Words to live by

Heard at my house around toothbrushing time:

Boy-o :  "Mama - we have to brush our teeth because that's what keeps them healthy and strong."

Me:  "Yup."

Boy-o:  "Do you know what keeps our bodies healthy and strong?"

Me:  "No, what?"

Boy-o:  "Hugs. . .  And jumping a lot."

Driving Mr. Boy-o

On a pretend driving adventure, he informs me:

We're going to go Australia and then Calgary and then California and then Mexico. Our car can fly when we need to go over the ocean. It's sleeping time now. I'm going to sleep. But you can't sleep because I need a driver. Our car is sun powered. And then at night it can use moon power too. Because this is a special kind of car that runs on the light of the sun and the moon and the stars and the supernovas. It uses everything that's light and that we can't reach from way down here on earth.

TheStar 'Genderless' baby's mother responds to media frenzy

TheStar 'Genderless' baby's mother responds to media frenzy

(Heather Mallick also wrote a reasonably good response to the feeding frenzy at Parent Central). 




And then, immediately beside the articles and links, a poll for Star readers:

"The Star's reporting on a Toronto couple who have decided to raise their baby 'genderless' has elicited a firestorm of responses. After reading the story, do you think Storm is a boy or a girl?"

What Fuckwits.

Old Navy Lunchbox

A friend was in Old navy yesterday, and snapped this pic of their newest lunchbox....  (though I, indeed, would not mind a sugardaddy, - though likely a slightly different version than this lunchbox implies - I'm not sure the lunchbox set particularly needs this concept.)  Thoughts??

Nerdmom's heart goes into overdrive

It's bedtime. I'm attempting to wrangle a four-year-old-conscientious-sleep-objector into his rocketship footy pyjamas, (the footy-ness of which I am incidentally quite jealous of). Anyways. He asks if I will do up the zipper for him, but let him do up the snap at the top. This is a bit curious, since manual dexterity isn't a strong point, and snaps are generally a great source of frustration for him, and I wonder if this isn't a new addition to the fine art of bedtime stalling. Then we have the following conversation, as he attempts and reattempts the business of the snap:

Me: Are you sure you wouldn't like some help?

Boy-o: Oh no thank you, Mama. I think I will just persevere.

A few minutes pass.

Boy-o: (forlornly) Mama? I just don't think I can persevere anymore.

Me: (totally unable to stop myself from laughing out loud). Okay buddy.

Boy-o:  Mama? Is persevere a funny word?

Me:  No.... Persevere is a great word. And you are a great kid.

Be. Still. My. Nerdy. Heart.




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The Aftermath of Calipers - my DNTO schtick

Last weekend, I had the wickedly fun opportunity to be on CBCs Definitely Not The Opera, talking about one of many humiliating gym class experiences. Below are the dirty details :)


In a nutshell: Canada Fitness Testing. Words that strike terror into every fat kid's heart.

The endurance run. The chin-ups. The sit-ups. The push ups. The weigh-in. The sprints. The endurance run. All perfectly dreadable.

I almost always managed to skip the endurance run day. I'd beg and beg my mom not to make me go or to write me a note somehow getting me out of doing it on the same day as the entire class. Then the gym teacher would send me out the following gym day with my best friend and a stopwatch, which seemed much more, well, humane.

Because being mocked while at the same time, being the slowest, the sweatiest, and the most out of breathe while going around and around a ginourmous never ending track is too dreadful for words. Let me assure you that it is next to impossible to convincingly deliver a snappy comeback to a fat joke when you are gasping for what might be your last breath!

And then, just when you think they haven't found enough inventive and creative ways (like Canada Fitness Testing!) to make fat kids die of embarassment, they come up with the fat calipers. And there is no note decrying my horriblly painful period cramps that can get me out of the fat calipers - though if I'd have known they were coming, I probably would have tried.

You know what fat calipers are right? They look like large torture implements, but I'm told in fact that they are not. I remain unconvinced! Anyways - they're designed to pinch and assess your total body fat and are apparently meant to be wielded by gym teachers like mine, who get to squish your arm fat and accordingly pronounce you fit or fat. Because gym class in general, and Canada Fitness Testing in particular, isn't bad enough without also being weighed and fat clamped in the gym teacher's office.

