urbanmoms.ca Book Club

What is your excuse?

My excuse includes 3 adolescent step-children, a three year old, a large couch-chewing dog, with expensive phantom allergies and separation anxiety, a teaching job at an independent high school, a house that never seems tidy, a life style that sees us on the highway most Friday and Sunday nights, the lack of commitment that has sustained Kath in her weightloss over the last year and a husband who loves junk food and take-out. My need for excuses began the year after I had my daughter. Most women lose weight breast-feeding but I was one of the few who actually gained, and gained and gained. Maybe it was because it was one of the most difficult and painful experiences I have ever had and for 8 months, until she thankfully weaned herself, all I did was stress about having to feed her again. Two years later, aside from the odd ten pounds that comes and goes, I have held on to almost all that weight. 

I live in a body that is foreign to me and I am still surprised every morning to wake up and find myself much larger than I remembered being in my sleep. My concern about this preoccupies too much space in my brain. Daily, I start and stop a variety of diets, cleanses and weight loss programmes. Sometimes I make it to dinner before my plan implodes but usually its the 2-4 snack attack that does me in. I do not recognize my hands or my feet and I dread having to sit in front of the big, overlit mirror at the hair salon, so my locks are now the longest they have ever been in my life...which is not necessarily a good thing.

Mr. Husband is fantastic and never says a word. He knows I am concerned about my appearance and never provides any undo negative comments. Besides, there are so many other people out there willing to do it for him. My mother for one, who regularly wonders what happened to me. The 4 year old boy floating with his little shark in the pool at our hotel in Vegas who wanted to know if I got this fat from eating candy, or was I just born this way. The look in the eyes of old friends I haven't seen in a long time. Some of my girlfriends have tried to help in positive ways, did I know about this plan? Have I tried that?  But then they want me to buy t-shirts that match all of them off of the regular size rack, so I'm not sure they really understand.

That's why I think it may be time for an excuse billboard. Something to wear when I am out and about like those sandwich boards, instead of Mr. Husband's over-sized sweatshirts. A list of all of my excuses and some bullet points regarding what I am doing about it. Maybe then my neighbour down the street won't think it appropriate to make a joke about me and my apparent lack of fitness to one of his friends while I am standing between them. Maybe in my list of responsibilities and excuses for not looking after myself enough in the grand equation of family, he will recognize the role of an adult and be reminded that hopefully we have outgrown the phase where we insult each other in order to look cool in front of our friends. Maybe in reading all my excuses for being overweight, he will find an excuse for being an ass. Maybe this hurtful comment from a man who should know better is all the catalyst I need to bring about a healthier approach to eating. Or maybe I will inhale a bag of M&Ms, feel better temporarily and worry about it tomorrow.

My Morning with Tinkerbell

I spent the day yesterday with Tinkerbell. She was wearing horizontally striped stretch pants of 6 or 7 different colours, an emerald green t-shirt, pink crocks, her shiny Tinkerbell fairy dress, her wings and a lime green sun hat with her own image emroidered on the front. She had dressed herself.  My time with Tinkerbell is not new to me. She has emerged from the Gaffer's room on more than one occasion to brighten us all with her magic and turn her mother into a frog. But it's not very often that she ventures out of the house. Maybe the sunshine got to her.

First, Tink and I went to the bank. She flew most of the way. I was delighted to see this turn of events because we had suffered minor trauma the first time she put her wings on at Hallowe'en and jumped around the kitchen crying, "Momma, Momma these wings don't fly!" Apparently when one runs fast enough and flaps one's arms in the spring sunshine, fairy dust isn't even needed to take flight. I don't think cocktails will be needed by any of our neighbours this evening either after witnessing the CIBC inspired flight of Tinkerbell as she soared to the nearest ATM. 

After withdrawing copious amounts of cash and pushing many buttons we headed over to the flower market. The Gaffer likes to drop by once a week to see if she can get a new rose when the one in her room loses too many petals like that of the Beast just before Belle proclaims her love and turns him into a handsome prince.  You may be as surprised as me to learn that Tinkerbell acally (pronounced actually) prefers tulips...purple ones. Belle likes to get roses for the Beast but Tinkerbell can fly better with a tulip in her hand.

