Christmas :)

This Christmas has been a huge challenge for me.  First was the ridiculous, all-consuming Morning (hah!  morning?) Sickness that comes with Baby #3 on it's way which began December 8th, not to be exact or anything.  That put me way behind on our yearly "spirit advent calendar".  Then on the 20th, I get the horizontal inducing bronchial based virus that has attacked everyone except for Justin causing an ER visit for Ozzy, 8-1-1 call regarding Eli's near 103 degree temperature, and 4 days of not being able to stand for longer than 5 minutes for me.  If I wasn't feverish, I was nauseous, if I wasn't barking away coughing, I was blowing my nose.  I actually wrapped most of the Christmas presents crying I felt so sick.

But here we are at Christmas Eve, and I have some how found my Christmas spirit again.  I'm on the upswing now, and the presents are wrapped, the stockings full (thanks Santa!) and I finally feel a little peace that I think comes from solidarity.  By this I mean, knowing how many other people are out there doing the same thing as me, possibly even as sick (or worse!)  We are keeping the magic alive.  We are keeping the wonder in shiny little eyes.  We are causing little mouths to make the sound "ooooo".  We work hard, stay up late, and feel tired but satisfied when we see how happy it makes our little munchkins. 

I was against the "Santa" thing originally, until I read a beautiful letter saying that Santa helps kids believe in something they can't see or touch, and it's often their first experience with that.  I want my kids to believe in magic, in hope, and something bigger than what they can grasp in their hands.  Believe me, that will come in handy MANY times later in life.

So here's to all the magic-makers out there, especially to my parents!  Thank you for putting magic into my childhood and hope and trust into my life!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ozzy is 2!

Well my little Oz-ster is  2!  Another year has passed with my two awesome boys here.  

Ozzy is just starting to talk a bit in the past month.  He likes going pee on the potty though we haven't started potty training yet.  He is funny and kind and shares well (most of the time).  He has this hilarious duck bill face he puts on which makes sense because he sure seems to love ducks! (DUUUUUUCK!)  He just started playing the Jeep game (pointing out jeeps while driving).  He enjoys partial nudity around the house and can't seem to keep his shirt on, must be the bulging muscles.  He loves coloring and seems to favor the color brown best.  His favorite food is most definitely watermelon, followed by chocolate, with some berries and anything wheat which of course he can't have often being on a wheat free diet.  He doesn't eat many veggies but he can sure shovel down the pancakes. His favorite songs are "If you're happy and you know it wag your tail" by Scout the Green dog and "You can't always get what you want" by the Rolling Stones (he laughs every time you say the title).  He loves reading books.  He loves to play anything stacking  and unstacking or taking things out and putting things back in.  He also has the annoying habits of chucking things down the stairs and picking up the cat by her hair.  He still can't sleep a night through without me being there so we share a bed.  I must say waking up to his beautiful smile most mornings is a treasure despite his internal alarm clock of 5:00am.  I couldn't feel more blessed to be his mother.  He lights up my life in ways I couldn't imagine possible, completely living up to his spiritual name Jot Prakash Singh meaning Prince of the Radiant Light of the Breaking Dawn.  I love you Ozzy!  Happy Birthday! xo

Here he is at 12 months smashing a cake!

Ozzy's 2nd Christmas - 13 months.

Well hello there...  14 months

Playing at the park when it's cold, no big thing. - 15 months

Sleepy time in my chair. - 16 months

April Showers - 17 months

Building with my bro - 18 months

Cool dude in the June sun - 19 months

Raspberries so good.  Must sit down in the middle of the Farmer's Market and eat them. - 20 months

Hanging out with my pal Rocky. - 21 months

Mmm milkshake. - 22 months

LEAVES! - 23 Months

Outdoor time in the Winter

I took a leave of absence for the last month.  I don't feel totally healed from my miscarriage and I don't expect to ever be.  I definitely took the time to feel it though.  I accepted it nearly immediately.  I try not to play into the "why me?!" frame of mind or playing the victim though this would have been a worthy time to feel like that.  I wanted to feel what I needed to feel.  I also tried to not poke around into understanding why I felt things.  Two or three perfectly normal days would happen and then I would be sad again.  Sometimes when I see the maternity clothes I bought the day before the bleeding started I cry.  Other days I see them I just feel sad and move on.

I grow weary of trying to understand everything I feel.  I used to look into it and think back on patterns or decide it was from this experience or that time did that other thing.  It's exhausting!  I end up looping and thinking of not only the experience that I'm dealing with, but digging up every past experience that I should have let go of by now.  It's a dangerous cycle!

