I think I can safely refer to ages 27 to 33 as my own personal current-event dark ages. Every so often I find myself looking at the actual “News” section of a newspaper and puzzling over India’s economic decline and the upcoming elections in some tentative new democracy for one, maximum two, minutes before my eyes start to glaze over and I start thinking about what to cook for dinner instead.

If it isn’t Dooce divorce gossip or a Ryan Gosling meme, pretty much, I haven’t heard about it. Every second conversation I have with husband begins with, “Did you hear what happened today?” Nope. Still not paying attention.

But I should! And I did. I read the New Yorker for kicks when I was a teenager and I lived and breathed politics and philosophy as an undergrad. Reading the newspaper cover to cover was one of my greatest weekend pleasures. I was informed.

But then I had kids and aside from the occasional job that requires me to read Gawker and watch The Daily Show I am completely out of touch. It is laughably pathetic, in fact, that I find it so hard to digest news if it isn’t seasoned with snark and satire. (And we’re not even going to touch on my attention span for actual literature today!)

I don’t want to blame the kids, though — even if it is entirely their fault, those ceaselessly demanding little buggers. My youngest kid is only nine months old, after all. It’d be a long time before I picked up a paper again if I waited until my kids were all old enough to just leave me alone for a solid hour or so. And that’s just too depressing.

But also. I know it’s really my fault. I do have time to read the real headlines at the very least. I might not have the intellectual and emotional capacity to process all the news on any given day, but I can always find ten minutes here and there to touch base with the broader world. I should be able to at least say, “Yes, I did hear that happened! Tell me more about it.”

So I’m going to try.

Has parenthood made you out of touch? What is it about procreation that turns our brain to mush, exactly? And will it get better?

Photo credit: NS Newsflash on Flickr.

Our very own Emma wrote a post over at msn.ca titled ‘Canadian Kids get an F in Activity.’ The title alone grabbed my attention, and the content and related links did too. She said that the schools are failing at doing DPA (Daily Physical Activity). She also said this:

A rousing 46 per cent of kids get three hours or less of physical activity per week, only 14 per cent play outside after school. Gone are the days of the neighbourhood hide and seek games, the group bike rides and hours spent skipping.

This honestly surprised me. My kids have P.E. a few times a week, and they do DPA every day. In the fall they would hike or walk, and right now every child (Kindergarten through grade 5) is running a kilometer a day. By June 15th, they will have run 40 KM, and if they ran/walked in this past weekend’s ActionFest 5K, they will receive a t-shirt boasting that they’ve “run a marathon” (42.2K is a marathon).

In addition, my kids are in soccer, my daughter is in dance, and all three of them spend at least an hour or two outside every night. On weekends, we spend even more time in the yard on the swings, the trampoline, riding bikes, or walking the dogs down to the creek.

I’d love to know how it pans out in your part of Canada. Are your kids active? Or do you think they fall into the stats that Emma quoted?

So here I am, a mother of three and both a producer and consumer of vast amounts of parenting literature, and I still find myself googling things like, “at what age will baby sleep through the night.” I’m pretty sure my recent search queries read something like this:

• when will baby sleep through night
• at what age can I stop the dream feed
• teething and sleep training
• getting baby to sleep
• somebody please help me
• so tired
• uppers, legal, Canada
• baby for sale

Because, holy shit, the whole baby sleep thing is insane. I know I shouldn’t be surprised at this point in the game, but I am. I am completely caught off guard and have forgotten everything. And, guys, my kids are not even that old! They’re only six and three … I should still have some shadowy memories of their infancy, right? I can only assume sleep deprivation is to blame.

Here’s my current deal. I nursed my first born to sleep every time for a full year, pretty much, and then had to lay on some pretty difficult sleep training to get him sleeping through the night in his own crib. My second baby was much more high strung and sensitive, so I had her on a pretty regimented sleep schedule right from the get go which actually made her my best sleeper. So with baby Mary, I thought I’d already learned how to avoid sleep issues. For months I refused to nurse her to sleep and always put her down awake. There were no issues.

I mean, of course, she always woke up around 4am at which point I’d just bring her into my bed for the rest of the night. I didn’t think that was an issue per se, though, until the hours between 4am and 7am became one big breastfeeding fest followed by, “Let’s party, it’s morning!”

