Musings of a Maternal Mind

What I Might Want To Do When I Grow Up

2008-04-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

Miss S is 9 and a half months now, and she being my last child, I can't help but wonder where my life is going after my stint as Stay-At-Home-Mom is over. Granted this new phase of my life is years away, about 5 years really, but it doesn't stop me from contemplating what my plan of action will be when Career-Woman me emerges.

I want to write. I love writing. It would be so very cool if I could earn a living writing. But when I think about my future as a free-lance writer I don't see myself truly being successful. Not because I couldn't hack it, but because I lack discipline. And I don't want my writing to become a painful chore. I want it to continue to be something I do for fun. So I wonder if there's something I could do that is flexible enough to allow me to structure my day around my kids, give me free writing time, and give me a source of personal satisfaction. Tall order, eh?

The newest kernel of an idea that has planted in my mind is becoming a massage therapist. It's a 3 year program here in BC, and once completed I would be pretty much guaranteed a job, massage therapists are in high demand. I could start massage therapy college when Miss S begins preschool, lucky me one of the provinces three massage colleges is a 5 minute drive from my house. And by the time Miss S begins grade 1, I could begin working at a local clinic.

I of course have a much more elaborate and complicated fantasy involved in my newest career plan that has me being apart of the North Okanagan Birth Centre (to be founded and started by me and some other people) but I'm sure I'll be getting into that later.

Watching Star Wars With A 3 Year Old

2008-04-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

A sampling (a very small sampling) of the 4000 question game we play while we watch Star Wars for the 83rd time:
1. Is that outerspace? - Yes
2. Are those robots? - Yes, they're called droids in this movie
3. Are those real guns? - No honey, they're plastic
4. Are those bad guys? - Yes
5. Are they Storm Troopers? - Yes
6. Are they fighting with the good guys? - Yes
7. Why are they fighting? - 'Cause they want to find the rebel base, that' where the good guys are hiding.
8. Is that Darth Vader? - Yes
9. Does he have the force? - Yes
10. Is he a bad guy? - Yes
11. Does he have the dark side? - Yes
12. Is Star Wars real? - No, it's all a story. Everybody on the TV is just pretending. It's all people in costumes pretending to be aliens and robots and bad guys. They're called actors.
13, Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
14. Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
15. Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
16. Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
17. Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
18. Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
19. Is that a person in a costume? - Yes
20. Is Luke Skywalker real? - He's a person pretending to be Luke Skywalker.
21. Is the force real? - No
22. Yes it is - OK
23. The force is real! - OK
24. The. Force. Is. Real! - Yes, the force is real...
24. When are they going to get to the fighting part again?

I'm Back...

2008-04-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's all about developing and maintaining a habit. I have so many bad habits that I seemed to have unintentionally grown into, and I care and nurture these annoying habits despite my desires not to. So I'm left with a butt-load of personality quirks that I find annoying and bothersome but unwilling to do much about.

In my apathy (oh look, there's one of my annoying habits now) I have let my writing slide. I've come up with a dozen excuses, most involve the kids, as to why I haven't blogged in a really long time. But in the end, I must admit, it's my plain and simple old habits of procrastination and apathy that keep me from blogging.

My challenge now is to make writing a habit. Making time for my writing. Hmmmm, seems so strait forward when I write it out...

Wonder what the kids are up to?

If Only It Were That Easy

2008-03-06T09:10:00.000-08:00

Al: Mom, could you do a web search for me?
Me: Sure, what are you looking for?
Al: I wanna do a contest. Could you type in "contest" in the google box? I wanna win a prize.
Me: You should be more specific, there are tons and tons and tons of prize sites on the web. Tell me what kind of contest you want.
Al: Ok. Ummm... type in "kids can win". No, type in "win big bag of money". Yeah, I want to win a big bag of money. Type that in the google box.

Every Gadget Geek Has His Day

2008-03-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

A little over a week ago my husband brought home the latest object of his affection, a 42" LCD flat screen TV. And oh, how he it has captured his heart! Over the last week I have watched my husband fondle the remote, gently caress the shiny black casing, repeatedly go through the menu/setting screen, and of course warn the children of the dangers of the workhouse they'll be sent to if anything happens to the TV.

