March 28th, 2017

Dear Baby,

So yesterday we went to your 18n month doctors appointment and you were a total champ. Everything was looking good and we had a fun walk back to the car checking out trucks and cars on Yonge. That’s were things went sour.

Put you in the car to go home, buckled you in, gave you your book about trucks and caved when you asked me to play with the keys. How am I supposed to say no to you when you say the word keys so sweetly?? Gave you the keys and went to get in the car when I heard the word noise ever. The sound of the car being locked confirmed by the sound of the horn beeping to verify a locked car. You were inside with the keys, I was outside with no keys and the car was locked.

Fuck.

I tried to reason with you that if you could just push the other button, we could unlock the car and continue on our way but you thought that was REALLY funny and kept pushing the lock button and beeping the car shut. Thanks.

CAA thankfully came in under 10 minutes (which is a testament to why you should probably always have a CAA membership. WELL WORTH IT) and were able to break into my car and unlock it using some kind of crowbar device (PS. it seems super easy to break into someone’s car so also don’t leave your shit in the car. I literally always leave shit in the car so that is a new thing to stop).

Everything was fine and you and I went home unscathed. The end.

It was a truly brutal mom fuck up and I can’t tell you how many scenarios have played out in my mind where things went wrong and we didn’t have a good chuckle about what happened.

HERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM YESTERDAY:

1. Don’t give a baby keys to play with. They could do what you did any day of the week and if it were super hot or cold out or there was something dangerous in the car, you would be sorry you acquiesced to their request for keys (no matter how cute a voice they have.)
2. Know how to break into a car. Seriously. I’m making it my week’s goal to learn and understand exactly how to smash a window or get into the car if I had to.
3. Don’t clack on your CAA membership
4. Try not to beat yourself up too much if you/when you fuck up in ways like I did yesterday. We all have moments where we accidentally lock our kids in the car.

Sorry about that, Baby. It won’t happen again. You are also never holding my keys again. K?

xo

Mom

March 27, 2017

Dear Baby,

From age 0, I have always loved the look of Honest Company diapers. They have the cutest patterns of all time and of course, I am into them being eco-friendly and baby friendly. It’s a secret shame of mine that we don’t use organic diapers. But what has stopped me from trying them is that when you were a newborn, we bought some, tried them and experienced poo explosions every single time. It was enough to sway me to Pampers which, to date, have never ever failed me.

With all that being said, I was wanting to try HC again now that you are obviously not a newborn anymore and have a totally different body and totally different poos so I was delighted to find a rogue diaper (with a super cute balloon print) hanging around at my in-laws.

Literally, not since 1 month have you ever had a poo explosion out of a diaper but lo and behold, we put on this Honest diaper, take you out to brunch and our brunch companion (who just announced that she’s pregnant so it would be fitting that this would happen) left the meal with a poo stain on her pant courtesy of you. This would be one thing if you happened to have extraordinarily crazy poos that day but it was a regular turd of regular size and consistency so I have to look to what was holding that shit in. Honestly.

What the fuck.

I feel like if you are going to charge more than any other diaper out there, you’d better be a poo poo fortress.

So with that comes my lesson for today: just because something is expensive, doesn’t mean it is good and sometimes you have to sacrifice your ideals (like having organic diapers) for realistic things (like having non organic diapers that hold in a crap.)

Sure, in an ideal world, you’d be walking around with your butt covered in hearts and rainbows but in this world, that butt just needs some coverage. Period.

So Baby, try before you assume that things are going to be good. what works for others may not work for you and vice versa and what seems like the best thing ever might just turn out to be a perfect shit-storm.

Oh, and Honest Company, your diapers suck.

xo

Mom

 

March 23, 2017

Dear Baby,

So for basically your whole life, you’ve had this weird thing about textures/messy things/touching things with your hands. You don’t like dirt or paint or glue or Playdoh which has been shocking to me as a parent because I basically thought that kids were born to like that kind of stuff. I can tell you for sure that I have distinct memories of playing with (and eating) Playdoh and glue (I didn’t eat glue, just the Playdoh – it was salty. Don’t judge me.) So in this Thursday class we do, they have this arts and crafts table and a Playdoh table neither of which you are super keen on.

