When I launched this blog 17 months ago, my first post was entitled “How Starting a Blog is Like Having Twins.” Now, 170 posts later, I feel like I’ve been living in Blogville for a while. In fact, because the world of blogging is relatively new compared to when Neanderthals grunted their way around, I […]
Un-Ironic Moments
Surviving the First Week with Newborns
Just over a week ago, my new blogging buddy, Rob Shep and his lovely wife Monica, celebrated the birth of twins. Their son Hayden has been home for a bit, and yesterday their daughter Reese was discharged from the hospital. This post is a Welcome Home message for all of them. And a walk down […]
Children: the world’s first poets
My daughter, Vivian, loves words. I know, because she uses a lot of them, some of which I even listen to. When she really wants my attention, she writes notes. When I came home after a three hour writing session, this was taped to our front door: Last week, after I vacuumed the shards of […]
The “Real” Magic of Motherhood
There are certain times in a parent’s life – fleeting though those moments are – when one realizes that one’s kids have been listening. This happened last week. * Each Wednesday, my husband and I execute a complicated play from our parenting manual. It involves a well-timed hand off, where we swap kids. Just prior […]
How To Use Manners To Get What You Want
When William was a toddler, he mastered using manners to get what he wanted. He’d wander over, raise both of his hands like a referee signaling touchdown, and say, “May I please have some pick-me-up?” This phrase has become part of our family lore, one of those stories that our twins love hearing over and […]
Why I Despise Dollar Stores: A Rant
If there are 1000 Awesome Things in this world, then there are at least 10,000 Not-So-Awesome Things. Near the top of that list are dollar stores. This summer, when my dad slipped each of my children a Toonie (for you non-Canadian folk, that’s a $2 coin), I decided to take them to the dollar store. […]
An Eerie Tale of Sleepwalking
My daughter sleepwalks occasionally. Of course, for all I know, she could be traversing our house nightly, entering the garage, and taking our loser cruiser for a spin, but I hear her only on occasion. On the nights I’m aware of her slumberous travels, her route is generally the same: she drifts into our room […]
5 Ways My Kids Have Made Me a Better Person
I write a lot of snarky posts. Basically, irony comes far more easily than ironing. But every now and then, I have un-ironic moments. They’re fleeting. Most of them aren’t worth stopping for. Sometimes I stop anyway. When I was pregnant with my twins in Bangkok, I was put on bed rest near the end […]
5 Parenting Tips I Learned from the World Cup
Tip One: You Don’t Need To Have a Lot of Money To Be Good Throughout the World Cup, I’ve adopted my husband’s favourite team: ABE. ABE stands for Anyone But Europe. It’s not that we’re anti-Europe; we’re just pro-underdog (well, unless Team Canada’s playing hockey). In the case of the World Cup, though, the group […]
Tigger and Eeyore: My House of Pooh
Last weekend, we had Vivian and William’s birthday party at a karate club. So desperate was I to get it over with, I held it two weeks early. If you’re a regular reader, you likely already know how much I despise birthday parties. But I gave in and hosted an extravaganza at a karate centre […]