Have questions, need answers

Hey kids, I don't ask for much, but today I have two mini requests.

1. If a company were going to give you a promotional tchotchke, as a mom, what could they give you that you would use on a regular basis? What have you received from a company that you use frequently? For example, I got a magic 8 ball at BlogHer that is completely the reason the world is dying. I'm not interested in producing more junk. But there is value in a usable freebie, no?

2. If you were going to ask a question to sexy HGTV handyman Mike Holmes, what would it be? (Try not to ask if he wears underwear under those overalls. I need legit questions.)

ETA: Sorry, should have been clearer. Need questions along the lines of soliciting advice in terms of home buying, construction, renovations, etc. How to get sunglasses out of the toilet was a good example. (Thanks Heather!) The Lurker's comment had some golden nuggets in there as well. Thanks readers! Have I told you I love you this week?

In exchange I have two CDs from Canada's queen of kids' music, the JUNO award-winning Jen Gould, to give away. If I use your answer, or question for MH, I will contact you and send you a CD. Cool?

It's raining cats and dogs

Thanks to everyone for their supportive comments. I am always so nervous when I post those things, because they leave me feeling so exposed. But I force myself to put it out there, in part because wistful posts bring out some mad writing skills, yet also to keep up with my goal of making others feel less alone.

Mom blogging is about making people see that not everyone thinks motherhood is always fabulous. But not many people go beyond writing about agonizing days of wiping poopy bums to reveal that their marriages/relationships are affected too. I've carved myself a little niche that way I guess, much to my husband's dismay. But I think there is beauty in the pain. I hope he knows that these are ultimately love letters to him.

My husband is an incredible human being. And being human, he comes with flaws. Those flaws are few, but parenthood is so divisive that it puts a magnifying glass on even the teenyest trait. I think it was Nora Ephron that said something to the effect of: Having a baby is like throwing a hand grenade into a marriage. So, so true.

Anyway, I had written that a while ago. The other thing about marital strife post-babies is that it varies week-to-week, day-to-day and often minute-by-minute. This weekend we went on a date. It was really nice. The kids were at Grandma's, so we went for dinner at Sauvignon. (Awesome, awesome, awesome. Ontario Pickerel in green curry coconut sauce with thai noodles! Heaven! I think a new neighbourhood fave has emerged.) Our incredible meal was blessed by Mother Nature as a storm rolled in and everyone on the patio ran inside. We were magically protected by an awning and left all to our starry eyed selves.

Dinner was followed by the late show of The Dark Knight. I went in fully expecting to hate it, to find that Heath's performance was all hype. I was wrong. It was the best action film I've seen in years. Perhaps the best ever. And Heath was unbelievable in his portrayal of the Joker. The most evil villain in history. Well the most interesting anyway. I think Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men would be a close second. But Heath's Joker was far more entertaining. Go see it. You will love it. Especially if you love a comic book nerd.

So we're recharged again for the week. Jan is on Day Two of his vacation a.k.a. parenting two kids all day solo. Day One went far too well. Thankfully this morning was a complete disaster. Wouldn't want him to think it was so easy would we now? (I'm such a bitch.)

Past/Present

I wrote this in my journal a few weeks ago...

On nights like tonight, as I walk through the muggysmoggy that is summer air in Toronto, I remember a time we two lovers were beautiful. As my cute-shoed feet hit the gum-spattered sidewalk, my steps seem to emulate those taken on the way to meet my soulmate, perhaps at a bar or a popular street corner.

We had no obligations and few worries that were greater than, "Where should we eat tonight?" I remember the quickening of my pulse as I made out his strong figure on the concrete, the flutter as he saw me too, face exploding into joy like a thousand fireworks.

"There's a great show on at Lee's. The Rex. The Opera House. Let's check out that band from New York. Halifax. Bergen."

"There's a documentary/Super8/international film festival. There's the Carribana/Gay Pride/Santa Claus Parade."

"There's a new resto lounge/live reading/art exhibit opening on College. Queen West West. The Annex."

"Let's just rent a movie. Drink some wine. Hop into bed. Let's smoke a pinner and listen to that new Radiohead/Zero 7/Roots Manuva album. Let's go to the record shop and see who can find the strangest addition to our vinyl collection. Let's go to the comic book store so you can drool and stock up on Frank Miller and I can mock your nerddom and then tuck myself under your geeky-yet-awesomely-bicepped arm."

"Let's just have one more round. Sleep in until noon. Meet friends for brunch. Let's go to London. Montreal. Stockholm. Let's make cute movies about how much we love each other. Let's take our weird Russian cameras out and capture what we love about Toronto. Let's walk hand in hand to pick up our photos and see how they turned out."

"Let's love each other like this forever. Let's not go to bed angry. Let's kiss and make up. Let's never be like them."

We didn't fight before we had children. Now the anger and resentment are daily reminders of what's bound to cause future damage, like mould in our basement. I try to be a "cool wife," encouraging him to go drinking with friends, take the trip to the Yankee game (on our anniversary weekend), quit the job that he hates. He tries to be the "cool husband," poorly masking his disapproval when he finds me on the laptop at midnight yet again, picks me up from the airport from San Francisco, gets home before me on a weeknight to deal with two kids and making dinner.

I miss us. We were spectacular.

If you knew us then you'd agree. (You might even come to our defense now.) We are trying. Really hard. But the anger is like black tar that boils in my belly and refuses to be contained. I want to push it down, forget it, let it go, but somehow it geysers out in a hot, furious mess and I ruin perfectly sweet moments of reconnection.

I know it gets better. We knew our foundations would be battered again. But no matter how ready you are for the inevitable Florida hurricane, no matter how tightly you board up the windows, stock up on provisions, batten down the hatches, the expected onslaught blindsides you. No amount of extra insurance can prevent what Mother Nature has designed to destroy you and the life you've cultivated so carefully.

I am trying to find meaning in the destruction, to take refuge in the incredible specimens of perfection we created out of love, to cling to mottos like "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," but for the moment all I see is red and the distinct possibility that one day there'll be no going home.

From molehills to mountains and back again

After listening to Angela/Fluid Pudding's Community Keynote contribution at a certain, ahem, conference, I got it in my brain that I should get my boobies hooked up with some nice bra action. (There! You can't click away now because you know I'll be talking about boobies.)

We don't have Victoria's Secret in Canada, and while they've bought up La Senza, we have yet to see the merchandise transfer over. (La Senza's quality is sub-par compared to VS.)

I had an email from my best friend with her VS request. She had recently been measured by an old Greek lady in an upscale store and was rather excited (much like Angela) about her new cup size running overeth. She tries to downplay it, because I, on the other hand, have not had the same blessing by the mammary fairies as my BFF. Apparently my two children have sucked every ounce of fat and bounciness out of my formerly-small-but-fantastically-perfect breasts.

What I am left with is reminiscent of a deflated balloon. No more like a deflated whoopee cushion. Well, somewhere in between anyway. I was tired of staring at the space in my bra cups. My bazoomies needed help. So sometime before Dooce and Stephanie Klein did their keynote thingy, I ran out to VS.

Holy mother of overwhelming. How does one decide? I sped through quickly, eyeballing scanty panties and frilly things. I considered them. Then I remembered the drawer full of French lingerie I have that goes unused. They no longer even make it out for the 30 seconds of value they offer before being thrown to the ground. Life's not like that around here anymore. Pass.

Armed with the detailed list my BFF had sent, I approached a cute mini Irish girl and she kindly directed me to the appropriate purchases: Wireless Ipex bra in 34D, black and nude and the Very Sexy bra in 34D, black and warm nude. The Very Sexy had a bit of gel-padding, but looked seamless enough to be practical under a t-shirt, so I grabbed those two practical colours in my size as well. 36A. Though my boobs have completely changed shape over the years, the only thing that's changed in my bra size is the width (from 34 to 36).

I got to the changeroom and the attendant looked at the stack I was carrying. "Oooh, are those for you?" she asked skeptically, looking at the D-cups that were big enough to wear as hats. "Um, no," I gulped, "They're for my friend. We don't have these in Canada."

"Do you want me to measure you?"

"Uh, sure?" She quickly did a rough measurement over my clothes and announced, "You're either a 34B or a 36A." Then she handed me a box of bras in various styles to try on.

She had handed me the 34A box though, so nothing fit right. Thankfully I had those two Very Sexys to try on and they were awesomeness. The gel pushed up the sag and I finally looked like a had juicy tangerines again.

I was in a rush to see Dooce speak, so it didn't really occur to me that my BFF would not want a bra that had padding or push up action. I had vaguely asked if these bras were right according to the notes I had, but it had not dawned on me that there might be more than one type of Very Sexy bra.

I wore my new bra on my first day back. I felt a bit like Sophia Loren. I kept adjusting myself and saying, "Wow! I am busting out of this thing!" Then I called my BFF.

Me: "Dude, that was a cruel exercise. Sending me to buy your giant boob holsters while I hopefully spilled what I have left into an A cup."

BFF: "Uh, yeah, it's not as awesome as you think."

Me: "Why would you even want a push up gel bra then? I got the same one as you and I'm feeling very voluptuous over here. You, my friend, are going to look like Pam Anderson and will have to beat your Manimal husband off with a taser."

BFF: "Um, I so didn't order anything with underwire or padding."

