Some Days

Some days it feels like my life boils down to a basket of unfolded laundry, and a trip to the grocery store, and correcting behaviour. It seems my life revolves around food preparation and then cleaning up. Some days it seems like someone always, always, always needs something from me. The dog needs a walk, and a brush, and fresh water. Dinner needs to be made, and then cleaned up. The kids need me to read to them and to get out the craft supplies and to zip zippers and to pretend to be a triceratops – No! A Transformer! No! We’re playing dinosaurs! But I want to play Transformers! – then they need me to help them compromise on a game. They need me to tell them not to scream at each other, then they need hugs. They need to be near me chattering away every second and they need me to listen to them. Some days it feels like I’m too stretched, I can never, ever fill all their needs because their needs are expanding indefinitely. No matter what I do it’s not going to be enough. Everyone needs something and right now. Some days it feels like this is it, this is all, which is wrong and ridiculous and I know I have a great life and I know I have nothing to complain about, I know, but there it is, a sea of domestic drudgery and I’m drowning in it.

Then my husband senses what kind of day I’m having and takes the boys out and returns with three perfect Gerber daisies, my favourite, and I feel small and petty and I think, well, it’s a full moon, maybe, maybe I will feel better tomorrow. And I do. I do feel better tomorrow.

The Real Thing

One of the community dads actually got to run with the torch, and he was kind enough to bring it to the school for the kids to see. Much, much better than the rain stick and cowbell, don't you think?

Share the Flame

Yesterday the boys’ school held an Olympics assembly, and I don’t know if this is indicative of upcoming “ladies’ holidays” but I was completely verklempt the whole time, what with the children’s unabashedly enthusiastic singing of their school spirit song, the ribbon wielding “Opening Ceremonies” dancers, and the mock torch relay, with the ’88 theme music blasting in the background. Not to mention the song about friendship. Consider me weepy.

Weepy, and also amused at Mark’s kindergarten class and their somewhat tuneless performance of a song about courtesy and good manners, set to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”. Mark in particular sang like the Frankenstein monster, but with less emotion. “I was embarrassed to sing that song”, he informed me later. “I’m a Little Teapot is for babies.” The performance was in sharp contrast to the perky and sweet little emcee, who, at its conclusion, chirped “Fantastic singing! Thank you kindergarteners!”

I really enjoy the Olympic spirit, if not the events themselves. Other than some figure skating – click here to see me and David Pelletier! – I don’t watch any of the events. However, since I am married to someone who does follow every event, I generally know what is going on with them. It’s the same reason that I know a lot about the NFL. Immersion, people.

I have a feeling that my immersion level is just going to increase, as the boys are very interested in the Olympics. Currently, they are fascinated by the torch relay. This has led to some very active and loud games in which they brandish a rain stick and a cowbell, of all things, and run around the house in the manner of torch bearers. Unfortunately, depending on the time of day that they decide to run the torch relay, things can deteriorate quickly, as I’m sure you can well imagine given that the torches are a rain stick and a cow bell. Let’s just say that the Olympic spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play can be somewhat elusive in such a situation.

I think I just slept too well.

I am aware that many of my readers are chronically sleep-deprived, so I don’t mean to brag about what I did Friday night. I slept – get this – ten and a half hours. I know! It’s remarkable, really. I woke up feeling groggy and my body was stiff from so much sleep.

Just writing that reminds me of a beautiful woman I used to know. She had porcelain skin, shiny thick hair, and gigantic blue eyes fringed with the most amazingly thick, long, black lashes. If you happened to remark on those eyelashes, she would reply “Ugh. You know, I can’t wear mascara if I’m going to be wearing my sunglasses. My lashes end up being just way too long, and they hit the lenses.” In other words, don’t hate me because I’m beautiful – my eyelashes are really just too luxurious. I just got too much sleep on Friday.

My last post generated several comments about the horror stories foisted upon pregnant women, and while those about miscarriage, stillborn babies, collapsed uteruses and other horrifying endings are certainly the most disturbing and terrifying, stories about lack of sleep are definitely the most common. Enjoy your sleep now, the story teller will say with an evil glint in their eye, because after the baby comes you will never sleep again! And while there is a kernel of truth in this – my best friend, I’m sure, has not had a solid night’s sleep in nearly seven years, due to her four children aged six and under – this particular information transfer is not productive in any way. I don’t think there is a woman alive who thinks that the addition of a child to the household, whether by birth or adoption, will not affect her sleep in a negative way.

