A few weeks ago, I picked up We Need To Talk About Kevin from the library, on the recommendation of a friend.  I took it back today, 90% unread.  Over the past couple of weeks, I would pick it up, read half a page, and put it down again, upset and unnerved.  Upon telling him about it, my husband – like my friend’s husband – asked why I would ever want to read such a book.  The answer, as I took it back today, is that I don’t.

When tragedy strikes, some people take deep breaths and hug their children more than usual.  They think about the first time they were allowed to go to a movie by themselves, they think about how they take their good fortune, their family, their very lives for granted.  They vow to do something good for the world; sometimes they even follow through.

Other people, people I don’t like so much, use tragedy as a platform to politicize, or to push their own personal agenda, or – and this is the worst – to sell or market their own products.  As an example, I know someone who, the day after the tsunami in Japan, referred to the tragedy as Mother Nature unleashing her wrath about our collective mistreatment of the earth.  If that wasn’t enough, he then began touting his product that would counteract any negative effects from possible radiation exposure.  TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS MIRACLE PRODUCT.

I think we can all agree that the days immediately following a tragedy are not appropriate for politics or – god forbid – sales.  

Fuck it.  I AM going to push my own agenda.  That is this: be kind.  Live the change you want to see. 

When I was pregnant, and due before my firstborn would be eighteen months old, I fretted to a girlfriend about the logistics of getting around with two very small children, especially with the long winter looming in front of me.  After giving me some practical advice in the areas of infant carriers and double strollers, she patted my arm and said “Don’t worry.  You’ll be amazed at how helpful perfect strangers can be.”

Her words turned out to be very true.  Countless doors were held open for me as I struggled with the heavy and awkward double stroller, and once someone helped me navigate that same stroller, impossibly stuck in the snow, through a slushy parking lot.  Strangers offered to return my grocery cart for me; they carried my takeout coffee to my car while I wrangled the little ones into their car seats.  A woman smiled at me and said I was doing a good job as I held back tears, holding a screaming, colicky infant in one arm and a tantruming toddler in the other.  Every single one of those acts was almost effortless for the givers, but for me they would change my day; each act was a gift to me, a beam of sunshine in what I would later recognize as one of the most difficult periods of my life, that first winter that I was an exhausted and overwhelmed mother of two children under age two.

All these years later, I remember those moments perfectly.  Those gifts of compassion and kindness inspire me every day to look with compassion and kindness on the world.  There is so much sadness and anger in the world, but we all have the power of choice.  We can all make a choice to make someone’s day a little brighter, with a smile or a hug, an encouraging email or phone call, a kind word or a compliment. 

There is a tenet in yoga called ahimsa, which literally means non-violence or non-harming and stems from the belief that all living things are connected.  I believe this is true and I believe that we all have a responsibility toward each other, to treat each other with kindness, to spread positivity and good energy.  Think of the amazing power in that!  A small gift of compassion can have a snowball effect; one person truly can change the world for the better.

In light of the tragedy in Aurora, remember this: the best way to deal with terrible tragedy is to do something good for the world.  Start with yourself.  Be kind.  Be well.  xo  

If you’re from Calgary, or you know someone from Calgary, or if you have ever been in the vicinity of Calgary, then you know of what I speak.  For the benefit of my readers who are not in the YYC area, I will attempt to educate you on the local cultural phenomenon known as the Calgary Stampede, which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year!

The Stampede takes place for ten days in July, and the Stampede grounds are the site of many a teenage group date/ drunken debauchery/ parents walking around with furrowed brows and crying children.  I don’t go to the Stampede grounds anymore, but I do enjoy the general camaraderie that only decorative hay bales and store windows painted with cartoon cowboys and bucking broncos can bring to an urban platform.  It’s not a big deal to me now, but when I was working in an office downtown, Stampede basically equalled a license to get drunk during the day and on company funds, two-stepping with drunken coworkers and watching them do tequila body shots off of waitresses/prostitutes, wheeeeee.  I am not even kidding about the prostitutes, people.  We like to pretend it actually IS the Wild West out here. 