Me: "Oh fuck, I must have got you the wrong bra. Damn. And I asked like 25 times."

BFF: (audibly rolling her eyes) "Sure you did. How much do I owe you?"

Me: "Let me check the bill... Dude, your bras cost a whopping $3 more than mine. For the same bra! How insulting."

BFF: "Well, I guess I gotta pay more for all that extra fabric."

Me: (Distracted. Flipping through Elevate Magazine for good plastic surgeons.) Uh... well sorry for the mix up. I guess we're going to HAVE to go back to the States to remedy the situation."

So it looks like I'll be heading cross the border again soon. This time I am only buying shoes, or laptop bags, or other accessory whose size does not make me feel fat or flat.

Dear Universe, why do you hate me?

It's just after midnight. I should be asleep ramping up for tomorrow. Instead I was happily reading blogs on freshly washed sheets next to gorgeous son.

We have been trying to night potty train with varying levels of success. He had just peed at 10 pm when we came inside from WooHoo girl antics. He had a pull-up on. Why should I worry?

Then, five minutes ago, a bit of a moan. Should I get him up again, I wondered. Nah. He JUST PEED! It's probably bad dreams from all that WooHooing.

But just now dear readers, I heard a sound that sounded much like the garden hose being turned on.

At first I panicked, but then I remembered the pull-up. But then I felt warm on my leg, followed by cool as the fan oscillated by. Clearly after the 10 pm pee I had not "adjusted" my son correctly, or some pre-sleep self-adjustment had rendered the diaper null and void.

Why? Why do these things happen on my watch? Oh well, at least it's not on my side of the bed... did I mention these yoga pants were clean too. Baaaaaaaaaah :(

Dear WooHoo Girl

Hi there,

It seems that you and your buddies are suddenly doing some sort of party circuit in my 'hood. What gives? Did I miss the invite?

Your latest party, while on a Saturday, was quite ill-timed. You see you kept WooHooing while my boys were out in the yard, practice camping. Our impending camping trip is upon us and while I am starting to think I am insane to even consider a camping trip with kids so young, I am somewhat looking forward to it.

The boys had much fun setting up the tent in the yard. They were all snuggled up and ready to sleep when you WooHooed so loud that my little one got scared. Ah the joys of raising children in the big city. No, I don't have to explain owls, nor crickets, nor coyotes to him. But apparently I have to explain that sometimes grown-ups have too much wine and that makes them have so much fun they turn stupid and have a compulsion to WooHoo!

So instead of working on survey questions for my day job, I was forced to tell every single story I knew off by heart (Time for Bed, Goodnight Moon, Love You Forever) and then when you were still WooHooing after all that, well I had to resort to Cinderella, which was a bad choice because that is not a nice story without the benign Disney imagery. My husband passed gas and snoozed in the stuffy tent, oblivious to both the WooHoos and the fact that my three-year-old was terrified of them.

When I finally tried to leave just after 10, my son asked to come inside with me. My husband blamed this failed attempt at practice camping on my over-mothering/presence. I blame his ability to fall asleep as soon as head hits surface on Nate's future need for therapy. There was no way that child was going to put himself to sleep with all that "One, two, three, WooHoo!" that was going on.

That's right. WooHoo countdown. By the time you read this, you will have deleted any brain cells that contained the memories of your leading the WooHoo countdown, but you did do just that. You got all of your TOTALLY AWESOME friends in on some good WooHoo action.

WTF is going on? This neighbourhood is known for a lot of unflattering things, but crazy ass parties? Not so much. Oh sure, every now and then you get a wild night at the Kick n' Stab, but for the most part those people are just happy to drive their motorized carts home while inebriated. This WooHoo revolution is completely out of character.

I am locked away in my bedroom on this hot night with all the windows shut (and no AC) in order to get some reprieve from this WooHoo madness. There's a little body in bed beside me (Dad's still asleep in the tent.) who could not get to sleep if he heard but one more WooHoo.

So now I implore you, will you go back to the West End? We aging hipsters chose the East End for its lower mortgages and soon settled into the quieter family-friendly life it offered. The last thing we want is weekly reminders of the fun we're no longer having.

Sincerely,

Grouchy old lady who stands on her deck with a disapproving look, muttering empty threats.

What goes upchuck must come downchuck

Dear Universe,

For all the times in the past two decades when I had a raucous time, oblivious to the fact that people's wee babies were sleeping nearby, I sincerely apologize.

For all the WOOTs and HOLLAs, for all the OMG THIS IS GOING TO BE SUCH A FUCKING AWESOME PICTURE, for all the HAHAHAHAHAs, sorry. Times one hundred million.

Thanks for making this point to me (and also making me feel old). It is 10 pm on a Friday night and the pair that have broken into the "first-time homebuyer market", with a backyard kitty corner to mine, must have finished painting their new home because ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS appear to be in their yard at this moment. And apparently homeownership is something worthy of a keg party. WOOT! And there is much applause for some reason. I am envisioning drunken cartwheels or boob flashing. I am not happy.

I feel like my mother. I keep going out on the deck and frowning at the revelers. If my mom were here she would have made her way to the corner where their backyard meets mine and told them "Dere are babiez sleeping!" She would have wagged her finger and subtly mentioned the police and everyone would have cowered in fear of the little 4'10" woman and crawled back inside. But I am not my mother. So I just sit here, praying the baby does not wake up, feeling passive and debating if it's better to be in that yard, or minding over the sleep of angels.

Think I'll head up for a baby head sniff to comfort myself.

We interrupt all this BlogHer talk...

... for this most awesome laptop bag by Marc Jacobs on Net-a-porter. Because it's so hard to find a laptop bag that will truly look good with all your clothes and not make you look like some Silicon Valley pleeb.

So it's between patio stones at Helm's Depot or this. Do you think I can convince Jan that this will look good next to the grass and increase the value of our home?

Also, as if Jezebel wasn't awesome enough (Sephora Spy anyone?), they have started their take on LOL Cats. LOL Vogue mocks fashion photography until your a.m. prosecco spurts out through nose. (Thanks Marla for the link!)

This is it and then I'm not talking about it again

*now with pictures!

Because maybe you want to know what I did in my last 48 hours in SF, but maybe you'd rather I go back to talking about hand jobs. So let's just spit it out over one or two posts and be done with it, eh?

Sorry Mom -- my mom was really mad at me for telling my frienemy to kiss my ass for calling me Janet. She said I'm being very vulgar and rude again. Sorry Ma, thought you weren't reading anymore. It's kind of like when you went through my garbage and found the box for those birth control pills. If you want a peek at my private side, you might see something you don't want to. Love you!

I've been reading everyone's complaints -- well as many as I can with a family and a full-time job -- and seeing that some people felt there was drama, some felt left out, some felt people were rude, or bitchy. I gotta say that other than my one not-so-great experience, I didn't really see that. I was so happy to be with my dear friends and to meet new people, especially those I'd never read. Most of all, I was happy to be in a gorgeous city with no kids, no responsibilities and free drink tickets.

Katie: Hmm, if I have breakfast and a beer BEFORE the drinks, can I prevent the hangover?

At the People's Party the first night, I met a ton of nice people. Katie introduced me to all her party peeps and they were friendly and easy to talk to, though we had to shout over the loud music. I decided to check out the Newbie Party and as I walked around the big ballroom looking for a familiar face, I realized I knew nobody. Suddenly a hand was outreached and a pretty brunette was saying, "You look like you need a friend."

Pretty brunette was from Seattle and with her blonde buddy (they write THIS BLOG together) and a tall model of a woman who writes Ask Wifey. Lemme tell you that these people were genuine, smiling, saying hello and chatting with me all weekend.

Lorraine/Wifey, me looking PFG and the amazing Kim. Clearly not my camera phone... thanks Chris!

Then Jory "I am one of the BlogHer three" DesJardins came up to our group and was so completely gracious (and stunning) that she didn't even mention she was one of "the BlogHer three," took all our cards and talked to us for quite sometime.

I also got to cling to Amy Assertagirl, Mimi and Kyla, who were all incredibly nice and didn't mind hanging out with a self-important cuss mouth like me. I met Sarah of MotherProof.com -- a site I knew about through work -- which does car reviews from the perspective of moms. (You should check it out if you're in the market for a new vehicle.) I met Barbara from Wired PRWorks, whose own children are teens now, but who still got excited when her site made the Alltop list for PR blogs while we were there. You wouldn't really get the chance to talk to women like this in any other situation. Meeting people like these is what BlogHer is all about.

Katie, Amy, Kyla

Oh sure, being in the same room as Dooce is nice. But not as nice as sitting on a couch at the top of Macy's and bitching about tiredness with Stephanie of Baby on Bored. Which is awesome -- particularly when you name dropped your rarely-blogging friend Crabby Kate and Stephanie knew who she was -- but not even as close to the incredible 100 individual blogger cards I now have in my luggage, begging to be emailed to say how wonderful it was to meet each and every one of you.

Sorry if I met you but didn't mention you. Sincerely sorry. My mind is fuzz. I was truly impressed by the calibre of people who attended BlogHer. If you were wondering if it's worth going next year, I whole-heartedly say yes. Life is what you make it, as one of my favourite dancehall songs says. If you want to invite drama into your life and spend the weekend being Nicki Newman, well then don't complain. But if you think you can go into a nerve-wracking new experience and embrace it, approach others with a big smile and make the most out of it -- well then start saving your cash for the best girls' weekend ever.

