Different

"I feel bad saying I'm tired, I can't believe I'm complaining to you."

"I shouldn't say anything, I know I'm lucky to have her Dad with me."

"Do you ever sleep? Seriously, when do you sleep? When do you have time?"

Yep. I'm busy. I work full-time. I write part-time. I have a preschooler, who I raise alone. I volunteer. I'm on an advisory council. I might be picking up another part-time job. It's called life and while it might not look just like yours, I'm not comparing because it's really apples to oranges, isn't it? Let's just stop comparing.

When Mr Hockey Coach exclaims that he's tired and I nod empathetically, he immediately retracts his statement because he "can't be tired" because he's not me, he's not raising a kid. Wait, what? No, honey, you can be tired.

When my girlfriend vents about how hard it is to be a working parent, she suddenly bites her tongue and says how lucky she is to have her partner with her - someone to share the load. But it's still hard. Parenting is hard. Juggling your workload is hard. Maintaining a social life is hard. It's all hard.

I'm one "try being a single parent" meme away from my head exploding because we're all comparing apples to pineapples and watermelon to walnuts and it's gotta stop. It's useless. It's tiresome. It's time consuming. And we single parents aren't superior to the stay-at-home moms or the work-at-home moms or the parents who have a partner to help raise the kids. (Sorry, single parents. Our shit stinks, too.)

I have friends who are stay-at-home moms, and their lives are busy and rewarding and they are no easier and no harder than mine. They're different. Same goes for my work-at-home mom friends. Shit, I've got friends who don't have kids whose lives are as busy and hectic and stressful and awesome as mine. 

We all have routines and when they are interrupted, it throws us off. 

We all have challenges. We all have needs. We all have ups and downs.

I'm not invincible. I just have different priorities. Not bad. Not better.

 Just different.

Technology Time Out

Just a quick glance at my Twitter feed will tell you all you need to know: I spend a lot of time on social media. It's as much as personal choice as a professional necessity that HootSuite runs in the background at all times, no matter what I'm doing. From 7:30 am - 4:00 pm, Monday to Friday I run not one, not two, but six social media accounts and yet I go home and stay connected because it's part of my life. But it's not just Twitter and Facebook. I come home from work, throw F the iPad so he can play Angry Birds and we turn on the TV and zone out.

If it was for an hour that'd be one thing. But it's not.

So yesterday, I turned it all off. The phone. The iPad. The TV and the computer and even the radio and I declared it an 8-hour challenge for F and I. And a challenge it was, believe me. By noon, F was begging for the iPad and my fingers were twitching with the absence of my phone and that's exactly why I did it. 

But it turned out to be easily one of the best days I've had in a long time.

F's first request for the TV came about a nanosecond after he spotted it upon arriving in the living room this morning. I probably explained that it was a "no TV" or a "no iThing" day two thousand times, repeating over and over that I felt we were spending too much time in front of the various screens in our house. So I pulled out the crayons and brought F's easel into the middle of the room and we drew shapes and wrote letters and then he got tired of that. So he played with his trucks and I arm-knitted a scarf. We ate breakfast and lunch together and for a long time, I just sat and watched him play.

And then I got more cleaning done in an hour or two than I ordinarily would in a week because there was nothing to distract me. You would never know that this if you saw the apartment before I left this morning, though. Life without technology is real messy. 

And then we dug out the window crayons and decorated the window in the living room. And then we read a story. And then we bundled up as warmly as we could and we shuffled down the stairs and into the car and we drove to the Frog Pond for two hours of fun in the sun and the snow. Somewhere between setting the head on our snowman and breaking off twigs for his arms I realized how busy I've been lately and I felt ashamed of myself for sitting next to him while we each stare at our own screen and calling it "together" time. 

One day without technology doesn't make it all okay, but it inspired me in more ways than one. From now on, we'll observe a technology time out for a little while every day - even if it's just me putting my phone away for a few hours at work and letting my laptop sit undisturbed on the table until after the dinner dishes have been cleared. What seems like a small, harmless habit proved to have a big effect yesterday and I know both F and I will be reaping the benefits of our technology-free day all week.

And then I think we'll do it all again!

Before you open the box...

I knew going into my adoption disclosure that it wouldn't all be sunshine and rainbows. 

Life, you see, is ugly sometimes. Messy. Unexpected. And every now and again, shit hits the fan and you've gotta deal with it. Nobody is exempt from that, it's just part of the reality that is living in this big old world. There's no sense fretting about the past. It's unchangeable. It is what it is. Even if I could totally change the way things played out, I wouldn't. Thanks to a series of what some people might call "unfortunate" events, I was put up for adoption and came to have the fantastic life that I have today. 

And yet, I needed to know. 

I don't know why, but I struggled every day of my life with a sense of inadequacy. The bizarre idea that I hadn't been good enough. If I had, she wouldn't have done what she did. If I had, I wouldn't have been taken away. She was my birth mom, and the idea is as crazy as a bag of snakes. There's no reason there. No logic. Just confusion, the unknown, the unanswered. Curiosity, as it were, killed the cat.

I dreamed for years of finding out, but lacked the proverbial balls to do it until the day I put my request for disclosure in the mail and actually almost threw up on myself. I felt my heart stop when the phone rang and the voice on the other end announced that my birth mother had been found. That it had been an emotional phone call. That my letter and my photos were on their way to her. And then it unfolded faster than you can "genealogy" and the next thing I know my biological father's telling me to climb back into the hole I've been living in and I'm meeting my maternal grandfather on his deathbed. It's the stuff of soap operas and yet it's also the shit you just can't make up. It's that thing called life being unexpected and messy and unpredictable and amazing.

