Can someone please tell me why EVERYTHING sold in American grocery stores is teeny tiny??? It is pissing the hell out of me today. It’s like they are a nation of very small people who only consume the most dainty portions of food and therefore do not require food to be sold in trough-like sizes as us animalistic Canadians. At least that’s the look I get when I ask where the “big jars/bags/packages” are.

Margarine, at least in the brand I want to buy, comes in itty bitty little 425g containers. I used to buy the giant keg (maybe 2kg [4.4lb] of margarine and now we go through like 25 packages of margarine a week.

Cheez Whiz comes in microscopic little jars, not the normal mayo-sized jars.

I tried to find your standard 20kg (44lb) bag of flour at the grocery store and apparently the only place you can buy SO MUCH FLOUR is at Costco! They looked at me like I was asking if I could please purchase a metric tonne of flour because WHO ON EARTH USES SUCH A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF FLOUR??? Seriously? I had no idea until this point that people actually bought those miniscule 10 lb. bags of flour and now that’s the biggest bag they have? And honestly, who the hell buys less than ten pounds of flour? Who says to themselves “I need exactly 3 tablespoons of flour, no more and no less will do. I will buy the smallest bag of flour known to man.”

Yes, I have grocery rage. I know, it’s stupid to be annoyed about these things. It’s not like if I had the bigger sized of these three items I would be going to the grocery store less. But somehow while it is totally acceptable to me to have to buy milk twice a week, running out of margarine every week and out of flour every couple of weeks is bringing out THE CRAZY. I’m going to go ahead and blame this one on the post-Halloween sugar crash.

America, culture shock, the crazy | 4 Comments »

Here’s a little piece of free advice for all of you. No charge, just a product of my vast and varied wisdom. Ok, there’s not that much of it. But one thing I DO know about it being sleep deprived after a new baby. Our first child did not sleep well or long til she was close to a year old. That’s not to say she wouldn’t GO to sleep. She just wouldn’t STAY THAT WAY. So even though we were willing to be tough and let her cry it out, it didn’t help when she woke up over and over in the night and fussed all day long, wanting to be swaddled and bounced non-stop. So here is the all time worst thing you can say to a sleep-deprived mother of a newborn:

You need to try and reduce your anxiety and stress. The baby can sense when you are stressed out and that will make them sleep worse.

I had one or two people tell me this in the middle of our colic months when I was one big ball of hysterical, stressed-out, nervous energy.  You want to talk about insensitive?  The translation of that nugget of wisdom is basically “You are a bad, bad mother for feeling the way you do and it is your fault that your baby is unhappy.” Try “reducing your stress” when you are suffering under that kind of guilt.

Her Bad Mother has been posting about her son’s sleep struggles and reading her words almost makes me feel ill, just remembering how hard those months were.  Many commenters had good ideas and suggestions and many just expressed solidarity. Many of us have been there. But of course, there was one who had to say IT.  And while I don’t feel it’s my place to rant on someone else’s blog about my issues with this comment, I clearly feel free to do so here!

Some babies just take longer to adjust to life outside the womb and while it may be true, in some small sense, that a stressed-out mother can contribute to an infant’s sleep issues (although unless the mother is walking around shrieking and throwing her infant around in postpartum madness I can’t believe that it is that significant), telling a woman that her fussy baby is caused by her stress is just plain wrong. In no way does it help. A mother KNOWS she should reduce her stress, for her own sake, if not the baby’s. A mother WANTS to reduce her stress. Does anyone really think people ENJOY that kind of tension? You may believe it, you may think it, you may even say it to others, but saying it to a tired mother only makes you an asshole.

So here are my top suggestions for helping a mother suffering from sleep deprivation. Keep in mind that you need to be aware of individual women’s personalities. Not everyone wants or needs the same things.

1. Ask her what she wants or needs and try to find a way to give it to her. (Ie. If she needs and wants a night of uninterrupted sleep and it’s in your power to do so, then go for it! If she isn’t comfortable forgoing breastfeeding for a whole night, but needs some good naps to help her catch up, see 2.)