My husband has always been a new-fangled gadget guy. He loves having the newest, latest, fastest, biggest electronic doo-dad. But the last 5 and a half years of parenthood has matured him to a gadget window-shopper forced to wait and save until we can afford the latest gizmo giving him palpitations (poor man recently found out there's a new bigger iPod and is forced to suffer through life with his puney 80 gigs).

I had already agreed that when we sold our condo we'd use some of the proceeds to buy a new ginormous LCD TV. And so it was with great delight that while we were out buying new living room furniture (an absolute necessity) my dearest husband bought the TV of his dreams. Well, not quite. He scaled down a bit in size for my sake. He really wanted the 60something" TV but knew I'd be all huffy about the ostentatious size and ridiculous price tag, not that our TV was cheap. But I tell you, the pure joy dancing in my husbands eyes as he gently removed the new precious TV from its box, the giddy glee as he asked me for the 156th time "Isn't the new TV great?", his gentle tutelage of our boys as they began their training as future gadget geeks, makes every penny we spent on the TV worth it in my opinion. And yeah, turning out all the lights and pretending we're all at the movie theatre is pretty cool too.

And so, the following is dedicated to my man and his new gigantic TV:

Ah Crud!

2008-03-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

So I thought I'd get into blogging, I mean really get into blogging, and join the NaBloPoMo challenge of writing a blog post every day for a month. Yeah, it seemed a bit much but I felt I was up to the challenge. I signed up and registered my blog as a post a day for March participant. Heck, I figured I could at least try. See just how big my creative cahonies are.

Well apparently my cahonies are shriveled nuggets that I seem to have forgotten at the bottom of the diaper bag 'cause it's March 3rd, three days into the challenge, and I totally forgot about it and have not written a blasted post all month. Bah!

And now I am left with having to look back over the last 3 days and examine just what the heck I was so busy doing that I didn't put together 2 other blog posts... laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the floors, playing video games, driving monkey children here and there, complaining that I'm too sleepy, going on a family hike, fantasizing what I'd do if I won the $1000 a week prize on my scratch and win lottery ticket.

5 Year Old Wii Trash Talk

2008-03-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Says Al to his animated video game opponent:

"You're going down like a skunk in a stinky truck!"

The Old School Dilema

2008-02-29T13:19:00.004-08:00

This week was school registration week here. And it of course got me all in a twitter.

Currently, Al is enrolled in the French Immersion Kindergarten. Before moving to Vernon, Al had been attending Vancouver's public Montessori school and we loved it. But the public Montessori doesn’t start here until grade 1, so we had some deciding to do re. schooling. And ultimately we decided to take our first tentative steps into "regular" public school and try out French Immersion. I am so far unimpressed.

I'll be the first to admit I've got some real issues when it comes to schooling and educating my kids. Let's blame it on my own childhood trauma. My sad little story of childhood whoa is pretty unremarkable, common even. I went through several grades with an undiagnosed learning disability. And by the time I was officially tested and diagnosed with a learning disability I'd heard that I was either slow or lazy from too many adults and I'd given up. I became a huge advocate that school sucked. The day I graduated from high school was one of the happiest of my life, not for the accomplishment, but because it meant I'd never ever have to go back. I hated school.

Now I'm the grownup, and it's my kids reaching school age, and I of course spend hours upon hours weighing the pros and cons of every educational option. Probably not the healthiest of approaches but I am what I am.

So, no we're not happy with our French Immersion Kindergarten choice. It's great that Al's getting some exposure to the French language, but all in all, he's not getting a whole heck of a lot out of it. Al of course loves the movies that he gets to watch sometimes in the 2 and a half hour class, like Dora in French (!) and an animated version of the beloved book Corduroy (a bedtime favourite here for years, but I guess his teacher would rather show the movie), but he complains that class is boring, that the teacher talks too much, that the other kids are always disturbing his projects, that he feels frustrated when the teacher ends reading time too soon. And the French seems to be more annoying to him than anything else. Like it gets in the way of getting the information he really wants.

The end result of all this is that we're taking Al out of French Immersion come grade 1 and were putting him back into public Montessori school. It'll be a much better fit for him, and hopefully I'll be able to relax for a few years before I start to obsess over his future high school choices.