The A&C has been non negotiable since I die for those little paintings you make. I think art is super important even if you hate art and I also think getting you out of your comfort zone in a reasonable way is good. You have done art with a few restrictions (no glue) and to my delight, you have embraced painting and getting a tiny bit dirty.

But Playdoh has been a no-go. Until recently.

Today in class, you sought out and enjoyed Playdoh and my heart exploded. First, now we can play with it and that’s awesome because Playdoh is just awesome and second, I can quell my fears about your OCD tendencies towards items with texture and know that it was just a phase.

So the lesson here it trite but worth saying and that is: don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, Baby. It’s super good to be tactile and interact with your environment and touch things. Dirty things and clean things. I am a firm believer in letting kids eat dirt and getting their hands in everything and my only regret is that I didn’t encourage it more and sooner (sorry about the parks and sand that I kept you out of last summer, your grandmother scared me with a story about tapeworms that live in your ass and I subsequently went crazy – this summer, you can play in the sand and I will kill those butt worms if eat the sand and catch one. But please don’t.)

Experiencing your environment with all your senses is a great way to explore the world you live in and interact with it in meaningful ways.

Plus, it’s fun.

So get those hands dirty and I’ll be waiting with some wipes (or not, immune systems are built on dirt) and never be too old to play.

xo

Mom

March 21, 2017

Dear Baby,

Much to my chagrin, we ended up at this mom and baby brunch thing today down on Queen street. It was kind of cute but we ended up hanging out with our friends which made me wonder what the point of going to a 45 person brunch is if you don’t bother speaking to anyone you don’t know – which was also fine because I didn’t want to.

So they had this waiver that you could have filled out to negate your child from being photographed and then put on Facebook which I never say and subsequently didn’t fill out.

I think often about how rigid I want to be about your online security and visibility and the ore I think about it, the more I feel strongly about never publishing your image online without your informed consent.

Then it makes me think about consent in general and how much we take for granted when we are dealing with a population of tiny people who can’t speak. So first, it’s the online/ social media stuff. Like, there is a distinct and real possibility that you wouldn’t want your image being posted online. Forget the fact that it makes you a more vulnerable person (people can see you and know about you and may be creeps) and forget that it makes you an early target for advertising and marketing (which it does – they track your activity and “get t know you” which is fucking creepy) and forget that there are a million internet hack creeps who would possibly use your image for something terrible and unsavoury. The more simps thing is that you just haven’t said it’s ok and as a human being with a unique voice and wants, you should.

In the same way, I think it’s really important to respect your personal boundaries and not make you touch or show affection to anyone you don’t want to. A kid who doesn’t want to give kisses isn’t mean – I can tell you that as a fully functioning adult, I often prefer not to kiss and hug in certain times – you should have that right just the same. Your dad laughs a bit when I tell him not to force you to hug or kiss your family goodbye but I think that just because you can’t formulate a response of “no thank you” doesn’t mean we should force shit on you. It doesn’t seem fair.

I think that your voice should always be respected and valued and that you should have the time and space to make up your own mind about how and when and where you want to share yourself – physically, image-wise and otherwise. As much as you are my little doll, you are not in fact, a doll and treating you like a baby will never yield well for either of us.

I hope that by respecting you and your privacy and space, you in turn will make smart decisions about ways to share yourself with others and continue to show yourself the utmost respect always. Trust, you deserve it.

xo

Mom

March 18, 2017

Dear Baby,

Happy year and a half birthday. Why are you growing so fast? Are you a weed? Please stop. No, don’t stop but just slow down. No, don’t do that either but just indulge me in being a weird mom, k?

So at this very important milestone, I have to talk a bit about how fucking funny you are. Baby, your dad and I have always been like, “oh, we have such a funny baby,” but then people are probably all like, “totally” and then roll their eyes because every parent thinks their baby is the tits. If there is something I can tell yo about parents it’s that they all think their kids are the shit for a million different reasons and that my love, is called beauty in the eyes of the beholder.

I digress. I also should rephrase and say that to me, you are the funniest. Better? Not as indulgent? Ok.