2. Don’t offer to come over and watch the baby while she naps. Instead, offer to pick up the baby and keep him/her at your house (or have mom drop off the baby) so mom can sleep at home in peace and quiet.  If the baby is in the same house chances are good that mom will not sleep restfully, if at all. We have become hyper-sensitive to noise and hear every little squawk, even if it’s not an angry howl. We need to be alone to really sleep. If you have time to do this regularly (every day, every week, whatever), do so.

3.  Depending on the person, do the little things that cheer them up and make them happy. Call her on the phone, take her out for coffee, bring her a little gift, send her a card, make a meal and bring it to her home (even better if it’s something that can be frozen and reheated), take her older kids out for a few hours.

4. Help create ways for her to do the things that feed her soul - babysit while she gets a manicure, or reads a book at her favourite coffee shop or goes to the gym. Invite her to go for a walk in the park.

5. If you ask if there’s anything you can do and she says she’s fine but you’re sure she’s not, go ahead and do something! Don’t wait for her to ask. Ask her what day you can babysit or bring her dinner. Not everyone feels comfortable asking for help. I had lots of people offer to babysit or “help out” but many times I was unsure how serious they were or whether they were just being polite. I often felt that if I had actually called them up and asked for their help it would be awkward.  A tired and stressed out mother needs you to take the initiative. If you have practical ways to help, don’t wait to be asked. Just make sure the things you do will not create more work or stress for her.

6. Most importantly, encourage her! There is nothing like exhaustion to make you doubt your ability to parent a squalling infant whose wails you can’t help but take personally and who you increasingly resent.  A mother is incredibly vulnerable in these days, weeks and months (another reason why telling her to just reduce her stress is like a slap in the face). She doesn’t need to hear judgement or empty offers of help. What she needs to hear is that she’s doing a great job. She needs to hear that her baby is doing fine, even if he or she cries all the time. She needs to hear that her best is good enough. She needs to hear that she is a champ for sticking with it and not giving up. She needs to hear that you believe in her and that you see her struggles. She needs affirmation and support.  Some words are needlessly painful. But the right words can go a long way to healing the pain caused by clumsy and insensitive words of people who don’t consider the importance of their words.

baby, parenting, sleep, the crazy | 3 Comments »

It’s Halloween today. I know because my kids woke up in the middle of the night early to howl at the moon. Ok, maybe they weren’t howling at the moon. It was more of a maniacal cackling over their plans to wreak destruction and perform unspeakable acts of evil today. Evil like TORTURING THEIR MOTHER BY WAKING UP AT FIVE IN THE “BLESSED” AM. Happy freaking Halloween.

And just to clarify? Yes, Canadians DO celebrate Halloween. I’ve been asked that a number of times already and yes, we in the Great White North also indulge in trampy wacky costumes and excessive sugar on October 31. It’s not just an American custom.

I don’t do Halloween the way many people here in the states seem to do it. I don’t do the decorations and yard displays.  I don’t do the “adults investing time and money to buy and make slutty elaborate costumes and dressing up for any event where it might be considered even REMOTELY appropriate”. I don’t do dressing up. Even as a child (when I still did dress up) it was less of an exciting opportunity to be “someone else” and more of an excruciating test of creativity and, undeniably, a litmus test for popularity. I could never quite get it right. I could never come up with a funky and interesting homemade or thrift-shop costume and I didn’t have the money to just buy a cool costume. I managed to pass with some winners that I considered acceptable.  But it always felt like a test that I was somehow failing. 

So now? I don’t do it. And I’m happy with that. We carve ourselves a pumpkin or two and I dress up my kids and I enjoy that. So maybe that makes me a hypocrite? Whatevah. I refuse to feel like I’m missing out on something big by not dressing up when it makes me feel exceedingly awkward. Comfortable is the new black, y’all. And black is a Halloween colour, right?