So I let myself feel sad.  It took this long to go a week without crying.  To be able to talk to people about it without crying and to feel mostly whole again.

I kept up blogging by reintroducing my food blog.  It took a hiatus about when I got pregnant with Eli.  So I've come across a lot of recipes since then so I had a bit of catching up to do.

The point of my post today was brainstorming ideas on how to keep my kids outside this winter.  They seem so much happier and act up less when they've had outdoor time.  Plus they sleep better at night.  We have such a small house that indoor activities mean very little movement, other than an occasional dance party.  Yoga works sometimes but it's hard to keep Ozzy busy when I'm doing yoga with Eli.  Ozzy will just play around and then Eli will copy him and pretty soon yoga is just a doggy pile on Mom.

So other than walks, how do I keep my kids active when weather is colder and I don't want to spend a fortune on indoor activities.  Everything I find is snow related and we don't get much snow.

I suppose I need to invest in some awesome gloves and some warm jackets.  I get so cold if I'm just standing there so I need to keep moving too and it needs to be appropriate for a 3.5 year old a (nearly) 2 year old.  So many components I know.

I've been thinking more about it and wondering what our ancestors used to do.  They didn't have gyms, or go jogging, or do circuit training or crossfit, they just ate well and worked hard. As for the winter, I was thinking it was likely too cold to do anything outside but there was such little food that they didn't have to be active, they went into conserve mode.  What a strange society we live in.  Sit down jobs, little time to exercise and all the convenience food in the world.  The recipe for obesity.

It's my birthday tomorrow and I've been eating a lot of foods I don't normally with my party yesterday and I'm just feeling so low energy.  Need more fruits and veggies.  I'm getting my second farm bag tomorrow so I'm excited to see what local fruits and veggies I'll be getting to cook with this week.

If you have any winter outdoor activities for me please post below!

Angel Baby

First I must write a disclaimer.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of miscarriage or any process of a woman's body, or get sick at the thought of blood, read no further.  If you have a weak stomach turn back.  There are some cold, hard emotions coming up and some all too real experiences.

This is my story of miscarriage.  I had never thought it could happen to me, especially after two normal, pretty regular pregnancies.  You think, my body knows how to do this, no problem.  But sadly I have had this experience now and I feel the need to share it because miscarriage is never talked about.

I had bleeding on Monday and was very worried due to the very red nature of it.  Everything I had read was pink and brown is ok, red is a warning sign.  Plus I had cramping the night before and just felt off in general.

I was very scared and called my midwife and I got in for an ultrasound Monday afternoon.  I drank my litre of water and spent an hour in uterine agony like every other woman who ever had an ultrasound.  So I waited nervously and danced around silently cursing every tech who was just talking or walking or doing work other than scanning my abdomen.  I got in finally and my baby was very small so they had to do a trans-vaginal scan instead to measure.  I saw my baby and its heartbeat.  They said everything was fine, baby is small but fine.  6 weeks and 5 days old rather than nearly 10 weeks like they thought and the 8 weeks that I thought.

I went home and felt tired and relieved but still worried.  I had a nap on the couch and went to bed early.  I was supposed to announce to the world (aka Facebook) with a beautiful family picture that I was pregnant that night but decided it was not the right time.

Tuesday morning I woke up crampy and my bleeding got harder.  It felt like labour contractions so I timed them, 1 every minute lasting about 20 seconds, then 40 seconds of relief then back at it.  Finally, I rushed to the bathroom.  I felt something pass, something large and the first thing I felt was relief, like when you actually birth a baby finally after labour.  But that is usually followed by a baby placed in your arms.  Instead I sunk to my knees digging in the toilet to see what had come out of me.  It was probably the saddest moment of my life.  Holding a lump of something in my hands, the blood pooling in the creases of my fingers, desperately searching for some evidence that this was my baby and that this was over.  I just wanted it to be over.  Another one comes out 15 minutes later.  Two more over the morning.  I spent the morning rushing to the bathroom, shaking, achy and feeling like I want to puke.  My body ached like it gave birth and my heart ached like I didn't.

The cramps got better over the day, but the sadness set in.  I called my midwife after the first two clots and she said it was leaning towards the sound of a miscarriage but the best thing to do would be to wait a couple days and it turns out that's how long it took to get me back in for an ultrasound anyway.

The hardest part of the whole day was when I was explaining I may have lost the baby to my husband.  My three year old overheard me and said, "Mommy, why did you lose the baby?"  

I lost the baby.  Me.  My fault.  

I know this is not true, there was likely nothing specific I did to lose this baby.  It's not like I ignored it, misplaced it, or left it at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and drove off.  But still, something died inside of me.  That is crushing.  I was unable to sustain this life inside me.

