“Watch TV?”

“Baby Ba-goo-ga”

J-man and I had a couple of weeks off with various illnesses, and during that time TV and CDs saved my life. As a daycare baby, he’s used to a very active environment, so he was literally climbing the walls, and sick to boot. But...if you can hold off on TV, do, and if you can’t, just see how fast it changes your life.

Children’s programming is designed to hook kids immediately, and then they learn to recognize all the toys and crap that goes with it. I can’t even walk past a toy store without J-man rhyming off his favourites: dinosaurs, tools, Mickey...the list goes on.

The worst consequence of introducing TV is that J-man now says “Watch TV?” every time we come into the house. The next thing he says is “Tree hus” (Treehouse, which is a channel). He also says “Barney,” “Mickey Mus” (mouse), and “Hanny man” (Handy Manny — a Mr. Fix-It who has talking tools).

If I don’t give in, he will either just walk up to the television and turn it on himself, not that he can find the channel, unless it was the last thing we watched. The alternative is that he will point to the CD player and say “Baby Ba-goo-ga” (beluga), which generally gets me out of TV time, but only for that one song, and then he’s back to “Watch TV?” We distract him with a lot of music and ensure he doesn’t have TV time every day. But if I said he asks for it five times a day, I would not be exaggerating.

He claps when Chuggington comes on — a cartoon with talking trains (very similar to Thomas) — and loves Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures. Both are “shorts” on Treehouse On Demand, which means they are under ten minutes. If you have a TV addict who, like mine, is under two, these are slightly more tolerable then an entire program and just might give them the fix they need. The good news is J-man’s attention span is still short.

J-man is 18 months old, and Saturday morning cartoons is already a thing in my house —
I guess it’s the influence of an 11-year-old older brother. Next we will be dealing with video
games, which for the moment happen only in the basement and mostly out of sight. I’d like
to say J-man’s never seen one, but one day I had to fold laundry and asked his brother to let
J-man sit and watch him play for just a minute. Next thing I know, J-man had an unplugged
remote and was frantically pressing buttons. Predictably, that ended in tears.

-Sleepwalking Mama

Fitness

It’s my first trip back to the YMCA. The Guppins is 18 months old. I’d heard about the
Y’s child minding program. It’s amazing. You can drop your baby off — over 6 months,
under three years.

Not for that long; that’s how old your kid needs to be.

(Not that I was thinking of doing that…)

(Okay, I was thinking that on some level, obviously.)

It’s for up to two hours while you work out, have a shower (a what?), sauna (you’re
kidding me, right?), engage in brain/body activity. Nice kids’ area, three or four child
minders, not that many kids. It’s like a miracle to me. I drop her off, she’s thrilled, and
it is dawning on me…the feeling of not dragging my ass to the Y, like I did for so many
wasted youthful years, but running there.

I let out a deep chuckle.

I get on a stair climber thing. Eager.

First thought:

My, there are so many young, skinny models here. In fact, almost every woman here is a
young, skinny model.

Second thought:

How do I use this fricking thing? Hmm, what are those machines with TV sets? Is that a
new thing?

I spot a new mother and baby coming into the Y.I have regrettably chosen one of those
machines on display to the foyer and front window of the building, me in my non-work-
out clothes, non–running shoes, non-physique. I avoid eye contact.

Hmm, isn’t that baby a little young for the daycare program?

Huff puff.

The mother walks past me, baby in portable car seat (I remember those).

Huff puff.

Oh my God... She’s...she’s putting the car seat down next to the StairMaster (the kind
with a TV)…she’s getting on the StairMaster...

No wait…

She’s getting off the StairMaster — the car seat just got dinged by the foot thing when
she started working out…will it wake up? Did my baby sleep that soundly? Baby moves
slightly but remains sleeping.

Okay, she’s back on.

She’s flipping channels.

She looks like hell.

Unwashed hair, baggy face (sorry, Mommy).

WHY ISN’T SHE AT HOME SLEEPING??