The next stop was the liquor store. Tink wanted to ride in the acalator (elevator) but that is only for days that we are in the stroller. She carried several lovely bottles of Baileys and Drambuie over to Mama but Mama was in the mood for some wine, the kind with bubbles. We made a quick dash through the cash with some more very important button pushing and turned one LCBO employee into a turtle. I am not sure if spells take effect on people who cannot actually hear them but if you get very slow service at a mid-Toronto LCBO store in the next little while it could be the work of our little magic wand.

Finally, we headed to our favourite smoothie store. While Mama did all the ordering and paying, Tink sniffed at some wheat grass on display and pulled a chair over to the blenders in order to get up close and personal with all the ingredients of her 'moothie.  This put a huge hindrance on flying and just as Mama was balancing both drinks, several bouquets of flowers, and a liquor store bag, the wings had to come off. Another little known fact about Tinkerbell is that she removes her wings for meals. One cannot fly and drink, it is a choking hazard.

There was more flying and castle wall inspection, along with a little mountain climbing on the way home when suddenly Tinkerbell turned herself and her mother into a frog and we had to hop and ribbit the rest of the way. As Tink lay down for a rest with her friends, Elizabeth in the paper bag dress and the 101 Donations, Mama sat on the porch and smiled.

In his play, Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie wrote, "When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."

I believe it. I spent my morning with a fairy and the laughter, the innocent, pure laughter that accompanied that journey could only have come from babies. I am so blessed to have gotten both a baby and a fairy in my Gaffer.

I Salsa Like a Line Dancer

No one has ever accused me of being a good dancer. When I was younger and less jiggly, I was a very energetic dancer, making up for what I lacked in rhythm with bouncy legs and flailing arms, but as my cardio-vascular fitness has decreased, my glaring lack of any sense of inner tempo has become more pronounced. Nowhere has this been more evident to me than in my cardio-salsa class. This was week 1 and also week last for me. There were three other women of similar vintage and size in my class being led by a very tiny hip swaying instructor in a room bordered on three sizes by full length mirrors. 

First, there was nowhere to hide when my hops were meant to go right and my stomach and chest swung left. It's hard enough to see one's own body swing in such and awkward manner, but to know the same moving picture is visible to the rest of the class is unsettling.

The second problem was the steps. Since many of you offered so many sage pieces of advice about my cluttering calamities, I know you are all familiar with the over-cluttered brain disorder from which I am currently suffering. I do not have room to remember the names of all of my friends, I certainly cannot remember 1,2,3, back, 5,6,7. So while my head is supposed to held high and looking only at my forlorn shape in the mirror for support, my eyes are actually glues to my toes, hoping to guide them in the appropriate steps before I have to succumb to a huge eye strain headache.

And finally, the hip sways, arm movements and booty shakes themselves. Ever notice how line dancers usually hold their upper bodies straight and work their legs kinetically. Salsa dancers through the whole body into the sensual movements. This is difficult when you come from the Billy Crystal School of Dancing and specialize in the "white woman's overbite". I look like a cardboard cut out stapled atop some tangled tree trunks that are blowing sideways in the wind. And I know this because it is impossible to move like this and not catch sight of myself in the mirror.

Fortunately, 40 minutes into my Karmic time out for anyone I had every embarrassed or humiliated, the cd began to skip and our intrepid beat counter and dirty dancer had to go play DJ for a few minutes. While she fiddled with the stereo, I picked up my water bottle and towel and skulked out of there, not even saying good-bye.

The good news is that in a day where I have precious few free minutes, I now know that I do not have to spend them doing Salsa dances. The bad news is, I can't Salsa and it still looks so cool.

Breaking the Good Mom Myth, Every Modern Mom’s Guide to Getting Past Perfection, Regaining Sanity, and Raising Great Kids

Urbanmoms.ca Book Review:

Breaking the Good Mom Myth, Every Modern Mom’s Guide to Getting Past Perfection, Regaining Sanity, and Raising Great Kids
--By Alyson Schafer

Psychotherapist and Parenting Expert, Alyson Schafer offers a brilliant and hilariously revealing exploration of today’s misguided motherhood. Discover the truth behind the myths that keep moms flying at a frenetic pace, spending countless dollars they often don’t have, and losing endless hours trying to become “experts” on everything from ear infections to the safe heating points of hard plastics.

When did neurotic become normal?

