Category Archives: pregnancy

I’ve never been in a drunken stupor, but…

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Here it is, Wednesday of time change week and not one complaint has passed my lips. Not one! My husband, in years past, has generally adopted the traditionally masculine attitude that my vehement feelings against the observation of Daylight Savings Time and the subsequent semi-annual fuck up amounts to Nicole Making A Big Deal Out Of Something Very Minor And Unimportant. Yesterday, however, he admitted he was feeling quite tired and out of sorts and maybe it was due to time change. At this admission, I feel vindicated.
 
My children have been just fine; I guess they’ve reached the age where an hour here or there is No Big Deal At All. However, I stand in solidarity with all you mothers out there who are dealing with hot crying messes every evening and wide awake little people at ungodly hours of the morning. I shall not rest until the country has caught up with Saskatchewan, which is miles and miles ahead of the rest of us for their refusal to adopt Daylight Savings Time and its abhorrent spring forward/ fall back rituals. Also, please feel free to give a verbal dressing down to the next person who says that DST is “for the farmers”. Bitch, please. Do you have any idea what time farmers get up in the morning? The actual clock has nothing to do with it, so shut up, goddammit. If I was that kind of person I’d allude to a conspiracy theory cooked up by people who want to keep mothers down by totally fucking up their children twice a year. But I’m not. Still: DOWN WITH TIME CHANGE.
 
Speaking of fucked up, how about that mayor of Toronto? Wowza, is that embarrassing. I mean, we’ve all done silly things under the influence of alcohol or excessive Girl Guide cookie consumption, but smoking crack? In a drunken stupor? Listen, we all know how I love my red wine, and my cosmopolitans, and my margaritas, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in a drunken stupor in my life. I don’t like hangovers and I don’t like falling over. The closest I’ve come to that, lately, is becoming extraordinarily drunk at the Banff Springs Hotel with my husband and two people we met at the bar while listening to a blues guitarist. The couple was from Boston, and so they and my husband immediately bonded over the Patriots. 
 
So no drunken stupors for me, but I’ve done plenty of silly things after consuming one too many glasses of wine/ cosmopolitans/ margaritas.
 
1) I completed this Cosmo quiz and realized that the answer is “yes”.
 
 
 
 
2) At Blissdom Canada, I lay down on the hotel hallway and put both legs behind my head to show Allison and Hannah that I totally could. I blame Allison for being such a doll and bringing the peach daquiri mix and rum.

 
3) I bought hot pink yoga pants online.
 
 

4) I once danced the macarena in a Mexican bar wearing Daisy Duke shorts, high heeled sandals, and a crop top.

5) One Friday night when my husband was golfing, I live-tweeted my viewing of Top Gun. “Permission to fire, sir!” “Never fire unless fired upon.” GREAT advice.

 
6) I have, on numerous occasions, accidentally flashed my cleavage.
 

7) I was not drunk while making this gingerbread house! But the result was so depressing I had to comfort myself with a bottle of wine.

 
8) I was also not drunk in this photo! But I was fairly high on painkillers following varicose vein surgery. I was also super excited to eat the pretty fruit kabobs my friends had sent over.
 
9) I illegally brought drinks in glass containers down to the pool in Maui – in the dark! – and forced my dear, sweet friend Joanne to do the same. Everyone give some love to Joanne – she was my accomplice in illegal activities. And yet I look so INNOCENT.
 
 
 
10) I got pregnant! Hey, it was Stampede week. And then six to eight months later, I walked around looking like this:
 

Fear Leads To Anger, Anger Leads To Suffering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PSA: Don’t be a dick.

