for example, and gardening, and the ritual of pouring myself a very large glass of wine the minute my children are in bed for the night.

That ritual is not meant to imply that I am not passionate about my children. I am. I love being their mother, their stay-at-home mother. I love the luxurious stretches of time I have with them; my ability to take them to the park or to bake muffins with them, to read with them or to engage them in one of our many strange science experiments that usually conclude with vinegar and baking soda all over the kitchen. Sometimes those hours together can feel like a sentence, but mostly I revel in my life of extreme ordinariness.

It is not a life I ever thought I would have chosen, but it is one I am extraordinarily happy with.

I have chosen this life, just as some women choose a very different path, one with a career and a paycheque. I am aware of this privilege of choice, and also I am acutely aware that some women have no choices whatsoever. Some women are constrained indefinitely, and are making do with the shabby hand life has dealt them. Around me I see mothers – and fathers too – struggling to cope, every day. What I’m most passionate about is remembering that we are all – from the mother with the Louis Vuitton diaper bag to the one with the third-hand stroller and faded, worn jeans – in this parenting thing together. I am passionate about the idea that we parents, all of us, make up a community who need to support each other regardless of what choices we do or do not make.

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This post was written for the Mabel’s Labels BlogHer 2010 Contest, in response to the question “What are you passionate about?”

The Bachelor and Royalty

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My friend, in reference to The Bachelor: “Who watches this shit?”

Her husband: “The same people who keep with royalty.”

The Bachelor, along with pretty much every other reality TV show, really is shit. It is a horrific concept: hundreds, maybe even thousands of women vying for a shot at dating/marrying a guy simply because he is good looking and successful, or at least for a shot at a reality-TV career and/or a contract with Playboy. I wonder what it would be like if a friend or colleague was on that show, would it change your feelings for that person? What if that person was the woman that no one in the house liked? Although I am a strong believer in karma and non-judgment, I unfortunately would have to respond yes to that question.

That show is revolting on a number of levels but is particularly gross when the dating gets serious and the contestants are all allowed to stay “in the couple’s suite”. Inevitably, every woman chooses to do this meaning that the bachelor is screwing a number of women in a short period of time – and everyone involved knows it. Eww! I am not a prudish person but I find that stomach-turning. Although I do think it would be funny to invent a drinking game in which players take a shot every time someone on The Bachelor says “I feel a real connection with you.” I mentioned this to my husband and he looked at me expressionlessly for a minute, then suggested that a) a game like that has probably already been invented by college students and b) it would not be successful as everyone playing would be passed out in the first five minutes. True.

I don’t actually watch The Bachelor, but I have watched enough episodes over its multi-year run to form an opinion on it. Similarly, I don’t actually keep with royalty but I have in the past. In fact as a child – like many girls born in the seventies, I suspect – I was obsessed with Princess Diana. For Christmas and birthdays I always received those glossy coffee-table books about her and her snappy eighties fashions as well as, I clearly recall, a paper doll book that had a replica of her wedding gown which was impossible to cut out with safety scissors, all those lace points. I was staying with my grandma in Saskatchewan during the Royal Wedding and I remember her waking me up at four in the morning to watch it. I remember lying on her thick shag carpet in my summer pajamas, Grandma in her chair behind me, smoking and drinking coffee and discussing Lloyd Robertson’s boring commentary. When Princess Diana died in 1997, I was on my way to the bar with a group of friends when one of them said “Hey, did you hear Princess Diana died?” It was a sad ending to my royalty following.

I watched the movie The Bank Job this weekend, and discovered that Princess Margaret was involved in a number of sex scandals – who knew she was such a scamp? That was never mentioned in my coffee table books. Apparently she had several sad, doomed relationships, not unlike Diana. This brings me to something that I plan on writing about in more detail – post to come! – Lori Gottleib’s article and book about “settling” for Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right. Did Princess Diana settle? She married the heir to the British Throne, for heaven’s sake, she had two lovely boys, and, by all accounts, a very unhappy life. She “won out”, so to speak, against Camilla Parker-Bowles, who evidently “won” in the end. The women on the Bachelor are looking to “win” – but what’s the prize?

Spring-ish

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We’ve had a run of really unseasonably warm weather and I spent the afternoon cutting back perennials, pruning shrubs, and pulling back mulch to squeal over the teeny sprouts of my emerging very hardy perennials. Then I immediately replaced the mulch because while I might be excited, I’m not stupid: no mulch shall be removed until May. Fortunately these are extraordinarily hardy plants; they could probably survive nuclear fallout.

In my house, these little sprouts are known as “baby plants” and while my children may have a high level of disdain for actual human babies, they are thrilled about non-human babies, plants included. “Mom”, Mark said excitedly, “It feels like you are going to have a baby! Baby plants!” Apparently my ovaries are green now.