I had my ultrasound this morning.  I woke up feeling my body aches and pains that had gone away with pregnancy.  I haven't been getting sick when I don't eat often and I have not been eating often.  I also fit into jeans that I hadn't worn in a couple weeks.  All of this plus my inner knowing of what happened Tuesday morning had me well prepared for the news.  But I was surprised how I still held onto a thread of hope when I asked the tech if I still had a baby.  She said she can't say much about it.  Then I knew it was over.  The tech on Monday mentioned having to try a different way to see it better, she showed me the baby, and the heartbeat.  Obviously if they cannot say anything there is nothing to see.

After she took all her pictures, she left the room and said she'd be right back.  I shook on the ultrasound bed trying not to cry.  She was nice enough to go see if the Radiologist would come talk to me, apparently most won't but this one did.  He broke the news to me gently and talked far longer than I wanted him to.  They kept telling me to take my time leaving but all I wanted to do was to get the hell out of that hospital and cry on the steering wheel of my car.  Still, I am thankful they were so kind.

The hardest part about it all is that I have nothing to hold, which sure would be hard in itself but it would also feel more real, not like this feels.  It feels like it was never really there, this thing I loved never actually existed and was all in my head.  There's nothing to bury, nothing to ceremoniously say goodbye to.  My goodbye was at a toilet, by myself.

I honestly felt like I gave birth, but a birth with no support and obviously no baby.

I've been working on deciding how to heal from this.

Everything I find about miscarriage support is for getting your body back to get pregnant again.

I'm not sure I want to ever risk feeling this again.  That could just be my first stages of grief but I wish there was something that nourishes your grieving mind and body without the try, try again message.

I named the baby Parker due to its gender ambiguous nature.  Some may think it's silly to name a baby that didn't make it past 8 or so weeks but if you do, keep it to yourself.  Again, I need to feel like this experience is real, my pain, my loss, my grief is real.

I bought some material to make a blanket, a blanket I will be calling Parker.  It had to be a "no sew" blanket though because I couldn't sew something to save my life.

I also filed away my ultrasound pictures from the night before it happened.  Both a blessing and a curse.  Seeing my "fine" baby with a "great" heartbeat and then losing it the next morning seems crazy to me.  What changed in those 16 hours?  At first I wished I hadn't had that ultrasound.  My Mom then pointed out that I wouldn't have any proof that I had a baby growing in my tummy.  Good point Mom.

I have never been more grateful for all the wonderful people in my life sending me love.  The support has been amazing.  You really cannot fully understand miscarriage though until it happens to you.  My heart goes out to all who have had one, and especially to those that have had many.

For now I deal with the after effects of "birth".  I am so sick of my own blood and apparently there's more to come.  My heart aches but I feel a little better having closure.  Having to continue a pregnancy in total fear that it could end at any moment would have been worse.

Now I have my Parker Angel looking down on me.

Anyway that's my story with all the gory, raw details.   

10 Things Important Things I Learned in My 20's

I am turning 30 in less than two months.  First of all, let me be clear, this is not a "poor me, I'm getting old, omigodimturning30!!!!" post.  I'm totally ok with turning 30.  My mom has always said her 30's were the best years of her life so in a lot of ways I'm looking forward to them more than anything.

A very dear cousin and friend of mine is turning 20 today.  Happy Birthday Karlster!  In honour of this wonderful occasion I thought I would do my best to give the best advice and learnings I uncovered in my decade.  I'm sure not all of it will be applicable, 10 years can change a lot!  Plus we have different paths to live anyway.  However, if nothing else I hope she knows I'm thinking of her and maybe I'll even make her laugh.  So here I go!

The 10 Important Things I Learned in My 20's:

1)  Keep out the drama!  -  When hanging out with people choose the low to no drama friends.  To some people life is all a game.  They want to play the mind games and keep you on your toes.  They like reactions.  Don't give them the pleasure.  No reason to shun them either, you will always find these people and you may even decide to keep some as friends because you love them.  All you have to do is not play into the drama.  It's like a toddler having a tantrum, as soon as they know no one is watching or listening, they stop. 

On a similar note, keep the good friends close!  The ones that love you no matter what are the good ones.  Also don't worry if everybody moves off to different places you just have to reach out through a phone call.  And don't be prideful and not call because "you're always the one who has to call".  And don't feel guilty and awkward if you are the one always being called.  Just be grateful for the connection with a good friend.   