There's No Place Like Home

2008-02-26T20:02:00.000-08:00

I often forget that people actually read this blog. That there are people out there who want a sort of conclusion to events. So to satisfy those of you who have been asking what's happening with our house hunt, it's been postponed.

We did put an offer on a very sweet little house a week or so ago but it fell through because the seller didn't want us to have the qualifier that our townhouse had to be sold before we officially bought their house (we own a yet-to-be-completed townhouse in Vancouver and are now selling the yet-to-be-an-actual townhouse, ain't real estate grand?!?). So after talking to the major players in our confusing and dizzying real estate interests we decided to just call the whole thing off until the town house is actually sold and money is in the bank. It'll all be a whole lot less stressful and scary that way.

It sucks to wait though. I'm no good at waiting. I become paranoid and imagine future scenarios where all the good houses are sold and by the time we're ready to buy all that'll be left on the market will be mobile homes and a darkened fixer-upper wreaking of cat pee and stale tea formally owned by some cranky old shut in who died watching TV. Yes, I'm obsessing.

So now I wait. Wait for someone to buy my piece of paper that says they get to buy a Vancouver townhouse whenever it is that they finish building the darned thing (again, ain't real estate a hoot?!?). Wait for the right house to come along. Wait, wait, wait... and try not to obsessively go through the real estate listings looking for proof that our perfectly wonderful family home has been scooped up by some other lucky couple and we are now relegated to living in milk cartons.

Even The Sick Dogs Took Pity

2008-02-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say that I spent the last week busily living my life, engaged in fun activities, visiting new friends, walking about in the sunshine, exploring the trails of my new little oasis. But I can't. Instead I spent the last week wishing my mom would magically appear at the door, chicken soup in hand, send me straight off to bed, and then swoop off with my kids on some day long adventure.

Last Monday, the little head cold I had turned into a wicked, awful, debilitating sinus infection.

I spent my week in throbbing pain, feverish and dizzy (sometimes a bit delusional), trying to keep my kids fed and out of trouble while I whimpered in the corner praying for a merciful death. Darling husband tried to help out best he could, he drove the kids back and forth to Kindergarten/Pre-school in the morning, he tried to get home from work as early as possible, he made dinner and did the shopping. But as many of you moms out there know, there is no rest for momma! No, they would raise you from the dead in some strange black voodoo ritual and force your reanimated zombie body to fetch them juice and arbitrate arguments over the last red lego block.

My only salvation lay in that my younger 2 children were also sick so they were napping more than usual. And one afternoon the stars aligned and 2 out of 3 children were asleep in bed with me for a couple of hours while my oldest got the whole house to himself. I only had to deal with the occasional sleep disturbing calls of, “Mom. Mooooom. Mom!... Never mind”.

I only have a bit of pain in my sinuses now. In a few more days I’ll be all better and back to my normal healthy self (insert crack re. my mental health here). Boy, I’m so looking forward to getting back into the swing of regular life again.

Because It's Sunday

2008-02-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

And because my husband loooooves bloopers.
And because it makes my children laugh out loud.

Not-So-Country Mouse

2008-02-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

We put an offer on a house today.

Don't want to give out too much info yet 'cause I don't want to jinx it but it ain't the house in the country. I couldn't go through with moving out of town. I just ain't a country mouse.

Country Mouse and Not-So-Much Country Mouse

2008-02-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

When we left our lives in Vancouver to find our new home in the Okanagan I knew there were going to be adjustments needed. I had grown accustomed to walking out my door and being a block or 2 walking distance from Starbucks, sushi, grocery stores, bakeries, street life, etc. (god, I sound like one of those chi-chi city folks). I was prepared to be making some changes in how I lived my daily life, and frankly, in how I saw myself. I was going to at long last let that vision of the swank city-girl die; my swank city-girl image had been languishing on shoddy life-support for quite some time. Moving to Vernon was the compassionate way of unplugging the ventilator let's just say.

So the question becomes, just who the heck am I anyway? I have a general idea, I'm a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, would-be-writer, knitter, cinephile, waaaaay overly anxious, waaaaay over analyzing, just trying-to-do-the-right-thing, Lady In Waiting. And now I'm working on translating that into this new, and frankly very much appreciated, phase of my life.

