Don Mills Diva

Merry Christmas

2011-12-11T22:01:00.001-05:00

Wishing you peace, love and joy this holiday season!

Hear ye, hear ye

2011-08-24T01:33:00.006-04:00

It is ridiculously conceited of me, of course, to expect that there is anyone out there who still gives a fig what I'm up to these days.

But nonetheless I have some news that I can't resist shouting from the virtual rooftops.

After many, many years and much heartbreak and disappointment, we will be welcoming a new baby boy to our home at the end of the year.

I couldn't be more excited.

Fine. Thank you for asking:)

2010-07-10T01:43:00.001-04:00

California dreaming

2010-05-05T01:09:00.007-04:00

My boy races the waves at Santa Monica Pier.

Hauling in his catch from the pier.

Hanging at Big Bear.

Chillin' in Palm Springs.

Palm Springs

Big boy at Big Bear

Ready for a girls night out in Hollywood with

last year's Blogher roomie - all the way from Vancouver

Cuteness in Malibu mountains

Mandy in Malibu

Look at me Dad!

2010-03-28T16:43:00.002-04:00

Cool

2010-03-26T23:36:00.004-04:00

Gold medals in ice hockey aside, I think my favorite Olympic moment this year was watching snowboarder Shaun White win his gold medal for the halfpipe: dude is cool personified.

And balmy weather and career opportunity aside, I think my favorite part of living in Los Angeles is my proximity to Target: store is style epitomized.

So can you just imagine my joy at learning that Shaun White has a line of clothing for little boys available at Target?

Shaun White, Target and a little boy in need of new clothes: a perfect trifecta of my favorite things.

You can't handle the cool.

Hello from La-La Land

2010-03-15T00:18:00.006-04:00

Rob headed back to Toronto two weeks ago for work but Grandma has been here in his stead and we've been showing her around.

La Jolla Cove...

Venice (yes, Graham's obsession with balloons now officially spans the continent)...

And La Jolla Cave (conveniently located at La Jolla Cove)

And also, the very day after that last picture was taken?

My baby got a haircut and a great big boy miraculously appeared in his stead.

Crazy

2010-02-04T15:09:00.003-05:00

Did I mention Graham loves his preschool here in Los Angeles?

Well he does.

He loves it. LOVES it.

I think the fact that it indulges in "Crazy Hair Day" may be part of the reason.

Also? Apparently most preschool moms consider a colorful barrette or a silly ponytail to be a suitable celebration of said Crazy Hair Day.

Graham and I, we do not.

Well hello there

2010-01-25T22:37:00.007-05:00

We are fine.

We are more than fine; we are happy.

That's not to say all of the changes we have gone through the last few months haven't been difficult and scary and enormously stressful.

They have been all of those things. But, for the most part, it's all good.

I had forgotten how beautiful it is in Los Angeles.

I had forgotten that on previous visits I had felt such love and affinity for her wild canyons and roaring surf and towering palms.

I had forgotten, also, how very alive a career challenge can make me feel and how exploring a new city has always sent a thrill through my bones.

I still haven't quite figured out what I will do with this blog. I do know I will not, cannot, maintain it as a forum for discussion and rumination as I have in the past, but I am reluctant to sever a means for far-flung relatives (who haven't mastered Facebook) to keep in touch.

I have been humbled by your lovely words and well wishes over the last few months. Thanks again and please know that we are fine.

We are more than fine; we are happy.

Following my sun: the one where I say goodbye

2009-10-21T21:33:00.003-04:00

I know my recent absence from this space has been abrupt in light of the considerable effort I have spent the last two years convincing readers to invest in my life.

I know that radio silence for a month is perhaps even disrespectful, given the fact that I have often drank deeply, nay greedily, from your virtually never-ending well of support and goodwill.

But I hope you will forgive me when I explain that since I have last written, everything I used to assume about the way my life would play out has changed.

At the beginning of the summer I applied for what I can only describe as my dream job: a job that would catapult me several steps up a career ladder on which I already occupied a comfortable middle position. It is a job that represents an enormous challenge, a job that would move me into the inner circles of the film and television industry and allow me to advocate for the people and places I hold dearest in my heart.

I am not normally a humble sort, but suffice to say I firmly believed that my application was a long shot

But I got the job.

I got the job and in just a few days I will fly to Los Angeles, California on a nine-day business trip during which I will find a place for my family to live.

In mid November I will leave Don Mills and Canada and my life here behind to chase my dreams and ambitions in a place where success in my chosen industry represents the very pinnacle of success.

I have been offered what I believe is the opportunity of a lifetime folks and I'm going for it.

It will not be easy. It has not been easy. In the month since I accepted the offer I have plummeted down the rabbit hole into a vortex of details and lawyers and contracts and home listings and visas and export papers and anxiety and studying and disbelief and sleepless nights and joy and uncertainty and heartfelt late night talks.

I will pull up stakes and move south towards the end of November. Rob and Graham will await my return about a month later and after Christmas together we will return to Los Angeles as a family to build our lives anew in a sunny place, far removed we hope from the uncertainty and darkness of the past year.

It was on last New Year's Eve that we learned that cancer cells had been found in Rob's mother's stomach lining. That very day she was released from the hospital to our home where at midnight we raised a hopeful, if tentative glass to the possibilities that 2009 would bring.

We did not know then that we would mourn her death just 11 weeks later: we have learned since that, more often than not, both life and happiness are hard fought.

And so we are fighting. And we are moving. And I am moving on from this space which I believe is incompatible with my new job, at least in its present incarnation.

In just a few weeks I will be taking Don Mills Diva private and providing a password for friends and family who may be interested in photos and basic updates on how we're doing.

If you'd like to keep in touch feel free to request the password via e-mail and if you live in the Los Angeles area especially please touch base.

I will miss Don Mills Diva and I will miss all of you. It is thanks in no small part to my readers, supporters and even dissenters, that I was successful in obtaining this job. Even more than the guerrilla social media and Internet marketing skills I learned from the blogosphere, I learned confidence in the expression of my ideas and confidence in the importance of what I could contribute.

If there is one regret that I have with regards to my withdrawal from the blogging community it is the vague sense that I took so much more from it than I was able to give. During some of the darkest days of my life you gave me a renewed conviction in my personal power and there is no way I will ever be able to repay that.

Thank you each and every one for lifting me up and helping me soar.

Good bye and God bless you.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2009-09-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

There are some life-changing events afoot here at Casa DMD: I hope to be able to tell you what's happening in the next few days.

Thanks for your patience.

Schooled

2009-09-16T18:19:00.010-04:00

The call from Graham's school came on Monday, barely an hour after I had settled into a busy day at work.

"We have Graham here in the office," said the voice at the other end of the phone. "He's not feeling very well and I think you'll have to come and get him."

"What?! Is he okay?"

"I don't think it's serious," was the reply. "Here, I'll let you talk to him."

There was a shuffling noise and then, Graham's voice, so thin and tiny that I instantly felt my chest ache as my heart swelled and pushed against it.

"I throwed up in the trash can Mommy. Are you going to come and get me?"

I went and got him.

I took him home and tried to catch up on work e-mails while he lolled on the couch and watched cartoons. I fed him chicken noodle soup and buttered sourdough toast and anxiously inquired about his well-being.

He appeared to be perfectly fine.

He appeared better then fine, actually: he appeared buoyant and, in retrospect, perhaps just a little relieved. That evening I even took him to the park and let him run off an obvious surfeit of energy.

Yesterday morning I walked him into his classroom where we were greeted by his teacher.

"Graham seemed fine at home yesterday," I told her.

"Well I think it was probably just nerves, but he looks way better today than he has since he started," she said. "I mean, he's just seemed so anxious."

He has?

Oh.

I decided not to make a big deal of it: when I spoke to Graham after school yesterday he was happy as a clam and assured me he had a "great" day. I decided not to say anything about it at all.

And then this morning, as I buckled him into his car seat, a look of pure panic flashed across his dear, wee face.

"I'm gonna be sick Mommy, I'm gonna be sick," he wailed. "I need a sick bowl."

I handed him the car's waste paper basket and stood there for quite a while, rubbing his back and trying to reassure him.

"It's okay. It's normal. Everybody feels a little nervous sometimes. Even Mommy when she goes to work. All the other kids at school probably feel a little nervous too".

After a few minutes he seemed okay and off we went.

I walked him into his classroom again where the morning story was already in progress and apologized for our lateness.

"Graham had a little attack of nerves," I whispered to the teacher, as discreetly as possible.

She smiled kindly.

"Yes, that happened yesterday as well."

It did?

Oh.

And so it seems that perhaps my darling boy is not quite as confident as he seems or as I so proudly asserted he was following his first day of school last week.

And so it seems that I must come to grips with the painful realization that the child I thought I knew better than my own heart has anxieties and fears that, for whatever reason, he feels he must keep hidden from me.

The heart, it breaks.

Forty

2009-09-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

By all accounts today is significant, but it is especially so for me.

Today is my 40th birthday.

I celebrated with my family already last weekend and I enjoyed tons of well wishes and cake at work today, but despite all the exhortations from female friends who've already hit this milestone, I don't feel liberated. I have instead been unable to shake the melancholy that has plagued me since waking: it is nearly bedtime and I still feel unsettled.

I am happy enough, but not knowing if my family is complete leaves me unable to exhale and ill-equipped to make grand declarations about what the next year or the next decade will bring.

I cannot help remembering that last year I was so rushed on my birthday that I completely forget it until my sweet mother-in-law forced me to slow down for a birthday kiss: little did I know it would be the last one I would ever receive from her.

So what if I never expected my life would look like this at 40 - that's hardly surprising is it?

Just last weekend, between bites of an early birthday cake, my father quoted me an old saying that has rung in my ears all day today: "The secret to being happy in life is not getting what you want, but being happy with what you get."

And in the absence of grand declarations, that, I think, will be my mantra for the coming year and hopefully for all those that follow it.

Brave new world

2009-09-10T21:39:00.003-04:00

As much as I deep down might entertain the notion that I am somehow different and perhaps even a little special, I was today humbled to learn that I am but a walking cliche.

That is to say, oh yeah, I cried.

Graham didn't, but I did.

He was a little nervous, but not overly so. He needed only some gentle reassurance and a great big hug before confidently taking his teacher's hand and allowing himself to be lead right out of his babyhood without so much as a backwards glance.

And I lingered, at the classroom door's edge, uncertain and teary, straining to keep him in my line of sight as he settled into a circle of his peers at the front of the room. The teacher nodded, a kindly cue for me to take my leave and even as I cursed myself for being that mom, the tears started to spill.

There's a reason why cliches become cliches and it was more emotional than I ever imagined it would be to know, at that moment, that the person I would die to protect was beginning his journey into a world where the sum total of the affections of a hundred friendly faces he encounters won't equal a millionth of the passion his mother has for his well-being.

So I cried, just a little, and I wished with all my heart that his Oma could have seen him today, so handsome, so grown up and so confident.

So yeah, I am a walking cliche and I cried, because even though Graham returned home today, looking exactly the same as he did this morning, I already miss the boy he was when he left.

How can you tell if your kid's a spoiled brat?

2009-09-08T21:34:00.007-04:00

There are two ways of looking at the photos below: a selection of shots I took yesterday at the closing day of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in downtown Toronto.

If you just glance at the photos you will likely take in a scene that looks very similar to scenes I often present here, in pictures and in words: scenes of a carefree and charmed childhood enjoyed by a boy with two parents who, whatever their struggles, endeavor to create happy memories that will one day act as a bulwark against the complications and difficulties that adulthood inevitably brings.

Looks like a great day, right?

Wrong.

Yesterday was a terrible day.

Yesterday was a terrible day not because the CNE was hot and crowded and ludicrously expensive, though it was all of those things, but because it caused both Rob and I (though really mostly me) to question whether all the effort we put into creating memories with Graham is actually having the desired effect.

Let me be blunt: Graham wasn't just poorly behaved yesterday, he was insolent and just plain bratty.

Look a little closer at the photos.

Can you see the frustration and the exhaustion on our faces now?

We were exhausted - by almost constant, enduring temper tantrums that erupted over the most insignificant things the instant Graham's gratification was denied or delayed. We all know that keeping a three-and-a-half-year-old in line anywhere there are crowds and candy and rides and noise is bound to involve some major headaches, but normally the fleeting moments of joy and fun make it all worthwhile in the end.

Not yesterday.

I have never spent so much time correcting behaviour: talking, discussing, sternly warning and yes, yelling. I have never felt tears of frustration sting my eyes so many times in such a short time frame. The pain involved in yesterday's outing so far outweighed the pleasure that even a full 24 hours later, I still wish I had not bothered to go at all.

I still feel unsettled.

Graham's Labour Day weekend was a whirlwind. He celebrated his uncle's birthday with a big family dinner that went late on Thursday. On Friday we headed for the lake and spent Saturday and Sunday at Grandpa and Grandma's where Graham collected clams and played in the water with his cousins. He had a campfire and a sing-a-long and boat rides and barbecues. We came back to the city Sunday night for the express purpose of taking him to the CNE on Monday, our seventh wedding anniversary.

Was Graham overstimulated?

Maybe. Rob thinks so. He also thinks he was way overtired (true) and nervous about his first day of school on Thursday (possibly). He doesn't really think that Graham's behaviour, however awful, is completely out of the norm or that it indicates a problem with discipline or entitlement. He thinks I was right to be so hard on him, but that I should stop being so hard on myself.

But I'm not so sure.

Because I can't shake this nagging fear that my well-meaning attempts to make my son's childhood special have unwittingly contributed to the creation of a spoiled, entitled little monster.

First love

2009-09-01T18:40:00.002-04:00

Many, many moons ago, before Graham developed his fixation on a certain comely neighborhood girl, he had another obsession.

And this obsession. I think, may well outlast his affection for any girl he has met or has yet to meet. This obsession, after all, has persevered since the very beginning of his short life; from the very first time he started to become capable of making his wants and desires known.

Graham is a balloon-a-holic.

He has been since birth and still is, as evidenced by the picture below taken at the birthday party for the daughter of a dear bloggy friend last weekend.

Yes, during a birthday party featuring wonderful food, tons of kids and a magic show with doves, a rabbit and an iguana, my boy spent most the time fixated on his first, true love.

Sigh.

Oh well, odds are balloons will never throw him over for the captain of the football team, right?

Damn: the potty training edition

2009-08-28T07:44:00.008-04:00

DAMN!

It's days like today that I dearly wish I had not committed myself to refraining from the use of stronger profanity on this site (and in real life, though in real life I almost never quite manage to refrain from it).

But anyway...DAMN!

Just damn.

I've been trying to potty train Graham for almost a full year now. I beat myself up over my failure to do so way last January. Then I decided to just let it happen on its own. Then I tried to put my foot down again in May. That was a disaster that upset me more than I thought it possible to be upset over something like potty training. Then I resolved to just let it happen in its own time. And now?

We're back at square one.

Well, not square one. Let's just say square one as far as number two is concerned: as in, he won't, absolutely won't, poop in the potty.

It's been three days since he's gone at all. I know this can't go on. I know he WILL go eventually. But here's what you don't know...

The last time we got to this stage, he did go eventually. In his sleep. In his bed. And guess what? The humiliation, the discomfort, the sheer GROSSNESS of that experience was NOT enough to convince him that perhaps the potty was a better alternative.

Nope.

What happened was he seemed quite comfortable to get settled into a routine of just holding it all day, soiling his bed in the night and going happily about his normal routine in the morning.

So now he's not gone for three days and he's refusing to go on the potty. I know eventually he will go. And if I continue to refuse a pull up, I suspect he will go in his bedsheets tonight just like last time.

In fact, I suspect he will continue to soil his bed on a nightly basis as long as I refuse him a pull-up.

Graham has told me outright, over and over, that he will NOT poop on the potty.

Graham will be FOUR in November.

Graham is not frightened of the potty and no longer has any hang-ups about the potty: he is stubborn, plain and simple.

I have pleaded. I have cajoled. I have firmly instructed. I have shouted. I have talked softly. I have sobbed. I have tried rewards. I have tried letting him take the lead. I have tried making him stay bare. I have tried withholding privileges. I have tried EVERY single piece of advice I have been given.

I feel like a complete and abject failure

I never, ever thought that I would find myself in a power struggled of such epic proportion but now that I have, I feel that it's a power struggle from which I must, as the PARENT, emerge victorious. After all, what kind of message does it send to him if I don't follow through? If I repeatedly threaten consequences - no tv, no school, no birthday party tomorrow that's he' s been looking forward to all week - only to turn around and give in?

And yet, deep down, I don't believe, even for a second, that my following through on these consequences - and a million more I tearfully threw at him in the throes of frustration last night, consequences that will make us ALL miserable - will change his mind.

DAMN.