But there's no putting it back.

It's like when you receive a box of stuff and you take it all out to look at it, but no matter how hard you try you can't fit it all back in perfectly, the way it had been. No matter how much you try to stuff it in, not even if you sit on it and try to zip that baggage up, can you ever close it again. Because once that box is opened, it's opened forever. You can't tuck it away neatly until next time, There's no "pause" button. 

I'm not sorry I did it, but sometimes I wonder if I really understood that this was a lifelong commitment. There's no undoing it. There's no forgetting the moments that we all waited years to have. There's no wiping the slate clean, either. I can't unlearn what I've learned, un-read the social worker's reports or the doctor's notes. I can't unsee the photos. I can't undo the things I've done. I can't erase the sadness of spending time with Granddad knowing it was all I'd ever have, I'll never forget the hurt that came from the rejection of my biological father, and I'll forever cherish the opportunity to get to know my family.

If you're considering adoption disclosure, consider talking to someone first. Be it a therapist or a social worker, talk to someone so you're prepared for what you might uncover. Make sure you're ready. Once that box is opened, there's no repacking the contents. It's open forever. 

For more about my adoption, you can click here or here or here or even right here. 

Unbroken Family

Last week, someone "kindly" forwarded a link to my email.
(catch that? it's called sarcasm and i am dripping with it today)

The name of the article that the link was for was "How to Survive the Holidays as a Broken Family". I have an issue with the term "broken family" - though, admittedly, not nearly as big an issue as I have with the fact that someone felt it was necessary to send me that bullshit link. In case you're wondering, a "broken family" is defined as a family where parents are separated or divorced, but I'm still not really feelin' it. A "broken home" essentially mirrors that statement, except it's a house with a broken family living inside of it.

My family is not broken. It is not defective. It might not look like yours, but it's made of the exact. same. stuff. 

I had a broken family when I had a husband who didn't help me raise our child. I had a broken home when a truck meant more than a marriage, and when fun with friends was more important than family. I had a broken life when my heart ached because my relationship was empty and my dreams were in the dark. I don't have those things any more, and my son does not come from a "broken home". He comes from a home that's filled with love and support and he has a family that loves and cares about him more than anything else in the world. He might not have someone in the house who he calls "Dad", but he's got a group of great men to look up to, each of whom is more than willing to lend a hand along the way.

Terms like "broken" serves only to tell our kids that there's something wrong with their home. Their family is "bad", it's not right. It's broken, like a toy that needs to be thrown away. Isn't being a kid in a situation with only one parent hard enough, without society telling him or her that their family is wrong? Isn't being a kid in the society we're in hard enough? I know as an adult that hearing terms like "broken family" or "broken home" make me feel badly about my life, and it's bullshit because my life is pretty awesome, and perfectly imperfect in its one-piecedness.

Does it suck that my family falls into the category of "broken"? No. Sure, I didn't plan on being a single parent but I'd way rather raise F alone than be miserable in a relationship where I felt just that - alone. My kid is a Hell of a lot better off having a parent who is genuinely happy than he would have been with two parents who weren't.

Families, like the people they are made up of, are unique. I explain this to F all the time. Some families have brothers or sisters, some have brothers and sisters. Some have no children, some have one child and others have all kinds of children. Sometimes they're different colours. Some families have one mom or two moms, two dads, one dad or a mom and a dad. But for all the differences, families are the exact same because they're made of love, whether they are nuclear, blended, upside down, purple, green, single-parented and triple-childed. 

And every family has hiccups and crazy Holiday stuff to deal with.

THE END.

Advise me

Kids give great advice.

Some of the best advice I've ever received and the most important life lessons I've ever been taught have come from children, especially my own. It's the little things that as grown ups, we forget or we're too busy for, and it's the things that make all the difference in the world.



Stop. Appreciate your surroundings. Doddle sometimes.

While hanging out with a friend not so very long ago, we got into a discussion about relationships. Her nine-year-old was apparently listening in, and when I said that I often thought about getting back together a little voice piped up with, "isn't it called a break up because it's broken?". And it's true. While I won't pretend to know what the future holds or how things may play out, I've learned the hard way that if it didn't work the first time, a relationship doesn't tend to work the second or the third time around, either. 

So, if it ain't broke don't fix it and it's called a break-up because it's broken. Apply those simple principles to  your relationship and you may find that you created problems where there were none, or you tried to fix something that wasn't fixable.

As we were rushing to get ready one morning, I barked at asked F to put on his jacket, perhaps little more sharply than I should have and he stood there looking at me as I continued to rush about. When I asked him why he wasn't listening, he told me I hadn't said please and he was right. Being late doesn't excuse poor manners, and who better to remind me than the child whom I'm teaching this simple rule. 

And then, I started thinking (dangerous, I know) and I came up with this little list of things that F has taught me recently, and I'd like to share it with you...

1. Hugs do not need an occasion. Hug people you love for no reason, other than that you simply love them. Receiving an unexpected, love-filled hug is the best thing in the world. I know this because it happens to me every. single. day.

2. "I love you" also doesn't need an occasion? Love someone? TELL THEM. Don't put it on Facebook. Don't tweet it. Don't beat around the bush - just say the words. And don't not say it because "they already know". Tell them anyway.

