Category Archives: Babies

Boring Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

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I remember exactly what I was doing when I realized it. I was on the couch, with two babies in my lap, watching Sesame Street. What you must remember is what Gen X mothers were like, back in the early 2000s. Our generational Meh Attitude completely morphed into something else when our babies were born. We became laser-focused on the task at hand, the task of raising our now Gen Z children to be future stars of the world, and screen time was not a part of that process.

At the time, the expert recommendation was no screen time at all for children under two, and so any time I collapsed on the couch with my one-year-old and my newborn, colicky baby, I felt a deep sense of guilt and wrong-doing. It would only be a few years later where small children would be pacified with iPads in the grocery store, in waiting rooms, in restaurants, but that was not part of my reality, not at all. My generation was the one with the Baby Einstein board books and activity toys, it was the generation that actually put thought into whether black-and-white toys were more intellectually stimulating than colourful ones, and screen time was akin to neglect at best.

But my god, I was tired. I was tired and lonely in only the way you can be when you are surrounded by crying, needy little beings all day long. Someone was always crying, it seemed, someone always needed something, and it took a solid two hours to prepare to leave the house. And so sometimes I would succumb to the siren song of PBS Kids and watch Sesame Street.

And it was then that I realized that I really identified with Bert.

It was a startling, St Paul on the road to Damascus feeling, akin to the day I realized I wasn’t Jo March, I was Amy, and I wasn’t Elizabeth Bennett, I was Charlotte Lucas. Sure, I don’t have a paperclip collection, nor an interest in pigeons, but I did show everyone I know the photo I took of a blue heron.

I would have liked to think I was a wildcard like Grover, or a good time like Ernie, or even a secretive, mysterious Snuffalupagus, but no. I’m Bert. I like the colour grey, particularly in clothing and home decor, I enjoy oatmeal very much, and, most of all, I love what other people might term Boring Stories.

During the pandemic, when I started posting all the books I read on Instagram, I received a nasty message from a woman who berated my literary choices. She had bought – bought! – several books that I had raved about, and was sorely disappointed in every last one of them. How could you even like these? she wrote. Literally nothing happens! They are the most boring books I’ve ever read in my life!

Well. If you know me at all you know I’m a big fan of character-driven literary fiction. It’s true, I don’t love a thick plot or a lot of action. One of my favourites is Diary of a Provincial Lady, and nothing at all does happen in that book. Literally, nothing.

The same is true in my choice of podcasts, and nowhere was this more apparent than when I was road tripping with my husband this past week. He likes Things To Happen, I don’t, and so we end up with a happy medium of comedy podcasts and celebrity interviews. A current favourite of mine is Cookbook Club, where the hosts sound like the Schweddy Balls ladies on SNL, and are apt to take a five-minute digression about rainbow sprinkles and whether white sprinkles should be included in a rainbow mix and should we all just create our own rainbow sprinkle mixes? If I were to play that in the car with my husband, he would be liable to drive us off a cliff just to end the suffering.

We did not drive off a cliff, obviously, but we did have poor driving conditions for at least seven of the nearly ten hours that we spent in the car on Tuesday. The least of it was rain; we also hit snow in Rogers’ Pass and through the Jasper Parkway, plus fog most of the way, but mostly in Saskatchewan Crossing.

We were visiting my parents; it was my dad’s 75th birthday, and so there was a nice big house party with my aunt, cousins, and uncle. I had a great time visiting, playing dice poker, eating and drinking. I also enjoyed the sunrises over the lake:

And of course, walking in the fall foliage.

Rex is a really great traveller, and was so well behaved when we stopped for an overnight with our friends in Calgary.

We came home on Saturday and although the conditions were better, the drive was so long and slow due to road construction and single lane traffic. The views made up for it though.

Even still, I am feeling slightly resentful having to get in the car after all that driving. The only thing I miss about Calgary, other than friends, is the ability to walk anywhere in my neighbourhood. I have to drive to walk the dog, and yesterday Rex and I were not super excited to get back into the Subaru.

Speaking of Calgary, we drove through that old neighbourhood, and I expected to be very emotional, but I was not moved at all. Did my soul leave my body without me knowing it? The old house looks the same, other than the garden being a shambles, but it wasn’t sad to me at all. I guess I’ve really moved on.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of boring books, I read some that were boring TO ME, and both of those were memoir. Typically I love memoir but these just did not hit. However, I read a really excellent novel this week, so I guess things even out.