The weeks following Stampede, divorce attorneys are kept busy, and sales of home pregnancy tests skyrocket.  March brings a mini-baby boom every year.  I have a son born in March, ahem.

Another “benefit” of working in downtown during Stampede is the novelty of being able to don “Western wear” at the office.  For many, that simply means wearing jeans.  For an alarming number of people, though, it means WESTERN WEAR.  I don’t know how many times I was completely startled by a co-worker who, during the rest of the year would be wearing normal business casual clothing, but during Stampede would show up to the office in skin-tight Wranglers, a Stetson, and a shirt with wolves howling at the moon on it.  It was oddly unsettling, like my co-workers had whole other lives aside from stressing out, screaming obscenities at brokers, and breaking phones (true story).

Let me be clear: I’m not a hater.  But this week is full of fashion disasters, and it doesn’t have to be that way.  Little dress worn with cowboy boots and jean jacket?  Cute.  Super short Daisy Dukes with “Save A Horse: Ride A Cowboy” t-shirt?  Skanky.  

As an aside: I really, really want to get one of those shirts when I’m ninety and living in a nursing home.  It will be simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.  Wearing one NOW would indicate that I’m a slutty coug, and would probably alarm my non-cowboy husband, but when I’m ninety?  COMEDY GOLD, BABY. 

But there is good Stampede wear:

I may be biased since I have a total girl-crush on Kate, and also I love all her clothes and her shoes, my god, her SHOES.  There is also terrible Stampede wear:

  
This is a poor, poor choice.

Now, lest you think I’m being judgemental, I’m not.  I just want to prevent complete fashion disaster.  Let me give you the benefit of my experience; back in the early nineties I had a denim vest, for the love of god.  A denim vest.  And I wore it, over a tiny cropped tank top, to the bar.  That denim vest was the catalyst for the only celebrity comparison I ever received: a very, very drunk man told me I looked like Shania Twain.

Note: I do not look like Shania Twain.

Stampede can be fun, though, ignoring the bad fashion and the poor life choices that are frequently made.  This morning my parents took the boys and I to a private pancake breakfast where there was a good band playing, bouncy castles, and a plethora of sno-cones, popcorn, and cotton candy.  Jake received a cone of cotton candy that was way bigger than his head; Mark had three sno-cones.  Good times were had by all.  Plus, it was at the military museum!  Boys + tanks = happiness.

The noise in my house is insane right now.  The kitchen flooring is being very loudly ripped up and replaced, tiles are being demolished in the bathroom and entry way, and there is the loud sound of a Shop Vac and the omnipresent outside voices of the contractors.  I peeked upstairs to see the process and was very surprised to note that none of the contractors have any sort of ear protection, which seems a little reckless.  I am fighting the urge to be motherly to these guys, to force some ear protectors on their unwilling selves.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who has three daughters, the youngest of whom is three years old.  She was tired, my friend, and she spoke of needing a break from her kids, which I understood completely.  I understood, but from afar, because I realized that I really don’t.  I never feel as though I need a break anymore since my days are generally one long break – the kids come home for lunch, true, but they are at school for almost six hours a day – and now even on Saturday mornings they are gone golfing with their dad.  I realize that it’s only a month until summer vacation, and then it will be all testosterone all the time but still.  I don’t hang out with the kids the way I used to.  Even when they are home they are usually immersed in their own games and rarely require anything of me other than to listen to their discussions and feed them snacks.

Sometimes it’s a bit lonely, is all I’m saying.