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Do you remember back in the day when you were trying to get pregnant, and it wasn’t happening very quickly, and everyone you knew was getting pregnant, and you were sad and frustrated and felt like stabbing every single person who asked “So when are you going to have a baby?” or who carefully examined what you were drinking to see if it contained alcohol or who had some unsolicited advice about getting pregnant or who said things like “You’re not pregnant yet?  Can’t wait forever!  Tick tock tick tock!”?  Remember that?  I know it wasn’t just me. 
I was reminded of this the other day and here is my public service announcement of the day: It’s really fucking insensitive to ask a woman of childbearing age about their fertility.  So don’t ask.  Related PSA: Don’t be a dick.  Actually, that should be a lifelong public service announcement. 
Segueing from PSA’s to PDA’s, yesterday I went to pick the boys up from lunch and a friend quickly walked over to me in the playground, asking if I noticed the teenagers on the hill behind the school.  There, lying on top of each other on the frozen ground, were two teenagers passionately making out and, um, grinding.  Soon the two of us were joined by three other mothers picking up their kids; the five of us staring at the oblivious couple.  Aw!  Young love.  It reminded me of that day last summer when a young couple started making out passionately in front of my house, groping each other eagerly.  The guy made it to second base.  Sometimes it just can’t wait, I guess.  
Following the advice of several people, I decided to check out Staples in my seemingly endless quest for Christmas printer paper.  I should note that this is NOT a sponsored post, but maybe it should be because even though prior to Monday I had never set foot in Staples and now I am a little bit in love with it.  This is what I saw as I entered the parking lot.
Do you think it is NOW available due to my whining?  Probably NOT but I will take the credit anyway.  I walked into Staples and – as usually happens when I’m in a new and large store – I felt completely overwhelmed.  I stood for nearly five minutes looking around, wandering into one of the aisles, having no idea where to look or what to do.  It’s almost like I’m practicing to be a senior citizen.  What’s that?  Where is the paper?  The pretty paper?  No, not THAT paper.  The only thing worse would be going into Future Shop or something like that.  Five minutes in Future Shop makes me want to huddle in a corner in the fetal position, crying and rocking back and forth.  Finally, a super friendly guy with the biggest smile ever asked if I needed assistance.  How could he tell?  He directed me to a display that was almost right in front of me. 
Squee!  Not only was there a large selection, but there were also pretty little seals in the shapes of snowflakes and seasonal address labels!  I finished my shopping on the weekend, but I could not resist what was in front of me: 
Angry Bird stuffies!  Thanks to my husband and his new iPad, the boys (and my husband himself) are now into Angry Birds.  The three of them played it together for much of the weekend while I re-read Sense and Sensibility.  It is exactly like what I thought life would be like when I had two boys.  The three of them play a video game, I do something girly.  Maybe on the upcoming weekend they will play it and I can give myself a pedicure or something.  Anyway, I thought these would make cute stocking stuffers.  Then I saw the cutest little snowman Pez dispensers with a really excessive amount of Pez refills:
They needed a home too.  Clearly the boys’ stockings are going to be VERY WELL STUFFED.  Then – then, OMG – I saw something that I am hoarding just for me:
Peppermint Lindor!  These are really, really hard to find, in my part of the world anyway.  They are EVEN BETTER than After Eights.  They are even better than frozen York patties.  They are even better than Swistle’s Died-And-Gone-To-Heaven-Mint-Chocolate-Brownies.  They are the G-spot-orgasm-plus-he-gave-me-a foot-massage-and-unloaded-the-dishwasher of mint chocolate.  I bought the above three boxes but I would have bought the whole damn display if I knew where the carts were kept.  However, as it was I had items slipping out of my arms every time I took a step, so I limited it to three.  I don’t care what Kate Moss says, peppermint Lindor taste WAY better than skinny feels.

Boring, Useless, Who-Gives-A-Shit Information

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Many, many years ago, before my mother-in-law discovered email and all the associated animated emoticons that could be utilized therein, she used to send me actual written letters, usually accompanied by a piece of knitting she had been doing – the knitted dishclothes I prefer, for example.  In one such letter she had written all about her daily doings for about four pages, then abruptly concluded with the line “Well, that’s enough boring, useless, who-gives-a-shit information for today.”  It’s something that still makes me smile, and I often mentally refer to certain things as such: boring, useless, who-gives-a-shit information. 