2) Don't take student loans. - Oh how I wish someone had told me this.  This amazing money that appears in your bank account magically one day is dangerous.  Also it is not for clothes, movies, or alcohol.  This money tricks you into thinking school is free.  As much fun as I had in college with my friends, I'm still paying for it today.  If I had worked and gone to school I would have been more sure about every penny I spent, every course I took, and the path I was on.  Debt cripples you for years.  If you take student loans, use them for school and have a plan to pay them off.
  
3) It's ok if you don't drink.  It's also ok to drink. -  The key is how you feel about it.  Don't drink because everyone else is doing it, if you haven't heard, that's peer pressure.  You can be fun and have a good time without alcohol.  Alcohol is never a solution to a problem, it can be a fun addition to a good night though.  My favorite college memories though were the ones were we were all completely sober and just hanging out doing funny and at times stupid things.

4) Mornings are a good time to get stuff done. -  This is probably not something you want to hear right now.  Sleeping in was good in my early 20's.  But nothing beats the beautiful time of morning where not many people are up, you can grocery shop in peace, you can hear birds and actually smell what morning smells like.  Plus you get so much done before noon that you have more time to relax later.  Until then enjoy hiding under those covers until the crack of noon.

5) Put down the phone and pick up the phone.  - By this I mean get off texting, get off social media, get off your email and actually speak to someone on the phone. Or better yet talk face to face!  I didn't have a smart phone until 3 years ago but this is still a valuable lesson I learned in my 20's.  Being on your phone around your family is rude.  They don't always understand why this technology is so important to you, they want to see you, talk to you.  When you are around your friends, you should be around your friends.  I see too many people walking down the street in pairs or threes all heads down on their phones.  It makes me sad and causes head on collisions at times.  Take a techno brake every now and then, it really allows you to enjoy your thoughts and your friends.  I often take facebook off my phone for a week and feel so much better.  I've heard of unplugged weekends or even just an afternoon.  That amount of information at our finger tips can be useful and at the same time consuming, just make sure you're not alienating what really matters by using it!

6)  Budget! - I know this one sounds so boring.  Honestly, even saying it makes me feel like your boring old cousin.  Really though, it helps so much!  Most people don't even know how much money they make!  Keep track of it for a month and then you can see your expenses and get an idea of how much money you might have available to save.  Save for a trip, retirement, a house, who knows but save for something!  Otherwise money slips through your fingers faster than you can see it.

 7) Try on lots of wedding dresses (and grooms if you need to!) - Don't go into your wedding knowing exactly what you want, it's going to change!  I had two wedding dresses and my last was off the rack because the one I ordered I didn't end up liking the style on me.  I thought I wanted a casual beachy dress so tried nothing else on.  I ended up with a full skirt and lots of beading, who knows if I had gone in and tried every style!  All in all though the dress matters little as long as you're sure of the groom :) 

8) Your career will change, in my case a lot! - If you don't know, that's ok.  That's pretty much all I have to say on this.  I'm still figuring this one out.  Don't be in a rush and don't pigeon hole yourself to something.  If it no longer feels right, it's not.

9) Kids change everything! - Be ready and be sure.  It's huge.  Your teens and 20's are a "you first" experience which is for a reason!  You need to figure out who you are.  You have to make sure you are ready to be second because kids require you to be present at all times and need a lot of care.  There will be time for you at times, you have to make that time though and it's easy to forget about you.  If this means waiting to have kids a little longer it's probably for the best.  Oh and I really learned to appreciate my parents in my 20's.  Your parents made a lot of sacrifices for you, helped you out when they could, fed you (and still do), and they are always there for you on holidays or when you need a soft space to land.  Not everyone has this so give your parents some extra hugs and love.

10) Don't sweat the small stuff! - It's an age old saying but I've found it appropriate.  The small stuff will pass and the big things are the relationships.  An exam, a fight, a bad hair day, they will all pass, and as long as you are kind and honest your relationships will be there.  At the same time the small things you do with those people are the big things. 


Just be you!  You'll find out who that is as you go.  Be true to you in any given moment and don't compare yourself to anyone.  We all do this, we compare body type, education level, job type, relationship status, parenting style, etc.  None of it matters, we're all doing the best we can with what we have.  Comparing with others only leads us to question whether we are living our truth.  Everyone has the perfect set of unique talents to add good to the world.  And you my dear are no different.  I love your kindness and compassion, your honesty, and your ability to laugh at yourself.   I love your ability to say I don't get it, it shows you have a level of self-confidence and vulnerability that most don't have.  I love your optimism, your want to make friends and listen to those friends.  I love that you play games with my kids.  You are beautiful inside and outside and I can't wait to see what you do with your 20's, I'm sure you will learn 10 lessons of your own (or more) but make sure you have fun doing it with people you love.

