Category Archives: I love my friends

I’m Back and I’m Stylish!

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I was vacationing in California for ten days, escaping the frigid cold back home.  However, since cold follows me like a puppy, temperatures were far below normal in Palm Desert and Anaheim, where I was.  Almost everyone I et commented on the absurdly cold weather, but since it was still comparable to an average ten days of summer in Calgary, I certainly wasn’t complaining.  In Disneyland, there was a wide variety of clothing styles: obviously native Californians wearing down jackets and toques, and people who had travelled to California, dammit, so they were going to dress as planned, in shorts and sleeveless shirts.  As for me, I wore my normal three or four layers and it was quite pleasant.

We were visiting my parents in Palm Desert, which is a haven for retired and semi-retired snowbirds and their visiting grandchildren.  The population is so aged that it affects the local economy: there seems to be a high concentration of medical centres and places to plan your own funeral, conveniently enough.  “Smart Cremation – It Just Makes $ense!” a billboard called to me, adding, “Ask About Our FREE Veteran’s Kit!” 

For some reason that seemed highly disconcerting to me.

The Palm Springs area is also home to some fantastic outlet shopping and so my husband and I ditched the kids for half a day andd took advantage of President’s Day sales.  I ended up with wildly cut-price Uggs and Sevens, thus cementing my cougar-licious status.

And so I’m feeling very stylish, which makes me even more happy to receive a Stylish Blogger’s award from Laila and Heather over at Significantly Simple.  Thanks girls!  The rules of receiving the award are a) to link back to the person who gave it to you, b) tell 7 things about yourself, and c) pass it along.  So here are seven things about me: I like wine, I practice ashtanga yoga, I like to garden, I love NYPD Blue and think that David Caruso was strangely hot in the first season, I have an addiction to black sweaters, I hate the trend towards 3D movies, and I really like music from the 70s.  As for passing it along, I give this award to my three bloggy besties: Bibliomama, Wrath of Mom, and Happy Geek – these girls are like my sisters, and they make me laugh all the time, even when they complain about my black sweater addiction.  I pass it along to my Canadian Mom girls: Kat’s Confessions, City Mom, Whispered Inspirations, Make Mommy Go Something Something, Pampered Patty.  I pass it along to my bloggy friends who have not blogged in a while (but they should!  they should.) Frog and Toad Are Still Friends and Literary Cacophony.  I pass it along to No Whey Mama, who took a break from blogging – I guess having four children takes precedence over blogging – but she’s back in the game and I’m so, so happy.  Finally, I pass it along to the awesome Mothering Mayhem, Lisa at This, That, and the Other Thing, and also to Marilyn at A Lot of Loves, since she’s so fun and gave me lots of hints about enjoying Disneyland, which she loves. 

Speaking of which, I am bursting with posts about that and the rest of my vacation, but I’m truly exhausted from travelling all day.  In fact, I’m not even sure how I managed to write this post!  But I missed you all and I’m dying to catch up. xoxo

"Child abuse": a little rant

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How was your weekend?  Mine was quite lovely filled with lots of socializing – hello, fulfilled New Year’s Resolution! – and food.  Much delicious food, most of which was made by me.  Yesterday I made my friend Happy Geek’s favourite pasta salad, and now I am ruing the day that I discovered said recipe, as it was delicious and I ate the entire batch at dinner, my husband and children having opted for the ever popular “breakfast for supper” menu. 
I have a number of blog friends that I follow, and most of them are mothers.  What I do not follow, however, are any of the “parenting forums” that are rife on the internet.  I never, never read debates about child rearing or any of the issues that go with, because I find them inflammatory and negative.  I like to stay in my happy little world, for one thing, and for another, most of the child rearing issues that are most impassioned are the ones that deal with things I have already dealt with, such as breast feeding, diapering styles, and sleeping through the night.  I made my peace with my own decisions long ago and my children seem to be fine.  They are healthy, they have long been toilet trained, and they sleep just fine.  Of course, Jake did not sleep through the night until he was four and a half years old, but hey, he does now.
It was nearly six years ago that I read a debate on a parenting forum, with regards to breast versus formula feeding.  As always with this topic, there were many emotions involved.  One woman wrote, and I remember this so clearly, “You can formula feed all you want.  I myself do not subscribe to child abuse.”
Of course a comment like that would come from someone who has clearly low self esteem, someone who would speak so cruelly to other people, someone who has little space in their minds for empathy.  I remembered that comment and then swore to never read another parenting debate again, because even if an individual is crazy, and mean-spirited, those kinds of emotions have a way of glomming on to other people, and negativity breeds negativity. 
Then this past week I happened onto another debate, completely by accident.  It was a discussion about take-out food.  We very rarely get take-out at our house, we eat at restaurants once in a while, I try to cut out most of our processed foods in favour of whole foods, but I realize that there is flexibility needed in the world and having chicken fingers and fries in your freezer does not mean that your status as “good mother” will be revoked.  But in this debate, a woman – maybe it was the same woman? – stated that feeding McDonald’s to your children was akin to child abuse.
Now, I don’t eat at McDonald’s.  My children don’t, as a rule, eat at McDonald’s.  But here’s the thing: I highly doubt that anyone who has gone through the tragedy that is child abuse would compare their horrific experiences to formula feeding or a Big Mac.  I think that a Happy Meal is in no way comparable to fear and pain and trauma stemming from child abuse.  When I hear things like this it infuriates me; such insecure comments minimize important issues and are simply meant to be divisive.
We’re all doing our best. 