In anticipation of the flooring installation today and the appliance delivery on Thursday, I cleaned one hundred and thirty six pieces of the boys’ artwork off the fridge.  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX.  In some places the pictures were seven or eight deep, held on by super-strength magnets.  I looked at them all with much nostalgia and gloom; the family portrait Jake had made when he was three, complete with a giant curly circle which was meant to portray Barkley, the thirty or so pictures Mark had made of Muk-Muk and his imaginary friends, the recent pictures Jake had made of Mario Kart, and a whole series of pictures by Mark of various Canadian wild animals.  I realized suddenly that the kids don’t make me pictures much anymore.  At one point they were drawing twenty pictures a day, and now it’s rare that they sit down with the markers just to draw.  Yes, occasionally Jake will sit down and draw a Star Wars-themed picture, and Mark often sits down to make lists about who is winning what imaginary game with which imaginary weapon, but we don’t go through piles of recycled paper like we used to.

When I realized that, on taking the pictures down, there might not be new ones to put up, it was all I could do not to sit in a corner with the pictures cradled in my arms, rocking them like the babies I no longer have.

Pardon me while I sob a little bit.

It’s not like I want to go back in time; I do remember the exhaustion and isolation of having two little ones, I do remember feeling resentful when the weekend came and I was still on duty, playing endless games of farm animals or trains.  I spent how many months and years inventing things to do all day, thinking of activities and games to pass the time, the endless hours, and now there is never enough time in the day.  I remember wishing just for a few minutes to myself, just some time without the kids climbing on me asking me questions or tugging on me or needing me.  And now I have hours and hours.

We should all be relieved to know that the makers of Nutella have lost their class-action lawsuit and are now slated to pay $2.5 million to consumers who thought – misled by the company’s “part of a healthy breakfast” claim – that Nutella was a healthy food.  Because it was purported to be “part of a healthy breakfast”. 

Sock it to the man! you might be saying.  Down with the big corporation misleading the public! you may cheer.  Occupy the breakfast table! you say as you raise your clenched fist.  Or, you may be responding the way I did: weary acceptance of the stupidity of the general public, and expecting to see many, many more of these kinds of lawsuits.

I know.  I’ve written about this before, when the lawsuit was just being launched.  Personally, I think that Nutella is as much part of a balanced breakfast as Cocoa Puffs or Froot Loops – i.e., it is worthy of being a very occasional treat, but it is not a healthy, everyday item.  Full disclosure: I buy Nutella maybe once every couple of years, usually as an ingredient for a decadent dessert or baked good.  I never buy things like Cocoa Puffs or Froot Loops because in spite of their claims of being part of a balanced breakfast, I have the ability to read the label and conclude that no, those foods do not provide the kind of energy that I want my children to have first thing in the morning.  I’m empowered due to my ability to read labels.  So are you.  So is the general public, even if they are too swayed by advertising to see it.

And this is what I find especially infuriating: parents being too swayed by advertising to make intelligent, informed decisions about the optimal foods to feed their children.  The issue being that Nutella, while similar in nutrition to peanut butter, is very high in sugar, leading to obesity and Type 2 Diabetes, and that, of course, is never mentioned in the commercials.  There’s sugar in Nutella?  But they don’t say that on TV!

Well, it is a chocolate spread.

As I see it, commercials are an opportunity to discuss with your children that not everything is as seen on TV.  When my kids were little, they became obsessed with a certain Hot Wheels track set commercial.  The tracks fed into dinosaurs, which, in the commercial, chomped the cars and launched the cars and it was amazing.  Amazing!  My children coveted these tracks so very much.  Then Mark received this track set for his birthday, and was eventually gravely disappointed in the flimsy plastic tracks and the easily-broken snapping dinosaurs.  Wait – the cars don’t fly through the air!  The commercial was WRONG.

This sparked many discussions about how not everything is as cool as it seems on TV.  Until the day that there is 100% truth in advertising, it is up to us as consumers to decipher and make informed consumption decisions, and it is up to us as parents to educate our children about this.  This is true for children’s toys, for Happy Meals, for products purportedly intended to make our lives easier, healthier, and happier.  

We need to take responsibility for our choices.  What are we teaching our children, if we simply throw up our hands and say we were lied to, despite the easy-to-read label on the jar.  They said it was healthy!  It’s not!  Now I will sue!  What we are saying is that we have no personal liability; our choices are someone else’s fault. 