So. I don’t dress up. I DO, however, do Halloween in the stuffing my piehole with chocolate and candy sense. Because if a holiday that’s all about candy is wrong, baby, I don’t want to be right. And isn’t it SO UNFORTUNATE that my 2 year old is still not allowed to eat anything with peanuts/peanut butter in it? It’s a complete and utter travesty that he will not be able to eat any Reese peanut butter cups until at least next year (assuming he doesn’t, in fact, have a peanut allergy) and instead, I will be forced (forced, I tell you!) to consume them in order to keep him (and my peanut allergic husband) safe.  Because that’s just the kind of dedicated mother I am. 

Happy Halloween, folks!

Canadian holidays, holidays, kids, parenting, the crazy | No Comments »

On Sunday we decided to carve pumpkins with the kids because we’re clinically insane. Pumpkin carving is supposed to be a great family activity, right? Well it appears that our kids are already too cool to do the family thing. Because after five minutes of feigning interest in pumpkins that weighed more than the two of them, they left me and the hubby to the messy work of cleaning out the mucky insides of the pumpkins while they ran off to play. That is despite the hubby’s very best efforts to entertain them and keep them engaged…

He’s special, isn’t he?

Then I decided to morph into Martha-freakin’-Stewart and try, for the first time ever, to actually use the pumpkin flesh.  How hard could it be, right?

I’m here to tell you: HARD. 

Sweet Baby Jesus, I had no idea it would be a WHOLE DAY PUMPKIN EXTRAVAGANZA. I scraped, I chopped, I sorted, I cooked (and cooked and cooked), I mashed, I blended, I mixed. And then I made pie dough. Anyone who says pie dough is SO HARD to make has never spent a whole afternoon fiddling with messy pumpkin guts. Pie dough is so easy, people! It has like 5 ingredients and it always turns out. Where as pumpkin pie filling….not so much.

I used a recipe from an old Mennonite cookbook created my the community where my mother grew up. There are awesome recipes in there. Perhaps this was just not one of them? But I figured with this being a recipe from a woman who would probably have died rather than use “store-bought” pumpkin pie filling, it would be an authentic pumpkin recipe. However using real pumpkin made the filling too wet and runny and the result was that I cooked those little bastards for a full TWO HOURS before they were finally totally cooked through! In ten minute increments. Because I didn’t know how long it was going to take and I was NOT going to burn the damn pie crust! And then, thinking I would fix the problem with the third pie, I added about 84 cups of flour and cornstarch to the pie filling, hoping to thicken it up and make it cook faster. BIG FAIL. It cooked somewhat faster but the pie tasted like beige. Literally, it tasted like bland.  So the final pie was a wash. But at least the first two tasted all right. It was 11:00pm before I finished the whole ordeal. 

Oh and I also cleaned and roasted the pumpkin seeds because I like roasted pumpkin seeds and since I’m already making a mess, what’s a little MORE mess? Because nothing says Marthat Stewart like a kitchen that looks like a pack of feral monkeys with a food processor destroyed an entire pumpkin patch all over it!

Now I understand why some people sneak around at night and smash other people’s pumpkins. I am now convinced that it is not teenage vandals, but men and women driven to the hysteria after a bad culinary encounter with pumpkins, who lose it and lash out at the unsuspecting vegetables.

martha moments, the crazy | 6 Comments »

So we’re just over a week from moving into our new place.  The place that I am so excited about. The place with an ocean view and the whole beach for our backyard. And a nice big kitchen. And new appliances that don’t squeal like a stuck pig when operating!  I can hardly wait! 

Another feature that is HUGE (for me) is that we will have 2.5 bathrooms! That is exactly 1.5 bathrooms MORE than we had at our last place and I could not be happier.  The hubby thinks this excessive bathroomage is over the top. But he is generally pleased that there is more than one place to pee.

Until yesterday. Yesterday the hubby started making crazy suggestions.  And not the “wacky” kind of crazy either. We’re talking drooling in a straightjacket, eating your own feces, LOCK ME UP ‘CAUSE I’M ONE HELLA CUH-RAY-ZAY EM-EFFER!