Blue Monday Cures

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Today is Blue Monday, the day that is scientifically and mathematically proven to be the most depressing of the year.  So let’s fight the power, shall we? 
If the best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing (implied: Christmas songs) loud for all to hear, then C(x) = f(singing), then it follows that the best way to spread non-Christmas cheer is by singing (implied: non-Christmas songs) loud for all to hear, i.e., NC(x) = f(singing N).  So here is your challenge, if you choose to accept it and you are feeling the effects of Blue Monday: sing Tonight’s the Night as loudly, earnestly, and passionately as possible.  You’ll feel better immediately.
 Whenever I think of Tonight’s the Night I always visualize the vinyl record playing, a guy clad only in his leopard print briefs, swaying his hips sensually to the music, blow drying his feathery hair with a large roller brush, singing passionately.  Tonight’s the night, gonna be all right, cause I’m in love with you and ain’t nobody gonna STOP US NOW.  Sometimes I imagine a poster of a red bathing suit clad Farrah Fawcett in the background, or maybe a KISS poster. 
I always wonder if Rod Stewart sings his songs to his various girlfriends/wives.  I wonder if he sang it to this woman just before he impregnated her:
Photo from The Daily Mail

That article shows why it would be difficult to be a celebrity, or married to a celebrity (since I’m not actually sure if she is a celebrity or not).  She looks gorgeous, right?  Yet the comment from The Daily Mail is

Although it was the perfect dress to give her bump plenty of room, it was less than supportive around her bosom which has massively increased as the pregnancy has developed.
Well, thank you Daily Mail.  Bosom?  This is not the 1800’s, we don’t generally refer to it as “bosom” anymore.  Also, clearly the author has never been pregnant, because if there is one thing pregnant women agree on unequivocally, it is the gigantic increase in their bra sizes.  We are all shocked and often dismayed at the enormous breasts we grow, and the bra sizes that we thought were mythical are ours.  Even my one girlfriend who was amazed that she was finally in a B cup, even she was astonished at the massive increase in her bosom.
Honestly, I give this woman kudos for being a gorgeous, ripely pregnant woman being out and about and not wearing a muumuu, house slippers and a pained expression, the garb of any woman in their ninth month of pregnancy.  The article goes on to say 
She didn’t appear to be feeling the cool weather either…(she) went bare-legged and wore flip-flops.
Again, really?  Pregnancy was the one and only time in my life that I wasn’t perpetually cold, and remember how difficult it was to put on shoes?  So yes, Daily Mail, I suppose she probably wasn’t feeling the cool weather as being pregnant is akin to having your own internal furnace turned to “the fires of hell”.  But maybe that’s just me.
On reading this “article”, such as it is, two other things strike me: a) Rod Stewart is 66, and b) he has seven other children, including a five year old.  That’s spreading the musical genes around, no?  I think it would be strange to have such a spread in age between children, but then again I suppose that he is not likely the one who is doing the night feeding and diaper changing.  But maybe he is, I shouldn’t judge.
I shouldn’t judge because I do like his music, sadly.  I especially love to sing If You Want My Body in a Scottish accent, a la Mike Myers in So I Married An Axe Murderer.  I was doing that in my car recently when my friend, of jewelry and belt buckle making fame, walked by.  That was humbling, although she was very non-judgemental about the whole situation.  But I say to you, if you are blue today, on this bluest of Mondays, try it.  Watch this video, sing along, and see if you don’t feel immediately well and happy.        