I want to shake the people who are actively wasting resources that could be much better spent, the people who are participating in this suit.  I want to say: read the label.  Make a choice.  Take responsibility.  

Well, you know.  We all want to change the world.

I used to be a dedicated non-resolution-maker, but in the past couple years I have made – and kept! – resolutions at New Year’s.  Of course, one of those resolutions was to learn how to bake bread, so it’s not like I’m asking the impossible of myself (bread baking, it turns out, is remarkably easy).  Last year I resolved to be more social, and to stop drinking on weekdays.  I did both of those things, and I continue to do them, as I continue to bake bread regularly.  It was a bit harder – I had to get myself out of my homebody rut a bit, and I had to get used to relaxing on the couch without a glass of red – but I found that they were resolutions that really had a positive impact on me, both my body and my mind.  My yoga practice improved and I know giving up the weekday wine had a part in that.

I had to think for a while to decide on resolutions for this year.  If I’m going to resolve to do something, I want it to be something lasting, a lifestyle change, if you will.  I have decided on the following resolutions for 2012:

Drink Less Coffee

Don’t get me wrong, I still heart coffee very much and I am still going to enjoy 3-4 cups a day, but it’s going to be 3-4 cups a day, rather than 6-8 cups a day, and I don’t think I need to explain this further.  To this end I have stocked up on tea.  Helllllooooo, methadone!  To be honest, the teas I have stocked up on are herbal and/or decaf, so it’s not exactly a methadone situation.  It’s more like one of those plastic pretend cigarettes people use to quit smoking.  I am cold all the time and I like to sip on something warming, so I think the teas will be just the ticket.

Be More Patient

This is mostly for the kids.  It’s not that I’m particularly impatient with the kids, but I do find myself becoming snappish or going into “fly-off-the-handle” mode for silly things.  This is not to imply that I’m going to let my children run wild and undisciplined while I explain quietly that Mommy Does Not Like That Behaviour And Here Are The Reasons Why, but I’m going to be more patient with them being just…kids.  I want to be more patient with regular kid silliness and regular kid requests, rather than getting annoyed and impatient.  Also, have you ever noticed that we – or, I should say, I – have a tendency to talk to my kids in a way that I would never use to speak to anyone else.  Why should the people who live in my house, who I love more than anything, have to be spoken to in a less-kind way than I would speak to a perfect stranger?  It does not make sense.

Walk Away From Negativity

I have decided not to let negativity affect me negatively.  Get it?  There are certain individuals in my life who are, for lack of a better word, very negative people, and I’m tired of letting their negativity ruin my day.  What I need to remember is that passive aggressive comments geared toward myself, my husband, or my kids only reflect on the commenter.  Right?  I AM RUBBER YOU ARE GLUE.  This is going to be a tough one for me; it’s always easier to believe the negative things, rather than the glowing reviews, strangely enough.  I’ve spent a lifetime taking things like that to heart, when really, a passive-aggressive person is only showing their own insecurities and that should not affect my day and make me sad.  A very good friend reminded me that an easy way to deal with negative people is to be compassionate; consider how awful that person’s outlook must be in order to be negative all the time.  I’m really going to try this; I’ll let you know how it goes.

Did you make any resolutions this year?  Do you ever?

One of the great things about keeping a blog is looking back over the year to see what happened.  In general, I can hardly remember what happened last week, let alone last January, so it’s kind of fun to look back and see what was going on for 2011.  What happened in the Boyhouse?  Here’s a look back at the highlights of the year.

January

Against all odds, I gave up drinking wine on weekdays, I survived Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year, and I watched Money Never Sleeps without actually falling asleep.

I also bought Sorel boots!  Because it was SO COLD.

February

I talked about bald men and The Bachelor, which may just be the worst show in the world, Jake made all my Valentine’s dreams come true by making me a Valentine saying “Bee Mine” complete with bee, and we went to Disneyland and I did not lose my mind (much)!

March

I got all pissy about Mommy Wars, I became mentally unhinged due to Daylight Savings Time, and Mark turned seven!

