The cake eater

We made sure Naveen understood completely what happens on his birthday. This is the third time he's had chocolate cake in two weeks. I'm on the phone with the dentist now.

On needing a bullet proof vest or better communication skills

I was bashed pretty good by a few commenters on Yummy Mummy for my post I wouldn’t be a good stay at home mom. I wrote it in hopes of being published specifically on this site for May’s topic – write about being a “bad” mommy. And since I’d been thinking non-stop about going back to work in the next few weeks, I realized that I wasn’t always a hundred per cent proud of my performance as a mother every day. I wrote it in an effort to convince myself that going back to work (which is not an option but a must for me) was for the best especially since I’d been lucky enough to have a year-long maternity leave with each of my sons.

Deaglan driving Grampa's "tractor" (riding lawn mower)

I entered motherhood thinking that I should strive to be a “supermom” but the experience of the last three and a half years woke me up to the truth that it’s more important to be a good mom. I wanted to be honest about how challenging being a stay-at-home mom was for me. That despite my best intentions, there were many times I didn’t get them outside on a snowy day, I fed them food out of a box, and let them watch more TV than I was comfortable with. In response to my post one reader wrote:

I'm all for women staying in the workforce for a myriad of reasons, but this article is sad. It's not that hard to make sure your kids get to play outside 90 minutes a day or to feed them a healthy meal. Sad that she would rather outsource spending time with her kids because she's too lazy to cut up some veggies and put some outdoor clothing on.

Sheesh!

I re-read my post to determine what I’d written to warrant such a conclusion. My limited experience in motherhood has taught me one thing that I carry with me every single day. That I have no idea what anyone else is going through and it’s not my place to judge. Before I was a parent I used to let slip (what I’m sure was beyond irritating to whoever was unfortunate enough to be listening, especially if they had small children themselves) gems like:

My children will be vegetable eaters because I will introduce them to veggies right from the beginning. If they don’t know about sugar and fat, how will they know to like it?

and

My kids will NEVER watch TV period.

I hereby give whoever had to listen to me back then permission to slap me.

Because obviously I'd not yet met my match – namely Deaglan W. McNamara, the KING of refusing to eat it unless it was sweet, salty or fried. I hadn’t thought that TV statement through especially since later I’d have a baby who slept for measly forty minute stretches throughout the livelong day and night which meant that for six months, the only sleep I would be getting would be an hour or two when my husband could relieve me.

Had I known that, I would have reconsidered saying something so slap-worthy.

But now that I am a little more well versed in the joys and demands of parenting, I try to keep my big mouth shut. I am certain that I know nothing about parenting the “right” way. I try only to speak about my experience.

This little heartbreaker turns one tomorrow!

 And I listen to the advice my Dad tried (but couldn’t) to post on my Yummy Mummy article: Staying at home may not make you a better mom and going to work may not make you a worse mom. Loving your kids will make you a great mom. Love dad

Thanks Dad. I know you’ve never heard me utter these words to you. But I think you may be right.

Naveen with Aunt Laura (my youngest sister)

This is me pouring my heart out with Shell early. I will be posting twice a week from now on. I hope you will keep coming back! Please, if you have any suggestions (posts too long, too short, too many pictures, not gossipy enough) let me know.

Recent photos

Many of these photos are from our long weekend (May 20-23). We spent time with both sides of our families. This is Deaglan at the beach in Camlachie just down from Shaune's parents.

Naveen and me in Shaune's parents' backyard. I rarely wear jewelry around this tiny grabby-handed monkey. My husband bought me this necklace and pendant with the kids names engraved on it for Christmas. Naveen sees nothing else when it's around my neck.

Naveen enjoying the Thomas the train cake Mimi and Papa (my folks) brought for his birthday celebration. It's clear he detests chocolate.

Shaune and Naveen in our backyard. Naveen's shirt says: I look just like Daddy. I got it a few years ago for Deaglan at H & M. They have the cutest kids clothes. These days you can have just as much fun dressing up boys as girls.

This was taken today. Shaune cooked up a fish his Dad caught a few weeks ago on his annual fishing trip up north. He baked it over an open fire on a charcoal grill. It was delightful with a side of sauteed green beans. Deaglan helped with the entire cooking process and was downright proprietary all throughout the meal asking me if I liked the fish he made.

We ducked into the hair salon in Walmart a few days ago. I can't stop drinking in his handsome little face.