I love you!  Happy Birthday! xo

Roller coaster... (of love)...

April.  Whoa.  What a month!  It's amazing how one month can change your entire outlook on life!  I have a story for you, the story of this April.  I must tell you this to begin with though:  it has a happy ending.  I just didn't want you getting worried or depressed half way through, or thinking that you stumbled into a chicken soup for the blogger's soul book or something.  It was a wild an emotional ride though.

I found out just before Easter my hubby had a lump by his eye that he had been keeping to himself for awhile.  He's not one for appointments, especially with doctors so I took the liberty of making him an appointment and saying, "go."

He went and that's when things began to move in fast forward.  He saw an eye specialist the next morning who got him an appointment with an eye specialist in Kelowna and ordered a ct scan.  The hospital got us in the same day to get him his ct scan and though the xray technician doesn't read the scans usually she said to my hubby, "go to your doctor asap."
So the eye specialist here said that the one in Kelowna had taken a 3 day weekend and would call us monday likely.  He also said he could send us to Vancouver but he didn't think we'd get in sooner than Monday but if the Kelowna specialist couldn't handle it, that is where we'd be sent.  We alerted some close friends in Vancouver that we may need a place to crash and asked my parents for help with the boys should that arise.  Of course we have the most amazing family and friends who said no problem, we're there for you.

So all weekend we tried to act normal.  Red flags had be signalled in our heads from the speed and urgency attached with all of these appointments.  Conversation was forced and a little melancholy.  Waiting was nearly unbearable.

Monday morning we got a call saying we could be seen in Kelowna that afternoon.  Strangely, our melancholy turned to excitement just from the fact that we would have an answer and a course of action finally!

The Dr. in Kelowna examined him and then spoke gently to us.  I can't remember what he said other than the words "likely" and "lymphoma".  He explained he needed to do a biopsy to confirm and then he would refer him to the Kelowna Cancer Clinic where treatment would most likely be radiation.  He would also need a full body scan to see if it the cancer was anywhere else.

My husband was calm and collected but I noticed him become rigid as soon as "Kelowna Cancer Centre" was mentioned.  I'm not sure he even put cancer and lymphoma together until that moment.  I sat in a chair across the room, glazed over.

The only consolation of the moment was this Dr.'s mannerism.  Kind, gentle, helpful and sincere.  He said he would do his best to get him into the biopsy surgery quickly.  Then he and my hubby joked over the computer system he used for his clients.  In my head was a voice shouting, "are you FREAKING kidding me?  How can you joke at a time like this?!  I'm barely holding it together here!"

Fortunately, my husband is the yang to my yin (or the yin to my yang when appropriate) so he held it together astonishingly well.  He phoned his mom, the only person worrying more than myself, and told her the news.

On the car ride home, my husband wanted to stop for groceries.  He wanted to change his diet to nearly raw, definitely cutting out wheat and dairy.  His confidence was assuring.  He was steady and wasn't entirely accepting of the diagnosis but still wanted to do everything he could to make sure he was the epitome of health.

That car ride home I managed to squeak out my fear of losing him.  Of course as soon as you hear the big C, all you can think about is "what if"?

Again his confidence that he would not be going anywhere was reassuring... mostly.

I managed to make a joke that his body was so healthy that it was rejecting the cancer and trying to push it out through his eye.  It made him laugh and that soothed me.

We got a call the next day that his surgery would be in a week.  That was a long week.  Especially the next day.  I just couldn't shake the "what if I'm left all by myself" worry.  I admire my single mother friends so much already but that week gave it a whole new admiration.  You are on 24/7 as a single mom.  I wasn't sure I had it in me.

The next days were better.  A slow trust began to trickle back into my soul, knowing you are only handed what you can handle.  Also positive thoughts were my crutch.  Every night before bed I would take my special gratitude rock and say "thank you, thank you, thank you for my husband's good health."

Every time I looked at my husband I felt a renewed love for him.  I looked differently at the things he did daily that make my life and my boy's lives so much easier and better.  I turned away from things that normally annoy me.  I let him take care of himself first.  I held his hand any time I could.  I made him raw salads and desserts so he wouldn't get bored with his new diet.  I funnelled all my love into my family, activities together and apart, trying to keep things normal but with an amped up frequency of love.

I asked his parents to join me for the big day.  His mom and I are close and let every word we exchanged hug each other with comfort and support.  His dad, always the tension diffuser, kept us amused, fed, and de-caffeine-ated.  

The surgery should have taken an hour but lingered on for an hour and a half.  We weren't sure what his condition would be but soon saw him walking the corridor towards us with a huge smile on his face.