And then there’s the nap situation, too. Since my oldest kid is in half-day afternoon kindergarten, both her morning AND her afternoon nap are interrupted on a daily basis and she has basically no proper nap routine at all. This would be a disaster if she weren’t the happiest, most easy going and adaptable baby on the face of the earth.

Then when she started solids I got into the habit of breastfeeding her in bed just before naps — even though I had not been nursing her down ever. I don’t know why, exactly, except that it seemed like a nice window for the feeding. I really like breastfeeding in bed and I thought we had this sleep thing down, so why not?

Add to that some serious bouts of teething, a baby who can now sit up and pull to standing in her crib and the advent of separation anxiety and suddenly … I wound up needing to nurse her down to sleep every single time just to get through the week. Naps, bedtime, all through the night; you name it, she had one of my boobs in her mouth.

My reluctance to serve as a human pacifier has nothing to do with breastfeeding (which I love) and everything to do with her sleep habits. I have three kids and I work from home with only very occasional child care. I need  to be able to count on solid daytime naps. I can’t spend hours putting children to bed at night. And when I finally crawl into bed myself at some godforsaken hour, hoping for a solid four hours of sleep, I can’t be waking to nurse every hour. I just can’t.

So tonight, I fed her in my bed and then tried to rouse her just a little when putting her down so she’d remember how to settle herself down. That kick started a 45-minute up and down screaming fest throughout which she expected me to just breastfeed her down again and I kept lying her down in her crib instead. I don’t know if I have the energy to see any sort of proper sleep training through right now. But I can’t see ever having any energy again if I don’t.

When did your kids start sleeping through the night? Did co-sleeping help or hurt? Do you have any magic tricks? Please share the magic!

If you read my personal site at all, then you know that we are dealing with some Crazy, with a side dish of Batshit Insane. I really don’t want to write about it here, or anywhere anymore. It has consumed our lives for the last week and a half and he can sit in his field and stare at my house while “playing” his electric guitar, but I refuse to let it drive me crazy. Instead, I’ve been distracting myself with YouTube videos.

You’ve seen Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal, right?

(It totally made me cry. I’m a complete and utter sap.)

The Harvard team doing the Call Me Maybe dance in the van is so awesome.

I can’t hear that song without picturing the video.

Have you seen the video of two kids in the car singing Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know?

So rad.

Do you have any favourite YouTube videos that you want to share? I’d love to watch them. It’s either that, or diving into a party bottle of wine. Wait! Maybe both.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“I dunno.”

“Movie?”

“Too late.”

“Gym?”

{shoots daggers}

“Bike ride?”

“Not in the mood.”

“Dinner?”

“Ok.”

“What should we eat?”

“I dunno.”

“Thai?”

“No.”

“Sushi?”

“Nah.”

“Burgers?”

And so it goes, week after week. We’ve dropped off the kids, we have the house and the evening to ourselves … and we have nothing to do. Or rather, we don’t feel like doing anything, but we know we should – know that we should take advantage of this weekly gift, this time to ourselves, this opportunity to connect, but sometimes, it’s just too much pressure.

Date night has become a bit of a chore.

I know! You want to shoot me just for saying that, but the truth is, we are spoiled, and we know it. But sometimes the pressure to have a great evening just because the kids are at my sister-in-law’s means that we will end up having anything but.

Part of the reason that we moved out to the cornfield was to be closer to a bigger support system, and that support system has turned out to be more than we could have hoped for. We are grateful, and when my husband’s brother and his wife told us, way back in September, that they want to take the girls once a week, from after-school time until bedtime, we were THRILLED. We had barely ever had a date night, let alone the promise of it being a regular, weekly event. For months, me and the huz would go out for dinner every Wednesday and then go to a movie, or do some errands at Home Depot, or go for a coffee or go for a walk. Sometimes we just stayed in (ahem). It was amazing! We reconnected! We talked without interruption! We got shit done!

But lately, there have been weeks when Wednesday has come around, and one of us just hasn’t felt like eating out, or seeing a movie or whatever. And we end up feeling tremendously guilty, as though we were squandering not only an opportunity to do something together, but also an obligation to take the time to strengthen our marriage.

And then we had to miss a week due to work schedules, and my sister-in-law texted me to tell me how much she was missing ‘her girls’ that night.

