Category Archives: Luckiness

Spring has sprung!

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Well, not really.
I grew up here and March is not, to me, a spring month.  It’s a WINTER month.  My birthday is in late April and that is when spring begins for me, which is not to say it won’t snow after said birthday, but it’s spring snow, rather than winter snow.  Big difference.  In the event that I move out of this city into a milder climate – one day, please, one day! – I will be stunned, surely, by flowers and grass and leaves in March but for now, it’s all about shovelling snow.
It’s easy to get down at this time of year, the sky is grey, the snow is on the ground and has been for five months, magazines everywhere are advertising spring fashions that I might be able to wear in another three months or so, if I’m lucky and it doesn’t snow, but yesterday I was walking the kids to school and I looked at their fleece toques.  The snowflakes on them were perfect; they were perfectly formed, I could see all the individual designs, they were beautiful.  I felt almost poetic, it was a lovely moment.  I showed the boys each of their brother’s toque, and we all marvelled for a moment.  I talked about every snowflake being unique; although truly that is not something anyone could ever prove, no matter how many resources you pumped into that kind of hypothesis, you could never, ever prove it.  Although I suppose you could never disprove it either.  It makes me feel someone like a snowflake agnostic.
Having a positive outlook is so important.  That’s not to say we should all walk around chirping annoyingly about every! great! thing! in! the! world! because wow, would that be annoying.  But I was reading (in O magazine, don’t JUDGE me people, I have a subscription, it was a gift subscription from my mother-in-law) about four things people have control over in terms of their health: not smoking, having a healthy diet, exercising, and having a positive, optimistic outlook. 
I love that!  I also truly believe that positivity and optimism can heal.  My father-in-law, ten years ago, was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He was a man typical of his generation; he had not been to the doctor in probably forty years, and he had been experiencing symptoms for many years prior to his diagnosis.  At the time his tumour was the size of a grapefruit, it had started to metastasize, it was encroaching on organs, he was given six months to a year to live. 
He didn’t believe it. 
He went through aggressive treatment and all throughout he kept saying, “I am going to be healthy at your wedding.”  When we got married – nine years ago tomorrow – he was healthy.  You would have never known he was ill.  Amazing the doctors, he recovered and regained his strength and until recently was cancer free.  But that’s another story.

Frivolty in the Face of Tragedy

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So.  The day after I post a story about my over-reaction to a water main break on my street, the earthquake and related chaos and possible nuclear meltdown occurs in Japan.  I feel like an asshole.

How do you talk to your children about such things?  Mine are at an awkward age where they are aware, but cannot understand the magnitude or the likelihood or otherwise that it will happen to them.  They are also highly imaginative.  I have not been watching any coverage when they are around. 

I feel it’s best to focus on ways to help.  I think that reacting in a positive way is best, because kids are not only perceptive but also naturally want to know that there is a solution.  And while there may not be a solution, exactly, there are ways to help.

I recently read something about a man who had received compliments on his child, and those compliments included the word “lucky”.  He responded very indigantly and in an offended manner, that luck had nothing to do with it; essentially he is a superior parent.  My initial response to this is that buddy, if someone is complimenting you, take the damn compliment.  We live in a society, people.  Also, I do believe that parenting has a lot to do with how your children turn out, a lot, but I also believe in karma and fortune.  I have been very fortunate – I have two wonderful, healthy, smart children, I have very few worries and concerns – and I count my blessings every damn day.  I count my blessings that I live in a place where being cold and crappy are the biggest weather-and-geographical related issues, rather than being in a place that is earthquake/tsunami/hurricane prone.  I count my blessings that I am able to sit at my laptop and bitch about my water being turned off for two hours, that I have my family and that we are all together, all safe and healthy. 

And now I’m going to sign off and go play with my beautiful children and revel in my sheer luckiness.

I once had a poster of a fish riding a bicycle.