Makeup, Wine, and Say Anything

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I live in a neighbourhood with a lot of senior citizens, so I’m pretty used to opening my mailbox to find flyers from McInnis and Holloway about planning my own funeral so that things will go just the way I imagine.  Not that I imagine my funeral much, but it’s nice to know that the funeral people are so accommodating. 
These flyers unnerve me a bit, but on Thursday I opened my mail to find something much more disturbing: an envelope addressed specifically to me, containing a subscription card to a magazine catering and celebrating “older women.”  Ahem.  I have a feeling this has something to do with my recently purchased subscription to Chatelaine, which confirms my status as a suburban Canadian mom.  I’m reading the recipes and beauty hints, people.  I actually considered making red velvet cupcakes with beets – a superfood! – but then remembered that cupcakes are sacred and that vegetables should not be pureed into them.  Especially beets.
But back to celebrating older women.  I like older women.  I think that there are few things more beautiful than a face with smile lines and happy wrinkles.  I truly think that inner beauty starts to show externally as we age.  However, I don’t consider myself an older woman just yet.  Give me a few years, magazine people!

I have been feeling fairly youthful this week – despite a conversation with some friends with regards to fruitily-scented makeup phenomenons of our early years.  Does anyone remember Kissing Potion?  Ah, you couldn’t really say you had arrived until you smeared your lips with that gooey, chemical strawberry-flavoured liquid.  It’s been probably twenty-five years since my Kissing Potion days, although I have remained a lipgloss and lipstick junkie to this day. 

Are you a makeup person?  I most definitely am.  I am such a makeup person that I’m surprised that not everyone else is.  One of my good friends, who is lovely, almost never wears makeup and I was shocked to discover this.  I just assumed, because she is so pretty, that she wore makeup, but on close examination and questioning, I discovered she doesn’t.  Then I discovered that many, many women, whose lovely faces I admire, never wear makeup!  It was honestly a shocking discovery.  Before you think that I am being crazy and vain and obviously my own insecurities are driving my makeup addiction, let me tell you what happened the one time I showed up at school drop-off makeup free and with my hair in a ponytail.  Five – FIVE – people came up to me and asked if I was okay.  Wow, you look tired today!  That’s something no woman wants to hear.

But there is a reason I’m feeling youthful, and if you know me at all, you may be shocked to learn that I have given up drinking wine on weekdays.  I know!  I’m saving all my love, for yooouuuu, and by you I mean the weekend, and by love, I mean wine.  I have to say, I had a lot more energy this week and I’m attributing it to that.  My husband suggested that I drink a week’s worth of wine in one night and then live-blog.  Despite the entertainment value that such a scheme would possess, I just don’t think I’m up to drinking eight glasses in one sitting. 

Apropos of nothing, “Saving All My Love For You” has reminded me of that great Whitney classic “Greatest Love of All.”  One of my favourite movie moments ever: in Say Anything, the graduation scene where the guy is singing that song?  “They can’t take away MY DIGNITY.”  Alas, my dignity was gone with this post when I brought up Kissing Potion.

*EDITED TO ADD*
I was just voted Site of the Week over at Canadian Moms!  I’m so excited!  Thanks, everyone over at that fabulous site!  Love you guys!

All the cool kids are doing it!

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And so will I – a Year in Review.  Yes, I know it is the sixth of January and most year in reviews have already been posted, but I was far too busy writing about people who eat toilet paper and watching When Harry Met Sally.

So what happened in 2010 over at the Boy House?

January

I made a resolution to learn how to bake bread, and did so immediately, learning two important things: a) baking bread is not as hard as I thought it would be, and b) the key to New Year Resolution Success is to aim low.

I also ranted about the weird things people say to pregnant women and posted a picture of me with an extra seventy pounds to love.

Yowza.  I still had seven weeks to go at that point.  SEVEN WEEKS.
February
We got really, really excited about the Olympics.  We also went on our first ever winter vacation and became a parody of Canadians as the kids got off the plane wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Team Canada logos, and instantly started running around shrieking in amazement, “Mom, look!  There are FLOWERS!  And they’re REAL!  And the grass is GREEN!  And there’s no SNOW!”
March
Mark turned six!  I had my usual crises with regards to birthday party planning and Daylight Savings Time.  I cleaned out the office and found a whole box of mix tapes, some labeled “Party Mix” and one that was made for my husband from one of his old girlfriends that included songs from Richard Marx.  Hee.