On Being Human. As I was reading this, I kept thinking that this seemed familiar, this memoir of a yoga teacher who discovers that she has had lifelong hearing loss in adulthood. Well, I discovered the reason I found it so familiar: I read this in December 2019. Obviously it wasn’t all that memorable. I am kind of annoyed with myself for spending time reading this not once but twice. To be fair, I did enjoy reading about her childhood and yoga journey, but I was just not in the mood to read chapter after chapter of self-loathing, name-dropping, and her experiences with creating a brand via Facebook. Wow, was it repetitive. If I pick this up again in five years, thinking it looks interesting, please remind me to drop it.

Good Material. A stand-up comedian is going through a breakup, and it’s devastating to him. Suddenly he is an apartment-less, emotional wreck who discovers that being single and 35 is different than being single in his 20s. This book is written almost entirely from the male point of view, which is not usually something I read, but which was entertaining and very well written. The point of view switches near the end and really shows that there are two sides to every story, at the least. The book ends in January 2020, which is a really interesting choice by the author – we know that things are doomed, but our characters don’t. I really enjoyed this book, it is so well-written and uniquely thought out. 

More Please. A couple of years ago I swore off millennial memoirs, on account of me being just a bit too old to appreciate them. This is a Me Thing, not a Them Thing – I’m just not in the right stage of life. However, I heard this woman speak on a podcast and was impressed enough to pick up her book – and I wish I hadn’t. It was so repetitive and boring, not saying anything new or interesting. The good news is that it only took me a couple of hours to read. 

Before we left on our road trip, we took our annual family photo. It’s interesting; we are not a family who fights or bickers, but when it comes to family photos, we all suddenly hate each other. Historically, that is, because somehow we took the photo with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. It was a red-letter day. Anyway, this photo will be our Christmas card, and if you are a person who also likes to send Christmas cards, let me know, and I will add you to my list. Very important caveat: I am only interested in a Christmas card exchange; I get hurt feelings if I send a card and don’t get one back. If we exchanged cards last year, you are already on my list! If you’d like to be included, message me in the comments and we’ll exchange addresses. Have a beautiful week, everyone! xo

Royal Birthdays

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My goodness, I have so much to say, and I haven’t had any time to say it! First of all – Royal Baby! I was on Royal Baby Watch for exactly fifteen minutes. I was in my car coming home from yoga at 6:05 am, and I heard that we were Officially On Royal Baby Watch. I showered and when my husband came into the bathroom at 6:20 I excitedly reported the news.

Husband: She had a boy.

Me: What? No, that was George. She’s in the hospital now!

Husband: I just heard it on the radio. She had a boy.

Me: Oh.

As an aside, I’ve seen a lot of posts discussing the Duchess’ appearance mere hours after the birth of little Louis, and frankly, most of them are off-putting. The posts start out like this: can you even believe what she looks like? Then they move to this: you would look that good too if you had a staff. If this was a decision tree, one branch would then go to well, she looks amazing and the other would devolve into a bitter tirade against her life and the fact of her being photographed for all the world to see so soon after giving birth.

You guys, we talk so much about toxic masculinity and the patriarchy, and for good reason, but let us please remember that we should be lifting each other up, not tearing each other down, and in that spirit, LAY OFF KATE AND STOP JUDGING WOMEN ON THEIR APPEARANCES.

Of course I know none of us look like the Duchess immediately following birth, just like none of us have a staff of many to help us be photographed in a beautiful outfit complete with heels. But that doesn’t make our birth experiences any less valid or wonderful; we are all uniquely beautiful and special and this is a good time to be reminded of that.

This is what I looked like in the twelve hours following the births of my children:

None of us are married to the heir to the British throne, and our jobs are not to birth other heirs to the British throne. My job requires me to wear yoga pants and to obtain and prepare an obscene amount of food every day, but if it required me to put on a pretty dress and take my baby outside for photographs, I too would get my staff to make sure I looked good for those photos. Instead of focusing on how we all left the hospital in our weird hospital-issue mesh underwear and industrial strength sanitary napkins, with our mushy post-partum bellies sagging over the waistband of our maternity jeans, and our giant swelling breasts barely contained within our super-ugly nursing bras, let’s just enjoy those beautiful photos and take a break from all the gross lunacy in the world, and be happy that there is a baby in the news instead.