*******************************************
I almost forgot to say thanks for all the tips on locating the Curious George Balloon - thanks to Cheryl and Wendy I believe one was found in the shop at Sick Kids Hospital. Also, many thanks for suggesting we visit our old house to look for our missing kitty. We did just that AND put our former neighbors on lookout duty: I'll let you know if our dear Eddie turns up.

The showman

2009-08-26T21:52:00.008-04:00

Honestly!

Are there no lengths to which...

...a guy won't go...

...to impress a girl?

Just out of the frame of these pictures was the object of Graham's latest obsession. Earlier this evening he climbed to the top of this play structure and jumped off about...umm...76 times in a desperate bid to get her to pay attention to him.

Unfortunately for him, it didn't appear to work: she apparently doesn't notice or appreciate great bravery and superhuman athletic prowess in men.

Clearly, it's her loss.

On preferring sticks and stones

2009-08-24T07:59:00.006-04:00

Three weeks later, her words are still with me, roiling through my gut like pesky, intestinal gnats; not exactly painful but just galling and irritating enough to still sting in the quiet moments when I stop and take their measure: yes...they are still there.

Yes, they still hurt.

The words were part - just a very small part actually - of a conversation I had with an acquaintance, a dear friend of a very dear friend, I had met briefly a few times before. She is tall, blonde and pretty and works in independent film. She's thoughtful, interesting...cool.

We ran into each other at a girls gathering and were chatting about her upcoming wedding (to a member of Canadian music royalty no less) and comparing notes on parenting. She has a one-year-old and is stepmother to a 10-year-old and a 20-year-old.

She admitted with a grin that she was already thinking about a second child with her soon-to-be husband and I remarked that at least she had a few built-in babysitters. I didn't mention that I had been thinking about a second child for almost three years now, but I noticed and envied the ease and assurance with which she discussed her plans to add to her family.

I always notice that in other women: I always envy that.

And the conversation turned, as it so often does these days, to plastics and phthalates and chemicals and all this crap that has apparently crept into our children's food and toys and how it might be affecting them, particularly their future fertility.

Another woman remarked on a documentary she had seen about the decline of fertility, particularly male fertility, and how the phenomenon was something we had all seen around us. I talked about a book I was reading that deals with this very thing.

"Well, maybe it's not such a bad thing really," said the first woman, she of the one-year-old and the two step-children and the blithe plans for more. "I mean, the earth can only handle so many children, it's probably just the earth's way of self-correcting and saying 'no more'."

I didn't say anything: I didn't think I could say anything without bursting into tears, so I didn't say anything.

"I mean, at some point, something has to force people to really stop and look at why this is happening, about whether it's because we're overpopulating the earth, right?"

Right.

I think I may have just mumbled something or changed the subject, or at least someone did, and the conversation went on. I spent the rest of the evening not thinking about what she said while continuing to chat with her and thoroughly enjoying our conversation. The night ended when I sincerely wished her good weather for the upcoming wedding and headed for my car.

It wasn't until the way home that I let myself replay the conversation; until I let the hurt and the indignation wash over me.

I cried much of the way home actually, but more out of plain old frustration than any real anger, because I know her words were not meant to be hurtful. I'm quite certain, in fact, that she would have been mortified had I taken her aside and told her how I was feeling.

She probably would have been mortified if I sought to confirm that any plans she had to stop and really look at the issue of overpopulation were meant to be executed after her partner had fathered his fourth child.

She probably would have felt badly if I had gently pointed out that positively glowing with happiness and good fortune whilst that speculating that someone else's ailment might be the result of a necessary and perhaps even deserved Darwinian correction is, at the very least, staggeringly insensitive.

I probably should have told her how I felt, but I didn't.

Perhaps I would have if I had known that more than three weeks later her words would still be there, roiling around my gut, gnawing at me and making my eyes sting with tears when I watch my only child try and make a playmate out of our 12-year-old cat.

******************************************************

Do you live in the Toronto area? Do you know where one can purchase a Curious George balloon? If so please, please spill your secrets in the comment box - I have a dear friend who may have to renege on a serious promise to a toddler who's about to turn three. We can't have that, can we? Help!

We Miss Eddie

2009-08-21T12:15:00.003-04:00

So...umm...yeah...this sucks.

"We Miss Eddie. Eddie (Edgar) is our small, tabby (black and grey with
white tummy) cat who went missing when we moved into (our new address)
last week. If you have seen her, please call us!"

The poster's been up for more than three weeks now: no one's called us.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Eddie isn't coming home.

Despite the fact that these posters are up all over our new neighborhood. Despite the fact that Rob and I have spoken to countless new neighbors and ventured out separately many a night calling for her at the top of our lungs (and annoying said new neighbors).

Despite all these things, I think it's pretty safe to say Eddie isn't coming home: it's been exactly a month since she slipped out the back door three days after we moved in.

She (yes she's a girl) is a scrappy cat and a mouser, so she might well be managing just fine. But what keeps me awake nights is the knowledge that she won't be fine at all once the cold weather hits. And despite the fact that I've babied her for the past nine years much the same way I've babied her feline brother, she's always been skittish and fearful of people: I'm almost certain she would never let any well-meaning cat lover take her in, no matter how much she needed it.

I feel awful and Rob feels awful. Graham did feel awful but cheered up considerably after I marshaled my considerable acting ability to convince him that Eddie had just gone to live with another, perfectly wonderful family. (Does that count as a lie? Probably. Do I care? Nope - he just lost his Oma for chrissakes).

Sigh.

In other, more cheerful cat news, it's been almost exactly a year since so many of you weighed in on the tough choice I made with regards to our other feline friend. I'm happy to report that Horace is still living healthily with his facial lesion: he ain't as pretty as he used to be but at least he's present and accounted for.

Sweet Carolina

2009-08-18T22:02:00.005-04:00

Graham is in love.

Graham is in love with a much older "woman" who every evening rules the playground just steps from our new front door. Her name is Carolina and I'd guess she's about 13 years old.

Carolina is tall and beautiful with long, dark hair. She travels with a fawning entourage of younger girls who are noticeably less confident than she and quick to conform when she rolls her lovely eyes and tells them they're being "so immature!"

Graham noticed Carolina the very first time we visited the playground and he's remained in her thrall ever since.

"There she is Mommy! There's the girl! I'm gonna go play with her!" he shouts gleefully. Ever the picture of blissful optimism, he generally runs headlong in her direction only to be summarily dismissed.

"I think she's a little old for you to play with Graham," I cautioned him a few nights ago, after she once again rebuffed his enthusiastic invitation to join him on the slide with a giggle and a bemused pat on the head.

"But she has pretty long hair, Mommy," Graham countered. "I have to play with her. I JUST have to."

And so he tried - all night that night and all night again tonight when, upon arrival at the playground Graham pushed his way into her gaggle of pre-teen admirers and announced, "Hi there! You might remember me from last week at the playground."

I don't believe Carolina did.

No, she just smiled weakly and turned back to the task at hand: impressing her friends with her brand new cell phone.

Graham was undeterred and determinedly stepped into the circle again.

"Well, gee, that phone sure looks like it's got everything except the kitchen sink!"

Yes, he actually said that.

And this time he actually got some genuine laughs and oohs and ahhs from the girls before they moved on.

I can hardly bear to watch the way Graham puts himself out there these days, the way he cheerfully wears his tender heart on chubby sleeve.

I just watch with a strange mixture of apprehension and admiration, scarcely believing this is the same boy who only a year ago inspired me to worrying about his extreme shyness.

And it's funny; while I am thrilled that Graham seems to have well and truly outgrown his shyness, I never imagined that his new-found fearlessness would somehow terrify me in a way that his introversion never did.

Sheona

2009-08-14T08:15:00.011-04:00

When I hit my late 20s about 10 years ago, I figured I was pretty much "full up" as far as friends were concerned.

I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a ton of interesting people who I had known since practically forever and with whom I barely had time to keep up friendships. I was busy, really busy, and I just didn't have the time nor the inclination to invest in a brand new friendship.

And then I met her.

It was at a keg party of all places. An affair to which Rob - my then newish boyfriend - dragged me. We were surprised to arrive and find a house overflowing with hundreds of debacherous teenagers and when he got lost in the crowd I gravitated towards a woman closer to my own age who seemed similarly bemused at the attention we attracted from boys a decade our junior.

Sheona was a colleague of Rob's - a set script supervisor - and after a few drinks we let our inner cougars roar and formed a bond that I have come to cherish as one of the most important in my life.

Here's the thing about friends you meet later in life: they love you for the person you are, not the person you were. There is no comforting common history and no sense of obligation. There is simply chemistry and a sense that no matter how busy you are, you must fit this person into your life because they were sent to make your life better...to make you better.

And so Sheona was. And has.

Sheona has inspired me to dream and to dream big. She is a mother. She is a partner. She is a maker of beautiful, important films that celebrate life and loss. When I spend time with her I come away invigorated, renewed, filled with the sense of my own strength and possibility.

Sheona helped me through endless rewrites of my film script and sat proudly through its premiere. She celebrated with me when I married, mourned when I learned I might never have a child and celebrated again when Graham made his debut.

Her daughter's birthday party was the first one Graham ever attended and when I read the eulogy at my mother-in-law's wake it was her face in the crowd that steadied me and gave me the strength to continue.

Sheona moved 3,000 miles away from me last week and I don't know what I'm going to do without her.

She has been my rock these past several months. I have literally cried on her shoulder and she has fortified me with her wise words and the gentle, pragmatic way she has of looking at the world.

She and her actor partner are off for greener pastures on another coast and as much as I know we will always be friends, I am still bereft over the distance that geography will inevitably create between us.

Godspeed Sheona.

Thank you for being my friend and for making my life better. Thank you for teaching me that one's life can never be too full to accommodate a kindred spirit.

I'm working it!

2009-08-13T08:00:00.001-04:00

It's not that I've dropped off the face of the earth.

It's just that I'm swamped over here.

So swamped, in fact, that I barely had time to write this post for Work It Mom about how busy, working moms can maximize their time.

Check it out!

This just in: Don Mills not dead! Sinful Love lives!

2009-08-07T08:09:00.009-04:00

Back when I wrote my very first post here at Don Mills Diva, I pointed out how ironic it is that Rob and I made our home in Don Mills.

It is ironic because back in 1985 Rob was the lead singer in Sinful Love, a Ramones-style band that had a local hit song and video - Don Mills is Dead - which points out, in no uncertain terms, that our chosen neighborhood is lame.

So last night, as I searched YouTube to see if anyone had posted video of me reading at the BlogHer Community keynote (vanity, thy name is DMD), I realized that someone had posted a video of Don Mills is Dead.

The video and song below were written, directed and produced by Rob and his band mates in 1985 when the technology we take for granted today was years away from even existing. It achieved regular rotation on MuchMusic (Canada's MTV) and garnered Sinful Love a cult following in Toronto.

Rob was 18 years old.

Sure, his haircut leaves something to be desired. But you know what?

I couldn't be more proud.

(And also, the woman who opens the door and shakes a frying pan at the band? That's my late mother- in-law. Secretly, I think she was proud too)

Catch of the day

2009-08-04T21:44:00.001-04:00

"Many men go fishing all of their lives,
without knowing that it is not fish they are after".

How to be a permanent POS

2009-07-31T08:14:00.003-04:00

Remember when I declared in front of about 1,200 people that I'm not too concerned about what I say on-line?

Well, I meant it.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have concerns about other sites Graham will one-day read and see on-line.

That's a different story and that concerns me a lot.

That's why when Norton offered up a chance to test-drive their new on-line safety software for kids I asked my sister-in-law LeeAnne to check it out and report back. Her kids, aged 13 and just turned 17, are too old to need a constant POS (parent over shoulder) but too young (IMHO) to be given free rein with regards to on-line content.

My Graham is only three and a half so thus far his biggest on-line transgression is a stated preference for the Britney Spears version of Womanizer over this one.

I know, I know - I'm working on it.

In the meantime you can click over to Don Mills Diva's Recipes and Reviews, read about LeeAnne's experiences with OnlineFamily.Norton and download a free copy for yourself.

So maybe I'm not such a Diva after all...

2009-07-28T12:45:00.006-04:00

Can I be honest?

I think the reason I had an absolutely fantastic time at BlogHer this year was because I determined in advance that I was not going to try too hard to insert myself into the social whirl.

I made that determination partially because I have so much difficult stuff at home to deal with that I knew I absolutely couldn't arrive home depleted of energy, and partially because I did not want to be one of the relentlessly social bloggers who, perhaps inadvertently, contributed to a lot of hurt feelings over the weekend.

We've all heard it said a million times that the blogosphere, and in particular the mommy blogopshere, is like high school and I think there is a lot of truth to that. For a very long time now, I have felt uncomfortable with what I perceive to be the increasingly cliquish atmosphere of the community and the increasing striving to climb to the top of the heap, no matter the cost to people's feelings or the integrity of a community in which one should be able to express himself or herself without being attacked.

I did not go to BlogHer to increase my profile: I have become extremely ambivalent about whether I even want a profile. I did not want to dance on tables and BE SEEN! I wanted to meet and hang out with interesting people and in the real world, my world at least, the most interesting people are the ones who aren't trying too hard.

This is my opinion and just my opinion, of course, but I believe I had a better time because I stayed low key and approachable. I can't tell you how many times people came up to me at the conference almost sheepishly, because they were afraid I wouldn't have time for them.

I can't tell you how many times people seemed surprised that I was happy talk to them or how many stories I heard from people who felt embarrassed and hurt because they had approached "bigger" bloggers who blew them off and dashed away in search of more popular peeps.

I know this sort of thing is such a common complaint at BlogHer every year that it's now just generally accepted that feelings will be hurt: newbies are advised to just put themselves out there and be prepared to take their knocks and shut up about it.

But I still think it's a shame.

I don't begrudge the genuine social butterflies who went to BlogHer and danced on tables and partied til dawn, but none of that felt right for me this year. I'm dealing with a ton of heavy stuff in my real life right now and I needed to know that any connections I forged in Chicago were real and not the result of someone's misplaced notion that hanging out with me might possibly be "good for business".

If you and I met or hung out over the weekend, please know that I am very happy to have met you.

If we didn't meet or hang out and you wanted to, I'm truly sorry if my low-key approach prevented it: please know I'm always just an e-mail away.

Home again

2009-07-27T22:08:00.011-04:00

I did it!

I did it without being sick, peeing my pants or even, believe it or not, feeling very nervous at all.

I read this here post at the community keynote BlogHer 09 in Chicago on Friday night in front of about 1,400 people and it was incredible.

That's me folks. (Thanks for letting me use it Sassy Monkey)

I kept a low profile this year, hung with my roomie and met lots of lovely new people. I also took a million pictures and will post them all as soon as I can manage to find the memory card holder that is hidden amongst the millions of boxes that are still littered around this new house.

Stay tuned: I figure I'll get around to getting the pictures up about right about the time that you are darn sick and tired of looking about BlogHer pictures, 'cause I'm timely like that.

Wallflower

2009-07-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

Oh, how I wish I had made the time to buy a new dress for the BlogHer conference.

Or even to iron the ones I think I might want to wear and just threw in my suitcase.

I didn't.

I didn't have time: I am currently in the middle of moving from a 3,500 square foot house to a 2,300 square foot house. There is stuff everywhere. There are boxes stacked on boxes.

And I can't find anything.

So I didn't buy a new dress. Or iron or even try on the old ones I packed. I didn't have time to get a manicure or a pedicure and my eyebrows haven't been done in weeks.

My haircut is sloppy and my roots are showing. My legs are covered with bruises and I can't remember in which box I packed my earrings and necklaces.

I have been surviving on junky food and way too little sleep for days now and it shows in my skin. Yesterday, while unpacking the "bathroom" box the middle finger on my left hand got in a tussle with business end of a razor and emerged a bloody, pulpy mess.

I returned to the blogosphere for the first time in days last night and read, with a sinking stomach, approximately a million posts about the joyful preparations so many of the attendees are undertaking.

You are all going to be buffed and polished and absolutely beautiful, I just know it.

Me?

I'll be the one in the corner with the roots, the bloodshot eyes, the ill-fitting dress and the bandaged finger.

Save me a dance anyway?

Out with the old

2009-07-21T08:29:00.002-04:00

We are moved, though far from settled, into our new home.

There are still boxes everywhere and I have yet to find a million things, but last night Graham returned from a few days at my parents' house to a new room, complete with a big boy bed.

And even though there were a million things I should have done first, I spent hours setting up his room in hopes that its beauty would distract him from the fact that he had well and truly left his old home and his old crib (the crib I often thought would serve as his marital bed) behind.

The room and the bed are spectacular. (As soon as I figure out where my camera is packed I will post pictures to prove it, but in the meantime take my word for it: seriously cute.)