All this self-analysis is trying to go somewhere here... I am standing at the precipice of another major life style decision here. The question that begs to be answered is just how country am I willing to go?

There's a really lovely house that we looked at yesterday, we're in the process of house hunting. It's one of those standard 70s rectangle boxes, very family oriented and utilitarian, just what we need. The price is great (way below what we thought we'd pay for a house). It's in a great little neighbourhood full of kids. There's plenty of opportunity for the kids to ride bikes, and adventure, and play, and explore. BUT it's smack dab in the middle of cow country. And I mean Smack Dab In The Middle. This little 4 block by 4 block suburbanesque oasis is surrounded on all 4 sides by ranches. It's also a 15 minute drive from town, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot but in the last 7 weeks I've gotten used to the closeness of everything. I love that the library is 4 minutes away!

I am now wondering if I am up for the challenge of rural living. Can I relax and just enjoy the peace and tranquility of the country? Or is this just all too much for an ex-city girl? The angst-ridden and often annoyingly loud part of my brain is screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! But the more logical and sensible part of me thinks it may be worth a try. Hmmmm, I wonder which part of my brain will win...

A Week With Me

2008-02-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

Whoa, that week went by fast! Amazing how little one can get done in 7 days.

Let's see, in the past week I had a birthday (turned 33 by the way), ate at one of Vernon's 2 sushi places (twingeing with Vancouver homesickness), began our search for a house, fell madly in love with a house, put in a offer, decided the owners of the house I was in love with were unreasonable and greedy so backed out (perhaps I was being a bit rash but they were pissing me off, I mean who says they'll take the appliances if we don't offer full price?), made Earl Grey teas with generous doses of brandy for my poor sick husband, and had too many sleepless nights because the boys were waking up and playing musical beds and Miss S felt that it was perfectly reasonable to use my breast as a teething toy all night long. Oh, and the money from the sale of our condo got deposited into our back account (woooo hooooo!).

So we continue the search for our Vernon home. It would probably be a good if I could just relax and enjoy the process but I can't shake the obsessive notion that this is THE house I will be raising my children in. This is THE house I am committing to for the next 20 years. Not only do I want a home that my children can happily roam the streets in, free to fully express their natural wild thing tendencies, but also a home where my future teenagers won't complain that there's nothing to do so they might as well take up binge drinking by the creek. I know, totally unreasonable, they'll be binge drinking no matter where we live.

But still I can’t shake the idea that I can find that house, that home, that my kids can grow up in, come home to when they leave for school/work/travel, and my grandkids can happily spend the weekend in (gotta love how I become transfixed by events that may or may not happen 30 years from now). By the end of our house hunting I’ll probably have driven myself completely out of my skull with my unreasonable expectations, but at least I’ll have gotten a house out of it.

The Man's Got Something To Say

2008-02-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

Rant on Jeffery!
*now you got me missing our mid-week family dinners*

Dialogue Between a Five and a Three Year Old

2008-02-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

Harry: (pretending to snatch his brother's nose from his face) I got your nose!
Al: No you don't.
Harry: (waving his little clenched fist) Yes I do. I got your nose!
Al: No you don't!... Give it back!
Harry: I'm going to eat it!
Al: NOOOO! You can't eat it it's my nose!
Harry: (gleefully shoving the imaginary nose in his mouth) Yummy! I ate your nose. I ate your nose.
Al: (launching himself at his little brother) Ahhhhh!!! Give it back! Give it back!
Voice of Reason: Stop it! Stop it! You boys are fighting over an imaginary nose!
Al: But he ate it! He ate it! Tell him to give me my nose back!
Harry: (pretending to snatch his brother's nose from his face) I got your nose!

The More We Get Together The Happier We'll Be

2008-02-06T21:38:00.000-08:00

A woman in London is collaborating with people from all over the world to create a unique music experience. Another example of the internet making the world a nicer place to be.

12 songs hundreds of remix possibilities, Calendar Songs.

When The Party Girl Matures

2008-02-04T13:42:00.001-08:00

It’s been exactly one month since we moved here from Vancouver.