So it's meant to be 'private' but everybody totally finds out anyways, because IT'S HIGH SCHOOL! How I'd wished I'd gone to the endurance run and skipped the calipers! I stood in that line, heart pounding right out of my chest, praying to be miraculously struck dead, rather than face what was sure to be the ultimate in humiliation. No such luck. No rogue tornados, hurricanes or other very welcome natural disasters befell us.

Not only was I not going to get a Gold, Silver or Bronze and be stuck with the "participation" pin that pronounces you a total loser - but they were actually going to tell me (and possibly everyone else in the vicinity!) that I was TOO FAT! Like empirically too fat - now they had the evidence to convict me of fat personhood! I was weighed, pinched and pronounced too fat (not in so many words, but that was pretty much it in a nutshell). I could feel my face was hot and red and my mouth was dry and my eyes were teary. and it was awful. And my results of course, made it to the all too willing ears of my peers exaggerated whispers that pronounced me the second fattest girl in class.

And I sort of had this moment, where everything stopped, and I felt this loud roaring in my ears, I remember that part so clearly. But I surprised myself because in addition to the familiar body shame, I felt something else for the first time - pissed off, indignant. Okay - so they just called me the worst thing in the world. All right - so what if I AM fat? What does that even mean??

I'm not saying I wasn't humiliated. I WAS! Plenty. The aftermath was actually a whole lot less humiliating than the experience itself, however fleeting. But everyone else forgot about it long before I did (obviously, since I'm still thinking about it now!) Being measured, marked as not measuring up, was incredibly shame inducing. But I also think that as traumatic as this experience was, it was also the very first in what would be many, many life turning points for me in terms developing and being okay in my identity as a fat person, and being critical about what gets said about fat people and health.

Though while it was the first step in my saying: "Okay, I'm fat, so what?!" this whole experience made me hate gym even more (in fact, I dropped gym as soon as they'd let me, which was coincidentally the very next year) and shun the idea of physical activity for years and years post-high school. I used to have this saying "Why run if no one is chasing you?!" And another friend of mine used to love to chime in that we probably shouldn't run even if someone WAS chasing us, because inevitably they'd catch us and then we'd be out of breath.

But somewhere along the line, I decided that this whole belitting and humiliation that fat kids get in gym class, and fat people get in general when they try to be active was actually holding me back. And I woke up one day and decided that I wanted to be fit, whether I was fat or not. Which has led to me eventually becoming a fat (though as we've already established much less so at the moment than usual) person who could do that stupid endurance run no problem now. A few times over. And the sit ups too. Though I'd be kidding all of us if I tried to tell you I could do any pushups or chinups! I love running now, in my 30s. So if you see that fat girl in spandex running down the sidewalk past you - she could just be me.

Book browsing

So I'm  in a large chain bookstore the other day (I know - evil - but it's the only one I can go to with the kids without being looked at like I'm the devil, and that has good stuff to play with) and after being thouroughly annoyed with their gender studies section (which had three, count 'em, three titles), I head over to the parenting book section, which is considerably larger than the gender studies... interesting.  Anyways... I started taking in the titles -

The Parents We Mean to Be
Hold on to Your Kids
Raise Your Kids Without Rising Your Voice
Connected Parenting
Intuitive Parenting
Parenting From the Inside Out
The 10 Secrets of Happy Mothers
Confident Parents, Remarkable Kids
Raising Happiness
Free-range Kids
Bringing up Happy Children
Simplicity Parenting
Zen Momma

...and that's just the top fricking shelf. 

Does this make anyone else feel slightly nauseous, hopelessly imperfect, and so not "zen momma"?


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Madwoman in the Academy?

The Madwoman in the Academy: 43 Women Boldly Take on the Ivory Tower.  (Eds.) Deborah Schnitzer and Deborah Keahey.  Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2003.