April

I turned 35!  I celebrated by chaperoning on a field trip to the firehall, and cemented my cougar-like status by volunteering to try on the firefighter outfit, discovering just how heavy said outfit is, and actually saying to the young and attractive firefighter “Wow, you guys must be in great shape.”  Coo-coo-coo-choo, Mrs. Robinson.  It also snowed a lot and I wrote about attractive movie characters who would be terrible to be married to, i.e., Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient.


My friend lent me a tiara for my birthday, fulfilling my lifelong dream of birthday crown-wearing.

May
Jake’s pre-Kindergarten class had a Mother’s Day tea in which they sang a song that went “May there always be sunshine, may there always be blue skies, may there always be mama, may there always be me”, and I still tear up thinking about it.  I also cried a lot thinking about this Tim Horton’s commercial and I got way too excited about the woman with the MBA with a concentration in economics winning Miss USA.  Clearly May is an emotional roller-coaster of a month for me.
It was still snowing in May.
June
It was really cold.  On Father’s Day weekend – and Super Soccer Saturday weekend – I attended a yoga weekend workshop.  Happy Father’s Day!  Now take care of the kids all weekend.  The kids finished school and my husband came up with a plan in case my kids ever decide to be protesters at a G-20 Summit. 
My two favourite pictures of Mark ever taken.  He’s getting his groove on at the end-of-school-Stampede-breakfast.  Note that it is June and Jake is wearing his fleece jacket.
July
It was raining and cold and I decided to make yarn octopuses, which turned out as well as any craft I make does.  Terribly.  We went to the Okanagan for some sunshine.  The cold and rain made me become Miss Carpe Diem, and so any day with slightly above average temperatures had me running the kids to the pool.
The yarn octopuses, Moppy and Bum, doing a duet of Heart and Soul.
August
It was still cold and rainy.  I wrote a lot about fashion, especially the jeans with zippered ankles that came out that made me feel like I was wearing turquoise slacks and a coordinating blouse, hobbling around with my walker and my Scotch mints, with a tissue in my sleeve.  Also – and my friend just reminded me of this yesterday – I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said “Vagitarian”.  I still laugh evilly thinking about it.  Vagitarian.  Says the guy who lives in his mom’s basement.
September
Mark started Grade One and Jake started Kindergarten.  We got hardwood installed by two attractive young whipper-snappers which led to many “hardwood” jokes.  Also I came home to find that they had taken out my drawers to move my dresser with ease, and my panty drawer was proudly on display for all to see.  So I had to show my panties to get hardwood.  Hee.  Also, Jake turned five!
Too cool for school!  Note the boxes of hardwood at right.
October
In typical October fashion we seemed to have a lot of viruses, dead squirrels, and excitement about Halloween.  Also I went on a two-night vacation with my husband and no kids!  And we all survived!  Actually the boys had the time of their lives and still talk about how awesome it was that Grandma picked them up at school.
Boo, I’m a scary witch!  For real.
November
It snowed a lot, I got ready for Christmas, I ran the Scholastic Book Fair, Mark barfed.  That pretty much sums up November.
A foam finger!  It says “We’re #1 – bp”.
December
I blogged almost exclusively about Christmas, Christmas songs, Christmas baking, and my new awesome sexy bitch boots.

Whew!  If you’re still reading this, thank you!!!  So 2010 was a great year, and here’s to a wondeful 2011 for all of us.