So anyway, we have this whole crew of kids we know and I can safely say that each has their own special aptitudes. Some kids are superstar coordinated geniuses. Some play musical instruments better than I do, some are incredibly gorgeous and some are sweet. Some make great pictures with crayons and some are total maniac daredevils. You, my love, are a non stop talker. From the day you uttered your first word you have not shut up.

No you are probably thinking, duh, since your dad is basically the same but it is still surprising and exciting to watch this tiny peanut of a human talk so much and be so funny. Here’s how a typical day goes for us at 18 months.

We wake you up (because you are also a gifted and magical unicorn sleeper whose skills are not likely to be reproduced in baby #2 – much to my fear) and you proceed to tell us all about you, your room and your crib. You usually begin by announcing that you have pee peed, poo pooed or have a boogie. Then you name all of your stuffed animals and tell us about what they say – koala (says nothing), bear (growls), dracula (says ha ha ha), bah bah (is a sheep) and Ella (is an elephant whose head is about to fall off – where do you replace these things???) Then you name all the things in your room; closet, towel, diapers, cream, books, window, snow (if it is snowing out the window), sleep sack, bed…

Then we discuss the things you will see if you agree to come downstairs without reading 400 books first and you usually agree. We go downstairs and you name everyone you see which as of late, has been more than me and dad and your dog. Then you usually either read a book (or 10), continue to name things in the kitchen (like the stove, buttons, pictures on the fridge…) or you grab a TV remote and walk around with it like it is a phone telling us all the people you are calling.

You have told me for every meal that you would like hummus, cheese and pineapple. Breakfast is no exception. You don’t usually get hummus for breakfast. You then refuse to eat before naming all the food on  your plate. Then you entertain us for 30-40 minutes while you eat with your fucking ridiculous hilarity. You sing, you make bubbles, you fart and laugh at yourself. You make silly faces, you make everyone sitting near you repeat silly faces and you say amazingly funny things. Mealtime is a funny one.

Then we negotiate going back upstairs to get dressed. Now the time has come to tell you about what you get to do if we get dressed (usually playing with your friends – who you have to name, is a good motivator).

Then we go out and I tell everyone how much you talk and you say nothing so I look like a fucking crazy person who has imaginary conversations with my kid.

Then we leave and you motor mouth the whole way home naming all the things and people you saw – where was that kind of spunk 10 minutes ago???

Lunch is pretty much like breakfast and then you take a super long nap.

We know you are up when we hear a tiny “up” from your room. Then we do stuff again and if it’s with people, you are super quiet. Then we are alone again and you unleash your verbiage on me.

Afternoon activities as of late have included:

Playing in your tunnel where you fling yourself around and go “oh no” every time and then laugh to yourself.

Playing with pretend food that you pretend eat while saying “MMMMMMM”

Reading (obv)

The park where you point and laugh at dogs but then cry if they come near you

Dinner is a meal time fun fest and then after dinner we get you super hyper before bed which actually is hilarious but probably not so helpful in the calm bedtime routine thing.

Then we read 400000 books, sing your songs and you say “night night” before going to sleep.

I feel like none of this actually sounds as funny as it is in person to see.

While I’m here I just also want to add that some of your favourite things to do are the following:

Play hide and seek

Have me scare you

Jump on couches

Run (except you are super slow and usually fall)

Basically you are the best ever and I am so happy to have such a joyful and funny best friend and daughter.

Love you.

xo

Mom

 

 

 

 

March 13, 2017

Dear Baby,

Well, it is official. I have now left you alone for a weekend for the first time ever and we all survived. To be honest, I’m not even sure you totally noticed I was gone. Which is fine *leaves room to cry a little a lot.

It seems like forever ago that a friend suggested a girls only trip to NYC and at the time, the idea of it seemed great. I haven’t been away with the girls – any girls – in forever and your dad doesn’t particularly love NYC (something about the crowds. shocking) Then the date to go came nearer and you got sick. OBVIOUSLY.

So that made it hard to imagine leaving you and then it was just hard anyways and then the night before I left you cried for “mama” through the night and I all but cancelled my flight and instead just stayed up stressing out for hours instead of sleeping like a normal human mom.