He had great news.  The doctor went in under the eye lid as planned and the first thing he noticed was that the color of the mass was not that of lymphoma which should have been salmon pink, it was blood red.  The doctor then proceeded to explain it was an anomaly called a blood lesion that he had not seen in twenty years.  It also shows up the same as lymphoma on a ct scan.  He had done his doctoral studies in them and the removal of them, and would he like him to remove it right now?  Um, hell yah?

It was more involved surgery having to cut down the corner of the eye to remove the lump the size of his thumb!  He was off a week and couldn't lift the boys for 10 days but the relief was all we cared about.  The biopsy came back with extra assurance of no cancer.

The relief was felt emotionally and physically, literally like a 50lb backpack was removed from my shoulders.  Celebration can't even begin to describe it as his mom and I spent the whole way home alerting family and the few friends we had told of the situation.  Lighter was the describing word of the day, physically, emotionally, and attitude wise.

Obviously, the cancer word should not have been essentially diagnosed until after the biopsy results.  I understand the doctor's thinking, since these are an anomaly and he hadn't seen one in twenty years it was likely in his head weighed heavily against the odds.  I have no resent for this wonderful doctor, I am happy the situation happened actually. 

For one, the lump is gone and his eye is back in the right spot, hopefully to recover full vision.  Unfortunately, because the lump pressed on the eye and lifted it, wrinkles formed on the back of the eye distorting his vision.  With hope time will fix it.

For two, I got a renewed sense of love and appreciation for my husband, my family (immediate, extended and friends), our life and even myself.  Life seems short when the thought of losing life comes up.  The little things like holding hands and all four of us sitting on the couch together and watching a movie become the big things and the little things become everything that doesn't include this love.

My life is full of love and I will continue living my life with love as my first priority.  This includes self love, always a challenge but always important.

Our 10th anniversary of being a couple was a month ago, amidst the chaos of "cancer".  Tomorrow is my husband and I's 7th wedding anniversary.  I look forward to celebrating this anniversary not with a tone of "cherishing and remembering our love" but of appreciating the survival and thriving of our love and all the years left to share and grow together.

xoxoxoxo

Birthday Parties

Ok Moms if you never gave yourself permission before and you are waiting for it, I’m giving it to you right here and now:

You do not have to have a huge birthday party for your child.

It’s said and don’t  you ever tell me you “have” to again.

Mom’s have this tendency to go overboard when it comes to their children’s birthdays.  Maybe it’s the fact that we love parties.  Maybe it’s the fact that we love having something to look forward to and to take our minds off the day to day drudgery that motherhood can tend to bring.  Maybe it’s a competitive edge between mother’s to try and have the biggest and best birthday party for their child.

Overall I think Mother’s really just have so much love for their child that the day they were born means so much to them and brings up so many memories that they need to mark it with a huge party with lots of amazing food, and favors, and games, and decorations.... even if the child is 1 and has absolutely no idea it’s their birthday, who the people there are, or what month it is, or where their toes are.

What they know is they like cake.

Cake.  The single ingredient to an awesome birthday.  Cake, it’s all you have to remember.

But seriously I planned my E’s first birthday party with grand ideas of make your own pizzas, amazing homemade chocolate cupcakes, and some games for the kids.  

So I invited my mommy group of four other kids all born within 2 months of each other.  E is the oldest.  That means the rest of them were 10-11 months.  Games, hah!

So how it all went down was I made all the pizzas with just random combinations while trying to keep E out of all the decorations until I could get a picture of it all.  Then all the kids just ate pizza on the floor.  Then we took turns putting the pizza covered kids in the high chair to eat chocolate cupcakes.  By then all clothes were removed so we had tomato sauce and chocolate covered tots crawling/walking all over the house and totally tuckered out.  Our solution?  A group bath.  The ultimate activity and photo op at a birthday party.  And you know only one year olds could get away with a naked party ending in a group bath.

For some reason I learned nothing from this experience or my friend’s experiences of one year old parties either.  I repeated this mistake with his second birthday although this time at least I had help.  We had a dinosaur themed party as E asked for with tons of food and themed cake and sandwiches (St’egg’ asarus salad!).  I had games but they were more age appropriate, so at least I guess I learned something.  Games such as pin the tail on the dinosaur, color the dinosaur, and then plaster the dinosaur with stickers!

Still the entire time I felt stressed and like I had to moderate, coordinate, facilitate, and lots of other words ending in -ate.  Even with help I only physically relaxed and enjoyed the moment after my guests left.

