Tag Archives: parenting

Waspocalypse, Fucking People & Pussy Palace

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We did a family trip to Toronto this summer to take the kids to the zoo, amongst other things. The zoo was great. We were there for over 5 hours and only did the Africa section. So I guess we have to go back every year to get the whole place seen eventually. On the last day we were in Toronto, Alex had a work show to attend, which was at a conference centre by the waterfront. After playing in a lovely park (with live music!) all morning we went to pick up Alex. In the parking lot I handed my 3 year old a sandwich and then a fruit pouch to my little guy. This was a fucking mistake because we started getting swarmed by wasps immediately. So I grabbed the baby and took him into the front seat and breastfed him instead. Alex was trying to assist the older one with the sandwich and trying to get him into his car seat, but the wasps were on a fucking mission. After several attempts of getting him into his car seat while holding a sandwich, several wasps entered the car and with that, Alex grabbed the sandwich and launched it about 20 feet away where a million seagulls descended onto it. At this point I was exiting the car with the babe screaming because there are wasps in the car and what seemed like a thousand seagulls hurdling towards us. My oldest is also crying because Dad just ripped his sandwich away from him and threw it like a deli psychopath. And as we are all screaming and racing around the car trying to get the wasps out and the kids back in, I realize that I got out of the car while breastfeeding and the baby had since detached so I am also running around screaming with a tit out. Needless to say, I prayed one of my partner’s work colleagues had just casually gone to their car and maybe stopped to record the whole thing because I can only imagine how hysterical the scene was. We finally did get everyone in and assumed we got the wasps out and then spent the next 30 mins leaving Toronto while explaining to my traumatized crying 3 year old why his sandwich was confiscated so aggressively and why he couldn’t eat it. We often talk about Waspocalypse and if we are in a park and a snack comes out and if there is even a hint of a wasp, snacks and park are fucking done. Occasionally and randomly my oldest guy will just come out of the blue and say, remember that time Dad threw my sandwich? It has stuck with him. 

My littlest guy has some rough periods because he is is teething and the big teeth are coming in. One night he was really wound up and upset and I told my partner I was just going to take him up and put him in a bubble bath with some calm music and dim lights. My partner looked and me and said, he’s not a middle aged white woman dude, he’s a baby. Point taken, but it’s not like I offered him a glass of chilled pinot grigio. Anyways, he obvs has the spirit of a middle aged woman because the bubble bath and calm music did the trick.

So with the baby having terrible sleeps, so am I. I have returned to work which, you know, had to happen unfortunately. My first week back I was chatting with some people that I had vaguely known before going on mat leave and within 5 minutes I was talking about child birth, postpartum and then directly into peri-menopause. Like, Jesus Christ. I literally don’t know this person’s last name but we are in a conversation where she asked me if my delivery was vaginal, so here we are. I hear you lose your filter completely as you age but if I never had one I worry about how wild I may get in everyday conversations. I started on a new team at work, of all men. On my first day I introduced myself as a 41 year old with 2 babies, unmedicated ADHD sliding into peri-menopause, extremely sleep deprived and with a brain like a sieve and thought, maybe this was a bit much. 

Anyways, my partner now yells BINGO every time I talk about peri-menopause (even to complete strangers) to highlight that I now mention it daily because IT IS A BIG DEAL everyone. We must constantly bring up Cougar Puberty to everyone to normalize how fucking insane it is! I am so brain dead these days that my phone was next to a chicken breast I had just just cooked on the kitchen counter and I tapped the chicken breast to check the time and thought, whoops, I think it might be time to put me down. I think that’s me calling it. Just tried to open the screen of a chicken breast. Good night everybody, its been great. 

My littlest guy is really into music. He is always touching (ruining) my vinyl collection and cds. The only thing that calms him down is Abbey Road by the Beatles. This is his emotional support album. His bedtime lullaby is Golden Slumbers. Anyhoo, we were playing at the water table outside the other day and the giant air conditioning unit whirled on and he went over and stood next to it and started dancing and I was like that’s right little one, find the beat, even when it’s just an air conditioner. Find that beat.  

My 3 year old has a wild vocabulary. I know everyone says this about their kids but sometimes the things he says are wild. And his self awareness! Because he loves Thomas, when he gets REALLY mad at you, he will scream at you to go BACK TO YOUR SHED! Which is hard to hear without laughing hysterically because, like, what? Anyways, awhile back he was screaming this and then he stopped and looked at me and said, I know I am being ridiculous and then just walked away. I mean totally correct but like wow. He circled back a little while later to tell me “that he was not pleased with himself” and I wondered where this little old man came from. 