But that doesn't mean I wasn't worried about Graham's reaction. Graham is about as stubborn as your average mule and has been known to loudly declare (sometimes apropos of nothing) "You KNOW I don't like change mommy!"

So last night, just before I switched out the light, I cuddled with him on his new bed and indulged in some gentle reassurances.

"Isn't the new homestead nice Graham?" I asked.

"Yes mom," he replied.

"And don't you like your new room?"

"Yes mom."

"And I just love your new bed, don't you?"

"Yes mom."

"And don't you think-

"Mommy!"

"Uh...yes Graham?"

"Could you please go away now so I can get some sleep?'

Ahem.

Apparently Graham is going to be just fine, thankyouverymuch.

(I'm not so sure about mommy).

Moving

2009-07-16T08:13:00.010-04:00

Until yesterday, Graham had never expressed any actual sadness about the death of his beloved Oma.

For months now he has asked me repeatedly, sometimes dozens and dozens of times a day, "Are you sad about Oma?" but when I answer in a manner designed to engage him - "Yes I am, because I loved her and you did too didn't you?" - he has abruptly changed the subject or simply repeated the question over and over: "Are you sad about Oma? Are you sad about Oma? Are you sad about Oma?"

Attempts to break through often result in Graham chanting in an increasingly loud crescendo with slightly different wording: "Are you sad about Oma? Are you sad about Opa? Are you worried about Opa? Are you worried about Daddy?"

For four months now, louder and louder Graham has chanted, drowning out every attempt I make to respond to his questions in a thoughtful and loving manner.

It is the most gut-wrenching thing I have ever experienced.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday his babysitter, the woman he calls Omi and my late mother-in-law's best friend, said Graham approached her during play time with tears coursing down his cheeks.

"I can't help it Omi," he said. "I'm just so sad about Oma."

And so she took him onto her lap and together talked they talked about how much they loved her and how much they missed her and all the wonderful things they used to do together.

****************************

Last night, exactly four months after her death, I dreamed about my dearly, dearly-loved mother-in-law for the first time.

I dreamt I walked into our living room and was astonished to see her sitting at our little cherry wood table sipping a cappuccino. My shock and happiness at the sight of her was so overwhelming I can still feel it now, crowding the air from my chest and stinging behind my eyes. In my dream I fell to my knees and took her hands in mine as tears rolled down my face.

"I have missed you so so much," I told her, over and over again. But she just regarded me with a bemused smile, as if she were confused over my outpouring of emotion.

"I can't believe you are here," I cried. "Don't you know you died four months ago?"

But she just smiled and in my dream I rushed and found a calendar in order to impress upon her what a miracle her presence was. But when I found one, the dates on it had been replaced by a series of nonsensical letters and numbers. All the dates and clocks throughout the house looked the same way, I realized, and so finally I stopped rushing about and just sat with her, clasping her hands and crying in wonder while she smiled benignly.

And then I realized what she wanted.

"Don't go anywhere!" I told her.

I rushed into Graham's room where he was sleeping soundly. I lifted him up, rushed back into the living room and thrust him into her arms.

In my dream Graham's eyes fluttered open as he clasped his chubby arms around her neck.

"Oma!" he breathed, snuggling into her. And she kissed the top of his head.

******************************

I awoke with a start this morning and my mother-in-law's presence was so fresh and so real that I could only lie there and sob quietly for a few moments, as dawn's light and its harsh reality crept into my consciousness.

I did not want to get out of bed and leave her behind this morning but I had to: we are moving into our new house tomorrow and there is much to be done.

We are moving tomorrow from a house that she loved to a house that she will never see.

We are moving. Graham is growing. Our lives are changing.

And yet it seems that none of our forward motion is sufficient to fill the gaping hole her death has left behind.

Ennui

2009-07-14T07:42:00.003-04:00

Ennui is commonly defined as weariness and dissatisfaction resulting from inactivity or lack of interest.

And ennui is the best way to describe my current feelings about this space.

Okay...maybe not the best way, but certainly the easiest way and I am all about the easiest way right now.

At least part of the above description is spot on: weariness.

I am so very weary. I am weary of worrying about the health of my father-in-law and my husband, weary of worrying about the details of my new move and weary of worrying about the state of the industry in which both Rob and I both make our living.

I have a lot of ideas for posts which I am quite certain you would find entertaining and enjoyable, but I fall into bed every night exhausted and strangely gratified that I have at least managed to just feed and care for myself and my family for another day.

Writing and the community it has helped me find here has taken a back seat for now and, as wistful as I feel about that, I know that this ennui, or whatever you want to call it, is serving a purpose by forcing me to slow down and be good to myself.

I have recently made a serious commitment to eating better and exercising more regularly: here's hoping those changes will produce in me the energy to tell you all about that commitment, and a million other things, very soon.

Thanks for bearing with me folks.

Moment of zen

2009-07-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

Rob's dad is out of the hospital, but he's not out of the woods.

None of us are.

He is grieving, we are all grieving, struggling not just to put in the days and the weeks, but to possibly wrestle from them just a little bit of happiness and contentment.

It is tough going, but we are trying.

And in the spirit of focusing on the positive, I'd like to present, from last weekend at my parents' house, my own little moment of zen.

Michael and me

2009-07-02T07:58:00.009-04:00

I cried like a baby when I learned Michael Jackson was dead.

I was already teary-eyed when I heard the news. I had just posted this about my father-in-law's illness. I was missing my mother-in-law like crazy, lamenting a blow-up with Graham during which I lost my temper and terrified about how Rob was going to cope with the seemingly never-ending stress.

I had, in fact, taken to wondering when exactly being a grown-up started being so hard - so goddamned hard - when I heard that Peter Pan was dead.

"Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like pirates in adventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne..."

I worshipped - worshipped! - Michael Jackson during my formative years. I was 13 when Thriller was released and he swiftly became the object of my every puberty-obsessed dream and desire.

I memorized every dance move in Thriller. I fell out with my best friend and cousin over a crush we shared on a boy who styled himself as a Michael Jackson look-alike. (He preferred her.) My first boyfriend in the ninth grade brought me home a Michael Jackson calender from a family vacation and grudgingly sat for hours while another girlfriend and I stylized his face, hair and clothing in an attempt to Michael Jackson-ize him.

I loved Michael Jackson and his music just as passionately when I grew older. I was in my early 20s and driving Canada cross-country when I made an hour-long detour in rural Saskatchewan on a wintry afternoon in order to find a bar where I could watch the North American premier for the Black or White video on the big screen.

I do not know whether Michael was guilty or innocent of the spurious child abuse charges that were ultimately his undoing: nobody does. I suspect he was innocent. I know that he was a victim of abuse and exploitation in his own childhood and later in his adult years when his money and fame seemed a barrier to treatment for what was clearly a heartbreaking descent into mental illness.

I never knew Michael Jackson, personally - obviously - but I feel I understand somewhat the lure that precipitated that descent. I understand - God, do I understand - the desire to keep the responsibilities and the pain of adulthood at bay. I understand the appeal of spending millions of dollars, of going to fantastical lengths, to try and recapture the halcyon days of childhood when laughter and happiness and the world itself was light and simple and gloriously uncomplicated.

I met Rob at the door on the day Michael Jackson died.

Graham had long since screamed himself to sleep and Rob had been out walking in the rain trying to clear his head and rid his stomach of the gnawing pain that plagues him on and off and had returned with a vengeance at the news of his father's illness.

"Michael Jackson is dead," I sobbed, as he took me in his arms. "I can't stop crying. It's like my whole childhood just, just died."

I was crying for the man who never had a childhood of his own, but whose life and music made mine a million times better.

I was crying for the man who never wanted to grow up, and for myself, the girl who couldn't wait to leave childhood behind.

Because he was right and I was wrong and now he was dead and I would give anything to go back to those days when perfecting the moonwalk on my parents' linoleum floor was clearly the simplest way to ensure future success and happiness.

"Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly..."

Rest in peace Michael.

Enough

2009-06-30T20:54:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the silence, but I don't know what to say other than thank you, thank you, thank you for all your heartfelt comments and e-mails expressing your concern for my family.

My father-in-law remains in hospital with a bleeding ulcer and perhaps more. He is undergoing a battery of tests and right now we have more questions than answers.

We did stay in Quebec for a few days and attempted to enjoy our time with Graham. Despite the fact that he decided he didn't like poutine (!) he had the time of his life.

And that?

That was enough. That is enough right now.

How could it not be?

Uncle

2009-06-25T18:34:00.005-04:00

Rob's dad is in the hospital.

We aren't certain exactly what is wrong, but he isn't doing so well. Rob's brother and sister-in-law are with him. He is undergoing a series of tests and we are vacillating between whether to stay in Quebec and try to maintain some sense of normalcy for Graham or to make the almost eight-hour drive home the day after our arrival.

Needless to say Rob and I are finding it difficult to eat or sleep, let alone relax.

Universe, God, Karma, whoever or whatever you are?

Uncle.

Just uncle.

Zut alors! Mah nez est sore

2009-06-22T18:28:00.001-04:00

Sick.

Oh my Lord, the sick.

I know it's just a summer cold, but good God I am miserable.

I am poking out from behind my pile of used kleenex to say that we three - Rob, Graham and the congested diva - are headed to Mont Tremblant, Quebec tomorrow to celebrate St. Jean Baptiste Day and to enjoy some much needed family time.

Graham is ecstatic at the prospect of trying his first poutine: I am practising saying "Sorry I'm such a snotty mess" en Francais.

Will try to post pics.

Fear

2009-06-18T07:16:00.004-04:00

Despite my recent assertions to the contrary, had you been in the parking lot of my local supermarket last night you would most certainly have wondered if I were a bad mother.

You would most certainly have been shocked at the sight of me, right down in my child's face, screaming at him at the top of my lungs. You would most certainly have wondered why I continued to rant and rave long after the wee thing ducked his head away from me and long after tears started to flow down his ruddy cheeks.

You might not have realized that I was more frightened than I have ever been in my life.

Graham and I had stopped off at the supermarket on the way home to pick up the steaks for the barbecue and, as usual, I was pretty lax about letting him gleefully race up and down the aisles. This store is not the one where I saw my life flash before my eyes, it's a small, local store where I've been going for years and where everyone knows both of us by name.

Once into the busy parking lot however, as is my habit, I clutched Graham's hand tightly, pointed out all of the moving cars and sternly admonished him to stick close to my side.

Except he didn't.

Just a few steps out of the door he shrugged off my hand and ran ahead of me with a mischievous giggle.

"Graham!" I shouted. "Get back here right now, Graham!"

But he ignored me and continued running.

And then I saw the car.

The car was backing out of a parking spot at a rapid pace, the kind of jerky, jaunty pace a driver sets when they are absolutely certain there is absolutely nothing in their path.

Except there was.

I dropped my groceries and started to run, only vaguely aware that my screaming had a throaty, desperate quality that sounded unlike anything that had ever come out of my mouth before.

But Graham didn't stop.

There was a sickening screech of brakes just as the car's back bumper kissed Graham's back. As I ran towards him, the woman driver turned and caught my eye: the terror on her face was a perfect reflection of what I was feeling.

Oblivious, Graham turned to me, casually patted the car and giggled.

That's when I lost it.

I have never yelled at Graham like I yelled at him then. I yelled at him for a good five minutes in the parking lot and I yelled at him all the way home.

I gave my anger and my fear full license because I wanted Graham to remember it. I wanted to traumatize him, to cement in his head that bad things, very, very bad things happen when little boys run into the paths of speeding cars.

It wasn't until we pulled into our driveway that I lost steam. Graham was sobbing quietly and I was teary-eyed. I parked, released him from his car seat, brushed his tears away and hugged him to me tightly.

"Mommy was so scared Graham. You ran right into a car back there, right into a car."

He sniffed and buried his head further into my shoulder.

"You could have been killed Graham, do you understand that?"

More sniffles.

I brushed away my own tears.

"I love you more than anything in the world Graham. If something had happened to you back there Mommy's heart would be broken forever. Do you understand that?

Mommy's heart would be broken forever".

And we hugged then for a good long time before he raised his tear-stained face.

"I understand Mommy, I understand."

He doesn't, of course, but such is the nature of children and of childhood.

I can only pray my son, and my heart, survives it intact.

Confirmed

2009-06-16T07:56:00.002-04:00

I have a confession to make.

Over the last several weeks I have felt deeply ambivalent about my plans to attend the BlogHer conference in Chicago this year.

When I bought a ticket three months ago I had no idea that the dates would fall right in the middle of the time we are embarking on a major move into a new home. And that they would fall during a week when my husband expects to be back working 14-hour days. And that they would fall just before the week Graham's babysitter has booked holidays.

We have so much going on during that time period, that the last few weeks I started to think that the logistics of actually skipping out to Chicago in the middle of it all was just an impossible indulgence.

And so this past weekend, despite the fact that I had already made plans to car pool with a great bunch of Toronto bloggers and room with this lovely lady, I started to seriously think about just selling the ticket and taking care of the mountain of business I face here at home.

Then I got an e-mail yesterday...

So...umm...yeah...I guess I'm going.

And...umm...I guess I'm going to read a commentary post in front of about...gulp...1,000 people at the Community Keynote.

Hold me?

It's all good

2009-06-15T07:39:00.000-04:00

So busy have I been first defending myself and then pointedly ignoring the firestorm that this post helped ignite throughout the Interwebs, I have been lax in sharing some pretty special and decidedly less controversial happenings in my world.

Remember last year when I reflected on my nephew's coolness and, ahem, where he possibly could have gotten it?

Well, he did it again.

He and his band mates organized the second annual Toucapolooza June 6th, a concert event which this year raised $1,500 for Foster Parents Plan Canada. It was also announced at the show that his high school is designating an annual scholarship named after the event and awarded to a student who shows the same kind of community spirit my nephew has demonstrated.

Can you feel the pride?

He's almost 19 years old, off to college in the fall and ready to tackle all that life has to offer. I'm so excited for him I can barely stand it and I can't help but harken back to my salad days when I first fled the coop and started plotting world domination.

Back then this was hanging on my wall.

I was so proud of it.

After buying the poster at a retro video store, I hauled the frame out of a trash pile, painted it pink and proudly hung it on the wall of my first apartment, convinced I was never more avant garde and stylish.

Ack...not so much.

At any rate, we are starting to clear things out for our move and it was with just a tiny twinge of melancholy and regret, that last week I placed the above on our front lawn, free for the taking.

And it was with just a tiny twinge of pride that I noted that someone snapped it up in less than an hour.

But I didn't really have a lot of time to reflect on the past this past weekend, as Rob was away helping his brother open the cottage and I designated all day Saturday and Sunday as special mommy and Graham time, which basically meant we were on the go, doing all my boy's favorite things from morning to night both days.

There was a play-date with his new favorite girlfriend, a haircut (yes, he likes haircuts now, despite this), a trip to his favorite restaurant (which mommy has learned to love), a visit to a water park and to a farm.

There were several games of hide and seek, a trip to the playground beside the new house, a bath in mommy and daddy's jacuzzi tub, a kids meal on a hopping patio and at least two ice cream cones.

It was, in short, a perfect weekend for both of us and the perfect reminder for me that no matter who beats me up on line, my mothering and my life is all goooooood.

A Christmas gift in June

2009-06-10T07:28:00.003-04:00

Have you ever been preparing a full Christmas dinner at the beginning of June when you suddenly stumble across a product that fills you with holiday cheer?

Me neither.

But LeeAnne has and she's talking about it over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews. Check it out and while you're at it, follow her on Twitter so you can check out all her antics and activities as the food editor for Canadian Family magazine - http://twitter.com/LeeAnnecooks.

He ain't heavy

2009-06-08T21:46:00.010-04:00

My big brother is the quintessential nice guy.

He's the kinda guy who takes time out from his work day and brings his dump truck around in hopes that his beloved nephew might want a ride.

He's the kinda guy who tells you quite sincerely that he'd be more than happy to clear a day from his schedule, drive two hours to your house and help you move.

He's such a nice guy that he really, truly, thinks that Graham could have a bright future as a cake decorator.

Happy birthday Russell - we love you.

Why the bad mother trend is not good

2009-06-05T15:15:00.006-04:00

At the risk of appearing terribly outdated and completely out of step with what the media has apparently identified as the latest trend sweeping the mom crowd, I'd like to step up and declare something publicly.

I am a good mom.

Shocking isn't it?

I don't think so either, but having been inundated these last several months by the idea that the "in" thing is to declare yourself as a bad parent, the rebel in me just wanted to be clear about how I feel.

And, for the record, I feel really very irritated.

I'm irritated that once again the latest in "how moms feel" has been identified as a brand-new trend, ripe for the picking by a seemingly endless parade of "parenting issues" reporters who fill ever-expanding lifestyle sections of media outlets with breathless prattle about new maternal archetypes.