I watch her flip through the channels. Wonder what she’ll settle on: news (nope), HGTV
(bit of a gander), a baby show (she settles for a sec, flips the channel). I remember my
baby book telling me that if I found myself watching daytime TV (aka Oprah), it might be
a sign of depression…

Well, apparently, NOT WHILE YOU’RE WORKING OUT!

I begin to grin. A full-on huge smile splits across my face. I don’t know why, but I am
suddenly filled with insane joy. I have done that. Maybe I didn’t go to the Y to work out,
but I did do housework, two years of taxes…I did anything, anything to stay in myself,
to recognize myself, to hold on to what and how I used to be. Even if it meant I NEVER
RESTED.

Since I have learned, you sleep when they sleep. If you can, when you can. Sleep when
they sleep.

I keep smiling. I am so happy to be me right now. Even with the extra fifteen pounds.
I may be way out of shape, but I survived the first year. I SURVIVED. And it feels like
sooo long ago.

-Drama Mama

My Daughter, Patron of Dead Canadian Poets: Follow-Up

I asked my fellow moms for their kids’ current favourites, and here are their inspiring lists.

Sleepwalking Mama

Mommy’s Best Kisses by Margaret Anastas and Susan Winter is part of our bedtime routine.
J-man and I call it the kissy book. Another favourite is And Tango Makes Three by Justin
Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Henry Cole — gay penguins hatch an egg and make a family.
And Will Smith’s Just the Two of Us (yes, that’s right, “Fresh Prince”) on being a single dad
(illustrated by Kadir Nelson). It makes me cry every time I read it! Last but not least, Please,
Baby, Please by Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee, and Kadir Nelson.

Secret Weapon Mama

Smalls’ current favourites include So Many Days by Alison McGhee and Taeeun Yoo, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury, Spring Is Here by Taro Gomi, and Click, Clack, 123 by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin.

Gray Mama

These are Lo’s current favourites: My Friends by Taro Gomi, P. Bear’s New Year’s Party by
Paul Owen Lewis, Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni, The Way Back Home by Oliver
Jeffers, and Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg.

Tightrope Mama

W and I do love Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd — so cliché, I
know. But my number one favourite to read aloud is Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman.

Drama Mama

The Guppins loves this classic from the church sale bargain bin: Dr. Seuss’s ABC by Dr. Seuss. She can’t get enough of it.


-East End Mama

See, Television WILL Turn Your Baby into a Teen Mom! Maybe.

Here are a couple of articles on the evils of television for babies. The research isn’t conclusive, but it’s still pretty worrying, so you make your own call, okay?

“The truth about TV & ADHD: Is watching TV linked to a rise in attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)?” Nicole Sprinkle, ADDitude, February/March 2005.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Seattle found that the more TV toddlers watch, the
more likely they’ll be to develop attention problems. Their study had flaws, and did not find a
connection between television and ADHD specifically, but follow-up studies did find that the
children in the study who had watched a lot of TV as toddlers had problems in school.

“The effects of fast-paced cartoons” Dimitri A. Christakis, Pediatrics, September 12, 2011.
Authored by one of the researchers in the study noted above, this is a commentary on a
recent study, “The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children’s
Executive Function,” that compared the effects of fast-paced cartoons versus slow-paced
cartoons versus colouring on children’s ability to follow complicated commands and delay
gratification and such. For a more parent-friendly take on the study, check out Seattle
Mama Doc’s blog post, “Fast-Paced Media and 4 Year-Olds: Cartoons on the Brain”.

“Watching television harms toddlers", says psychologist Sarah Hall, The Guardian, April 24, 2007.  A British psychologist believes that allowing toddlers to watch an hour and a half of television a day could lead to problems such as obesity, ADHD, and autism. Not to mention that children who are left with only a TV for company for long stretches can lack social skills.

-East End Mama

Television Will Turn Your Baby into a Teen Mom

I judge you because you watch television.

The only thing I watch is Coronation Street. Religiously, I admit, but my grandparents
watched it, so it’s a family tradition that I’m passing on to my daughter, who yells “More!”
when the theme song ends. (That’s really the only part she pays attention to. That and
the commercials.)

Also, sometimes I watch 30 Rock and Community. I like to support quality programming.
And my one guilty pleasure is anything with hoarders in it. Or fat people. Or pregnant
teens. Or now, thanks to a week spent with my parents, storage lockers.