We left the small 2 bedroom downtown condo that my husband and I bought when I was pregnant with our oldest. We left Stanley Park. We left the hustle and buzz of streets that never sleep. We left prolific, cheap, tasty sushi. We left the 2 block walk to the spectacular views of English Bay. We left the uncompromising, unabashedly beautiful diversity of the West End. We left the rain. We left our standing super-fun family outing of taking the little taxi boats across the mouth of False Creek to spend the afternoon shopping and eating and bird feeding/chasing at Granville Island. We left our amazing friends. We left the home my children were born in. We left our community. We left the only place in the world until now that I ever really called home.

I miss Vancouver.

But I am very happy and at peace with our choice to move to Vernon. I love it here. The peace and quiet. The happy and friendly people. The slower pace. The lakes. The mountains. The wineries and orchards. The freedom that comes from not having to worry about what the neighbours are thinking as my kids leap off the coffee table and thud onto the floor for the 16th time thus rattling loose what I am sure are huge chunks of ceiling from above my very patient and tolerant former neighbours' heads.

I'm as surprised as anyone to hear myself say this but, life is good here.

A Peek Into My Psyche

2008-02-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

This game will never get boring.

Somethings You Just Can't Explain

2008-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

My boys came running out of the computer room this afternoon, eyes brimming with tears, terror on their faces, "momma, momma!!" as they tried to wriggle behind my back, seeking protection. I could hear strange noises emitting from the computer speakers.

"What have you two gotten into on the computer?"

"Nothing!" my older son declares. "We were just watching cartoons and we found something too scary!"

A blood-curdling scream comes from the computer. What the heck were they watching?

Turns out they stumbled on some cartoon Michael Jackson parody and it Freaked. Them. Out. (It didn't help that the other cartoon characters were also terrified of the creepy Michael Jackson caricature popping up from behind the couch asking about the children; ha ha ha). The boys were horrified by the image of this ghostly, rhinoplastied presence with the inhumanly squeaky voice. I tried to comfort them by explaining that the cartoon was a joke, poking fun at a famous singer. But this only seemed to make matters worse.

I spent the rest of the afternoon fielding question after question regarding Michael Jackson’s career, childhood and decent into madness. Why did he make his face look like that? Why did he go crazy? Is he a good crazy or bad crazy? My five year old repeatedly wanted assurances that Michael Jackson lived no where near us and that he had no plans to leave his palatial estate in Dubai and come here to Vernon.

I tell you, explaining the mental stability of a former super star who disfigures himself, pays women to bear his children and may or may not sleep with young boys to a 5 and 3 year old takes a lot of creative, round-about explaining.

After all, I don't want to give the kids nightmares or anything...

5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do

2008-01-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I saw this clip of Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talking about the need for children to challenge their environment and earn a few scrapes and bruises in the process.

I couldn't agree more.

Why I Am Loving Living In A Small Town

2008-01-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

When in line at the supermarket, people actually offer to let me go ahead of them when they see I'm wrangling 3 boisterous children with my left hand while balancing the cantaloupe, jug of milk and deli bbq chicken with my right.
I can drive my oldest to kindergarten, my younger son to preschool, my husband to work and get home before the babe realizes it's been a whole 20 minutes since she last nursed.
When we go to story time at the library there is actually room for my kids to sit and participate without having to elbow the smaller and weaker children out of the way.
People are actually friendly, no kidding, for really and truly, sincerely friendly.
A flock of quails meandered down our street... like they belonged there.

It's Like There's A Party in My Mouth And Everyone's Invited

2008-01-24T17:30:00.000-08:00

My daughter is approaching 7 months in age. And the inevitable questioning about what she's eating and how much is she eating and how often she is eating have been dogging me for weeks. We haven't really taken the time to properly introduce solid foods yet. A few finger fulls of rice here, a mushy banana bite there... she's our third child. We're just happy she hasn't figured out how to download inappropriate web material yet. And frankly, the last few times we stuck food stuffs in her mouth she just made a funny face like we'd spiked her food with lemon juice and spat it out.

So the short answer to the how/what/when of solid foods is nothing, zip, nada. Thus far, her and I have found breast is best. That is until this afternoon.

Today my little girl discovered the delicious sensory symphony that is the Cheese Nip, and she is forever changed. Now, before you condemn me as a bad mom polluting her pristine and untainted child with processed snack food I just wanna say she was never pristine and untainted; again, she's our third child. The crud she's gummed off her brothers' dirty little boy hands has probably inoculated her against all major infections and exposed her to toxins best left a mystery.