This book explains the psycho-social phenomena of how each person creates their own unique “good mother myth” and then examines why these myths are not only faulty, but could in fact lead to poor parenting, marital disaster and often individual crisis.

Alyson has worked with a great many mothers who, in the quest to be a “good mother” have ended up on the door step of despair. She is a forty-something, suburbanite, working-mother of two and can speak to these issues both personally and professionally.

You can even catch her live this month at various speaking engagements in Newmarket, Barrie, Oshawa and Mississauga. Go to www.alyson.ca to see a list of her upcoming appearances this week!

We sent a copy of Alyson Schafer’s Breaking the Good Mom Myth, Every Modern Mom’s Guide to Getting Past Perfection, Regaining Sanity, and Raising Great Kids (published by John Wiley & Sons Canada) to Andrea, urbanmoms.ca member, book review panelist and mother of four kids under four years old!

Speaking from a lot of great experience herself, she shares her thoughts on this smart, witty and humorous novel about motherhood idealized for us below:

urbanmoms.ca: What was your initial impression of this book?

Andrea: I immediately appreciated the simple layout of the book.  The author Alyson Schafer takes common myths that we hold in society and gives humorous, constructive answers on how to deal with these misconceptions.  I was also impressed by the author’s background.   She is a mother of 2 with the education and experience to really back up all her opinions.

urbanmoms.ca: What do you think are the key messages of this book?  Did they resonate with you?

Andrea: I felt the overall messages in this book were to get beyond the idea that we have to be perfect to raise our children.  The ideas were based on our modern lifestyle that dictates that our children are a reflection of ourselves.  As a teacher and a mother of 4, I see the consequences and feel the strain of this unobtainable ideal all the time!

urbanmoms.ca: What would another mother find most appealing about this book?

Andrea: I believe that most moms will enjoy her ‘non-blaming’ approach to improving family relationships. Too often with parenting today, you come away feeling full of guilt; not so with Breaking the Good Mom Myth.

urbanmoms.ca: What stood out about this book?

Andrea: The humour and real-life examples used made this book a standout.

urbanmoms.ca: Would you recommend this book to a friend?  Why/why not?

Andrea: I have already recommended this book to several friends.  It is a refreshing take on modern parenting.

urbanmoms.ca: Please share any other comments about your experience with this book?

Andrea: I found the section on how to deal with children fighting particularly interesting.  I have a 4 year old and a 2 1/2 year old who have just started to fight in earnest and the advice given in the book made a lot of sense to me.   Now I step back for a minute to assess exactly what has happened and sometimes find that the “victim” (usually my youngest) has provoked the other one just to grab my attention.  I don’t immediately jump to blame someone at a first glance any more! 

Andrea is an urbanmoms.ca member and participant in our book review panel. A great big urbanmoms.ca THANK YOU to Andrea for finding the time in her busy mom schedule to share her thoughtful review of this book.

This Messy Life

According to Dictionary.com, there are 7 definitions for the noun "mess."

1.	a dirty, untidy, or disordered condition.

2.	a person or thing that is dirty, untidy, or disordered.

3.	a state of embarrassing confusion.

4.	an unpleasant or difficult situation.

5.	a dirty or untidy mass, litter, or jumble.

6.	a group regularly taking their meals together.

7.	the meal so taken.

And in George Carlin fashion, I can apply all of them to my world. My life itself is not a mess. Not in the dysfunctional, unhappy, unsatisfying sense. But my surroundings can certainly apply anywhere on a scale of 1 thru 7 depending on the occasion. It's a bit of an anomaly that such a relatively organized person can exist in such chaos, and I'm beginning to realize that even I may have reached my limit. I have that same feeling I had at the beginning of high school and then again as I entered university. I made it through Grades 1 to 8 with relatively little effort and higher than mediocre success and the same was true of high school. I was admitted to the university of my choice without too much stress, although at that time, Queen's certainly wasn't demanding a 90% average for Arts. In both instances, I was subjected to a rude awakening. The laissez-faire approach I took to school needed a boot in the butt. In high school, my parents were right beind me giving the boot momentum, but in university, it took me a few years to figure it out on my own and actually maximize my time and get the most out of the experience.