And then there’s stuff like Dexter, Weeds, Californication…anything from HBO and
Showtime. Once again, quality programming. My latest obsession is True Blood, which
killed my productivity for most of the winter. I blame that on my friends, though — at
least a dozen people told me I had to watch it, so of course I listened to them.

Hmm. I guess maybe a lot of people watch less television than I do, so I’m probably
in no position to judge. But I do judge you because you let your kid watch television.
My daughter isn’t allowed to watch television. (Except, of course, Corrie. And the odd
hockey game or tennis match. A kid needs role models, after all.) I’ve read the research
about ADHD and such; I’ve seen how Cookie reacts to commercials; I’ve made my
decision. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule; if we’re in someone else’s home, or my aunt is
graciously babysitting, I don’t care.

This TV ban wasn’t always in place. Early on, when Cookie was just a couple months
old and our days consisted solely of breastfeeding and changing diapers and napping,
the only other thing we could manage to do was watch television. I like South American
guys with great legs; the World Cup was on. We were thinking of selling our condo; I
was obsessed with HGTV. A fellow new mum admitted to me at the time that she was
watching a lot of judge shows. I got it. Besides, how much was really sinking in for our
babies at that point?

There have been other exceptions to the rule. Recently I needed to distract Cookie so
I could get some work done, so I thought I’d check out Sesame Street. It’d been a few
decades since I last saw it, so naturally I was curious. Straight off the bat I regretted
it. The first bit was about princesses. Grr. I had assumed Sesame Street was more
enlightened than that, but apparently they’ve bought into the whole princess obsession
too. Mind you, the princesses learned that they were perfectly capable of solving
problems themselves and didn’t need to be rescued by a prince, and the hapless
prince was played by Paul Rudd, who I adore, so there were some redeeming qualities.
But today’s show was sponsored by the letter P, so naturally princesses made more
than one appearance. I was furious that Sesame Street would even acknowledge the
existence of princesses. TV experiment #1 failed. Also, Cookie wasn’t that interested.
She mainly likes commercials.

Right now Cookie is with my aunt, probably blissfully watching Dinosaur Train. Which is
fine. But not on my watch. Not until I’ve got another deadline, at least. Guess I’m in no
position to judge.

-East End Mama

Moms

My best, best, best friend in the universe lost her momma-in-law today. I got
her text, “call me when you can,” and knew. I knew bad news was coming. Her
mother-in-law was sick and my best friend’s texts are never that to the point. All
those close to the family knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it easier.

Her voice was sad and tears were flowing. We talked briefly, I tried to make her
laugh a little, and we hung up.

The rest of the day, I naturally thought about mothers and motherhood — and
how on earth is it possible that some people have to cope without their moms?

I don’t want to sound overly sappy, but I love my mom — a lot. I can’t really think
of too many bad things to say about her. Sure we argue, sure she drives me
capital B Bananas sometimes, but my life would NEVER have been what it is
today without her. Besides the obvious (food, homework help, and Hallowe’en
costumes), there are many things I would not have without my mom. I don’t think
I would have a sense of humour; I learned that from her. I don’t think I would
have patience. What little patience I muster in a day is only a fraction of the
calmness she brought to my childhood.

I am an only child, which may change things, but I doubt it — my mom has love
in her heart for ten kids. I never ever felt ignored or stupid or ashamed in my own
home. Sure, I failed at things; sure, I broke things (just ask my mom about the
time the “dog” cut up a perfectly good blanket while I was innocently watching
TV); sure, I was bratty. Okay, I was seriously bratty: when she said “no” to me, I
would sing the Kids Help Phone number to her. But no matter what I said or did,
that woman just loved me. I knew it then and I really know it now.

They say that you can only really know how much your parents love you once
you have your own kids, but honestly, with my mom — I always knew. I didn’t
need W to show me — merely to reinforce — that my mom did it all for me. She
worked shit jobs, she cooked hot meals, she drove me around, she made me
hot cocoa and popcorn, and she still makes me pancakes if she comes within a
hundred feet of me.

