I am the Tony Stark of parenting!

I am a goddamn parenting genius! .

.

.

.

OK, fine. Slight exaggeration.

Maybe I just exude parental confidence. {While inwardly I am pulling my hair out strand by strand and sitting in a corner holding myself and rocking back and forth.}

Whatever the case may be, people ask me for advice all the time.

It ranges from prenatal questions all the way to potty training and back again. And for the record, I am definitely not an expert in any of these things by any conventional definition.

What I am is a mama. I have almost 6 years of seniority in this position and according to a recent personality test I took (more on that in a later post) I have an above average amount of behavioural adaptability. Which I think is just fancy talk for I just know how to go with the flow!

I also like to listen to my instincts. My gut, so to speak. And for the most part, (teensy bit of bragging here) my gut is rarely wrong.

Why am I telling you all this?

It started last week when my lovely friend and kicks-my-ass-weekly personal trainer, Jessica, asked me for some sleep advice for one of her 5 month old twins. One was sleeping in his crib just fine and the other one just could not do it without Jessica being there with him.

Now of course, my first reaction when anyone asks me for baby sleep advice is to laugh out loud, because, as you may know, I have not had a full night of uninterrupted sleep since December of 2006.

My second reaction is to ask more questions. How does he usually sleep? What does he need? What (or who) is his comfort?  Jess answered all of these and the main theme that I uncovered was that he needed HER. The problem is that she needed her sleep.

So, in my infinite parental wisdom, I said, "Give him your shirt."

Huh?

Here is the way I understand it. Babies imprint on us. Yes, imprint, just like in Twilight with Jacob and baby Renesmee. It's an instant and forever bond and a big part of that has to do with our senses. Touch, taste, hearing, smell and sight. So when Jessica told me that Baby R needed her and she needed to be sleeping in her own bed, I said give him your shirt.

Because it smells like her. The first scent that he ever smelled, his soothing imprint, his mama.

So she did. She gave him her "I just taught two fitness classes, this smells A LOT like me" top and a few hours later I got this tweet.

https://twitter.com/infinitefit/status/256248507684491264

And yesterday, she texted me this sweet (sweaty shirt) photo!

It has been a week and he is still sleeping at nights all snuggled up with his mama's shirt.

Therefore, I believe this makes it official.

I AM a genius!

Patent-pending of course, but in the meantime feel free to use my very scientific GTFTS "technique" (which by the way, I have also used with some success with toddlers too)!

Happy Sleepy Times Mamas,

Natasha~

Moments...

Being a mom is the most amazing job/vocation/calling/responsibility/LIFE in the entire world. Except when it isn't.

And then you just want to crawl into a hole or if you happen to be having a particularly awful mama moment in public, have the ground open and swallow  you up, right then and there!

BUT...

Then you read something that makes you sit up and think, THAT! That is the kind of mom, no... correction, the kind of PERSON, that I want to be. All the time. Every day.

Earlier tonight I read a note on my friend Stefani's Facebook page and with her permission, I am posting it here.

To the parents of the autistic girl in the party store:

Hi. It's okay. No, really; it's okay. I know your daughter swatted my baby, who was sleeping in my sling, but I'm not mad. Babies are fascinating. They're people, but tiny. They have little hands and little feet and huge eyes. They are delicate, yes, but your daughter either didn't remember or didn't know that. And that's okay. It might come with time. Don't apologise. I get it. She just wanted to see him. She was excited. So as you tried to hurry off, to get your daughter away from my baby before she woke him or hurt him, I called to her.

"Hey... Hey, sweetie. Do you want to see the baby?" You froze, and then apologised some more. It must be hard. You must have people getting angry with you all the time. But not me.

"Here, look. He's sleeping. Isn't he cute?"

You daughter's face lit up in excitement as she swatted near his face. You stopped her hand, I dodged a little and came back to centre.

"Gentle, sweetie." I brought my baby close. Close enough for her to really see him. She tilted her head and looked at the ceiling and then back somewhere over my shoulder. Then she smiled.