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Yesterday, according to the internet – which is never wrong, correct? – was Booty Appreciation Day.  A moment of silence, please, while we all absorb that riveting information.
Strangely, Booty Appreciation Day is immediately followed by International Women’s Day – so happy girl power to all of us!  Fish on bicycles, women’s work is never done or is unpaid or underpaid, etc.  We all take many things for granted these days, what with our abilities to choose things or the recognition that we are actual people rather than chattel or property, so I am undyingly grateful to the many amazing women who have changed the world for all of us. 
You know what would be fabulous for International Women’s Day?  Kindness and compassion.  Here’s what bothers me: I’m a statistics girl.  I have a not-insignificant (heh, get it?) background in statistics, and here’s the thing: there is a difference between correlation and causality.  There is also something called statistical coincidence, which is an underlying problem with any statistical study.  There is ALSO something called political motivation to studies, which means that statistics can be interpreted rather liberally, or a statistical study can have a number of conclusions but if one of those conclusions meets the needs of a political issue, then that is the conclusion that will make the front page.  Consider these:
Children in Daycare Get Sick More Often: This was quite a comprehensive study that included not only large daycare facilities but also looked at nanny care and small home-based facilities, and the illness rate of school aged children, all of which had different outcomes.  But the headline informs working moms that they are subjecting their babies to plagues and pestilence.  BAD MOTHERS.
Children in Daycare Are Smarter: Again, another study that had varying conclusions but that is what made the front pages, signaling to stay at home moms that they were leading their children down a path of idiocy. Not to mention that their children will grow up without a strong career oriented mother and will think that women are only good for baby raising.  BAD MOTHERS.
If you want to add in some real excitement, talk about how breastfeeding babies are smarter, thus clobbering any mother who gave their baby a bottle and hence shaved off IQ points, or talk about scheduled C-sections versus VBACS versus home births versus epidurals versus no drugs versus water births versus OMG I ran out of time and had my baby in the back of the car on the way to the hospital.  Maybe put in homeschooling versus public school versus alternative programming.  Or perhaps locally grown organic seasonal meals versus I fed my child an Oreo.  Let’s just think about all the ways we can judge each other on our parenting skills and decisions and then resent and hate each other. 
No.
Let’s acknowledge that we are all doing our best as mothers, every single one of us.  If we have the privilege of choice, which most certainly not all of us do, then that is a blessing and something that we should support each other in.  This may be a little “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, but I really think that we have come so far as women, but we have so far to go, so let’s support each other and our choices.  Right?  Girl power.
Who reads those crappy studies anyway?  Most of us are too busy living our day-to-day lives to really care.  And if someone does care, they either have too much time on their hands or are so insecure about their own decisions that they have to be negative about someone else’s, or some combination of the two.  So for International Women’s Day and every day, let’s practice compassion and kindness, and instead of judging try empathy.  That’s really WINNING.

It says "Let’s BEE Friends!" And there’s a picture of a bee on it.

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This weekend was our neighbourhood’s annual outdoor party, complete with skating, tobogganing, and barbeque, and by some incredible good fortune, the weather was very mild, making it a perfect day.  Mark built a snowman with his dad:
I’m basking in the glory of a snowman, whose existence I did not assist in.

Cute, right?  Until his head was knocked off by some random child, the evil murderer.

Good times.  I also baked and decorated FIVE DOZEN cookies, which I tried to photograph in an arty kind of way but either my camera lacks the proper arty settings or I lack talent in photography.  Either way, here is my non-artistic take:

Mark made me a Valentine yesterday:

So very sweet.  Not only does it include Valentine’s stickers, he also used some cute ones left over from Christmas.  Then Jake came home from school today with this:

You may not be able to tell, because of my awesome photography, but the front of the card says BEE MINE.  And there is a bee on it.  I can now die happy because – and I am not joking or being ironic in any way – I have always wanted a Valentine with a bee, saying BEE MINE, or alternately, Let’s BEE Friends!  So between those cards and the fact that my husband went to the grocery store specifically to buy me a mint chocolate truffle bar, this is the greatest Valentine’s Day ever. 

When the boys gave me their sweet offerings, I thought of that Tiger Mom and her rejection of the homemade birthday card, and in case you are unaware of this newsworthy story, the Tiger Mom’s family had forgotten it was her birthday until the very last minute, and one of her daughters made her a quick, last minute card.  The Tiger Mom was repulsed by this shabby offering and informed her daughter that she deserved better.  It was not good enough.  CARD REJECTED.  I have mixed feelings about this.  If my family forgot my birthday – which is unlikely to ever happen given that a) my husband is not a dick and he knows how much I love birthdays, and b) I practically institute a countdown and wear a sandwich board in the weeks prior to my birthday – I would be extremely angry and disappointed.  But a mother rejecting a child’s artistic endeavours is abhorrent to me. 

I, like the Tiger Mom, have high expectations of my children.  I expect them to behave well and be polite, kind, and respectful; I expect them to do well in school and do their homework and reading every day; I expect them to do their chores in the house and keep their rooms neat.  I think all of those things are reasonable.  But saying to a child that a card that they made is “not good enough” is akin, in my mind, to saying “YOU are not good enough”.  And that is a tragedy.

But on a happier note, Happy Valentine’s Day to you, my dear readers!  Let’s BEE friends!  Bzzz.