As a kid I remember telling my mom that before I was born I was floating on a
cloud watching possible other (presumably less wonderful) moms float by, and
when I saw her I said, “That’s it: her.” I can seriously only hope that I do a fraction
of the job with W that she did with me, and that one day, given the choice, he
would choose me back.

-Tightrope Mama

Breastfeeding and Other Human Sacrifices

My grand ambition is to be a travel writer. I live to travel, so it’d be sweet for travel to pay me back by, well, paying me. Maybe someday. Accordingly, here is my first attempt at travel writing.


My parents’ fortieth anniversary was this year, which is a remarkable achievement for our time. Actually, it’s a remarkable achievement for any time, since not so long ago people would just die instead.


We celebrated by treating ourselves to a vacation, a four-day cruise to the Bahamas. We took my parents too. Which is why it was only four days, and on the Motel 6 of cruise lines. I may be impressed by my parents’ record-breaking marriage, but they didn’t exactly raise me to be a real estate tycoon. And I don’t travel well with my parents. My mother is a bit, I dunno, unobservant, so I’m constantly telling her where to go so she doesn’t get lost. Not a role I enjoy. My dad wavers between taking control and sitting back to let you take over — which means when he’s not calling the shots, he’s judging. Always, always judging. So four days seemed like a perfectly manageable stretch of time.


But I am a warm-weather whore: I’ll do anything to be in the sun, near a beach, wrapped in a blanket of hot, steamy air. So I foolishly suggested we stay in Fort Lauderdale for a week after the cruise. Or so I thought (that it was foolish, I mean). And then Cookie got sick.My mom’s a nurse, which means that she’s bitter and jaded, and that all throughout my childhood, whenever I hurt myself, all she’d do is say, “You’ll live.” But it also means that when your precious child is sick for the first time ever and you’re stuck in the middle of the ocean and you’re hesitant to test the limits of your health insurance by engaging the $150/hour cruise nurse, she’s handy to have around. If only to tell you, “She’ll live.”


Cookie’s first puke ever! And second…and, well, twelfth. Moments of characteristic vitality and joy in between. Then the dehydration kicked in, and she started to fade. She quickly learned that anything that went in came out, so she refused to eat or drink anything, including Pedialyte. The only thing she would touch was trusty old Mum. And so I nursed, and nursed, and nursed. And by the time we were back on land, she was back to normal. (I, on the other hand, puked on the beach in Nassau, and then Cookie’s dad got sick, and then my mom got sick, but fortunately it was only a 24-hour bug for us adults.)

But by then, my hard-fought three-a-day nursing schedule (morning, Coronation Street, bedtime) was toast. Any time she wanted it, she’d scream bloody murder until she got it. Including in the middle of the night, at least twice. (Yay, back to sleep training. And directing evil thoughts towards Cookie’s dad as he snores through her 4 o’clock screamfest.) She’s 18 months old, for crying out loud. I can’t go back to every three hours. Ha, every three hours—what a joke…


A couple of weeks after our adventure on the high seas, we headed to Cancun for a wedding. Health had been restored, nursing had tailed off a bit…and then a new tooth began to make its appearance. After we booked the day-long excursion to Chichen Itza: a 2-hour drive, plus stops for shopping and swimming, there and back, and a 2-hour stroll in the blazing sun. But I was so excited to be getting off the resort, I didn’t care.
A friend of mine once flew to Vancouver with her son, who was under one year at the time, and he nursed the whole way there. A five-hour flight from Toronto, I believe? I don’t remember; I used to be able to zone out on flights. Cookie is an experienced and relatively well-behaved flier, but I am now counting down the minutes on every flight. Anyways, I didn’t believe it was possible to breastfeed for five hours straight, but trust me, it is. Cookie nursed all the way to Chichen Itza, between every little stop we made, and all the way back. And then all evening. Agonizing nipple pain, not enough food in the buffet (which I couldn’t get to anyway), desperation when I ran dry. Where had we been again? Oh right, one of the seven wonders of the world. Whatever, ancient Mayans. My heart is ripped out of my chest every day.