But back to the Cheese Nip... I was myself enjoying a post-afternoon activity/pre-dinner snack of coffee and Cheese Nips, surfing the net with my little girl bouncing on my knee, when I noticed the look of great desire on my little ones face. She was watching so intently and longingly as I pulled a cracker out of the box, she followed the cracker, mouth open, droll spilling over her plump lip, as the Cheese Nip made the journey from the box to my mouth. What could I do? She clearly wanted one so bad. So I broke off a cracker piece and held it up to her mouth. Never with such enthusiasm has she pulled my hand to her mouth. She was clearly very excited by the opportunity to at last eat something she'd seen everyone else eat. When the sweet, salty snack first went into her mouth she looked puzzled. Unsure what to make of the weird crunching it made when her little teeth pressed on the flaky goodness. But then, her eyes lit up and her little legs began kicking. Once her taste buds registered the exaggerated taste of processed cheddar cheese baked into a refined wheat flour cracker her world of food sensations was blown wide open. She sucked and gummed that bit of cracker until it oozed out the corner of her mouth. Then she grunted for more.

It’s good to be a third child.

My Smaller Heart

2008-01-22T15:17:00.000-08:00

I am now on week 3 of small town living and I am surprised at how much I am loving it!

Life has definitly slowed to a mellower, less insane pace here in Vernon. It's funny how you don't really realize how manic and harried life can get. We were definitly operating at a pace that no one was liking, but none of us quite knew what it was that wasn't working for us. In Vanouver I was sure I was doing all the "right" mommy things. I had my kids at good schools, had them in enriching after school activities, set up play dates and outings throughout the week. And we were all exhausted. It wasn't until we got here in Vernon that I realized just how over-filled our days were. How over-stimulated the kids were. How way too much coffee I was consuming. It's no wonder I was turning into the snarky, grumpy, your-gonna-have-fun-and-love-this-or-else crazy mommy my children were learning to tolerate.

Here, we know no one. We currently have no friends to visit and the one activity the boys are registered in is a 6 minute drive from home. And it is surprisingly peaceful. And the children are happy. And so am I.

Resurfacing

2007-11-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

Holy moly, what a week and a half it's been!

I have survived three sick children (of course they all kindly took turns coming down with the illness to stretch out the pain and misery of playing nurse maid to it's maximum), daylight savings time "falling back" and the ongoing gore-fest of our financial horror show. This all complimented with the daily doses of ensuring that my children don’t become mushy-brained TV zombies and trying to find just one more clean pair of underwear in the 6 day-old pile of unfolded laundry on my living room chair. We all survived unscathed to tell the tale, so I am chocking this up as another successful venture in mothering.

I have decided to keep this blog post short and sweet to alleviate the pressure of getting the perfect post out. And once I hit the publish post button, I can move on… most likely over to the couch to nurse the babe, again.

Being Three

2007-11-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

I love my children. They are smart and funny and kind and have made my world a better place. Their sweet smiling faces, the way they giggle with each other, the sound of their gentle breathing while they sleep all bring a warmth to my heart that is indescribable. So why is it that they can also drive me nuttier than a squirrel at a coconut convention?

It's a strange experience to love someone so immensely and at the same time want to box them up and ship them off to some remote town in the Himalayas. But truly, I have no one to blame but myself. I knowingly and wantingly brought 3 amazing, but all be it insane, little people into this world. And now I must sleep in the over-crowded, toy-strewn, jelly-stained bed I made.

Currently, it is my three year old who is giving my maternal instincts a kick in the pants. Whoever came up with the term "terrible twos" clearly had their children sent far, far away before said children reached the true terror that is three. My days are filled with "No!", "I wanna do it!", "It's my turn!", "Do it now!" and my personal favourite, "You loose, Stinky Pete!” If I had a quarter for every time my 3 year old gleefully looked me right in the eye as he found a new way to cause my lips to purse in frustration I'd be on a first name basis with my local Starbucks barista (or bartender). It isn’t until you’ve tried to reason with a three year old that you truly come to understand the complexity and subjectivity of truth. It’s almost a philosophical experience when you think about it; almost. Where else outside the halls of academia does one truly get the opportunity to examine the fabric of reality, perception and truth? Was that bite of apple I just had truly his bite? How do I know that the apple is still as good as it was prior to the bite? Isn’t the esthetic reality of an apple lessened by its lack of wholeness? And am I really a poopy-head mommy?