Blech.

There's the news that a compilation of the popular Bad Parent columns over at Babble will be made into a book, there's Ayelet Waldman's much-publicized new book, Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace and today there was this story in my local paper in which the director of the Association for Research on Mothering at York University (really!) cheerily quips " "If you're not a bad mom now, then you're a bad mom."

Double blech.

To be clear, I'm not taking issue with Her Bad Mother, the existence of which predates this latest frenzy to identify and make a buck off how moms are feeling . Catherine Connors is a real life friend and an astonishingly talented writer and I will consider any publicity she and her brilliant blog gets from this bandwagon to be the silver lining in a dark and sorry media cloud.

What I'm taking issue with is the endless push by the media to track, monitor and commodify trends among all segments in society and most especially the lucrative mommy crowd. It's big business. Trends create controversy, trends sell stories and books and trends provide jobs for pundits. Identifying trends also allow us to peg whole segments of society, take their measure, sum them up, add a big, red bow and walk away thinking we know how people tick.

But the thing is, we don't. All we've done is helped a very few people figure out how to sell something to other people who pride themselves on chasing trends. And when we participate in this we participate in the attempt to turn every damn thing into a "trend" and to marginalize the voices of people with experiences that differ from what's being reported.

Maybe I shouldn't care what the latest lifestyle headlines read, but damnit this is my history too that's being written and this bad mom trend is just another in a long line of trends that future generations will look back on and use to try and understand my experience and the experiences of my generation.

And it's not my experience. I don't think I'm alone in declaring that I'm not a bad mom and I have no desire to identify myself as a bad mom. In fact, I'm a very good mom and I'm proud of it. I have my struggles, like everyone, and while I might occasionally write about them in a humorous fashion, I'm not interested in endlessly tapping the vein of faux self deprecation for shock value or cheap laughs or sympathy.

Or to be trendy.

I understand that the "bad mom" trend is meant to be a backlash against the old "perfect mom" trend or what the above-linked Toronto Star article calls "impossible standards" for parents but guess what?

I think the so-called "widespread pressure" to be a perfect mom and the old trend of "impossible parenting standards" are nothing but made-up media constructs too. I've never felt societal pressure to be a perfect mom and no one has ever asked or, to my knowledge ever expected, me to conform to impossible standards. And also? I've asked around and none of my friends have either. Instead we all just vaguely recall the media prattling on about some kind of supermom phenomenon.

Whatever. I've written about this media beast before with regards to the much-ballyhooed and, in my opinion largely made-up, "mommy wars".

I think we owe it to the next generation of women to refuse to conform to the labels the media would stick on us, whether they say bad mom, supermom, helicopter mom, free-range mom or whatever damn mom sells papers and books next week.

When I was coming of age as a woman I read the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Those books helped me find my way and establish my identity by providing thought-provoking, reasoned, philosophical discourse about the lives and struggles of women who had gone before me.

It bothers me that the next generation of women may well take my measure by studying media trends and reading a compilation of Bad Parent columns.

Abandoned

2009-06-04T07:31:00.004-04:00

I am so mad at her right now.

I feel I have been abandoned in the country of lost male souls.

A country where every day my son asks plaintively where his Oma has gone. A country where my husband uses forced cheer and industry to try and cope as weeks of unemployment slip into months. A country where my father in law, who often dines with us, slips into red-eyed reverie while I try and make small talk and force him to take seconds.

I don't know how to be anything but angry. For weeks now each day on my commute home from work I have spoken aloud: asking her, begging her, to please help me look after the boys she has left behind. I have implored her for some kind of sign that she is looking out for us, for some kind of peace that will allow us to accept and move forward.

But she hasn't responded.

And so I have taken to wondering (and bitterly so, to my shame) if she couldn't have just fought a little harder to stay here on earth with us. I have taken to wondering why she doesn't visit us in our dreams and infuse us with a mythical sense of serenity or when she will orchestrate for us a stroke of luck so joyful and unexpected that we can't deny her hand in our fate.

But she hasn't responded.

I know my anger is illogical. Several weeks after her death Rob and his brother met with her doctor who revealed that her cancer was far rarer, swifter and more cruel than anyone first imagined: we know now that she never stood a chance.

But I still feel angry; if only because the anger is easier to bear than the fear that, without her, neither do we.

Paging Art Linkletter

2009-06-03T07:23:00.004-04:00

My kid may still refuse to poop on the potty.

My kid may still expect a parade in his honour four times daily when he deigns to pee on the potty.

But my kid?

Has manners, folks, manners in spades.

Just a few nights ago, after helping him on the potty and (as per usual) thanking him profusely for being such a big boy and letting mommy know when he had to go he responded thusly...

"No, no, no, NO SIRREEE! I say thank YOU mommy...for making sure that my penis was behind the pee guard."

Sniff.

And they say parenting is thankless.

Light my fire

2009-06-01T07:01:00.002-04:00

Honestly, I think I'm still blushing.

It's true that I did agree to test drive a Romantic Kit for adults from Eden Fantasys, but actually writing about the kit, and the use thereof, ended up being much harder than I thought it would be.

And no - that was NOT meant to be a pun!

Oh lordy, let's just say if you're interested in that...ahem...sort of thing, you can read all about it over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews.

Loves

2009-05-30T09:42:00.000-04:00

Wanna know why I loves the Internets?

I loves it because so many readers who know of my fears that Graham will forever be an only child, pointed out echoes of symbolism in my recent lonely tree lament that I didn't even see myself when I was writing it.

I loves it because within 24 hours of posting that lament for my lonely wedding tree I got e-mails from two cousins - both women I have always loved as sisters - reassuring me that the seedlings they had received at our wedding had been planted and were flourishing under their care.

One of them wrote: "Interestingly, or perhaps symbolically, the (tree) that lived is planted right beside the kids' wooden backyard climber (their choice location) and has been beaten with bats, tied up with skipping ropes, hugged mercilessly, jumped on from above, run over with sleds and crazy carpets, fed to guinea pigs, peed on by dogs and almost loved to death.

"It seems to thrive on the abuse of my four children as well as dozens more I have daycared in the past years. It was the perfect height for a preschooler, so every winter when we made bird feeders to hang up, or Christmas decorations, it was the perfect choice. If facing adversity builds strength and character, this tree shall have a long and happy life."

But not a lonely one, it seems. Not a lonely one.

My tree

2009-05-28T07:43:00.006-04:00

I am unabashedly sentimental about my tree.

It is a fir tree and it started as one of more than 125 seedlings, perhaps eight inches in length, that we handed out as gifts to our wedding guests in September 2002.

We planted three of the trees, just days after our wedding, in the backyard lawn of the house that we had recently purchased; the house where we were sure that our dreams would take root and blossom just as surely as our seedlings.

But two of the trees died almost immediately.

And the seedlings that my parents planted at their house promptly died too. And over the next few years as I asked other wedding guests about their trees I learned, to my dismay, that it seemed all our gifts - our symbols of growth and promise - had similarly failed to grow and take root.

It shouldn't have bothered me, but it did.

I started to inquire in earnest and before long I determined that the remaining tree in our backyard is indeed the lone survivor of our marriage celebration, the only tangible evidence of how far we have come and how much we have grown.

And so, I am just a little bit protective of my tree.

I have watched it for almost seven years now. I have despaired about its ability to withstand the sleet and the snow and the rain.

But I have marveled at the way just a day of sunshine has the power to make it seem new and how swiftly nature's warmth and kindness can bring forth tiny, hopeful buds.

But now that my tree is clearly growing big and strong and independently, I worry about how I can possibly keep it close as we move into a new home and a new chapter of our lives.

There is no room for my tree at the new house, but there is no way I can just leave it behind.

Because it is my only one.

And I am unabashedly sentimental about my tree.

I wish

2009-05-26T07:40:00.001-04:00

I wish I only wanted one child.

I wish I could be one of the thousands (millions?) of people who choose to have an only child and are perfectly happy and content with their decision.

Some days, days like today, I would give anything for the ability to be one of those people who can argue with conviction that having an only child is not just okay, it's preferable.

Only children:

Are greener.
Are less of an financial and emotional stress for parents.
May be more likely to flourish under their parents undivided attention.
Are easier to travel with and provide extraordinary experiences for.
Need not be spoiled if parented judiciously.
Need not be lonely in the embrace of a large, loving extended family.

Great points aren't they?

It would certainly be pretty hard to argue against them with someone who was equipped to debate with confidence and passion and heartfelt conviction.

God, I wish I were that person.

In good time

2009-05-23T13:00:00.002-04:00

Wow.

It's amazing how hearing about the misery of others can make you feel soooo much better.

That is to say, it has been an extraordinary relief to read your dozens and dozens of comments and e-mails reassuring me that Graham's abject refusal to fully potty train at the age of three and a years of age is neither unusual, nor a reason to fear that I will be changing diapers in perpetuity.

Thank all of you for generously sharing your wonderful stories and advice, tips and tricks.

And forgive me for deciding to ignore all of them.

That is to say, I've decided I'm going to just give it a rest.

I know my son. I know he has inherited the stubborn gene from both parents and I know that his refusal to poop on the potty is, more than anything, an opportunity to test that inheritance against us.

As I said last night to Rob, "It's impossible to win a battle of wills against someone who doesn't even have the the ability to reason logically."

And so yesterday, after he used the potty all day to pee, I gave Graham his pull-up as soon as he asked for it and advised him casually, "You can poop in the potty if you want, it's up to you."

"That's great mommy! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he shouted, with a smile so happy and so clearly full of relief that I felt a little guilty about the boot camp mentality I've been subjecting him to all week.

Because the thing is, seeing him smile like that? Makes me think that, if I had to, I could probably change his damn pull-ups forever.

Just don't tell him that, m'kay?

Wit's end

2009-05-22T00:01:00.003-04:00

It appears, God help me, that I am in exactly the situation that I swore I would never, ever be in.

After avoiding it for as long as I thought I could, it appears that potty training (or more accurately, the lack thereof) has become a battle royale in our home and that Rob and I are now locked into a power struggle with the most stubborn boy EVER.

It is ugly, my friends, it is really, really ugly.

Graham, aka the most stubborn boy EVER, has been wearing big-boy underwear all day, every day for weeks now. He lets us know when he needs to pee and does so in the potty several times a day.

But, with the exception of that one time when he was rewarded with a toy and a celebration so exuberant you would think he had graduated goddamn medical school, he will not use his potty for number two.

Graham is three and a half. He is ahead of the curve in every other aspect of physical, emotional and intellectual development. We have tried to be patient, but finally drew a line in the sand when for weeks he never wavered from his routine of using the potty all day to pee and then soiling his night-time pull-up withing minutes of putting it on every night.

He is more than capable of pooping in the potty.

But he won't.

He holds it. He clenches. He begs for his bedtime pull-up. He cries and rants and raves and sits on the potty, sometimes for over an hour at a time chanting "I want a pull up, I want a pull up, I want a pull up."

He has, the last two nights, spent nearly all evening on the potty and started to fall asleep there before being sent to bed, without a story and with a pull-up that was soiled within five minutes.

And while on the potty last night he looked me straight in the eye and with just the hint of a smirk threw down the gauntlet.

"Mommy, I am NEVER going to poop in the potty...NEVER."

And I have no idea how it came to this but, God help me, I believe him.

Help?

*Do you think it's possible that the folks at the Parent Bloggers Network can read my mind? I was actually writing this post when they sent out an e-mail asking bloggers to post about their potty-training trials as part of the Pull Ups brand's Potty Project, which is a series of webisdoes following six families attempting to say bye-bye to diapers.*

*Raising a kid can be hard on you AND your wallet. All the expenses can begin to drain your account faster than you can throw out dirty pull-ups. That's why there's tons of help for you online. Log on to find a variety of financial aid services, including payday loans waiting for you to choose from. Find it all, and save yourself some stress!*

The one where I look dumb in front of a Buddhist monk

2009-05-19T20:40:00.011-04:00

Just about five and a half years ago Rob and I were traveling in a remote, mountainous area of northern Thailand when we stumbled across a Buddhist monastery.

We were awestruck by its beauty and felt almost as though we had stumbled into a magical rabbit's hole as we explored it.

For the longest time, there didn't seem to be anyone around, but then we noticed the wispy figure of a young, yellow-robed monk watching us from a distance. We smiled and waved and he smiled back and continued to discreetly shadow us.

After a few minutes he approached us with a wide grin. "Come," he said. "Come with me."

And so we followed him through the series of temples to a little house tucked away inside the complex. We followed him all the way inside where he bowed deferentially, presented us to a wizened, old man and quickly disappeared.

We were uncertain what to do next, but the old monk smiled and gestured.

"Sit, sit with me."

And so we sat while he poured tea into plastic cups for us from a tall metal canister. It was clear that he encountered few visitors and was curious. He asked us questions in halting English: where were we from and what had brought us here? In no time, he smiled shyly and pulled out a book of faded newspaper clippings with photos of him with various dignitaries meant, I assume, to demonstrate to us that he was quite celebrated as a Buddhist leader.

We were completely charmed, but after several minutes of small talk silence overtook us and the visit started to feel a little awkward. Rob and I were unsure of what to do next. Should we leave? Would that offend him? Were we overstaying our welcome by not leaving?

He watched us carefully and then very deliberately pulled out an exquisitely-carved pill box and removed three large, white tablets. He put one in his mouth and handed one to Rob and one to me.

"For you," he said. "You must take this."

I looked at Rob and saw my own trepidation reflected on his face. Could we? Should we? What were the dangers inherent in ingesting some unknown pharmaceutical from some mystical religious leader in a remote region known for opium production? What were the implications of refusing and mortally offending the gentle and hospitable spiritual leader who had generously welcomed us into his home?

I gulped. Rob gulped.

Our eyes met as our new friend watched with interest. Finally Rob gave a slight nod and swallowed the pill with a shrug. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I did the same.

My stomach was in nervous knots but I sighed, steeled myself and forced a smile at my host.

And he smiled back and leaned in close.

"It's Vitamin C," he whispered. "It's very good for you...you don't look so good."

Indeed I didn't.

And why am I telling you this story?

Well, LeeAnne wrote a little something over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews that brought back some fond memories of Thailand for me. I ate some of the most delicious food I've ever tasted while traveling there and if anyone is capable of recreating those delicious memories, it's LeeAnne. Check it out!

How Martha and Quentin messed up the world

2009-05-15T17:16:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, on the short walk to my office from the car lot where I park, it struck me that both Quentin Tarantino and Martha Stewart are 21st century Frankenstein monsters.

Oh, they might look a little less frightful (at least Martha does anyway) but Quentin and Martha have a lot of common with the creature who was the embodiment of Dr. Frankenstein's wish: they are all examples of what happens when good intentions, talent and formidable intellect are pushed too far and go horribly awry.

The thought first occurred to me when I passed a movie theatre and saw several disturbing, full-coloured posters advertising the latest orgy of gruesome violence that passes for cinema these days.

Thanks Quentin, I thought with just a touch of guilt, Thanks a lot.

The twinge of guilt came because I have to admit that I loved Quentin when he first hit the big time with Reservoir Dogs. I mean, didn't we all?

At first I resisted watching the movie, even though everyone told me that cinema's new wonder kid had somehow managed to make violence palatable. But they were right: when I finally screwed up my courage, I was astonished to find myself chuckling and singing along to Stuck In The Middle With You during the torture scene.

Afterwards I felt exhilarated. The juxtaposition of violence and humor was like nothing I had ever seen before! It didn't bother me at all! Clearly I still had the edge required to absorb and enjoy cinema that pushed the envelope.

Honestly? I felt never more cool.

I wasn't alone. Quentin Tarantino became celebrated as the most original filmmaker in years and proceeded to churn out violent, blood-spattered movie after violent blood-spattered movie. And he soon spawned imitators who pushed the envelope even further, though increasingly without his signature rapid-fire and admittedly witty dialogue which cleverly referenced cinematic classics from around the world.

Fifteen years later, Quentin Tarantino's legacy is one I have lamented before in this space: a never-ending parade of torture-porn crap like Saw and Hostel (which he executive-produced) that is less about cinema and more about how much graphic human suffering (mostly young male) theatregoers can dare each other to sit through.

So what does this have to do with Martha?

Well, just past the movie theatre is old building which once apparently housed a shop specializing in upscale Italian fixtures for the home. It is vacant now in these recessionary times, but in an elegant and delicate script, outrageous slogans still beckon from the windows...

"It's not just a tile, it's your style" and "Your home is your style statement."

To which daily, I respectively and emphatically reply: "Yes it is, no it isn't" and "When the hell did everyone start thinking that homes were supposed to be style statements?"

Because they're not. Or rather they weren't before Martha got started on us.