I haven't been there, but I understand. I know you will struggle, your daughter will struggle, her brother will struggle. Some people will get angry at you when your daughter yells at dinner, when she won't sit still or runs where she shouldn't.. When she gets too excited and swats a baby...

But not me.

..................

Because those moments when you want to run and hide, when you think the world is looking and judging, they are just that.

Moments.

And sometimes all it takes is someone else to see that moment, recognize it for what it is and make it better.

Like Stefani did today.

<3

not breathing

Today, in my rush to get the kids to school, I almost killed two of us. Turning left onto a street, I didn't see the white camaro coming up behind another truck turning right and I almost pulled out too far.

I slammed on the brakes. I swore. I scared my daughter. And my heart almost pounded itself out of my chest.

I was driving too fast, in too much of a rush, mad at the world, and all because *I* was late.

I am calm now. I am sitting in my little cafe, having my favourite tea latte, re-evaluating my mornings lately and gaining a little bit of perspective.

Here is what I think....

I don't know about you, but I feel like I am trying to DO too much.

I think this may be a MOM thing.

My 'TO DO" lists never seem to get fully finished. And my calendar is FULL! Everyday.

I drive my kids to two different schools in the mornings and then I take the dog for a walk.

While they are at school (for a whopping 2.5 hours), I try to get as much done as I can without them. This includes grocery shopping, random errands and appointments for me, a yoga class or workout and if I am lucky, one or two days of writing.

In the afternoons the kids have dancing and yoga on one day, swimming on another and we are trying to take advantage of our gorgeous fall weather right now and doing as much as we can outside and with our friends on the other days.

By three o'clock everyday we are all exhausted and both of my kids are still napping for at least an hour in the afternoons. On more days than I care to admit, so am I!

And then it is dinner, walking the dog again, bath and bedtime, whatever housework needs doing and trying to get in at least a 30 minute workout with Natural Urban Dad too. Last night I spent 3 hours folding what I like to call Mount Washmore. I swear laundry is my kryptonite, I actually start to feel weaker the closer I get to the laundry room.

I have Apps to remind me of appointments, two reminder alerts for every event in my calendar and stickie notes. Lots and lots of stickie notes everywhere to remind me off what needs doing next. And still I almost forgot that today was L's show and tell and snack day at preschool and have I mentioned that I completely forgot about picture day for Little C and sent him to school in a 'Hang Loose' t-shirt my sister-in-law bought him in Waikiki? It is only September and I am already sucking at this whole school thing!

The real kicker is that I have no excuse for all of this. The house is finished. There is no more store. I am a 100% stay-at-home housewife and mother. THIS is my job. If I was my boss, I would be having a pretty serious time management discussion with myself.

I am not sure why I can't seem to get this on track? OK, well yes, I do stay up WAY too late most nights and yes, I probably do waste a fair bit of time online, but still...

Something has to change. I wake up and feel like I don't breath until the kids are dropped off, the dog taken care of and all the other 'stuff' is done. It makes for some long, stressful mornings and I just feel like I am constantly yelling at everyone to HURRY UP!

Not the way I want to start my day and not the way I want it to be for the kids either.

I mean, it has gotten to the point that if I am really grumpy and yell-y, the kids ask me if I forgot to make my breakfast smoothie. And most of those days, I didn't forget, I just did not have enough time.

You see, I KNOW what I need to do. In everything that I deem "wrong" in my life, I know what I need to do to fix it. I just don't.

I don't go to bed early enough or wake up early enough. I spend too much time online. I forget to eat nutritious meals that will give me the energy I need to get going. I cop out on my workouts. I leave the laundry piling up until it truly is a mountain of rainbow coloured wrinkle-ness.

I don't know if it is just some Olympic calibre procrastination I have perfected here or if I am truly too physically and mentally exhausted to make the changes that I know need to be made.

What I do know is that I am functioning just fine. On the outside I appear to have it ALL together. I manage to get the kids to school, they are bathed and in clean clothes, we have groceries in the house and the laundry eventually does get folded. But to be perfectly honest, much beyond that is one hell of a struggle.

