Outside the adventure zone.

I am not the "play" parent anymore. There, I said it.

I swear it wasn't always like this. I did play with them when they were smaller. A lot. There was painting and puzzles and peekaboo and play dough and all the other play stuff. We would bake cookies and get messy and then all tumble into my big bed for a nap, exhausted and blissful. I used to take pictures all the time, I needed to capture all our silly adventures together. And we had lots of them. Swimming, forest walks, bug hunts, a day at "Fish Mouth", hanging out with Lucy the elephant or howling with the wolves or Gibbon monkeys at the zoo, roaring at dinosaurs at Jurassic Forest. Life with the littles was ridiculously fun!

I am not sure when things changed. Maybe it was when both of them started going to preschool at the same time. And then came the other activities to fill up our days. All of a sudden there were swimming lessons, gymnastics, Sportball, music, dance... All the activities and programs meant to enrich our lives and give my kids new skills and learning experiences. This year it was kindergarten, soccer, school events, and more.

I have became obsessed with our schedules, finding programs that they can both do or at least do at the same time and then getting us from point A to point B to point C and back again. I wait outside their classes with all the other parents or sneak away quickly to grab a coffee or run an errand. Somehow, lost amidst the thrill of them being old enough for "unparented" classes and finding all these great programs and activities, I have become the person outside of the adventures. It is second nature to me now to get them to their classes, find my favourite waiting chair, pop open my phone and entertain myself on social media for 30-45 minutes. Yes, that is right, I am THAT parent. On the phone, with my head phones on, in my own world, separate from the one I have paid a lot of money for my kids to be in.

I am ashamed to admit it, but all of that sitting on the sidelines or in the waiting rooms "unparenting", seems to have seeped into my world at home too. Too often I find myself telling the kids to go play together without me (which they do really, really well) while I sit back and waste time online or busy myself with housework. It took me overhearing a conversation between Little C and his dad last week to make me realize how much this kind of behaviour is affecting my kids.

Dad: "Why are you so upset with Mommy right now?"

Little C: "Because she never wants to play with us anymore and is always chit-chatting or working on her phone."

And there I was, standing around the corner with a laundry basket in my hands and my heart breaking into a thousand pieces.

What have I done? How did I let this happen? And more importantly, how do I change things?

Here is my plan.

It is time to find the FUN again. School is done in less than 2 weeks. We have one bike camp booked and will continue with our swimming lessons throughout the summer, but other than that, we are not enrolled in any other programs. The kids and I are going to make a list. A summer bucket list. A big one we will write out and can put up on the wall, full of all the fun adventures we want to have this summer. And then we are going to do it ALL and I am going to take a LOT of pictures!

Because this tiny bit of disconnection that my child is feeling from me, and to be honest, that I am feeling from my child, I have done this to us. For all the good intentions I have enrolling my kids in extracurricular activities and enriching arts and physical activity programs, somehow in all of it, I have let them down. In my efforts to provide them with new life experiences and skills, I have forgotten the most important one.

Being connected to me and a part of my world.

And the thing is, they are not only a part of my world, they are THE MOST IMPORTANT AND PRECIOUS parts!

So if you'll excuse me, I have some reconnecting to do and a bucket list to make with my children!

Natasha~

P.S. I will post our #summerbucketlist once it is completed (and which will likely be a dynamic one) and we can all have some great adventures this summer! I'd love to hear what's on yours too!

Week 6: the status quo revolution

More lessons learned on my path to being Lean for Life with @Infinitefit. 

The status quo. The existing condition or state of affairs.

In layman’s terms, the status quo in everything is what we like to call our “comfort zone”. It’s the place of good enough, not rocking the boat, keeping the peace, and the happy medium.

And a lot of people are very happy with the status quo.

I spent last weekend in a room full of do-gooders from my city looking for ways to challenge the status quo, to move people out of their comfort zones that privilege or race or gender has granted them. And this was one of the biggest challenges we all faced in our projects, our endeavors and our desires to do-good for our communities.

The status quo.

These feelings of “everything is just fine; this is just the way things are; you just have to accept the world we live in” are hard to eschew. They make up all the stories we tell ourselves to make us feel good about our lives. That we are not bad people, we aren’t hurting anyone, we pay our taxes, we eat relatively well, we “exercise” enough. In essence, we keep telling ourselves that we are A-OK.

But are we?

Head over here to keep reading... 

Thanks,

Natasha~

Fairy Tales & PIE: why we need both in a marriage.

I am a sucker for a good love story. I love a happy ending when the girl gets the boy of her dreams or vice-versa or the girl gets the girl of her dream, or the boy the boy of his dreams. I am, of course, an equal opportunity love story junkie.

The problem with most love stories is that they end at the "and then they lived happily ever after" and we just assume that this is exactly the case. That love conquers all and it is all they need to keep them happy and together until the end of time.