I myself expected to be essentially in a coma after each baby was born. I expected the sleep deprivation to result in my morphing into a babbling, drooling, incoherent idiot. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself actually functioning. Not that I was particularly coherent or intelligent, but I was functioning! Although comments from somewhat well-meaning older female relatives about other, ostensibly superior, babies who were sleeping through the night at two weeks of age and how well their ostensibly superior mothers were functioning would inevitably arise and destroy that feeling of well-being. Isn’t that strange? First people tell you how exhausted you are going to be after the arrival of the baby, then they tell you about amazingly rested and refreshed women and their angelic sleeping babies.

But back to the present. I have only this strange observation following my sleep marathon on Friday: I actually did not feel rested or refreshed. I was in a weird daze all day, rubbing my stiff neck and back. I felt actually less rested than on a usual night, when I get fewer than eight hours of sleep and am woken up a couple of times, either by Jake’s weird dreams - “I saw a baby elephant! And it sprayed me with water!” - or Mark’s “Hi Mom! I’m just going to the bathroom!” announcements. So, at the risk of offending my poor sleep-deprived readers, I will venture to say that ten and a half hours of sleep is, perhaps, not all it’s cracked up to be.

PSA - What NOT to say to pregnant women

I was talking with a friend who is currently eight months pregnant about the strangely insensitive things that people say to gestating women. Then I read this post and thought that today’s post would be a public service announcement: things not to say to pregnant women.

When I was pregnant with Mark, I was working on a natural gas trade floor, and the majority of my coworkers were male. It was the kind of workplace in which your colleagues would, on a daily basis, scream “What the f**k is the number? This f**king thing isn’t updating. Nicole! Your f**king model isn’t working! Can you just f**king fix it? F**K!” One colleague, in a fit of rage, smashed his phone receiver against his desk until it broke. It was that kind of environment.

In other words, if you wanted to work there with minimal emotional damage, you had better toughen up, buttercup, and do your crying in the ladies’ room.

But after I announced my pregnancy many of my coworkers reacted with extreme sensitivity and thoughtfulness. One colleague who became a father a few months before I was due – and his lovely wife has since become a friend of mine – was particularly solicitous, giving information and moral support, and bringing me snacks. Many snacks.

Those snacks undoubtedly contributed to my double-the-recommended weight gain, and that weight gain prompted another, younger, and single coworker to joke, “What happened to Nicole? Did you eat her?”

And so, dear reader, that brings me to the number one thing not to say to a pregnant woman. Never, never suggest that her weight gain is such that you suspect her of consuming an adult human. I laughed humourlessly at his joke, and then immediately considered whether poisoning or strangulation would be the better route to take.

Of course, I did look like this:

And I still had a full seven weeks to go before my due date, when that photo was taken. Can you tell I developed pre-eclampsia?

Upon consultation with other women, I have garnered a number of gems to avoid:

1) “Wow! You’re HUGE.” No woman wants to hear that, especially one whose hormones are running rampant.
2) “The pregnancy really has helped your complexion!” Actually, forget pregnant women. Don’t say that to anyone.
3) “Do you have twins in there?” And as an addendum, after a woman has assured you that no, there is only one fetus in the womb, do not follow up with “Are you SURE? You know, those ultrasounds can be mistaken.”
4) Do not assume you know the due date. Wait for the woman to tell you when she is due. Don’t say things like “It must be any day now!” This happened to me. When I was pregnant with Jake, a perfect stranger said, “I bet you’ll be happy to have that baby before the summer begins, with the heat and all.” It was early June. Jake was due at the end of September. AND, I was a mere shadow of the woman I was when I was pregnant with Mark; here I am with three months of growth to go.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to comment on what NOT to say to pregnant women, or to anyone for that matter.

Sophia Loren and her "face"

Did anyone see Sophia Loren on the Golden Globes last night? Why, Sophia? Why? WHY? Why would a beautiful woman do that to herself?

It is sad to me that our society, our celebrity-obsessed, reality television watching, air-brushed and photo-shopped society, is so obsessed with youth and so focused on the external, that a woman of Sophia Loren’s caliber, with Sophia Loren’s bone structure, turns to plastic surgery and ends up looking like this:



I love when you meet an elderly woman whose face radiates joy and kindness, the sort of face that, even though she may not have been a nifty number in her day, showcases the kind of beauty that can only be obtained through inner peace and happiness. I love that. In Hollywood, however, if at 20 a woman has the face she was born with, then at 40-plus she has the face she bought and paid for. It is depressing, a sad testament to youth and beauty worship that is endemic in this culture.