What’s funny is that most of the moms I know are fucking dying to have a getaway and here I am lying in bed silently sobbing at the thought of 48 hours of freedom. But the grass is always greener, right?

Anyways, the good news is that I went. Left the house and went which was made easier by you still being asleep and not having to say a tearful goodbye. The great news is that it was awesome and it both revitalized my spirit and reminded me how crucial it is for me to still live a little for me in spite of only wanting to do it all of you. Sometimes, a little NYC is all you need to reinvigorate your soul. Cheesy? Yup. But also true. I mean, it wasn’t New York that did it but more the time away.

Here’s what was amazing.

First, one of my best friends came to surprise us from LA. She was the perfect addition to the crew of girls already there and 5 was a great number to travel with. Second, the hotel bed was like sleeping in a fucking cloud of heaven. I usually hate other beds and specifically other pillows but this bed left me with an itch to just call the hotel and buy their pillows and ship them over here because I don’t even know if my life is as compete as it could be without them. Third, the hotel did breakfast in bed. When was the last time anyone had breakfast in bed? It was simple, it was delicious and there was hot coffee and I did it all in my underwear IN BED.

What was also amazing was the food. When the butter that accompanies the fresh brioche rolls that precede your meal is the bomb, you’re in for a tasty dinner. Brunch was fucking delicious and everything in between was too. Plus, the girls who were there actually ate which is a nice and refreshing change from the slew of ladies I know who make eating out a total chore (and bore) by ordering grilled chicken and salads galore. I do not go to NYC for a salad, k?

Also, everyone unanimously agreed that the best activity we could imagine was walking around, being casual and shopping. No running, no bullshit, no schedule. We are pretty lax parents but it was a treat to not have to spend my time hustling around to make a nap or get you fed.

I saw a play I have been wanting to see for a zillion years. It was a total mind fuck. I saw a naked penis. Huzzah.

One night, we went to a club to dance after dinner. Side note: clubs are so weird when you are sober/ haven’t gone dancing in at least 3 years. Eventually I couldn’t keep up with my alcohol consuming friends and the other preggo and I went back tot he hotel early (but not actually early, just earlier than everyone else- we really stayed up late this trip – and by late I obviously mean midnight. Anything later would be ridiculous #midthirtyproblems.) Anywho, we went back to the hotel and she and I were not sharing a room so we each retreated to an empty room where I took a long shower, got into bed and read a book.

I can’t even tell you when the last time I had a whole room all to myself was. That was luxury.

In the meantime, you had a really nice weekend with your dad who did an amazing job with you – as expected. When I came to your room to get you this morning you didn’t look at me with distain for leaving you nor wonderment/where the fuck have you been eyes. You simply pulled a finger out of your nose and showed me your “boogies” and we carried on with life as usual.

Here’s the lesson I can leave you with. We get caught up a lot in the things we love. Work, relationships and in my case, being your mom and while we can make little divots of time for ourselves here and there (oh hi, weekly mani) there is truly something important and refreshing about carving out a chunk of time to just do you. Do you without any distraction or hesitation.

And do you with either just you or with your girls because there is something really special about all that estrogen filling up a room. It unites and validates and inspires.

I felt so bad about leaving you but the truth is that 48 hours for sure made me a better version of myself and gave me the boost that I needed to be the best mom to you. This wold hold true to anything.

So ya, have killer ladies in your life and take time for you. Don’t forget you because, as I was reminded this weekend, you are still in there even when you are buried in work/life/love and you can only be your very best self when you have time to be yourself.

But also, you can never leave me because I will miss you too much. Kidding. Not kidding.

Happy to be back with you, Baby. Thanks for making it so easy to want to come home.

xo

Mom

 

March 8, 2017

Dear Baby,

Right now as I type this you have just woken up from a nap and are sitting in your crib upstairs playing with your dolls. I’m going to go ahead and leave you there for a few minutes so I can take a much needed personal moment after what has been a pretty long week.

On the non-complaining side, I’m super busy with work. When it rains, it pours and so my usual downtime (aka your nap time) has been filled to the fucking brim with deadlines. It’s great. On the complaining side, you have been sick so the usual flow of the week has been disrupted. Sick means shorter naps, broken sleep, snot everywhere and no going to programs. That means that your personal clown (me) has been on for 4 days working to entertain you while you wait out this cold.