Speaking of the British throne, last Saturday was my birthday, which I share with none other than QEII herself. It was such a glorious weekend. For one thing, it appears that spring has finally arrived and the glacier in my back yard has receded to a mere blip of ice; the past week has seen me frantically cleaning up the gardens that are finally thawed and dry enough to work in, and the sun, my god, the sun. The sun is shining and I have been leaving the house in sweaters and light jackets. Yesterday when I went to teach a class I wore capri length yoga pants and shoes, SHOES. So all is sunshine and happiness around here; the birthday weekend was filled with good food, cake, wine, and lovely presents.

Including this gigantic wine glass from my parents. I love a wine glass that is nearly the size of my face, like oh, I’ll just have ONE glass of wine tonight. In case you can’t read it, it says “Queen of Everything” which is a very fitting way to end this royal post.

Howard/ Nicole The Duck

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One benefit of keeping an old school blog for the past eight years is that I can easily see patterns in my own life. For example, every single fall I feel like I’m careening off the rails a little bit, in terms of busyness, and yes, we are all busy and tired and whatnot, no one wants to hear about how busy we are, but it is nice to see a pattern and recognize that I feel this way every year.

In related news, October is almost over, and I feel like it should still be mid-September. But no. Sometimes I feel like I’m a duck, gracefully gliding through the water on the pond, but what is not visible to the eye is my pair of little feet-flippers going like mad, just to keep gracefully gliding.

All is good, it is, even though I have bags under my eyes that require their own postal code. Several months ago I wrote something for YMC called “Confessions of a Pulled-Together Mom” and I braced myself for the blow-back. I was expecting trolls to come out of the woodwork to criticize my vanity at the expense of neglecting my children, but I only really received one such comment. The rest were more of the “me too” variety, which was completely surprising. On discussing it with the YMC Editor-in-Chief, I realized that this generation of young moms is much more comfortable with the concept of self-care than MY generation. This is a very very good thing. When I had babies, lo those many years ago, it wasn’t the done thing to admit that you showered every day, put on makeup, and blow-dried your hair. Back when my kids were babies, many of my peers were into that martyr thing: I was so busy I didn’t brush my teeth all weekend, and I haven’t had a shower for days. Hygiene, oral and otherwise, was frequently scorned because my generation seemed to be made up of High Powered Career Girls Who Are Now Putting 100% Energy Into Child-Rearing And Have No Time To Spare On Vanities. Not everyone felt that way, of course, but motherhood did feel a bit like a Project back then. I mean, I had a book – which I have since donated – about how to raise smarter babies, and another one that was all about brain-enriching and sensory-stimulating activities to do with your baby. Such activities included making a pulley system for teddy bears, to illustrate cause-and-effect, and the concept of impermanence. And I actually did those activities. Now, thinking about how my children enjoy such things as Grand Theft Auto and jokes about farting and people getting hit in the testicles, I cannot help but smile at my younger, optimistic self.

But I digress. The only negative comments I had from that Pulled-Together piece were that, in the photos, I didn’t appear to be wearing makeup at all. I had several such comments, and I was taken aback by it a little, because YOU GUYS, if you could see me without makeup. HOO BOY. In particular, today, when I have eye bags under my eye bags, well. I promised my husband I wouldn’t post any more unflattering photos of myself on this blog, but you can see a few here and here. And those are from two years ago, so as you can probably imagine, I have aged somewhat since then. Anyway, I love the thought that some people think I’m all au naturel when really, the opposite is true.

eyebags

Eyebags with a side of grey roots.

Speaking of oral hygiene, a few months back there was some kind of expose about Big Dental and the Flossing Conspiracy. Did you know we’ve all been conned into thinking that flossing is beneficial, when in fact there has been almost no empirical evidence to suggest that it prevents cavities and gum disease? Quick, everyone burn your dental floss!

Just like that, but with floss.

Fun fact: I had that fish without a bicycle poster on my office wall when I was in grad school, along with a copy of the Feminist Manifesto.

Anyway, I think I’ll keep my floss, since I’m not a fan of having decaying bits of food between my teeth, studies be damned.

There have also been a number of studies saying that vitamin supplements are essentially useless, and you may as well set your money – along with your dental floss – on fire. Well, I will say this: you will tear my bottles of vitamins out of my cold, dead hands. Especially my Vitamin D, since it has been grey and gloomy and foggy here like you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday my friend and I were walking our dogs at the off-leash, and it was so foggy we could barely see twenty feet in front of us. It was very eerie, like something in a horror film. Maybe it’s just the lead up to Halloween (YOU GUYS, HALLOWEEN IS ON MONDAY! MONDAY!) but it was really creepy.

