lion is roaring!

November 17, 2011 by mama lola

*pictures with our point-n-shoot as my lens on my nikon is busted; my computer is still being fixed… therefore grainy, blurry, unedited pictures for the time being.

many of my posts revolve around my three year old, bear.

today’s post is going to be an exception, as this post is all about my sweet little lion. now at 16 months he is a busy little guy always trying to keep up with his older brother’s shenanigans and doing a darn good job at it too.
my littlest is very different from his brother. he is the most impatient person i have ever met; if his demands are not met immediately he will scream and cry as if the world is ending. he arches his little back dramatically and throws a fit that stops as soon you have provided him with what he wants. these wee tantrums are typically food related!

in the summer for his 1 year well baby check up he was weighing in a whopping 16lbs, which technically wasn’t even on the charts! we were pretty surprised he was so tiny. i mean, just looking at him you could see he was small, but not on the charts? now that’s small. our family doctor didn’t seem too worried as he was meeting all of the other milestones and she explained to me that those growth charts are actually based on formula fed babies and meat eaters. we are vegetarian and i am an avid breastfeeder.

but, i still worried and so i started offering food all day every day and it worked. lots of cheeses, hummus, avocado, eggs, salmon, all prepared at home by me. in hindsight, i think the major problem contributing to his slow weight gain was his inability to chew properly. he had a few teeth, but it was action of chewing and then swallowing which confused him. he’s still a bit forgetful and will spit food out into his wee hand and offer it to me. thanks dude!

but, it’s one of those tricky points in mothering that people tend to judge you on. in our society we tend to think bigger is better; think of choosing fruits or veggies at the market, the bigger tomatoes are chosen faster! the same goes for babes, bigger means healthier (within a certain bracket) and if you have smaller baby people question if you are feeding your child enough. it’s been a tough road for me, as his mama, to have to justify his size and exclusively breastfeeding him for the first six months of his life.

but, as you can see by just looking at him he drips of cuteness and charms the pants off of his da-da every day. he still struggles with some stranger anxiety, but is slowly getting better with other people. he loves animals and has been delighted to have my parents’ cat, bella, stay with us these past few weeks. he has now transitioned to one nap a day and loves a good cuddle in the mornings with his daddy. he is full of life and passion and wit. he is clumsy, always falling off of various pieces of furniture or bashing his head into tables or tripping over his own feet. he loves to colour with markers and just to annoy me leaves the lids off intentionally. he wants so desperately to be big like his brother, as i am so desperately trying to hold onto my baby.

although lion’s arrival into our family was a surprise, we are thrilled to have him and couldn’t imagine our family without him. my heart is bursting with pride and love for him. my sweet little lion.

g’night moon.

on the roof tops and shouting hurrah!

November 16, 2011 by mama lola

*pictures with our point-n-shoot as my lens on my nikon is busted; my computer is still being fixed… therefore grainy, blurry, unedited pictures for the time being.

i am standing on the roof tops and shouting hurrah!
today was the first day in a long time that my bear and i did not fight. i made big (and i mean BIG) efforts not fall for his antics and i succeeded. there were a few close calls, but i would close my eyes, count to ten and ask for “serenity now”. i’ve said it before and i will say it again, i am the adult in this relationship and it is my responsibility to model the behaviour i want him to present. three has been a super difficult age for us and most parents out there tend to agree. whoever came up with the “terrible twos” notion, obviously moved out before the kid turned three.

there is something very fundamentally different about three and two and three and four. a two year old is still very much a baby in so many ways, especially compared to a three year old. after speaking with the experts, mamas and papas like me, i think at three they get scared of growing up. at our house it seems as though bear is aware of his advances in learning and the gains he has made in his independence and that recently he has regressed to a baby. for example, when trying to get out the door bear says he doesn’t know how to put his shoes on, which i know is ridiculous, because he was eagerly velcroing his runners at two. my frustration comes from knowing he knows how to do things, but him choosing not to do them.