3. Celebrate the little things. F told me I had done a good job when I flushed the toilet this morning. and while it sounds a little bit silly to a grown up, it was important to F to tell me that I had done a good job. I also get "Great job!" or, my personal favourite, "You're the best!" when I make meals, put on our boots or sometimes just run a bath. Thank people for doing the things they do each day, even if it's just emptying the dishwasher.

4. Say what you feel. F tells me when he's upset. In fact, I encourage him to. He says he's happy, or he's sad or he's angry and he says when he doesn't understand or doesn't like something. Can you imagine how much easier life would be if people told one another how they actually felt? My stars! 

5. Be silly. Laughing makes you feel instantly better. If it doesn't, you need a soul because you obviously don't have one. Don't take yourself too seriously all the time. Sure, there's a time and a place for everything but don't forget to take a few minutes to watch a funny cat video or share a joke with a friend or colleague. 

6. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. The words of Thumper's mum are repeated over and over at my house, and I'm as guilty as anyone of breaking this rule. It's extra hard when I preach "say how you feel", but you can say how you feel without making someone else feel badly. And if you don't think you can, that's one time you can keep your feelings to yourself.

7. Slow down sometimes. I often get frustrated when we're walking somewhere and F stops to look at leaves or some other random, inconsequential thing and hurry him along. But it's good to stop and smell the roses coffee. I tell him to hurry up when he's eating, as he takes a bite and then "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm's" his satisfaction. How often do we shovel food in without appreciating the great flavours? I know I do. I've eaten entire meals without tasting them. Life moves fast enough without us hurrying it along.

Raising Boys

Perhaps it's related to the fact that there are a couple of slightly older boys in F's preschool class, but my darling boy has officially decided that he can no longer sit down to pee. I'd be completely unbothered by the whole thing, but F has also decided that he needs me to show him how and without giving you a mental picture of what that attempt at a teachable moment looked like, I can tell you it's not going to happen.

It's moments like these that I find myself especially frustrated with our situation. As if being a single parent isn't hard enough by itself, the simple fact is that boys and girls sometimes need an older member of the same sex to show them things. I can't imagine how awkward it would have been to ask my father feminine questions growing up. Actually, I can but I think it would have led ol' Papa Bear to a stroke so I'm especially glad I didn't have to get into bras and tampons and all that jazz. Standing up to pee is pretty small on the list of things that F will need help with in his life, but it felt as big as a mountain when he asked me to do it.

By gently explaining that boys and girls are built differently, I managed to help him understand that I cannot show him but I said I'd be there if he needed some help. I asked what he thought he should do, and he managed OK except that he missed the toilet and somehow managed to pee on everything else in my bathroom. But, we celebrate the small victories here, too, so with a change of his clothes and a quick trip to the laundry room with my bath mats, we were ready to try again. And try again we did, with much more success and better aim. (Hooray!)

The challenges in raising a little boy as a bit of a girlie girl are just beginning, and I know that. I feel especially fortunate that F's preschool class has a male teacher - a positive male role model who he can learn from and hopefully turn to. I'm lucky to have a group of male friends who I can turn to for advice when needed, and I'm lucky in that the boy stuff is less gruesome than the girl stuff as things move forward from here.

But, challenges lie in being a single mum with a boy in other ways. It's the moments when I need a few moments to do chick stuff that F is convinced that he desperately needs to be beside me. It's as I change my clothes or put on a bra or he asks why girls have to sit down to pee that I realize we might be hitting the age where F and I just can't do those things together, and it's tricky. I can't lock the bathroom door when I head into the shower. I can't tell him to wait outside the stall as I use a public washroom. I also have to gently explain that no, he cannot paint his nails when Mommy does. It's a learning curve. (And sometimes I let him have non-shiny clear polish on his toes, just because.)

Yesterday's pee-splosion all over my bathroom taught me that, although it might get messy, letting F take the reins and taking a step or two back is the only way we can make it through some things. It's really hard to accept that F and I might be coming to the end of our baths together. Pretty soon, I'll even have to put my foot down over the whole co-sleeping thing, too. But there are some things we can't avoid, so we'll have to learn how to make them work.

And make them work, we will.

fifty three weeks

A year ago, I was packing the last of my things for my move.

So much has happened in the past year that I can feel my head begin to spin just thinking about thinking about it all. I remember my own rush to get things packed before supper - I didn't want to worry about anything on Hallowe'en. I just wanted to enjoy trick-or-treating with F. I can still feel the ache in my heart knowing I had to leave him behind for a while. I don't have words to describe that, even today.

I remember waking up on November 1 and packing the "big stuff" onto the back of Dad's truck, and sharing the drive to Halifax. I remember discovering my apartment door unlocked - and furiously looking for new apartments on the drive back to Cape Breton that night. You don't need to ask how angry I was when I found that same door unlocked shortly afterwards, though both episodes pale in comparison to the hissy fit I threw when I discovered that every single thing I owned was missing from my apartment the week I was due to start classes - just one week later. Sometimes, I honestly don't know how I stuck it out. And by sometimes, I mean all the time. I really must be crazy.

"It's just a year," everyone said.  "It'll fly by. A year is nothing."

In many ways, they were right. It was just a year that flew by. But it wasn't nothing. It was two broken hearts and months and months of heartache. It was tears and sorry and it was laughter and joy and excitement and pride. I didn't think this much could be packed into one year. It was wiping tears from the end of Mom and Dad's driveway to the ferry once a month, and sobbing in the parking lot of the apartment the following week after saying goodbye to F.