April

I had my varicose veins stripped and discovered that it is a very, very painful process (and that using the word “stripping” will bring a lot of presumably disappointed readers to one’s blog), I turned 36 and contemplated the weird cultural phenomenon that is the surgical “Mommy Makeover“, and I went to a friend’s house at 2:30 in the morning to watch the Royal Wedding!

Me, strung out on Percocet.

May

Someone wanted to name Mark’s soccer team the “Burning Blue Balls” which, quite frankly, would have been awesome, Mark’s super-persistent cough turned out to be pneumonia and I thought that perhaps I was the worst mother ever, and, completely unrelated to the pneumonia, Mark became obsessed with beavers.

June

I threatened to storm the local weather station to debate their methodology of deriving average temperatures in my city and also revealed the biggest fight my husband and I have ever had, we got a new gas meter installed, and the kids started a kids’ yoga class.  Wow, June was pretty boring.

It was also the coldest Super Soccer Saturday ever.

July

At an amusement park, Jake won a stuffed octopus whom he named Octopussy, we stalked Will and Kate at the zoo, and my esthetician quit on me and the boys became obsessed with cougars.

August

Mark was still coughing all night long even though his pneumonia was gone in May, I became extremely emotional, then suddenly excited about back to school and I also fell in love with the 1975 Sears catalogue, and I became incensed over stupid t-shirts about being too pretty to do homework.

We also went on vacation and Jake learned how to swim!

September

The boys started Grade One and Two and were placed in the same class, Jake turned six, and I worried about turning into Mullet Lady.

October

Against all odds, my dog became a bloodthirsty predator in a fluffy body and caught a squirrel, the boys learned how to dance hip-hop, and I did not stop believing, I held on to that feeeeeling at the school’s Halloween Family Dance – which was complete with girls crying in the bathroom.

November

I debated the usage of the words “vagina as a clown car“, I challenged People’s Sexiest Men list and made my own, and I talked about Movember.

We also decorated the tree!

December

I went to my husband’s Christmas party and also posted a picture of me in eighth grade, my kids got all crazy about the mistreatment of Rudolph, and I accidentally sang along to Baby It’s Cold Outside with a complete stranger in the liquor store.

So that was 2011!  What will 2012 bring?  I hope it brings much peace, joy, and happiness to you.  xoxo

Every November, I wear a red poppy.  I believe in peace, I believe in diplomacy, but I also believe that the world and its problems are coloured in shades of grey, and so I do not wear a white poppy.

I am a peaceful person.  I believe that I promote peace, understanding, and compassion in my everyday life.  Wearing a red poppy does not indicate anti-peace or pro-war sentiments.  It does not indicate political leanings or beliefs.  It indicates respect; respect for the veterans, respect for the peacekeepers, respect for Canada as a peacekeeping, diplomatic nation. 

I wear a red poppy because I have respect for those who believe in something so strongly they are willing to sacrifice everything for it.  A friend of my husband’s has served in Afghanistan.  He truly believes that the Canadian presence there is making a difference.  I may or may not agree with the politics, I may or may not agree with the decision to send troops to Afghanistan, but I respect the fact that there are people who truly believe that they are helping to end a ghastly regime and to rebuild a country.  Who am I to say that they are wrong, sitting in my comfortable, warm house with enough to eat and with healthy, strong children?  Who am I to judge what they are doing when I live a life of ease and happiness?

I wear a red poppy because I have respect for the old men with red-rimmed eyes standing at attention in their uniforms.  These men have seen things that I cannot even imagine.  They followed their sense of duty and served in ways that are obscenely horrific.  There is no glory, no glamour, in war.

I wear a red poppy to show respect to the mothers of the fallen.  I have two sons.  I live a charmed life.  I know that if I lived in another era perhaps my sons would be drafted.  Maybe I would end up with no sons, or maybe they would come home to me, irreparably damaged.  When I see a veteran license plate, I think of the mother who cried with joy when her child came home.

In November I wear a red poppy.