The four of us right before Naveen got ready to open an enormous pile of gifts for the second time that weekend. Actually, he was only really interested in the bits of wrapping paper he could get his hands on. Deaglan did all the opening. And then all the playing with. We finally just gave up explaining that the new toys were for Naveen.

Sidewalk chalking. These days I'm taking every opportunity to write out Deaglan's name, hoping he'll start recognizing some of the letters. He's constantly pointing out D's on street signs and billboards.

This time Naveen didn't even wait to be served a slice of cake. Before anyone knew it was happening, he leaned down and took a bite of the cake while Gramma was holding it. Uhh, could I have a piece from the other side please?

Naveen and I have so much in common, a chip off the old block!

Happy Sunday!

Comments off.

Oprah guilt

This was absolutely the last time I’d shift uncomfortably when Shaune walked in on me watching Oprah. It was her last episode. I don’t know why I always felt a tinge of shame like he’d caught me red-handed in a nefarious act. Well, I think I know why but the real mystery was why I could never shake that feeling despite my true opinion of the show: wholesome and educational, researched and compelling. And even though I’d been known (in our house) for my over-compensatory lectures of the benefits of Oprah on our culture, I still felt a tiny bit queasy every time my husband asked what I was watching.

Yesterday I caught some news coverage about her last show where a Canadian anchor man when asked if he was a fan of Oprah’s, responded diplomatically with well, I don’t think I was a part of her demographic. Fair enough, I thought.

But something about this talk show host, philanthropist billionaire elicits bad attitudes in a lot of men I know and even some women. One girlfriend acts as if she happened to be home when Oprah was on and the only reason she watched was that there was absolutely nothing else on. Every time we discuss an interesting aspect of a particular episode, she participates using this contingency. As if to admit that had she willingly taken part in the viewing, she would have been lowering herself to a domain she would rather not be associated with.

My husband who is a modern-day Dad, an evolved spouse, and even a pioneer of the accurate division of labour in a marriage slumped his shoulders every single time I answered that I was watching Oprah. Yet on more than one occassion he watched episodes in rapt enthralment.

Honey, you know it’s true.

It’s not my intention to ask the cosmic why and shake my fists at the universe for creating men and women so different. I’m not even interested in changing my husband anymore. I gave that up some time ago – mostly. It’s this notion that I felt guilty about watching Oprah even though I loved the show. I won’t go so far as to say it was like Stockholm syndrome where the kidnapped person starts identifying with her captor. It’s something more elusive.

All I know is that for some reason the mere mention of Oprah serves to send some people straight back to the dark ages. It made my well intentioned, evolved, pioneer husband ask me Wednesday: Are you gonna have a girl party because it’s the last Oprah?

Really? Girl party?*

Oprah once said in regards to the relationship between men and women:
A man will only treat you the way you allow him to treat you.

I can’t think of one good reason my husband would suddenly talk to me like I was fourteen, giggling over Justin Bieber. In this one instance, she was wrong.

*It's a rare occassion when my husband is anything but respectful and supportive toward women.

I'm joining the ladies at the Red Dress Club in their prompt that asked we begin with the phrase this was absolutely the last time and end with she was wrong.

My article was published at Yummy Mummy

I've been submitting some articles to online and traditional magazines. I'm thrilled to tell you that the Canadian site Yummy Mummy - founded by Erica Ehm (remember her from Much Music in the eighties and nineties?) has published my recent post I wouldn't be a good stay at home mom.

Here's a bit about Yummy Mummy:

A superwoman who fits into her size 6 jeans three weeks after giving birth (by scheduled C-section of course)? A sexy mama who shops for groceries in heels, closing deals on her cell phone while waggling finger puppets to stimulate her baby's growing cerebellum? Give me a break!

Yummy is a state of mind.

A true Yummy Mummy struggles to find the impossible balance between the single sexpot she used to be, the woman she's become, the professional she works hard to be, the wife she aspires to be and the mother she has to be. Basically, she's confused and exhausted.

Forget CEO. THIS is the toughest job in the world. Why didn't anyone warn us? Can you relate?

Then Welcome to the Yummy Mummy Club....So, what's this club thing all about? It's a place where you can celebrate and commiserate the rollercoaster ride of modern mummydom, win great prizes, find books to stimulate your brain and read eclectic and cheeky articles written for and by other yummy mummies...because mummy needs to play too. We're unabashedly un-exclusive.