The last year has been pretty crazy. A year ago today, F and I dressed as a James the Tank Engine and a Fire Fighter respectively, and we had a fun night. He's not so into dressing up this year, but he rocked his costume at his Hallowe'en party yesterday but told me he's already done all the trick-or-treating he wants to do. Today - one year later - I'm wearing a tutu at the best job I've ever had and he's probably eating a bowl of fruit at daycare with his friends. A year can be huge. It can be life changing.

And it was.

Twentysomethinghood

Oh, being a twentysomething.

I'm about to cross the line of just mid-twenties to upper mid-twenties and I'm kind of freaking out, man because this whole growing up this is bologna. Seriously. Who invented this shit? I've got bills on top of bills on top of some cellulite and a handful of wrinkles and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? I'm about 90 per cent sure that I spotted a grey hair last week, but my eyesight's so bad I couldn't quite manage to find it to rip it out. There was a time - perhaps not so very long ago - when I thought being a twentysomething was the most glamorous thing in the world. Pfft.

I'm drinking tea, writing this blog with Nair all over my legs and a facemask on. This is so not what I expected the fabulosity of twentysomethighood to be.

A kid YOUNG LADY I used to babysit turned 18 today. WHAT THE WHAT? Is that even possible? Someone stop the world, I need to get off for a minute. I can remember packing up my old Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets - the ones that actually fit in your pocket - to give to this girl when she was preschool-aged. I remember giving her boy advice when I was post-highschool-grad and she was getting ready to enter junior high school. She tweeted a goodbye to her 17th year last night. She has no idea how gone it is.

Because, my gorgeous, young friend... there comes a time in your early adult life when you will find yourself sitting on your bathroom floor attempting an at-home bikini wax (which, FYI, is the dumbest thing you will ever try to do at home, by yourself) and you will also find yourself eating dinner in the bathtub sometimes because you actually don't have enough time to eat and bathe. You will put on a great show of being a grownup, only to call your Mom later because you just totally effed something up and nobody knows how to fix things like a Mom does. And you will undoubtedly sacrifice food that is actually real food with taste so you can buy that fabulous pair of boots and then try to lie to your mother by saying they were on sale. She'll know better.

I think it's a generational thing, this idea that your twenties will be this golden time in your life when everything is roses and everything will just play out magically. It doesn't, and it's not.

But it's amazing and it's worth it. And when all else fails, there is nail polish.

Breaking Bad (Habits)

I have a confession to make: I take absolutely terrible care of my skin. 

Or, at least, I have been taking terrible care of my skin. I'm trying really hard to better myself, but there are some habits that are just so hard to break. With summer now far behind me (according to the temperatures, anyway), the days of lounging in the sun and sweating in the humid air have been replaced with dark mornings and cold, dry winds. My skin started to feel the difference before I had really clued in, and with my new, heavy moisturizer comes the turning of a new leaf. It's time to take better care of my skin. In just over two weeks since completely overhauling the way I treat my skin, I see a huge difference.

First up on my list of things to do was quit tanning. Quit. Gone. Bye-bye. After years of chasing a golden glow, I've decided that the only glow I'm getting has to come from a bottle. My pale, freckle-covered skin was beginning to show my bad habit a little too much, with clusters of freckles that looked like dark spots and a few more laugh lines than I wanted cropping up. Defense is the best offence here, people, and I don't want the skin of a 40-year-old before I hit 30. I quit tanning 3 weeks ago. I'm now looking pale and loving it.

Yes, I consider this "tanned".

Next, I had to stop going to sleep with makeup on. This was going to be harder. Although my initial thought was to rush out and grab some make-up removing wipes, I had not one, not two but three full-sized bottles of Neutragena face cleansers that needed some attention, so I've been using those instead. In practice, my new night-time regime takes all of 5 minutes. Twice a week I use a gentle scrub to remove all the dead skin. Stay tuned for a review on my Neutragena Pore-Minimizing products - they're ahhh-mazing.

Pale is the new tan.

Then after reading oodles of reviews and speaking directly to a dermatologist, I decided to start using a Retinol cream, beginning with twice a week, in conjunction with a heavy nighttime moisturizer and eye cream. I'm not quite ready to move on to a third time per week, but I've noticed my skin has become much brighter and smoother already. I'll be reviewing my Neostrata Anti-Wrinkle Night Complex soon!

One of my worst skin-care habits is picking at blemishes. I can't. stop. touching. them. AHH! As soon as a pimple begins, I'm on it with tweezers or fingers. One of the bonuses of tanning was that my acne completely disappeared, but I picked up a Tanda Zap and I'm having really great results so far. I'm sorry to say you'll have to wait for that review, too!

Between now and December, I'll be reviewing a beauty product a week! I'll also take some additional photos to show you the progress in my skin, from the blemishes to the fading of my tan and "dark spots". I don't know what kind of damage my skin has already suffered, but I know that I'm going to be more aware and more conscientious in the future... and will look 30 forever. 

... Or something like that.

The Best

You only accept the love you think you deserve.

I read this line over and over and realized how true those words have been in my own life, and in the lives of some of those closest to me. It's been a journey of learning and understanding for me to be able to recognize that I have often deserved more than I demanded from myself and others. I spent years as the pushover. I gave up on myself again and again, and I have nothing but a lot of wasted time to show for that. I've accomplished more in the last year than I did in the four preceding it. Why? Because I demanded it of myself.