*******
But the drama was bound to happen. You may have read about some of it: Jenny the Bloggess called Dooce a mythical hobbit in a post and ended her statement with something like, "It will get ugly." And it kinda did. The situation was unflattering to both of them. Dooce mentioned the mythical hobbit business in her keynote speech and then Jenny got up and tried to defend herself, saying that she meant Dooce was a fucking awesome mythical hobbit. Whatever. I admire them both, and did lots of drunken talking with Jenny on a random street corner, but I kinda wish that whole thing didn't happen.

There was other drama. Some big bloggers leaving out another well-known blogger because they've kinda dropped her from their circle for whatever reason. I heard the food bloggers had it out. I'm sure the knitters poked each other's eyeballs out with crochet needles. The crafters came armed with bedazzlers. You get the picture. It's WOMEN. This is why we don't rule the world.

By Saturday I was starting to get "the vibe." You know the one. The vibe that happens when you plunk down your hungover butt at someone's table and you're not brought into the conversation. The vibe that happens when you're standing next to A-listers who are in a conversation with your friend and no one bothers to make introductions. By the time I got to the Macy's party I was done.

My roomie left Saturday afternoon. Partner that with the extreme hangovers Katie and I were nursing and suddenly going to sessions didn't seem all that important. Plus I wanted to go to Victoria's Secret (post to come) and there was no time in the schedule to shop or eat. I was feeling claustrophobic. Vagina-ed out.

I have a rule: Always leave the party on a high note. I was feeling pretty good about my experience at BlogHer and while 250 cheeseburgers sounded good, I bid adieu to my sidekicks, Katie and Amanda in search of adventure.

This is what I wrote on the plane back to the T-dot

(Again from my journal. You might have seen it. It's pretty and pink and my awesome friend Blondie gave it to me.)

I am a nervous flyer since 9/11. And extra especially since having kids. I should have brought some Atavan or something. At least my Eckhardt Tolle book. (Yes I am reading a fucking Oprah book. It chills me out.)

I am ridiculously suspicious of anyone who looks like he could be related to me. I have a hysterical fear of terrorists.

This upsets me to my core. I know what it's like to be called a terrorist. To be viewed with suspicion because of the largeness of my nose and the olive of my skin. Yet every time I get on a flight, I scan the plane for people who might try to fly the aircraft I'm on into a building.

The safety features don't comfort me. Airport staff often work two jobs to live in sub-standard conditions. Having my sandals go through the xray machine is not reassuring. But by far, the think that irks me the most is when the flight attendant approaches those in the bulk head aisle and instructs them on how to save all of us in the event of an emergency. Because last time I checked, being tall does not automatically make you Sam Jackson.

Like right now. I am sitting next to a terrorist. I am convinced of it. I am frantically sipping my Rescue Remedy infused water and looking over at him to see what his next move might be. He's got $500 Bruno Magli shoes on and one of those neck support things that I always think I should buy at the airport but never do, but I think he's packing dynamite.

Except he is obviously not a terrorist (not yet anyway) and is now looking at ME with suspicion. I think he thinks I'm coming onto him because I keep trying to make small talk to determine his terroristicity.

This is also so that -- should he actually be a terrorist -- I can somehow mention my babies in a last ditch effort to change his mind about hijacking this shitty Air Canada flight. Air Canada is not helping. (As per usual.) They are not even selling food. A hungry potential terrorist is more likely to go through with his plan. Should I offer him the stale Starbucks bagel in my bag?

Should I bring up how nice Canada is and how Canadians love everybody, including Arabs and people who may or may not be Arabs but look like them?

(OMG if I die on this flight I will be so pissed because no one will see this post and I am so rocking it.)

I don't care if this guy has a Samsonite inflatable neck pillow, nice shoes and a sleeping mask. He is totally creepy. He picked my boarding pass up off the floor and stared at it forever. We are so going ...

And I think that's when I fell asleep because the words are blurred out by smudgey drool stains and the last pen mark trails off.

This is what I wrote on the plane to SF

I still keep a journal. As someone mentioned in one of the panels, perhaps it was La Dooce, there is a lot that doesn't get said on a blog.

(That being said, I write about hand jobs and horrible fights with the huzzle, so there is quite a bit that I do reveal here.)

Anyway, I was re-reading what I wrote and I kind of liked this, so I'll share.

*******
July 17, 2008

Today is the day before Katie's birthday. We are moms on the run, on a flight to San Francisco for BlogHer 2008. But strangely, we both have the same apprehension about sharing this fact with the general public.

"You'll need to fill out this form before you head through customs." The Italian-Canadian with curly highlighted hair motions me around the corner. I find a shelf and fill out the card.

Is this trip for...

• Business?
• Pleasure?

I ponder for a moment and then check pleasure. It's a bit of both, but I have been to the airport enough times to envision the line of questioning that may come with answering "business" in the US.

"What's the purpose of this visit," inquires the humourless customs officer. Sunday will be spent with family. Many of the bloggers I'm off to see for the first three days feel like fam. But how do I explain blogging to the customs woman? In a split second, I firmly decide against it. "I'm visiting family," I reply without missing a beat.

*******
I chat amicably with a man in line with his daughter, who is travelling by herself for the first time. He is a gray-haired expat, with a twinge of a California accent. He fights back nerves and tears. "This is hard," he gulps. I can only imagine, I tell him.

I realize that someday my two children may be doing the same thing. I would encourage them to. My only hope is that we haven't fucked up this world so much that they never get the chance to feel the terrifying exhilaration of flying. Still, I feel the man. It would be hard to watch them use their wings.

Mommy kissed them goodbye this morning and welled up. Because unlike going to work in an office of 20-somethings, I will not get to check Mom Barbie at the door. In SF my mommyness will be my badge, my ticket into the doors of parties and sessions, into conversations with other great women. Unlike working with my childless, fancy-free fashionista colleagues (my adorable chickens), the women at BH will understand my sadness and homesickness. How they can coexist with my need to get away. They may even initiate the commiserating.

*******

The gorgeous blonde 20-something next to Katie is reminiscent of Ali Larter. She says she's headed to SF for business and asks us what we're going for. Katie and I exchange hesitant looks. "A conference," Katie answers vaguely. We mumble something about women in IT and Ali Larter's twin nods, deciding we're tech geeks without us giving away quite how much.

The chickens at the office are split between thinking my bloggerdom is hilariously geeky, incredibly cool or career suicide. Somehow I know it's potentially all three. But I come by it honestly, wear it proudly and this weekend I will shout it from the rooftops. I am a BLOGGER!

I am proud to be part of this movement, this changing of tides, these women shaping the way future girls and women will be viewed, and the freedom they will have to express themselves. Can't wait to meet my fellow history shapers.

*******

Corrections: The writer and editor of MFM incorrectly named the person who mentioned K and my height difference at the Mighty Haus party as someone she was too drunk to remember. She was immediately reminded that the person was Jennster (by Jennster herself) and apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused. She really wants the Jennster to like her, so she's posting these pics as a peace offering.

(Uh, yeah. Forgot my camera, so celly had to sub in. But I have a nice camera phone, not like the one that Bret made for Jemaine on Flight of the Conchords, so these look better than they should.)

OK, perhaps this photo of Kristin and Jennster is not so much a peace offering.

This is the one. Look at those 1000 watt smiles.

This woman may just be the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen. And she cuts a mean rug too. And she lets me take drunken camera phone pics of her even though my Armo arm is not long enough to take a proper on-handed pic. Did I mention she's also a brilliant photog? So this photo should be even more offensive to the genius that is Karen. But being the gracious lady that she let me try to take this photo more than once. (This was the best I could do.)

Hey my darling office chickens, I had to go all the way to California to hang out with the NYC equivalent of y'all. Amanda Wolfe is 25 and will someday do really, really big things. (As if running a blog for a giant parenting magazine out of NYC isn't a really big thing for a 25-year-old.) Plus we're bang sisters. I'm not growing them out unless she does too.

This really says it all. I have the sugar coating on my camera phone to prove that this was in fact real and did not happen in say, Middle Earth.

Don't come and knock on my door

(I also wrote this on Saturday and didn't finish, but I'm still mad about it so here it is.)

I don't know why I thought the "famous" bloggers would be stuck up. But I did. You may have too. But for the most part, when I put myself out there, everyone has been nothing but nice.

That being said, there are like 1000 women here or some shit. There is no way we all get along. My roomie left today and Katie is equally hungover, if not worse than me. I'm feeling a bit vulnerable.

A blogger whom I used to love and was so happy to meet in person has a bad attitude. I hate finding that out. To be snarky is one thing, but to be snarky to the face of someone who genuinely likes you and has never done anything to offend you... well that's just assholery. The transaction went down like this.

Blogger: (coming out of the Maggie Mason session): "God, I can't listen to Maggie Mason talk about herself anymore."

Me: (ignoring the comment, smiling, happy to see Blogger): "Hey you!"

Blogger: "Did you ever watch Three's Company? Do you know of Three's Company?"

Me: (ignoring the obvious jab at my Canadianism): "Totally! Loved Three's Company."

Blogger: "OK, so then, do you know Janet?"