That is how I feel about reality television.  I never watch it, except for sporadic episodes of American Idol and, although I am loathe to admit it, The Bachelor.  I don’t watch much television but when I do it is what I like to think of as escapist television; comedies such as Parks and Recreation, for example, or Modern Family.  Serious television programs don’t interest me much unless they involve Sipowicz threatening to beat down a perp to give himself up or Dr. Sloan doing anything at all.  If Dr. Sloan took to the airwaves reading a copy of Today’s Parent, I would avidly watch it. 

As an aside, I’m quoted a few times in this month’s Today’s Parent, on the joys and pitfalls of stay-at-home parenting.  Also as an aside, the other day I mentioned that I was a stay at home mom, and received the huffy response “It must be nice to be able to afford such a luxury.”  I was  a bit taken aback by the resentful and bitter tone.  I never know how to respond to such.  It IS nice, actually.

Anyway, back to reality television.  I don’t watch it and I most certainly do not find it tempting to watch, especially if the program involves a) children, b) domestic chaos, or c) dysfunctional families.  I have my own children, I have access to my own domestic chaos, and if I want to see a dysfunctional family I will go to my next family reunion.  And so I’ve never watched the program that features the Duggar family and their very large brood, but I am aware that there is another bun in the oven, so to speak.  I’m aware of this somewhat against my will, since it is all over the news and, relatedly, all over Facebook.  In fact, someone posted this picture just the other day:

Oh, ha ha.  Good one.  Except for a few little things: a) a clown car involves all the clowns being in there at the same time, which is clearly not the case given the wide range of ages, and b) the more correct terminology would be the UTERUS, not the vagina.  Even if the children were all clustered in this poor woman’s body at the same time, they would not be stuck in her vagina.  They would be in her uterus.  But it does not matter, it is an incorrect comparison anyway. 
I really couldn’t care less how many children other people have – I maxed out on two but I’m well aware that everyone is different when it comes to ideal family sizes.  However, when I did hear that this woman has birthed nineteen (soon to be twenty) children, the first thing that came into my head was “Wow, her poor vagina!”  I mean, there are not enough Kegels in the world, if you know what I’m saying.  Which brings me to a funny story.
When I was pregnant with Mark, I worked on a natural gas trading floor in a group of men.  It was an open environment which meant that I often had someone standing behind me, peering at my computer screen.  Since I was pregnant, I had a bit of concern about the impending birth and the subsequent effect it would have on my delicate feminine essence, let’s say.  So I put “Kegel Exercises” into my scheduler and twice a day a little reminder would pop up on my screen, after which I would dutifully perform them.  One day a young male colleague and I were working together, and, predictably, my reminder popped up on the screen.  I clicked “DISMISS” quickly, but not quickly enough, as his face turned red and he suddenly needed to get something from his desk, right now.
I wonder if he could tell I was already doing them.

Nostalgia and almost-birthdays.

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I know this past weekend was a tough one for many of you, and so please accept my virtual hugs and kisses.  I did not watch the news all weekend, and I largely steered clear of the Internet, but I did think about those of you for whom this past weekend was very, very difficult.

The past few weeks have been unseasonably – I mean, really, truly, unseasonably – hot, and I’ve been loving every second of it.  Tank tops in September?  Who knew that such a phenomenon was possible?  It all came to a crashing halt today, which is fine because I’m gearing up for a busy week.  I have no time for such mundane things as enjoying the weather.  My husband is heading out of town, I have the first school council/ parent association meeting of the year, it’s Jake’s birthday, and I must procure many, many items of a baked goods nature.

This time of the year always seems very busy.  I have no time for reminiscing about Jake’s birthday, it seems.  Six years ago today, I was wallowing around like a giant panda.  Six years ago today I was eating such quality foodstuffs as Cheez Whiz on toast several times a day.  Six years ago today I felt as if the baby’s head might actually pop right out of my vagina if I walked too quickly.  Six years ago today I wondered why everyone in the world was so annoying, and why they were all out to get me with their annoying voices and mannerisms.

