mummy dearest i am not.

April 29, 2011 by mama lola

bear has been sick with a cold. we are now closing the book on day three of this terrible sickness. when bear gets a cold, it affects his eyes, BIG TIME! they drip and stream fluid that creates the illusion that he is crying. his nose drips and streams too, so, he’s a complete mess really. he generally hates it when his face is wet with food or tears or whatever and is surprisingly meticulous about wiping his mouth after a meal. it is a skill he has mastered and we are so proud. unfortunately, this wiping turns into a bit of an obsession with the dripping snot. he asks for ” my cloth” constantly, which he prefers to be damp (optimal when wiping hummus out of the corner of the mouth). but this damp cloth fetish wreaks havoc on his beautiful face making it red and irritated and blotchy. today i convinced him to use a dry cloth and well, it wasn’t really any better.

that’s the cloth held tightly in bear’s grasp.

poor sickly bear.

and then with the sickness comes the undesirable behaviour. most of the nonsense i can handle, although today was a struggle; i’m on a handful of hours of sleep thanks to the dripping. argh! so anyhow, to really dig at me, bear calls me “mommy”. this irritates me from here to the moon and back a billion times. at our house i am ÄITI and that’s what i prefer to be called and bear knows it. i don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it does and i know all you parents out there have your own sensitive spots the kids like to target. bear will whimper, scream, moan, and call “mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy…” and no matter what i say or do (or don’t say or don’t do) it just continues.

let’s hope bear forgets about the “M” word overnight!

mmm… banana!

i think lion is getting the cold. he has been sneezing today and i felt a twinge in my throat while doing the dishes. that’s when i dashed upstairs for my oil of oregano. fingers crosses i don’t get sick.

kisses.

sweet dreams and good health to you and yours.

mothering.

April 27, 2011 by mama lola

i have had several conversations with various mama friends about the nature of mothering and i feel it’s time to speak up!!!

mothering is not a competition. it’s not about who is better a mother and whose kids are better. instead, it is a tremendously difficult life long commitment. it is a journey that is intimate and deeply personal. it involves all of our senses; all of our heart, mind, body and soul; it uses our physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual selves. it is a job that is difficult and taxing with little relief and acknowledgement. it is women’s work.

my mom and i in china.

we look at our own kids and wonder if the choices we have made are right, beneficial or practical. we worry about how badly we have messed up our kids and if there is hope in all the madness sometimes. often we cry alone in our weakest moments and are scared to share our struggles with others. there is great fear in all mothers, new or experienced, to be seen as BAD. to be a bad mother is the worst label of them all. but, this is where i think things get tricky, because there is no clear list of what makes a bad mother (or a good mother for that matter). we are judged harshly by others even though we play on uneven playing fields using different equipment and different rules.

but, we are our worst critics.

when we look at ourselves as mothers, we do not or cannot forgive ourselves for things we have done, as the standard is set so unrealistically high. but, who are we comparing ourselves to? first we compare ourselves to all the other mamas in the world. all of them. not just the ones we know personally, but we also compare ourselves to any person who mothers, whether they be characters in books, movies, or anonymous cyberspace blogger mamas who so conveniently edit and censor their entries leaving out the sad, negative and often self deprecating descriptions of their lives. seems like we will always lose to these comparisons.

i have been a mother for three years now. three wonderful and exhausting years; years that have been very defining for me as i have discovered who i really am. i have come to realize, that yet again, i do not quite fit the mold of “mother” that our society has created. dear hubby and i are attachment parents. for this we,are easy target of snide comments, strident stares and cruel judgements because…

myself with bear three months.

i am a mother who wears and carries her children.
i am a mother who co-sleeps with her children.
i am a mother who breastfeeds on demand.
i am a mother who cloth diapers her babies most of the time.
i am a mother who lives without a tv.
i am a mother who cooks dinner from scratch most nights.

but, so what? these are my personal choices and do not make me any better or worse of a mother and they certainly do not deserve to be evaluated by people outside of my family.

second time holding lion age four days.

although i feel and believe these choices suit my family best, i feel tremendous judgement and pressure to justify these choices. i am a firm believer in respecting each family’s unique way of living. we have never owned a crib, so this becomes a topic of heated discussion and concern for people. they think dear hubby and i am being irresponsible for co-sleeping with our children. but i have to ask, again, whose business is it where my kids sleep?