Me: (furrowing my face because I think I know what's coming): "Um, yeah, of course I know Janet."

Blogger: (evil smile) "You're Janet."

Ugh. Why? Why go there? Nobody likes Janet. I was almost named Janet and though I did not like being named Nadine when I was a child, Janet was not the alternate of choice. (At the time, I really wanted to be a Tiffany or a Jessica.)

Of course I totally played Janet when Jenny, Jack and I played Three's Company in 3rd grade. (Jenny is still Chrissy Snow.) But only because I was the little brunette and I had no choice. If I didn't play Janet in the sandbox, there would be no role for me.

Ugh. I think that this woman was trying to be all "I don't give a fuck" at the conference, but after the Janet comment and something else she said to a dear friend of mine, I think it was clear that she's totally insecure. But hey, we were all insecure at the conference. It may have made her feel better to be "funny" and call me Janet, but it really made me feel like shit.

I am really, REALLY sorry Joyce DeWitt. My intention is not to make you feel equally bad with this post should you Google yourself as many times in a week as I do. (That's Google myself, not Joyce DeWitt.) Janet was nice and all. Pretty even. But she was the smiley goody goody. And while I completely admit that there's a part of me that identifies with that (I am the oldest after all) the delivery of the comment made it feel like a slap in the face.

So let's get it straight k Miss Bitchy Blogger whom I used to like a lot. If I am anyone of the less appealing characters on Three's Company, it's Mrs. Roper. Now hike up my muu-muu and kiss my ass!

Times I have met famous people

I wrote this on Saturday, but due to technical difficulties (read: krunk) I am posting Sunday morning.
*******
In 1999 while working on American Psycho as a production assistant, I had the opportunity to meet several Hollywood actors. If you've been reading long enough, you may know my Jared Leto story.

Every Thursday after the shoot, we would head to a post studio to watch the rushes for the week on a proper screen. One Thursday I got there late to find a slim female figure in the doorway. I was about to say "Excuse me," when she turned around, eyes full of tears.

"I'm sorry," said Chloe Sevigny, "I find it really hard to watch myself."

I am not a starfucker, but it's only human to get a little starstruck. After the screening we went to Betty's (a bar formerly known as The Betty Ford) and chit-chatted amicably and as normal as an actor-meets-mortal conversation can be. I asked her casually about certain actors she'd worked with, about her then-boyfriend Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp). We sipped our beer and I got the dumb idea that we could be friends. (Doesn't everyone think they would be best friends with a celebrity?)

Then she invited me to her trailer that weekend to hang out with her and Jarvis. Then I died. The end.

*******
That same year, I found myself in London, England to visit my boyfriend who moved there, paid for with my American Psycho money. He (now my huzzle) was working quite a bit at a bar in a famous movie theatre. So I decided to take in some culture by myself and go see some actual theatre. I chose Plenty by David Hare, mostly because it was starring a pre-Elizabeth Cate Blanchett.

I took my seat on the side of the mezzanine and quickly got drawn into the story of a Londoner, forced to make her way during the war by becoming a spy. There must have been a boring part somewhere in an otherwise riveting performance because I found my eye going to the private boxes next to the stage.

Wait a minute... is that Jude Law?! I paid 45p to get the binoculars and looked closer. Oh fuck. That IS JUDE LAW! But who is that with him? Oh that must be Sadie Frost... and no. It couldn't be. Is that Lauren Bacall?!

Well it was. And I spent the rest of the performance shifting my binoculars from Cate Blanchett's beautiful face, to Lauren Bacall's and then spent a hella lotta time on Jude Law's face.

I left the theatre and decided to sit on the steps outside to write in my journal until Jan was done work and picked me up to go for a drink. I made a long distance call on my cell phone to my sister to tell her that I had, indeed, just seen THE JUDE LAW! Then I wrote down that I had just seen Jude Law in my journal. The theatre crowd thinned out, making their way down St. Martin's Lane to other destinations, and before long I was the only one out front.

Then a boisterous group came out the large wooden doors. I looked up to see JUDE FUCKING LAW, Sadie frost, LAUREN WIFE OF BOGEY BACALL, and some random dude that was LB's date. I sat there with my mouth on the sidewalk, face frozen in a stupid grin. Then Jude Law waved at me and said "Hello!" And then I died. The end.

*******
Yesterday I met just about every single person that I wanted to meet here. And if I didn't get to talk to them, I find myself krunk off my ass at a party with them, hosted by the incredibly fabulous Maggie Mason.

I attended some great sessions and was overwhelmed by intros to the blog world's great writers:
* The incredibly sweet Tracey/Sweetney.
* The super fabulous (in a stunning vintage green cape and, later, hawt blonde wig) Jenny Bloggess.
* Jess Oh the Joys, who has one of those striking faces you can't stop staring at.
* My former BloggingBaby colleague, Karen Chookaloonks, who is the best person to have with you at a party where you are the newbie. Also, she has the most stunning smile on any human being. Ever.
* My other awesome BB/ParentDish colleague, Linda Lee, who looks EXACTLY like her photos.
* L'il Debbie, who is as yummy as the packaged cakes she's named after. Seriously, I want to move to her city and party with her all. the. time.

At the Community Keynote, where bloggers had been selected by a panel to read from their blogs (which was the highlight of the conference for me so far), I sat with Ali Martell (who is so cute in person that you want to eat her) and Sarah Whoorl, another BB/PD colleague of mine whom I'd never met in the flesh. Sarah blogs about hair. She is like a hair guru. She happens to have an excellent head of hair herself. If you write into Sarah about your hair dilemma, she will do a lovely post about you and solve your problem. I was very excited to meet her in person and was happy that she seemed equally giddy to meet little ol' me.

"You are SO CUTE!" she gushed. And then, wait for it blog lovers, "I have to take a picture of your hair for my site!"

And then I died. The end.

*******

I stupidly took off on Katie once we got to the evening cocktail event to go find my friend Colin from Edmonton and his friend Jay, who happened to be in town at the same time. They got me drunk in their hotel room and it was kinda nice to be around penises. I was feeling estrogen overload.

Then I realized the time, ran back to the club where the BlogHer cocktail party was being held and in moments I was running into a cab with Karen, Kristin and two women I didn't know. I started chatting with the woman nearest me and she introduced herself as Brenda and the woman next to her as her SIL, Comfortably Crazy. "Oh," I said in a fuzzy screwdriver haze, "Remind me which blog you write again."

"I write Secret Agent Josephine," she replied with her lovely American accent.

Gah! "Oh wow! My friend Marla just commented that if I meet you I have to hump you." And even after I said that, she still wanted to have lunch with me today. At the end of all this if I happen to do a round up of the people whom I felt were the most genuine, I think Brenda might get the gold medal.

"What's your blog called?" she asked politely. I told her, passed her a card and she said she'd heard of it.

And then I died. The end.

********

We got to Maggie's intimate party and everyone was feeling super close after the ultimate sharey-share that was the Community Keynote. People were congratulating each other left and right. I was surrounded by good company and found an ideal party date in Amanda Wolfe from Goodyblog. Suddenly I was in a room with Alice Finslippy, Eden Fussy, Neil Alternadad, and La Dooce. Yes THE Dooce. And her husband. Yes THE husband. And yes, they are gorgeous and tall. Kristin was going to introduce me, but I suddenly felt incredibly shy at the prospect. Mostly because I am but three apples high. And after spending two days with my glamazon friend whose head is in another stratosphere, I was feeling extra wee.

Someone made a comment about how funny we looked together. Kristin 6 feet tall and owns it by wearing heels. I am just ever so slightly over 5 feet and happened to be wearing flats. One of us retorted that we were opposite but eerily similar. "Like twins separated at birth," joked whoever the fuck was razzing us. (By then I was too drunk to know who I was talking to.)

"Exactly," I remarked. "Like Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger!" (Holy fuck, Firefox just spellchecked Schwarzenegger! That man has serious power.)

I have a vague recollection of being way too obnoxious and brash with tiny, pretty, unassuming Chris Jordan and then her friend Susan Wagner stepped in to save her. Susan then introduced me to a pretty blonde woman with a great smile. What I heard was, "This is Alissa. She used to write for Blogging Baby too." We commiserated about what a shite place that was to work and how hard it is to force out posts for the pennies they pay.

"Where are you writing now?" I asked innocently.

"Oh, I write for Mighty somethingsomethingsomething (remember, me=krunk), and also my personal blog. It's called Suburban Bliss."

OMG I am the world's biggest asshole. Like look up a picture of a big gaping wide asshole in the encyclopedia (does anyone use those anymore?) and there's my picture. "Holy fuck. Your name's not Alissa. You are Melissa. As in Summers."

And people, she still wanted to talk to me after that. We talked about how I thought she'd be taller for some reason, how the Canadian mom blog scene is strangely small but tightly knit, about a post she had written about a certain Canadian writer who was involved in a lawsuit over an image of a martini with a pacifier in it.

The next day, I saw her in passing and her face lit up in recognition. And then I died. The end.

*******

So much more to tell you, but I have been busy and now wireless-less after leaving vagina heaven at the Westin for grimier testosterone-infused climes near Chinatown with two male friends from Canada that happened to be in SF this weekend. More to come on that hilarity.