On that note, I have things I need to cross off my to-do list, and if I start talking about my love for vitamin supplements, or how virtuous I feel because I haven’t yet bought and eaten several boxes of Halloween candy, I’ll be here until the cows (or children) come home. Signing off, xoxo.

The Wearing of the Green (Eyed Monster)

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This weekend my husband was watching “The Wolverine”. Remember the lengths I went to in order to obtain that video? It turns out I was actually uninterested in watching it, and so I puttered around the kitchen, making cookies and banana bread while my husband – who must be the world’s most confident man – would call me in to the living room occasionally to watch a scene or two. The scenes that he was bringing my attention to were solely gratuitous shirtless fight sequences. “Nicole! You’ve got to come see this!” he would say and then we would both watch in awe. How much did that man train in preparation for that movie? By all accounts the movie was kind of terrible, but the parts I saw were just fine.

Hugh2

 

It’s a little bit funny that I should objectify the male body so much when I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the objectification of the female body. Remember that “What’s Your Excuse” mom – Maria Kang, who a little while ago posted a photo of her fit and toned body with her three young kids? Shock! Outrage! Shaming! And yet, I fail to see the issue. She’s a woman who has launched a fitness program and website for all those moms out there who are mired down in the world of early motherhood, who want to increase their level of fitness. Great, right? But no, she has been much taken to task for fat-shaming and bullying.

Very, very gently I say to you: if this bothers you, look away. Maybe I’m naive, but I do not see how a woman launching a fitness program is doing it specifically to make womankind in general feel bad about themselves. My belief is that this woman is capitalizing on what every single fitness program talks about, and that is to Just Do It, in the words of the Nike people. No fitness program is based on “just exercise when you feel like it, maybe, or don’t, whatever.” They all say, NO MORE EXCUSES, schedule it in, find the time, do it.

So what’s the difference between what every mainstream fitness program says, and what Maria Kang is saying? She’s a young, attractive mother with a smoking hot body who has obtained that figure through hard work and exercise, and flaunts it. And why shouldn’t she? What’s wrong with it? If someone else’s figure is deeply offensive to you, then I suggest not looking at the photos, reading the stories, or subscribing to her website. But why should it offend you at all?

I have mixed feelings about the expression “Things will only hurt you if you let them” because sometimes people are really assholes and do say things specifically targeted to hurt people’s feelings. Example: if you get new carpeting put in your house and show me with pride and happiness, and I say “Carpeting is for stupid people who like allergens” then I am being an asshole. But if someone posts a flattering photo of themselves, saying that they have done away with excuses and have obtained a targeted level of fitness, and that you can too, well, I fail to see how that shames anyone. This is one of those cases where if I have an issue with it, then it’s my issue to deal with.

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I’m quite proud of this photo, actually.

Sometimes when a woman celebrates a breastfeeding milestone, or talks about her pride in giving her baby the very best start in life due to breastfeeding, I get a pang. I think of my own two children who I weaned very early and it makes me sad; but is it the fault of the breastfeeding mother? Is she talking about breastfeeding specifically to make me feel bad and ashamed of my own perceived failure? Of course not. It’s my issue and mine alone. It’s not her, it’s me.

And so I find it disheartening when I hear all this bashing about women and their bodies: from “Scarlett Johansson looking “fat” in a bikini” to “Real Women Have Curves” memes, from “Marilyn Monroe was a size 16” to “Denise Richards is too skinny”. There are the things we say to each other and about each other: “I hate you, you’re so skinny,” or “She probably has an eating disorder,” or “I hate to tell you this but you’ve gained so much weight that I’m worried about you!” We fixate on these things and so someone who purports to inspire young mothers to achieve new levels of fitness is slammed as a bully or a fat-shamer. We disparage fat people and we disparage skinny people and everyone’s body is up for criticism.