I've read the articles and books that all assure me that this is all perfectly normal, a development stage, a step in the direction of self reliance and discovering his place in the world. I've gone through this once before with my now 5 year old, so I am aware that there will come a time when we are no longer at the mercy of the whims of a logic-impaired Spider-Man-lover with a Napoleon complex. But, oh lordy!

Fair Bananas

2007-11-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

Bananas are an important component in the home of small children. Without them there’s no banana bread, banana milk shakes, banana and peanut butter sandwiches and of course the joy of pretending we’re all a family of monkeys in need of a snack. And now I am left wondering what are we really paying for when we buy our bananas?

My much more politically aware husband emailed me a link to a piece done on Democracy Now about the business of growing and distributing bananas. I haven’t looked at a banana the same since. Earlier this year Chiquita Banana, the banana with the tarty fruit-lady sticker, admitted that one of its subsidiaries had paid about $1.5 million to a paramilitary group called United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (AUC), which also just so happens to be considered a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Why would our friendly neighbourhood banana be paying thugs in Columbia? Well, it seems the AUC were very effective for union busting, terrorizing workers, rounding up and killing organizers of dissention. Bottom line, there’s money in bananas and Chiquita doesn’t want to share (except with terrorists, apparently). I have come to realize that the banana that I grew up with, our popular cereal topping fruit, is an instrument of oppression.

I admit I’d always been aware that the business of growing the likes of bananas and coffee were industries of inequity. I knew that the people who do the actual growing get paid a fraction for what their crop is sold for on the global market by exporters (who make an immense fortune bringing us consumers the products we can’t imagine going through our days without). I buy fare trade, when the opportunity avails itself. But I’d just as likely buy the name brand product at Safeway if I don’t want to make multiple shopping stops. And it occurs to me, why should I have to go out of my way to ensure that my dollar spent is contributing to the world as I’d like to see it work? Why can’t I buy fair trade bananas and coffee at the grocery store across the street from me? In the UK, the large supermarket chain Sainsbury changed to selling only fair trade bananas because of consumer pressure. If there, why not here? Like any business wanting to make money, major grocery store chains just want to sell us what we want to buy. If we directly tell them we want to buy fair trade, it seems to follow that they’d want to carry fair trade products.

So my goal for the week is to write a short note to Safeway and IGA (where we usually do our grocery shopping) asking that they start carrying fair trade bananas and coffee. I’m sure if Safeway and IGA got only my note they’d simply toss it in the recycling bin and not give it much thought. However, there is a magic number of letters received that will cause the grocery store decision makers to take notice. I don’t know what that number is, but I’d sure like to find out. And until I can simply buy fair trade bananas at my local supermarket, I’ll make the extra effort to shop at the stores that carry fair trade.

Catching Up

2007-11-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

I never got a Halloween post out. I’d intended to describe the insanity of my afternoon trying to keep my children from killing each other during their manic ride to the highly anticipated after-dinner trick-or-treat time. I so wanted to get something out there about how cute my boys were (they were Death and Robin, by the way), and how amazingly heart warming Halloween has become as an event to be shared as a family. But like many things on my way-to-busy mommy agenda, it never happened.

I spent the day after Halloween recuperating. The boys didn't have school and we spent the day coming down from the evening’s festivities, eating way too much candy and general after-holiday hyperness. Then came Friday, then all of a sudden it's Saturday and blogging about the goings on of an event that was 3 days ago became forced. Man, cyberspace moves fast. Or perhaps it’s my life that's charging along at breakneck speed.