Martha's revolution seemed just as innocuous to me as Quentin's when it first started. Many years ago when she first introduced the concept of gracious living to the great unwashed, I thought it was perfectly lovely. She was bringing into fashion the notion that people like me could and should take pride in their domestic activities.

Honestly? I felt never more posh.

But years later, I think that Martha Stewart and her legacy has become just as monstrous as Quentin Tarantino's.

Ultimately what Martha Stewart did was not about helping people live better, but about commodifying people's lifestyles in order to move product and make sales. She, and her increasingly craven imitators, helped usher in the belief that gracious entertaining was less about treating visitors with courtesy, respect and affable kindness, and more about designer cutlery and fancy table settings.

She, and a thousand others like her, made a fortune by fooling people into thinking they could quite literally buy style, rather than develop it on their own, and that class was personified by the exhibition of superior cooking and decorating skills as opposed to the exhibition of poise and dignity under difficult circumstances.

Before Martha Stewart rose to fame, the belief that class or style was related to the kind of floor coverings one purchased was merely an Achilles heel of the wealthy, chattering classes, not a widely held belief amongst the middle class. Today the economy and millions of North Americans are trying to recover from the misguided belief that style involves buying things you can't afford and impressing dinner guests with leased china.

I think society has created and fed more than a few monsters over the last several years and I'm sure it will create and feed many more in the years to come.

But the next time I make the trek from my office to my car I'm going to think about Martha Stewart and rampant consumerism and Quentin Tarantino and the proliferation of graphic human suffering as casual entertainment and I'm going to be careful what I wish for.

Always and forever

2009-05-13T20:43:00.007-04:00

Just to clarify for those of you who aren't familiar with Toronto and its neighborhoods.

Don Mills was a suburb many years ago - Canada's first ever suburb actually - but Toronto is now such a huge city that Don Mills is really just a large northern neighborhood inside the city proper, about a 15-minute drive from the downtown core.

My current home is in the northern reaches of Don Mills in an area that is poorly served by transit and full of large, lovely homes and manicured lawns. My new home is approximately five kilometres away, in the southern reaches of Don Mills on the transit line in an area that is undergoing an exciting urban revitalization.

That is to say...even after I move I will still be the Don Mills Diva.

I will always be the Don Mills Diva.

And also? In addition to rocking Canada's oldest suburb, I'm also pretty competent in the woods of Ontario's near north.

Don't believe me? Check out Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews where LeeAnne takes the foods I foraged a few weeks back (with a little help from my dad!) and whips up another of her amazing, original recipes.

Middle-aged crazy

2009-05-11T07:09:00.004-04:00

We sold our house on Saturday night.

And it was a relief, to say the least, because we had already finalized the purchase of a different house on Friday night.

But while that window of time in which we owned two homes was excruciating (as were the five(!) days of back and forth and failed offers and complications) the fact that we are changing houses is not the full story.

The full story is that we are changing our lives.

But let me start at the beginning.

I was a bit of a hippie chick when I first met Rob. I did not aspire to a big home or expensive things. I always envisioned my future self backpacking the world, tots in tow, based in a little city house surrounded by art and funky, creative friends.

And that's the way it went for a while.

We fixed up a downtown row house just steps from one of Toronto's main thoroughfares and we backpacked through Africa and South America. Even after we moved out of the city's core to our current huge home, with its huge yard and suburban trappings, we continued to travel and even wrote, produced and directed a short film that had some success on the festival circuit.

But that house, our house with all its attendant suburban trappings that at first we loved, started to become a monkey on our backs.

The thing about living in a big house with a big yard in a suburban neighborhood is that, as much as you might fight the transformation, you inevitably start to become the kind of person who lives in a big house with a big yard in a suburban neighborhood.

And I never felt like that person was me.

I am fiercely proud of my small-town roots. Anyone who frequents this space knows I am as comfortable tooling a float plane into my father's fishing camp as I am socializing at a film wrap party in the heart of downtown Toronto. Cities and small towns: I love 'em both.

But it's the in-between places I'm not crazy about.

A few months back when it became apparent to Rob and I that his beloved mother was very, very sick, it caused us to re-examine our priorities and our lives in short order.

And in short order we realized that we were working very, very hard and experiencing huge amounts of stress in order to maintain a home and a lifestyle that wasn't making either of us very happy.

My parents live on a lake and own a motorboat, a float plane and a rustic fly-in fishing camp. Rob's brother has a gorgeous rugged lakeside cottage. We have a ton of camping equipment that every weekend gathers dust in our basement while we rush to complete hours of yard work and home maintenance in a vain attempt to relax and start enjoying weekend activities before mid-day Saturday.

Our current house is affordable, but just barely so. It's certainly not affordable enough to allow Rob to relax and take in stride the inevitable ups and downs that come with being a freelancer in a volatile industry and it's enough of a stretch that we must remain ever-vigilant on the financial front.

Being ever-vigilant? Is tiring.

In addition to the loss of Rob's mom, during the past 17 months we have weathered the sudden and untimely deaths of three work colleagues and friends who were all family men under the age of 50 - two in separate, horrific, freak accidents and one by his own hand.

In the face of so much unexpected, random loss it became crystal clear to us that life is short and so too must be our time spent pursuing anything not directly related to the health and happiness of our family.

There is stress in life that you can control. There is stress in life that you can't control. We can, and we will, seize control of and excise from our lives, the things that stress us out.

This is our new home.

It is a large, new and (I think) chic townhouse.

It is within walking distance to great shops and restaurants and a short bus ride from the subway. It has a tiny, tiny backyard, but loads of style, a fabulous balcony and a great park with a wonderful children's playground just 100 metres away.

Our new home will allow us to live virtually stress-free financially with a modest mortgage, zero debt and a hefty chunk of cash in a savings account.

It will allow us to shut the door and walk away: to be weekend warriors, to possibly travel longer term and to pursue whatever opportunities life throws at us.

And we are working to create those opportunities.

Our ski chalet, an investment property that we rarely use, is next on the chopping block. We don't need more investments, we need more joy. When that property is sold we will look for a small house in the sunshiney place that we love and for where we are currently arranging work visas.

We don't yet know if me or Rob or Graham or all of us will be there three weeks a year or three months. We don't know if it will remain a vacation idyll or the place where we eventually make our home, but the weather and the strong arts and culture community there is extremely appealing.

And that is enough to compel us to dip our toes in the sand.

That is more than enough actually.

And I don't care if our ultimate plan to follow our hearts sounds middle-aged crazy. We are taking control of our lives and our joy before we lose the nerve or the ability to do so.

We are committed to being fully present for our son and to showing him (and hopefully a sibling that, until now, we have apparently been too stressed and too busy to produce) that there is more than one way to organize your life and that the world is an exciting place full of adventure and beauty.

And to showing him also that his parents, for all their foibles, still possess the courage to live their lives with passion.

Breathe

2009-05-10T14:09:00.012-04:00

I don't think I'm very different from most moms in that my expectations for Mother's Day are generally very modest.

And given that Rob lost his mom less than two months ago, it would have been particularly unseemly for me to insist on an over-the-top celebration this year.

So of course I didn't.

I prayed for only one thing and I asked for another and I am proud to report that both my requests were granted.

Yesterday, I let out a long, slow breath of anticipation and fear and uncertainty.

Today, after cuddling with my boy and watching cartoons in the early morning hours, I sent husband and son away, locked the bedroom door and availed myself of a sleep aid.

I am currently enjoying my "morning" coffee and don't expect them home for at least an hour.

And it feels good.

I am itching to write. From the very moment yesterday when it was confirmed that Rob and my plans are well and truly in motion, ideas for stories and posts have flooded my brain.

I'm going to tackle an explanation after I have enjoyed a family dinner here with Rob's dad and his brother's family (including the lovely LeeAnne).

I wish each and every one of you happiness and peace this Mother's Day.

Waiting to exhale

2009-05-07T07:39:00.002-04:00

More than once over the last few days I have caught myself holding my breath.

I am on tenterhooks.

I am on the verge of a major life change. I am marking time, counting the days (hours?) until I can let it all out here and resume the style of writing that has both sustained me and allowed me to amass quite a large number of readers who I fear are growing increasingly bored and frustrated by my paralysis.

I'm sorry.

I thank you for your patience and I thank my sister-in-law LeeAnne for continuing to write entertaining things for you to read over at my other joint. You can check out her latest by clicking here.

And the cute one's will shall be done

2009-05-05T07:59:00.007-04:00

It was so hilarious I had to tell my mom.

Before I jumped in the car and headed up north to the land of childhood memories and magical Grandmas and erstwhile unimagined tire swings I jumped on the phone and shared with my Mom Graham's assertion that she possessed superior engineering skills to my Dad.

And, of course, she told Dad all about it.

And damned if Grandpa didn't take Graham's unintentional slight just a tiny bit to heart and was therefore moved to rig up this contraption which was ready for use even before we completed the drive up there...

Someone might be just a little bit spoiled.

*******************************************************

What a family! Graham is spoiled and LeeAnne is a total SNOB! Seriously - see what I mean over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews...

The tire swing

2009-05-02T09:05:00.009-04:00

This morning as I rushed about, packing clothes for a much-needed weekend sojourn to my parents' lakeside house Graham chattered about what we would do there.

"And Grandpa is going to build me a tire swing so I can swing into the lake!"

Notwithstanding the temperature of the lake, I considered whether the lone tree at the water's edge would facilitate such an arrangement.

"Well, I'm not so sure Grandpa can do that..."

Graham was undeterred.

"Yes, he can. It's easy Mom...you just need a tire and some rope."

Honestly? I couldn't see it happening.

"Graham, sweetie, I'm just not sure Grandpa can do that."

There was a long pause.

"Oh. Okay Mommy."

There was another long pause and then a sudden, exuberant outburst.

"But Mommy it's okay that Grandpa is not smart enough to build a tire swing! We can get Grandma to do it!"

Would you trust this man to build a tire swing?

The bug

2009-04-30T07:32:00.004-04:00

Here's the insidious thing about grief: it's like a parasite.

At the very beginning grief is wrapped up in fear. Whether you admit it or not, grief is already there, skulking and sneaking around the edges of the unspeakable fear that you struggle to keep at bay from the moment you hear someone you love is ill.

And only when the unspeakable happens and grief rushes over you like a tsunami do you dare admit that you have been entertaining it for ages: that a small part of you started grieving at the very beginning, that all along you were taking grief's measure and testing yourself against it in small bits, preparing yourself for the day (the inevitable day?) when you would be forced to face it head on.

And when that day comes, you wonder if maybe it was a good thing that the grief was always there, living in the fear. Perhaps that means that a fair bit of grieving is already behind you. The absence of fear is a such a great relief, you think perhaps, on its own, the grief won't be so bad after all.

But then the grief takes up residence elsewhere. It burrows into your day-to-day trials, but even more troubling, it finds a home in your happiness.

It whispers in your ear: "You can't possibly cope with this without her help," and then, even more menacingly, "This is a lovely moment you managed to create for your son: how she would have loved this."

I am sleeping more than I have ever slept in my life and yet I awaken every morning in a fog of exhaustion. I am struggling to cope with the major life changes Rob and I set in motion before Henny's death and I am, I fear, an attractive host for grief.

I have so many stories to tell, but unlike last year, when blackness also descended upon our house, I cannot seem to summon the energy to tell them.

I want to make you laugh by writing a series of posts about Rob and my antics at the 2003 Emmy Awards (did you know Rob was nominated for an Emmy?) I want to make you misty with the tale of my extended family's recent return to Ireland, where my people are from. I want to try and justify why Graham is STILL sleeping in his crib. (I KNOW! Please don't judge!)

But I can't.

I have always been proud of my ability to write my way through anything and yet right now I can't.

I fear my energy, my confidence and - oh how I fear! - my coping mechanism is slowly, but surely being eaten away by grief.

Truth telling

2009-04-24T22:24:00.011-04:00

In view of the gross misinformation flying around the media and in the interest of both clarifying the truth and preserving the love and respect of all my American readers and friends, I am interrupting this blog and its musings on life and death and parenting to make a short political statement.

Check it:

Not one of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks entered the United States through Canada's borders.

None, nada, nil...nope.

Not one.

Are you listening Janet Napolitano and John McCain?

I hope so. Because when you start talking smack like that it wounds me.

It wounds us all.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

Sorry state of affairs

2009-04-23T08:00:00.006-04:00

Just for the record: Graham is sorry.

He's really, really sorry. He's sooo sorry 'bout that. Gee whiz, is he sorry!

Yesterday after spilling half his breakfast on the rug (through sheer carelessness) and receiving a tongue-lashing, Graham turned to me and delivered his apology in a drawl so affected I half expected him to deferentially tip a cowboy hat to reinforce his regret; "Well gosh, I truly am awful sorry 'bout that Mama."

And then he turned away and cheerfully resumed spilling his food.

But as cute as his apology might sound (and Lord help me it was cute), it was also supremely irritating.

It was irritating because ever since Graham has learned that the word sorry has power he has abused that power like a Third World despot.

It is frustrating to me, someone who prides herself on using words as precisely as possible to convey meaning, to see my son continually expropriate such an important word to aid and abet his willful misbehaviour.

I have explained to him over and over again that it's not enough to just say you're sorry; you have to be sorry.

"You have to mean what you say Graham. Do you understand?"

"Yes mom, I understand."

"That's good."

"And I'm soooo sorry...now can I have a treat?"

Sigh.

Apparently sincerity is in a sorry state around here these days.

What's missing in Cuba

2009-04-20T19:40:00.002-04:00

Oh...wait...did you think I was going to get all political on you?

Not a chance.

With everything that's going in my life these days, I'm not inclined to spend my energy stoking controversy on the Internet.

That LeeAnne though?

She really did just come back from Castro's homeland and she has something she wants to share with you...

Alright...okay...she doesn't get political either.

But she did post a great recipe for Cuban paella over on Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews.

And also? There's a picture of her in her bathing suit over there, so you should totally check it out...

The noive

2009-04-18T18:38:00.012-04:00

So it starts when Daddy says, "Hey, want me to help you colour?"

And it ends with the realization that when Daddy says "help you colour" he actually means "boggart all the crayons in a selfish attempt to regain my long-forgotten childhood".

Sheesh.

Scarred

2009-04-16T18:15:00.006-04:00

It was two days after Christmas and my mother-in-law had been in the hospital for only two days when Graham and I visited.

We enjoyed a coffee together in the cafeteria and while she lamented the crappy hospital food in her typically vigourous way Graham raced about the room like a banshee.

Every time he darted out of sight, I chased after him and chastised him. And chased after him and chastised him. Until one time I held back for half a minute to finish a thought and was rewarded with an ear-splitting scream just out of my line of sight.

I dashed around the corner and there Graham lay, sprawled on the floor beside a table surrounded by a gaggle of grey-haired ladies who materialized out of thin air to cluck and tsk. He was sobbing as if his heart would break and blood was gushing from a nasty gash across the bridge of his nose.

I picked him up, cooed in his ear and wiped the gash. Then I led him back to his Oma where Graham allowed himself to be further fussed over while we discussed whether I should investigate the possibility of getting the gash stitched.

Ultimately I decided not to bother and Oma concurred. It was a rather nasty gash but I wasn't sure you could even put stitches on the bridge of the nose and I figured it was unlikely to scar - his lovely skin was regenerating so quickly, surely it would disappear in just a few days.

But over the next few months I watched that angry mark on his nose with a curious mixture of fear, uncertainty and nostalgia.

When it was still prominent enough to solicit remarks at the beginning of February I felt a little sick about my failure to take it more seriously. I wondered if I had done Graham a great disservice (and ruined his chances of being a teen model!) by assuming that it would clear up and disappear in just a few days.

And yet, as the weeks went by and my mother-in-law got sicker I felt strangely comforted to see that the mark on Graham's nose was still prominent and appeared relatively fresh. I remembered clearly how energetic and vibrant she had been on the day that Graham fell and the physical reminder of that day - the mark - was a way of reassuring myself that she had been in good health just a few days ago and therefore would be in good health again in no time.

It didn't work out that way of course: she died a month ago.

And yesterday, as I peered at the bridge of Graham's nose as has been my daily habit for three and a half months, I realized that all evidence of the mark is now completely gone too.

And even though I should have felt relieved that the evidence of my neglect was finally gone, I didn't feel relief at all.

I felt unbearable sadness, rather, and an inexplicable wish that my son's scar was still on the outside where I could kiss it and comfort him just like his Oma had done just two days after Christmas.

Back to life

2009-04-14T21:56:00.001-04:00

We're home!

And believe it or not, we're home with a few hundred dollars in our pockets even after having somehow convinced Lady Luck to cover all our meals, drinks, souvenirs and gifts PLUS tickets to see Elton John at Caesar's Palace.

(Thank goodness for a husband with a will of steel who can actually walk away once he wins!)