I will say this for you- the older you get the harder it gets to make you happy. In hindsight, it’s pretty silly to think about complaining about a baby in the sense of keeping them busy. Like, they can just lay on a mat for an hour and voila, an hour has been spent. Today, for example, we have done the following activities while in confinement (and still had a few moments of WTF, mind you):

Coloured, did stickers, looked at animals in a book, read some books, changed your diaper a bunch of times, went up to explore your room, hung out in my room, got dressed, took the dog for a walk, went for another walk to the drugstore, went for another walk to the health food store, played with your tent, played with your tunnel, drew with chalk, chased you around the kitchen island, went to the basement to look at toys, played with the bosu ball, played with your picnic set, played with your penguin counting toy, went outside to play on the slide, had a snack, had lunch, played on the couch, sang every song we know, had a dance party, played with a pillow fort, cleaned up from lunch and played with your musical truck.

You were still bored as fuck for periods of time and I was still totally beat from being on for so many things.

Being sick and not yet being into TV fucking sucks and I totally understand why parents succumb to Peppa before they want to.

Anyways, there is a strong case here for the need of programs during the day to help with mental sanity- or even just nicer weather because a park would have been a fine substitute.

That is all. I’ll come get you now.

xo

Mom

 

March 5, 2017

Dear Baby,

So after 2 long days we have officially packed up and moved out of the house for a month to wait out the renovation we are doing to our basement and bathrooms. We are pretty pumped. Our house is old and all rooms receiving a much needed facelift are gross. The bathroom is basically falling apart and we have this crazy claw foot tub (that’s on its way out) that I fucking hate. Like, you see this claw foot tub and you are all like, wow- so nice. When we first saw this bathroom, we loved it. Shower in that tub for a month and you will change your tune fast.

When you have a claw foot tub, you need a shower curtain that wraps around the whole tub. That means that you are basically showering inside a giant condom. It’s that sexy. It’s horrible. The good news: that claw foot tub will become an herb garden once they take it out of the bathroom. Condom shower be gone.

So here’s the thing about moving out- we realized that despite not being hoarders, we are total fucking hoarders and there is too much shit in our house. I’m all motivated by minimalism to get rid of stuff so I was thrilled to throw out items found at home such as:

Moss in a bag (yes, a whole bag of green moss), baseball gloves (no one in our house plays baseball), a C-cup bra (ok, really?) and about 7000 DVDs (hello, the 2000’s called and they would like their DVD collection back- pretty sure we don’t even own a DVD player.)

It would be embarrassing except that I’m pretty sure this is everyone’s situation- unless you religiously adhere to minimalism – which isn’t something that seems super unappealing after uncovering all this shit

It’s also a lot of your stuff that is taking up space and room. Along side our awesome bag-o-moss we have cars and houses and dolls and blocks in a variety of rainbow colours that take up a huge amount of space which makes your dad’s argument for not buying you more stuff all the time seem somewhat more reasonable though I maintain that you NEEDED the life sized VW tent.

But, here’e the thing: you should do your best to throw stuff out or not buy stupid stuff in the first place if you can. It’s a really hard preach to practice but it would have been so much easier to clean up one floor of our home if we had just gotten rid of things that we were finished with when we were done with them. Didn’t really need to pack a whole tupperware full of old computers now did we? Could have disposed of each at the end of their life cycles and then not had a whole fucking mountain of them.

There is this whole thing about only keeping things that make you happy and serve a purpose and I think they are on to something. I want you to grow up surrounded by things that make you and us happy and without clutter and crap. Not only does it dampen the vibes of a clean and happy home but almost always, someone else could love and use the thing you no longer can so you get to spread the joy around.

I vow to make a better effort to keep our shit clean and not have things we don’t need (although I reserve the right to define “need” a la the VW tent) and I really hope this kind of thinking rubs off on you.

In the meantime, we have a month of total displacement living at your grandparents house while they make us some new and pretty rooms which won’t make our house seem bigger but will hopefully make it more functional to live in.

xo

Mom