I likely shouldn't have read it.  I knew it as soon as I picked it up.  But it was like a train wreck - I couldn't look away.  It's actually a fantastic book.  And I'm not just saying that because it's co-editted by one of the best professors (and loveliest people) I've ever known.  An edited collection of women's experiences in the academy.  The downs and outs.  The dirty bits.  The scary bits.  The frustrating bits. Details I need to remember and think about before I choose whether to jump in feet first.  The still far too prevalent sexism in academia.  The in-fighting and me-firsting and I'm-smarter-than-you-ing and eating-the-young-ing.  Imposter-syndrome.  The particular challenges and lack of accomodation for moms in academia.  (Breathe, T. Breathe.)   As (the wonderful) Deborah Schnitzer asks in her essay "Tenure Tracks",

How can a system that has been organized for and by male experience and privilege respond effectivelyand respectfully to the realities of women's lives?  How can a system burdened by a dependence upon a ritualized transmission model, restricted and often mechanical standards of measure, esoteric official languages, and limited ways of defining what constitutes knowledge comprehend those who work within frames of reference that are dialogic, inclusive, multidimensional and organic? (199)

How indeed? (I know - she is brilliant, right?  And also brilliant and right).  And those realities of academia are ones I must consider - carefully- before I jump back in.  But then there are the good bits too, of course.  The mentoring.  Sage navigational assistance.  Breaking barriers.  Smashing one's own ideas of one's limitations (and possibly other people's too).   And the parts I really crave:  The thinking. The writing.  The Thinking!  The Writing!

My absolute favourite essay in the collection is by Monika B. Hilder, entitled: "This Three-Horned Bronco of a Life" in which she describes the challenges of life in her triad roles as mother, academic, writer.  So gorgeously and bravely.  (Note - I am sharing big chunks of Hilder's writing here.  It is not my intention to overshare.  You should buy the book.  Read the essay in its entirety.  It's good, good, good.  But this particular essay really spoke to me,  to my own current worries and processing, so much that I feel compelled to share it with you all).

She writes: "Mad?  Me?!  You bet I'm mad - dissapointed, frustrated, feeling guilty, and alternately fiercely angry that I am able to do so little with words while I engage in the whirligig of family details.  I am not always so disgruntled, but sufficiently so to answer your question in the affirmative" (35).

And I read this, slightly panicked, and think: Good lord.  But I feel this NOW.  Can I really dare to add more fuel to that fire?  Can I handle another role, another division of self?  Can I handle that triad Hilder writes about? 

And then more:

Mad?  Me?!  When I was young I had the hubris to reject the position that a woman must choose between books (teaching and writing them) and babies.  (Isn't it ironic that this either/or dilemma is still presented by many camps: the misogynists, the kindliest patriarchs and matriarchs, the feminists?)  I still reject this position.  I still want it all: books and babies.  But sometimes I feel crazy with the competing demands on my person.  I grow furious with the helpless feeling that I am going too slowly along the journey of teaching and writing literature. (36)

And just like Hilder - I also want it all.  Babies and books.  I want desperately to reject that either/or dichotomy that feels so much like losing.  I want to be able to be a mother and a thinker, a writer, a do-er.  I want to be able to inhabit multiple worlds.  So much so that I often feel these days like I am leaping out of my own skin.  But I worry - have I waited too long to go back to school?  Can I keep up?after six years away? Will my trying to keep up put my other roles in jeopardy?  Will we all adjust?  Is it really possible to keep it all together, to remain - more or less - intact?

And then back to Hilder, who essentially tells me that the answer to my question is, in fact, no.  Not so much.  Remaining intact is likely not an option.  She relates: "[m]y mothering life is a crucible. . . . Pain characterizes too much of this fleeting lifespan I have in which to raise my beautiful beasts.  I would die for them (birthing does prove that, for starters).  The immediate fact though, is that I am dying daily in just trying to live with them.  So my teaching/writing aspirations are daily crucified to the needs and nonsense of my dear ones three" (36-37).