A drunken note to my roommate

Dear roommate,

I am so sorry that I opened the Westin peanuts that undoubtedly cost $10 on your tab. But you and I = trouble. The good kind. And peanuts were required in place of the falafel I didn't get to have. And I so needed.

(Holy fuck tyoing is hard.)

You know you want these bad boy peanuts, so go for it.

I love you. Like for real. Zzzzzzzz must go deal with the spins and the fact that my fingers don'e kno what to do. Must go deal with the shakyt spins now. Fuuuuuuuuck

This is me on BlogHer

Katie just sent me this photo of how excited I was at the thought of ordering a patty melt last night. Do you see how awesome this diner was? Need to go back for a milkshake.

We are in a session now, (with Don Mills Diva between us) and it's way hot. (And not just because we are in a three mommyblogger sandwich.) We're about to head out to do some sightseeing. It's Katie's b-day today so I think we need to do something a little less stuffy than conference rooms heated up by collective estrogen.

Also, I got suckered into signing up for Twitter. God help us all. If you happen to be on Twitter and feel the need to know what I'm doing 24-7, feel free to look me up or follow me as the Twitterites call it.

Is MommyBlogging Still a Radical Act?

Katie and I are sitting in a seminar called Is MommyBlogging Still a Radical Act?

The word radical is being debated by awesome women and I am so fucking lame that I'm just happy to be here. (That could be the hangover talking.) Behind me right now are Liz Mom 101, Sweetney, Kristin, Jen Sharpen, Kristen Motherhood Uncensored, and a bunch of other incredibly talented bloggers. Everyone is playing nice so far. I am shitting my pants with excitement. I can't believe I have become that woman. I really thought I was too cynical to fall into that camp.

I personally think that MommyBlogging is a radical act. That's why I am not snarking on this trip. Because holy fuck, there are lots of us, but in the world of moms we are a select few, blazing a trail for the women that will come after us. Letting them feel free to talk about the good parts and the bad of having children. Making others feel less alone. Blogging takes balls. And no matter our differences, all us blogging mommies are in this together. I didn't really get that fully until I came to this conference.

So also behind me is Catherine aka Her Bad Mother, with her beautiful baby Jasper. And while we've had our share of disagreements over the years, I hugged her hard this morning. Because I felt her struggle with wanting to be here and having to deal with being a mom too. The stress of wanting to go to Guy Kawasaki's house last night (over an hour away!) and then dealing with being there with a needy person who doesn't know that shitting all over his mom at a very hip party might make things a bit tough... well I totally get that.

I am surrounded by women with slings , shushing babies and Twittering and absorbing. We are all trying to do our thing while raising the kids that we love. I feel very proud to be part this incredible community of smart, fierce, radical women.

Because Marla would want to know

This is why I'm not a superstar blogger.

a) I blog for my friends and often namedrop them (seriously, do I make it clear that I think you should read Marla enough?)
b) I write in a feast or famine fashion
c) I write a lot about my city, which is probably irrelevant to most of my audience
d) I don't comment on other blogs much.
e) Most of my readers are non-bloggers (which I kinda love)
f) I don't actually care that much. I like being a "boutique blogger"

But when it comes to meeting other superstar bloggers... well apparently I'm all over it. Really bloggers in general. I haven't seen much drama yet, and because I don't Twitter or tweet or whatever the fuck that's called, I'll be totally out of the loop. I am making friends with whomever will talk to me and it's kind of nice. (Mar Mar, if you were here, you would so need your inhaler.) I'm also really drunk right now, so it's kind of rendering me in this "I love you man" ecstasy pill mood.

I don't care about freebies so much because that's what I do for a living. But I do care about meeting moms from places like Seattle and Colorado and random American cities I've never been too. I also care that I got to totally meet some of my old Blogging Baby/ParentDish colleagues and I immediately wanted to make out with them. Also, there are a few hot dads here which is nice, because otherwise it's vag overload. It's also nice when people say, "I used to read you on Parent Dish all the time!" (Holy crap could I say also more?)

Here is a list of known bloggers I met or saw tonight. Tomorrow, when I'm like, sober, I will take the time to type out all the awesome cards I collected tonight (like you need more blogs to read).

Big bloggers that I saw but I didn't talk to:
Liz/Mom 101
Kristen/Motherhood Uncensored
Stephania/City Mama
L'il Debbie/I Obsess

Bloggers you may know that I did talk to:
Christina/A Mommy Story
Rachel/Simple Family, formerly SheNuts
Tanis/Redneck Mommy
Susan/ Friday Playdate (whom I may just have to marry now that Cali has gay marriage on again -- if we weren't already married to men that is.)
Schmutzie (who is super nice and awkwardly cool in a way that makes you want to put her into your purse and take her home with you.)

I did meet White Trash Mom on the elevator and gasped with delight, but I got a call from Kristin right at that moment so I didn't get to really show her the love. But I am totally going to hunt her down and beg her to give me a White Trash name change.

I flew in with Amy/Assertagirl and Katie/Motherbumper and I have to say that Katie is the best pal a girl could leech onto at such an event. She let me Velcro myself to her for most of the night (including an insanely awesome meal at a base 50s diner) and was so proud of me when I branched out on my own. Friday is her birthday and we will have to celebrate with drinks and Anthropologie and a trolley ride.

This is really SO MUCH FUN!

Wherein I must eat my words

Two things I should have brought but stupidly didn't:

1) Camera

2) Trench Coat

OK Americans, I take it back. You are not pussies. It is ass cold in SF. But pretty. Oh so pretty. Now excuse me while I run to H&M to buy a sweater.

Rescue Pack... Comin' to the rescue

Seriously! I need Rescue Pack! And Diego too. And those fucking Wonder Babies or whatever you call Dora's stupid twin gagagoogoo siblings. I am so not ready for this trip.

I am usually an over-planner and an over-packer. Normally, your faithful Scarb would have studied maps intensely trying to figure out what is where. She would have plotted best areas for shopping (well I guess our hotel is technically in one), quirky neighbourhoods and Michelin-starred restos. I have done none of this. It is completely uncharacteristic of me.

I haven't even printed out the itinerary for my flights, let alone the conference schedule. (Which I'm not supposed to print out because everyone loves earth and all that shit, but I have a compulsion to highlight things. With a highlighter.) I am flying by the seat of my pants and it's making all of this more terrifying. But part of me feels that I have to push the control freak in me to the back seat and just trust that everything will be fine. Just roll with the punches. Let destiny take its course.

That being said, I have packed an arsenal of Rescue Remedy to help me cope. Also, unrelatedly, I have read a dozen posts saying that San Fran is ass cold at night. But I'm from the True North Strong and Free. I know from cold. Are these Americans just pussies? Or do I have no idea about sea air and what it will do to my hot Middle Eastern Blood? I have read Susan's packing list 30 times and the word "trench coat" is making me furrow my brow.

I should be sleeping but am up washing my good underwear so as not to blind my roommate. I managed to splatter my favourite dress with hot roast chicken grease last night. (So that's why Marla wears aprons.) and managed to get the grease out thanks to my mother's secret trick: pour baby powder over the grease to absorb it, then wash in hot water. Except now my favourite orange organic cotton H&M dress looks a bit shorter than usual. Which means my hairy armo thighs are also an issue. Must remember to shave carefully in the morning.

Also I haven't had a pedicure. I need a pedi or I will feel like a slag. Anybody know any good mani/pedi places around Union Square? And by good I mean cheap, but not so cheap that I will get Hepatitis by going there.

OK, going to bed. Will attempt to sleep, but know that I will be plagued with dreams of what I would say to Dooce, and how (even though everyone swears it's not) this whole thing is going to be a bit like Bring It On. Not to worry, I've got a mean jazz hand.

Blog Spotted

I have been sitting on this post for a couple of days. Mostly because I think it's even kind of pretentious to acknowledge. I mean, who the fuck am I really? Just some loser who needs validation by writing about her innermost thoughts on the Interweb.

Anyway, last Friday I think I was blog spotted. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's always a little creepy. Mostly because the reader just stares instead of coming over for an introduction. I had spent the day at Kew Gardens with a friend and her tykes. We parted ways (she drove, I walked -- which is noteworthy because I was proud of myself for not taking the car.) and decided to hit Meat on the Beach on the way home for a couple of things. The stroller doesn't fit in that tiny store, so I did something I'm not proud of: I left the stroller between the fruit stands outside to go grab a few veggies for the shish kebabs I was making that night. Then I sent Nate to watch his sister. Yah. I know. But there was no other choice.

OK, there was one other choice, which was to go to No Frills and buy pesticide covered veggies, but trust me, my children were safer outside a store in the Beach than at the vortex of mutants beside me. Anyway, I digress. This information is of no relevance to the story, unless the mom I am about to mention was giving me a smug look that I did not recognize.

There was another mom in there with a stroller and I noticed her smile at me. At first I thought it was the universal "Hey you're a mom too" smile. But when we left the store and headed to a nearby park at Nate's behest, she was there once again smiling. I smiled back, but suddenly her face showed a familiarity that was more than just "I just saw you at the meat store." It was more like, "Hey, that's her. And that must be the famous Nate. There's Loogoo tanking it up again. Oh, they are just like she writes about them."

So if I'm not a completely self-absorbed asshole (I will admit to being a somewhat self-absorbed asshole) and that was, in fact, a dear reader, "Hi!" I thought your skirt was really cool and your daughter adorable.