Yes, he actually suggested we use one of the bathrooms for a purpose other than bathroom-type activities. Like a storage room. A STORAGE ROOM! 

Someone call the looney-bin because my husband is officially certifiable. Clearly the stress of the last few months has caused his break with reality.

Here’s how the conversation went:

The hubby:

“I’ve been thinking…” *drools, wipes away drool* “What if we used one of the bathrooms for storage space? 2.5 bathrooms is a lot of bathroom. There must be some way to repurpose one of those rooms. Like turn it into a fitness center? Or how about a yoga salon? Hey! Hey! How about a karaoke bar??! BLAAAAABLBBLBLBBLBLBBBLAAAA!!!!”  

Me:

“Have you lost your ever loving mind? I am finally going to have a dream jacuzzi tub and a beautiful double wide shower - both of which will not be available to the kids! We have OUR OWN FULL MASTER BATHROOM! Why would you want to give that up??? We aren’t hard pressed for storage, why would you even suggest such a horrendous thing?”

“…or a PETTING ZOO!!! What about that? Some kind of miniature Wild Animal Theme Park?! Or we could use it as a recycling centre for paper and bottles and cans…”

*sigh*

The five year old:

“We could store my dressup clothes in the bathroom!”  *Holy crap! More than one potty to pee in! I can’t wait to try them all!*

The two year old:

*So I could be flushing toys down one of the two upstairs toilets while my mom is fishing out the toys I dumped in the downstairs toilet Awesome!*

(If you want to face YOUR manga, click here.)

links, moving, the crazy | 1 Comment »

This week has been full of emotion for me.  The move is becoming real and the possibility of not coming back is weighing on me. We certainly are open to coming back but I have been facing the reality that it may not happen. I walked around my back yard yesterday and saw the day lilies starting to poke through the dirt and the buds on the lilac bush and felt so sad that I would not be around to see them bloom.  Our house is half packed and so there are stacks of boxes as a constant reminder of what is ahead for us. 

I have been sick with a cold that I just can’t seem to kick. Someone is ALWAYS sick at our house!  Seriously.  It’s ridiculous.  I’m having a bit of a hard time coping with being sick and dealing with all the mental heaviness of what we are about to do. Don’t get me wrong, I am still excited about this move.  But my emotional connection to Saskatoon is very strong.  When the SOLD sign goes up on the lawn and your belongings are packed in boxes it’s hard to ignore what’s going on around here.  So I am trying to spend as much time as possible with the friends that I love and hoping to cling to them in this next week before I have to let go for a long time.  Hope I’m not smothering you guys.

And one final thing:  We have some acquaintances whose seven month old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia this week.  It is an aggressive form of cancer and it sounds like her chances of survival are small. If you pray, please do so.  I had to have a good cry when I imagine what it would be like to see Kieran, who is just a few months older than this little girl, sick in the hospital with a low chance of survival.  Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate our children until we are faced with their mortality.  I am trying to be thankful for my kids this week, even when they wake up at 5 in the morning.

moving, the crazy, the hard stuff | No Comments »

Yes, I have been sucked into the Facebook fad, like just about everyone else in the blogosphere.  If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. You just own more of your soul than much of the global population.  It’s simply a network to connect with people you know and have known in the past.  This is a nice idea. The problem is two-fold.

1) I don’t want to be one of those people who simply adds every person I can find that I’ve known at some point in my life, whether the relationship was basically superficial or very meaningful.  I have a list of a number of people that I really am interested in connecting with. Much to my chagrin, I realized that some of these people aren’t even on Facebook. But the way the phenomenon is spreading I figure it’s just a matter of time.   But I feel pressured to add “friends” to my list so that I can prove how truly cool I am, despite the fact that I was the consummate geek through most of my years in school.  But should any of my former accquaintances stumble across my profile I want them to be impressed with how popular I am.  Which brings me to my next point.