Now I'm beginning to realize that the methods of organization and time management that served me well in my thirties are waning.  The clutter and chaos that  permeates every room in our house is starting to suck on my energy. I've never been much for feng shui or minimalism or flow or any of those things but I do know that I spend so much time either moving some things around looking for others, or just staring at piles that need to be organized, that I am zapping energy from my ability to actually do something about it. I am not one of those people who know how to put things away. I never pick the right cupboards for the right dishes, or dry goods and no matter how many hours I spend organizing my beautiful new built-ins, they always look like someone randomly dropped a load of paperbacks on the shelves and wandered away.

My bedroom closet is full of clothes I know I'll wear again "one day" even though every magazine tells me to give them away. The laundry room is never without a pile and in the corner is an entire laundry basket full of single socks, a by product of three children who live in two houses. My storage closet is full of baby clothes I can't bring myself to give away just in case we adopt a girl. The Gaffer's room is stuffed with clothes she has not yet grown into because of my love for second hand baby clothing sales. Those clothes are stuffed into a pine hutch that should be in dining room but hasn't been moved yet. The dry sink that once doubled as her change table is in the dining room and currently houses all of the clothes that fit her. The dresser that is in her room is full of dining room and kitchen accessories. The cupboard under the bathroom sink literally explodes with notions and lotions and bubbles and bath things that get used occasionally. My car and my desk at work are just as overloaded and disorganized.

I know I could call in a de-clutter organizer person, but I also know that they will tell me to get rid of it all and I just can't bring myself to do it...yet. I still have notes my best friend and I passed to each other in high school. They are old and silly but do they ever make us laugh. Especially her caricatures. But my brain and vision are so full of stuff that I no longer have room for details. I have become my mother. If an event wasn't on her calendar in the kitchen, it didn't exist. Even when it is on my calendar, there is a chance I'll forget to look at it. I write shopping lists and then forget them at home. I write to-do lists and lose them under all the papers I haven't dealt with.

So, on Easter Sunday, as I begin to pack up all the detritous I have accumulated at the ski chalet in 3 short months, I am making a spring cleaning resolution. I am going to try and clean up some of my junk and see if I can create some space in my mind and my soul. Space to let the sun shine in and re-energize me so the next time I feel tired and lost it will be because I have been cleaning and tidying all day and not because I have spent the day missing appointments and only buying half the groceries I need because I have been so overwhelmed just thinking about all my messes. With this last sentence I am pledging to myself and all of you that by the next blog, I will have neatly and beautifully arranged my new built-ins, even if it requires hundreds of pages of decorating magazine help to show me how to do it. If I manage to remember the shopping list that reminds me to buy a new digital camera, I will even share a picture with you! 

Body Tired

I am so tired. I have that kind of tired that I have only really experienced when I was pregnant and that's definitely not the case now. It is an all-pervading body tired that seeps from my toes, crawls up my legs, swells my hands, locks my shoulders and neck and clogs any brain cells I thought I may have still had left. It pervades every aspect of what I'm doing. But it's not a sleepy tired, it's a dysfunctional tired. When and if I finally get into bed, I lie awake for hours wondering why anyone so exhausted is still awake.

It 's the kind of tired you get when you have a 16 year old out babysitting until midnight on a Tuesday, a three year old who wakes up at 3:30 wailing, a mis-guided notion that exercise is important and you have to get up at 5:30am to fit it in and then a full day of teaching 16 and 17 year olds who have not let the chilly weather dampen their spring fever.

It's a tired that makes me wonder if this is what life at 41 is like? I'm sure I had enough energy for all of this when I was 25. I could even do it hungover back then. Now I'm too tired to have even the second glass of wine.

Part of it, I'm sure, is a result of bad nutrition.  And I am the queen of the perpetual circle. I'm too exhausted to worry about eating well so I justify junk which leaves me feeling rotten and zapped of energy so I eat more junk.

Part of it is a gaffer who seems to have given up sleeping through the night. Usually this just requires a 3 - 4 am visit to adjust covers and maybe put on a quiet Cd. But last night when I found her straddling my chest at 2:00 am ready to play in Mommy's bed, my sympathy for her sleep concerns began to wane. When she announced at 6:00 am on my only sleep-in day that she was ready for breakfast I seriously began to wonder what I had done in my youth or childhood to deserve this.