mothering is a unique experience for all of us. maybe using cribs in one family works really well, but not in another. maybe cloth diapering only makes sense when done every other day for some families. maybe making baby food from scratch is important to one family, but not another. and when these families have made these decisions, i will bet there has been a lot of guilt for not cloth diapering 100%, or buying jarred baby food or whatever.

instead of holding our mothering styles and values to unrealistic standards, let’s instead stand proud for doing the best we can with what we know and what we’ve got.

nature and kids (and an easter weekend update).

April 25, 2011 by mama lola

yesterday we enjoyed a wonderful outdoor adventure on the shores of lake ontario. as we climbed rocks and collected sticks i was remembering the book by richard louv : last child in the woods. the book discusses the declining time children spend with nature and the impact this void can have on them.

i was so lucky growing up in finland being ~~able to~~ encouraged, even pushed to go outside and play in the woods. the forests were wonderful playgrounds for imaginative games and adventures. my friends and i would build nests or forts, collect different kinds of moss and inspect the various life forms we encountered.

in the fall months, after school my mother and i would put on our rubber boots and head into the forest to pick an assortment of mushrooms. she taught be to recognize edible ones from poisonous ones and put me to work. i was about 7 or so, and loved helping my mom while surrounded by majestic trees and the silence of the woods. if i got tired of picking, i was allowed to play and would stand tall on tree stumps looking for faeries or elves that inhabit the finnish forests. sometimes my mom asked me to make markers out of fallen branches or other debris, for good kanttarelli growing locations. that way we would remember them for next time!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

easter weekend update:

this was our table this weekend. note the yummy birthday cake in the middle just waiting to be devoured! the beautiful eggs hanging from the pussy willows are all handmade by my very talented mom. the eggs are blown and then delicately painted. some eggs are coloured using oil pastels, pencil crayons or even just a lead pencil. anyone who has held a blown egg can appreciate the task she encountered when decorating them. they are so lovely to look at and we thoroughly enjoy them!

this is horatio, the bulldog we dog sat this weekend. what a guy!

EARTH DAY!

April 22, 2011 by mama lola

april 22nd is also EARTH DAY! please be kind to our home and planet, not just on this day, but always. conserve where you can, recycle what you can and stop buying new stuff! here’s a cool link to some art made by reusing other people’s junk.

* HaPpY * BiRtHdAy *

April 21, 2011 by mama lola

birthdays are becoming a reflective time for me. as people around me celebrate their special days, i often find myself looking back and remembering the yesteryears. sometimes i think i should have accomplished more in my life, but then wonder: more of what, exactly. i never did things by the book after high-school. instead, i carved my own path by moving out of my parents’ house at 19, getting a job and paying the rent. i lived in the big ol’ city and enjoyed my young adulthood to its fullest. now in our thirties, i feel there is pressure to accomplish certain societal expectations like a career outside the home (because mothering is not a career, it’s a hobby* said in a very sarcastic tone), owning a house, cars, a tv, but all of that stuff just doesn’t get my blood going. we want to uproot the kids and live in spain and live by the beach, but only for a year or so. we want to travel to developing countries and show our kids how differently other people live. i have no interest in having a tv or another car or a life that is predictable. predictability actually scares the pants off of us! here’s hoping the rest of our thirties will be filled with adventures!

tomorrow it’s my sweet and dear hubby’s 35th birthday. one idea was to go to london to see friends, so i had been looking at East London Venues to throw the best party ever, but instead, we will be celebrating at home, just the four of us and with horatio, the bulldog we’re dog-sitting. we will dance, drink and be merry together. bear will be elated to sing “happy birthday” to daddy and help blow out the candles. i’ve also been thinking about getting a custom neon sign for the walls of our bedroom from sites like www.neonfilter.com to just pep things up. i’m sure he’ll be surprised to see it.

here’s a wee look back at some of dear hubby’s birthdays we have celebrated together over the years. we have other photos too, but since they were taken with a film camera back in the day, i can’t upload them easily onto the blog. all of these pictures are G-rated!