It’s probably better NOT to reminisce too much.  Who wants to live in the past, anyway?

I did see a woman in the grocery store today with a small girl, perhaps she was three years old.  The little girl was adorable, shrieking with excitement in the produce section: “Carrots, Mama, we’re getting carrots!  They’re orange!  Carrots!  Peppers!  I have little tomatoes!”  I was reminded of my days of grocery shopping with Jake.  I spent the rest of my trip awash in nostalgia until we got to the lineup.  The lineup that had a trifecta of incredibly slow and inefficient people: the cashier, the bagger, and the little old lady with what appeared to be several hundred coupons and who wanted to pay with every single penny she had in her little vinyl purse.  I took the opportunity to read US magazine and catch up on all those people who I have no idea a) who they are or b) why they are famous.  The little girl and her mother were in front of me, and the little girl was restless.  She asked to get out of the cart, she tried to help put groceries on the conveyor, she lay down on the floor, she got accidentally stepped on by her mother, she started sobbing for all of humanity.  I smiled at her mother, who looked frazzled and tired, I tried to make up for the crabby comments I could hear from the woman behind me. 

And just like that, my nostalgic feelings dissipated and I went to pick my big, big boys up from school for lunch.

Yee-haw

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The rain that has been coming down since Monday has stopped, and, in the manner of mothers everywhere, I have just sighed with relief and shooed my children outside.  The noise level has been unbelievable around here.  We played Go Fish and the sounds emanating from my children were ear-shattering.  Mark dislikes “winning” games, and so we played Go Fish as a game in which we were rescuing animals; anyone getting a pair rescued the animals displayed on the cards.  It was like a cooperative, super-politically-correct version of Go Fish.  My friend asked me if saying Go Fish was verbatim from an animal-cruelty perspective, and in fact Mark DID make everyone say “Go Rescue” instead.

Jake continued to say Go Fish throughout the game.

It is not a coincidence that I am drinking a beer right now.  Not just because of the, to quote the Grinch, “Noise! Noise! Noise!”, but also because it’s Stampede week!  For those of you who are not familiar, Stampede is not just a rodeo/midway/excuse to come up with ever-more disgusting food products.  Doughnut burgers are a new thing this year, and I wish, I WISH I was joking about this.  A maple dipped doughnut is the bun.  Meat in the middle.  It makes me fear for society.

Speaking of fearing for society, I wonder if carnies still try to cop a feel while adjusting safety restraints.  Or is sexual harassment via midway entertainment so twenty years ago?  It’s hard to say. 

But Stampede is more than just that.  Stampede is ten days of drunken debauchery for a large percentage of Calgarians and those who may be visiting Calgary during this time.  Divorce lawyers are busy as bees in the weeks following Stampede, and pregnancy rates go up.  My own first born was conceived during a Stampede week, and so was almost every other baby in my prenatal class.  (My second born was conceived during the Christmas season, and September is also a busy time in the delivery room.  Was Mommy kissing Santa Claus?  Why yes, she was.)

More than that, Stampede is a time where bad fashion rears its ugly head.  This was especially apparent to me back in the days when I worked in an office.  Men with whom I had a professional relationship and who would normally be clad in khakis and golf shirts would come to work clad in tight Wrangler jeans and shirts with wolves on them.  Or sunsets.  Or eagles.  And the women!  My friend Rita wrote a brilliant piece on Stampede fashion and I cannot even attempt to replicate her accurate descriptions, and so I will just direct you to read the piece.  Hootchie Mama indeed, Rita, you hit the nail on the head.

Floral Update and Rockin’ the Bump

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Did I leave you hanging?  Are you dying to find out what happened?  All weekend were you wondering: Nicole, please tell us about your clematis, PLEASE?