Last week my oldest walked into the back office and started to close the door and muttered “fucking people,” and I have never felt so on his wavelength than at that exact moment. Yeah man, fucking people. 

Last year I made a goal to learn how to make lasagna. It is now in my regular food rotation of the same boring foods I make. I made one this week and Alex said, you have really perfected your lasagna! And I told him that the key is twice the sauce and twice the meat and Alex replied, that totally summarizes how you’ve lived your life! I had to think about it for 3 seconds and then was like, wow, correct. Nailed it.

I am completely obsessed with the new Lily Allen album. I was showing Alex how many downloads Pussy Palace had and I was like, look! Almost 9000! And then I looked at it and was like, no that’s not right. It’s 900,000! And Alex goes, that is also incorrect. I put my phone down and announced I know longer knew how numbers worked. Is it 9 million? Alex nodded. Embarrassed by my total idiocy I just immediately started singing Pussy Palace loudly hoping the fun lyrics would take away from the fact I forgot what numbers were. We started watched Stranger Things and of course the Lily Allen album is about David Harbour (the cop in it) cheating on her. In the first episode he descends into an underground tunnel and I yelled out, Oh Look! David Harbour needing to investigate yet another hole! Christ!! 

Guyssss!!! I went to my first concert in one million years! Seriously, I went from COVID into hibernating with my babies and offering round the clock tit service to them. So I had not left the house at night in forever. I was so excited and scared and nervous frankly. What would the world be like without me in my pyjamas at 6:30 pm in the evening? Could I survive without a blanket and 1.5 litre water bottle by my side at that time of day? Would I have to pee every 20 mins at the concert like I do at home? Will I walk in and give myself the limit of 2 drinks and then drink 5? So much to think about! I was pleasantly surprised to see there was no line up because I am for sure at the point where my patience, nor my bladder, can deal with a line. I went straight to the bar and asked on a level of 1-10, how shitty was their white wine and the bartenders pained face said it all. I replied great, I will have a glass of that mixed with whatever juice mix is in that bottle back there. He said its pineapple lime or some shit and I said perfect. Whenever I reordered, he saw me coming and said – wine cocktail! That is correct sir and keep them coming! I was, as I always am, shocked at how my 90s rock idols have aged. I was there with one of my best friends Rob and my brother Ben. Rob said I Mother Earth looked and sounded liked someone’s Dad’s garage band who got out of the house for the night (harsh but not totally off). And Matthew Good, aww Matt. We go back so far. He was hunched a bit like Mr. Burns and moved like someone who was just tipping from adult hood into their elderly years. I had earlier in the night made a colourful comment about still wanting to have sexual relations with Matt Good and I was rethinking this statement aggressively. It might feel a bit too much like a trip to a nursing home. Anyways, regardless of the geriatric rock stars, I danced, head banged and sang at the top of my lungs for the entire show. Mind you, I did not jump because I did learn that my pelvic floor will no longer support me doing this. Both Rob and Ben said that my dancing and singing and being in my element was worth the price of admission, which was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. I took about 300 bathroom breaks, drank too many weird wine cocktails and had the best time ever. It took me over 3 days to recover but that’s just partying in your 40s babyyyyy. Fucking worth it every once in awhile!

“Why?” Parade, ADHD World Tours & Fucking!

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You learn a lot of new things when you become the mom of boys. Did you know there are YouTube channels dedicated to filming the snow plows removing snow in Ottawa? I bet you didn’t, because why would you! This is something that brings my 3 year old unrequited joy. And when the actual snow plow comes for our driveway, it is imperative we immediately run to a window or open the door to watch it. My favourite video we watched was some guy waiting for his bus and the snow plow comes and he starts filming and it he says something like, waiting for my bus and I score some snow plow content! What a life. It’s like storm chasing for snow plows and I am here for it. 

I was watching my older boy eat his dinner. In one of his divided plate compartments was yogourt. He took a bite and then put his hand in it and started rubbing it all over his face. This is usually when under my breath you hear me say, oh what the fuck. But I thought, hmmm I wonder if he is a genius and the probiotics in that yogourt are amazing for your skin. Should I be marketing this? Should I call Gwyneth Paltrow about this? And then he crumbled up some crackers and rubbed them in his eyes and I very out loudly said what the fuck and realized he was no secret genius and little people are super special. 