Still I did not learn.  Repeat again for O’s first birthday.  He was cranky the whole time and instead of telling everybody to go home please, the birthday boy needs a nap, I pushed through and tried to make him eat cake for the camera even though by a year old he really ate nothing, he more of garberuated it than ate it.  No games this time but in order to accommodate everyone we had three birthday parties.  For a one year old.  *Face palm.

That was three cakes, well a cookie cake, cake, and cupcakes to be accurate.  

I see it time and time again from me and my friends.  Frazzled mom’s just trying to make it through the day.  They prep with every spare second when they are not mothering, so their free time, those precious minutes before bed and into when they should be recharging for the next day all spent away.  Then they have the party trying to make the most of each moment while simultaneously trying to keep every guest happy and in awe of your amazing party planning and mothering skills.

So a little advice to everyone.

1)  I said it before and here it is again.  Moms, no one is judging your party by how cool the decorations, cake shape, games, and costumes are.  They are just happy to be out of the house and that their kid will have a sugar crash nap later.  Give yourself a break.

2)  Plan easy and simple and especially according to age.  I heard once that the number of guests should be your child’s age plus one.  I also read a good guideline is the party should be an hour per age, obviously capping at some point unless it’s a sleepover.

3)  If you are at another birthday party and you see the mom slaving away, ask to help.  Cut the cake while she takes pictures of her kid devouring it.  Or take pictures as she and dad bring the lit up cake over to the birthday kid, that’s a memory they will want documented and will forget that someday they would like to have a couple pictures to prove they were there.  

4)  Please, please, please cut out the goody bags!  Seriously money is better spent elsewhere than on dollar store toys that get thrown out or more sweets that continue the hyperness for hours longer.  What my friends have come to learn is that if you have a theme just simply gifting a part of a costume to wear during the party (dollar store fire hat, fairy wings, or fairy wand) is amazing and can be added to the dress-up box when they get home.  Otherwise just forget about it and buy coffee or wine for yourself, depending on your preference.

5)  Think through your ideas before you become really attached to them.  In your head a ‘choose your topping grilled cheese bar’ sounds like an amazing, fun, cheaper than ordering pizza idea but in reality making 21 grilled cheese sandwiches takes a really. long. time.  Seriously, it does, I know.

6)  And remember:  Don’t forget the cake.

To be fair most of you will not heed my advice, nor have I managed to either.  Maybe I will learn eventually just to relax and that imagination is the best activity for a party.  That my child simply wants to feel love of friends and family on their special day. Not have mommy in the kitchen, stressed out, trying not to burn the grilled cheese, occasionally snapping pictures of the fun.  But honestly every once in awhile you strike gold and that look on E’s face when he got to sit in a real live fire truck on his 3rd birthday after asking for a firefighter birthday party, was priceless and I’ll never forget it.

My special place...

It’s hard to decide which I find more therapeutic:  writing or baking cookies.  

Everyone needs to have a special place or activity, mothers especially!  Something they can go to when the world has stressed her to her breaking point.  Mine are writing and baking cookies.

Obviously one is better for the snugness of which I wear my skinny jeans, but honestly both feel like a creative, nurturing process.  Both activities I am building something from scratch.  With baking I am taking flour as a base, sugar to sweeten and/or brown, eggs (or an egg replacer such as applesauce in this house) to hold the batter together, and baking powder to rise it up.  Each ingredient plays a special role in how the cookies turn out.  Forget one and everything’s off.  

With writing my ingredients are different but still present.  My writing never turns out without a realistic topic for the base, personal experience to hold everything together, some good honest emotion which makes it rich and inviting, and of course humor for a lightening agent.

If I try to write without a topic of meaning to me, I fall flat and my batter doesn’t rise.  If I try and write without my personal opinion being involved there is no raw honesty.  There would be no richness of flavor and no relatability of anyone to me.  I never, ever explain my way to be “the way.”  Oh god, I think I’ve learned a thing or two more about motherhood than that!  But if I don’t stick myself out on a limb and say “this, this is what I believe in.  This is what my heart tells me to do even if there is no other reasonable explanation involved or science or research.  This is me,” then I have absolutely no more to offer anyone than an encyclopedia.  Approximate truth (at least what most thought the truth was at the point when written).  

Motherhood is all about instinct.  That gut feeling, that grounded, firm, feeling like you can feel roots coming out of your feet and cementing you to the ground in your belief, that this is the way it’s going to work for me and my family.