All this to say that if any of you anonymous people ever see me out and about and think, "Hey, I read about her sex life!" please, please approach and say hello. I know it's weird, but it will make me feel a hella less self-conscious if I know you're staring at me because you "know" me and not because my tit is hanging out of my top because I breastfed my almost-weaned child on the fly to shut her up.

Holy fuck! BlogHer is going to be one huge blog spotting thing, isn't it? I'm going to be like, "Omigod! There's Amalah! And she's so pregnant just like she says she is. Omigod!" Must remember to keep that in check.

I don't know what to title this post

It's a weird thing, this blogging. My pal Marla (met via blogging) once said, "Blogging makes you care." It's true. We spill our deepest darkest for all to read and, in doing so, we get to read the inner workings of other talented writers.

Most of us are underdogs, people who were somehow marginalized or felt they didn't really fit in at one point or another. Maybe you were too tall. Maybe you had a really big nose and were bullied like yours truly. But something in the individual pasts of bloggers makes us live in our heads.

Then the Internet gave us this tool. This amazingly therapeutic tool. Secret writers, all of us, we found a place to work on our craft while working on what's wrong with us. For free. And if we make you laugh and cry and think enough, you'll actually leave comments and make us feel awesome about ourselves.

There are many bloggers whose writing I enjoy, but truth be told, very few whose writing inspires me to race to Blogger and churn out a post. In the world of Yin and Yang, my polar opposite on the other side of the country never fails to inspire me.

Tall to my short. Blonde to my dark. Poetic to my crass. Dog to my cat. Vegan to my carnivore. Adventurous to my chicken shit. Yet in some ways we are so the same. I just want to wrap her up and take her into my teeny home (that would surely make her have to duck) and feed her lentil soup until her hurts melt away. (OK, this is sounding borderline psycho now.) I am lucky enough to call her a friend.

I did get to meet her once and now it looks like I'll have the honour of hanging with her again in a couple of days. She called me tonight to confirm that we will be doing some partying together in SF. It's funny because we've only ever talked on the phone a handful of times, yet we are so familiar to each other. We've been reading each other for 3+ years now. I lit up like a slot machine when I heard her voice on the line. Anyway, I totally couldn't stop talking over her (perhaps my worst habit) because I was so excited about this weekend. It's like meeting your penpal or something. I totally feel 12 again. Except we have the key to the liquor cabinet and an invite to the coolest-sounding parties ever.

(Hullo? Party in Macy's people! Bestill my merchandise loving heart. I love how the details say shopping is not mandatory. Do they know how much the markup is in Canada? How will I ever restrain myself?)

I could care less about superstar bloggers and all the drama that goes on with that sort of thing. I am in a good place now. I have a great job and thankfully I no longer feel the need to milk this blog in order to get some sort of career out of it. I write for myself and for all of you and that is enough. It feeds my soul and calms my noisy brain. So I'm not going to BlogHer so much for the hype as I am for the shits and giggles with some truly fantastic people I've met by doing this.

Holy fuck! I am actually going to San Francisco in two days! Gah! So not prepared!

Big Fish

I took down Lucine's mobile last night. I'd gone into her room the night before to find her standing in the crib sobbing. The mobile is now officially a thing of danger for grabby, strong hands. I sobbed too as I gingerly took apart the Jolly Jumper wind-up part from the stand, removing a superstitious red ribbon and gold cross that my mom had pinned on the fluffy little lambs.

I didn't know where to put it. It just sat sadly on the floor while I debated keeping it for the future (its mainstream baby gear, not heirloom quality stuff) or giving it away on Freecycle. In the end I stuffed into my porch box, rationalizing that since it was both of theirs, they'd probably just fight over it anyway.

Her birthday is in six weeks. One. Old enough to be forward facing, to drink milk and have chocolate in her birthday cake. As she teeters on her tiny feet, lurching forward in that Baby Frankenstein way, I know that the celebration of her first year will also mean a farewell to my baby. Hugging her has become a double metaphor about time going too fast: it's like Nate trying to hold on to the stream as water pours out the tap.

Lucine is constantly moving. She has her father's need for activity. She must constantly be grabbing, pulling, trying to move onto the next thing. Unlike myself and her brother, she is not content to just sit and chill. I know that this will prove frustrating as the days go forward, yet I am fascinated by her energy. Her tenacity and determination will definitely be assets as she grows older. I wince but cheer her on as I peek through my fingers and hope she gets everything she strives for.

*******
I was reading/reciting Mem Fox's Time for Bed to Nate, a ritual we've had for a long time now, based on a recommendation by kittenpie. It's a fabulous bedtime rhyme that follows different mama animals instructing their babies to sleep.

I got to "It's time to sleep little fish, little fish/ So hold your breath and make a wish," when Nate uncorked his thumb from his mouth.

"But fish don't sleep!"

Oh, damn, good one. "Um, don't they?" Stalling, stalling.

"They don't."

OMG! If I don't nip this in the bud right now, all bets are off for sleeping.

"Sure they do! Remember in Finding Nemo... don't Nemo and his dad sleep in that um, whatchacallit bulby thing? Fish sleep. They do! I'm sure of it. They sleep in um, coral! That's it! Coral. But it's not like in Guess How Much I Love You, when Big Nutbrown Hare sets Little Nutbrown Hare into a bed of leaves. That's why you're confused. No, no. Fish just stay very still. They close their eyes and stay very still."

My methodology has always involved talking in annoyingly rapid circles so that I can beat his little brain to the finish line. The thinking is that this line of chatter will tire him out and then he'll give up. But he's getting too big, too fast.

"Mum, fish don't have eyelids. Now stop talking to me already!"

That's what I get for getting my fish knowledge from a Disney Pixar film.

Skids are people too

My friend Kate's husband lovingly refers to the main intersection of our neighbourhood as "the vortex of mutants." Oh sure, if you were coming here for buffet butter chicken, you'd be none the wiser, but a visit to No Frills at 2 pm on a Tuesday garners very different results.

You might see a man with a peg leg and Adidas sneakers ranting about how we all owe him because the government did that to him. You may see a man in black attempting to hold up the side of the Coffee Time building with his perceived super human strength. It's not always humorous. Sometimes you find yourself pushing your stroller next to the walking dead: eyes blazing, hands and jaws clenched, coin-sized holes in their faces, their souls evaporated in clouds of crack pipe smoke.

Not ones to let ourselves get down, Kate and I have devised a phone and text system of skid spotting. Oh how terrible, you're thinking. Yes, it may be cruel, but it's our way of coping with the dark side of G-Street. Here are some spectacular recent sightings.

1. A man leaning against Ho Lee Chow (the bad Chinese takeout chain -- which is technically in the Beach, but we'll claim this guy as one of our own) smoking a cigarette and wearing a t-shirt that says, "Rehab is for quitters."

2. A wasted rocker chick in her 40s, sporting disastrous 80s hair and roller blades, hanging onto a fire hydrant for dear life. Repeatedly she attempts to move, but it's as though she's blading on banana peels. Here's a thought, if roller blading hammered is so difficult, perhaps you should remove your wheeled footwear and sit your drunk ass down.

3. The drug addict/prostitute on my street, whom we affectionately call Crackie, walks past my house at breakneck speed 100 times a day. She usually says hello, unless something's gone horribly wrong (and in her world, I shudder to think what that could be). Last night was no different. I was folding up my stroller on my porch when she walked by. I smiled and said hello, which I pretend will help protect us against her dealer/addict boyfriend/husband, but in reality I know she would sell her own mother to get high.

I'd heard her a moment earlier saying to someone I couldn't see, "I'll be right back with that for ya hon. I'll just go home and get it before I get high. Otherwise I'll get stuck." After I said hello, she stopped and turned back.

Crackie: "Can I ask you something?"

Me: (Please don't make up some story about how you got locked out of your house and you need money.) "Sure."

Crackie: "You've lived here longer than I have, so you might know better than me. [You will see how irrelevant that sentence was in a moment.] You know your neighbour across the street? The woman with the glasses?"

I know instantly because that is the woman we call The Macoo (not sure of the spelling, but my Trini neighbour whom I love calls her this because she's so nosy and in everyone's business). She spend all morning gardening in a see-thru muumuu and will complain about every neighbour to anyone who'll listen.

Me: "Yup."

Crackie: "Has she been coming around here talking about me?"

Me: (Surprisingly...) "No."

Crackie: "Because she's been talking to all the other neighbours like Nancy and Steve, saying shit about me. Because I've been having domestic problems with my husband. I had to get a restraining order on her to stay out of my business."

Wow, this is some free world we live in if a crackie can get a restraining order on a law abiding (albeit super nosy) citizen. I know better than to trust a crackie, but somehow I can see that this would be possible. OK, not really, but it was pretty funny to consider it for a moment.

My new family

I keep starting a post about my father and then stopping. Like most father-daughter relationships, our relationship is a puzzle. We've had our fair share of ups and downs over the years and even though we now have some sort of understanding, he still leaves me scratching my head in bewilderment quite frequently.

My mother had a falling out with my dad's parents when I was still in grade school. I don't remember it, I just remember they flew back to Turkey and we never saw my grandfather again. I saw my grandmother once more, when I was 14 and went to Istanbul for the one and only time. I met some cousins there and my paternal aunt and that and that was the extent of my relationship with my father's family.