The trip was a ton of fun and a welcome diversion, but shortly after we arrived home late at night on Easter Sunday - our first without mom - we realized that the real business of grieving has barely begun.

There are changes afoot in the DMD household - there are life-altering decisions being made and now that we are home there is no imminent glitzy and glamorous get-away to distract us from our current difficult and stressful reality.

My brain is buzzing. My head is full of things I am not yet ready to write about. And so for now I leave you with these...

Diva does Vegas

2009-04-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

Remember way back at the end of last summer during the Toronto Film Festival when Rob and I went to the fancy-schmancy charity fundraiser at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre?

No? Well we did.

And though I didn't mention it at the time, while we were there I bid on an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas in the silent auction and....gulp...won.

It was a steal. It was when Rob was in the middle of a job that was due to last for several more months. It was before his mom got sick and before the headlines were trumpeting financial collapse and economic ruin.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Taking off to Sin City is not something that would naturally occur to Rob or me right now, but the trip was paid for long ago and the deadline to actually take it was staring us in the face and so as you read this, I am likely playing the nickel slots at Caesar's Palace while sipping a margarita or stuffing my gullet at some all-you-can-eat-buffet.

Good times, my friends, good times.

My darling boy is safely ensconced at my parent's house and looking forward to taking that all-important first spring flight with his Grandpa this weekend. I'll be back here on Monday to recount my adventures.

Happy Easter to each and every one of you and thanks again for all your lovely friendship and support over these last few weeks. I'm gonna put a ten-spot on black just for you...

The Joy

2009-04-07T07:00:00.001-04:00

"The joy of a spirit is the measure of its power."

On friendship and death and birthday parties

2009-04-05T11:30:00.004-04:00

March 12th would have been Julie's 41st birthday.

I can scarcely believe that my beautiful, ethereal, sarcastic-as-hell partner-in-crime would be in her 40s had she not finally succumbed to the violence that chemotherapy wreaked on her body when she was a mere baby of two.

It seems impossible to me that last night was the 14th year in a row that I have been treated to a birthday dinner by her lovely and gracious parents. For nearly a decade and a half we have celebrated her birthday together and spent the evening talking about the joys and the pain of our respective past years.

We dined nearly a month late this year: our date was delayed as the result of another death, another loss, another type of grim milestone the likes of which life always, no matter how otherwise joyous, ultimately forces its survivors to mark and endure.

We had a wonderful time. We marvelled at how time has flown. We laughed about how they just knew the boy who accompanied us for dinner in 1996 was NOT the right boy for me and how they figured I would marry the one who tagged along in 1999: I did, last night was the 11th time that Rob has joined us.

For the first time in 14 years we went to a new restaurant. For the previous 13 years we had dined at Julie's favorite spot but in recent years the place has moved and seemed to decline to the point where her mother declared last night that she just felt Julie was admonishing us from above, "Come on you guys, live a little, mix it up a bit!"

And so we did. We raised a glass to Henny and to Julie and joked about how they had probably met in Heaven by now and how Julie, who surely owned the place, was showing her the ropes. We laughed in all seriousness about how alike they were and how much they would have loved each other had they met here on earth.

And as always I marveled at the grace and gentle humor with which these two people - these people I could not love more if they were related to me by blood - have managed to endure their loss. This year, that grace is especially poignant to me as Rob and Graham and I struggle to deal with our own loss.

Because the thing is, no matter how much we may all say that grief and loss cannot be quantified, surely you can agree that the death of a bright and vibrant young woman in her 20s is infinitely more tragic and galling than the loss of a woman who toasted her seventh decade in good health surrounded by her loving family.

And so I feel just a little renewed this morning. I feel that perhaps a little bit of Julie's parents' grace has rubbed off on me and that perhaps our enduring friendship on earth really has inspired the beginning of a beautiful one in Heaven.

The emergence of the Mean Mommy

2009-04-03T08:00:00.003-04:00

I never thought I could do it, but I have.

Over the last few months I have morphed into what I'm sure Graham would describe as a Mean Mommy.

Notwithstanding my attempts to be sensitive to Graham's confusion and sadness over the loss of his beloved Oma, my approach to discipline these days sounds less like "He's-so-cute-and-I-love-him-so-much-that-I-can't-stand-to-see-him-upset!" and more like "I've-had-enough-of-your nonsense-and-it-will-stop-this-instant-or-there-will-be-consequences!"

But it hasn't been easy.

For many years before I started my current job, I worked in a managerial position with a unionized work force. I hired people. I disciplined people for all manner of infractions. And, with little hesitation, if people didn't tow the line, I fired them.

For the most part, I was perfectly okay doing what I felt needed to be done. In fact, I was proud to develop a bit of a reputation as a hard-ass (not literally, alas) because I felt, and continue to feel, that supervising people in a fair, but forthright and firm manner eliminates stress and uncertainty for everyone. For many years before Graham was born I assumed I would naturally conduct myself the same way when it came to parenting.

Was I ever deluded!

I didn't know then that Graham could simply bat his eyelashes (his gorgeous, long eyelashes!) and I would go all loopy and goopy inside. I didn't realize that the mere thought of his discomfort would cause my own breathing to become shallow and my chest to tighten. I never imagined that hearing Graham cry would hurt me - physically hurt me - so much.

I even wrote an ode to the beautiful inevitability of my powerlessness.

But, truthfully, there was nothing beautiful or inevitable about it.

It took a ~~massive blowup~~ serious discussion with my husband a few months ago to make me realize not everyone in the world is forever going to find Graham's incorrigible antics as adorable as I do.

"I do NOT want to be those people that no one wants to be around because their kid is a brat Kel!" he ~~screamed~~ said. "Graham is a great kid but I am NOT going to let him become THAT kid - it's not fair to him."

And just like that the light bulb went on.

I realized almost instantly that Rob was right. I realized that this parenting gig isn't just fun and games: it's about the business of molding and shaping and teaching a new person how to be kind and respectful. I had a flash of insight into just how easy it would be for me - how easy it would be for any of us - to suddenly wake up and realize my kid was THAT kid.

It scared the crap out of me.

No one plans to end up with a bratty, out of control kid. No one expects that they will. But the truth is, it doesn't take long for small decisions and daily acquiescence to produce one .

And so I have changed my ways.

We have rules now and I articulate them firmly and clearly. As much as possible, I ignore the tightness in my chest and my rising blood pressure and I DO NOT give in. I have stopped tolerating tantrums and I do a minimum of negotiating. If Graham wants to watch just one more video on Youtube in the evening, I say yes when he agrees that he will only get two bedtime stories instead of three. When he inevitably throws himself on the ground begging for the third story, he is swiftly dispatched to bed.

Bedtime used to be a 45-minute affair, but not since I articulated the rule. The rule is that Graham's door is left open only on the strict condition that he not repeatedly whine, call out or otherwise cajole me to come back into the room after tucking him in. If he persists, he gets a warning (okay, sometimes two) before the door is shut for the night, screaming be damned.

And you know what?

It works. Not only is Graham better behaved, he seems happier.

Every night for the last few weeks, just after I have given him his last kiss goodnight Graham has looked up at me with the same soft smile on his face and asked me the same thing.

"And mommy, before you go, what is the rule again?"

"The rule is that you need to go to sleep and not keep calling for mommy or else mommy will come back and shut the door. Do you understand?"

And every night he smiles and says.

"Yes mommy, I understand. Goodnight"

And he goes to sleep, secure in the knowledge, I like to believe, that mommy, however mean, knows best.

Apparently kids DO like rules.

If only someone had told me sooner. Or rather, if only I had listened.

Blessed

2009-04-01T22:01:00.006-04:00

I was getting Graham ready for bed tonight when a thought popped unbidden into my mind.

I wonder if his Oma will drop by tonight to say goodnight to him?

And then it hit like a punch in the stomach: No, she won't. She won't drop by tonight or ever again.

But instead of breaking down yet again, I bit my lip and started to do what I have resolved to do from now on every time that the darkness threatens to descend upon me.

I counted my blessings.

I am blessed with a strong marriage and a husband who adores me.
I am blessed with a well-paid, challenging job that I enjoy.
I am blessed with wonderful family and friends.
I am blessed with readers who care enough about my well-being to leave heartfelt comments and send lovely, thoughtful e-mails.
I am blessed to know a love I never dreamed possible.

I am blessed.

Are you there God? It's me, Kelly

2009-03-30T08:00:00.008-04:00

"I'd like to talk to Graham about God and Heaven," Graham's babysitter said last week. She is a dear family friend and was my late mother-in-law's best friend.

"That is, if you don't mind."

And I don't mind, exactly. But neither did I know exactly how to respond.

"He keeps asking me about his Oma," she continued. "I told him she was in Heaven with God but he's asking me what that means...I think it might be a comfort to him."

A comfort to him! What kind of mother denies her child comfort - any kind of comfort - when he is dealing with the loss of someone so dear to him?

"Well, sure, of course you can, I don't mind," I stuttered. "I...I've been meaning to talk to him about...that stuff..."

And I have been...kinda...sorta...eventually.

I did not grow up in a religious household. I do not consider myself a Christian, per se. I say "Bless you" when people sneeze and I accept with gratitude offers from people who say they will keep me in their prayers. I may even say I will do the same, but what that actually means is that I will keep them in my thoughts and hope for the very best for them.

Twenty years ago I was deeply touched by the reglious devotion of Grace, my former university roomate and good friend who died in 2006. Just a few months ago I was touched again and reminded anew of how religion can inspire people to be good and kind - so very, very good and kind - when her friends and family came out in droves to thank me for writing about her and to offer me their blessings and prayers.

Only once in my adult life have I felt compelled to truly commune with a higher power outside a church in a manner that was heartfelt and spontaneous. It was four years (to the day) prior to my mother-in-law's death two weeks ago when, after a year of trying, and a doctor's opinion that it wasn't possible, I saw a pink line that indicated a positive pregnancy test.

I fell on my knees and thanked God.

I have never considered myself an Atheist, as much as an Agnostic. That is to say, I think I am typical of many young, urban, career-oriented adults who wrap themselves in a comfortable, vague religious cloak woven with various threads including: "There's probably * some* kind of a higher power" and "I believe in Karma" and "Let's be kind."

But none of those platitudes seem adequate right now.

Vague notions of Karma and kindness are no match for the cold, hard realities of death and I feel silly for not realizing that religion and God, and my views on religion and God, are something I should have figured out by now, for Graham's sake and especially for my own.

Rob is very much a Catholic. He attended a private boys' school, was an altar boy and considers the Pope his spiritual leader. (Yes, he was disappointed by recent pronouncements on condom use to fight AIDS in Africa and assisted reproductive technology, but that's another matter).

When Rob and I first started dating I found his religious beliefs exotic, particularly because they were coupled with a strong scientific bent. I remember being intoxicated by the late-night debates we would have about whether someone leading a decidedly... ahem... modern lifestyle could or should try and reconcile that with their Christian beliefs. I think I fell in love with him the day he showed up on my doorstep with a copy of God and The Astronomers and implored me to read it.

I knew that Rob would go directly from the hospital where his mother died to the church where he received his First Communion and he did just that.

And part of me envied him.

Part of me feels deeply envious of people who are secure in their belief of God and Heaven and part of me feels inadequate for not having provided my son with a belief system that can sustain him throughout this difficult time in his life.

But I fear that rushing to impress the notion of God and Heaven and the afterlife on Graham now because it would make things easier for me would mark the height of hypocrisy, given that for the past three years I have virtually ignored his religious education because it made things easier for me.

Sunshine on a cloudy day

2009-03-26T22:20:00.002-04:00

That smile?

That would be Graham doing his part to help keep Opa's spirits up.

We had Opa for dinner earlier this evening and I think my little ray of sunshine did make things seem just a little brighter in these gloomy times.

And if food is love, then Opa is certainly well-fed these days. He had dinner at Peter and LeeAnne's last night where he whipped up hand-thrown spatzle and his version of our beloved Oma's special European goulash.

LeeAnne has all the details and the yummy recipes over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews...

The knowing is the hardest part

2009-03-24T23:58:00.007-04:00

It was a week and a half before Christmas and I arrived home from a work meeting just after 10 p.m. to find my husband loading the dishwasher and sobbing.

He had worked late too. My mother-in-law had been watching Graham when he arrived home a half hour before I did and relieved her. And what he saw made him cry.

"She didn't give Graham his bath, Kel," he told me. "And the place was a mess."

"Her stomach was bothering her again?"

He nodded.

"She probably just had an off night..."

"She raced out of here without even visiting with me. There were dishes everywhere. "

I remember murmuring that it had been a long day, that he was over-reacting. But my stomach sank because I knew without a shadow of a doubt then - just as I always knew despite my desperate attempt at bravado - why he was crying.

"Something's wrong Kel," he said. "I have a really bad feeling. Something is very, very wrong."

*******************************************************

Friday, the day after the funeral, Rob and I sat deflated after an endless whirl of activity.

"Remember that day when you came home and I was crying?"

I nodded.

"It was because I knew Kel. I just knew."

I burst into tears as his sobs started anew.

"I knew that night that nothing was ever going to be the same again."

*********************************************************

My mother-in-law died exactly three months to the day from that night and nothing is ever going to be the same again.

I received an e-mail today from a reporter for Grandparents magazine asking for a quote about what role grandparents play in the lives of parents and their children. She probably didn't expect a novel in reply, but timing is everything and that is exactly what she got.

Among other things I wrote:

"My mother-in-law died 9 days ago and I am still trying to imagine how I will parent without her. She truly was my son's second mother and I didn't resent it because it allowed me so much free time with my husband and so much comfort knowing I could meet work obligations and he would be in safe hands.

"You simply can't expect grandparents to be there for you when you need them without giving away a little bit of autonomy as far as parental influence goes: it's a trade off and for me it was an excellent one.

"The way she loved my son was a revelation to my husband and I. When he was about six months old I remember saying to him: 'She loves him as much as we do! I didn't think it was possible but she does, she loves him as much as we do!'"

She did love Graham as much as we do. And he loved her back. And he doesn't understand where she has gone.

And my heart breaks every day because I don't know how to make him understand that nothing will ever be the same again.

Henny

2009-03-19T20:48:00.003-04:00

There is no question that my mother-in-law Henny Scherer left us far too soon but perhaps we shouldn’t have been too surprised because the thing is, Henny never stayed put for long.

Henny was a whirlwind. She shopped. She cooked. She gardened. She painted the house. She took a short break for a cappuccino. She played tennis. She learned about computers and home renovations. She laughed. She loved. She lived with passion and verve and humor.

She was my inspiration.

I first met Henny on a Sunday afternoon almost 11 years ago shortly after I started dating her son Robert. I learned later that she had demanded it after my name had been repeatedly dropped at a family dinner the night before. Apparently she had turned to Robert and said “That’s enough – now who the hell is this Kelly?!”

She couldn’t have yet known that soon I would be her biggest fan.

There are two things that no one can deny. The first is that Henny’s sons Robert and Peter both married very strong and outspoken women. The second is that both Robert and Peter adored their mother.

I like to think that perhaps Henny’s sons see a little bit of their mother in both LeeAnne and I, but perhaps I flatter myself, because truly, Henny was an original.

Henny was born in 1935 in The Hague in the Netherlands. Much of her childhood was spent under Nazi occupation. She didn’t like to talk about those years but she allowed this: there was hunger, there was pain and there was the constant fear that her older brother Eugene would be caught and punished for his role in the underground resistance.

Eugene was eventually caught and his death in a concentration camp was followed a few years later by her mother’s death, of a broken heart, Henny said.

But Henny, the baby of the family was already showing the determination and the resilience that we associate with her all these years later. At the earliest possible opportunity she joined the Dutch air force and immigrated to western Canada. A few years later in Toronto the gorgeous Dutch girl met a dashing Austrian immigrant named Karl Scherer and fell madly in love.

When she dated Karl Henny worked as a flight attendant. She said they would routinely pile into his little car and break all land speed records trying to get her to the Toronto airport in time for work where she was supposed to board the plane a half hour before passengers.

They never made it on time. But they didn’t care: They were on Scherer time.

Scherer time, for those of you who don’t know, runs approximately a half hour behind everyone else’s time.

Rob says one of his earliest memories was of his mom driving him to school every day and breaking more land speed records in the process. He remembers that one day the priest came over the intercom and advised all the students to keep a lookout and report on a green Chevy Nova that was loudly peeling into and out of the parking lot every morning.

Rob says he remembers how his classmates’ eyes widened around him and a whisper rippled through the room – “THAT’S ROB’S MOM!”

Yes, Henny was always in a hurry. But that was only because she was determined to make every minute of every day count. She had no time to waste and no patience for wasted time.

Right up until Christmas Henny looked after my son Graham one day a week while I was at work. I grew accustomed to arriving home to find our grocery shopping done, our house cleaned, our windows washed and our lawn and garden tended. And as for our son? He would be thoroughly loved, thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly proud of his new found ability to swear in Dutch.