dear hubby’s surprise birthday party in our tiny apartment in china.

this was dear hubby’s birthday in zhenjiang, china in 2002 and was the first we shared together. we were there teaching english. look how young we look!! that time in our lives seems like a million light years away. we were so in love, so young, fearless and full of dreams.

we had just screamed “SURPRISE” and
scared the jeepers out of the guy!

this birthday party in 2006 was so much fun! dear hubby and i were living it up in the big city at the time and were dependent free. at this party we celebrated with good beer, great friends and lots of laughs! dear hubby’s best friend was in town from germany, which was a wonderful treat!

dear hubby’s grandma always gave the best hugs, no matter what the occasion. look at the grip she has on her grandson’s head- now that’s love!

she is dearly missed. xo

dear hubby’s first birthday as a daddy; bear is only two months here.

on this particular birthday in 2008, dear hubby and i hosted family for a crepe brunch in our tiny third floor apartment. it was a very unusually hot day for april, over +20c, hence the summer attire on my guys.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR HUBBY! this year is going to be amazing and fun!!! CHEERS!
I LOVE YOU!

determined with determination.

April 20, 2011 by mama lola

there is a robin flying into our kitchen window. he is doing it deliberately and constantly and the sound of his body hitting the glass is awful. he isn’t going full speed so the sound is more of a tap than a smash. the birdie’s technique is calculated; he sits on the fence about a metre away from the side of the house and then flies in, hits the pane and returns to the fence. he does this several times a minute. mr. robin redbreast has also left a crusty mess on the fence, but hopefully the rain will wash that off.

mr. redbreast sittin’ on the fence, next to decoys wing.

this being said, i will admit, i admire the little fella’s determination. he is so determined to defeat or mate with or whatever, the reflection he sees in the glass. even though he fails miserably after each attempt, he still just keeps on truckin’ with the task at hand: get other bird’s attention!

i am not like this at all. not to say i am not a hard worker, because i am, but i get easily distracted when at home and lose my focus and then my determination on a task. and not just because of the kids, but i am easily distracted by grand decorating ideas or sewing projects and especially by the allure of the shiny, unexplored of the internet. i love to search blogs and websites for sewing tutorials or craft projects. my “bookmarks” tab on my computer is out of hand; i have categories and then sub-categories! it’s that whole maybe one day i will get around to this and that. then to make matters worse i am always yammering on at dear hubby to finish the projects he has started, even though i am almost as bad with my own task completion abilities.

i have grand ideas and am determined to create something special for my kids or friends or family and then get stuck on the planning and preliminary stages of the project. i tend to procrastinate and then eventually run out of time to complete anything. this is where my personal esteem issues start to really play out. i am not going to get into that part of me as once i start to peel back the layers of the onion, the tears will start to pour and i’ll be a mess! the holidays are especially stressful for this very reason!

sewing project mess.

once again, hats off to mr. robin redbreast and his determined soul!

in other news…

ta-daa! bear with this glasses.

my sweet little bear is now the proud owner of a fancy pair of glasses. when he tried them on the first time with his own lenses i was stunned at the strength of the prescription. the lenses are coke bottle thickness, which actually changes the way he looks. heartbreaking… he is rather proud though and i hope he just keeps them on his head. i am trying to teach him that he is not allowed to take them off without permission, as a way to instil loss prevention. we’ll see how this pans out i suppose. i wonder how things will go tomorrow at pre-school.

lion is back to three naps a day. must be a growth spurt as he wants to nurse when not sleeping.

here and now.

April 19, 2011 by mama lola

i am taking today’s entry’s concept from another mama blogger who i love to read.
here is a descriptive list of where i am right here, right now:

i am….

~ listening to bear sing to himself up in bed.

~ feeling the rush of our busy weekend evaporate from my skin.

~ loving my friends deeply and wishing i lived closer to many of them and their kiddos. (heart)

~ touching my wet hair. i always shower in the evenings as i think it saves my sheets!

~ drinking water; i am parched.

~ content with life, although stress is seeping its way in through the cracks.

~ hoping dear hubby will rub my feet tonight. he used do it nightly, but after two kids and work and stuff he only does it a few times a week. poor me, i know.