I turned 40. I AM 40! I knew I had become middle aged when U2 came on the radio and I did not change it immediately with aggression and actually listened to it. I am also very aware of my aging process when I seem to react to different kinds of lighting so intensely. I went into a Winners recently with my work wife and for 10 mins commented on how low the lighting was and someone needed to fix the lighting and make it more bright in there. I kept going until I convinced her the lighting was fucked. Like I am allergic to dim lighting all of a sudden. #aging

My older kid has become obsessed with Peppa Pig. It’s a touchy subject for me because it makes me feel like a parenting failure that he is just totally obsessed with a tv cartoon character. Anyways, this plays into the “he has only seen British tv” thing I have accidentally been following (Great British Bake Off, Thomas, Wallace & Gromit, Clarkson’s Farms). But it has got to the point where he calls gas, petrol and flashlights, torches. We went to swimming lessons last week and we brought his “swimming costume.” And he says “zeb-rah” with a British accent.

Other things my kids is picking up besides an accent is my swearing. We came back from the mailbox one day and my 3 yr old was holding his magazine he received and he asked me if Dad was home. I said no and he threw it on the ground and said loudly, “fucking!” I was horrified and then dramatically said darn and encouraged the use of darn. My partner was driving him to daycare last week and he asked him where the sun was. My partner replied that the sun was behind us and he responded with fucking! I was on my way to vote yesterday and I had both little ones in the car and someone cut me off and I slammed on the breaks and he yells fucking! from the back seat. So I am not sure what to do about this. I am trying to keep these words in check but honestly, it’s tricky. I told my partner I promise that I don’t swear that much around him and then I put him in the car and on the way to the craft store, someone stopped and turned with no signal and I called them a fucking tit rather loudly. Argh. What a fucking mom fail! Even though I am terribly proud he uses it correctly and with gusto. 

Oh and one day, we had gone to my parents for lunch and ate butter chicken. On the way home my partner belched, like a burp that comes from the depth of your soul and it hit me right in the face and I went, holy fuck, all I can smell is Indian food and from the back seat my kid yells – fucking hot! I was mortified but we both looked at each other and stifled laughter so hard. 

Maternity leave is a weird beast. I am soooo lucky to have as much time off as I do (#blesseddddd) but I also have a tendency to go a little crazy if I don’t leave the house for awhile. I have started doing these ADHD world tours. They sort of go like this – I will take a load of laundry into the bathroom/laundry room and start it and then realize there are clothes in the dryer. I will start putting this load away. I will walk into my closet and hang up a shirt and then realize I should sort out my pants drawer. As I am sorting out my pants drawer, I discover a drawer of clothes I forgot existed and add them to laundry. Only to realize that I have not finished putting away the clothes in the dryer. As I start to put away some towels I side eye that there is no backup toilet paper on the back of the toilet, so I run downstairs to get some and then I think I should add them to all the bathrooms. But I never get past the first bathroom because I realize the toilet very much needs to be cleaned so I start doing that. Then I realize I am hungry so I will start making a snack and clock that we are low on granola bars, so I pull out my phone and start a grocery delivery order that I will not finish and likely forget to put in. Anywayssssss, you see how this goes. And at this point, the laundry still needs to be put away, I have started an organizing project I have not finished, there is no toilet paper on one of the toilets and there is some food out on the counter with the intention of making a snack but it was not completed. Exhausting. I fantasize about the day that I can try out the meds to see what focus is like for a typical human. All of this I am doing btw with a 9 months old in a carrier or crawling around me. Weee its a motherfucking ADHD Mom marathon everyday.

I took my eldest to the dentist close to when he was 2. I had read online that often the dentist will not charge for the first appt because like wtf is actually getting done. Anyways, they gave my son a stuffed dinosaur with giant teeth and a giant, comedy sized toothbrush to practise brushing his teeth. My kid refused to open his mouth. The only reason they got to see his teeth at all was because he smiled and sad something. Anyways, after a good 10 mins of trying to get him to open his mouth while he brushed the dinosaur’s teeth I was charged $90. $90!! For my son to brush a dinosaur’s teeth! God it must be good to be a dentist. 

My oldest boy has just turned 3 and is in his WHY phase. Nothing makes you feel more fucking stupid than explaining basic shit to a 3 year old. 

Where is the sun Mom? 

Oh it is behind the clouds today. 

Why?

Because it is cloudy today and it is covering the sun.

Why?

….because sometimes it is cloudy out and you can’t see the sun.

Why?

Because something scientific is happening with the atmosphere, likely something I learned about in grade 7 and at this very moment, I cannot really get into the details of it because my brain is functioning at about 4% due to the fact I have given birth twice within three years, I am exhausted, I carry the mental load of our entire household and I have unmedicated ADHD. 

Why?

Holy fuck. Hey, want to play eye spy?

Yes.