The reality is that I am a faker of epic proportions and I am not sure how much longer I can keep this up.

Because what if one day, while I am holding my breath, I really don't see that car and something really bad happens...

Natasha~

First day of school

So this happened this week...

My baby started Kindergarten.

He was pretty excited about school and has been practicing how to say his teacher's name for the past two weeks. (It's a French Immersion program and her name is very French).

I was excited for him too. Kindergarten is a wonderful time in a child's life. There is play, there are new friends, there is learning, and of course, there is RECESS! (Which so far, along with Gym time, seems to be the only things of importance that he can tell me happen during his days at school.)

The classroom is not a new thing for my kid. He has been at an amazing playschool for the past three years and has had some wonderful teachers, has grown so much in personality and confidence in those years and has made what I think will be, at least one life-long friend who happens to now also be in the same school and class as him.

So no, I am not the sappy, crying mom standing at the door watching her baby go into the great unknown without her. (For all you sappy, crying mamas, I give you all a big hug and say, "Dry your tears and go get a coffee. ALONE. Enjoy these few hours just to yourself. Trust me on this one.")

Fast forward a year from now and I know it will be a totally different story.

Grade One. ALL. DAY. LONG. Away from me. And in a desk, doing studious big kid things, navigating the majority of his day without me and then getting homework.

I guarantee you though, that the thing he is going to look forward to the most and talk about the most will still be recess and gym time!

I have a lot of deep seated school fears for my children. Elementary school was not a really fun time for me. We moved from a small three-room county school to the big city when I was in Grade 3. My mother decided to embrace her heritage and enrolled me in a French Immersion school (I took a crash course in French over the summer!). It was a rough transition for me and I just never really fit in. I was the new girl, the one who would cry every day because I didn't understand my teachers and I didn't have any friends. I was also one of only two kids in my class (and quite possibley the whole CATHOLIC school) that was from a family of divorce!

I was easy pickins' for the mean kids.

But that was me. And I survived it. Relatively unscathed (years of therapy and self-medication notwithstanding).

I have different hopes for my children. I don't want them to survive school. I want them to thrive in school! I want them to love learning, to be confident, strong-minded little people. I want them to do better than I did.

Because this also happened this week.

And she ROCKED it!

If this week is any indication of the future for my children in the school system, they will do so much more than survive!

And if all their dreams for the future pan out, I will be one well looked after senior citizen!!

Happy School Days Everyone!

Natasha~

what mamas day dream about

Sometimes I daydream about a different life. Not that I want a different life, but some days are harder than others and my mind wanders...

I dream about grabbing my car keys and heading out the door to hit my favourite trendy cafe and then staying there for hours sipping on flat whites and reading my book.

I walk by stores in the mall and lust after "work" clothes! Beautiful pencil skirts and and blouses and shoes with heels!

I talk to my friends who have careers and who are making a difference in their worlds and I wonder if I am missing out, if I gave up too easily on that path. I wonder what my dream job would be now....

I dream of booking a last minute tropical vacation for Natural Urban Dad and I and just showing up at his office with our suitcases and tickets and taking off!

I dream of a whole night's rest and then SLEEPING IN UNTIL 10 AM!!  Totally uninterrupted, totally nude and totally by myself in a huge king sized bed with that fabulous Heavenly Bedding from the Westin Hotels!!

I dream about having fabulous dinners with all my girlfriends and being oh, so 'Sex and the City 'about it all! No babysitter to pay, no "it's a school night" self-imposed curfew, no worries about how many martinis I am having.

I dream about having a different body, one that is not sagging, bunching or dimpling as much as this one is. And one that I don't have to work so hard to get.

But mostly I dream about quiet.

Quiet walks with just me and the dog. Quiet baths with just me and the bubbles. Quiet time with just me, a glass of wine and my laptop to write and read and write and read and then write some more.

It's perhaps why I am always up so late. THIS is my quiet time around here. After the kids are bathed and in bed, the dishes are washed, the laundry folded, emails answered, workout completed, to do lists created and all is DONE.

