Canada Moms Blog

Let's talk about sex, Mom

When I was in grade four, the brother of a girl in my class brought a condom to school. The news spread like wildfire – by recess, a large group of kids had surrounded his locker, hoping for a glimpse. Having no idea what a condom was, let alone what one looked like, my curiosity had been sufficiently piqued. When I got home from school that afternoon, I broached the subject with my mother.

After her coughing fit had subsided, she fished a piece of paper from a pile on the dining room table and drew her best dome. I’d learned in sex-ed class (led by my hairy-chested and very oversexed Phys-Ed teacher) that a condom was used during sexual intercourse – I just didn’t know why, or what one looked like. Thanks to my mother’s illustration, I thought for years that condoms were made of hard plastic, with finely pointed tips.

That drawing, those sex-ed classes and what was scrawled in the stalls of my school’s second-floor bathroom sums up the extent of my sexual education as a child. I entered my teen years armed with more knowledge about the dangers of sex than its pleasures; when it came to the act of lovemaking itself, I was fairly clueless. It’s not the experience I want for my own children, and when it comes to The Talk, I have no qualms about having an open, honest discussion with them, when the time is right.

And when that time comes along I’m pretty sure that this half of the parental unit will be leading the conversation, as my husband still blushes when I use anatomically correct terms with our kids and shuts down altogether at the thought of them becoming sexually active.

“You can take care of that stuff,” he once told me, which, according to this article, is a popular consensus among fathers. It seems that, along with making meals, scheduling appointments, cutting crusts off of sandwiches and, well, everything else, initiating The Talk winds up on many mothers’ To Do lists as well.

According to the article, a third of kids in the U.S. aged 15-17 have had sex. Among teens aged 15-19, 13 per cent of females and 15 per cent of males had sex before they’d turned 15. A Toronto-based survey revealed that among teens aged 13 to 18, one-third were sexually active. It’s not surprising, really – sex is everywhere these days, and kids aren’t stupid.

How I Made it Through Swine Flu

It started on a Thursday, with incredible body aches. The next day was more of the same, but with pregnancy-level exhaustion. Saturday night saw me huddled under a blanket on the couch with a low-grade fever and a mean case of the chills; by Sunday morning I was retching.

My husband, Dave, bundled me up and took me to the clinic that afternoon. I donned a mask at the reception desk, crumpled in to a chair in the corner of the waiting room and avoid eye contact with the other patients. I knew what I looked like – death smeared on toast – and I couldn’t blame the nervous, unsettled glances I was getting. It wasn’t that long before I was called in – twenty minutes, maybe – but it felt like an eternity. I was so sick, so uncomfortable, that it was all I could do to not lie down on the floor of that waiting room and weep.

After checking my ears, nose, throat and chest, the doctor declared everything clear and announced that I was presenting as though I had H1N1. Confident that’s what I had, he prescribed Tamiflu. We left the clinic and the rest is a blur; one minute I was shouting at Dave to pull over, I’m going to barf! and the next I was in bed, having a very vivid dream that CNN was covering the breaking news of Bill Cosby’s death.

(Author’s note: Bill Cosby is alive and well; it was just the high fever screwing with my head.)

Talk Snacky to Me

When I got pregnant with my daughter, I vowed that I’d make all of her baby food. I bought recipe books, a blender and a festive apron, and once she was old enough, I set about the kitchen making homemade applesauce and butternut squash. I was excited about making homemade baby food, and determined, too – I was going to rock this new young mother thing, and I was going to rock it GOOD.

But my darling little girl – the apple of my eye – wanted nothing to do with my homemade baby food. She spit it all over me, as though it was the worst thing she’d ever tasted, and I wiped my dignity my futile efforts off of my flushed cheeks and spooned her some Heinz Starter Peas, which, naturally, she gobbled up in no time flat.

And that’s the way it’s been with her – over the years she’s become quite a picky eater, one who, nine times out of ten, would rather eat processed foods, stuff from the freezer or out of a can, than something homemade. Like her father before her, my daughter’s idea of a fabulous meal would probably be heavy on the carbs – battered, deep-fried carbs, wrapped in more carbs – with a side of trans fats and a smattering of starch for good measure.

He ain't heavy...he's my brother

I’ve always been somewhat of a solitary person, which I can largely attribute to being an only child. Growing up, it was just me, my mother and Holly, our clumsy (but large-hearted) Old English Sheepdog. I had no brothers or sisters, and while I can’t say I found myself pining for a sibling, I did think that having one – a best friend by default, someone who’d be there to talk to, share with – would have been kind of cool.