Lately there’s been a meme on Facebook, a “love your selfie” game where you post a photo of yourself without makeup and with natural hair. I love it because it’s celebrating what we are, our natural selves, even though this is what I look like au naturel:

Before

Even with that photo, I do love myself. There are things I do not like about my appearance, certainly. There are things I would change if I could, but on the most part I’m happy with my physical self. I wake up every morning at 4:30 and practice yoga for ninety minutes, I watch what I eat, I try to get enough vitamins, rest, and balance in my life. I can do a lot of things: I can play Fur Elise on the piano from memory, I can bake awesome cookies and read story books with all different voices. I can do calculus and analyze statistics and throw on a great Southern accent from that time I was Amanda Wingfield in my high school production of The Glass Menagerie. I can do this:

042040

But there are many, many things I cannot do. There are lots of things that YOU do that I admire, that I do not do myself: run marathons, press up into handstands, have the patience to spend your days working with children, take courses while juggling everything else, keep it together while your husband travels, travel alone to exotic locations, tote little people around all day. I cannot decorate cakes, swim laps, knit, sew on a button, or drive to new locations without much assistance and many tears. I have never turned a cartwheel in my life. But the fact that I do not or cannot do these things does not mean that I hate you for saying that you can do them. I do not feel that your ability to do these things shames me in any way. I’m proud of you for being able to do them. When my children were babies I was more like a chewed up piece of old string than Maria Kang, but that does not mean that Maria Kang has shamed me.

What I want us to do is look at ourselves, really look, and realize how beautiful we are. We are so beautiful, so interesting, so smart. We don’t need to feel inferior because of someone else’s success, because of someone else’s figure, vacation, job, or children. WE are successful, WE are beautiful, whatever the shape of our bodies and our days. What I want you to do for yourself is to really look at your life, really look at it, and see what amazing things you’ve done: the everyday things and the extraordinary things. I want you to see yourself for the amazing and beautiful person you are. Because I know you are. We all are.

Boy oh boy!

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I feel the same way about the safe arrival of the royal baby that I did about the royal wedding – it’s happy news. In the midst of so much tragedy, sadness, and overall gloom that we hear on the news every single day, the arrival of a baby is such a joy. My grandma told me this morning that it could be weeks until we know the name. Weeks! I sure hope she’s wrong because I don’t think I can stand the suspense. I’m going for George, for the record. Squee, the baby’s here! And it’s a boy! Maybe one day Kate will be staring off into the distance while the little boy prattles on and on and ON about Pokémon, nodding and “mmmhmmm, that’s nice, he evolved, mmmhmmmm” just like I do every day!

At the moment I am getting a brief respite from constant Pokémon talk, and that is because the children have discovered a new online game called Animal Jam. It’s a sweet, gentle, and educational National Geographic game, and I’m both pleased that they are playing it and also supremely annoyed. They play simultaneously, so they can send each other little notes and gifts, which is so very sweet but also requires the use of both computers. The whole reason I give them screen time is so that I can get some writing done in relative peace, and their use of both computers is cramping my style. This is the same feeling I get when I let them have screen time and they have the sudden need to show me every single thing that they are actually doing on the computer/ Wii/ television. Mom, look, Mom, look, Mom, you have to see this, it’s so cool, Mom, Mom, Mom… This is defeating the purpose, children. And yet I always look, because saying “Just go play goddamn Angry Birds already!” doesn’t seem like an appropriate response.

Goddamn Angry Birds. I’m getting all nostalgic about my own babies, which just goes to show you that enough time has passed that I can remember all the good things – staring at the new baby with awe, sniffing his little head, a little bean of a baby curled up on my chest – and I don’t think about the exhaustion, the crying, the body that felt like it had been hit by a truck.

Awww! Look at the little beans. I feel like sniffing a baby’s head right this very second; there are no babies handy for this, however. Anyone want to come over? Bring your new baby. You can have a nap while I sniff the baby’s head. Meanwhile, I have ordered “What’s Happening To My Body” and “It’s Perfectly Normal” and they arrived today, so I may just lie down singing a mash-up of Landslide and Cat’s in the Cradle for a while. Good grief. 

I read this archived article about Prince William’s birth and found it touching and poignant, especially since we all know how that story ended. I also am highly amused by this (fake) photo of Prince Charles (thanks Nan!). GRANDPA CHARLES NEEDS A HUG!

   

It’s the end of the school year as we know it (and I feel fine)

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Hello there! It feels like a long time since I’ve posted, so I’m hopping right back in the saddle. Things have been busy around here. I’ve oscillated from overwhelming love for the city and all the generous and kind people in it, and overwhelming despair that it will never be enough, no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to help. It’s a silly feeling because of course change is the sum effort of individuals, and every little bit matters, and with that attitude I bake more cookies and muffins, buy more diapers, offer to do laundry, etc., etc. Things are improving, but it’s taking time, of course.