Well, I will tell you – the clematis is just fine.  I repeat, the clematis is just fine.



Mere hours after my last post I received a call from one of the meter movers, who was standing in the alley watching my fluffy dog barking ferociously and wagging his tail frantically.  When it was discovered that the city hadn’t phoned me about the prep work that they had to do, the foreman seemed to get very upset.  It was no problem, I said, I was home, they could do the prep work, but would they mind showing me just where they had to dig the hole?  Because I was a bit concerned about safety, with regards to the kids and the dog.  The foreman nodded, then said forcefully, “Before you say anything, let me tell you something: I am not going to hurt your flowers.  Okay?  No one is going to kill your flowers.”


Okay!  I’m not sure if my thoughts are actually that transparent or if he had just had to deal with every elderly woman on my street concerned with her petunias, but in any case I felt relief.  I did not have to resort to crying or any other questionable practices, although coincidentally it was a warm day and I was wearing a low cut tank top.  Perhaps the take-away lesson in all this is that one should always wear a low cut tank top because you never know what a day is going to bring.  It is akin to my reasoning behind my rule of always wearing makeup, because you never know who you might run into.  This rule stemmed from me running into an ex-friend who became an ex-friend when she pronounced her affection for my then-boyfriend who later became her husband.  When a person runs into someone like that, the person wants to look as good as possible, no?   

Last Friday was our school’s annual Stampede Breakfast and the weather was, oddly enough, sunny and perfect.  It made for a great day for all those dressed to kill in the Wild West:

Don’t they look thrilled to be there?  I promise you, they were.
When I look at pictures of them now, they seem like such big kids.  I can barely remember life without them, and due to all the hormonal involvement, I can barely remember my pregnancies.  However, I’m linked up with Shell today for her Rockin’ the Bump, so I’m walking down memory lane via pregnancy photographs.  Who doesn’t want to look at themselves with an extra seventy-plus pounds? 

This picture was taken New Year’s Day, and my due date was March 30, so you can just imagine how big I actually got.  I was working at the time with a lot of men, and there are good things to say to pregnant women and bad things to say to pregnant women.  Good things: You look fabulous, You are glowing, Your hair looks great.  Bad things: Oh my god, you haven’t had the baby yet?  You look like you’re going to explode, Are you sure there aren’t twins in there? (question inevitably followed by an incredible-yet-true story of a friend of a friend who thought she was having just one baby but then ended up having multiples, this despite many ultrasounds because ultrasounds can be wrong), What happened to Nicole?  Did you eat her? 
All those things were said to me, including the one in which I was accused of somehow cannibalizing myself; I’m pretty sure the guy who said that to me is still single. 
Eeep!  I’m huge!  And I have seven weeks to go in this picture.  I can’t bear to post any pictures closer to the due date because they all involve me sitting hugely on the couch with my feet elevated because I was on bedrest due to my development of pre-eclampsia.  I also had to test my own urine for protein every morning, which was pretty gross at the time, but in retrospect, no big deal.

This is one of my favourite pictures from my pregnancy with Jake.  Mark was just fourteen months in this picture, and I was five months pregnant.  There’s something about having children really close together that gives you a kind of street credit.  Wow, everyone says, you’re going to have your hands full!  You think?  I don’t even really remember the first two years of Jake’s life, so I guess I pretty much had my hands full.

This is me about three weeks before Jake was born, which was actually FIVE weeks before his due date.  Haven’t you had that baby yet? people would ask.  Around this time I put Mark in his stroller and walked to the Starbucks down our street.  It is, at most, a ten minute walk but in my waddle-y pregnant state it took me forty five minutes.  The glamour of pregnancy, when you feel like the baby might actually fall right out of your vagina if you walk too quickly. 
If you would like to play along and post some pictures, head on over to Shell’s and link up!  Or tell me here what you loved about being pregnant, what you hated about being pregnant, what kind of foods you craved or loathed….it will be fun!