If you have...
a) kids
b) guilt
c) no time for yourself
d) all of the above
... then, you're in!I didn't realize it would be such a controversial topic - okay maybe I did a little. If you have time to head over there, make sure you read the comments. You'll notice that I've rubbed a few people the wrong way. I would love for you to leave a comment if you can. 



Thank you, as always for taking the time to read my blabbering. You have no idea how much it means to me!

Comments off.

I can only be self-less for so long

We had our neighbours and their grandkids over for a play date this week. And when Jennifer (the grandma) thanked Deaglan for letting them play on “his” swing set he responded with “My Daddy built my swing set for me.”

Now, I am nothing if not magnanimous, but I prickled at my son’s comment. Because while I’m the first to generously acknowledge all that my husband gives to our family, I had a good mind to set the child straight.

Yes, Daddy did “build” the swing set. But it was only after Mommy searched and searched kijiji ads for weeks, investigating at least 15 used play-scapes until she found just the right one. Then after a gruelling day at work, she drove her eight month pregnant self out to the country with a cranky, hungry toddler fresh from daycare to inspect it. Once she confirmed that it was in good shape, she tucked her shame into her back pocket and haggled the owners down one hundred dollars from the asking price. Knowing her work had only begun, she next created what can only be considered a small business case to present to your swing-set building hero, whose immediate reaction was to find twenty seven reasons we didn’t need it. But your mother pointed out just as many reasons (and all of them had to do with you) we did.
Then your good-for-nothing mother who, by the way, was busy building you a brother, a life-time friend, someone you will be able to rely on to always gang up on your father and me; well she worked at organizing the use of a truck big enough to carry the swing set home in pieces. And still, once the truck was borrowed, she had to gently coax your father through the entire process because it was rainy and windy which worked to further resist his efforts to have yet another child’s toy crowding his backyard.

Not that I’m bitter.

It’s bad enough that Santa takes all the credit at Christmas.

We took 244 pictures this past long weekend. It was a gloriously sunny fun-filled few days.

Although Naveen won't be one for a week still, we celebrated his big day twice.

I’m pouring my heart out with Shell.

May 21, 2010

This time last year I spent my waking hours longing for two things: a chance to lounge in the console of our big brown recliner and obscenely thick slices of velvety chocolate cake. My mind interjected these yearnings with the worry that inevitably this mammoth child in my womb would need to burst through to life on this side. The midwife’s deft hands speculated that not only did the boy weigh in excess of nine pounds, but that I was again producing too much amniotic fluid, a condition that could prove dangerous during the birth. Walking even to the bathroom left me winded.

I was in no position to deal with the sudden death of my younger brother.

Because you need time and space for such a thing. An open calendar to meld with the couch, watch re-runs and numb your brain. It requires the freedom to stop all healthy functioning, to refuse to cope, to deny its existence. It`s not the kind of thing conducive to welcoming a new life into your family. It`s not the black goop you want flooding your psyche when life was just cornering its way to clear and juicy.

But I couldn`t stop. The baby needed to be born. A toddler had to be overcompensated for the journey ahead of him, where he`d no longer be the centre of his world. The nursery was in desperate want of clearing; it had become a storage space in the past year. And I was supposed to be savouring these last few days as mother to one, a role I`d finally wrapped myself around.

So instead of eating cake, I mulled over the details of his death. Instead of building forts I crafted a eulogy. I traded fantasies of who this new baby would resemble with efforts to recollect our final conversations, sifting through them for hints of trouble.

And I wrote about it. I risked people thinking I lacked the dignity to keep some things private. That only a narcissistic blabbing fool would announce to the world her brother was dead only minutes after it happened; post the funeral details as her facebook status. Only a crazy attention seeking harpy would write every single feeling this loss conjured up.

But it was the only outlet I could think to deal with the enormity of the abyss that had cratered itself into the centre of my life.

The only tonic that would soothe my fevered grief.

And on Saturday when a year will have passed since that life-changing day, I still wonder if I would be further ahead if I`d had the luxury to slothfully mourn him. I wonder if I`d have more answers, feel the loss a little less or unclench my fists a smidge had circumstances allowed me to stop.

And cry.

The picture above is Matthew holdingDeaglan at two months. The picture below is a week before his passing at his best friend's mother's wedding. He's holding that friend's newborn baby.

This is my post for the prompt Sloth over at the Red Dress Club.