That all changed when I was in grade four and my stepmother announced that she was going to have a baby. Suddenly, at age ten, I was going to be a sister. It was like one day I went to bed and the next day I woke up and had a brother.

A brother!

The summer of celebrity deaths

This summer’s been a bad one for celebrity deaths. It started off with acting legend David Carradine, who was found in a hotel room closet in Bangkok. Ed McMahon, another television great, was next, following a lengthy history of health problems. June 25^th saw Farrah Fawcett lose her long battle with cancer; later that afternoon Michael Jackson, arguably one of the most famous people on earth, died of what appears, at this point, to have been a sudden heart attack. Three days later, OxiClean pitchman Billy Mays died in his sleep from an apparent heart condition.

All of these deaths turned in to media events, Jackson’s especially. Web sites, blogs, tabloids and newspapers were brimming with stories, rumours, theories and scandalous details; clearly, death sells. In the midst of all the hoopla, however, just a few days after Canada Day, I learned of another incredible talent the world had lost. It was a death that hit me harder than any of the aforementioned ones did: Martin Streek, a radio celebrity in his own right, was found dead in his Toronto home on July 6, the result of an apparent suicide.

He was 45.

This land is your land, this land is our land...

I live in a very pretty part of Ontario, one that’s rife with history and charm. I was born and raised here; have lived in and around these parts for the majority of my life, and one of the things I love the most is the scenery. This area is beautiful, from lush gardens, winding trails and sprawling parks to historic buildings and landmarks. There’s a lot to do around here, and there’s lots to see, too.

And lately, all I see is garbage.

I cannot get over the amount of litter that I see when I am out and about. Everywhere I look I see a chip bag here, a Tim Horton’s cup there. Garbage strewn along the side of the road; a cigarette butt every thirty paces. I scan the playground before I let my kids have at it and almost always end up picking up someone’s discarded water bottle or an empty Freezie sleeve. There’s been a couch sitting behind a building at the top of my street for months and a few weeks ago, while driving along the highway, I caught sight of a huge pile of junk that had been dumped at the mouth of one of the many walking trails in my town.

That huge pile of junk is still sitting there. 

Hey, America! Hands off my Degrassi!

I grew up on television. Sesame Street, He-Man, The Smurfs and Inspector Gadget, I watched it all. I chose afternoon Kindergarten specifically so I could watch Scooby Doo in the morning and I wanted to be Jem when I grew up for a long, long time. It was the Canadian shows, however – The Littlest Hobo, The Polka Dot Door, Anne of Green Gables and Today’s Special, that still hold a special place in my heart.

But none of those shows compare to my absolute favourite Great White North original: Degrassi, from The Kids of Degrassi Street right up to The Next Generation.

Come back with my kids!

It’s a well-known fact that the vast majority of this fine nation’s population lives somewhere along the border between Canada and the United States, and I am no exception. I grew up very close to a small border town, one that, years later, I lived in with my husband and two children for several years.

When I was a kid, it was a pretty big deal to go ‘over the river’, slang for crossing the border. I always thought it was kind of cool, the notion that we could get in our car and drive to the United States of America in less than half an hour. I got a thrill out of going through Customs, of declaring that I was a Canadian citizen and hearing my mother state where we were going and the reason for our visit. There was something very exotic about crossing the border; things like using money that had pyramids and floating eyeballs on it and the way people pronounced avenue like aven-new struck me as pretty neat.

Translation 101

They told me they were going to impregnate my child with French language and culture and so far, they’ve delivered.

We moved two years ago, the spring before our daughter started Junior Kindergarten. We packed up and headed for a new city – the place where we wanted to kick back and lay down some roots, raise our kids and send them to school.

Before we moved, we made the decision to send Julia to an all-French school. Even though neither of us have a strong command of the language we both agreed that our children should, as French is one of Canada’s two official languages.  We both liked the idea of our kids being bilingual and we had one school earmarked – the same one my brothers went to. My children would be following in their uncles’ footsteps.

I was very excited about the whole thing, but also kind of nervous. I wondered how I’d help her with homework and communicate with her teachers, given the fact that the majority of my French is made up of phrases like Où est la salle de bain?, Parlez-vous français ? and Je suis un anana!

(Where is the bathroom?, Do you speak French? and I am a pineapple, respectively.)