Finding little bits of green in my yard is my favourite part of spring. It feels very festive around here: the sun is shining, the snow is melting, and I walked the dog without gloves on. Truly festive indeed. There are only two small dampers on this festive spirit: muddy paw prints in odd places and the proliferation of outdoor wear in the back entry. I find the latter to be somewhat trying. Our back entry is overflowing: winter jackets and snow boots, gloves and toques and also baseball caps, light jackets and down vests, running shoes and mud-caked rubber boots. And I cannot get rid of One Single Thing because I am superstitious and it’s only March – I’ve finally realized it’s not still February – and the second I put away a winter article, even the smallest mitten, the city will be blasted with snow and ice, and it will be All My Fault.

Cool Things People (who are not me) Do

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The other day, someone asked me how my bread making was going. This poses the question: if your New Year’s resolution is to bake bread, and you bake bread one time, does that mean your resolution has been fulfilled? In actuality I have baked bread four times, thank you very much, and each time they have turned out very tasty. I had visions that I would bake bread every weekend – not all bread consumed by our household, but weekend dinner fancy bread. But – fortunately for me, unfortunately for my lofty bread goals – I discovered that my friend, an artisan baker, was selling his wares at a market near my house.

I have a soft spot for this friend because a) his bread is unbelievably delicious, b) he practices early morning yoga with me at the Yoga Shala, and c) his girlfriend is an independent film maker who was indulgent enough to allow me to be an extra in one of her short films! I’m a movie star! I always wanted to be in a movie, and in this you can briefly see me doing a Sun Salutation and also stretching. Total movie star, no? AND, thrillingly enough, her film is going to be shown at the Sofia International Film Festival. I told my mother this and her response was “Wow, a lot of people are going to see your feet!” Yes, my feet figure prominently in one of the shots. At least I had given myself a pedicure prior to this.

Where was I?

Oh yes, bread. With my friend’s bread so incredible and convenient, my own bread making fell by the wayside. Every week he would offer something different: sourdough with poppy seeds, crusty whole grain loaves, cheese bread, and the most amazing cheddar and olive breadsticks. I could eat those breadsticks every single day for the rest of my natural life. But an incredible opportunity has arisen for this couple – they are headed to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal for him to build a restaurant and organic garden, and for her to document the experience for a movie. That is fairly amazing to me, a person who makes numerous lists just to leave the house, and who takes weeks to figure out what to pack for a six-day vacation.

So, I guess I’m back to baking my own tasty-but-much-inferior bread. Is it totally selfish of me to be just a teensy bit sad?

What day is it? What month is it?

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I’m completely confused. I keep thinking that it is still February, yet simultaneously I believe that it is later in the week than it actually is. I’m thinking “Wow, I can’t believe how warm it is for February” alongside “I’m sure glad it’s Thursday!”

So I’m confused and I feel like I’ve been whirling around like the Tasmanian Devil, minus the drooling and anger. Well, not totally minus the anger since yesterday I felt that I was actually losing my mind, for real this time, because during the entire afternoon there was no ten minute block in which someone was not complaining, arguing, or hitting someone else with a foam sword. Those foam swords, a loot bag item from a long-past birthday party, are the bane of my existence. The boys have created their own special fight club, where they jovially and companionably beat each other with foam swords, until inevitably someone goes too far and the fight gets serious. The first rule about fight club, of course, is that you don’t talk about fight club, so when I intervene in this so-called game, they tell me that they are just having FUN and they’re NOT REALLY FIGHTING and I’m WRECKING THEIR GAME. I can’t imagine my no-fun status improving any time soon.

Along with the fight club and Jake’s fairly disturbing new picture making obsession, (“I’m drawing Anakin. He has a red light saber. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. He is cutting off Anakin’s hand. OH NO. Anakin is Darth Vader! He’s BAAADDDDD!” he narrates as he paints over his picture with dark colours, chuckling evilly to himself) I’ve been busy with the school’s Scholastic Book Fair. It’s such a great fund-raiser for the library, but it has, as always, unhappily resulted in the obtaining of a new Scooby Doo Early Reader. I love reading to the boys. I do. I even willingly read Mark’s favourite Dinosaur Encyclopedia, which is clearly the driest and dullest dinosaur book ever written, due to its propensity to list in grave detail the dates and locations of various fossil discoveries. But, along with foam swords, those Scooby Doo books are a menace to society.