Yes, I was spoiled to have a babysitter like Henny. We were all spoiled because Henny loved and cared for her family with the same zest and enthusiasm she brought to every area of her life.

Henny’s grandchildren Jordan, Cailey and Graham were her pride and her joy. She loved them with a ferocity that was absolutely beautiful to behold. She went out of her way to make each of them feel special and spend time with them individually. She really considered their personalities and thought, really thought, about how she could best try and meet their emotional needs.

Henny was thoughtful that way with all of us. She was always thinking about what we might need and was often stopping by with groceries we were short of, incidentals we hadn’t had time to buy and clothing and small gifts that she thought we would enjoy.

As a newlywed I will admit that it took me some time to adjust to having a mother-in-law who was such a big part of my day to day life. But very soon, and especially after the birth of my son, I took it for what it was: a true blessing.

I already have a wonderful mother and I like to think it is she who taught me how to be a mother myself. But Henny became my second mother and she taught me something different. Henny taught me how to be a mother-in-law: she taught me that when you have a son, if you want to stay close to that son, you must open your heart and love his wife as if she were a daughter.

And so she did.

And I loved her back. And I am all the richer for it – we are ALL the richer for her love. Karl, Peter, LeeAnne, Robert and I and especially her grandchildren. Our family’s challenge from this day forward will be to continue to love one other the way she loved us.

And I think we will.

I think we will try and love each other with the same kind of passion that she had for us. Because that is what Henny would have wanted and everyone here knows that when Henny wanted something she usually got it.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that by now that all the souls in heaven – God, the angels and all the saints - they’re all running on Scherer time.

Broken hearted

2009-03-15T17:00:00.001-04:00

Four months ago she was playing competitive tennis three times a week, routinely beating opponents 25 years her junior and tiring out Graham with hours-long romps through the parks near our home.

On Christmas Day we admitted her to the hospital because of severe stomach pain that wouldn't go away.

On New Years' Eve we learned cancer cells had been found in her stomach area.

On February 9th she had her first chemotherapy treatment.

Today our hearts are broken.

At 3:30 a.m. this morning Rob's mom, Graham's Oma and one of the people I love and admire more than anyone in the world lost her short battle with cancer and passed away in hospital.

Our hearts are broken.

Hallelujah

2009-03-11T23:30:00.001-04:00

Sometimes, when the stress gets me down, the fact that my son is a musical genius makes me feel better.

We recently discovered this video together on Youtube and it has become his favorite, the one he asks for over and over.

He's three...so yeah...I'm thinking musical genius.

And also?

Crazily intuitive about what's going on inside Mommy's head.

Loving with abandon

2009-03-10T22:58:00.009-04:00

"Cooking is like love.

It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. "

*Speaking of cooking with abandon, Leeanne's latest offering might be homely, but boy does it have personality. Check it out over at
Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews*

Change

2009-03-09T08:00:00.002-04:00

I pass him at the end of every day, walking back to my car from work.

He stands in front of the liquor store selling a weekly newspaper that for years homeless people in Toronto have produced and sold on the streets for a dollar.

And last Friday, just like I do most Fridays, I handed him a two-dollar coin and accepted the paper.

"I see you coming!" he enthused. "You're a beautiful girl and I see you coming."

"Thank you," I said weakly. I didn't feel well and was fighting the beginning of a brutal cold that I feared (correctly) would render me unable to spend time with my mother-in-law in the hospital over the weekend as planned.

"Hey wait," he said, touching my arm as I turned to go.

And I turned.

"Good karma, eh. This is gonna bring good karma for you."

And I burst into tears.

**************************************************************

I have heard it said that the ability to cry is not actually a sign of weakness, but rather of strength.

But I don't believe it.

These days my emotions sit so close to the surface that they threaten to boil over at the slightest provocation. I am not strong, not at all. I feel weak and more vulnerable than I have ever been. I feel out of control.

I fear. I fear that the generally happy life I used to take for granted is in jeopardy. I fear that the body blows (not all of them detailed here) that my family has been dealt over the last year and a half are not merely the normal bumps in life that must be ridden out, but the new normal.

And so change is coming, it must come.

Rob and I are working on this change together. We are talking late into the night, most nights, about how we can and how we will change our lives in a manner that allows us to snatch back our happiness.

We feel that we are at a turning point. We feel as though we are at war, that we must stand up and fight to ensure that our lives and our son's life unfold in the healthiest and most joyful way possible.

Because if there is one thing that this dark period has taught us it is that we will not, cannot, wait for karma to intervene.

Stay tuned.

Diva's favorite new beauty products

2009-03-07T20:11:00.003-05:00

It's not secret that my physical appearance hasn't exactly been a priority lately.

I have a mother-in-law who is ill, a husband who is working 70 hours a week, a demanding full-time job and a preschooler who is attempting to perfect his tantrum by way of constant practice: I need all the help I can get.

Luckily I've received a few products for review to help ensure that I appear a little more polished on the outside than I feel on the inside.

Check out some of my favorite finds over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews...

By popular demand

2009-03-05T18:07:00.002-05:00

Please find below...the haircut.

So now you know what I mean about a haircut being primarily responsible for turning me into a blubbering pseudo-philosopher prone to waxing poetic about the mysteries of parenting.

Look how old he looks now! He's barely three! If it weren't for the remnants of his dinner and the drool on his chin he almost looks like someone I might date...

Oh wait...he does look like someone I did date.

Coming soon: Don Mills Diva waxes philosophic over whether the tendency to leave remnants of one's dinner all over the front of one's self is genetically predetermined.

And now I know

2009-03-04T08:15:00.008-05:00

I blame the haircut.

Graham had one - a haircut - just last weekend and once again I'll be damned if he didn't age before my eyes: if the boy, the teenager, the man he will become didn't all of a sudden start to peer out from behind his eyes, lurk around the edges of his smile and reveal teasing flashes of his presence with every tilt of my son's newly-shorn head.

And I couldn't help it, I got to thinking once again, reflecting on how this person, this child has so completely and utterly transformed my life, my heart and my very soul.

And so it was the haircut, that damn haircut, along with this thoughtful essay over at Mom Grind on the transformational aspects of parenting, that got me thinking. In her essay the brilliant Vered quotes a hostile commenter who asked her the very same question we've all heard a million times, the very same question that I confess I may have even asked myself, back in the day before something as simple as a little boy's haircut was enough to prompt me to deep philosophical ruminations on the meaning of life:

"Why do people with children act like they’re the first people to ever have to parent in the entire history of mankind?”

It's a valid question to be sure and one deserving of a thoughtful answer and so I apologize in advance because, despite days of ruminating, I can say only this:

"People with children act like they're the first people to ever have to parent in the entire history of mankind because, damnit, they can't help it."

I can't help it.

Because I had no idea that it would be like this, even though everyone told me it would be. I didn't get it, not even a little bit. How could I? How can anyone really grasp the sheer amount of effort - both physical and emotional - that it takes to raise a helpless infant into a self-sufficient human being?

I have often heard authors refer to their novels as their babies and, as a writer myself, I understand that analogy. To both would-be authors and parents seeking understanding I say this: imagine if you started work on a novel and it quickly became your obsession. Imagine that you ate, slept and breathed that novel, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out for years.

And years and years.

Imagine if from the very first minute that you conceived that novel, it took precedence in every single area of your life. Imagine if you were compelled to put it ahead of your sleep and your food and your friends and your marriage and your well being and your alone time and that it was the first thing you thought of when you woke up in the morning and the last thing swirling through your brain late at night and that, even as you slept, it danced through your dreams.

For years and years and years.

And imagine that every day your pride in your novel grew and grew and that you pressed on in your devotion, imbued with the unshakable knowledge that this novel was your life's work.

Surely you would be celebrated all across the world as an artist of fierce passion and devotion, right?

Not so much.

Imagine that no one really gave a rat's ass about your novel, much less wanted to read it. Imagine that most people weren't interested in acknowledging the effort that you put into your novel and were quick to tell you that your years of selfless effort were just par for the course. Imagine that they rolled their eyes and looked bored when you brought it up.

Wouldn't you feel like no one else in the universe really gets it?

Wouldn't you try and make them understand?

I would, by God. I would and I do. I talk about my masterpiece, my Graham, because I can't help it. I have to!

And so would you.

You might whisper at first, to others you suspect are in the same boat but finally you would just raise your voice and demand to be heard.

How is it possible, you will say, that millions of people experience the same thing? How is it possible that you're not the only person in the entire history of mankind who has worked so hard on something and not achieved greatness and glory for their efforts? How can it be that millions and millions of people throughout history have toiled, and continue to toil, in obscurity creating their own perfect masterpieces that no one, save them and their immediate family, really gives a rat's ass about?

It's incredible. It's unthinkable.

It's parenting and it's the biggest freaking trip anyone will ever take.

And I don't care how crazy I sound to the people who have never been parents, had the desire to be parents or worse, wish that parents would just shut up about it all.

Because I've worked so hard on my masterpiece that I have to believe that those people, and the person who left that comment for Vered, are just simply illiterate if they can't appreciate it.

And if they don't want to try and understand how a little boy's haircut can pave the way to ruminating on the infinite complexity of the universe and God's plans for our place in it.

The Diva's guide to 2009 spring fashions

2009-03-02T08:15:00.001-05:00

Spring is just around the corner, I'm sure of it.

I know it's true because lately I've had an uncontrollable urge to weigh in on the spring fashion trends that are crowding the fashion pages of the latest magazines and newspapers.

I feel positivity giddy about the trends I'm seeing this spring - clothes are boasting the kind of bright, crazy colours and bold prints and patterns that haven't been seen since the mid 1980s.

Sure, we're in the midst of a recession. But that's all the more reason to stop taking fashion so seriously. The 80s may not have yielded a lot of timeless classics, but the clothes were silly, irreverent and FUN, just like this spring's most wearable trends.

Frankie says Relax: I say, let's check 'em out.

Read DMD's take on the latest trends over at my Shooting for Hip column at Better Than A Playdate...

Here comes the sun

2009-02-26T22:15:00.002-05:00

I never did share any pictures of our vacation in Key West a few weeks back.

It didn't seem appropriate, somehow, to hold up and celebrate the wispy snippets of happiness that we managed to steal even as Rob's mom lay in a hospital suffering terribly from the ill effects of her first round of chemotherapy.

But she is better now - her improvement over the past week has been so dramatic that it feels something like a miracle and we are enjoying her relative good health even as we look towards next week when she faces her next scheduled round of treatments.

And these days, these days we are feeling hopeful. We are still heavy with stress and worry - just like we were the entire time we were away - but it no longer feels as if reveling in moments of joy will surely tempt fate to steal them away again.

We needed these days and we needed this joy. We need it still: I expect the memory of it will be our sustenance as we all continue down the long and difficult road ahead.

Spring chicken

2009-02-25T21:54:00.003-05:00

Are you dreaming of spring?

Our gal LeeAnne is busy developing warm weather recipes for Canadian Family magazine and she shares one of her favorites over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews.

Check it out!

The curious case of the toddler Graham

2009-02-24T18:33:00.001-05:00

Evidence is emerging that the soul of an old man - an old British man at that - lurks inside the body of my precocious three-year-old.

To wit, these gems have emerged, unsolicited, in the past few days...

"You know Mommy, that reminds me of an old story I once heard..." delivered in an attempt to forestall bedtime, with a knowing smile and a sage tilt of the head. (Seriously: he did the head tilt.)

"Pish, posh Mommy - don't be so silly."

And, after I apologized for losing my temper and ~~screaming at~~ raising my voice with him:

"That's quite okay Mommy, but I don't expect Daddy is going to be very thrilled with you."

Indeed.

Exposed

2009-02-22T23:46:00.007-05:00

You might think I have a hell of a lot of nerve to call someone out for overexposing their child.

There have been times, many times, in this space where I have conspired to use Graham's antics to elicit from my readers gentle and knowing laughs.

At least I hope they are gentle and knowing laughs, because it is those kinds of laughs, and only those kind of laughs, that I am shooting for.

My boy is my heart, my whole heart. And the thought of ever mining his life for different kinds of laughs - cheap, jocular laughs, laughs born of fear or confusion or at the expense of his dignity or self respect - makes me feel ill.

And that's exactly what I told the reporter from the Globe and Mail newspaper when she interviewed me for a story published last week about the ethics of this Youtube video...

It bothered me to watch it.

A few years ago a couple of teenagers were arrested for smoking up (with marijuana) the two-year-old toddler they were charged with babysitting. A shocking and heartbreaking cell phone video shown on news programs depicted the poor, wee lamb stumbling around dazed and confused while his supposed protectors laughed uproariously.

My logical mind knows the boy in the video posted above is in a very different situation from the toddler in that video, but my initial, visceral reaction to both videos was the same: I want to protect those boys.

There is a difference, I believe, between a parent who holds up their child's antics in search of gentle, knowing chuckles and a parent who seeks to make them the butt of the joke. There is a line. And even if I can't quite articulate exactly where that line is, I think the video above crosses it.

And I don't care that some of the on-line comments to the Globe story assert that my worrying about having a laugh on a kid is just another example of the kind of over-protective, over-wrought parenting that is destined to create a generation of weaklings. (I don't care much what on-line commentors to that paper think in any case).

Because I know that at different times throughout his life, Graham will face scrutiny and teasing and perhaps even ridicule and as much as it pains me, I wouldn't have it any other way: people need to look at life from all sides in order to be fully rounded.

But he is my son. I am his mother, his safety and his home.

And you will never, ever, see the likes of that video in this space.

*Edited to add: I reposted the video - his dad has taken the original down and replaced it with the new one above that also runs ads promoting a web site he's created in order to cash in on his son's notoriety*

Calling all celiacs

2009-02-20T22:18:00.003-05:00

I believe in the power of the blogosphere.

I believe it has the power to bring together people and ideas and advice.

And knowledge.

Here's the deal:

Rob's mom had her first chemotherapy treatment last week and it did not go well. She suffered mightily from every possible damn side effect, was re-admitted to the hospital twice and has resided there since Monday.

What is complicating her ability to tolerate the chemo treatments is apparently her body's inability to retain potassium. She can take it in, has been taking it in, under medical supervision even, but her body will not retain it. She and her doctors know this inability to retain potassium is related to her celiac disease, but no one is quite sure how to get around it.

She feels, we feel, that what is lacking is someone fully versed in the effects of celiac disease on the body and specifically how a celiac sufferer might counteract his or her body's inability to retain potassium.

Any bloggy angels out there with any thoughts on this? Please e-mail me directly at donmillsdiva@hotmail.com.

Thanks to each and every one of you for your kind comments and e-mails this past week. I expect to be back soon with a substantive post because this break has made it clear to me that, even in the midst of stress, this space, and all of you, sustain me.

Oh yes you do.

If only

2009-02-15T23:32:00.001-05:00

If only you could go on vacation and return to find that life had miraculously sorted itself out in your absence.

If only a week of sunshine could keep darkness at bay for at least as long.

If only the purest and most beautiful things in life truly had the power to keep sickness and pain and ugliness from hurting the people we love the most.

I need to take a few days off to attend to my responsibilities and to love my family - hope to be back in better form soon.

My window

2009-02-13T16:00:00.005-05:00

*Frog and Toad Are Still Friends is one of the first blogs I ever read and it remains one of my favorite. Time and time again its author Beck makes me catch my breath with the beauty of how she adept she is at capturing the poignancy of everyday life. Enjoy..."

My house is an old, old house and has an old house’s tall, narrow windows.

For several years after we moved in, we just never bothered putting up curtains – we were too poor to buy any that we liked, for one, and for another it just never occurred to us. Windows were for us to look out of, and it never occurred to us that people could look back in. It wasn’t until we finally did put up curtains on every window that it began to bother me to stand at the window exposed and looking out, with unseen people possibly returning my gaze.

I started blogging after a very serious, near-fatal illness nearly three years ago. I had read blogs in a casual sort of way before then, never commenting and not one of those blogs, oddly enough, do I read now, so I knew that they existed and I’d actually started a handful of short-lived blogs before then but lacked the compulsion and self-discipline to keep at them for longer than a week or two.

But then I got very sick and for months afterwards there was this dark curtain about me – how sick was I? Was I, in fact, dying? And it was that pressing question that started me at my blog, which was from the start light-hearted and silly while the real me was still laying down for much of the day, my actual bruised heart stuttering within me. I deleted that blog recently with a great feeling of relief, and although I now wish that I’d saved a handful of posts, I don’t really regret it. The false cheer of those early posts bothered me.