While there are certainly times that I'm sorry things didn't turn out the way I had expected, first with J and then with Red, the truth is that I'm totally OK without them. Better than OK, actually. Much better. Talking about the issues with J is much like flogging a dead horse at this point, and things with Red are as complicated as they are raw. But, there comes a time when you must accept that you cannot change things and there is so much healing in just letting go. 

I won't pretend to have it all figured out - I don't. I don't even have half of it figured out, and I won't pretend that my life is always in harmony. There are days when I wish I had something I don't, or I feel a pang of jealousy towards someone else's fortunes. I won't dare admit the number of days I begrudge J and his carefree existence. But is it carefree? I don't know. I do know he's not helping raise his child in any way, shape or form, and sometimes that hurts. But mostly, it doesn't. I decided a long time ago that he was no longer my problem.

Giving ourselves what we deserve can be difficult. Recognizing our worth is often impossible, as we are so clouded by our own harsh criticisms that we cannot see past them. We must learn to give ourselves credit where credit is due, and perhaps most importantly, we have to give ourselves a break every now and again. We can only accept the love we think we deserve. 

What if we all decided we deserve the best?

Dear Anonymous Comment-Leaver

A few months ago, I began moderating the comments on my blog for a number of reasons. The first, was some of the comments were spam, but the greatest reason was I feel no need to have trolls leaving hateful messages on my blog - though the number of times this has happened has been fairly low. This morning, I received one of the ugliest messages I have ever received. Ordinarily, I simply delete comments such as these but today I decided to publish it in my own way. Below is the iPhone screen shot of the email notification I received.



Hi there, Anonymous.

Thanks for stopping by. I genuinely appreciate that you took the time to drop by my blog and read my words. I'd like to be able to appreciate your comment, too, so in an effort to be a better person today, I'll focus on the fact that you took time out of your (no doubt busy) day to actually write a comment.

I'm sorry if my last blog post upset or offended you. That was not the intent. I wrote that with a smile on my face, while F played with his trucks at my feet. That post was a tongue-in-cheek, giggle and move on kind of mindless post that fits into the day that your head feels like it might explode. Raising kids is hard. I suspect you may not have one, otherwise you might have laughed at that post instead of being filled with the kind of rage you obviously were.

I'm sorry for whatever you have going on in your life today that has led you to spreading hateful, hurtful words. While I don't think I've done anything to deserve this, I sure hope mine is the only blog you've trolled with your anger and unkindness. While I'm sure your words were supposed to hurt me, they didn't. Jokes on you, I guess.

Now, before I go on any further I'd like to offer you a very sincere invitation to introduce yourself to me. If you're so convinced of your words, how about say them to my face? Better yet, why don't you come and stay with F and I for a few days and then tell me that I'm a terrible parent? I'd love to host you, and let you get up at 5:15 am and join me in making breakfast for F and I, cleaning our home and then getting everything ready for another long day. I invite you to stay up until 10 pm getting the cleaning done.

While you're calling me a terrible parent, I'd like you to consider that I do this every day by myself. I put myself through school last year so that I could give the kid I "don't deserve" and "don't take care of right" a better life - one where college can be in his future. I bust my ass every week so that we can live in a safe neighbourhood, keep our car on the road, eat healthy foods and enjoy some of the finer things in life. Am I perfect? No. I sincerely hope I never am. Do I screw up? Yep. It's called being human.

I'd like to invite you to work 40 hours a week in-office, taking your work laptop home many evenings and weekends to get stuff done. I invite you to spend your "down time" exercising, so that you can be healthy and strong to support your family. I invite you to try to find time to write because you're trying to show your child the importance of practice, following your passions and pushing yourself. And then, I invite you to call me a terrible parent again.

After you've spent a few days with F and I, I invite you to look me in the eye and tell me that I don't love my child and that I don't take care of him. While you're here, you'll see that I occasionally raise my voice, lose my patience and that I often remain calm and logical while he's completely losing his shit. You'll see that the occasional swear word slips, and that I tell him how special he is and how much I love him approximately 4.3 times per hour. You'll also see that he kicks me, tells me he doesn't love me, throws stuff on the floor and occasionally kicks the cat. It's called toddlerdom, and while it's been known to drive me crazy, I wouldn't trade a minute of it.

Finally, I ask you to do me just one little favour. Go look in the mirror. Now, go look outside. Go to a public place, and watch strangers go by. Do you know their stories? Nope. I don't either. I don't know yours, and you only know a little bit of mine. You don't know the stories of the people in my life or the people who come by my blog every day. For that reason, your comment which was aimed to hurt me could have hurt hundreds of other people and you were too careless or too callous to even consider that.

Did you know that about 1 in 5 women suffer a miscarriage in their first trimester? How about that one woman in 100 will experience a "late miscarriage", one after 14 weeks? Did you know that I had an appointment to have an abortion? Nope, I bet you didn't. I bet you also didn't know that the woman who raised me suffered miscarriages, and that I lost my own son's twin during my first trimester, or that I refused the D&C offered by multiple doctors when I landed in the ER for the second time in as many weeks with serious complications. I loved my baby from the moment I knew I had one, and I have cherished him every minute of every day since I was blessed to have him. Does he drive me crazy? Yup, but that doesn't mean I don't love him or that I neglect him.

 If you want to attack me for being a shitty parent who doesn't give a damn, you go right ahead but check your facts first, and don't you dare tell me that I should have had a miscarriage or abortion. You know that line "walk a mile in someone's shoes"? You wouldn't make it out of the parking lot.