~ waiting patiently for the big budding lilac bush by the front porch to blossom.

~ enjoying the longer days.

~ wishing for slightly warmer temperatures as we have work to do outside.

~ remembering that a year ago we bought our house, our sweet miss peppermint patty.

~ figuring things out.

lion almost walking at just over 9 months!

bear learning to walk with the vacuum at almost 10 months too!

bear LOVED the drawer under the oven around 10 months;
lion has not figured it out yet, let’s hope it stays that way!

*big difference in picture quality due to big difference in camera quality.

friday, friday.

April 15, 2011 by mama lola

TGIF people!

this weekend is going to be another busy one for us. tomorrow we are going to spend the afternoon working outside with some of dear hubby’s family. it is an early birthday celebration for the guy as his folks will be away visiting dear hubby’s sis down south on his birthday proper. hopefully the weather will decide to co-operate and give us less wind and more warmth as we want to get our brand new shed sealed and waterproofed. check it out!

look at this pretty shed. bear is especially pleased it has finally arrived!

this evening i feel exhausted and am going to share some pictures of my silly guys instead of writing a long entry. here is bear and his bins. that’s lulu rose, the bulldog, in the red one. we will be dog sitting a real bulldog next week; horatio is his name.

too cool for school.

lion’s sweater credit goes to grandma and bear’s hair to auntie K.

i also want to send out BIG, HUGE thanks to all of YOU, my followers and readers. this blogging adventure would be lonely without all the support from all you out there in the in the real world. i love reading the comments and welcome more, even if you don’t agree or like what i am writing about. i have had readers from all over the world, which is exciting!

kiitos.

my sweet wee lion.

help, i need somebody, help.

April 14, 2011 by mama lola

Yesterday was a long day for all of us.

first bear and i went to buy his fancy glasses. he of course was well behaved as he tried on a few pairs of frames. His criteria for choosing a pair was that they had to be red and beautiful like mine! what a guy! The ones we decided upon ended up being more copper than red, but bear seemed quite pleased and we pick them up next week.

then the four of us went to a friend’s mother’s funeral. It was a beautiful and touching service. This family in particular has endured many tragedies over the past few years; the kind that most people never experience in a life time. I lift my hat to them as I admire their strength and courage while they move through another difficult chapter. I often wonder how much help they have asked for versus, how much help they have actually received. There is of course the professional side with funeral insurance, planning arrangements, etc. but the personal side is one that can be hard for all to tap into during this time.

“how are you?”
“fine.”
“can i help?”
“no, i’m ok.”

asking for help is a skill I have not learned. I suffer greatly from the I-can-do-it-all’s and rarely ask for help, even when I desperately need it. I suppose I am scared of being judged as a weak, inadequate, incapable woman and mother. This past year has been a true testament to the inability I have to ask for a helping hand. When I was 7 months pregnant we moved cities and into our own home. though it may seem out of the blue, we had actually been thinking about moving house for a long time before I fell pregnant. you just can’t plan for these types of things, I guess. but we wouldn’t have changed it for the world. so, moving house at this time actually allowed us to accommodate our growing family. we needed more room anyway. I spent many a night looking at homes for sale in windsor colorado, denver, and even towns and cities that were further away because this was an opportunity for us to really have a change of scenery. we came across some beautiful homes that will definitely need looking at again in the future, but when we came to think about it, we just couldn’t bear moving further than we’d like. so, we looked at properties closer to home, and were blessed to find one that we all agreed on. even bump, who gave me some kicks when we were looking at the house.

some may say that we were mad to do this, and I agree. to a point. thinking back, I’m not quite sure why we thought that moving during this time in my pregnancy was a good idea, but we were too far along in the process to change things around now. luckily, we had most things in order. whilst I packed most of our belongings in the evenings and made sure that we had got in touch with companies like SoFi to find a suitable home loan for our needs (https://www.sofi.com/home-loans/), my dear hubby drove to the then “new house” to paint and do minor repairs. this helped massively as at least the house would be ready to move into as soon as possible. sure people offered to help, but I wasn’t sure if it was out of courtesy, so would thank people greatly and assure them we had everything under control. we moved and our lion was born shortly thereafter. as I was recuperating from his ceaserian birth and as we tried to overcome the trauma of his birth, again I declined help. in the late fall when I had my surgery to remove my pituitary gland tumour and was home but still bleeding from my nose and feeling quite rough around the edges, my mother-in-law came to our house everyday. She cooked and cared for bear, while I hovered around feeling guilty. a week after the surgery I convinced everyone I was strong enough to handle the house and kids alone again. I was lucky though, many of my local friends cooked and brought over delicious meals and treats for us to enjoy. this made a huge difference and I cannot express my gratitude enough.