And then of course, I thought about it. This wasn’t about me and the huz getting a date night, this was about the kids spending time with their aunt, uncle and cousin – time that they will love now and cherish for the rest of their lives. This was about building traditions and relationships that will only benefit us all. This is about my girls having another trusted adult in their lives, an adult that they can call at 2am when they are teenagers and need somebody that is not their parent to help them out.

So this week, we’re going to drop the girls off, and then head to the driving range to shoot a bucket of balls. Or maybe we’ll just go for an ice cream and sit around. Or maybe we’ll stay home and I’ll fold laundry while the huz plays video games. It really doesn’t matter, because it’s not date night. It’s aunty and uncle night. It’s cousin night. It’s kids’ night out.

And I’m guessing that they haven’t yet run out of things to do on their night away from us.

The summer slide — it sounds way more fun than it is. That’s just because the first thing I think of is a Slip ‘N Slide. Of course, I don’t really have any childhood memories of an actual Slip ‘N Slide. What I do remember is a birthday party with some garbage bags taped together under a sprinkler for the kids while the adults sat around in the backyard drinking and chain smoking. Ah, nostalgia.

But I digress. The summer slide is actually what it’s called when kids forget some of what they’ve learned or otherwise regress over summer break. My oldest kid is just finishing his first year of French Immersion and will be going into Grade One in the fall. Should I be worried about this?

From what I can tell, reading to your kids and getting them to read on their own is the number one best thing they can do to keep from sliding over the summer. I assume some amount of reading in French would also be good for us. (Although, there’s only so much abuse I can take from my six year old over my horrible French accent.) And while we do read to the kids everyday, I have to admit that the supplementary French reading hasn’t really been happening over the school year.

We’re also up against deadlines for registering for summer swimming lessons and day camps and I’m not sure what to do. On the one hand, it could feel like a very long summer if we have NOTHING to do. On the other, oh my god does nothing ever sound good. *cough* I mean, won’t the daily scramble of getting three kids out the door and off to various activities make it even more difficult to find the time for extra reading?

Is it possible that doing less might actually be better for the kids? Better for the kids and easier and cheaper for me? We already have a t-ball practice and game every week and Irene’s doing a two-week long kindergarten readiness program. Maybe that’s more than enough.

Do you believe in lazy summers? Or do you like to use the time to engage in lots of different activities? Do you worry about the summer slide?

A few months ago I shared the story of how (I was judged by a home-birth proponent, and) I am a fan of giving birth in the hospital. I wrote about the birth in full detail, but here’s a clip that will set the stage for what I’m going to write about.

And push I did. And push, and push, and push. My baby was stuck and they called in the anesthetist and OR team in case of a C-section. As it was a Sunday, it took them time to get there and my Doctor told me to keep pushing. I pushed for THREE HOURS.

Then I was wheeled into the OR and given a spinal while the OR team looked on – they were sure I’d be having an emergency C-section. My Doctor is as natural as they come and wanted to try to get my baby out. She started with the suction cup. She’s about 5’2″ and 98 pounds and flew backwards. She brought out the salad tongs (forceps) and encouraged me to keep pushing. I was completely numb from the spinal and didn’t know if I was, but they all kept encouraging me.

He had severe bruising on the back of his head from hitting my pelvic bone for three hours, which then turned into jaundice. He had a 38 cm head (35 cm is considered LARGE), he was 9 lbs, 12 oz. (ON HIS DUE DATE) and he got his Dad’s broad shoulders. This meant that I had a 4th degree tear (don’t Google it) and they kept me in the hospital for three nights, which rarely happens these days. Each nurse that had to “check me out” winced when they did so. One of the scariest moments of my life was when I felt the first urge to do a bowel movement. YOU HAVE NO IDEA (or maybe you do).

The reason that I’m bringing this up again is because my good friend Leah wrote a post over at Mom 365 titled “Elective Inductions before 40 Weeks Can Reduce Infant Mortality.”

I’m not going to argue about mortality rates, but I will share my story.

After going through the labour and birth that I did with my firstborn, my Doctor suggested an early induction with my second child. Babies tend to get bigger in subsequent pregnancies, and we knew how well the first one went. Throw in the fact that labour tends to be faster, too, and if you take out the three hours of pushing, my labour was five hours long. We live a forty-minute drive from the hospital.

