Mommy’s Groove

I can’t turn on the CBC radio or TV these days without slipping into bone chilling fear. I’m normally very open to listening to whatever their news-based programming is serving up and consider it my daily dose of reality beyond the streets of my lake-side neighbourhood. My Grandma always listened while she worked through her day too. While I’m not sure my kids don’t hear “too much” from the regular drone of the radio, I feel the need to stay connected. (more…)

Perhaps I got it from my mother’s rigorous schedule for us kids, but I knew early on that my kids would be the early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. For me, the reasons lie in nature — both the human type and the environmental type. I wake up around the same time every day and want most to be in bed by 10:00 p.m. — sometimes earlier! But happily, the sun follows me, or I it, so aside from being different from the truly social-set, I never feel odd. Perhaps I’m not the best late-dinner party guest, but I’m ok with that. I shine brightest in the daylight!  (more…)

When I looked over the island counter in the kitchen and saw two young beaming faces my heart melted and I was charged to sustain the joy they were feeling. They weren’t opening a Christmas gift or watching Dora walk through our house, they were watching my husband and I kiss. (more…)

In my part of the world the winter is slowly creeping up on us. We’ve moved in the last few days from double digit autumn warmth, to low single digits with many millimetres of rain falling. Our northern neighbours are getting freezing rain, snow and high winds. Clearly it’s time to bunker-down for the true trials of winter: common illnesses. (more…)

Morning should never be T.V. time. Waking rested, bright and full of life I loathe the idea of little spirits getting into the zone of passivity which television invites. Morning should be a joyful, creative, fun time where the family can play while getting ready for the day.

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I’ve always held as my philosophical signature the idea that “life is full of choices”. Behind those words are a raised eye-brow and a half-smile which suggest that one should carefully consider the options life presents because our choices make us who we are. Now while I “become the mother I am meant to be” I see glimpses of the mother I am with the fingerprints of my decisions I leave behind.

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Even from my sterile corporate outpost during my pregnancy, cloth diapers were an easy decision, it seemed to me.

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The downside of all the sharing we do with our pregnant sisters is that it’s really hard to filter our advice and experiences as so not to allow negative emotions — fear, sadness, guilt or regret — in our own experiences to seep into the conversation. I found when I was pregnant, I was so open to everything floating by that it was easy to absorb the emotions behind the stories that were being shared in good faith (hence I donned the emotional flak jacket). How can you stop your cervix from pulling in when you hear about 32 hours of labour, petocin drips and tears which seemed never to end? It kinda burns a hole in your no-yet penned birth plan!

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I found an enormous sense of excitement in wanting to be part of the collective consciousness of motherhood as the baby inside me began to grow and my body showed signs of change. I could hear the little girl in me saying, “Here I will belong. Here I will be welcomed”. But it was as if old wounds were being brought up to heal because while I yearned to belong, there was that old companion, nervousness in my stomach. Hoping to avoid the let-down of feeling different again, I began approaching “the news” with women cautiously, listening to the personal stories while filtering for gems of knowledge and common values.

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I was questioning things from my pre-pregnancy life I had always accepted as fact. Moving into the second trimester of pregnancy, I was increasingly uncomfortable with what appeared to be popular rites of pregnancy for their lack of connection to the bigger questions of becoming someone’s mother. While I was open to learning how to behave from those who came before me, I was beginning to sense there were decisions lurking around every corner about which I knew absolutely nothing; and I had yet to scratch the surface of the medical pregnancy.

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