Because of the flood school was cancelled until today, which is a half day merely to say goodbye, clean out desks, and pick up report cards. It was very strange to go back to school today; almost as strange as not being in school for four days just before summer vacation.

 
 
As usual at the end of the school year I’m a little verklempt at the thought that they are now FINISHED another grade, in this case Grade Two and Three. On the one hand, it feels like all the awesomeness of having older kids, who I am closer and closer to launching into the great big world, and I feel like I’m doing well with preparing them for that. On the other hand, time makes you bolder, children get older, I’m getting older tooooooooo….
 
A while back I read this fantastic post by my friend Swistle that really summarized how I feel. It’s ALWAYS the Best and Worst of Times is extremely apt when talking about children, right? There has been some discussion lately about favourite ages and least-favourite ages and I can say, firmly, that I don’t have a favourite or least favourite. Part of this is because I don’t remember the stages very well. I think this is due, in part at least, to extreme sleep deprivation over the years 2004-2010. You would think that such sleep deprivation would lead me to say that those years were not great, but you would be wrong. Such memory lapses means that I can be like one of those sweet old ladies who only remember nice things and not the horrible ones. Sure, there were gross diaper blow outs and incessant crying and no sleep and terrible worries about introducing vegetables before fruits and would that ruin their eating for the rest of their life OMG he is trying to eat playground gravel. But there was also this:
 
 
 

And this

 
Also this
 
 


Actually, that last picture reminds me of the baby screaming while I tried to bathe him and the very young toddler falling off the stool while trying to help and everyone crying and…well…I like my biggish kids very much.

In any case, we can’t stop time so we may as well enjoy it! Here’s to another great summer!

69 Days of Summer Vacation; Mark and Jake Are Going To Do It All!

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I was going to do a “Wordless Wednesday” and just post this picture of my kids on their last day of Grade One and Two:
But there is a reason I don’t do Wordless Wednesdays, and that is because I am much, much too wordy.  I want to tell you all about the last day of school and how I held my friend’s four week old baby boy today, and he was all curled up like a little bean on my shoulder and he fell asleep, and now my boys are all huge (see above picture for relative hugeness) and pretending to be hip-hop artists, apparently, and how sad I am that their favourite teacher is leaving the school and so Jake won’t be in her class next year, and how she whispered “I love you, Jake” when we were leaving, and how she described Jake as blossoming from a shy little boy in September to one of the leaders and role models of the class, and how happy she was to have Mark in her class for two years, and how she described Mark as having a huge love of learning, and how I came home and while thinking about fleeting time I missed a step going up the stairs and slammed my bare foot on the edge of the step and now it’s all swollen and bruised and how I’ve been home for two hours and still haven’t accomplished any of the tasks I set out to do, and how I’m wondering if a beer would solve these problems.
It might.
So I’m not going to think about my empty nest eleven years hence, but instead I am going to relate snippets of life around me over the past couple of weeks.
Overheard at the mall:
Girl #1: I think I’m going to stop dyeing my hair.  The roots are coming in too light.
Girl #2: What’s your natural colour, anyway?
Girl #1: Like, ash blonde?
Girl #2: WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Girl #1: Ash blonde?
Girl #2: Oh my god.  Ash blonde?  Your natural colour is ASH BLONDE?  Why in the world would you EVER colour ASH BLONDE?
Girl #1: I didn’t think it was that exciting.
Seen while driving: a billboard proclaiming “Look your Stampede best!  With BOTOX.”

Conversation between the kids, after watching Empire Strikes Back:
Mark: Mom, I thought you said that Princess Leia and Han Solo were in love.
Me: Yes.
Mark: They totally do not seem like they are in love.  They just bug each other all the time.
Jake: Mark!  That means they are going to get married.  Sometimes your wife is just a pain in the butt all the time!
Me: Jake!  Why would you say that.
Jake: No, Mom, it’s true!  That’s what being married IS. 
Me: I’m not a pain in the butt to your dad.
Jake: I didn’t mean you, Mom.  Sometimes it’s Dad who is the pain in the butt.
Conversation at my dinner table:
Husband: You look really nice today.
Me: Thanks.
Husband: No, I mean it.  You look great.  That shirt is great.  You should wear it more often.
Me: Thanks!
Husband: It’s so nice to see you in something colourful.
Me: This shirt is navy.
Husband: Yes, but it’s not black.