Travel Lessons Learned
* You can find Pedialyte anywhere. They even sold it at the resort in Cancun. (Apparently they know more than they’re letting on.) But that doesn’t mean your kid will take it.
* If you’re going to take your sulky, teething toddler to see the wonders of the Mayan world, go to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, where you can make a quick getaway if you need to (even better if you happen to live in Ottawa), and the single guy next to you in the van isn’t going to cram his headphones into his ears and hunch down into the seat, making you feel needlessly guilty when your kid makes the slightest peep.
* Breastfeeding is your best travel friend. I’ll probably continue until Cookie is two or she decides she’s done, whichever comes first, but I definitely was continuing it until we got through these two trips. The only way I get any peace on the plane is to nurse Cookie into sweet sleep, and it works almost every time. Those poor suckers who look heartbroken when they realize they’re stuck beside the baby end up loving us both by the end of the flight. And if it weren’t for breastfeeding, Chichen Itza would have been even more torturous and brutal. So if you can, I heartily recommend breastfeeding for travel, or any, purposes. If you can’t, I totally understand. Don’t listen to the haters.


-East End Mama

50 Ways to (Accidentally) Kill Your Toddler

Happily I report that my partner cleared his third prostate biopsy. No cancer cells
found. Wherever that cancer is hiding, it hasn’t grown so it’s not aggressive; we
continue with “watchful waiting.”

We are so very lucky.

However.

I’m worried I’m going to kill the Guppins. By accident.

Bottle of deadly chemicals hidden behind toilet. Forget to take the pit out of her
peach. What if she swallows her hairclip? Razor-sharp soup can lid in recycling.
Broken wine glass piece missed by vacuum. My apartment trim (substantial)
flaking lead paint (source of mysterious small objects in baby’s mouth?). Directly
outside of my apartment door, a steep, narrow staircase to the boiler room
(heretofore referred to as "Under the Asbestos”).

Sir Dick’s entire house.

Of course, I’m just as likely to accidentally kill myself.

Sleep deprivation–induced driving accident (this, apparently, is more dangerous
for transit employees than drinking or doing drugs, so I’m doomed). Total
breakdown of mind and soul (obvious reasons). Break neck on treadmill at Y
(just joined, out of practice). Slip in tub on extra stomach flab. Have heart attack
(probably on treadmill at Y). Killed by vigilante mothers at Dufferin Grove Park for not
following sharing protocol.

Many many concerns on this day. But there is humour. There is humour in my
heart. HUMOUR. Not tumour.

-Drama Mama

Bitchy Lions

Lately a lot of people (okay, only women) have been asking me, “So…what is
going back to work really like?”

Most of the people (women) who ask me this are childless, because women who
have children know the answer: It. fucking. sucks. Full stop.

There is never a moment of my long, monotonous, caffeine-infused day when
I don’t feel like I am disappointing someone. Here are the most common living
beings affected by my guilt:

W
My husband
My dog
My friends
My family
My boss and co-workers

Honestly, I feel like I am adding my boss and co-workers out of responsibility
— I don’t care too much if they go home cursing me. Everyone else on the list,
however…I hate feeling like I could have done more for them at any given time.

Maybe I should back it up — I am supposed to be writing about work, not guilt.
(But oh, the guilt, pulling at me…)

So…here I am a few years ago at 25 with my new job — work, work, work, get
promoted, work, work, get a raise, work, work, get pregnant, work, work, get
heartburn, work, work, leave work to have a baby four years after all the work,
work I mentioned above.

I work with women, a LOT of women, NONE of whom have children. Great.

So, all the women are so “happy” for me, they throw me a shower before I take
leave and call or write me one-line emails every few months just to check in and
gush over baby. (He is fabulous; I’ll give them that.)

If this were a movie script, this is where the scene of rapidly turning calendar
pages would be to denote my maternity leave whizzing by at breakneck speed.

Okay, 365 days of government pay (thank you, government!) is over —
back to work. I lost sleep for weeks, if not months, before going back to the
land of security tags, email logins, and meetings. I would cry and beg my
husband, “Can’t I please go back to waitressing? Please??” (For the record,
while he would have been okay with that, I think he was right to suggest that it
wasn’t the best idea I ever had.)