If I'm going to write about what is happening for me now I would have to talk about my stumblings into the world of cloth diapers. We did use cloth diapers with the boys, but in the eyes of true cloth diaper users we were cloth diaper cheaters; we used a service both times. But not this go-around. Oh no, this time, with my third and last babe, I decided to join in with those proud cloth diapering mommas and earn my environmentally conscious mommy badge and really cloth diaper. That means buying into a whole system that involves liners, and pockets and folds and snaps and covers. Truly, an engineering marvel. Predictably, I could go on and on about the immense cloth diaper culture that is out there. There are women who create and sew intricate and stunning diapers with embroidery and hand dyed fabric for other women's babies to poop in. Cyber cat-fights break out at various on-line malls as intelligent, caring, and normally sane women virtually elbow each other to the front of the check out line to get the cloth diaper they've deemed to be good enough for their sweet babe's little bum. Of course, the vast majority of cloth diaper users are simply people who prefer to use a more environmentally friendly means of keeping pee and poop off the furniture. Disposable diapers are choking our landfills and wasting irreplaceable resources, don’t ‘cha know.

Wanting to lessen the constant nagging guilt all we educated middle class types suffer from, my husband and I want to use cloth diapers, and I want to get excited about them. Really I do. The flat cotton cloth diapers of my infanthood are still used, but the real cloths diapering passion lies with the cloth diapers that are shaped, fitted, and are surprisingly attractive. These high-end human waste containers aren’t as straight forward to use as your standard issue Pampers. After an exasperated call to a good friend I was made aware that I was leaving out the all too important diaper cover step (that’s what truly keeps the dry side dry). I am sure there will be more exasperated phone calls to be made in the near future, and I’ve yet to catch the cloth diapering shopping/collecting bug, but at least I get to go to bed tonight with the self-satisfaction of someone whose done a good, earth-friendly deed today.

The Next Day

2007-10-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am on day 2 of my ventures into writing... so now what.

I spent the better part of my afternoon yesterday and today wondering what aspects of my life are bloggable. Is bowling with my kids blog worthy? How about the raccoons gettin' it on in my backyard while my boys wonder why those 2 raccoons keep fighting? Or perhaps I could go more eclectic and write about the McDonalds sign that I pass daily; and that they're at last updating the sign so the "billions served" counter that's read 99 for well over a decade is at last retiring it's pathetic attempt to count the burgers passing out its doors and is acquiescing to the standard "billions and billions served".

When faced with the vast potential and creative chasm of the blank page I admit I am intimidated. There are so many amazing blogs out there discussing the relevant themes of our times: human rights, the environment, imperialism. Well written words waxing on pop culture, movies, books, music and life. And those wonderfully kitschy blogs that obsess on the minutia of the world around us; one of my personal favourites is a blog where people send in pictures of objects in daily life that look like human faces :-). How do I find my voice in this cacophony of digital chatter? Does what I have to say really matter? I guess I'm experiencing that pre-party fear that so commonly comes over us 5 minutes before the first guest arrives, what if I throw a party and no body comes?

So here I sit at my computer, the noise of children in the background and a sleeping babe on my lap, sipping stale coffee that had been lovingly ground and perked by my bleary eyed husband too early this morning, pondering my blogging beginnings. And hoping that somebody comes to my party.

3 Reasons to Start a Blog

2007-10-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

1. Since early childhood I've had aspirations of becoming a writer. Throughout my youth, I fantasized about the day I was going to live abroad in Europe, moving from torrid affair to disastrous relationship with gleeful morbidity. Writing novels and poetry punctuated with coffee, wine and cigarettes from romantic sidewalk cafes. Oh, it was going to be so depressingly grand!

At the time, I assumed my thirties were going to be spent in the final throws of passion as I would at last find my sweet, gentle and understanding partner and cast off my wild ways for domestic bliss and a few impressive literary prizes; perhaps a teaching position at a Liberal Arts college.

I’m in my thirties now and my life wandered a different path. My sweet, gentle and understanding partner showed up way earlier than expected, so I married young. My husband and I spent our twenties dabbling in school, travel, work and we both pretty much compromised the crap out of our dreams for reasons that appeared valid at the time but now seem like lame excuses. I never became the writer I had fantasized about, but there's no reason I can't make some slight edits and begin now. So here I am, happily married with 3 small children, setting out into the world as a would-be writer; using this blog as an opportunity to refine my skills. My first steps are just a lot less tragically glamorous than I had imagined at 13. Not as torrid, but why not as exciting?

2. I need something in my life that doesn’t involve driving, cleaning or making warped leaps of parental logic.

3. I think the first 2 reasons are reason enough...