Statement Retraction: Groundhog Day

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It pains me to do this, but I feel I must retract my statement with regards to Groundhog Day. Don’t get me wrong: I am aware that there will be more snow and frosty temperatures, but the past few days have been absolutely beautiful – puddles and brown grass appearing where previously there were piles of dirty snow, the sun shining, and the sky a postcard Alberta blue. Yesterday the boys and I took the dog for a walk, all three of us wearing only down vests and shirtsleeves, and our new rubber boots. It really felt spring-ish, and yes, I know, I know, it’s deceptive, but still: I’m sorry, Balzac Billy. I’m sorry for laughing at you and disbelieving you and making fun of the fact that you are just some guy dressed up as a groundhog. Could you please not see your shadow every year? Thank you.

So it’s been a glorious weekend, despite the fact of absent husband. As an aside, I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and ran into a friend’s husband and mentioned that Rob was in Vancouver. “I’m living the single girl life!” I said cheerily, and he raised his eyebrows. What? So I’m in Wal-Mart at 10:00 a.m. with a cart full of Mini-Wheats, children’s Tylenol, and Kleenex, with two kids jonesing for McDonald’s yogurt parfaits. Isn’t that what all the single girls are doing these days? But I’m especially happy because – and I’m superstitious just writing this, so I’m knocking wood – no one has been vomiting.

There has been a stomach flu going around, I discovered the day after our sick day. I was waiting for the kindergarten to be let out, chatting with another mom, who was telling me a prolonged story about the vomiting going on in her house, and she casually mentioned that her youngest son – a classmate and friend of Mark’s, who was in class that day – was throwing up only the day before. The day before! I probably looked like a caricature of a crazy person – or maybe I am a crazy person – as my eyes widened with this knowledge that the VIRUS WAS AMONG US. Once the class let out I accosted Mark and slathered him with hand sanitizer. I would have ripped off his clothes and burned them if I could have figured out a way to do it without it being weird.

I really, really want to be one of those people who are all casual about illnesses, all kids-get-sick-and-barf-no-big-deal, but I am not. I am still somewhat scarred from the first time Mark ever got sick: it was the rotavirus. He was 19 months old, and Jake was four weeks old and colicky. And Mark, along with my husband, contracted the rotavirus. Once we got through that, only three months later Mark – and my husband – contracted a virus akin to Norwalk. Jake was still colicky. Mark threw up for a week, and didn’t eat for ten days. For those of you who also have skinny kids, you know what it is to see your toddler’s ribs and toothpick legs after an illness. I was practically deranged from a lack of sleep and worry. The upside of all this is that I was so stressed out that I didn’t eat and ended up losing the remainder of my pregnancy weight, which is to say there is always a silver lining.

I have gotten a lot better about my germ paranoia, with the boys being older and sturdier, and with me being a more confident and rested parent. But I’m still overjoyed that we had such a lovely weekend, and that we seem to have missed this particular virus. Hoo boy. I better go knock wood again.

Olympic Sick Day

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It was only a matter of time. I actually thought to myself that it was a miracle – a miracle! – that we hadn’t been sick so far this calendar year. It was especially miraculous because the kindergarten class has been a petrie dish of violently coughing five year olds. Coughing into the sleeve isn’t really an effective measure against the spreading of viruses if said sleeve is one inch from someone else’s face.

So Mark developed a cough this week, and then a fever, along with the whining and clinging that such illness generally brings, and so I kept him home from school yesterday. I came across an article entitled “Sick Day Strategies”, aimed at entertaining sick little people. It advocated for, among other things, cuddles, stories and quiet games. Does it feel like parenting articles are just a little too obvious at times?

But of course cuddles, stories, and quiet games did constitute a large part of our day, along with freezies, a homemade batch of playdough, and copious amounts of TV. Hilarity ensued when Jake, rummaging through a backpack that had been unused for two years, found a pull-up diaper. He immediately pulled it on over his jeans and ran around the house saying “Goo goo ga ga, I’m a baby!” This entertained Mark for some time. Still, by mid-afternoon mind-numbing boredom kicked in for all three of us, so when Mark asked if he could use the camera – a request that is repeated several times a day and often results in some pretty strange photos – I agreed. He and Jake went downstairs for a while, and the following pictures are the result.

As an aside, I should mention, again, that my husband is a huge fan of the Olympics – in fact he left for Vancouver this morning – and he watches Olympic coverage near-constantly while at home. That theme song is haunting me. Instead of feeling left out that he has gone for a couple of days, I’m actually somewhat elated that I’m not going to hear that music. Tonight I’m planning on eating a pan of kale chips, drinking wine, and watching Season Three NYPD Blue, the combination of which has me so excited that I’m starting to wonder about my own mental stability. I blame the breakdown on the theme music.

Without further ado, here are Select Olympic Events, as modeled by Jake, photography and artistic direction by Mark.

Lighting of the Olympic flame:

Hockey:


A Gold Medal Ceremony:


Biathlon:

Not medaling:


And finally, luge: