Five Years

I am a five year old mother.

As in, five years ago, a beautiful baby boy was concieved of the love that Natural Urban Dad and I share, was born of my body and completely transformed my life. This is for him.

For all that you have taught me. About life, love, and laughter.

For all that you do that is sweet, loving, and kind.

For the lessons in patience, perseverance and the power of a hug.

For your independent spirit. Your love of LIFE. Your utter BOY-ness!

Thank you, Little Man.

You really have made me the Mama I am today.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayRqFLjNcJI[/youtube]

legacy

I just spent the last 2 hours in a cramped 3-bed hospital room with my 82-year-old Godmother.

This is the woman my daughter is named after. The woman who was a best friend to my grandmother, a kind of surrogate mother for my own mother and the woman at whose home I have the fondest memories of my childhood.

She is a pretty amazing woman and I am so incredibly thankful that she has always been a part of my life.

Talking with her today, we covered the usual. How the kids and Natural Urban Dad are doing, how goes the progress on the new house, and the usual chit-chat. And then the conversation took a turn that it often does with her.

She is ready to die. She actually wants to die.

Seven years ago this December, the love of her life, the man she was married to for 60 years, the man who left her a love note tucked under her pillow every day, passed away.

She wants to be with him again.

A few months ago, she had a fall at her home and her son found her unconscious on the floor (he woke up suddenly at 3 AM and told his wife he had to go check on his mom). She told me that during those few hours that she was technically in a coma, that she was at peace. She was floating. She was on her way to see her love.

And then she woke up.

Today we also talked a lot about her life in Europe as a child, how her mom died suddenly at the age of 38 when she was only nine and of her life during and after the war. She showed me her engagement ring and told me the story of how my Godfather had to buy the gold on the black market and designed the bow-shaped ring himself. She told me of all the love notes and little presents that he would leave for her under her pillow, for no other reason than just because he loved her so much.

This is the stuff that great love stories are made of people!

And then we started talking about my grandmother. Helen (we never called her Grandma) was also an amazing woman. All 90 pounds of her.  My Godparents where the closest thing to family that she had and they know the most about her life. I only know tidbits. If I have one regret in this life it is that I did not spend more time with her and get her to tell me more about her life.

You see, I do not know who my grandfather is. Neither does my mother. Helen was a governess in the late 1940's for a rich family in the south of France. She fell in love with the married chauffeur and proceeded to get herself knocked up at the spinster-y age of 42. This is as much as I know. And as I found out today, this seems to be as much as anyone knows. I assume this situation was quite the scandal in those days and in 1952, two years after my mother was born my grandmother and my mother immigrated to Canada. Once here, I do know that there was a short marriage to another man, who died of a heart attack and then I think Helen just swore of off men forever.

What I found out today, is that my dear grandmother, this tiny woman whom I have held on such a pedestal my whole life, who expected so much from me, who was always so prim and proper, was actually quite the goof. My Godmother regaled me today with stories about Helen. I heard about her walking around nude all the time. Answering the door with nothing on and with nary a care in the world. We had quite the giggle today about her many naked antics.

Why am I going on and on about all of this?

Legacy.

That is why.

I still only have tidbits of my grandmother's life. I wish that she had journaled more, that she had written down her thoughts, her experiences, her perspective of being a single mother in the 1950's and 60's. I wish I could have known her more, understood her more and that I had more of her to remember.

My Godfather wrote his memoirs and his children had them bound into a hardcover book for him before he passed away. I asked my Godmother for a copy of that book today. It was all written in French, so it might take me a while to read it. But read it I will.

Sometimes I hear people make disparaging remarks about being a blogger. Oh, you are not a writer, you are just a blogger. And I realized something today. I am both. And I am neither.  I write not only for myself, but for future generations too.

And this is my legacy.

This blog is the way that MY grand children will know me when I am not around anymore. They will know the funny me, the sad me, the advocate me, the Mommy me and the rant-y me! They will be able to read about how their parents were born, read about how and why we did things "in the old days" and see their parents through my eyes (and my camera lens).

They will be able to see how we built our dream home, the home that their parents grew up in, the one that they will get to come to for sleep-overs and holidays and birthdays and anniversaries.

Maybe one day I or the kids will take this blog and make it into a book. Not necessarily for mass production, just for the family to have  a tangible connection to the woman I am/will be/was. So I will write. I will write for me, for my kids and for my grand kids. I will write for the women who came before me, for my mother and for my grandmother...

...and I will write  for my Godmother. May she soon find peace and her one true love waiting for her with open arms and an eternal love note.

Natasha~

I hear you....

I have a four and a half-year old who "doesn't love me". No wait..., no, now he wants me....no, needs me....

...no... yeah, he's pretty sure he doesn't love me anymore....

....and now he needs a hug.

The above is a fraction of a 'conversation' that is happening on a daily basis at our house right now. Interspersed within this 'conversation' are the ear-piercing screams and stomping of feet and crying and a myriad of other rather unpleasant behaviours. The boy's, not mine (I swear)!

And I know it shouldn't, that I should not let this get to me, that it is a 'phase', but I can't help it...

....it is breaking me down.

Today after the third incident of screaming and 'I don't love you'/'I need a hug' and I want to do everything MY way or else, etc.... I had to walk away and go and have a good cry myself.

And I just don't know what to do. I wonder every day where my sweet boy went and who this defiant, mood-swinging maniac is??

We try to talk to him, but when he gets worked up it is completely useless trying to communicate with him. He can't even hear himself, let alone what we are trying to say to him.

Our usual reward system is not working (he earns points for good and loses points for bad behaviours, and once his points have accumulated to a certain level he gets the reward of his choice). He has lost ALL his points this weekend!

We talk to him after the fact and once everyone has calmed down and he seems to understand what went wrong and that his behaviour is unacceptable. We offer him alternative ways to express himself at the times when he is getting worked up and angry and he says he will try harder.

This past week I had my Reiki practitioner come over and do a session with him before I had mine (I am seriously willing to try anything at this point).

C was very excited for the session and was so calm while Kim worked her energy flowing and balancing magic on him. One of the main things that came up during his session was that Little C seems to be having feelings of 'not being heard' lately and mainly by me.

And as much as it pains me to admit it (on a lot of levels), the kid is not wrong...

I have been extra busy with a lot of other things lately. Work, volunteer work, more volunteer work, and then more work have been dominating my mind and my days for the past few weeks. There has been no time for proper scheduling of work hours versus play hours because it all just has to get done and as a result our play hours have suffered.

And so, it seems, have my children.

I fully admit that the TV has been on too much, I have asked them to go play by themselves too much and my mind is always on a billion things at once and my phone or laptop never leaves my side. Little C has said to me on more than one occasion..."Mom, turn off your computer and come and play with us." and he has even modified it to, 'Mom, come play in my room...you can even bring your computer with you." And I have said, "just one more email, or "just one more phone call", more times than I want to admit.

(heart breaks and sinks to stomach. BIG sigh.) 

So what is a Mama to do?

Something has to give. And soon. Because it can NOT be my kids anymore. We are all suffering because of this now and I don't want to continue like this.

I think I also need to re-read a few of my go-to books again:

Playful Parenting to get my head and myself back into the games (and off the computer all the time)!!

and Discipline without Distress to help us all find better solutions and ways to deal with attitude, anger and frustrations.

In the end, no amount of work, or anything else for that matter is ever going to be as important to me as my child. And perhaps {publicly} admitting that I am not doing such a great job at this Mommy gig at the moment is what I need to get me back on track.

Well that and I visual reminder too...

...one of the very cute reasons why I get up in the morning...

Natasha~

The GASP heard across the world...(or at least the living room).

There is not much in this world that can physically shock or rattle my husband. He is a physician and has done his fair share of rotations in emergency rooms and ICUs and has seen a lot of bad sh...um, stuff. So the other night when from the other room I heard a HUGE GASP and subsequent Oh MY GAWD! I was somewhat shocked and ran into the living room. Seems as he was perusing his usual before bed news websites, he came across this.

Cue, HUGE GASP number two from me!!

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. This is a picture of 4-year-old Maddy Jackson on the TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras in a Dolly Parton costume. Complete with 'C-cup' padded boobs and a padded butt to boot! The clip above of her mother explaining the 'costume' is even more disturbing and uh, yeah, her "enhancements" are hysterical - NOT!!

This story has been the lead headline all week all around the world. Some people have said that this kind of behaviour, outside of being just plain wrong, is criminal. Is it? I don't know. What I do know is that this type of pageant lifestyle and the big hair, big make-up, half-shirts, high heels and "look at me I am so pretty, please give me the big-ass crown and the $500.00 cash to fan out for the cameras" teaches our baby girls one thing and one thing only.

YOU ARE ONLY HERE AND ONLY VALUED FOR YOUR LOOKS AND YOUR FAKE SMILE!

Good Gawd people! Are we really no further along in our views of girls and women and the females of our species that THIS is what we teach our young?

Now yes, I realize that this pageant crowd is a small percentage of the world and to each their own, and yadda-yadda-yadda...but, these people have a television show and an international viewing audience and it is ALL over the interwebs. This story has been picked up by news sites in the UK, in Africa and in India too.

Pageant mothers will defend their decisions to put their children into pageants because it teaches them poise and gives them confidence. Others are quoted as saying ""She learns skills such as going out in a crowd, not to be shy, and to be herself while people are watching and focusing on her." (1)

And even other moms are more blunt and will just tell you, "My daughter looks like Barbie. I tell her to exploit it. This is your life; you take what you have and run with it." (1)

BEING herself? She looks like BARBIE? Since when do hair extensions, fake eyelashes, a pound of make-up and a fake spray-on tan, not to mention the fake teeth (because God forbid one happened to fall out right before a competition), constitute being oneself?  I'll say it again, all of these things teach our girls just one thing...

Being yourself is NOT good enough.

It is a line that is pushed and then crossed over and over and over in the pageant world, but even in everyday life with our children, is one that we need to be aware of and ready to address at any moment. Our little people are inundated with media and fashion images and insidious marketing messages daily and we need to be there to help them interpret these and understand what is being said or portrayed.

Take my daughter for example. She is a month away from her third birthday and as of late has taken a keen interest in my morning make-up routine. She insists on putting on 'her' make-up too and emulating what I am doing (this mostly involves taking one of my brushes and doing whatever I am doing, sans the actual make-up). And even though she has not directly asked me any questions about 'why' I wear make-up, she does ask what the products I am using are for. "What's this one for Mommy?", "That one is for your cheeks." "What's this one for Mommy?", "That one is for your eyes." I tell her what I am doing, but nowhere in the conversation do I say anything along the lines of the make-up 'making me beautiful". My daughter, and my son for that matter too, are learning from my husband and I that true beauty comes from within. Your heart, your mind, your soul-these are the things that make someone beautiful. Make-up and even clothes are only things that can help you feel beautiful. And even then, truly feeling beautiful still has to come from the inside and shine outwards.

Why is it so hard for these pageant parents and the judges and organizers for that matter, to set new guidelines for kids in pageants? Why can we not celebrate individuality, their true personalities, their authentic, unadorned little selves? Are we so far gone that we can not even see true beauty in our own children anymore? Bare mid-rifs, botox and now boobs and butts....I for one am afraid to ask what's next!

And....uhm...helloooo....did any one of these people ever actually SEE 'Little Miss Sunshine'?

Frustrated and flabbergasted (and not really digging TLC these days),

Natasha~

1. The whys and woes of beauty pageants. William J. Comrie. Harvard University Gazette.

2. Toddlers and children beauty pageants – Risk factors for severe psychological turmoils. Dr. Lucia Gosaru. Psychology Corner.

Still {and always} my baby...

Tonight while I was out for dinner with a few friends, I received this text from Natural Urban Dad.

So I called and Little C and I talked and I promised I would give him his goodnight cuddles as soon as I got home.

When I got home, I went straight to his room as I promised. I walked in and saw him sleeping on his big boy bed, looking so sweet and beautiful and peaceful and I was reminded of another moment in our lives together.

This one when he was a mere 5 days old.

He still looks like this when he sleeps.

I wish I could freeze these moments in time, our special nightly cuddles and talks.  I would put them in a jar and take them out one by one later in his life when he is older and doesn't want them (or me) as much as he does now.

Sometimes I bitch and complain about my kids and how attached they are to me. And then I realize that, umm, DUH, I raised them to be this way, and I should take all the attachment that I can, while I can. I know it won't last forever. And one day, he will be the one out with his friends and it will be me sitting up in bed at night saying over and over,

"Please, my baby, please come home soon...."

My daughter is a pretty smart Princess!

My 2.5 year old daughter is cute. Heck, she is down right beautiful actually. (She has that asian-caucasian mixology thing going on). And on a daily basis I am pretty sure I tell her how beautiful she is. But hold up....

She is also incredibly funny (ask her about her knock, knock joke!), intelligent, curious, and has the most amazing imagination of any two-year old I know. I am talking imaginary baby dragon friends and different voices for all the members in her doll house family. She also sat down at the (very rarely used) piano the other day, put both her hands up on it just like a pro and started to 'play'. And I don't mean the usual toddler bang on the keys play the piano, she actually played individual notes and it did not sound bad. She has a very artistic side to her that is just begging to be nurtured!

And in my mind all of these things add up and make her even more beautiful. Yes, I am her mother, so that bias does exist, but still, she is pretty darn incredible.

So when I read Lisa Bloom's article in The Huffington Post on 'How to talk to Little Girls', I was all over it. I have a daughter and I am somewhat of a feminist and damn straight you should talk to girls about their minds over their appearance!! I posted it all over Twitter and on my Facebook page and I am pretty sure that everyone who has a daughter re-tweeted and re-posted it too.

And then I started thinking about it a bit more....

It is really so bad to tell girls that they are beautiful?

Here's the thing. I never thought I would have a girl. Don't ask me why, I just thought I would have boys and was convinced for both my pregnancies that they were boys (I was right the first time!). And then L came along and with her, my life's ULTIMATE karmic twist.

At first I rejected all things girly.  I believe one of my first status updates on Facebook the first week that she was born was "I HATE PINK!"  I made an extra effort to find her clothes that were feminine, but NOT pink. She wore a lot of her older brother's hand-me-down baby sleepers and baby clothes and that was just fine with me.

I can pretty much pin-point the exact moment when L realized that she had her own sense of style and the days of me choosing her outfits were drawing near. That moment was the day of her first haircut. It was a tough milestone for me (as you can see from the picture!) and the (re) birth of Princess L.

EVERYONE complimented her on her new haircut, how cute she looked, how pretty she was and she just soaked it all in! And really, she did look adorable! It was right around this time as well, that she finally wanted and would let me put barrettes or clips in her hair. She called them her 'pretties' and the word has stuck and 'a pretty' is now the name for all hair accessories in our house.

At times I worry about this. I worry that she will associate having to wear something or have something in her hair to look pretty and then this will further translate to her feeling pretty. But then I realize that she is two years old and the clip or headband or whatever is in her hair for a grand total of about 20 minutes and then usually completely forgotten about as she goes about her day playing with her brother, reading her books, or creating more funny voices for all her little toys.

So what is my point with all of this? Do I agree with Ms. Bloom and her "don't talk to girls about their looks" stance? Granted, I have not yet read her book (it is ordered and on its way), but here are my thoughts on the whole argument.

I think that establishing a sense of self-esteem can not be done in a box. It really is about the whole child, male or female, and involves helping them to know themselves, have a strong sense of self-worth and know that they are valued and loved for their own uniqueness. And I believe that part of that includes how they look.

Lisa says in the article that "...teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything....", but what she fails to say is that a person's appearance really IS the first thing you notice about someone. Maybe the fine art of accepting a true compliment from someone, is something that girls (of all ages) are lacking these days. Perhaps we need to work more on teaching them to say a polite and sincere thank you and then move on to more interesting topics like books or traveling or art or animals or whatever it is that they are passionate about! We need them to know that how they look is NOT the most important thing about them, but at the same time, I do think that it is unrealistic to not acknowledge it at all.

My daughter LOVES to dress up in her princess dresses. She has a trunk full of them in her room. She thinks she looks 'bootiful' in them, and frankly, she kinda does. And if I am wearing a dress that day, then I too am a 'bootiful' mommy (and yeah, it makes me feel good when she says it to me). And I am good with that because often we are taking our 'bootiful' selves out to the museum, or the park, or the grocery store or the library and really, who doesn't want to dress up like a princess some days AND go out and do all kinds of other cool things that enrich our minds too!!

I am pretty sure I am not going to stop telling my daughter how beautiful she is, and also how smart, how talented and how funny she is too!

Perhaps the solution is for all of us to truly redefine what beautiful really means....

...and teach this to our girls (and our boys too)!

What do you think?

Natasha~

Mama Metamorphosis

My kids are 4.5 years old and 2.5 years old. Both are my babies, but please DO NOT, under any circumstances, say that to them these days. C remembers being a baby and the things he used to do (nurse, sleep in the crib, be in a baby carrier) and they toys he used to play with, but he is firmly a BIG BOY now and is even concerned that his clothing size is the right number for him!!  L is just realizing that she is a "big girl" and she justifies all that she does now. "Mama, big girls nurse too. Mama, big girls go uppy in carriers too. Mama, I not a baby, I a BIG GIRL!!"

And I have just realized that although they will always be MY babies, they really are NOT little babies anymore and therefore...

....I can not be the 'baby' mama anymore.

It is time for me to grow up and graduate out of the baby stage and transition to this new (and rather scary) phase of parenthood.

For those you who have been following along with my posts you will know that a few months ago, Natural Urban Dad and I were in talks about having another child. Suffice it to say that we have come to a collective agreement and what is going to work for all of us is the status quo. Two kids, two adults, two hands....you do the math. It is what works for us and is what is going to keep us a strong family unit.

And all along the way, in all our talks and negotiations, the theme that kept recurring was one of all of us growing up. Our kids are growing up and contrary to what you would think this would mean, ie, more independence, less reliance on us for everyday tasks, etc., what I have noticed is that they actually NEED us even more right now and in a completely different way than before.

Take my son. He is a sensitive, inquisitive, smart cookie with a quirky personality (he gets that from me I guess ;)). He also seems to have the sharpest hearing in the history of four year-olds and if he hears something he does not quite understand, he will ask you about it and not quite asking until he gets it! This is a totally awesome occurrence. Except when you are not prepared for it.

Yesterday, as we were driving to my niece's 12th birthday party, C pipes up from the back seat of the car.

"Mama, is HATE a bad word?"

Me: "Uhm....... well......, what do you mean?"

"Hate. What does it mean?"

Me: looking over at Natural Urban Dad and mouthing, "Do you want to answer this?" and him staring off into space like he can't hear either of us.

So, as I rolled my eyes at the NUD at my side, I told C this, "Hate is a mean word that some people use when they really, really, REALLY do not like something. It is a word that can hurt people's feelings and one that is not very nice to use."

That seemed to satisfy him for the moment, but it is just one example of the many questions and thoughts that he is processing these days and often needs our help to sort out. Today we had a fun time over breakfast discussing what our emotions are and making the appropriate faces to go with them. Our conversations with C really have gone to a new level as of late and it is awesome and extremely scary at the same time!

And L at two and a half,  has suddenly become the "WHY" kid. Why Mama? Why you put make-up on? Why that lady have crutches? Why we going to swimming? Why? Why? Why? I love that she wants to know EVERYTHING, but OY, some days it is exhausting! And for some reason I just keep answering her multitude of questions and that just makes her ask why even more.....

My kids are also very sensitive with regards to their time with me lately and the whole work-life-parenting-and-being-an entrepreneur-thing is requiring some extra special juggling skills these days! I am working on it, but it is not easy. It is not easy to be saying over and over, "Mommy just has to send one more email and then we can go build your Lego castle/play outside/have a tea party/etc....". And for some reason, "Do you want to come and help Mommy work (ie, pack up orders) does not have the same appeal as it used too!

They just need more from me now on an emotional level and in a way that for some reason I was not fully prepared for. I am sure there are books out there that tell you all about this stage of parenthood (I swear I have a copy of Playful Parenting around here somewhere!), I just have not read them yet!

So, here I go.  Out of my cocoon of babyhood and into the great butterfly unknown of parenting my NOT-babies-anymore babies!!

My babies on the BIG KID swings!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :)

Natasha~

What a Mama WANTS versus What a Mama NEEDS

Motherhood. It is a time of great joy and happiness and wonder. And also a time of great sacrifice. A time when you really discover what your body and mind can endure and what you really need in your life. I thought about this throughout my day yesterday and came up with my list of What Mama Wants versus What Mama Needs.

Mama wants to be able to sleep past 5:30 AM, but Mama needs only about 5 hours of actual sleep to have basic human function throughout the day.

Mama wants a full-time housekeeper, but Mama needs to just be happy that the dog eats all food dropped on the floor and that the clothes is at least clean, if not folded and put away.

Mama wants her kids to "Eat a Rainbow" of fresh, healthy food everyday, but Mama needs to be OK with some of the lesser known rainbow colors too sometimes (chocolate, Kraft Dinner fluorescent orange and Spiderman "Fruit" snack Black)!

Mama wants her children to explore their artistic sides and do crafts all day long, but Mama needs to realize that SHE is not crafty at all and watching Mister Maker do it is just as good, right?

Mama wants 3 hours of uninterrupted work time each and every day, but Mama needs to figure out how to squeeze it all into 15 minute power sessions between meals, school, activity classes and naps!

Mama wants an overnight Date Night once a week (so does Dad), but having a standing weekly reservation at a local hotel might make Mama look like she has a different kind of 'job'. (Hmmm, this one might just be a NEED too, maybe just once a month though!)

Mama wants to shop for herself and by herself, but Mama needs to accept that she has 2 miniature stylists that must accompany her and who seem to have some pretty strong opinions about what she should and should not wear.

Mama wants to have a long hot shower EVERY DAY, but Mama needs one a minimum of 3 times a week and for some reason always has to have an audience!

Mama wants a perfect family, but what Mama needs is the one that she has. With all the crazy, sleeplessness, "I need more hours in a day" and THIS is the way we do it around here and it works for us, that goes along with it!!

Needs are the basics, the essentials that we can not live without. And what I have realized is that my basic needs as a mother are met each and every day when my son looks me in the eyes and tells me "I love you so much Mommy." and my daughter wakes up at night and says, "Mommy, I NEED you!".

Children have this incredible power, the power to show us what we really NEED in our lives and surprise, surprise it is often not what we thought we WANTED in the first place!!

I NEED these two!

Photo credit: magda kirkwood photography

Natasha~