Imagine if we could see the rest of the story. What happens after the Beast turns back to the Prince and he and Belle start having babies. Or after Ariel loses her fins and becomes human to be with Eric and then decides to take a job that requires her to be away a lot. What happens to all that fairy tale love when reality sets in?

In the past six months it has become painfully evident to me that I am in a phase in my life where I am starting to see the statistics about marriage play out around me. I don't know if it is the 'seven year itch' phenomenon or the 8, 9, 10 or 12 year itch... it just seems to be happening  more and more. Every couple is different and has their own struggles to overcome, but I do see a little bit of a recurring theme in a lot of relationships.

It sounds so bloody cliché, but having kids really does change your life. And until it happens to you, it is hard for anyone around you to really "get it".  Everything for the next few years (read FOREVER) is all about the kids. This is not all terrible, it is after all, what you signed up for. You and your partner created these little humans together and now it is your job to love and provide for them. Your focus gets easily pulled to nurturing these new relationships with your children and it can be a steep learning curve to figure out how to love them, love yourself and love your partner all at the same time. Life is about growth and development and it is not only our babies who are doing the growing. We are too - as parents, as partners, and as individuals. If we don't recognize this growth, if we stop paying attention to our life partners, a vital connection can be lost. And then, one day, there is a very sobering realization that we don't recognize the person sitting across the table from us or even the person (ourselves) looking across the table anymore.

I am a huge proponent of the attachment theory of parenting and how important it is for our babies to have that strong sense of attachment and bonding with us from the get go. Dr. Gordon Neufeld, and many others who study human psychology and development, say that attachment is THE most significant and pre-eminent need of human beings. Connections and a sense of belonging are what make us human. And if we lose those connections in our most important and intimate relationships, if we try to replace them with things or focus our connections away from our partners, we risk losing those relationships altogether.

If life and the kids and the laundry and the yard work and work work and Facebook time and gaming and working out and taking everyone to their activities and whatever else you've got going on, is taking up ALL OF YOU, it is doing so at an expense. We may think that that expense is being tired all the time and not having time for ourselves, let alone our partners, but I am telling you now, that NO, that is not it. The expense is the subtle, slipping away of trust and confidence and the very foundation that supports our relationships.

It is very easy to fall into patterns of behaviour when our babies and toddlers are small and require so much from us. We have a schedule for naps and for feedings, a routine for bedtime, a weekly colour-coded calendar full of music/swim/parent&me/gymnastics/art classes. Not to mention all the rest of the work that needs to be done at home, at the office, at the home-office or what have you. I don't know about you, but I remember so many days that I would forgot to even feed myself, let alone have a conversation or a meal with my husband. Being an attached and connected parent is a wonderful thing, but if you don't continue to nurture the original connection and attachment that MADE your child(ren), then where does that leave you?

I just finished reading Brené Brown's book, "Daring Greatly". In the chapter about Debunking the Vulnerability Myths, one paragraph really struck me. In it Brené talks about the betrayal of disengagement:

"When the people we love or with whom we have a deep connection stop caring, stop paying attention, stop investing and stop fighting for the relationship, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in. Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fears - the fears of being abandoned, unworthy, unlovable. What can make this covert betrayal so much more dangerous than something like a lie or an affair is that we can't point to the source of our pain - there's no event, no obvious evidence of brokenness. It can feel crazy-making."

My husband and I have always had a little bit of a relationship radar in place that lets us know when life is getting the best of us. I am pretty sure that everyone has some kind of early warning system in their own relationship. It all comes down to how much or how little attention is paid to it. The increased bickering, the loss of physical connection, the muttering under the breath, being super sensitive to every little thing said to each other - these are the warnings that we can sometimes overlook or not really think too much about, but this is just a small list of the tiny betrayals that can build on each other. And if no one is paying attention to the physical, intellectual and emotional needs of their partner (I think I'll call that P.I.E.!) than going through the motions of a marriage or life partnership will never leave anyone feeling fulfilled. Every little hurt starts to adds up and disconnection is the sum result.

We've all heard it said before, love takes work. It is a choice we have to make every day. It takes a fair amount of vulnerability too. And for a lot of people, accessing that vulnerable place in themselves is a major hurdle. It's a risk to say to the person you are supposed to be totally in love with that something is off. That THIS, the way things are RIGHT NOW, is not working for you. We'll do a lot to avoid these kinds of conversations and our fears only serve to push us further away from each other. We work more, take extra shifts, spend more time on Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter. We become obsessed with perfection and our focus becomes on how we look, how the house looks, and how the world sees us. We drown our fears in booze or food. We live with what Brené Brown calls "scarcity" and become governed by self-talk and thoughts of never being "enough" of anything to anyone. It's the mother of all shame spirals and the only way out of it is to face those fears, be your most vulnerable self and start paying attention.

For me, that meant finding a good therapist to help me face my own negative self-talk and the ways that I avoid my own vulnerability. Jane* has made me realize that I can choose to change the way I think and I don't have to revert to my default avoidance setting of "fixing" everyone else's lives around me and ignoring my own problems. It has also meant having some very honest conversations with my husband and of us sharing our greatest fears within our relationship with each other. Trust me, this was not an easy task for either of us, but I truly believe that it has made all the difference. We are both more aware and focused on making sure that we are both getting our fair share of the P.I.E. more so now than ever before.

I said it above, but it bears repeating:

Attachment, connection and belonging are the pre-eminent needs of all human beings.

We are all doing our very best to ensure that we are nurturing that kind of relationship with and for our children and most of us are getting pretty good at this attachment parenting stuff. We need to remember that we too are humans and have those same basic and vital needs. To satisfy them within our significant and intimate relationships, we all need to remember to keep working on our ATTACHMENT MARRIAGE-ING and keep the focus on our own happily ever afters!

Natasha~

P.S. You all know how much I love Pink and she always know exactly what to say way better in song version...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OpQFFLBMEPI[/youtube]

Week 4: The "binge" repercussions.

The lastest update from my #LeanforLife and #InfiniteCoaching program with Jessica at Infinite Fitness:

This is the reality check post.

There are a lot of inspirational stories of people's fitness and diet transformations. You hear about the success stories all the time. Heck, you see them at the gym or in your own life. The people who drop 12 or 20 pounds and who really seem to be doing all the right things. And then you get on the scale for your weekly weigh-in and....

The number is going up.

This is what happened to me last week and I am not going to lie. It got me down.

REALLY, really down...

Head over here to read the rest of the story.

make your bed and be on time

Happiness is a funny thing. Sometimes it hits you just as hard as its arch-nemesis, sadness and/or depression.

And then you don't know what to do about it.

You don't want to talk about it, because then you'll *JINX* it. You don't want to celebrate anything too wildly, because you don't want to seem boastful or like you are rubbing it in anyone's face. And because of the nature of our often cruel and spiteful world, you hold your breath, silently enjoying your happy, while at the same time, constantly looking over your shoulder, waiting for that ominous other shoe to drop.

But why should anyone feel ashamed of being happy? That just seems incredibly counter intuitive to the whole concept.

Yet, there it is.

I'd like to blame the Internet for this shame (or more specifically, Facebook), but that's not quite right. The Internet, for all that we capitalize the word, it not an identity, not a person or persons that we can "blame" for our happiness, our sadness, or any emotion that we feel. The Internet is a means of communicating, of connecting and of sharing information. How we FEEL about that information is completely up to us. We are in charge of our use of it and of how much or how little of it we filter.

Last week, I read about tech journalist Paul Miller's return to the Internet after 365 days offline. I think most people, including Paul, expected this grand epiphany to occur during his time away from the digital world. He left the internet to find the 'Real Paul', because he thought that being online had somehow 'corrupted' him. What he in fact ended up realizing was not quite what he had in mind.

What I do know is that I can't blame the internet, or any circumstance, for my problems. I have many of the same priorities I had before I left the internet: family, friends, work, learning. And I have no guarantee I'll stick with them when I get back on the internet — I probably won't, to be honest. But at least I'll know that it's not the internet's fault. I'll know who's responsible, and who can fix it.

Right now, at this moment in my life, I am happier than I have been in months.

Life does not feel overwhelming to me right now. Maybe it is because I have slowed down and am paying closer attention to the little things more. Maybe it's because I am paying someone a crap-load of money to let me cry buckets in her office and leave all of the sadness there before our time is up. Maybe it's because I have FINALLY realized that flying by the seat of one's pants is not always the best way to go about one's life, especially when you are the one responsible for other, smaller people's lives as well.

I believe that a strange combination of a lot of little things has added up to me being a happier, more calm, more zen version of me than I have ever been before. Some of these things may seem silly, but here are just a few examples of what makes me feel happy these days.

All the beds are made every morning in our house. I never thought of unmade beds as a big deal before. We were just going to go to sleep in them again in 12-16 hours, so why bother making them? Well, I am here to tell you that it does make a difference. A made bed looks better, it makes you feel ORGANIZED and it gives you a good jumping off point in the mornings. And why spend all that money on a fancy duvet cover only to crumple it up in a ball every day?

Being on time. For those of  you who don't know me very well, punctuality is NOT one of my virtues. It's a running joke within my family that I am told to arrive at least 30 minutes before the actual start time for any important events. My clock in my car is set 17 minutes ahead for the same reason. It got to the point that the one time a few months ago when we were early for an appointment and I mentioned this to the kids, my son looked at me and said, "Mom, what does early mean?" I vowed then and there to change that and for the most part, I have. Now he asks me if we are going to be TOO early everywhere we go.

Date nights. My husband and I have always had date nights, but we used to fill them with things to do. We would go to a movie or shop or stroll through Ikea or go for a drive. Date nights now are dinner at a new restaurant we haven't tried before. They are a minimum of three hours long and we eat wonderful food and we TALK. We talk about our life, we talk about others, we discuss plans for the future, we people watch and and *sometimes* we make up funny stories about the folks at the next table. We sit across the table and give each other our undivided attention. It's not just about getting out of the house and away from the kids, it's about growing together and discovering all over again why we love each other so much. And... *ahem*... all that intellectual stimulation makes for great foreplay!

No more Facebook. I know it seems silly and according to Paul, was not what was making him unhappy, but for me, not engaging on Facebook has somehow given me a release from something that was holding me back. I can't quite articulate what that something was just yet, but I do know that it is not there anymore. I admit that I do creep on FB sometimes and have to keep my account active to manage the page for the  Natural Urban Mamas community, but I do not LIKE or COMMENT on anything. It simply doesn't seem genuine to me anymore and although I can see and love all the new baby/new house/new car/fabulous vacations that you are all posting about, I really would rather we went for coffee or I popped over to see you and the baby/house/car/pictures in person.

Losing the fear of just being ME. The other day, my good friend Jen Banks asked me to present an award at The Yeggies, a celebration of all the local and amazing social media folks in my fair city. I was thrilled to do so and immediately said yes. The wonderful Tanis Miller won for Best in Family and Parenting and it was an honour to present the woman who inspired me to blog this well-deserved award. Afterwards someone asked me if I was scared speaking in front of a room full of so many people. I said no, not at all. I may have been nervous right before I hit the stage, but I was not afraid. A few weeks ago, I changed my Twitter handle from @SAHFeminist to @NatashaChiam. And while it is a bit scary to put one's REAL name out there for all the Internet to see, it felt right. Just like being up on a stage with a microphone in front of me does.

It's a strange thing to be fearless. I don't think that it means to fear nothing. That would just be silly, because if a tiger escaped from the zoo and made its way to my back yard, trust me, there would be FEAR (and possibly some soiled underpants as well). I think fearless means to be brave and the dictionary defines brave as "being able to face fear and danger without flinching." *I* say being brave and fearless means being able to face LIFE without flinching.

And in that regard, I believe that fearlessness is a direct line to happiness. If we can face our lives without flinching, if we can own who we are, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and if we can do so honestly, than one day, without you even seeing it coming, HAPPINESS is going to come right up to you, smack you in the face and say,

HA!!

GOTCHA!!

Natasha~

Photo Credit: Sparklerawk on Flickr

~~~~~~~~~~~~

What about you? How do you define happiness? Or fearlessness?

Hitting {my} milestones

***As I was cleaning up my ridiculous draft folder full of half-written, what the heck was I thinking, random thoughts posts and I came across this one. I wrote it more than a year ago and can’t for the life of me figure out why I never hit publish on it.

So here you go… Oh and look at how LONG my hair was!!!***

~~~~~~~~~~~

Milestones.

We all have them.

Your first tooth.

Your first haircut.

Your first step.

Your first day of school.

Your first kiss.

High School Graduation.

Your first REAL job!

Your first time.

Your first vote.

Your first love.

Your first car. (Note to the guys that this is not the same as the milestone above!)

And all of a sudden you are a full-fledged adult.

You have a job, bills to pay, an apartment to clean, friends you can count on and perhaps someone special to love as well.

Your life is all before you and is really is your oyster!

You have dreams of your life and what you want it to look like....

You hit another major life milestone, turn thirty and there it all is laid out before you.

The career that gives you freedom and power and travel and perks and one heck of a nice salary.

The man who will sweep you off your feet and be the one who stands so far out of the crowd that you can't help but fall in love with him.

The perfect wedding in the mountains, surrounded by so many that love you.

The starter home that you build together.

The trips and travelling that will take you to amazing and exotic places.

The beautiful babies your love will create.

When I hit my 30th birthday I was excited. I had all of these amazing life experiences to look forward to.

The past 10 years have been the most fulfilling, challenging, character developing ones of my existence. They have {re} defined me as a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister and a daughter.

If you asked 30-year old me what 40-year old me would look like or be doing with her life, I am pretty sure THIS would not be it.

Not that what I am doing is a bad thing, just probably not what the newly-engaged, childless, career-focused, younger me would have envisioned.

I would have never seen myself being a stay-at-home mom. I didn't have one, so I just sort of thought I would never be one.

I would never in a million years have seen myself as a breastfeeding, natural birthing, babywearing, attachment parenting advocate. It's was not what I was brought up with or witnessed growing up and really, who ever REALLY thinks about all of these things before they even get pregnant. I assure you I did not!

I never imagined I would leave a career that I fought for and worked so hard at. One that gave me such satisfaction and great opportunities for moving up in the corporate world. I had my palms read sometime in my twenties and at that time the reader told me that I would always be a 'career' woman. I truly believed her. I guess I just ended up choosing a different kind of career.

Why all this retrospection you ask?

Last week I read a post by a mama on Twitter about her thoughts on turning 30 and it got me thinking about how our lives are so much the same yet so much different. A lot of what she has accomplished before her 30's, I did IN my thirties. I really do think it was my best decade. I entered it in 2002 a very different woman than the one I was when I exited it in 2011. I GREW so much in those 10 years. I also happened to grow people in those years and I know that those two amazing events accounted for a lot of the growth in me.

On January 1st of 2012, I hit yet another major life milestone.

I turned forty.

Up to that point I had all these thoughts of what this year would be like for me.

I wanted to have a BIG Birthday party to celebrate, but in the end, it just didn't really happen and I let the day come and go without it being a big deal.

I have been wanting to write about my year of being 40 here on the blog, sort of like what @CoffeewithJulie did for her 40th with her #MonthofMe posts in October 2011. You know, a diary of sorts letting you all know how wonderful it is and how yes, of course 40 is the new 20. (Side note: Can someone PLEASE tell me what that means? Because I may have done some things in my 20's that I am not overly proud of and could seriously not even attempt at this point in my life without a paramedic crew waiting in the wings!!)

My sweet dear husband has indulged my desires to make this the year of me and on the 1st of every month, he has been making me AWESOME cards and giving me a small present. He has been calling this year the "10th Anniversary of my 30th Birthday!" And man, do I ever love him for all that he is doing to make this year easy on me and so special. But I think herein lies the crux of my problem with forty so far.

I can't continue on like this, trying to relive or dwell on my past and think that my thirties where my best decade. I may be getting old{er}, but in this thing called LIFE, I am a far cry from DONE! If my thirties where so much better than my twenties, then what is stopping my forties from being that much more than my thirties?

Aside from myself that is....

You see, I may be having somewhat of a mid-life crisis right now. Okay fine, crisis may be too strong a word. Let's call it a mid-life, "oh-my-god-what-do-I-do-now?" moment. I really am having a tough time setting, or even figuring out what my life goals are right now.

The last ten years have been filled with so many goals and projects and such that I just kept going and going. Marry the boy, have the babies, build the houses, build the business, build a brand, be a baby mommy, plan the holidays, meals, activities, school, etc... It has all been so very non-stop. Until now.

The business was closed. The dream home was built. The babies are growing up {way too fast for my liking} and everything is good.

But...

If you asked me for my five year plan or that ever annoying "where do you see yourself in 5-10 years" question, you would get a big ol' blank stare from me. Because I really DON'T KNOW.

Now, I am not saying that everyone needs to have a very set and specific life plan, but it helps to have some goals and aspirations right?

I bought this back book in January and must have packed it away shortly thereafter. Looks like it might be high time to crack this baby open and figure out what exactly it is I want to do with the rest of my life!

I do know one thing for sure. My 40's are not going to be like my 20's or my 30's... they are going to better.

That is a goal right?

Natasha~

On motherhood: the ultimate vulnerability.

I had coffee with a friend the other day. A pregnant friend who is in that "second-trimester, starting to feel uncomfortable in her own changing body, slightly grumpy about the restrictions it is placing on her" friend. We are relatively new friends (and yes, we did "meet" via social media), but our stories are quite similar. She could be me seven years ago. A woman in her mid-30's with a burgeoning career, life experiences and accomplishments that she is proud of and someone who is pretty sure of who she is in this world.

And she is afraid.

Afraid of what becoming a mother means.

Afraid of losing herself to this new role in her life.

Afraid of following in the footsteps of the mothers in her life, who became wholly consumed by motherhood and whom she feels lost all of who they were before then.

So I told her what motherhood did for me as a woman.

I told her that becoming a mother has taught me more about being a woman and has opened me up more to the world around me than any other life experience I have ever had.

And then she looked at me with the wide-eyed look of someone whose fears had just been confirmed!

So for my friend, and for everyone else who may have these fears about motherhood and losing themselves in it, I felt the need to explore this more. This is what I have come up with...

~~~~~~~~~~

You can read every "what to expect" pregnancy and new baby book on the library shelves, watch every TLC show about babies and childbirth, listen to all your friends tell you all their tips and tricks for being a new mom, and it won't matter one bit. The minute you have a child, the moment you open your eyes after that last big push, or you finally hold your baby in your arms after a long adoption wait, or you wake up after your c-section to see your baby sleeping cuddled with your partner in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs...  you have new eyes.

And they see everything differently.

All of a sudden, everything takes on a slightly different tinge, has a more sweeping scope, uses a different filter.

I was not a "natural urban" anything before I had kids. I was Natasha, and all I really had to worry about was me. Yes, I was married and we were (and are) a great team and we were as inseparable then as we are now, but my life really was primarily about me. My career, my promotions, my wants, my needs, my whims...

When we started planning a family, in that plan was me going back to work after six months, a list of recommended daycares and day homes and a career to get back to ASAP. We decided to start "trying" in earnest after a trip to Tanzania in 2005 and we got pregnant within three months. All was going according to the plan.

Half-way through my second trimester, all the shit hit all the fans!! I had dangerously high blood pressure. I was admitted to hospital within an hour of a routine OB appointment and 24 hours later we were having a discussion of "fetal viability" with a neonatologist.

THIS WAS NOT IN THE PLAN PEOPLE!!

We had to make some big decisions. I had to take a medical leave from work immediately and was kept in hospital for two weeks. After I was finally allowed to go home, our life became about daily Non-Stress Tests (which is a really ironic name for them by the way!), weekly ultrasounds, perinatologist appointments and ultimately full bed-rest. We lived each week holding our breath until after the ultrasound to hear whether or not our baby would have to be delivered then or if he would get another week to grow and develop in utero.

Maybe it was because my "vision" changed earlier than some. Maybe it was because I "saw" my baby every week from 26 weeks until 3 days before his birth through the lens of the ultrasound wand.  Maybe because I had to read different kinds of "what to expect" books (ie, what to expect in the NICU, how to care for a premature baby, what long term complications we might encounter, etc...). Whatever the case, from that first moment of panic, nothing in my life was about ME anymore.

And here is the plain truth of it all.

Yes, motherhood is an all-encompassing endeavour and yes, one does become consumed by it, but in my opinion, that is more biology than it is sociology. A human child needs its mother to survive. She provides it with warmth, love, nourishment, protection. Our bodies and the systems within them, adjust to the post-natal state and function perfectly to do all of this. A mother and child will breath in sync while sleeping together, a baby will imprint on the mother's scent and will be primarily soothed by her nearness. The hormones released by both mother and child during breastfeeding, not only serve to perpetuate this amazing feedback loop of supply and demand, they also provide both with a sense of calm and an endorphin rush of happy. In essence the mother and child are really just two parts of one beautiful and biological machine of great complexity. It does no one any good, especially mothers, to fight that part of our nature.

I did not and I do not see this initial all-consuming part of motherhood as a surrendering of one's self. I see it more as an opportunity to explore a deeper part of one's self that has not been readily evident before. Motherhood teaches us the true inventory of our bodies, our minds and our souls. Motherhood made me look very closely at every aspect of my life. From the obvious ones, like getting the safest car seat and making sure I knew how to install it properly and using non-VOC paint when decorating his room, to farther reaching environmental issues like choosing to cloth diaper and researching every product that touched his tiny little body. I was relentless in all of this and I spent hours on parenting forums (remember those days?). I was a sponge for all things mothering. I wanted to be GOOD at this. Really, really, good!

What I discovered through all of this was that in order to be 'good' at it, I had to let go. Let go of plans, of schedules, of ridiculous expectations (both mine and those of others), of doing things a certain way without exception. This was hard for me. I am a creature of habit and I like a certain amount of order in my life. Having children has taught me that sometimes a nap is just as important, if not more so, than a shower some days. It has taught me that what I say and do with my children and to my children is going to have a lasting impact on them and therefore on this world. It has made me so much more aware of global reproductive rights and how much work there is to be done right here in our own back yards, let alone across the globe. It has made me painfully aware of all of the misinformation that exists in our world with regards to both breastfeeding and formula feeding. Motherhood opened me up to the most amazing parenting practice ever - babywearing. And through babywearing, motherhood made me an entrepreneur. Motherhood made me an advocate for women and in turn a voice for many... and yes, it made me an ACTIVIST and a FEMINIST too.

Some would look at my life and say that I have indeed surrendered my former self to motherhood. I mean, look at me, I am a stay-at-home mom, I drive a micro-van, I arrange play-dates and go to yoga while my kids are in school. AND I did some of those "extreme" parenting things too, like extended breastfeeding, elimination communication and co-sleeping. Oh, and I have a blog too! They might as well slap a MOMMY sticker right on my forehead and move on to the next person in line to ask what they "do" for a living. It's got the be way more interesting that motherhood, right?

To these people, I would say look closer. Motherhood has opened my eyes to a world far beyond my front door. Seriously people, giving birth (without drugs to boot!) is an experience that tests you both mentally and physically, and I passed that test. TWICE. There is nothing I can't do now! The world has opened up to me, and not just because of the internet (although it has helped immensely), but because I have let so much more of it in!  My children are going to inherit this world after me and I will do my part, however small it may be, to ensure that not only is it a better one for them, but that they in turn will see my example and want to make it an even better world for their children.

