Sometimes You Have to Untie Their Shoelaces

The classic metaphor about moms with young children is that the kids are tied to mom’s apron strings; in other words, it is the mom who decides when the kids will be set free.  This metaphor is misleading for two reasons:  first of all, you should know by now that you will never catch me (or many other moms for that matter) in an apron.  And secondly, I think this metaphor has it backwards.  It is us moms who are tied to our kids, via their shoelaces.  It is our children’s decision when to venture off into the world on their own.  They decide when they can go down the slide at the park solo.  They decide when they can dress themselves.  And they decide when they can tie their own shoelaces, thereby setting us free.  

I have come to realize that a mom’s independence or ability to indulge in following her own dreams, without a debilitating case of The Guilites, seems to be inversely related to how old their children are.  In other words, the younger your kids, the more tied to Mommyland you are.  I know when I first got pregnant and entered mommyhood I never wanted an escape from Mommyland.  Just the opposite actually.  I wanted to drag every single one of my friends in there with me.  I forced them to relive every poopy diaper, every hiccup, and every bottle (of milk, not wine as per usual) with me.  For once in my life I didn’t give two cents what Perez Hilton had to say about the latest Hollywood gossip (unless it involved a celeb having a baby).  And I had no idea how my husband was able to get up every morning and leave our son to go to work.  I couldn’t even stand it when someone else got to hold our baby, so I couldn’t imagine leaving him completely for any length of time.

The problem with this is that after a while you start to lose yourself in Mommyland.  Each day your child grows a little less dependent on you until you are forced to realize that your sense of self has become dependent on them.  Then it hits you – one day your kids aren’t going to rely on you anymore, the shoelaces will be untied if you will, and your sense of purpose and worth will disappear.  

Which is why it is so important to escape Mommyland every once in a while.  Alice and I escape by writing this blog (hence the title).  We both have a passion for writing and realized that we needed to do something just for ourselves so our self-worth didn’t solely rely on whether or not our kids ate all their vegetables.  But everyone’s passion is different, and whatever yours is, you should make time to go out and follow it.  Even if that means you have to do it at 1am as Alice and I are often forced to (check out the publish dates on the last few posts – I am so not kidding on this one!). 

A mom I know in Toronto has taken this idea to the next level.  Not only has she taken the initiative to follow her passion for business, but she has used this passion to help organize an event that will help other moms, and anyone else for that matter, learn about how to achieve success, be at peace and follow their passion.  Together with Stuart Knight Productions she has helped bring the Top 10 Event to fruition. 

Basically this event consists of ten celebrity speakers (Brett Wilson from Dragon’s Den, Canadian Idol Judge Jake Gold, Kelly Carlson from Nip Tuck, and Rex Harrington from So You Think You Can Dance just to name a few), who each have a story to tell and a lesson to offer, coming together in one evening to share their insights with you.  The problem with so many of us is that we don’t know what our passion is, how to find it or how to pursue it.  What better way to figure out the answers to those questions than by hearing from others who have been there, done that and succeeded more than they ever imagined?  The best part is that a portion of the proceeds of this event goes to support the Stephen Lewis Foundation, so not only are you helping yourself by attending, you will be helping others as well.

One of the most important lessons I have learned in life is to grab hold of the opportunities that come your way – you don’t want to live with regrets, constantly wondering ‘what if’.  This event is one of those opportunities.  I for one will be attending.  If you are going to be in or around the GTA on August 4^th, 2011, get your tickets now because they won’t last long. 

As parents it is up to us to set the example for our kids.  If we want them to follow their dreams than we have to set the example by following ours.  So for one night I am going to untie the shoelaces and slip away from Mommyland for a while, and for once I will refuse to feel guilty about it.  I’ll just tie the laces back up in the morning and the kids will never know I was gone. Unless they see me later on T.V - did I mention this event was going to be filmed and airing on Slice in the fall?  Get your tickets now - I'll see you there.

-Wendy

I am NOT a Cook

Why is it that a woman is expected to morph into some Julia Child-Martha Stuart wannabe as soon as she has a ring on her finger and/or stretch marks on her belly?  I hate to break it to you but a wedding ring is not a magical object that will instantly transform a sloppy college co-ed into a domestic goddess.  If a woman is not an expert cook before she got married and/or procreated, she certainly will not have time to become one afterwards.

Yet despite the best efforts of woman’s lib, society still puts pressure on women to be expert housekeepers, proficient in interior design and, most of all, master chef’s in the kitchen.  If this is the standard by which wives and mothers are judged than I am just one big epic fail.  I would rather throw out clothing that try to get a stain out.  All the walls in my house are beige because I cannot commit to any other color.  And I have no idea what the fuck a shallot is.

Mostly I blame parenting magazines and Gwyneth Paltrow for my feelings of inadequacy.  The former because they are designed to make you feel inadequate and the latter because she is freaking Supermom, sent to earth from a distant planet where cellulite does not exist and the inhabitants never require sleep.  Seriously, this woman is an actress, singer, wife, mother, and now, apparently an expert chef as well.  Come on Gwyn, are you seriously telling me that you come home from rockin with Cee Lo at the Grammy’s, strap on an apron and cook for two hours?  This is unbelievable for two reasons:  one, you are too damn stylish to be caught wearing an apron; and two -look at you – do you really expect us to believe that you actually eat??