Something will always give.  And that something will almost always be the external obligations, the public sphere self.  Because that is the bargain I struck, quite willingly, when I chose the path of motherhood.  It feels overwhelming just to consider adding that public sphere self back to my repertoire.  But it feels equally like striking the sort of bargain which meant choosing not to do this would be a bit, you know, disastrous.  Luckily (?) for me, Hilder seems to suggest that perhaps remaining intact is overrated, and perhaps, not the end result I should be aiming for:

I whine, but the truth is that I wouldn't trade this triad life for anything.  To ride this three-horned beast for even a few seconds is an extraordinary privilege.  In the words of Ursula Le Guin, 'Babies eat books.  But they spit out wads of them that can be taped back together; and they are only babies for a couple of years, while writers live for decades; and it is terrible, but not very terrible' (812)*. . . . Mad? Me?!  Yes, yes, a resounding yes!  I'm riding this three-horned bronco of a life with all my might, dust-caked, and with tears in my eyes. (38-39)

So then - to be or not to be a madwoman in the academy?   I strongly suspect not even this book will scare me away from trying it on for size.  But I also strongly suspect that I won't ever be sure...

*The Ursula Le Guin quote in Hilder's essay comes from: "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Writes the Book." The Art of Short Fiction.  (Ed.) Gary Geddes.  Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. 
 

alone

As I sit here beginning this blog post, it is Sunday at noon.  And I have been alone for almost three hours.  And during those three hours, I have dowloaded some new music, had a long, satisfying run (a personal best!), and done laundry and facebooked and taken a gloriously (and likely also highly irresponsibly) long shower.  And now I am sitting here.  In the purple sundress I bought last year but can't wear in public because I discovered it was see-through.  Sipping my second coffee.  Fingers on the keyboard.  And listening.

I can hear things.  I can hear birds outside my window.  I can hear the padding of cat paws on the kitchen tiles.  The neighbours lawnmower.  I can hear the ticka-ticka-ticka of the keys as I type.  I can hear my own breathing.  A slight rustle of breeze.  Someone's windchimes.  The sound of swallowing coffee as I pause to think.  The clock ticking.  I can hear all these things, and it occurs to me how much I don't hear in the regular swing of my life, when cacophony and chaos (however adorable) reign. 

Sometimes I forgot the impact in my life of being an introvert.  Not in the social sense - I'm highly aware that I'm that girl that always really wants to meet new people and make new connections but gets hopelessly tongue-tied and self-conscious when the opportunity arises - I mean in my day-to-day life as a parent.  I am an introvert with two really, really, extremely active, passionate and holy-fucking-LOUD kidlets.  For 10-13 hours a day, every day, my home is filled with activity.  Noise.  Motion.  A constant supply of kinetic energy.  For the most part, I am glad of this.  I have vibrant and wildly energetic smalls who live with a whole lotta gusto.  Two different, but very big personalities (well, three if you count mine ;).  Most days, their verve feels like a win.  

BUT - there is not a lot of room in my life to nurse the introvert in me.  Sometimes, the volume and movement seems so normal, so natural, so unavoidable, that I forget exactly how much I depend on quiet and stillness and space for introspection to come back to myself, to regroup.  And how rare a bird such quiet and stillness and space is.

So, for as much time as I have today, I will luxuriate in this aloneness, in the hopes that I find myself somewhat reenergized to keep up with these amazing wild things that make my world so full of noise... and life. 

  

hands dirty

Basil (and more basil!), parsley, cilantro, mint, tomatoes, rainbow chard, romaine lettuce, carrots, zucchini, hot pepper, strawberries, sunflowers and five different kinds of annuals and perennials ready to burst in reds, oranges, yellows.  All this went into our wee urban garden yesterday. 

Each year, I forget how much I love getting back to the garden.  I love the planning.  The shopping - perusing endless rows of gorgeous flowers and reluctantly paring down my choices.  (I like the veggie garden too, but really, I'm all about the pretty.  I don't know how we live all winter long without the vibrance of flowers - unfathomable.)  And I love, love, love the planting.  The dirty, muddy, hands-in-the-ground, chilling-with-the-worms of it.  The smells of herbs and flowers and leaves and soil.  I especially love how the act of gardening feels like connecting with my mama - a gardener if ever there was one - even though she's two provinces away. And how excited my little 'helpers' get, watering their feet more than the plants, planting seeds insanely close together, and then accidentally digging them all back up.   The most disastrous and lovely gardening assistants.

It was a blissfully filthy day.  Full of sunshine and mosquitos and messes galore.  Perfection.