Canada Moms Blog

Death Of a Celebrity

“Did you hear?”

Chris had just walked in with Bee after her soccer game, and I led him straight to the TV, where all he had to do was read the headline, plastered to the bottom of the screen.

‘No,’ he said as he assessed the picture.

I watched his face for a response, wondering if it would be his usual non-chalant, this-is-just-Hollywood-gossip indifference.

‘Wow,’ he said, still fairly deadpan.

I baited – ‘I’m totally shocked. Aren’t you? Aren’t you shocked? He had a heart attack. I think this is shocking.’

He looked at me, the way only a husband who knows all of his wife’s nooks and crannies, could.

‘You love this shit, don’t you?’

A Change Is Gonna Come

I’m restless.

I don’t know exactly why, but I am craving a change – something big, something exciting; something to look forward to. Maybe it’s because I am secretly dissatisfied with certain aspects of my life, but I think that, more likely, I have been used to a shake-up every few years and that point is shaking its way around the corner quickly.

If I look back, the evolution of my expectation is clear – 10 years ago, Chris and I hooked up. 9 years ago, I started the job I still have. 7 years ago, we got married. 5 years ago, we bought our house. 4 years ago, we had our first kid. Almost 2 years ago, we had another kid. It’s time. I’m due. But for what, exactly? And why can’t I just be happy with coasting along, all the pieces in place, enjoying what we’ve worked so hard for this past decade?

Who Ordered the Toddler Meltdown?

Last week, for the first time since becoming a parent, I had to take my child and leave a restaurant halfway through dinner. It was not a new restaurant, or a particularly fancy restaurant. It was a neighbourhood sushi joint that we had been to, as a family, several times before. They serve really good sushi. I mean, it looked good. I didn’t get to eat much.

I was too busy trying to convince my insane toddler to stop running/screaming/climbing/throwing food.

And if there’s a faster way to feel ineffectual as a parent than trying to gain control of your 18-month old during a dinner that is quickly turning gong-show, than I’m not sure what it is.

It's Our Anniversary?

At the beginning of the month, my husband and I celebrated our 7-year wedding anniversary.

It’s a funny thing, a wedding anniversary: on one hand, it is a source of pride, a reminder of our love and commitment, and a log of all the ups and downs we’ve been through together. On the other hand, it’s a fake number, negating the three years we had already spent together before getting hitched, as well as an undeniable measure of the fact that we are getting old.

It’s also something we forget. Every. Single. Year.

Legislating Lunch: Toronto School Board

In Toronto, the school board is considering a move to force students in middle school and junior high to stay for lunch, unless given explicit written permission from parents to leave the property.

 

The motive they are claiming to keep the kids for lunch?

 

 Lunch.

 

Apparently, the TDSB is so concerned with the nutritional viability of its student  body’s lunch choices, that it wants to take away the possibility that children are leaving the nutritional sanctity of the cafeteria for the high-caloric cess-pool that is the nearby fast-food joint.

 

Sorry, give me a minute to stop laughing.

 

I know, I know; you are asking, me – ME – quinoa pusher extraordinaire, why I think it is so farkin hilarious that the TDSB is putting our children’s health first for a change, when advocating for change.

 

Mommy Casual

For almost the entirety of my second maternity leave, my standard uniform was black yoga pants + cute t-shirt. Add or subtract socks, hoodie or mittens as the weather dictated, but that was pretty much it, every day. It was easy, it was comfortable and neither my newborn nor my toddler seemed to care that I looked like a major shlep. If my husband thought I could use a little glamming up, well, he was smart enough not to say so.