The problem with being exhausted is that it is exactly like everyone in every magazine and pamphlet tells us. It is impairing. I am patience impaired, decision-making impaired, complicated thought processing impaired and fun impaired. Instead of carrying a head on my shoulders full of details, schedules and problem-solving strategies, I lug around blame conversations of whose fault it is that I got this way and what he could do to fix it if he even noticed what was going on. Next to that conversation is the avoid switch, where I can no longer bring myself to pick up one more dish, fold another shirt, move a toy or cook and meal and thus my home begins to reflect the chaos theory I have allowed to take up residence in my cerebral cortex.

And now I feel an exhausted manic surging as I re-read my post and recognize that my words are getting bigger and my thoughts more convoluted.

I should go. I should have a morning nap, or go for a run, or make a healthy smoothy, or clean my kitchen or do anything that may make me feel better. But really I want to stay right here, where it's safe, where I'm on a roll and I look like I'm working very hard to anyone in my home who may want to interrupt me...not that that has every stopped them before.

But I better run. I still have to pack for the weekend, I believe we are leaving soon, clean the kitchen up, move the wet laundry into the dryer so it doesn't get mouldy, change the gaffer....no wonder I'm tired.

Congratulations to our Dr. Seuss Contest Winners!

Our contest to win the 50th Birthday Edition of Dr.Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat and The Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook has come to an end.

   +   

Thanks to all of you who entered and congratulations to our winners listed below.

How cute are all these pictures of reading with the kids!

Mina 
Aidan being read to by his grandma!

Laura
Kate reading with Grampa
Laura’s daughter Kate is a huge Dr. Seuss fan and would LOVE to win this contest!

Jen
Oliver & Quinn both 22 months reading Curious George

Karen
Karen’s Dad and daughter reading together on a visit to Florida

Rose
Daddy and son time together.
Rose’s family’s favorite story to read together is How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  They take turns reading it under the Christmas tree every year.  They always make it a point to read with Colton each and every day.

I Made it Through the Rain

Thanks to everyone for your great support on my bad week, but a special shout out to Wendy and her Manilow stylings that made me laugh all the way down to my toes.

This week has had a much stronger start and it is only 4 business days long, so I am optimistic for improvement but I don't want to tempt the gods, especially with Good Friday looming!

There was a ray of sunshine that did manage to peak through my doom and gloom last week in the form of a new adoption agency. Mr. Husband and I registered with another agency and the experience was so different from the first lawyer we met that I thought we might actually walk out with a baby in our arms. This social worker had a very positive attitude about our desires and seemed really interested in helping us the best way she could, instead of discouraging us and listing all the reasons why this would never work. I got a great vibe from her and am feeling for the first time since Vietnam shut its doors to us that we may get just one more miracle in our already abundant life.

Speaking of abundance, I have to mention again what an awesome party Jen and urbanmoms can throw. There was an over-abundance of great women, styling swag--love the straightening iron, pamperiffic treats, yummy noshes, especially the lobster-topped waffles and overall over-the-top organized partyness.  I got to meet Haley-o who looked perfectly pregnant and not at all as big as she professes. I had trouble keeping eye contact with the very hot Kath in the very slimming, wrap dress, I was so fascinated with her flat belly! And I think I saw a couple more of my fellow bloggers but there were so many interesting women with whom to chat, I unfortunately didn't get a chance to meet them.  I even got recognized by a couple of women who have commented on my postings. I'm not sure yet if that was a positive experience. They were very pleasant but somehow I feel better thinking that no one is actually reading what I write.

I am so looking forward to Easter. The Gaffer will have the first egg hunt she will actually remember and my brother and sister-in-law are hosting dinner so all I have to do is show up with a few hor d'oeurves. That is so not how many of our holidays go that I am not sure what I will do with myself.

But first we have the dreaded Tuesday night dance routine and Wednesday evening marks the beginning of spring swimming lessons for the Gaffer and Sir Talksalot - which of course are not even close in time, let alone at different pools. Thursday night Mr. Husband and I have invited a bunch of my high school friends to a get-together at a local pub. On the weekend he told me that he forgot to mention that he has a work function that night and cannot go after all, so I'll be doing that solo if I can find a sitter, if I need  one, if Cupcake has to work or has some other pressing social engagement.

I hope the Easter Bunny remembers my chocolate almond bark from Laura Secord. I think I'm going to need it!