And then it becomes even more irritating when these “why parades” happen with my partner and I walk in and he is like explaining barometric pressure or the scientific explanation of what clouds are and then it becomes very clear to me, my role in this family will be the whacky, fun, dumb mom.

I took my oldest to his first swimming lesson! I panicked for weeks about getting a bathing suit. I had a vague idea that there might be one in the house somewhere because when I don’t see clothes regularly, I forget they exist completely. I tried on a couple at the bay and even, very matter of factly, told the sales lady that the sizing was wrong with one of them because it didn’t fit me (haha delooloo about my size perhaps). Anyways, the day before his lessons I ransacked all the weird places my clothes are kept, like drawers. Who opens drawers??? If my clothes are not looking at me in the closet, they will not be seen. I found two black bathing suits. One was entirely showing my side boob and the other has a deep plunge with frills around it. I thought the deep plunge was likely better than my side/back rolls hanging out for the world to see. So I threw it in our swim bag and off we went. Like holy fuck, every other Mom there had a high neck, mormon inspired bathing suit and I looked like I was advertising my after hours services to all the Dad’s in the viewing gallery (Or Moms!). And on top of that, whenever my kid would get nervous he would grab onto my bathing suit which would pull it down further. And when I asked him to stop pulling my bathing suit down, that’s all he wanted to talk about for the rest of the swim lesson. Why? Why Mom? Why don’t you want your boobies showing? But why? I love your boobies! Thanks dude. 

Geriatric Lady Parts, Nathan Fillion & Fucking Stop Sign

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I had another baby! These geriatric lady parts pushed out another 9lb baby – weeee. Labour was wildly fast which, turns out, is the most fucking painful thing in the entire world. The drive to the hospital was just a series of half silent screams while thinking I was going to die. By the time I got to the hospital I was already fully dilated (is this tmi?) but still immediately asked for the drugs. After I was administered the good stuff, I was so relieved and elated to not feel like being stabbed with a million knives in my vagina, that I slid right into a comedy routine. I also recall basically giving a speech about how great drugs were. Like it was an eighties PSA for doing drugs versus not doing them. The epidural was really good. 

When I reacted poorly to another drug they gave me for blood loss after the birth, I was like yup, was having too much fun, what comes up must come down, captain comedown etc. The drug caused me to shake uncontrollably and I looked at the midwife and said I felt like I was going through meth withdrawals while having Parkinson’s – which I thought was a pretty clear and succinct thing to say in my state.

Whatever you have heard about second children is true. Like with my first one, everything was washed every time he touched it, we had organic blankets to put him down on, he was a fragile piece of glass we could break at anytime. With your second, for some reasons the fucks are gone completely. My friend came over and the baby was lying right on a dirty dish towel on the landing on the stairs. I have grabbed a teether off the floor and casually wiped it on my pants before giving it back to the baby without any type of sanitation protocol. He is a treated lovingly like a small sack of potatoes and not a crystal vase. He will be hearty.

The baby also resembles me far more than my toddler ever did. He has big eyes, rolls upon rolls on his arms and legs and a permanent double chin. If he is like his Mama this will likely stay with him for life.

My 40th birthday came and went. I had a one month old at home so my birthday excitement was doing shots of a tincture called “milk aplenty” to help produce breast milk. It is pure alcohol though. When I told my midwife I could literally feel the alcohol hit my system when I ingested it she told me she had never heard that. I said she had likely not treated a patient so well versed in drinking as I was. But what a different a few years makes. Shots until I forgot where I was, to boob milk tinctures. 

I get organic vegetables delivered to the house almost weekly (I know, I am a lot) and a couple weeks ago it arrived at the EXACT same time as our Burger’s Priest order which included milkshakes. I was very embarrassed and also #balance? 

I gave my toddler grapes and he asked if they were from the farmer’s market. Was my child asking if the fruit I just gave him was locally sourced? Omg, I could hear the whole foods in his voice. Yesterday I took him to get ice cream at a little shop near us and I told him to ask if it was artisanal haha. I am the worst. 

I wonder if my toddler will have a more colourful language than your average toddler. Any child that spends more than 10 seconds with me in a car is going to have a special vocabulary. The other day on the way to driving my little guy to daycare, two bikers flew in front of me from a side street and basically cut me off. I yelled out that they had a FUCKING STOP SIGN. And then my toddler also let them know they had a FUCKING STOP SIGN. Later that week he was playing with one of his toy busses and he was telling the driver to FIND THE GAS PEDAL. Another thing he learned from Mom driving. This past week I had to brake quickly because a car flew around a corner where we were trying to turn left and before I could say anything, my toddler yelled WHAT THE HECK and then went ARGHHH in an exact replica Mom/Marj Simpson grumble. Is it weird that my first reaction was, where had he ever heard what the heck? Because Mom generally says what the fuck.