Now if only I didn't need all this sleep.

But then again, that is when the really good dreams come...

Photo Credit: nicole.pierce.photography's Photostream on Flickr

 What about you? What do you daydream about?

Until tomorrow's quiet hours,

Natasha~

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This is Post #28 on Day 30 of the 31 Days of Summer Blog Challenge.

Why yes, I will be a busy little blogging beaver for the next 24 hours!

On the other hand... these folks can count.

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

 

A thank you to the ladies

This is for all the women in my life who inspire me. Who amaze me daily and who I am so proud to know and call friend, confidante, family, bestie, partner and more...

1. To the woman who finally realized her worth and although I can't even imagine how much this hurts, took the first steps to getting out of an unhappy situation. I am proud of you and am here for you always.

2. To the two women I call my best friends. Both with three children each, one working full-time with travel time away from her family, the other completely devoted to her role as a stay-at-home mama. You have both taught me so much about letting go, holding on, making the most of these moments and living life as a mother, a woman and a friend. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart.

3. To my Godmother. May your wish be granted soon, so that you can be together again forever and ever. No truer love story do I know than yours. Gros Bisous!

4. To my mothers. To my own for always showing me what it means to love unconditionally, without reservation or judgment and to give with a whole heart. To my husband's for accepting me for who I am and for learning from me as much as I do from her. (There is correlation here... I know it!)

5. To the women who are my 'posse'. My late night tweeters and play date meet-ers. The women who make me laugh, who share recipes for food, love and daily survival and who are my fabulous #MountainAshBeeches! This life would be so boring without you!

6. To the women who are gone but not forgotten. The ones who moved far away, the ones who are not far away but whose lives took paths away from mine, and the ones who are no longer with us in this world. Thank you for all that you did to shape and mould me, to teach me, to challenge me, to take me outside my box and make me take a good hard look at myself.  I am who I am today because I knew you once upon a time and because of the life lessons I gleaned from you along the way.

7. To my daughter. For that look in  your eye that tells me THIS is going to be one hell of a ride. And that Karma has no better embodiment in the world than a daughter who is JUST LIKE YOU!

I Love you ALL,

Natasha~

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Post 26 on Day 27 of the Summer Blog Challenge.

So close... just a few more days (+1)!!

Keep it up everyone!

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

But, but, but....

I was supposed to write a different post tonight. {Sorry Z, I decided that I wanted to think on that one a bit more.} Instead, you are going to get a look at the emotional turmoil that is a mother more than half-way through summer holidays, about to send not just one, but both of her babies off to school in less than three weeks!

Here we go...

I  am anxious for summer to be over and to get back to the routine of the school year

but,

I don't want summer to end, because we haven't done all that I had planned for us yet.

~

I love our carefree days and NOT having to live by a schedule

but,

I miss MY schedule and any time for just me.

~

I want to have crazy summer nights out with my girlfriends

but,

My evenings are the only time I get alone with Natural Urban Dad.

~

At the end of our days, I am touched out, talked out, and I need a time-out

but,

At the end of our days, all I want is to cuddle them as they fall asleep,

breath in their just-bathed smell and memorize every small detail of them at that very moment.

~

I want Summer to be over.

I want Summer to never end.

~

I want them to grow up.

I want them to stay like this forever.

~

Sigh,

Natasha~

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Day 15 of the Summer Blog Challenge!!

HALF-WAY!

Go! See my friends. Comments and sharing is nice too!

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

Feminism.. you are doing it all wrong!

I am one confused woman... and mother... and, dare I say it... feminist. And I apologize ahead of time if this post goes a bit all over the place {see statement above} and if I am about three months late on this band wagon! .

I have been trying for the past week or so to read Elizabeth Badinter's book, The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women. And I just can't do it anymore.

It is hurting my head and my heart and my very soul reading her words.

And it is doing so on so many levels.

It hurts me because of her blatantly condescending attitude about pretty much everything that I value, hold dear and practice as an attachment parent mother.