And yet even as I write this I am cognizant of my own hypocrisy.

I wear lip gloss to walk the dog. If it weren’t for the miracle of hair dye I would be completely mule grey, thank you Dad, and so I trek to the salon every seven weeks. I am criticizing Sophia Loren but I have no idea what it would feel like to be an internationally celebrated beauty, one who is aging and losing the very essence that made her famous. My face is not my fortune, so I do not know what effect the passing years would have on my emotional state. I can criticize, but I am doing so from the relative comfort of my mid-thirties.

Compassion is an important element in the cultivation of inner beauty. So even while I feel revulsion towards the youth culture that prompts beautiful women to turn their faces into frightening masks, I am trying to find compassion, to feel sorry that they are drawn to do so.

Time keeps on slipping

It’s been a big week over here at Girl in a Boy House headquarters. Mark started swimming lessons at school, and it has been great. He loves it. I will admit right now that I fretted a lot – privately – about school swimming lessons, although that may be partly due to the waiver that the school sent home. Evidently DEATH, DISMEMBERMENT, and INJURY are lurking everywhere, from the ½ block walk to the pool to the actual swimming lessons themselves. Of course, the same exact waiver was sent home when the kindergarten walked the ½ block to the library. “I absolve the school of blame for death, dismemberment, or injury from possible slipping on the ice/ crossing the street/ bleeding to death from a paper cut in the children’s book section”. I know they have to cover their bases but really. This does not help if you happen to be a nervous sort with a not-so-little phobia about public swimming pools and their change rooms. You might be thinking that I should probably tone down the crazy just a little, and you would be right.

So anyway, Mark is having a great time, swimming with his friends and reportedly doing just fine in the change room, unlike his crazy mother. The first time I enrolled him in swimming lessons, he was three years old and I ended up withdrawing him after two sessions because I just couldn’t take the crying any more. I also couldn’t take the other mothers, whose children were splashing and singing happily, who kept advising me to “just put him back in the pool, or he’ll never get used to it.” After withdrawing him, I fretted and worried and was convinced that I just contributed to a lifelong fear of water and that he would never learn to swim. I enrolled him again when he was almost five and he loved it, and he is learning to swim.

Is it me, or is our society programmed to start children in sports and activities too early? A friend was telling me about parents leaving their sobbing children on the hockey rink for an hour, refusing to take them off, because that would encourage a quitter’s attitude. These children were three and four years old. As my friend said, “Is that any way to introduce a child to a sport?” I vehemently spoke against starting a U4 soccer league in our community, for two reasons: a) we are constantly short of volunteers and a U4 league would require a high adult-to-child ratio, and b) if you want your three and four year olds to run rampant around a soccer field, surely you can do so in a non-organized way. I was reading that Olympian Chandra Crawford started cross-country skiing at age one, essentially as soon as she could walk. Well, I’m not too worried about quashing my children’s Olympic dreams; they are much more likely to be mathletes than professional athletes.

The other big event this week was that I registered Jake for kindergarten. Let’s all just sit silently for a minute to absorb that information. I recall Jake as an infant in the Baby Bjorn, where he lived for months, as I chased around his not-yet-two-year-old brother. I think about the cumbersome double stroller, the myriad diapers and gargantuan diaper bag, the way I frequently envied mothers of school aged children. There’s no need to make children do things before they are ready, because the time speeds by so swiftly, even when it seems to be crawling. That period of my life that seemed interminable at times is now rapidly ending.

I don't know about you, but I am completely overwhelmed by the situation in Haiti. The images I have viewed are so incredibly unbelievable to me - people using their hands to pull bodies out of concrete rubble because of the total lack of heavy machinery, blocked roads, looted food supplies. Not to mention the children. I am just feeling completely overwhelmed by it.

For those of you in Canada, the Canadian government is matching donations up to a maximum of $50 million. Some companies, my husband's being one of them, are also matching employee donations. Every little bit counts.

You're out of touch, I'm out of time

“Why do old people always talk about the weather?” I clearly recall asking my mother this question, probably flipping my spiral-permed hair with my mood-ring-adorned hand and rolling my eyes. Likely I was wearing a black Depeche Mode concert t-shirt with ripped jeans at the time of this comment. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would speak about anything as mundane as the weather. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine not having incredibly meaningful conversations about poetry and alternative music at all times, the kind of conversations that would arouse emotions and incite heated debate.

But how about this weather?

It has been unusually warm over the past couple of days, and, since I am acclimatized to minus twenty, it feels like an absolute heat wave. A heat wave in which I am still wearing my winter boots and coat but still. It’s the kind of weather that instantly lifts my mood and makes me feel like Spring! Is! On! The! Way! Of course, this is ridiculous considering where I live but let’s just walk away from negativity, shall we?

I watched the movie In Bruges this weekend and it was incredible: hilariously funny, heart-breakingly touching, and possibly one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen. I enthusiastically recommended it to a few people, and the response was, consistently, that it is a great movie and that they saw it a few years ago, when it came out. Oh. I am always months and years behind on movie watching. One of these days I’m going to watch Brokeback Mountain. Even my grandmother has seen Brokeback Mountain – she saw it in the movie theatre – so I am officially more out of touch with popular culture than my grandmother. Actually, I am way more out of touch; she probably knows who Kim Kardashian is. The last movie I saw in the theatre was Pirates of the Caribbean Part Two, and I slept through most of it.

All of which is to say, I’m feeling a bit old. This feeling is not helped by the radio station I listen to, which frequently advertises for Grey Power Insurance. The other day I was listening to it, and the theme song from Golden Girls came on. First, I didn’t know that it was an actual song, not just a theme, and second, I SANG ALONG TO IT. Passionately. “And if you threw a PARTY, invited everyone you KNEW…”

What’s next? Coercing my husband into watching Jeopardy! and then answering all questions, out loud, in the form of a question? Oh wait.

Happy Homemaker's Household Hints

If I had posted yesterday, like I intended to, you may have been concerned for my mental state and perhaps you would have had all sorts of interesting suggestions to combat my case of the Januarys. Or perhaps not. Anyway, people, I have been BLUE. Blue and gloomy and so very very sick of being freezing cold all day long. But it seems that the weather has broken and so has my mood, and this is partly due to the application of my patented anti-sadness formula of…drum roll…housecleaning and bread baking!

Maybe I should rename this blog “The Happy Homemaker”.

You know that kind of activity that is known, when you are pregnant, as nesting but when you are not pregnant it is simply crazed maniacal cleaning? That’s what I have been doing. Crazed maniacal cleaning. Like, baby, I am going to town on those baseboards. I have my spray bottle of cleaner and I am scrubbing the hell out of my kitchen cupboards. All those weird little nooks and crannies are now appropriately disinfected. Or inappropriately disinfected. The problem with this kind of cleaning project is, while it is quite satisfying for me, no one else (read: my husband) can really notice the results. So while I’m showing him the fruits of my labour with a crazed glint in my eyes, he is looking at me in the alarmed and suspicious way that you might look at someone who just spent four hours in a 1950’s housewife stupor.

As an aside, several years ago I received an email, undoubtedly from my mother, entitled “Helpful Household Hints”. I don’t actually remember any of the hints except this one: “Stop throwing out that leftover wine! Instead, freeze it in ice cube trays to use later for sauces!” I am still baffled by that hint. Who has leftover wine? Don’t you just, um, drink it? Especially the amount that would fill an ice cube tray. If you have wine that would make one single ice cube, suck it up and, well, suck it up. That, possibly, is the worst household hint I have ever heard.



But back to the second part of my anti-sadness formula – bread baking. Just when you thought it couldn’t get more exciting than baseboard cleaning, here I am talking about bread. Today I made two baguettes, and they actually look like baguettes! And taste like baguettes! My New Year’s resolution is being kept, and it’s already the ninth! I know it’s a bit late, but maybe I will make another resolution: not to throw out any leftover wine. I’m just going to drink it. It’s going to go great with my baguettes.

A Bad Case of the Januarys

The house is quiet. It feels strange to have a quiet house. The boys are both at school this morning, and yesterday I felt quite moony about it – the end of holidays, back to the routine of drop-offs and pick-ups and layering on piles of winter clothing, back to being chilled all day long from the constant comings and goings. January. Yesterday snow fell all day long and it was difficult to tell where the snowy ground stopped and the sad grey sky started. I think I’ll paraphrase the movie Office Space and say that I have a bad case of the Januarys.