So, Monday morning comes…the dreaded Monday. W and I get up, I hold in
tears all through shower and diapers and even the daycare drop-off. I will never,
ever forget the kind, kind daycare woman (with over 25 years’ experience, and a
daughter in law school — yeah, she knows her stuff) who took W from my arms
as he screamed and clawed and grasped for me. She looked at me and said, “It’s
okay, Mommy — he’s safe.” I wanted to scream, “He’s NOT safe! He needs ME,
not YOU!” But of course she was right; he was safe.

I, however, was entering a den of bitchy lions.

I didn’t cry at work until the first long weekend came. All the bitchy lions (BLs)
were going to their cottages (presumably to throw darts at posters of pregnant
women). I really didn’t have too much to do at the office since everyone had
assumed I would need at least three weeks to turn my brain back on after
my “year off.” I knew I was going to be the only person in the office that Friday,
so I timidly asked my boss if I could possibly also take a vacation day.

“No.” She didn’t skip a beat — it “wouldn’t look good.”

TO WHOM? NO ONE WILL BE HERE!

“Okay,” I thought. “I suppose that makes sense. I should really try to look like I
care. I will work.”

And so I did. Alone. The first of many points to be scored by Team BL.

This is merely installment number one of the BL saga. There will be more to
come. It took me a while to clue in, but the BLs think I am different and therefore
treat me differently. The changes are subtle, but they are there. I, like any
woman, spend hours replaying conversations in my head and making excuses
for why the BLs are treating me so differently. The jury is still out. And so, “How is
work?” you ask. Honestly, I’m still deciding how I feel — but most days it fucking
sucks.

-Tightrope Mama

[photo credit: Asa Wilson via Flickr]

My Daughter, Patron of Dead Canadian Poets

Being a huge fan of books, both as a source of income and entertainment, I was thrilled
when Cookie started choosing the books she wanted me to read…over and over and
over. Her favourites change like the weather, but I’m thrilled with her current picks:
two books by icons of Canadian poetry. The first one she picks at bedtime is Once: A
Lullaby by bpNichol (illustrated by Ed Roach). A friend recommended it, so I bought a
used copy online for Christmas. When I read it for the first time, I nearly called her to
ask what the hell she was thinking.

Once I was a little horse,
baby horse, little horse.
Once I was a little horse.
NEIGH, I fell asleep.

Once I was a little cow,
baby cow, little cow.
Once I was a little cow.
MOO, I fell asleep.

Once I was a little goat…

And so it goes for twenty godawful pages. But as I quickly learned, repetition is key. And
animal noises don’t hurt either. Cookie loves this book. And who am I to dissuade her
from appreciating such a groundbreaking artist, one who apparently knew exactly what
he was doing?

The next one I found at a book sale. My mom flipped through it and said, “What a
weird book,” but I recognized the title, so I nabbed it. It’s Night Cars by Teddy Jam, aka
Matt Cohen (illustrated by Eric Beddows). The pictures are so evocative of Toronto in
the ’80s, the Toronto I fell in love with when I was a kid visiting my grandma, and the
text is hypnotic:

Slow snow falling deep
Cars dogs babies sleep
…
Night cars shining in the night
Stop and bow at each red light

I love reading this book. I love that Cookie loves it. And I recently came across a new
board book edition in our bookstore, just in case she destroys the one we have.

Why are so many children’s books written so bloody poorly? We have so many books
that I have to correct as I read: “The cow says, ‘Moo!’ His friends say ‘Moo!’” You’re
kidding me, right? “Vezina begins with the letter V, a trophy for an outstanding goalie.”
Christ. At least poets know how to write.

Another current favourite is one we discovered at storytime, ABC, Baby Me by Susan

B. Katz (illustrated by Alicia Padrón). The pictures are simple but gorgeous, soothing
illustrations of babies and caregivers.

Adore me
Bathe me
Cuddle me, too
…
Velvet bubbles
Wrap me snug
X-O-X me so

I could read that one all night. But don’t tell Cookie, ’cause I’ve got a stack of trashy magazines to get through.

-East End Mama