So, for my second pregnancy, I was induced. The day before, I saw my Doctor and she stripped my membranes. I was already 3 cm. dilated, and that got the party started. When we showed up at the hospital the next morning, we were put on the drip and before I knew it, it was time to push. I pushed once, and she said “ONE MORE PUSH AND THEY’RE OUT.” My thought: “DARNED IF SHE’S GOING TO BE WRONG.” I pushed for the second time, and experience the RING OF FIRE that I had heard about. It was the only time that I yelled during labour, because SERIOUSLY. My ENTIRE INSIDES came out of my VAGINA.

Sorry about that, Dad.

The scenario was pretty much identical for my third child, except for the “IT’S A GIRL!!!!!” exclamations from everyone both offline and online.

Were my early inductions because I wanted to plan the birth date? No. (Though it was nice to know.) Am I saying that early inductions are for you? No. (Unless you birth ten-pound babies and end up with a Frankenvulva.Then you may want to consider it.)

I am saying that early inductions were perfect for me. I didn’t have a ginormous baby stuck in my birth canal for many hours under stress, my labours went quickly, my babies were not battered and bruised, and there was no emergency surgery. My first delivery scared me, a lot, and if my second delivery hadn’t gone so well I may not have the baby girl that I have today.

I’m sure you all have thoughts on early inductions. Or inductions in general. I’d (truly) love to hear them.

When I was pregnant 12 years ago, my husband had a whole list of names that he loved. I had none. (This continues in our history of role reversal, see: cleaning) But I did know what I didn’t like.

And I didn’t like Jacob (too popular), Olivia (too popular) or Isabella. I like one-step off the mainstream names, which he absolutely overruled, since he sports an unusual name (sorry, can’t tell you) which he has been spelling for people since he could talk.

Turns out he was a decade early — because almost every name on  his list is on the top 2011 names.  And I’m so glad that we didn’t name our kids anything on the top ten list (sorry, again I don’t tell my kids names. If you read the comments on some of my MSN.ca blog, you will know why.) Though, I still think my husband won the name game and if it had been my choice they would be a little less classic.

Very recently, I have had a lot of experience of having a common name. As a kid, I was the only Emma I knew, I was constantly having to spell it for people. But now,  I can not go to any child-populated event without thinking someone is calling me, rebuking me or just saying Hi. Every party, class, playground has an Emma in it, sometimes more than one. And I don’t like it. I feel like a little bit of my specialness has worn off.

That said, I also have strong feelings about names that are too weird. I’m very against popular-nouns as names. Blue? Sunday? Apple? Ridiculous. Sparrow? Ocean? No thanks. I liked Jessica Simpson’s choice of Maxwell Drew, more than Rachel Uchitel ‘s (is she a celeb?) choice of Wyatt for a girl. But my favourite celeb baby names? Violet and Seraphina. Hands down — walks the fine line between unusual and ridiculous.

One of the thing that confuses me about this whole name business is why do I care? It’s not my business. I am unlikely to be naming another child, these  lists and discussions should just pass me by. But I love reading the top ten lists and you probably do too.

Naming your child is one of the most personal and important things that you will do. Your child’s name reflects on you, because you will be judged on it. But when it comes to naming your child, there is no winning. Unless you are my husband taking advantage of birth-induced exhaustion.

The Top Names of 2011 According to U.S. Social Security Department:

Boys’ Names

1. Jacob
2. Mason
3. William
4. Jayden
5. Noah
6. Michael
7. Aiden
8. Ethan
9. Alexander
10. Aiden
11. Daniel

Girls’ Names

1. Sophia
2. Isabella
3. Emma
4. Olivia
5. Ave
6. Emily
7. Abigail
8. Madison
9. Mia
10. Chloe

What are your kids’ names? How did you decide? What names do you loathe? Love?

img The Graphics Fairy LLC

Yeah, you heard me. I’m coming down against team snacks. I’m coming down hard.

First of all, when did this start? I can guarantee that my parents weren’t scrambling to pull together any team snacks during my childhood. This is something our generation came up with, isn’t it? No doubt it’s supposed to foster a sense of community and sharing. I’m sure some people even think it’s easier to bring a snack for everyone every few weeks than it is to bring a small snack for just their own kid every time. Maybe the kids look forward to the snack and it’s healthy and good for them and isn’t that all that matters? Huh? Isn’t it?!