Be Kind Resolution, or How I Resolved to Drink More Wine

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In the height of holiday overindulgence last week, a good friend said “I didn’t want to make New Year’s resolutions, but at this point it’s impossible not to.”  I understood.  I’m not generally one for traditional New Year’s resolutions, although I am feeling kind of bloated and sugar high from my own indulgences.  But, as a jovial older colleague used to say “It’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s, it’s what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas”, which is, I think, very astute.  Unless of course your regular diet consists exclusively of Double Downs, Coke, and Sour Patch Kids, in which case a change just may be required.
In other words, I am looking forward to getting back into regular routine next week, one that will contain much less mint chocolate, given that it is quickly disappearing from my kitchen. 
I do have a New Year’s resolution this year, and that is to entertain more, go on more coffee dates, and enjoy wine with friends more.  As opposed to enjoying wine while sitting on my couch in pajamas watching Jeopardy and stating answers in the form of questions, which I’m still going to do.  One cannot make drastic changes overnight.
That’s the thing about resolutions and their high percentage of failure – the rate of which I don’t know exactly, but I would hypothesize it to be 99%.  I mean, who really keeps resolutions?  Well, I did last year but that is because my resolution was to learn how to bake bread, which I did by mid-January, with the assistance of the best cookbook ever, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which I recommend and wish I was getting a marketing fee for the number of times I mention it to people.  Artisan Bread people, are you listening?
Where was I going with this?  Oh yes.  Keeping resolutions.
A little while ago I went to a workshop with this lovely woman, who spoke about compassion.  If you wish to be a truly compassionate person, she said, you need to start with yourself.  It’s true, isn’t it?  Aren’t we our own worst critics?  Nowhere is that more apparent than when you are in a room with people making New Year’s resolutions.  I don’t think that there is anything wrong with wanting to change bad behaviours, or trying to achieve a goal, but can we agree to do it in a more compassionate, more loving way?  Perhaps try to walk more or eat healthier in order to feel better, rather than the standard lose-weight-exercise-more-I-am-a-big-fat-whore?  Self loathing is very destructive, and this is why I think most resolutions are never kept – they are based in unkindness towards oneself.  If changes are needed, implement them with kindness and compassion and joy, rather than punitively.
This is why my resolution is to be with and enjoy my friends’ company more.  My prediction is that 2011 will be a very good year.
Are you making resolutions this year?  If so, what are they?  (Remember: be kind to yourself!)

It came without ribbons! It came without tags!

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The impending combination of lunar eclipse, full moon, winter solstice, and winter break is wreaking havoc on my house.  Faced with the first day of no school, Mark unravelled a little bit.  I have noticed this phenomenon before, and so I know it is short lived, which is fortunate, because otherwise I would need to lock myself in the bathroom with a bottle of wine and a Candace Bushnell novel.  It’s not like it is some go-with-the-flow free-for-all around here.  The boys still get dressed in the morning and we maintain some semblance of a routine, even on holidays, but even so Mark has a tendency to unravel in the face of freedom from school routines.  So far he has drawn upwards of twenty pictures today, coloured in his Bakugan sticker book, and reorganized his collection of dinosaurs and Bakugan balls.  All that in between snapping at his brother who, in the face of freedom from school routines, copes by hugging, pulling at, and generally invading Mark’s personal space.  Hence my longing for chick lit and wine.  As I said, though, if history is any indication, by tomorrow things will be running much more smoothly around here.
It probably doesn’t help that my kids are also completely jacked up on sugar, thanks to the generosity of my beautiful friends who are responsible for my kitchen full of delicious treats including chocolates, homemade truffles and candies, and miniature cakes in the shapes of gifts, complete with fondant bows and decorations.  Not to mention many bottles of wine, which just goes to show how well they know me.  Did I mention I love my friends?  I love my friends.  I’m so blessed.
When we talk to the kids about Christmas we try to focus on time with friends and family, good food, joy, and love, but inevitably things come down to gifts.  I think gifts are a lovely part of Christmas – I still recall the feeling of seeing the dollhouse my grandfather made for me when I was five – but I do find it curious that if you are attempting to shift the focus away from getting, the first thing people ask your children is what they asked Santa Claus for.  Everywhere we are inundated with messages of consumerism, and commercialism, and your-Christmas-will-be-ruined-if-you-get-the-wrong-gift, and I find it fairly vile.  It reminds me of commercials for engagement rings, of the “show her how much you love her” variety.  When it became apparent that my husband and I would be married, I spoke out against diamond rings as a tool for commercialism, artificially inflated values, and ostentatious displays of wealth.  Tool of the patriarchy and a strike against feminism!  And so I don’t have a diamond ring, smart girl that I am.
It’s a hard balance.  I think my children have so much that they couldn’t possibly want or need anything else, I think sometimes they are completely spoiled and indulged, and yet we do buy our children toys and books at Christmas, and they do get many things from their doting grandparents and aunts and uncles, and if you think for one second that I’m going to call up my mother-in-law and tell her not to send her only two grandchildren any more gifts because they already have more than enough, well, then you have another think coming.  The only result of that kind of conversation would be of the “No One Here Gets Out Alive” variety.  And so I try to suggest gift ideas that will allow for much creative play, and that will last a long time, and that will not break instantly so that they can eventually be donated when outgrown.  I want my kids to enjoy their gifts, but more than anything I want for them to remember the holidays as a time of tree decorating and gingerbread disasters, and playing in the snow and parties with friends.  I want them to appreciate what they have and remember those who want for things, and yet still enjoy the pleasures of childhood.  Is that too large of a Christmas wish?