Toddlers are 100% insane but also totally the best. Like it can go from amazing to garbage if you give them a fork instead of a spoon, or you say the wrong word, or moved a toy or smile at them at the wrong time. But in general, he is the sweetest boy. He was curled up with me yesterday and he said I love you so much. My heart melted and I told him I loved him so much. And then with the same level of depth and emotion he said, I love cinnamon so much and I was like ahhhhh ok wtf, am I at the same love level as cinnamon? WTF cinnamon. 

My older child had been home from daycare for what felt like months. We kept him home when the baby was born to mitigate the virus parade he traditionally brings home from daycare every year and then he broke his collarbone falling off a swing at the park. Our daycare lady warned us that because he had been off for so long, the transition back might be rough. She said especially day 3 of his return. On day 1 he was ok, a bit down but ok. Day 2 he was not pumped about it but he went. By day 3 when she opened the door, he started dancing and doing, what I could only describe as jazz hands, as he entered her house. I looked at her and went, yes, what a tough transition this is!

Our toddler is now potty trained. He has his potty in the middle of the living room. He was pooping one evening when my friend Katie arrived for a visit. When he was done he insisted on showing his poop to Katie and when I tried to explain she may not want to see it, the look of devastation was heart wrenching so I just encouraged a quick poop show-and-tell with my friend who played along while averting her eyes to anything but the shit. I told her that was a great pre dinner show which would really get us in the mood to decide what take out we wanted to order for dinner. Next week when he knew Katie was coming over and he was using the potty, he asked if he should wait before flushing it so he could show Katie. Bless.

I had watched a string of dark British crime series on tv so I decided to lighten it up with a type of tv show I would normally never watch. It was called Rookie, and it is a cheesy, feel good cop show starring Nathan Fillion. I became so obsessed with it that I started thinking about Nathan Fillion all the time. Eventually it spilled into my relationship. I asked my partner to put a new filter in the air filter downstairs. This took weeks and finally I get fed up and confronted my partner. He said, oh are you thinking Nathan Fillion would have already installed the filter?! And I was like omg Nathan Fillion would have a) known it was time to replace it b) ordered it himself and c) installed it the day it arrived!! Everyone knows that. Be more like Nathan Fillion already! Also this show is so lame and ridiculous. They showed a woman in a tub about to give birth and in the next scene she slowly comes out of the water holding a gun and a baby and shoots the intruder in her house and says “it’s a girl” – just hystericallll. I feel like I often notice insane stories about women’s pregnancies or births written into shows. It is so obviously written by men. Like they didn’t think to ask one woman about the accuracy of what they are writing. This is how births happen right, you can go over to your neighbours house while in labour and shoot bad guys? Right?

Facebook has started recommending friends to me of guys I dated 10 years ago. It is so random. I forgot this certain Serbian (I think?) gentlemen existed until Facebook was like, do you know this guy? I am like oh ya – that guy! I don’t recall anything about him but I remember having not one thing in common with him. My favourite “people you might know” suggestion was a guy I went on exactly 2 dates. The first date he explained his work to me and my alarm bells were going off but I think he thought I may not be smart enough to figure it out or that maybe I wouldn’t have a strong opinion about it. Then on the second date I prodded a little bit more and flat out asked him if he was Lord of War. He looked incredibly disheartened and I knew this was not the first time he had heard this reference. But I persisted and asked him about his life as a legit arms dealer. Anyways, that was the last date. I honestly think it was him that didn’t call back because I would have likely been interested in learning more about this. I always looked at dating as a giant social experiment and fodder for a book I would someday (not) write. I miss meeting random weirdos all the time, what a wild ride.

I’ve started having impromptu Nickelback and Creed sing alongs with my family rather randomly and I’m not ashamed of it. 

My Mom brain has returned with the force of a thousand confused squirrels. My sentences have become weird mad libs where you can just enter any word into the missing space because I have completely forgotten the word or what I’m even talking about. The owner of the Red Apron was telling me about this cookie recipe she always used for her friends kids and she explained it all to me and then my follow up question was – and then you bake them? Like I had never perhaps baked and/or eaten a cookie before in my life. What is this alien sweet treat you speak of. Jesus Christ.

My partner came home the other day and asked my toddler how his day was and he just looked around and said, everything is broccoli. So now when we are having bad or mediocre days, we just say that everything is broccoli.