Hoo boy, I’m gloomy. First of all I was gloomy because it was the end of holidays and the start of school. Now I’m gloomy because Jake cried when I dropped him off. All morning he kept saying, in that button-pushing voice, “Moooommmm, I’m going to miiisssss you. Mooooommmm, I’m going to be sad when you leave. Mooooommmm, I don’t want to go to school.” At first I responded with that bright, cheery voice used by mothers everywhere, that I would miss him too but we would each have a GREAT morning and he would see his FRIENDS and have FUN. After several of those choruses, my bright and cheery voice evaporated in a cloud of impatience. Later, I watched him file with his classmates down the hall to his classroom, wiping away tears the whole way. I should have felt sympathetic, but I confess I felt frustrated, and somewhat guilty. Like instead of dropping him at his happy little pre-kindergarten with his teacher who sings constantly and tells everyone that they are special just the way they are, I was actually dropping him into a Victorian orphanage where they will force him to eat lumpy burned porridge and beat him for fidgeting.

There’s just no pleasing me, is there? I’m sad because the kids are going back to school and then I’m sad because they’re not thrilled to be going back to school. Well, that’s not quite true – Mark was fairly ecstatic to be back. I worried a little because he has a new teacher, but he seems to have accepted the change with zero adjustment time. “I liked Miss T.,” he said, “But Mrs. T-S will be nice too.” Huh. His relationship with change resembles his father’s. I guess Jake – and his small aptitude for accepting change – is more like me. Jake and I? We are sad when things change, we are sad when people leave, we are sad when our routine is disrupted, but eventually we make peace with it and get on with our lives.

So hopefully there will be no more tears at drop-off. Otherwise, I fear I’m going to have to use my you-don’t-know-how-lucky-you-are voice, and start telling him about Victorian orphanages and the like. And no good can come of that.

New Year, New Me?

There’s nothing quite like a fresh start, is there? I think that’s why New Year’s resolutions are so tempting. A New Year – A New You. Each and every time I open my mailbox, it is full of flyers from various companies salivating over Resolution People and their Willingness to Spend Money on Fresh Starts: fitness clubs, diet and nutritional programs, exercise equipment outlets, and health food stores. Today I received a four page flyer advertising various cleanses. Have you ever been on a cleanse? I once tried the Wild Rose 12-Day Cleanse and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it was one of the poorest decisions of my life. Really, what good can come of a cleanse, unless you exclusively eat KFC, Coke and gummy bears? And if that is your particular diet, then perhaps a cleanse isn’t going to solve all your issues.

But I do understand the concept behind resolutions: there is a feeling of openness, of new beginnings, of unlimited possibilities. I’m just a little cynical about the actual keeping of resolutions, especially when they are of the “complete lifestyle change” variety. People, if I were to make a resolution that said I was going to a) take up jogging, b) eat liver on a daily basis, and c) wear shorty-shorts and crop tops, you can bet that I would also not make it to the middle of January with resolutions kept. I would not likely make it one day.

So what I’m saying is I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. Which is not to say that my life has no room for improvement. I do tend to make resolutions, but they are more daily resolutions, such as “Today I will play dinosaurs for at least one hour without becoming distracted and needing to leave the room after being violently killed and eaten by my fellow dinosaur players.” Or, “Today I will have a snack prior to picking the kids up at school, rather than simply drinking eight cups of coffee and having a blood sugar crash together with a caffeine high and then becoming incensed after tripping over the backpacks that have been left in the doorway and stepping with my sock foot in a gritty puddle left by the discarded snowboots and screaming at the boys for leaving their things lying around while they are themselves irritable and ready for lunch.” Sometimes I keep those resolutions, and sometimes I do not.

But I did make a New Year’s resolution, and it was to start baking bread. Hold onto your hats! Baking bread! I became inspired after reading this, and thought, I like baking things, and I like bread. What a great resolution!

There is a drawback, however. I bake all the time, I bake cookies and muffins and quick loaves. I bake those things because I like to send them in the boys’ school snack bags. It makes me feel like a Very Good Mother, to send them a snack that I Baked Myself, along with some cut-up Fruits and/or Vegetables. Very Good Mother. Also, no matter how many of those items I bake, I am not overly tempted to actually eat them myself. I can pretty much take it or leave it when it comes to most baked goods. Except fresh baked bread.

I love fresh baked bread; yesterday I made my first loaf of herbed cheese bread, and it was so delicious that I ate piece after piece, fresh from the oven. So, I am wondering, if I keep up with this whole “bake bread” resolution, will that necessitate a “stop eating the bread you bake” resolution? We’ll see.