I know you won't identify yourself, and I'm equally as confident that you won't comment on this post, but I hope that you do know that I'm not angry or hurt by your comment, and I invite you to comment again. If you want to troll around the world spreading anger and hate, I suggest you prepare for a very sad, lonely existence. Let it go. Life is too short.

Sincerely,

Ashley

Making the Change

Sometimes the happiest endings come from beginnings filled with sadness.

It's hard to believe that two years ago, I was relishing in the glow of newlyweddom (it's my new word; deal with it). It's harder still for me to wrap my head around the fact that just one short year ago I was in the preliminary process of the whole back-to-school-mama business. I'm not even sure I was truly convinced I'd do it. And here I am, about to graduate.

I'm incredibly fortunate to have had this opportunity and I know that. Many don't. I'm blessed with great friends, wonderful parents and a community who stood behind me to offer support, words of kindness and consolation, cups of coffee to wake me up and shoulders to cry on when needed. It hasn't been easy, but we did it.

When my plans to move to Ottawa came crashing down on my head and I found myself, clutching Kleenex and sobbing in my supervisor's office, asking for my job back I felt like my whole world was about to implode. It was like I was perched precariously on the verge of total devastation, and unable to get away. It was a bad feeling. And then one day, I came home from work and got in the shower and let all of the sadness and bad feeling go down the drain with the suds from my shampoo.

Less than a year after totally uprooting my life and challenging myself in ways I didn't think I could (and would rather not ever do again), I'm working in a field that I love and have been for nine months. I won't stay here forever, but it's a perfect fit for me right now. I made the decision to be happy, and though there will always be bumps in the road and obstacles to overcome, I've made it to a place where happiness really is my reality.

But it's easy to get lost in sadness.

I know this because I've done it, and it was a long, hard battle to get out of the rut I had settled into. It's easy to stay there. It's easy to mistake comfort for contentment, or happiness. We settle for what we have, rather than dare to dream. Change is scary. It's hard, it's the unknown but it's almost always worth the journey. 

Mommy Fear

Earlier this week, I had a big heart-to-heart with F.

It went something like he was eating a bag of pretzels and staring at me while I poured my heart out to him and essentially apologized for being a sub-par Mommy these past few weeks. (I'd get into the whole past, um, his entire toddlerdom but we'd still be in that conversation and I'd feel even worse and he'd have fallen asleep on me anyway.) Whether he understood it or not, we had a hug and a kiss and exchanged a couple of I love yous before he went back to whatever he'd been doing and I stayed exactly where I was just watching him.

I'd always imagined that Mommy was something that just came to you.

The first day of the hardest job I've ever had.

I was wrong. Being Mommy is as much a learning experience as anything else I've ever done in my life, if not more. It's a combination of skills, understanding and a relationship to boot. It requires cultivation, and you are bound to make a million mistakes along the way. I know I have. I made at least one hundred in the past month. I love F, but being a Mom hasn't always been easy for me. Sometimes, I fear that I'm doing it all wrong. I don't want to screw him up.

My impatience combined with my anxiety and Type-A personality made for a tough couple of weeks while F and I were settling into the changes that had happened in our lives. In an effort to do what I thought was best for him, I sent us both reeling backwards - hurt and sad and afraid. I found myself raising my voice and losing my temper when he did that thing toddles do sometimes, defy me. I found myself getting angry and frustrated when I should have been asking him what was wrong. I argued back, instead of explaining why my decision was final.

And even knowing I've done it, I can assure you I will do it again.

In frustration or anger, in tiredness or a rush, my patience and my better judgment will escape me and I'll be that sub-par Mom again - if only for a few moments. Friday morning alone was a test. An hour of trying to wake F up meant we were a whole hour late for his daycare drop off. It meant cutting the things I had hoped to do out of the picture in spite of the mile-long list of things needing doing before 5pm today. It meant that F had a less than awesome breakfast, which he ate in the car, and that I went for a run on an empty stomach and to work with undone hair. We got home with a week behind us, but with no energy left. I snuggled up next to him in bed last night at 8:30 pm, and we didn't get up until after 9am.

For every stressful time, there's a moment like this to wash it away.

 

Today, I vowed I'd be a good Mom. I made homemade buttermilk pancakes and didn't freak out over the toys all over the floor. I made it until about noon before I found my patience beginning to disappear. By the time we'd finished running our Saturday afternoon errands, I was frazzled to the ends of the earth and had the frizzy hair to show for it. Protip: AVOID BAYER'S LAKE ON SATURDAYS. Don't even ask, just listen (see what I did there - momism).

Today was a day when I sat in the driver's seat of my car with that sinking feeling that I'm doing it all wrong, until I glanced in my rear view mirror. Smiling at me, F patted his new (big boy booster seat style) car seat and said "Thank-you for buying me this car seat, Mommy".

Maybe I'm not doing it all wrong.

The Cycle of Bully

You might remember me from yesterday when I was about to kick the ass of one five-year-old and then take on his Mom.

Well. I decided to not pick on anyone, but to talk to the lady who's about my own size and find out what the heck was going on with her kid telling my kid he's gonna die - WHO FUCKING DOES THAT? Turns out, the big kids at her son's school does that, and he in turn did it to my son.

Do I feel bad for the kid? Yes, I do. Nobody should be made to feel bad. But I don't totally buy it. Want to know why?