No, man. It’s not.

The most important thing to consider should be that I am so over the food politics of parenting. Breastmilk! Formula! Breast! Bottle! Organic! Affordable! Made-from-scratch! Convenient! Shut up! And now I’m supposed to come up with a refreshing and wholesome and non-processed snack that will contain no major allergens and that all the kids will like. Fuck me.

The amount of anxiety I had picking up a watermelon last week was ridiculous. Because maybe it was too cold for watermelon and was it even enough? And also because I was trying to feed my kids a healthy, homemade dinner at the crack of 5pm in order to get their asses to the t-ball diamond in time and have you ever tried to carve up a watermelon and spoon feed a baby at the same time? While you’re also refilling milk glasses and breaking up fork fights? THIS is why I starve all day and then resort to snacking on junk late at night and can’t lose the baby weight. Stupid team snack.

So I call bullshit on team snack because it is fraught with politics and anxiety. But I also call bullshit because nobody really wants to do it, do they? Am I wrong? Speak up you team snack lovers! Nobody wants to deal with coming up with a snack on the way from work to the ball park. Nobody needs another thing to deal with in the after school scramble. And since I have two other children who get to sit through every game and practice, I still need to pack a snack on my off days.

Are you with me or against me, bad moms? And if you’re with me, can we please figure out a way to put an end to this charade of communal snacking bliss? Please!

My husband has jetted off to Calgary for yet another conference, and what better way to fill the void of his absence than by writing about my celebrity crushes? None. It’s either this, or diving face-first into a bag of Doritos (Sweet Chili heat is my flavour of choice). This option is ZERO calories. Win!

One thing that my husband and I often joke about is our “Top Five” list of celebrity crushes. We both know that we’ll never meet them, but refuse to laminate the list just in case. I find it amusing that his top ladies look NOTHING LIKE ME. (See: Rachel McAdams, Mila Kunis, Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, and Jessica Biel.)

My list, however, are dudes with similar qualities to my husband. Tall, well-built, great sense of humor, ability to sport the scruffy look, musical talent a bonus. Let’s begin.

#1. Ryan Gosling.

I’d like to be all hipster and tell you that I liked Ryan Gosling before Ryan Gosling was even born, and that could be true because (I’m five years older, and) he was born in my Grandma’s home town (Cornwall, Ontario), but it’s not true. I can tell you that he’s hot, and funny, and one of the best actors of this generation.

Did I mention that he’s hot? And funny? And talented?

I spent yesterday afternoon “researching” him for this article, and got lost in a YouTube rabbit hole of Ryan interviews. Go, watch, and I’m sorry for the hours you will lose. But not really. Thank me later.

He’s also a musician which, well. It doesn’t get any better than that. He also sings about ghosts and zombies. For real. I’ll stop now, before I get all fangirl and embarrass myself.

(Ryan. Call me. It’s totally kosher. Not that I’m Jewish, but you know what I mean. Oh, heck. I will die a slow and cheek-burning death should you ever read this.)

Ahem.

(He’s on the Twitter, for those of you who tweet.)

(I’m finished stalking him. For today.)

#2. John Krasinski

John’s not a new crush, and even made it on my Friday Eye Candy post over at Mama Pop three years ago.

Smart, funny, witty, and an amazing writer and actor. Have you seen Away We Go? No? GET THEE TO NETFLIX.

SRSLY.

(John isn’t on Twitter. Yeah, I don’t know either.)

#3 Bradley Cooper

Rugged good looks and hilarious roles aside, DUDE SPEAKS FRENCH.

And not “English Canada French.” He lived in France and learned the language.

*Slow exhale*

(He’s also not on Twitter. Celebrities, man.)

#4 Gerard Butler

I’d say more, but I’m over here fanning myself. BRB.

(I thought I found him on Twitter! But no. Sigh.)

#5. Craig Ferguson.

Said in my best Scottish accent: “The Hell?”

What can I say? We finally discovered Craig last fall and I think that my husband and I have equal crushes on him. Not in the “I want to dirty things to you” like the four above, but in the ‘I want to have you over for dinner and laugh until I (almost) pee.’

Also. My Mom’s second husband was Scottish, so. To hear Craig say my name would be (beyond) weird. And a little bit creepy.

(Craig is all about the Tweets and emails.)

Who are your celebrity crushes?