so today was my experiment day, i knelt down to his level and helped him get dressed in way and with a tone i haven’t in a long time. he is so very capable of getting dressed on his own, except for those darn socks and tricky buttons and has even been choosing his own clothes to wear each day. but today, instead of insisting that he do it and him refusing vehemently, i gave him the opportunity to it on his own, but when things were not progressing instead of getting frustrated, i sat on the floor and gently asked if he wanted help. i probably sound like a cow and a terrible mother, for A) caving in B) usually getting frustrated with getting dressed. but, i think parents of three year olds will agree and i hope you are nodding as you read this, because you have perhaps struggled the way i have, and still do.

i don’t feel as tired as i usually do on a weekday evening. the positive turn of events i think have recharged my mama-batteries and turned a light on at the end of this long parenting tunnel.

fingers crossed tomorrow is a calm and joy filled day as well.

weekend guilt.

November 12, 2011 by mama lola

my computer is STILL getting fixed. and now to my shock and horror the lense on my nikon is not working, so i have basically stopped taking pictures. technology and i just don’t get along!

[source]

SATURDAY:
it feels as though every day i fight the same fights with my three year old. every morning it starts with getting dressed and then it’s about getting shoes or boots on to go outside and then it’s about tidying up….. lately though things have gotten worse and this weekend i lost it. this mama of a pressure cooker lost her cool in a shameful way. every time i asked bear to do something he sat there on the floor and whined and did nothing. i tried threatening him, bribing him and nothing worked. i wanted to go to the new micheals in town and since we’re almost out of paint, i told bear we could go and buy some new ones. he shook his head and said “no. i don’t want to.” really? what kid does not want go and buy new paints? i was flabbergasted.
i just don’t understand the necessity to repeat each of these fights. i mean, i get it; it’s all about power and control and we’re both fighting for it. and i get that he’s feeling overwhelmed by all of the independence he has discovered as of late, but, c’mon, surely we don’t have to fight about getting shoes on every single effing day.
or maybe we do.

but this weekend clarified for me that i have lost my mothering ways in all of this. i have lost my solid ground as i am losing my cool too quickly. i need to revisit some of my parenting books, for the reminders i need to stay focused and present at the task at hand. when i point fingers and shout and say stupid things like “because i said so” (which is the dumbest thing to say in my opinion), i immediately feel guilty and like the worst mother on this planet. and as that self-hatred boils hotter inside of me, i shout a wee bit louder and emphasize my point even that much more. augh. this is not the kind of mama i want to be, even during my weakest moments.
i wish i was stronger. i wish i could climb into an armoured suit during some of these daily battles as a way to protect myself, but ultimately to protect my bear from the reaction he receives from me. the suit would hide my rageful face and silence my screams.
i went to bed feeling alone and empty.

this image is grainy and blurry; not sure if that’s blogger or the laptop i’m on. sorry. but, bear built this amazing barn with me and then wrote out a stop sign for the entrance, so funny!

SUNDAY:
this morning, to my delight i received a warm sunny call from a darling friend. it was as if she had heard the upset thoughts racing through my mind and decided to touch base. and that was exactly what i needed, to touch base and get grounded in my mothering. my friend talked me through the weeks events and listened to me vent as i complained about the struggles i have been dealing with.
after her words of wisdom, i felt stronger and wanted to have a better sunday than we had had saturday. we did a wee bit of christmas shopping, ran a few errands and actually had fun as a family while doing some mundane things.

******
then, there is tremendous guilt i feel for even complaining about my family and my life. at least i am alive, here and present at this time to mother. about a week ago a woman. jenna morrison, was killed while biking to pick up her son from school. she was 38 years old, a yoga instructor, a wife and five months pregnant. her death has been on my mind a great deal, even though the accident happened in toronto, but because she could have been a friend of mine or me. People I know could have had to contact lamber goodnow to get a case filed, and it could have been anyone I know. this is what so many of us mamas do, we travel back forth between schools, parks, grocery stores, doing what we do to care for our families never really thinking something like this can happen. her death was tragic.

there will be ghost ride for jenna tomorrow morning in toronto. please attend if you can.and demand your own community to create safer roads for cyclists.
******
stay safe.
xo

it’s friday night and that means date night!