We grew up in the yards and kitchens of my mother's siblings and relatives and that's the way it was. They lived here, making it easier. But I think my mother's attitude towards my father's family really robbed me of a proper relationship with them. Why did I never write my grandmother or try to call her on the phone? My mother vilified my grandmother, telling us horrible story after horrible story and we believed her. My mother was God in my eyes and anyone who would wrong her got a big giant X in my mind.

When my grandmother passed shortly after Christmas 2001, I felt numb. I wanted to feel something but I didn't. Maybe an ounce of remorse at not trying harder to know her. She was my last surviving grandparent. The other's had passed in the 80s. It was a long time to have so much silence in our relationship.

My mother's family is great. They are warm, gossipy and love to eat. They will put two heaping spoonfuls on your plate when you only asked for one and in the same visit tell you you're getting fat. I have a love/hate relationship with them now that I'm an adult. My cousins are much older than me and all males (my sis and I are the only two girls) but I get along well with their wives (one way more than the others -- Hi J!) and their kids hold big spots in my heart. The older generation are harder to get along with now that I'm older too, but growing up they were the superstars of my life. My aunts and uncles were like celebrities to me: people you look at through a special lens and only see as pretty and fabulous.

But I always felt like something was missing. In trying to look at these people and find answers about myself, I only had half the picture. Until this past week.

My dad's first cousin, Ani, came to visit us. She lives in Berkeley and has done so for a few decades now. She got a second degree, married a nice American guy, and had a son when she was nearing 40. Her son has Touret's syndrome. He has some ticks, but other than that he's a pretty typical 12-year-old and totally loveable. (He has a highly evolved sense of sarcasm that spoke to my jaded heart.) I absolutely fell in love with them. And for the first time, I got a window into that part of myself that I always thought had come out of the sky.

I don't look like my mom's side of the family. Looking at Ani, I saw so much of myself. Her dark hair and super Armenian features, her super smart feminist demeanor, her taste in gentle and sensitive men. We had never met before, but the instant we set eyes on each other it was like I'd found my long lost big sister. I was like, "Hey my family's a little weird, your family's a little weird, let's just let it all hang out." When you have issues (like we do with my dad -- I'll explain soon) it's hard to be yourself around people. To find people you can be so open with makes it easier and I think we all felt that way instantly.

Ani and Chris live in the Bay Area in a quirky house. They like museums, etc. They eat vegetarian, organic, local. Their lifestyle, though busy with work and a son who has his fair share of special needs, does not seem so different from ours. Let's face it -- the Bay Area is full of lefty hippie types, and Jan and I are pretty much the Toronto version of that. Bohemian Bourgeoisie as the French call it. (BoBos -- think of that next time you watch Diego.)

Interestingly, when I told Ani about my regrets about my relationship with my paternal grandparents and how I resented my mom a bit for ruining that for me, she kind of shrugged and said, "They weren't easy people to get along with. And I LOVE your mom." Instantly I felt better about the whole thing.

I was always told I had more in common with my dad's family, but never really got that. Now I do. I can't really explain it better, but I could not stop staring at her. She is my new rockstar. It's like she explained the Matrix to me. My Matrix. My genetic code.

What about you? Have you had a similar experience reconnecting with family? I'd love to hear about it.

*******
I am headed to San Fran next week (Sheesh! Could she possibly talk about the damn SF trip any more?) and it looks like being bumped to the red eye will be a good thing. I'm spending all day Sunday with my new family members on their home turf. I can't wait. If only SF were closer and I could go for Sunday dinner more often.

Thirty-Fourtunate

The clock is ticking on my first day as a 34-year-old. "The middle of the road is trying to find me," Chrissie Hynde sings and I so feel her now. But it's OK. Because here are 34 reasons 34 beats 24.

(In no particular order.)

1. The boy I liked 10 years ago is the man I now refer to as my husband.

2. When the boy I liked 10 years ago now gets stoopid shitfaced drunk on MY birthday, I have really, really well-crafted, perfectly-toned guilt trips. Like, "You may not drink EVERY day, but that doesn't mean you don't have a drinking problem." And "Thanks for making a night that was about you and me into a night that was about you, the bottle and the 25 Wilco songs you insist on playing over and over again until I hate them." (That one should go on a greeting card.)

3. The man I love at 34 runs home with a dozen roses in hand and a card that says, "I love you. I'm a fool, but I love you."

4. I'm smart enough at 34 to keep it to myself that I prefer peonies.

5. I still get a wee (barely perceptible, but it's there) flutter when he takes my hand in his while walking down the street.

6. I have a teeny home in a constant state of semi-renovation in a bad neighbourhood, but it might be mine by the time I'm 54. I'm a Cancer. Home is everything.

7. I have the world's most beautiful little boy (who actually hates coming to said home, especially after being at the world's greatest playground a.k.a. Grandma and Pop-Pop's) and all I had when I was 24 was thinner thighs.

8. Aforementioned stunning son wants to pee alone, but never wants me to leave his bedside. Hearing him say, "Don't go," each night is better than a million nights out at random bars.

9. Begging your three-year-old to sing you his effed up version of Happy Birthday (because no one else brainwashed him to do it -- does he not know he must brainwash Nate into desired behaviour?) will actually suffice.

10. When no one brings you a birthday cake with a wish-making candle to blow out, you're smart enough to cure your compulsion by finding something to light and blow out yourself. (Shish kebab skewer torched on the gas stove suffices provided you wish extra hard.)

11. At 24, your birthday festivities last a week.(Plus the following week to recover.) At 34, the event lasts one very busy day reading your awesome Facebook wall (Thanks everybody!)

12. At 24, feeling sorry for yourself means a wicked hangover the next day. At 34, you realize that feeling sorry for yourself is a fruitless exercise that only means you lack perspective. You don't actually have it that bad.

13. At 24 I wore cheap designer knock offs. At 34, I can afford the occasional real deal indulgence.

14. At 34, my 33 year-old banker sister can truly afford to spoil me since, really, all my cash is going to this dump of a house and my kids. (Thanks for the cute Marc Jacobs tee Tante!)

15. I have the same girlfriends I had at 24, but now I don't need to be drunk to have fun with them.

16. I have added some amazing new friends to the roster, including colleagues-cum-buds and bloggers-cum-BFFs.

17. At 34 I know I can't please everybody and most days I'm OK with it.

18. I have the sense to use sunscreen daily now.

19. The 26-year-olds in my office give me gifts like saying, "I thought you were way younger," AND "You don't seem 34."

20. I have a job (and coworkers) that I absolutely love. I especially like this because it means I have a good outlet for my creativity, leaving this space an ad-free venue for clearing out my head and no more blogging for bucks.

21. At 24, I was an unpaid intern. At 34, going to work is fun for the first time in a long time. (Thanks girls!)

22. At 24 I was only starting my career. At 34, I'm finally succeeding and on the road to achieving my goals.

23. At 34 I know that a career isn't something you achieve by a certain age. I no longer drag myself down with stupid markers like, "If I'm not 'somebody' by the time I'm 30 it's all over."

24. Well, the above statement is kind of true, but only if I let it be so. Sure I got preggers at 30, but that pregnancy opened a lot of creative doors for me. At 30 I was bummed about the end of it all. At 34 I can see the beginnings of the big picture. The future is bright if I'm open-minded and optimistic.

25. At 34 I have the daughter I dreamed of at 24. Time will tell how tumultuous our relationship will be. But so far, I can't believe my luck.

26. My daughter has my looking more carefully at how I treat my own mother. At 24, my mom and I were just becoming adult friends. At 34, she is still the one I rely on the most. I need to be nicer to her this year.

27. At 24, I ate at crappy restaurants I thought were cool. Now I can afford to eat well when I go out.

28. When you get your period right before you were potentially going to get obligatory birthday sex, it doesn't signify the end of the world.

29. I don't have to care who the next hot hip actor/movie/band/fashion label is. (I didn't say I don't care, just that I don't have to.)

30. I have two good excuses to get out of just about anything.

31. I can be perfectly content in a boring silent room alone.

32. At 24, I needed to travel. At 34, I can find bliss with my feet firmly on the ground.

33. I am surrounded by people who help me to be a better me.

34. I know that the best is yet to come.

Mom on the run

On another note, I totally ran away from home last night. I just absolutely had it. I had been with the kids (including having Loogoo with me while working from home) every single minute since last Thursday. Plus, now that Nate is sleeping with us, I even sleep with my child less than a foot away.

My dad's cousins are in town visiting from Berkeley. (A real Berkeley mom!) So that means my regular babysitting dried up this week. There was a whole kerfuffle where I asked my MIL to watch Loogoo Thursday and her initial reaction was, "Why? Do you have a meeting or something?" Um hullo people? They actually pay me to WORK when I'm at home!!

When she did come over she continued to talk to me, even though I had my face buried in the laptop. I guess that's kind of my fault. I should have made it clear. Just saying, "I think Lucy would love to go for a walk right now," wasn't obvious enough I suppose. I love my MIL, don't get me wrong. I really won the lottery in the MIL department, but sometimes she just doesn't get it.