You know that iceberg picture that everyone shows at every presentation you have ever been too? (Go here to see the one I am talking about). I think of that image when I reflect on my life. I was the tip of the iceberg before I was a mother. Like my pregnant friend, I had a full life, I had adventures, I had a career, I was proud of what I had accomplished and felt I was a valuable, contributing member of society. Motherhood didn't make me forget about all that, nor do I think that it consumed me. Motherhood just opened up my life to boundless possibilities and to the depths of my mind and my soul that existed below the surface. It has made me grow and has pushed me and made me take risks and venture far out of my confort zone way more than anything else in my life. Motherhood has made me accept my vulnerabilities as a human being and see them not as a weakness of character, but as a path to create more goodness, more beauty and more LOVE in my world.

In a nutshell (and 1700 words later-Ha!), motherhood was the beginning of my legacy. I have actually birthed three babies that will live on after me and carry a part of me with them always and forever. My son with his thirst for knowledge and attention to detail, my daughter with her quirky sense of humour and love of all living things, and finally my writing. My story... their story...

My evolution as a mother

and as a woman.

Both sides of the same coin.

And as I have learned, it serves no one to fear or resist either one!

natasha~

Cookies before dinner.

You tell yourself you are just going to try it. To see what all the fuss is about. I mean its free, right? So there is no harm done there and besides, all your friends are trying it too.

It's pretty fun actually. You have a good time, play some silly vampire vs werewolf games, find out your stripper name, poke some people, catch up with old friends and even find some new ones.

You start doing it more and more. You start adding pictures of your life. What you made for dinner, what you did that day, funny shots of the kids. You like more of your friend's stuff and your 'friends' like your stuff too. Soon you are sharing all kinds of things with all of these friends. Things that you like and things that you think they will like too. And they do, they really, really like YOU and all your things!

This all starts to feel really good. Whenever you share a picture or a status or a post, it gets liked and then YOU feel good and popular and LIKED. And repeat

and repeat

and repeat.

.

.

.

.

And then one day, somewhere between a healthy dose of keeping in touch with friends, obsessive ranting about EVERYTHING, and scrolling through your timeline to like as much as you can and see how many likes you have that day, it somehow becomes more important to constantly update your Facebook status and check on all your "friends", than it is to actually spend time with the real live people in your life.

.

.

.

This is your wake up call....

for you and your kids!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This past weekend I attended a lecture by Dr. Gordon Neufeld on Raising Children in a Digital World. My friend Nancy has been bugging me for years to go to one of his talks and I finally listened to her.

Dr. Neufeld is a clinical psychologist  and the author of the wonderful parenting book, Hold On to Your Kids. If this book is not in your possession yet, then I highly recommend it (just maybe wait for the updated edition coming out this summer). Dr. Neufeld's research and field of study is that of human attachment and how this affects development in our children. His book is all about why parents need to matter to our kids more so than their peers and his theories and practical application of them is even more relevant in the bright lights of the digital revolution than ever before.

Dr. Neufeld started his talk with a quote from Marshal McCluhan, who said that for every tool of the media that extends our reach (and I guess that would include social media these days), there is an equal and proportional amputation of something else.

What I learned at Dr. Neufeld's talk is that we, the parents of all of these "digital native" kids, are quite possibly that "something else" at risk of being amputated from our kids lives!

In his book and in his lectures, Dr. Neufeld talks about a phenomenon he calls peer orientation. Simply put, this means that children become more attached to their peers than to their parents or the adults responsible for them.

Attachment is the most significant and pre-eminent need of human beings. We need to connect with each other. This is true of the newborn baby needing closeness and proximity to their mothers and it is also true for the toddler who is having a complete temper tantrum and needs a hug far more than he needs a time-out. It is true for the teenager who is desperately looking to belong and to simultaneously be their own individual and it may very well be true of the grown-up on Facebook, trying to make connections with people who are like her, who understand her, and who can validate her life.

So what does this all mean? What are we, the parents, to do in this digital age when our kids have such easy access to their peers practically 24/7?

We can't turn back the clocks and take away all the digital media in our lives, so how do we make sure that it is not RUNNING or RUINING our lives and the lives of our children?

Dr. Neufeld gave a very simple analogy at his talk that made everything so very clear to me.

Cookies.

Yes, cookies.

Cookies are delicious treats and everyone likes them.

BUT...

There is an optimal time for cookies.

If we eat cookies before we eat dinner, than we will ruin our appetites for the real meal that fills us up with all the vitamins and nutrients that our body needs to grow and stay healthy.

In the digital world, cookies are the internet and all it's fudgeo, marshmallow-y, gooey chocolate chip fillings!

The cookies he is talking about refers to any form of digital media - Facebook, texting, gaming, Instagram or the new and in my opinion, kinda sketchy, Snapchat. The MEAL is the attachment we have with our children, our connection to the people in our lives that are closest to us. We need to fill our children with a good healthy meal of attachment, of love and trust and respect (for self and for others) before we let them out into the digital world to have cookies.