It hurts me because of her "look how wonderful WE the French women are at everything we do". From having the highest birth rate in Europe to, you know, getting perineum therapy after having a baby to make sure everything gets all nice and tightened up again 'down there'! {I am serious!! This is a THING people and French social insurance COVERS it!!}

It hurts me because of my own French heritage {my mother was born in Nice} and the beautiful extended French family that I have and love and how it is skewing my view of all things French.

And it hurts me in my feminist heart. Because she is basically saying that I am doing IT {feminism} all wrong.

And she is not the only one.

According to Elizabeth Wurtzel, who wrote how 1% Wives Are Helping Kill Feminism and Make the War on Women Possible for The Atlantic this past June,  I am not a REAL feminist either. Her reasoning for this?

Let's please be serious grown-ups: real feminists don't depend on men. Real feminists earn a living, have money and means of their own.

So that's it I guess. I must hang up my feminist hat because my husband and I made a decision for our family that I would stop working. A decision that made sense to us both financially and emotionally. And I'd like to point out that although it was ultimately my choice to leave my very well-compensated and highly fulfilling career  to fully embrace motherhood, it was Natural Urban Dad who had a harder time wrapping his head around the idea of someone else beingthe primary caregivers for our children during the day.

So, I love the earth, am a breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, organic baby food making, babywearing, stay-at-home-mother, and I don't earn a living. Therefore...

I am NOT a good feminist.

Wurtzel argues that feminism is not something that you FEEL. That it is an absolute and that if you are not living up to the definition by doing all things equally to men than you are ruining it for all women. Badinter pushes this even further and implies that if you are not only not working and earning a living , but also are not getting yourself all back to your pre-baby sexy self and self-indulgent lifestyle in a matter of weeks (Psst, she is the heiress and Board Chair to the PR firm that has contracts with Nestle, Pampers and such, so consider her position in this with a boatload grain of salt!), then you are a slave to that anti-feminist movement she likes to call modern "naturalist" motherhood.

This is what I find highly amusing about both of these women going on and on about what is or is not killing feminism. Wurtzel is saying that it is the 1% super-rich mamas who have nannies and are stay-at-home parents who get pedicures and go to Jivamukti classes (I had to google that one. As one of my daughter's favourite book characters would say, it's a fancy word for YOGA!) who are to blame. And Badinter, herself one of those 1% (if not the 0.1%) of the super-rich, who truly believes that sending children off with nannies or to daycare (with the help of the state who picks up the cost of this) so as to pursue other ambitions (career or social) is the perfectly logical and very French way to go about being a mother.

Neither of these arguments really make any sense to me, and I am not sure that either of these ladies has a clue as to how the majority of mamas out there in the real world manage our day to day lives. Some of us working full-time, some part-time, some from home, some out of the home, and some of us fortunate enough, YES, fortunate, to have the option to stay at home with and for our children.

Cécile Alduy, Associate Professor of French Studies at Stanford and a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, wrote an amazing review of The Conflict. It is a long and detailed analysis of the book and in the end she says that,

Not surprisingly for the heir of existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, Badinter seems to posit that a woman’s existence precedes her essence. You are what you do, not what your XX chromosomes tell you to be. It is unfortunate that second wave feminists like her tend to limit the range of worthy self-defining actions to the mandated “work as self-fulfillment” imperative that serves a capitalist economy so well.

Wurtzel seems to be of the same opinion and for me, I tend to believe that it is THIS kind of thinking that continues to fuel the "Mommy Wars", the war on women and is what is destroying feminism for my generation and likely the next as well.

Trust me, it is not me breastfeeding my child, hiring a babysitter a few times a week to hit up a yoga class and not having a 'real' job.

AND for the record, my sense of self-worth is not defined by what I do...

I am defined by who I am.

And I am a woman... in every sense of the word!

Natasha~

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And here is Day 7 of the Summer Blog Challenge. It's starting to get a bit easier... I think.

Check out what the other participants have been up to today...

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now