Nicole’s 300th Episode!

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It’s my 300th blog post!  If this were a sitcom, I would totally make this a clip show.  As it is, I looked back through some of my archives and discovered the following things: a) I write a lot about being insane and germ-phobic, b) I talk about the weather as much as someone who is in their eighties, and c) my children have not changed much in the past three years. That’s weird.  I came across this post, which made me realize that my children’s speaking styles have really not altered since August 2008, which means that this is not a phase.

I wanted to make my 300th post profound and erudite, perhaps talking about the superiority or otherwise of Tiger Mothers (which I am not, sadly, being Scottish-Norwegian, a mixed heritage that combines the world’s worst cuisines. What could possibly be worse than haggis and lutefisk? Absolutely nothing.)  My friend Nan beat me to it with her post on Trekkie Mother Superiority, and although I have never watched an episode of Star Trek in my life, I still found this entertaining enough not to compete with.  I mean, what am I going to counter with?  Why Scottish-Norwegian vegetarian crazy germ phobic overly emotional flakey math geek yogi mothers are superior?  Because we carry around a lot of hand sanitizer, tissues, and fruit leather?  Because our kids say to each other “Uh oh, it’s a moon day! Be extra nice to Mom.”?  Because we tear up when our kids count by twos or say things like “Problem solving and arithmetic are the best parts of school!”?


Sigh.


As a side note, I recently said to a male friend of mine “I think you’re average.  No, I’m just being mean,” and then I started laughing at my own hysterical joke while he stared at me like I just had grown another head, one with much nicer hair.  After an awkward moment of silence, he said, absurdly, “Oh. I guess I was thinking of medians.” I felt like I had made a dirty joke at my grandma’s Bible study group. Actually, my grandma would totally laugh at dirty jokes. She’s pretty fun.

But speaking of flakiness, rather than awkward math jokes, my whole world is coming crashing down as we speak.  Of course I’m talking about the possible alteration of zodiac signs.  This is distressing news to say the least, as not only will I be an Aries – which I decidedly am NOT – I’m not even sure if my husband and I will be astrologically compatible anymore!  DOOM.  Fortunately a friend (whose birthday is today!  Happy birthday my friend!  Sorry you are cleaning up toddler barf instead of celebrating.) sent me a link regarding this very important issue and I have discovered that I can, happily, disregard any alterations due to star alignments, orbits of the earth, blah blah blah.  Whatever, I’m still a Taurus.  My marriage is still intact.  Thank you, birthday friend, for talking me down from my ledge.

So, it appears that my 300th post is not profound and erudite, but what can I say?  It’s Friday, I’m going to have a glass of wine and some chocolates, and toast myself!  Cheers!

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.

It only takes a minute.

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I wanted to write about something really funny today – there was a cougar sighting in the city! The resulting news stories have been hilarious: cougar spotted, if you should see a cougar you should be cautious and back away slowly. Did the cougar have botox, one might wonder. A fake orange tan? Did the cougar order an appletini and lasciviously ogle the twentysomething bartender?

I wanted to write about this and how I was out for dinner with a dear friend who was visiting from Texas and maybe we were the cause of the sighting? We were drinking martinis, after all.

I’m not in the mood though because I’m still feeling sick from something that happened this afternoon.

I took the boys to meet a group of friends at the outdoor pool today and it was a lovely afternoon, the kids all had fun, the moms had fun. The weather was warm, the water was warm, the kids were happy. My boys, however, are not what one might call strong swimmers. They wear life jackets in the pool at all times. Mark can swim in his life jacket and he likes to swim all over the pool, especially in the deep end.

About fifteen minutes before we were going to leave, Mark was sitting at the picnic table, a towel wrapped around him, having a snack. I had taken his life jacket off of him so he could dry off a bit. Jake was in the shallow end, so I was standing on the deck, watching him. I looked over to check on Mark, and he wasn’t at the picnic table. He was on the ladder, going into the deep end, without his life jacket. I screamed his name and ran down the deck but he had, by the time I got there, hopped off the ladder and was underwater. He was underwater for probably only a couple of seconds but it felt like an hour. I reached in and pulled him out.

“Sorry Mom,“ he said. “I guess I forgot to put my life jacket on.” He went to the picnic table, put it on, and got back into the pool while I stood there, shaking, my heart pounding. A good friend of mine came over to me and stood with me, saying “He’s okay. Look at him. He’s swimming, he’s happy. He’s okay.”

It only takes a minute for something to happen. I close my eyes and I can see his head under the water, his hair floating and spiky, and it only takes a minute.