I think we’re lying (to ourselves, but still) when we say that we’re writing for the future, for some later version of our children who will read us, maybe, with understanding eyes. My blog definitely has a short lifespan – it will all be deleted someday, although I will make a point of saving a few things this time around, like the roses I kept from when my husband and I were not yet husband and wife but very, very young and dating. It’s not meant for my children, but I am writing for someone, and who is this invisible audience, this reading eye?

“Doesn’t it bother you to have strangers reading your private stuff?” an acquaintance asked me recently, which I responded to with a bemused shrug. Obviously not – I’m not a secretive person to begin with, but rather a smiling, friendly sort, quick to befriend and confide…. So my heart is pretty much on constant display anyhow, which is just as risky with one person as it is with one hundred, really.

The whole idea of what I write as being private, though, is a bit of a hard one for me to think about. After I was so sick, I felt very damaged inside for a very long time, like I was still half-dead and so when I started blogging, the me I wrote about was as much a creation as it was a reflection of any private reality. I wrote because of my paralysing fear that I was vanishing, that my hands would quickly become dust. So blogging was a rebellion of sorts, a way of making myself again out of mere words.

My friend worries that I have turned a light on in my life, that I am leaning out a bright window into the darkness, seen by unseen eyes. But what I primarily see is my own reflection, thrown back against the darkness, my shadowy, constructed self.

Trolls in art class

2009-02-11T20:10:00.002-05:00

*Did I mention I love people from Texas? Kellan is a perfect example: exuberant, funny and straight-taking. She has a fanatical following over at her blog - On The Upside - and posts like this are precisely why...*

Hi, Kelly's readers - I'm Kellan.

I am so honored that Kelly asked me to guest post here on her fabulous site while she is gone on vacation in Key West. Kelly and I have been friends for a long time and I love her to death. I also had the wonderful opportunity to meet her at the BlogHer '08 Conference in San Francisco last year and she is just as wonderful in person as I knew she would be!

Thanks, Kelly - have a really great trip!

I have four children - 16 year old twin daughters, Courtney & Chloe, an 11 year old son, Billy and a 7 year old daughter, Alexis. On my site I generally write stories about these wonderful children. The following story is about Alexis.

TROLLS IN ART CLASS

When Alexis was little(er), ... she used to believe that every show on TV could be rewound to watch over - because her favorite movies on VHS tapes could be rewound to be watched again and again.

It took a while to get her to understand that this was .. not so.

When Alexis was little(er) ... she used to think that anytime you needed money you should just go up to an ATM machine and extract money - it was there - free - for the taking.

It took a while to get her to understand that this was ... not so.

When Alexis was little(er) ... she used to believe that dinosaurs were real and lived in the forest with the fairies and the trolls.

One day, not long ago, Alexis was near me in the kitchen.She was sitting at the table drawing a picture while I prepared dinner.

"That's really a good picture," I said, as I walked by her on my way across the room.She looked up at me and smiled."Did you like art when you were a little girl?" she asked.

"I did," I answered. "I loved art."

She straightened up in her chair ...She tilted her head ...She said ..."Was art your favorite class or ... did you like computer class better?"

On the upside ... When I was little ... I lived in the forest with the dinosaurs and the fairies. And ... when I went to school ... I took typing class with all the other little trolls and we learned to type on brand new Smith Corona typewriters.

Occasionally, we heard rumors of giant computers that would one day take over the world, but ... we never worried about such things - out in the forest. We were too busy fixing our CORRECT-O Tape, changing out typewriter ribbons and ... chipping arrow heads with flat rocks ... in Art class.

It took a while to convince Alexis that this was indeed ... SO!

The picture of innocence

2009-02-08T20:00:00.005-05:00

*Yes, OHMommy really is that classy and that sweet: I should know - we were roomies at BlogHer last year and it was a blast. Lucky for all of you I sweet talked her into guest posting here and she's too darn nice to say no. ..Enjoy!"

On the wall of my aunt's house, in suburban Chicago, hangs a framed picture that makes me smile out loud each time I pass by it.

Pictured is a smiling family of five hand holding hands, drawn by a six year old, seven years ago. In the far distance is a small church. The artist, the baby of the house, included a puffy bubble over his head that reads "Hury wer late agin!"

Awe. Truth will always be told through innocent eyes.

For seven years I have gracefully walked passed that crayon drawing and smiled imagining what my children would innocently draw in the future that I would deem frameable. I envisioned colorful pictures of rainbows over our house and puppies prancing around. I had already picked out the shabby chic frame, in my head, that would hold such a treasure.

I was thrilled when my eldest at the age of three started to take an interest in crayons. I sent him off to preschool with a hug and a kiss every day whispering sweet words in his ear to encourage such sweet artistic visions.

It was a long winter, that year, in which on more than one occasion I, the busy mother of three young children, had forgotten to shave my legs. That, my friends, is a portrait of me with hairy legs.

A solid reminder that truth will always be told through the eyes of the innocent. And yes, this framed picture in our house makes me smile every day.

I'll follow the sun

2009-02-07T13:00:00.001-05:00

By the time you read this I may have already found it.

We are leaving for Key West, Florida today - me and Rob and Graham and my mother. We are renting a three bedroom house with two balconies that has the ocean on one side and a pool on the other.

We are gone for a week: we know it's not the best week to be going, but we desperately need this. We need a week away from stress and worry and work. We need to draw each other close and to relax and rejuvenate and remember how much we enjoy each other when our minds are not on other things.

I have some wonderful guest posters lined up during my absence and I may pop in as well. At any rate I hope to be back in full Diva mode upon my return next weekend.

Thanks to each and every one of you for your love and kindness and support and prayers these last few weeks - as always I feel blessed to be a part of this community.

Dear Cancer,

2009-02-06T08:00:00.004-05:00

You are not going to win; not this time.

You stole my best friend from me at the tender age of 26 years, but you will NOT steal my mother-in-law.

You have weakened her, but you will not conquer her. You are no match for her vitality and her spirit. Come Monday, you will find that the fear your presence has brought into her heart has coalesced into something different, something stronger and infinitely more powerful than you are.

Resolve.

Come Monday the battle, and the countdown to your defeat, will begin. You will be vanquished, not just by a series of powerful chemical cocktails, but by intangible things that your black, workmanlike destruction is not capable of understanding or touching.

Because ultimately you and your filth and foul are no match for a woman of beauty and strength; a woman of courage and exuberance, who has survived the Nazis and routed opponents half her age on the tennis court.

Mark my words: you are no match for her.

You are no match for this family.

You are no match for love.

You are NOT going to win; not this time.

Club Kid

2009-02-04T21:24:00.004-05:00

Even when I was a swinging single I wasn't big on clubbing.

The crowds, the pounding music, the crowds, the over-priced drinks - I just didn't enjoy it.

And the crowds. Did I mention how irritating I find crowds?

So it felt a little surreal last Sunday when my three-year-old and I headed to the heart of Toronto's club district and braved a massive line-up to meet some friends and gain entry to one of the biggest and hottest clubs in the city for the Bunch Family Dance Party.

It was packed to the rafters with hipsters and their hipster offspring sipping cocktails and mocktails. The three dance floors were jammed and the video and light shows and go-go dancers were undeniably cool.

There were eccentric characters roaming the joint...

And stylin' kids showing off the latest dance moves...

And of course there was this one guy who was sooooo cute I couldn't stop staring at him.

And the best part?

I actually ended up going home with him.

Could you die? I think it might really be love this time...

Turns out clubbing is a lot more fun than I remember it.

*********************************

Are you pinching pennies in this tough economy? LeeAnne has a new recipe up over at Don Mills Diva Recipes and Reviews that delivers great taste AND great value - check it out!

Wanna be a big loser?

2009-02-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

Almost every Tuesday night I feel like The Biggest Loser.

And no, it's not just because I plant myself on the couch, munch snacks and watch television; it's because I plant myself on the couch, eat snacks and watch people on television swear off snacks and a sedentary life in favor of a grueling diet and exercise program intended to launch them on a lifetime path to health and fitness.

Yup, The Biggest Loser has become a bit of an addiction for me and why not? It features the most classic redemptive story arc of our time: everyman (or woman) whose obesity is a symbol of their inability to cope with emotional pain and stress are introduced to kick-ass trainers who put them through their paces physically and emotionally until they emerge transformed, in control of their lives and their bodies.

It makes for powerful viewing, especially since there is no doubt that these are real people, whose real lives are being changed. Just ask Julia Hadden.

Wanna read my exclusive interview with Season Four The Biggest Loser contestant Julie Hadden? Click on over to my Shooting For Hip column at Better Than A Playdate...

Write on! Respect the blog.

2009-01-30T23:29:00.051-05:00

Let me be straight about a few things right off the top.

I know that what the Times On-Line did is not illegal and I never thought that it was illegal.

And I know that this space and what I write in this space, however personal it often feels to me, is most certainly public.

I get that.

But here's the thing.

I have a university degree in journalism. An honours journalism degree that I busted my ass to earn at a school widely considered to be the most rigorous in Canada for that discipline.

At this school a typo or spelling error resulted in an automatic zero. Not a failing grade; a zero. You had to be neutral. If you wrote "he insisted" as opposed to "he said" in a news story you were called on the carpet for editorializing. If you wrote "The meeting will be held on Friday" you were knocked down a grade: the meeting was merely scheduled for Friday and you had no business asserting with certainty what would happen two days hence.

Sources and source material, we were taught, were to be attributed with scrupulous care.

I don't claim that my journalism degree necessarily bestows upon me the ability to routinely craft perfect prose or anything close to it, but I do know that my years of striving to better my craft have made writing well, honestly and as accurately as possible a point of fierce pride.

I am proud of this blog and I am proud of the writing I have done here.

And I am especially proud to be a member of the blogging community despite the fact that the phrase "Blogs Ruin Journalism" brings up 3,900,000 hits on Google.

That's right folks: that's what a lot of people think.

Or at least that's what a lot of journalists think.

I got a reply from one of the reporters who wrote the Times On-Line story and she had a lot of perfectly wonderful things to say about my writing and my insights. She apologized for catching me off guard, but pointed out that she did mention my blog, that my blog was by its nature public and that she never actually said she had interviewed me for the article. (emphasis mine)

And she is right of course: technically, she is right.

ButI still feel that my content was expropriated in a cavalier fashion. And I told her that. I also asked her to try and understand how disrespected I feel: how intensely frustrating it is for journalists-cum-bloggers like me who are struggling to establish their on-line space as a legitimate means of publication to be denied a link (after asking twice) or proper and accurate attribution from a member of the mainstream media - the very establishment which has written endlessly (nearly four million hits!) about how unprofessional bloggers are.

She hasn't responded.

But I think you should.

I think everyone out there who blogs with passion and with creativity and with skill should speak up and declare themselves a Writer with a capital W. I think it's time that all bloggers, especially daddy and mommy bloggers (no, I don't resent that term - I embrace it) should demand the respect that their traffic, their influence and their talent commands.

I want you to speak up and tell the world that you and your writing and your blog deserve respect; from the Times On-Line, from the mainstream media and from every one of the millions of so-called "professional" journalists out there who have mused about whether blogs ruin journalism.

Here's the button and the code:

Throw it in your sidebar and then write a post. Write from your heart about what makes you and your writing and your blog worthy of respect. Send me the url and I'll link every single one of you at the end of this post.

We will create, right here, a gathering place where people can read about the revolution that is happening in writing and in publishing and in journalism.

You better believe mommy blogging is a facking radical act.

Write on! Respect the blog.

One Strangely Lush Mother
Michelle's Blog: Stains and All
Cool Zebras
Parent Club
Singing With My Heart
Clairnation
Don't Take The Repeats
Island Mom
A Little Piece of Heaven
Just Another Mommy Blog
If Mom Says OK
Missing Woman in Mommaland
The Adventures of the Headless Family
Them's My Sentiments
Chicken and Cheese
Fat, Frumpy and Fifty
Big Blue Barn West
Out and About in New York City
Brit Gal In The USA
Juggling Life
From The Cheap Seats
M.I.T. Mommy
Everything and Nothing
Carma Sez
Content To Be ME
Flea's World
Bella Foxx's Life
Whiskey In My Sippy Cup
Asthma Girl
Welcome to Schaererville
A Weird in Edgewise
BIBI Has The Last Word
Bringing Up Charlie
Katney's Kaboodle
A Woman of No Importance
A Day In The Life
The Rocking Pony
Lucy's Life in Suburb World
Compost Happens
Pleasure Notes
Unwellness
Ginaagain, and Again, and Again
Chris's Coop
The Mad White Woman
Just Kat Stuff
Expatmum
Adventures of the Reluctant Housewife
The Life of Writing
Postcards From Across the Pond
Random Thoughts From Gemini Goddess
Blonde Mom Blog
My Life as a Hotfessional
Thoughts From an Evil Overlord
Hey What's For Dinner Mom?
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit
Care and Feeding of Wild Things
Greenhouse Glimpses
Mommy Wizdom
Pagan Culture
Enspyre 1 American Pop Culture Blog

A Shelter From the Storm

Times On-Line flunks journalism 101

2009-01-29T08:14:00.002-05:00

I don't know whether to be flattered or furious.

I feel flattered because I was quoted yesterday, quite extensively I might add, in a story entitled Danger online: Perils of revealing every intimate moment published in the Times On-Line, the Internet version of the venerable UK newspaper.

But I feel furious because I was never interviewed for the story and had no idea I even appeared in the story until my daily Google Alert for Don Mills Diva lead me there.

The published quotes, which are attributed to me, are lifted from an interview I gave to a Canadian newspaper in April of 2008 and from two blog posts I wrote around that time: one on the dangers of becoming addicted to blogging and one which was a response to the nasty on-line comments to the Globe article.

Neither the newspaper - the Globe and Mail - nor this site are attributed as sources.

Further, it appears the article is an excerpt from a forthcoming book on social media authored by one of the reporters.

Ironic, wouldn't you agree, that the author purports to explore boundaries surrounding the publication of on-line material while failing to observe any?

I have sent an e-mail to the Times On-line editor outlining my concerns and asking whether this is standard journalistic practise at that publication. I have contacted the Globe reporter, who mused about whether she would be credited in the book's footnotes.

I'm betting not.

I'm betting not because I think this is a clear example of the kind of shoddy and misleading journalism that the mainstream media is continually accusing bloggers of practicing. I also think it's highly unethical, though admittedly not actually illegal.

I know it's disrespectful.

And that's why I'm feeling just a little more furious than flattered.

Stay tuned.

Mother knows best

2009-01-27T21:22:00.007-05:00

"It is true that you may occasionally overhear a mother say
"'Children must have their naps,
It's mother who knows best.'
When what she really means by that
Is that she needs a rest. "

Tiny gifts

2009-01-26T12:25:00.024-05:00

Sometimes the universe drops tiny gifts in your lap.

Sometimes a small victory, a shared laugh and connections made build one upon another to renew your confidence that life will always sort itself out.

Sometimes, when you express yourself from the heart; when you ask for a sign that someone or something is rooting for you and your family, the universe answers.

And it says yes.

My late friend Grace's book, about her battle with chronic illness, arrived on my doorstep just a week before my mother-in-law went to the hospital suffering symptoms which we now know are a result of cancer of the lymph nodes.

The comment from Grace's mother - a pastor at a tiny church in northern Canada - arrived just hours after I posted my ruminations on her life, her faith and the meaning of her reemergence in my psyche and my life. The e-mail from Grace's sister - who runs a centre for victims of sexual assault not far from where I live - came shortly afterwards.

Both these women, who I met just once more than 17 years ago, thanked me - me! - for what I had written about Grace and expressed how much my words had meant to them. And while I am profoundly humbled that something I wrote has brought them some measure of comfort, I am also gratified and awed that these connections, fostered across cyberspace, by way of this space, have brought me a renewed faith that my life, however trying at times, is indeed unfolding in the manner in which it was intended.

Yes, the end of last week was much better than the beginning, the timbre of which was characterized by this post about how inadequate I felt for having neither the energy nor the inclination to potty-train.

Just hours after I heard from Grace's sister and returned home to Rob and Graham after a much-needed, post-meeting wine and gab session with two work colleagues - wonderful women who I now proudly call friends - there was a surprise in store.

"Go ahead, Graham," Rob said. "Show mommy what we've been working on while she was at work."

And over to the potty chair my boy went. And with the biggest, proudest smile you have ever seen, he sat right down.

Yes, he was wearing a diaper. And yes, he was fully clothed. But Graham sat right on the potty, cheerfully and without apparent fear of the monsters he has long insisted reside inside.

I never thought such a little thing could make me feel so hopeful.

Hopeful not just about potty training, but about everything else, because Graham overcoming his fear and stubborn resistance so suddenly demonstrates to me that we are never truly stuck and that people and situations always evolve.

And I never thought that such a little thing could make me feel so proud: proud because it demonstrates to me that me and my little boy and my little family are capable of working on anything together and getting results.