November 11, 2011 by mama lola

it’s friday night and dear hubby and i are going to try and hit the movies. “j. edgar” is playing and if dear hubby’s bus comes in from the big city on time we will make it, just. i am actually super excited, even only at the thought of going to a movie; the adult content, the adult sized popcorn and the lack of children. i need a break from them and it’s beginning to show. my patience is practically non-existant and every cry of theirs makes me want to scream! I can’t wait to get back and maybe even have to Click now to explore porn7 xxx to get my hubby going some…

i feel very fortunate to have found our baby-sitter. her and the boys have discovered a groove that works for them and although lion cries when we leave he seems comfortable enough in her arms. the boys play, eat bedtime snacks and go to bed with relative ease most nights when she’s here. it’s a break for us, especially me and right now i am counting down the hours to walking out that door…. T-minus 2 hours.

we’re cat sitting my parents wee kitty, bella. the boys are delighted to have her here, although she only comes out of hiding a few times a day. the screaming and carrying on the boys get up to scares the socks off of her. she loves a tasty treat and warm snuggle at night.

have a wonderful weekend everyone!

they grow up too fast!

November 10, 2011 by mama lola

**my computer is still getting repaired, so my pics are unedited and look pretty rough around the edges.

i’ve been sick this week, feeling sorry for myself as this darn strep throat has invaded my body.

my slow energy has not slowed the boys down however. with growing up comes unwanted behaviours and attitudes. our bear has in fact turned into a bit of a liar. he lies about big things and about little things and although i understand that it is a part of development, it doesn’t mean i have to like it.

working on a birthday treat for a special friend.

the latest lie that we caught him in was when he denied cutting lion’s hair! at some point in the afternoon he had taken a pair of scissors and randomly cut around lions’s crown. he said that lion had pulled his own hair out. hmph…. the clumps of blonde hair dear hubby found were shocking and i have since saved them in a ziplock bag and labeled the bag with a description of what had happened!

so it’s not the cutting that bothers me, it’s the blatant lying. although, yes scissors can be dangerous, but the lying… man o’ man that kid is good. when i tried my cop skills on him hoping to get him to trip on his story, he didn’t. he stuck to his original script and didn’t trip once. his face lost all of its sweetness and looked hard as he spun his malicious and manipulative story. i am slightly lost as to what to do.

pasta a la face! you can kind of see that one side of lions hair is wispier than the other.

and lion. with his new funky hair-do he really is such a passionate little guy. my littlest little chicken wing, as i fondly call him, is experiencing a tremendous growth spurt physically and cognitively. he is sleeping so much, eating more than his big brother at times and just watching the world that much closer. his comprehension has been blowing us away lately and i think it’s because we have always thought of lion as our baby, but he is really not a baby anymore, but instead a thriving toddler. he works hard to keep up with bear and catches on to the rules of a game quickly. if things don’t go his way he screams and squeals until dear hubby or i come and resolve the situation. his energy is high spirited and he is determined to get things to go his way. he fearlessly climbs onto furniture and gets stuck up top and screams as he does not know how to make his way down.
what a lion!

as i sit and type i am surrounded by my silent house, i am again reminded of the bittersweet role i hold as their mother. the boys are tucked in their bunk-beds and another day has come to an end.

i am so proud of my children.
i love them so.

birth. stories.