Loogoo is great though. She gave me two very regular hour and a half naps. So I would get three full hours to "power work." But when she's awake, she's up to no good. Her pincer grip is so advanced that she can pick the teeniest crumbs and cat hairs off the floor and eat them. She tries to get things that have rolled under the futon/chaise and then gets stuck and needs me to bail her out. To top it off she needs to fucking eat and be put to sleep and cuddled and shit. What gives? Mom being right next to you not enough? You can pick ecstasy tabs off the floor, but you can't put yourself to sleep Little Miss 10-month-old?

Did I mention that Jan is working two jobs right now? He's wanting to get a foot in the door at our nation's broadcaster, so he's working as a floater every weekend. SEVEN DAYS A WEEK BETWEEN BOTH JOBS! Meaning I have to pick up the slack. Meaning I am super stressed out between parenting and my full time job.

I am working around the clock. I am making up the time I miss during the day as soon as the kids are asleep. But I am not taking a second for myself aside from this blog. It's fucked. Last night I threw my wallet and my cell in my pocket and ran away to my sanctuary: My sister's place. PVRed So You Think You Can Dance, 20/20 and Heston Blumenthal cooking shows were laid at my feet. A grilled piri-piri shrimp, corn and avocado salad placed in my mouth. It's really heaven. I want my sister to be happy, but the fact that it looks like she may never get married doesn't bother me anymore. She's got a great gig as my mistress. As long as I keep her in Wii games, Louis Vuitton bags and expensive cheeses I will always have a place to forget my motherhood. (You didn't think she was a cheap mistress did you?)

So it's official. Fuck trying to save money. Lucy is going to daycare twice a week. If only I could find someone good to watch her without paying $100 a day. It's damn near impossible. Kate and I posted our needs on Craigslist and the quality of the responses suck so bad. We got one great one, stalked her on Facebook and Flickr to see if she was legit, but she won't email us back. Maybe she realized we were psycho stalkers? Hey, some people like that kind of dedication!

Also official, I'm running away in two weeks via plane.

(Are you too? Wanna hang out? Email me!)

Our new roommate

Well, after agonizing over the details of Nate's room during my furious bouts of nesting last summer, I never dreamed that he would not be in that room. After all, Lucy was the new member of the family. She'd have to fit into our lives right?

Of course, this being our second child, we should know better. I wonder if after 16 kids (or is it 17 now) the Duggars get it right every time now. Lucy is a force to be reckoned with. As I've mentioned in the past, she wants silence and darkness to sleep. Giving her a room to herself this past weekend while Jan and I slept on a futon in the sunroom of the cottage made it clear to us. The girl needs her own room.

So Nate and his toddler bed have moved into the space that was once occupied by Lucy's bassinet/criblet. You could have a full fledged party next to Nate (and when he was first born, we often did) and he would sleep through it. We can turn on the light and read, have full adult conversations and he just snoozes away.

Night two and three of this new arrangement were magic. Lucy slept a full 12 hours. I almost thought she was dead. I couldn't believe that Nate was waking up before Lucy. (Damn Cool Alert pull ups!)

But Nate is also of the personality that will get used to sleeping in our room and have a hard time reverting back to independence. So we can't sustain this for a long period of time. We had our real estate in the other day to have a good hard look at what's possible. It's a bitter pill to swallow. A third bedroom will cost us about $100K more. (If we want to stay in this general area.) And that's for a not-so-renovated semi that's likely under 1200 sq ft.

The debate over moving back to Scarborough is back on. My MIL is not helping things by continuously talking up houses in her neighbourhood. It's making Jan angry and then I lose out on the argument for more space/lower price. His argument seems to be that he cycles to and from work now and that's not something he wants to budge on. His commute is under half an hour, solely man-powered and he needs the exercise to help keep him sane. Understandable. I also love having him home until right before his shift. Every minute helps.

Plus, though I love Scarborough dearly, it's far. Our friends are here, nearby. Everything we love is here, nearby. It would be hard to go back to neighbourhoods divided by 6-8 lanes of road, speckled with random strip malls. Though there is this think tank/collective trying to make parts of Scarborough really cool again, they are in the minority. Scarborough's hipster scene is lacking, and while I like to pretend that I'm not one of those people, I do have a level of snobbery that wants trendy bars and stores nearby.

We're at a standstill with an extremely long laundry list of things that need to be done to this house in order to sell it -- and we're running out of time. The goal is to have the house on the market by mid-September. Gah! Part of me thinks that if we could just get over this sleepless hump, we could last another two or three years here. But the other part of me knows that the kids will eventually need their own rooms anyway, and I don't want to sleep in the basement.

Now if only this economy will turn up so I don't lose money on the house.

Of poop, death and the working vacation

During our cottage weekend, I opened the door to the bathroom to check on Nate, who is pooping on his own, but not doing so fantastic in the wiping his butthole department. What ensued went down like this:

Me: Open door, smile.

Nate: "I don't want you and Daddy t'die."

Me: (Mixed emotions in rapid succession. First, Holy Mother of Cute! Then, oh dear, this isn't over yet?) "Nate," crouching down on not-pleasant-typical-cottage bathroom floor, "We're not going to die anytime soon."

Nate: mid-strain, gives a look that says, "Not so convincing mom!"
Me: "Look, are my mom and dad still alive? Yaya and Dede? They're still alive right?"

Nate: nods yes.

Me: "Are Daddy's mom and dad still alive? Grandma and Pop Pop are still alive right?"

Nate: nods yes again. Gives me a look that says, "I still don't see where this is going."

Me: "So if Daddy and I are bigger than you and our parents are still alive, and you're just little, don't you think your mom and dad are going to live for a long time?"

Nate: pissed. "I'm not little! I'm a big boy!"

Me: Stifling the giggle. "Yes, you are a big boy, you're just not as big as me, that's all I meant."

Nate: "So leave me alone already so I can poop!"

Well, that's the three-year-old's brain in a nutshell folks! One second he's sulking and wanting his parents to never leave this earth. The next he's yelling at me to give him some privacy and independence. Sheesh! (Went back five minutes later and he totally pulled up his pants without wiping. If only that method also explained the stains on his father's underwear.)

*******
The cottage was... well... I can't say relaxing. It was wall-to-wall work. Somehow my husband got to take a 30 minute swim Saturday morning, followed by a one hour canoe ride with my BFF's husband, but the same alone time never passed on to the moms.

Negatives:
* Having to pack for the entire family, unpack for the entire family, then pack it up again two days later.
* Not getting to escape the children and the childrearing duties by going to work. (Think of me what you will.)
* The amount of endless, thankless work and how that frames you into a corner so that you can't actually relax and enjoy anything. As my sister put it, "It's always somebody's something time. Bathtime, bedtime, naptime, eating time..."
* The weather. Ass ass and more ass, with intermittent sunny breaks.
* Taking the canoe out with my best friend, just to spite our husbands for their one-hour canoe trip (we didn't REALLY want to canoe) only to have rain pour down on our heads 4 minutes in. By the time we paddled back and made it back to the cottage, the sun was out again and beaming it's bright Fuck You-ness at us.

Positives:
* The view. The cottage was on a hill overlooking the lake. Even when it was raining, it was gorgeous.
* Washing dishes/changing diapers/feeding babies with your best friend is way better than having to do it alone.
* The food. We're all foodies, so everything was super yum -- especially the illegal butter my sister smuggled in. (Such is my life now. Illicit dairy products. The 20-year-old me should slap me.)
* Nate. What an awesome, well-behaved little boy. Sure, we had to deal with his multitude of fears. (Post to come.) But to barely hear a peep from your three-year-old on a three-hour car trip is pretty amazing.
*Lucy. Lucy did some pretty good sleeping in a room all to herself. We realized that this might be just what she needs and promptly moved Nate's bed into our room upon our return. (We'll see how this pans out. Nobody's having sex around here anyway.) Overall, she was a jovial, happy baby. Broken collarbone who? Guess who was sitting up in her crib for the first time and then crawling minutes later? My She Hulk.
* Balderdash. Is there really a better board game? And it's worth having to do all that packing just to be able to socialize after the kids go to bed.
* Sparklers. Watching Nate light his first sparkler was pure magic.

I know it won't always be like this. I know that as the kids grow into bigger kids they will only be interested in playing with one another. In summers to come they will be able to dress themselves and feed themselves. I will become less and less of a necessity. And while I cherish the thought, it also makes me sad.

Lucy turned a corner on Saturday. Her crawling is hilarious -- commando style writhing -- her butt's too heavy to lift off the ground. But she's throttling full speed towards toddlerhood now. I complain about all the time and energy they suck out of me, but I want to smell baby head for as long as I can. She's my last baby after all.

Nate, on the other hand, is in heavy Daddy mode these days. Mom's "not cool" and Daddy is a rock star. He still alternates between wanting to do things himself or suddenly deciding he needs me to do it for him. Shoes go on wrong feet and my suggestions are shrugged off with a casual, "Leave me alone Mom." (Which he learned from his father undermining me every time I suggest something. Grrr.) Whatever will I do when they don't need me as much?

That being said, I've been on child duty 24-7 since last Thursday and I am so done. Monday night, at one point, I even had both of them in bed with me. I hate it and at the same time, falling asleep sniffing downy tufts of hair with another hand on my sweet little boy's knee filled my heart with such satisfaction. At least I'm their favourite at 4 in the morning.