2) Facebook is (in the words of my husband) “permissive voyeurism”.  We want to find out what our classmates have done with their lives. We want to know if they have become successful, if they have families, if they are in relationships, what their sexual orientation is. We want to know who is still trailer trash and who has overcome their humble beginnings. Apparently we even want to know what music they listen to and what movies and books they love.  Why does this matter?  Well, I expect it’s so we can satisfy our judgmental nature and feel superior. The problem is that it’s backfiring for me.  I’m spying on connecting with people who have gone to prestigious schools and have interesting and complicated careers.  I’m feeling like the loser because I have not finished a degree and am a plain, old mommy.  You all know that I really believe motherhood is a wonderful and important job.  And I certainly would not say that anyone who chooses to stay at home with their kids was wasting their life. (Nor would I say the opposite about moms who choose to go back to work, so just relax!)  But somehow I feel that I have not done enough with my life.  That I should have come farther.  See what I mean? Facebook.  The devil.  It’s the truth.

And on top of these two points, it’s frickin’ taking up waaay too much of my time.  You can surf around Facebook, scrutinizing people’s lives for hours without accomplishing much of anything, besides a boost or slam to your ego.  A girl on my Friends List recently posted that she was in class on Facebook with her laptop and from the four computers she could see from her seat, THREE were open to Facebook!  Seriously, people!  It’s an addiction!  If you haven’t started Facebooking yet, take my advice, DON’T.

facebook, the crazy | 1 Comment »

Remember the good old song “Down by the Bay” that you used to sing round after round of on your way to school field trips or around the campfire or whatever?  Well I was listening to it the other day.  Actually listening to the words.  I’ve gotta say I think that there were some serious mental health issues with the mother in the song.  If the child in the song is afraid to go home to his mother because she spouts nonsense then I must ask how severe is her Schizophrenia or Multiple Personality Disorder? 

Down by the bay,
Where the watermelons grow,
Back to my home,
I dare not go.
For if I do,
My mother will say…

Did you ever see a whale with a polka dot tail?
Did you ever see a moose kissing a goose?
Did you ever see a lama wearing pajamas?
Lalalalalalala Lalalalalalala

…Down by the bay!

random, the crazy | 4 Comments »

I’m tired. Really tired. Too tired to blog and too tired to be a good mom. I’m still waiting to find out if my iron is low or my thyroid is acting up or if I’m just suffering the build up of 5 and a half months of inconsistent sleep. Kieran has been fussy lately. It seems that he is teething.

Last night we discovered a big bulging spot on his top gum that looked like a tooth could erupt at any moment. We examined the blister with pride, exclaiming over our “big boy” as though we had done something that directly resulted in his exceptional development of a tooth.

This morning the spot is GONE! Gone! How is this possible? Not that I care whether he has a tooth or not but I was suddenly filled with hope that the crankiness and poor sleeping would come to an end and I could start to feel human again in short order. Sigh…

I feel kind of sad that my blog has basically turned into my forum for talking, whining and bragging about my kids. I want to have more variety than that. I want my life to be about more than my kids. But in these days of exhaustion my world seems to shrink down to the most basic components and kids are one of them. And yet somehow I feel as though I’m not doing an adequate job of parenting either.

So here I am wallowing in my inadequacy. Really I just need to get it out. Now I can move on and try and do better. I’m just glad my kids will remember little to nothing of this time in their lives.

Kieran, parenting, sleep, the crazy, tired | 2 Comments »

I’ve been having really vivid dreams lately. I don’t usually remember my dreams so I know this is a result of being pregnant. But it is kinda scary. A lot of the dreams have been very violent or scary. Last night I had this dream about a boy being held in a Juvenile Detention Center except the prison guard was torturing and abusing all the prisoners. I dreamed an escape for him but the whole thing was very tense. I wake up not rested from these dreams. What does this mean for my baby? Am I carrying a serial killer? Or are the hormones just really this insane and they’re turning me into a crazy person?

pregnancy, the crazy | 1 Comment »