October 26, 2011 by mama lola

looking for submissions: a friend is looking for birth stories for her blog MotherGather. it’s a wonderful resource for new and experienced mamas (or anyone really) and a platform where women can share their own birth stories. western society has warped the importance of birth by dismissing its importance as an experience to be celebrated and acknowledged as a milestone in a fertile woman’s life. hollywood and our media bombard us with images of birth as a painful, “man hating ordeal” where women are at the hands of experts. i find this distressing, because it is inaccurate and sends the wrong message to moms of what the true experience will be like. but, birth stories don’t just have to involve a mother birthing a baby out of her body, they can include parents adopting children and birthing a new family, so to speak. this of course is never talked about in media or hollywood honestly either.

i know from my own experiences, the births of my two cubs, that although they were completely different, neither was what i had expected. or hoped for. but, that being said, i did the best i could in each day, hour and moment of labour and delivery with each of my boys. i did the best i could, with what i knew at the time. and, that is the best anyone of us can do during birth. or life.

after bear’s birth, i felt like a failure. as if not bringing to fruition my idealized, romanticized and fantasized images of labour and delivery would somehow brand me as a bad mother for the rest of my life. as if the different road that was travelled for those 59 hours that i laboured and the one hour i delivered, somehow makes me a failure, because i was not at home and in a tub. sounds silly, even to me as i type this but, alas, this is a part of my struggle as a human, a woman and as a mama. perfection, or what i consider to be perfection for me. i would never imagine holding someone else up to these exorbitant expectations, as i logically understand that they are unrealistic.

when did my babies stop being babies?

lion’s first haircut. i trimmed his bangs.

it’s time to bid farewell to you, my faithful readers, but only for a short while. we are headed to the big apple for a week and while we are frolicking in the streets of the city that never sleeps, my computer will be undergoing some serious surgery at the techie-hospital. i will be offline for a while, but will return with buckets overflowing with pictures and stories of our adventures. our days will be filled with trips to central park, FAO schwartz, MOMA, and times square, just to name a few. we will also be witness to the nuptials of some lovely friends on friday, but best of all our city weekend is bookended with quality time with dear hubby’s sister and her mister. it’s been a while since we’ve seen them and we are anxiously awaiting shared dinners, hikes along forest trails and just the opportunity to catch up on all of the important stuff.

please have your fingers crossed for us, and hope that we have a rainless vacation, especially on saturday and sunday. the experts have gone from rain, to snow to sun and back. yesterday the forecast for saturday called for 10mm+ rain and today all sun, all day. how can they be so different??

see you in november!

homemakers, homemaking and me.

October 21, 2011 by mama lola

i am reading this absolutely amazing book radical homemakers by shannon hayes. it is a book about how our current consumer driven society came to be. how we evolved from homes with two homemakers, where two adults worked all day to maintain the household and family. they worked in the home, for the home, for the family. today, homes sit empty all day while people leave their homes to work for someone else so that they can afford their homes. it is about the consumer society that has dictated a new norm and we are all supposed to follow this path in order to maintain the buy, buy economy. hayes argues, for example, that there is excessive value placed on work, especially over work, keeping family members away from the home and separated from each other. this in turn has led to rising rates of depression and other mental health illnesses in the USA, where hayes is writing from and about. her book is well researched, presented and for myself, has made me take a closer look at my family and our values and think about where we’re headed with the choices we are making.

lion loves to help in the kitchen.

i am a stay-at-home-mama by choice. years before dear hubby and i were ever married and seriously considering parenthood, i knew one day i wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom. dear hubby has always been very supportive of this career path of mine and shared the belief of its importance. and yes, i do call it a career path or choice. homemaking is what i do all day, it is my work, my job. i may not receive monetary compensation for it, but i tend to our home and tend to the needs of the people living in our home. i ensure there is healthy food, clean clothes, clean living spaces, safe activities for the children, and much, much more.

being a fulltime at home parent is a rarity. there is tremendous pressure in our society to own lots of stuff, as that is a way to measure our success and ultimately, our self worth. the sizes of homes are getting bigger, but not because families are, but because of what it represents. the bigger the car, home, or diamond the more money they have and the happier they must be. but, according to hayes, research has proven this assumption is massively wrong. more money often means more hours worked, which actually means people are unhappier, because their time is very limited with their family.

i often get quite defensive when explaining my reasons for wanting to be at home. i feel like i have to justify that what i do is legitimate work and not just a lazy day with the kids. i in fact take my at-home duties very seriously, as i would with any job. for example, i try to feed my family fresh, nutritious foods, making meals from scratch most evenings. i am trying to teach my children how to enjoy a variety of foods; understand that food is grown on farms thanks to hard working people and doesn’t just appear in the grocery store. it is very important to us that our kids appreciate the manual labour and handmade aspect of their toys or clothes or food. obviously these discussions are short, as our kids are small, but we do acknowledge the fact that someone had to pick the fruit we are enjoying and someone had to ship it here and then someone else had to unpack it at the store.

we picked these apples and are making an apple crisp.

sneaky little bro trying to grab an apple chunk!

our society has lost the basic skills to darn, sew, knit, make clothes or fix cars, appliances, tools or grow and make our own foods, like bread. everything is ready-made for us. when things break, we toss them away and buy a new one.

in our household we make a conscious effort to try and make things, like gifts, for the kids, family and friends. for example, last christmas the boys got a much adored kitchen dear hubby built from an old night stand we purchased secondhand. i sewed some simple food items and found some real kitchen items from value village to round out the gift. this was our way of continuing our christmas traditions that will hopefully create a smaller foot print environmentally, but willalso create a sense of pride in the handmade items, no matter how small. we have been known to make soups, cookies, other baked treats, soaps and small sewn items as gifts for people.

all of that being said, i will admit that i too feel the pressures of keeping up with the jones’ (whoever they are). i want to have beautiful clothes, furniture and stainless steel everything, and i often feel the pressure to go out and get a paying job, so that we can afford more stuff. but, then i am reminded that we in fact do not want that stuff. we don’t want a tv, another car or fancy tech toys that are all the rage these days. what we do want is to see and experience the wonder of new places and people; we want live and work abroad, dear hubby seriously wants to sail around the world as a family, but most importantly we want to do EVERYTHING together.

i hope i didn’t come across as self-righteous. i am only speaking of my life and my family and what works for us. we are very much a work in progress.

here’s a little mama humour to leave you with on this soggy wednesday; something i found on pinterest.

woolly woolens time with apples on the side, please.

October 19, 2011 by mama lola

NYC FAMILY ROAD TRIP t-minus 8 days and counting…
just checked the weather network for temperatures in new york for our halloween weekend and i almost barfed. there was a picture of a snowflake next some rain drops for saturday the 29th; are you KIDDING ME? the weather experts are calling for a high of +9c for our saturday adventures in the big apple, augh just our luck. how on earth am i going to dress the kids? must pull out my mom’s knitted woolly mitts and socks for the boys, i suppose.
*******
check out this adorable knitted toque lion is wearing. bear received it as a gift from his great-aunt who bought it in newfoundland. now it’s lil’bro’s turn to wear it!

i love my marimekko raincoat.

we went apple picking today. it was a typical fall day for us; cloudy with chill dampness in the air, but no rain.

we checked out a new place south of us, but it wasn’t that great. instead of a tractor ride to the orchard you drove around yourself, which, yes was convenient, but kind of weird. the kids had a fun time, although bear expressed genuine fear of the fallen apples on the ground. i know, strange, eh? he would cling to me or dear hubby and whimper. finally, after the northern spy section at mutsu he got over it found a picking groove.

gnarly courtland apple trees looking tortured.

we also chose some pumpkins for the front porch. since we’ll be away for actual halloween, i think instead of carving the pumpkins we’ll paint them instead. this weekend is calling for sun and it’ll be a perfect outside art project.

happy autumn!

don’t judge!

October 17, 2011 by mama lola

it is difficult to make new friends as adults. i guess it’s because we have all sorts of assumptions about other people, where they’re from, what they like and what makes them tick. even though we’ve been told never to judge a book by its cover, we do. it’s hard not to make judgements about books or people based on how they look, right? it’s hard to admit too, because we all want to believe that we, ourselves, are kind and open to all, no matter what.

but kids on the other hand… boy ‘o boy. they don’t care about what pre-school their friends go to, who their daddy is or what kinda jeans they’re wearing. kids just want a buddy to play with, to laugh with and figure out the complex rules of our society.

bear has become much more friendly and social in the last handful of months. he speaks very specifically about his friends; what they played, what they laughed about and is always asking when the next playdate is. he is truly morphing into a wee social butterfly in his own shy way. his friendships are important to him, like mine are to me and that warms my heart. bear remembers his friends and small details about them. for example he’ll tell you that so and so has a baby sister with blue eyes and who cries when she is hungry. he will explain the new game another friend taught him about monsters and lobsters and giggle just at the thought of it. he will re-tell the story of the licking game that he and mr. transformer developed on a rainy friday afternoon. it is magical and beautiful that he recognizes the importance of these people, his little friends, in his life and shows the value of these bonds as well as a three year old can.

but so it goes…

i wish i had that naivete my lovely three year old holds. to not hold pre-conceived ideas or notions about people. i try desperately not to, but i fail. so, my goal is to be careful what i do with my assumptions, who i share them with and how i present myself to the world. because, at the end of the day when i am perusing the shelves of bookstore, i do judge a book by its cover.

when it rains, it pours, even on the sunniest of days.

October 7, 2011 by mama lola

this week we existed.
it all started on sunday night when dear hubby uttered the words “we’re launching at work this week…” and anyone who is a computer programmer’s partner knows that this means too much work and not enough hours in the day and deadlines that come and go and then come around again. for dear hubby it was made worse as he had to commute to the city four times this week, instead of the usual two times and clock longer hours at the office each day.

on monday night we had the baby-sitter come, which is a bit unusual, but a friend was performing and we wanted to check it out. dear hubby was arriving at the bus depot at 7pm (and would not see the kids at all that day) and i was supposed to meet him there. i did met him there, but my heart was full of sadness and doubt as both kids had been a mess upon my departure. lion screamed and screamed, while his big brother clung to my left leg begging me to stay through sobs and tears. augh. i peeled his arms off of me, quickly kissed the boys and ran out the door. i was also almost in tears when i climbed into the car. getting a baby-sitter wasn’t supposed to be this hard and make everyone feel so heavy hearted. i was ready to go back home, but we texted the sitter and she told us everyone had calmed down and was ready for sleep. what a relief. dear hubby and i had a wonderful evening listening to great music and chatting with friends.

for the kids the stress of dear hubby’s absence was felt immediately. so, on tuesday we decided to spend a night in the big city with my folks so that the kids could at least see their dad at dinner time and bedtime. but, like any mama knows, when spending a night in a different setting, even if it is the grandparents’ cozy home, things are just that much harder. bedtime got pushed back, diaper rashes flared up and everyone was missing our regular routine.

on our way home, of course bear decided he had to poop just as we got on the highway.

bear has had an especially rough week. he’s been very attached to his daddy since birth and when dad isn’t around enough he takes it to heart. bear’s behaviour becomes more aggressive and hard to be around. he doesn’t seem to sleep as well, which makes for a growly three year old bear. and to top things off his glasses spontaneously snapped and broke, which means because it’s a long weekend he won’t get a new pair until next week. sigh.

lion doesn’t seem to realize his daddy is gone, but when he does see him again his excitement is heartbreaking to watch. he laughs and points with pure joy at his dad. but, he too has felt the stress of this unusual week.

for me, the days have been longer and more draining. it’s exhausting to be the only one doing everything and not really getting a proper break. but, the hardest part about flying solo is the loneliness of missing one’s partner.

and it’s going to be demanding for a couple of more days. tomorrow the kids and i are off to the cottage with patty. unfortunately dear hubby and his folks will be heading east a few hours to a cousin’s wedding on saturday. that means, dear hubby is renting a car and then after the reception will be booting it to the cottage. sounds absurd, i know, but the cottage is at its best at thanksgiving and lion has never even experienced it yet, so we are determined to maintain these important family traditions.

i am eagerly awaiting to curl up with some good reads in front of the cottage fire with all of my guys. i am looking forward to exploring the forests and enjoying the warmth of thanksgiving with family. i am yearning to experience the wonder that is the cottage rather than exist in my routine at home.

but…