This week, I was lucky enough to have the flexibility to take F to daycare and then hit the trails for a run. To make sure I to got my ass off the couch, I purposely wore my running clothes to drop him off. The first day I met this woman - to be quite honest, I don't even know her name to this day - she looked at me and scoffed "Heading to a marathon, are we?"

Um, lady, (to borrow a quote from the Maury show) YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME! Maybe I am training for a marathon or maybe I just fucking hate pants with buttons. What difference does it make? And, while it was tempting to point out that she was wearing her pyjamas, I smiled and replied "that's my plan!" and I left. Unfortunately, I wound up in my bed and not on my way to any marathon except a Netflix-fueled X-Files marathon with a big ass cup of coffee.

But I digress. The fact is that this kid has learned that it's OK to be snide and rude and mean to people. Was I annoyed and a little put out by that woman? Yep. I was. But that's not the issue. The real issue here is that two kids that I know directly are being bullied, and the bigger issue is that for every two kids I know directly, there's a thousand I don't know who are being bullied and it's gotta stop. The real issue here is that this kid is picking up these behaviours from his own family, his peers and then he's passing it on to others. It's a cycle, and it needs to end.

photo: bullying project

I took yesterday as a learning opportunity - a teachable moment, if you will. F had to make the little girl who he was mean to yesterday an I'm Sorry card. He also had to apologize not only to Ella - the little girl - but also to his childcare provider, because he was unfair and unkind. And he had to understand why, so we talked about it. A lot.

We talked about how important it is to talk about our feelings, and how it feels when someone doesn't respect us or treat us kindly. We talked about how to talk about the things that aren't always easy to talk about, and then we talked about cars and trucks and how they make us feel because when you're F there's nothing more important than the cars and the trucks.

I know that these are conversations we're going to have over and over again - and I'm not just talking about the cars here, people. I know that there's going to be another kid who hurts F's feelings, and there's going to be some feelings that are hurt because of F. Talk to your kids. Be an example for them. Teach them how to stand up for themselves, for others, and teach them how to treat themselves and their peers with respect. You don't need to be friends, but you need to be nice was the rule at my house growing up, and it will be the rule at this one, too.

 In one day, I watched the cycle of bully happen. That little boy who picked on F? He was told he was going to die while he was at school. He was told his Mommy would die and everyone would forget about him. So he told my son that. And F acted out and it scared him and it scares me that some five-year-old punk with a mushroom cut and the cutest dimples you've ever seen could make my son feel that way. The conversation with his Mom was a little uncomfortable and a lot helpful. She knew it was going on, and she spoke to him. The childcare provider chatted briefly with me about her plan for nipping any poor behaviour in the bud today.

And when I picked F up this afternoon, he was playing with the five-year-old sweetheart.

Bullies (and buckets of water)

Have you ever wanted to punch a child in the head?

I have.

It happened today, when I found out that a kid at F's daycare was picking at him. I was annoyed at first. I've met the Mom. She's a real fucking treat, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that her kid is a five-year-old jerk with a bad attitude and a nasty disposition. Seriously, I'd rather have a yeast infection for the rest of my life than exchange pleasantries with this woman - it's that bad. Now - I'll go ahead and say that I'm glad this world is filled with many different people, because I'm sure that this particular person has a circle of friends and family who adore and admire and appreciate her - I just don't happen to be a part of it. I don't think she likes me either, so there's that.

(can you tell i'm still raging? cause i am)

It started when another kid suddenly dropped to the ground crying while F was trying to play with him. The daycare teacher asked him what was wrong, before explaining that the little guy is having a hard time with the upcoming arrival of his baby brother or sister. Add the fact that he'd been up since 5 am to the mix, and this little guy was just an emotional wreck in size 4 Pull-Ups. F went over to him and hugged him, urging him to play. The five-year-old immediately rushed over to me.

"Your son just pushed Sam down. He's such a little brat. You should punish him."
 
That was the exact moment I decided this kid was a twit - I WAS WATCHING THE WHOLE THING. If he really wanted to get F in trouble, he should have waited 'til my back was turned and I didn't know any better. I brushed it off, and went back to talking to F's caregiver. And then it happened.

"Just do it, splash Ella!" the shithead five-year-old said, devilishly urging F to throw the bucket of cold water he had in his hands on the not-quite-two-year-old little girl in the group. I had no sooner warned F that he'd better not do it than he threw the entire fucking bucket of water onto quite possibly the world's cutest (and now probably most emotionally scarred) toddler girl. Her whole body shook and she blinked her eyes in total shock before collapsing into a meltdown that would make a Real Housewives star look put together.

Although I wasn't freezing cold and dripping wet, I don't think that little girl was any more shocked than I was. I couldn't even move. There were no words. I said F's name over and over, before coming to my senses, taking his hand and announcing that I was disappointed in his behaviour and we were going home to discuss it. Upset by his own actions, F apologized to the little girl and cried as we started toward the car. Tagging along behind me was the five-year-old terrorist, insisting that I put F to bed without dinner and take all of his toys away for being such a bad little boy.

I suggested he haul his little butt back to where the daycare provider was as nicely as I could, before closing the gate behind me.

"I'm scared," F wailed as he got into his car seat. "I'm dying and you're going to forget me, he said I was going to die and I splashed Ella!"

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO YOUR CHILD THAT HE IS NOT GOING TO DIE?

The word "fuck" comes to mind. Exasperated and sad and confused and angry, I sat as F sobbed onto my chest multiple times this evening silently cursing kids and their innate ability to be mean and unreasonable and mean. I talked him through it, assuring him that he's not dying and I will never forget him. Have I mentioned that kids are mean? Because they are.