But enough about Supermom.  I am just a regular cellulite-ridden, sleep-deprived mom who has no ability or inclination to learn to cook things she can’t pronounce.  I simply do not enjoy spending my time handling raw meat, chopping veggies or burning things, (which is usually the end result of my cooking exploits).  I am of the microwave generation – if it takes more than 5 minutes to cook, it ain’t worth it.

The worst part of all this is that I thought I had finally found an answer to my dilemma.  I was reading a parenting magazine (which was my first bad decision) and I came across an article about a mom who hated cooking – she was no good at it, had no time for it and nobody wanted to eat what she cooked anyway.  So what did she do to solve her dilemma?  Buy a certain cook book?  Take cooking lessons?  Start taking a new miracle drug that is proven to cure bad cooking?  Nope.  This rich bitch mommy had the balls to tell me that the best thing she ever did was hire a cook.  Craptastic.  Now not only do I feel like a rotten cook, I feel poor too. 

I guess what I have come to realize is that I just have to accept that I am a shitacular cook.  If you come to a dinner party at my house you will get some Cheez Whiz stuffed in a mushroom and some dry chicken.  And yes, the majority of the dinner will be prepared in the microwave.  But this does not make me a crappy mom.  My kids still eat their broccoli even if it is not served au gratin.  Surprisingly, food does not have to taste amazing or be fancy in order to be nutritious. 

So chew on that Gwyneth.   I may not be as pretty as you or as talented as you or as rich as you ...where was I going with this again?  Oh yeah - I am still an awesome mom.  A good cook does not a good mom make.  But I may still buy your cookbook just in case.

-Wendy

Kid's Books That Don't Make You Twitch

I love reading to my kids.  Most of the time.  The thing about reading to your kids is that you are forced to read the same story to them over and over and over until it is permanently imprinted on your brain and you find that you can no longer remember the words to the National Anthem (*cough* Christina Aguilera) yet you can repeat One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish word for word.  

This can be a good thing.  Like when you are stuck in an airport and you can entertain all the cranky children by acting out The Cat in the Hat, thereby winning the affections of all the other passengers on the plane – two of whom happen to be Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes who then swear their undying gratitude to you for amusing Suri and preventing her temper tantrum that would surely have graced the pages of the National Inquirer.  And before you know it you have a part in Tom’s next movie.  

Back in reality, reading kids books ad nauseum can be a real pain in the ass when you’re stuck reading mind-numbingly boring, ridiculously rhymed books about personified woodland creatures for hours on end.  And unfortunately, these types of books make up the majority of what you will find in most book stores.  I refer to these types of books as kid’s crap books.

Right now I am so fed up with all the kid’s crap books it is not funny.  I am particularly fed up with kid’s crap books that are based off of T.V. shows or movies, which are the worst kind of kid’s crap books.  Our kids see these books with their favourite characters on them and beg us to buy them, yet the books only contain dribble that some publishing house lacky was forced to adapt from some screenplay.  Most of the time the ‘adaptation’ doesn’t even make sense.  In a Curious George ‘adaptation’ that we (unfortunately) own, the writer (and I use that term loosely) wrote that “The man with the yellow hat sat George down with some paper and a pad.”  So let me get this straight - basically the man gave the monkey some paper and some more paper?  Either that or the man is teaching his monkey about feminine hygiene and this just became an entirely different kind of book.  I think the writer meant to say that the man gave George some paper and a PEN.  Which is something this so-called writer should really be banned from using. 

The worst part is that these commercial books end up hogging most of the shelf space at any book store.  While the great books, the ones that you don’t mind reading 6,493,502 times are relegated to some dusty corner or are not there at all.  Which makes it really hard to find a good kids books.  

Currently, out of our collection of kids books there are only three that I actually enjoy reading to my kids.  Three. Which is like 0.002% of the kids books we own.  Maybe I am the problem – maybe I am too picky.  All I ask of a good kid’s story is that it is creative, unique, has lovable characters, a moral, and allows me to do funny voices while reading it.  Is that really too much to ask?  Apparently so.

Here are the three books that make the cut:

                The Terrible, Horrible, Smelly Pirate by Carrie Muller and Jacqueline Halsey. 
                Bounce and Beans and Burn by Shannon Murray. 
                Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? By Lauren Child. 

I will not bore you by summarizing these books for you here – sufficed to say, these books rock.  No one is paying me to say this – I don’t get any commission if you go out and buy them.  I share these with you here in the hope that you will all have great books memorized in case you encounter TomKat on a plane.  And in return, hopefully you all will fill me in on some of the other great kids books that I know are out there but have not been able to find amidst the droves of Dora and Disney books that I am drowning in.  Seriously - if I have to read any more kid’s crap books I swear I will start to twitch.  And then I wouldn’t be able to be in Tom’s next movie after all.

-Wendy