And even then, when we do let them out into that world, we have to make sure that they are not INGESTING more cookies (information) than they can actually DIGEST. This can be a tricky thing to figure out and is probably different for every kid, but one thing is certain, we are putting these devices into the hands of our kids, giving them unlimited access to all of this information and education, and what we are failing to realize is that they are then re-purposing them as a means of connection and attachment. If we are not filling them up with that kind of connection with US, that sense of belonging and sameness, then all we are doing is sending them out into this world hungry for those connections and that intimacy.

And intimacy they will find online. IN SPADES. It will be a superficial kind of connection though, one that is empty and does not actually provide any kind of lasting fulfilment. Just like cookies. They are delicious, but they don't fill you up properly and in an hour, you are just hungry for more cookies.

At the halfway mark of Dr. Neufeld's talk, I literally grabbed my head and gave it a shake, because what he was saying just then, quite literally BLEW MY MIND!!

He was talking about his sabbatical in a small town in Provence, France and how he coud not figure out why he and his wife where not getting good service from the local merchants in town. It wasn't until a resident told him that he was being "barbaric" in his interactions with people, that he understood the problem. He had not been making eye contact, getting a smile and a nod from the town merchants, before launching into his needs or wants from them. In other words, he was not using basic manners for human discourse! It wasn't until they understood this concept of "collecting", this face-to-face setting of the stage for human interaction, that things started to turn around for them in town.

Now take this concept and apply it to FACEBOOK!

There is no 'collecting' in social media. There is no eye contact, no smiling, no acknowledgment of 'Yes, I SEE you, I KNOW you.' Basic manners and rules of human interaction have left the building people! Trust me, I've been in one too many Facebook "conversations" to know that this is precisely the case. Digital intimacy is EMPTY because this simple attachment invitation does not get across. Nowadays parents, not only do we need to talk to our kids about unsafe intercourse, we have to talk to our children about the dangers of UNSAFE DISCOURSE!

Dr. Neufeld points out that the consequences of this kind of empty digital intimacy can be just as devastating for our children:

• it spoils the appetite for true intimacy and meaningful connection
• it takes them away from their parents who are meant to be their 'answers'
• it fuels obsessions and addictions (new research from Germany shows that digital addictions are more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol)
• the preoccupation arrests the maturing process, rendering them stuck in immaturity
• and ironically, it increases feelings of loneliness and frustration

And really, it's not just our kids who are in danger here. These kinds of empty and superficial connections are affecting grown-ups as well and perhaps this is the real danger. If we are spoiling our own appetites for meaningful connections, if we are not being fulfilled in our own relationships and are depending more and more on superficial ones via social media, than how on earth are we to be the example for our children and show them how to foster proper human attachments?

I went home Sunday night with my mind abuzz with so many swirling thoughts about my own dependency on social media, and what and how I can keep that attachment component of parenting alive within my life and with my family. The concept of attachment seems so easy when they are babies. You just keep them close to you physically. Wear them, breastfeed them, sleep with them - Easy peasy, lemon squeazy as my kids like to say!

The real challenge of parenting comes as they get older, as they start to learn that they are not the same as us and as they start to emerge as their own separate beings, with their own ideas and thoughts and intentions. This emergence does not signify a release from us and from attachment. It means that we need to work harder to keep those attachments viable, even when we are apart. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT ATTACHMENT MEANS! It is EXACTLY about how to stay close, especially when we are apart.

We wonder all the time "what is wrong with kids these days?" Where is the empathy? Where are their manners? Where or when or how did things get so messed up?

You don't have to look far to figure some of this out. Dr. Neufeld points out that we are routinely use a child's need for proximity against them. We use time-outs for discipline, we do "123 Magic", we shun them when they misbehave and do the one thing that is the polar opposite of attachment and we send them away from our presence. We also use the things that children are attached to against them - do this or that/don't do this or that or I will take away your lovey, your soother, your leap-pad, your phone, MYSELF. This is a dangerous game we are playing, parents, and we are the ones courting a lack of attachment and empathy because of it.

But fear not! All is not lost and we CAN still make a difference for our little digital natives!

Dr. Neufeld finished his lecture with some key tools and behaviours for moving forward and parenting in this digital world of ours.

He says that we need to:

• Believe that we are what our children need (and not just as babies and toddlers, but well into the teenage years).
• Invite dependence in other ways. No one can compete with Google, so share something that only you can teach them, be it cooking, wood-working, drawing... Whatever it is, invite your kids into your world and give them a legacy that is from you and only you.
• Create rituals and rules that safeguard healthy attachment. Make family meals a priority, have a game night with no electronics, have weekly or monthly family date night, vacations together, etc...
• "immunize" our children by fulfilling their attachment hunger. Don't let them out into the world hungry and looking to fill up on cookies, because they will find them, they always do!
• Be the example for our children and take the lead with our own use of digital technology.

We all know that being a parent is a tough job. Throw the digital revolution into the mix and things just get that much more complicated. We can't stop our kids from being a part of the revolution, but we can equip them for it. And I don't mean by getting everyone their very own laptop, iPad, iPod, smart phone and Facebook account.

We must equip them with the knowledge of our love, our trust, and our respect, and by fulfilling their need for attachment TO US! So that when they are out there navigating their way through the digital world and they get lost, they always know where and who to come back to to reset the compass.

And you know what, we should probably put that jar of cookies away from us for a time too...

Natasha~

Photo credit: Henriksnet's Photo from Flickr, used under Creative Commons licence.