in hindsight though, I realize I was a fool. it seems so silly to have felt guilty for needing help. In reality I don’t think anyone would have seen me as a weak individual and if they had then screw ’em!

I watch as some of my dearest family and friends also suffer from the i-can-do-it-all’s. it is a way of behaving that for some absurd reason has become a norm or expectation. It is especially pervasive with women and even more in mothers. we think our worth, our self worth, is tied tightly to our ability to do everything. to be the heroine. Truth be told, it is the strong and confident individual who will and can ask for help.

also, I don’t want to be a bother or a burden to others. people lead busy lives and have a million items on their to do lists, so the last thing I want is to infringe on them. And do people really mean they will help when they offer? from my experience, offering to help is often a cop-out. A way to make the person offering feel better about themselves and most people do not expect to be taken up on their offer anyway. the most helpful help is tangible action oriented behaviour, like arriving at someone’s house with a vacuum or groceries or whatever fits the need.

bear helping paint the bathroom.

bear helping lion by shoving a stick in his mouth.

attachment parenting.

April 12, 2011 by mama lola

i am having a great parenting week, for a change. typically i can be heard lamenting my woes and lows to fellow mamas, whether on the phone or on the playground. typically, i feel tired and worn down, especially by my challenging three year old bear. his growls and roars are difficult to manage and often i end up losing my cool. being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) is a lot of work and dealing with irrational children all day is exhausting, no matter how cute they are. there is no possibility calling in sick and sometimes it’s impossible to even get a break. i can just see all you stay-at-home parents, nodding as you sip yesterday’s cold coffee!

but, the winds have shifted at our house and it’s all because of me. my attitude has shifted. yes, bear continues to be three and pushes my buttons in hopes of a reaction, but i have stopped reacting. just like that, i stopped. now, i breathe, stay calm and get down to his level and talk to him. when he loses his cool i hold him tight, whisper softly and endure the hits in the face. of course i remind him not to hit and all of that, but i don’t snap. i continue to hold him. i am the adult in this relationship and it is my responsibility to role model appropriate behaviour.

lost my voice last week. lucky kids. lucky hubby!

and this is where the attachment parenting comes in for me. i am a true believer in holding, carrying and sleeping with my kids. i think in our society we have misconstrued something so simple as touch and twisted it into being about sex. touch and touching is an intimate way to express love to those you care about. for my sweet bear, i have come to understand that his recent spike in difficult behaviour has been about jealousy and the lack of meaningful touch from me. he watches as i breastfeed his baby brother, as i carry lion in the sling or in my arms through-out the day, as i cradle our smallest cub and rock him to sleep. bear feels sad, left-out, angry, envious, resentful, forgotten, neglected; or at least these are the emotions i think he is feeling as he can’t describe what’s going on. he does however go through phases of barking (i know, lucky me), extreme screaming fits, whining, hitting, and other typical age appropriate behaviour. now that i have clued into this, i make a point of touching him, holding him, talking to him at his level (not from up high as usual) and acknowledging his confusing feelings he has started to listen to me again. actually listening to me. he also shows great tenderness towards me again with hugs and kisses, which he cut off from me for a long time. mutual respect goes a long way, baby!

very soon (like in a week or so) we will be night weaning lion, so dear hubby and i will switch the beds and kids we sleep with. since lion’s birth in july, which was quite stressful and confusing for bear, as i was in the hospital for almost a week, dear hubby has co-slept with bear. this sleeping arrangement was our attempt to try and curb jealousy and i think initially it worked. plus, as many of you know bringing a new member into the family can be very upsetting to the older sibling(s). anyhow, i feel confident that our future musical beds dance will only be positive for my relationship with bear.