I knew that F and the five-year-old had butted heads yesterday, too, but I chocked it up to kids being kids. I had no idea that this kid was making him feel this badly, and it breaks my mommy heart. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and I know that. I remember the hurtful words and endless taunting. I remember the broken hearts and the "you can't be our friend anymore" conversations over MSN messenger. I don't know what tomorrow will look like, but I do know that I wasn't ready to be dealing with this yet. Bullying wasn't supposed to be in our world yet.

Let me say now that I have no illusions that F is a perfect kid. He lost his TV privileges for the night after the way he treated his friend today. But, at 3 years old, F is learning boundaries and sometimes he has to learn them the hard way, through getting hurt and sometimes through hurting others. He really felt badly when he saw how sad he'd made Ella, but I know my kid and I know that he was hurting, too. Was he bullied into being a bully? I don't know. Will it happen again? Probably. And I'll be throwing a big HYPOTHETICAL bucket of water on F if and when it does.

And teaching F that life throws the biggest buckets of cold water on bullies, one way or another.

Yellow Lights

Right now, my clean laundry is folded in a basket on the floor of my bedroom closet. 

 

My clean dishes are sitting in the dishwasher. My bed is unmade. My voicemail is full of messages, my to-do list is growing exponentially and I'm not even a little bit worried about it because the last few weeks have been such a wonderful kind of busy. It's been a time of exciting changes and new beginnings, and in the excitement and hustle and bustle of it all, I forgot to slow down and take a break.



Prepare to Stop

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I need to remember to slow down.

While driving to daycare this morning, F reminded me that I needed to slow down as we approached an intersection, the traffic light glaring yellow as a warning. I felt the car slow to a stop as I braked, in time with traffic and the changing of the light. I need to do this sometimes. I need to slow down. I need to stop.


For two months I've been like a barely-in-control race car, speeding around the little track of my life. Mindlessly, I've gone through the motions without being present enough to see - much less enjoy - my surroundings. The drive to work had become so monotonous that I would often find myself in the parking lot before it really occurred to me that I had left home. We raced out the door in the morning, and rushed home in the evening. It was barely-tasted breakfasts and quick-and-easy dinners. It was lunch at my desk and it was smiles and happy and fresh starts and a lot of coffee, so I'm not entirely sorry that I didn't slow down.

But I plan to park for a day or two. Maybe I'll even get that laundry put away... 

Defensive Parenting

"People are telling me I'm selfish because Rori is going to be my only child."

This was the beginning of a conversation between my friend and I last night. Not only does she have the best name ever (three guesses what it is), she's an outstanding person and a wonderful new mom. The road to getting pregnant and the pregnancy itself wasn't a walk in the park for Ashley and her partner. She's had to face more health issues than any 20-something should have to. It's changed her life, her career and her person, but she's a strong person and she's made it work. (In case you're wondering, that is why she's one of my best friends)

And I sit her defending her, which is almost as crazy as the fact that she has to defend herself and her decision to anyone else. What the what?! Why do we have to defend every.single.decision we make as parents? Why does the rest of the world feel they need to weigh in on that? Ack!

It's infuriating to think that another person would feel they had the right to tell a mother - especially a new mother, in Ashley's circumstances - what's best for her family. Selfish for only having one child? It should be some kind of bad joke, but the unfortunate truth is that shaming has become such a big part of our society that I don't think folks even realize they're hurting one another any more.

In the world of Pinterest and My Sweet Sixteen, it's never been harder to be a Mom. The bar has never been set so high. I was damn happy as a kid to get a homemade pizza and store-bought birthday cake, with a handful of friends to play with. My Mom didn't wear designer clothes to pick me up from school or gymnastics. And it was great. I often wonder if she worried about how she looked when she went to the playground, not because of how her clothes made her feel but how she felt in front of the eyes of other parents.

We've got slut-shaming, fat-shaming, and mom-shaming. At least it's not racism though, right? (See that? That's called sarcasm.)

 I've been accused of being selfish and a bad mom because I went back to school. Clearly we can all see how selfish I was to want to work towards a better future for my family. It's ridiculous and unfair and it totally disrupts our lives as mothers, women, friends, people. And I guess I'm selfish, too, for only having one child. Gosh, what was I thinking? *eye roll*

Is it just me, or does that make about as much sense as wearing a raincoat in the shower or drinking decaf coffee on a Monday morning?

Why do we feel like we have the right to tell another mother how to raise her family? When did it become OK to project our values onto everyone else? I would have loved to have had another child, I'd have loved for F to have a playmate - a little brother or sister to share with and teach and learn from, but I didn't. And do you know what? I'm not a bit unselfish in being glad for that. Selfish would have been having another child that I would struggle to support financially and emotionally. Selfish would be Ashley having another baby and risking her health, wellness and happiness just to make all of those mom-shaming bullies happy.

Selfish is not considering the welfare of your family first.

Last year, I vowed to stop apologizing as a mother, woman, friend. I won't apologize for going back to school. I won't apologize for being a single mom, for not lending my clothes to someone, for not driving people around. I won't apologize for turning down opportunities that didn't fit into my plan, or accepting the ones that do. I won't apologize for putting my son before anyone else. I won't apologize for making my happiness a priority.  I won't apologize for standing up for myself or a loved one. Don't apologize for things that aren't worthy of an apology.

We shouldn't have to.