Now if we could only all manage to feel firm in our decisions and beliefs while extending the same courtesy to other mothers of holding firm in their own decisions and beliefs.  I like to think that is where we are moving in society (and obviously after the last statement, feel free to disagree with me, hehe.)  The minute we as mothers begin to pick apart each other’s decisions, that is the moment we lose all connection with one and other.  We lose our sense of self in the larger community of mothers because we are choosing to see the worst in others rather than that they are following their hearts with all the tools they have been given.  So instead extend hands and offer up the best version of yourself, the truest, the brightest.  One thing my children have taught me is that I can yak their ear off about “the right behaviour” but they only learn it when they see me displaying it.  The same is true with adults.

So tonight I write (and bake cookies).  I think both turned out sweet and hit the spot.

Eli's Third Year!

My oldest is 3!!!!  Ca-razy!

Here is a photo journal of what my amazing boy accomplished in the last year!

Eli at his 2nd Party so excited to start the year!

March: Eli beginning to do yoga with Momma, helping me with my yoga specialty project!

April: Easter bunny pancakes and his first real Easter egg hunt with hundreds of kids!

April/May: First stitches.  Four of them.  Took four of us to hold him down and screaming filled the ER!

June: New house!  He adjusted well the the move!

July:  New favorite activity:  blowing bubbles!  And lots of beach time!

August:  Another fabulous PNE - first time on the Stanley Park Train.

September:  First Haircut!  Courtesy of Salon BABA - Also started to ride his Balance Bike

October:  penguin for Halloween and trip to a pumpkin patch!

November:  Playing in leaves with Baba just like me when I was a kid!

December:  First time decorating a gingerbread house!  Plus lots of new Christmas Traditions!

January:  First time making a full fledging snow man.  Rolling the snow balls and everything!

3 year anniversary!

Well faithful readers!  Our third anniversary of this blog has rolled around.  I have a three year old, very hard to believe.  Most days are hectic, crazy and full of yelling and laughter.  Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in a vortex of craziness and that I'm just watching myself go through the motions going, "oh, you shouldn't have done that," "why aren't you handling this better?"  "Have more patience!"  "You're not really a very good mom." 

A few wise people have said to me that the best sign that you are a good mom is the constant worry that you are a bad mom.  I hope this is true.  

Sometimes my handling skills need a tune up.  Lately I've been finding I have three ways of dealing with my children when they are not acting ideally:
1) Patience - calm voice, reasoning skills, teaching with love.
2) Mount Vesuvius - explosive, lashing out, listen now or else.
3) Escape into the Abyss - deep inward withdrawl, sometimes locking myself in a room sometimes just mentally escaping.

Obviously #1 is the best answer but let's face it, not always going to happen.  Out of #2 and #3 I'm not sure which is scarier to be honest.  Perhaps sometimes I get a little too rough physically with #2 by grabbing an arm or pushing Eli off his younger brother, but #3 I just don't even recognize myself.  Withdrawing from the situation is one thing but I feel cold and emotionless when this happens.  It's much more peaceful than the out of control spiral of Option #2, but it almost feels like the eye of the storm and the worst is still yet to come.  Eventually I will have to deal with those emotions.  But sometimes It's what I need to centre and come back to the situation with a fresh outlook.  At least that's what happens when I withdraw properly, not just avoid.  Otherwise I'm back quicker than I can say "Stop hitting your brother."

So all in all, what have I learned in three years of being a mom?  Not a whole hell of a lot.  I know to be more flexible in every aspect of my life.  I know to always bring a change of clothes for everyone when I leave the house.  I know if I don't bring the stroller I will need it and if I do bring it, likely it will end up just being a large, empty pushing device.  I've learned a double jogging stroller is a waste of money because 2 kids and a 50lb stroller is way too much trouble to push while running.  I've learned kids pick up every habit from you good and bad.  I've learned that even after the worst day, when your child goes to sleep and you see them soundly sleeping you think you are the luckiest person in the world.  Most importantly I've learned every kid is completely different and yet completely the same and love is always enough to carry you through.

I also have a new list I am working on.  It's called "Things you think you shouldn't have to teach your 3 year old but you do".  Here's a working sample, feel free to send me any other suggestions:

1) Don't touch the dog poop.
Enough said.
2) Food coming off a pot or pan will be hot still.  
It's like the moment it hits the plate they think it's instantly cool enough to eat.
3) Don't stand on toys or they will break.
Yes, if you stand on your dollar store plastic wheel barrow it will snap.  If you stand on your mega blocks they will break and take a one way ticket to garbage city.
4) If you are tired you should go to sleep.
Don't hit, don't whine, don't throw things. Go. To. Sleep!
5) Kissing it better only works when you hurt someone unintentionally.
You don't bite him so you can kiss it better!

Anyway, just a start, many more to come I'm sure.  I'm also going to be posting "A year of Eli" blog post soon in commemoration of his third full revolution around the sun.