April 24, 2017

Dear Baby,

Hi! So stayed up WAY too late last night watching this Netflix show called 13 Reasons Why. Since both Netflix and the show will probably be relics by the time you read this, here’s the gist. Netflix is a system that you can watch curated TV on and the show is a new series on Netflix (they make their own series sometimes.)

K, caught up? Cool. So this show was the latest and greatest trend in TV shows and was about this high school aged girl who kills herself and then post mortal releases a series of 13 tapes explaining why she committed suicide and what drove her to such a dark place. Each tape focuses on a different person who contributed to a particular miserable event culminating in a way-too graphic scene of her slitting her wrists in a bathtub.

So first and foremost before I go any further – I think the obvious point to make is that suicide is NEVER the answer. It is, without a doubt, the most selfish and disgusting act a person can commit and if you think the answer to your problems is to make everyone’s lives around you fucking miserable forever, you are wrong. I will raise you to always believe that things and people can change so if you find yourself hating your life, I hope you can come back to the lessons of change and make the ones you need to make before doing something really fucking dumb.

Anyways. I think that the reason this show hit so close to home and why I feel like I want to talk about it with you is that it’s basically everyone’s high school experience. Bullying and being bullied. Girls and boy. Sex and sexuality and cliques. On top of that, even though at the time it will seem like I am just a ridiculous idiot, I know that your brain in high school makes you feel like every single thing is THE BIGGEST thing you could ever face when in hindsight, most of it is just dumb. Fights with friends will seem catastrophic and then 10 years later you won’t even remember that person’s name. That’s just how it goes and you won’t know until you are in it and then out of it.

But the show did a great job of showing how little and big things can hurt from a fight with your best friend to a sexual assault. From an untrue rumour being spread about you to being called “hot”, a seemingly innocent and complimentary statement that makes you an object and less of a person. We’ve all been there. I’ve been there and so each episode was incredible real. I’ve been the bully, the bullied and on the giving and receiving end of all kids of events and words. I even think it’s pretty common to have the fleeting teenage angst ridden thoughts of “would everything be better if I wasn’t around.”

Yes, the show’s victim had a long series of truly escalating and unfortunate events happen to her but not necessarily more or less than anyone I went to school with/ knew.

I made me think a lot about having a kid and being an adult and no longer having the perspective I once did to afford you the space to communicate how you feel. By the time you are in high school and going through all this shit, I will be so much more far removed from the way it felt to be involved in that shit that I may not give you the ears you need or the answers you want. I may not get it.

I mean, I hope that because I was kind of a shit kid and did most of the stupid things I can fear you doing, I will relate more but still – we didn’t have social media, cell phones, or real access to internet. And like the generation before us, we will be slower sexually and life wise than you will be. Development speeds up even though it seems the same.

So this whole rant is just to say that no matter what, where, how and why I am here and I will LISTEN. I will not just hear you and the words you are saying, I will LISTEN to you. I will understand you or do my fucking best job trying. I can’t promise not to judge or be mad or sad about decisions you might make and things that might happened but I can assure you that in spite of any feelings I have, I will support you and love you no matter what. I will respect you as a person and I will always be on your team. You can come to me about literally anything.

And so to make sure these lines of communication are always flowing, I will also promise to tell you everything. There are no secrets in this family and nothing that I will keep from you or hide away. If my true expectation is for you to trust and confide in me (which, to be clear, it is) I will show you the same in kind. Trust and respect are a two way street and I want to show you how much I have for you by sharing my life with you so that you can share yours with me.

I thanked my lucky stars last night that you are still so little and sweet and that I don’t have to deal with an asshole teenaged girl (sorry) right now but in lieu of the fact that I hope that day comes when I do, let’s try and get through it all as best we can together. K?

xo

Mom

April 22, 2017

Dear Baby,

Today we revisited swim lessons which, 6 months later, were so much more successful than they were last time. Was it the cleaner pool? Your maturity or the fact that you were in a great mood this morning? Who knows but you even dunked your head without crying so that was a huge win for me.

There I was fretting about inflicting long term psychological damage on you and your ability to trust people due to being prematurely dunked in the water and you just went ahead and did it smiling. Well, I can safely shake that one off my shoulders now. Phew.

But in the meantime, we ran into so many people at the pool – which is the new nightclub when you have a kid and I also ran into my first experience with sexism. It won’t be the last for me and it certainly won’t be the last for you or your unborn girl baby sibling.

Ran into an acquaintance who inquired about the sex of the unborn baby and gave me a slightly pitying look when I said “girl.”
A look that suggested that girls were tolerable but boys were preferable. A look that suggested that two girls were more an inconvenience than a blessing. A look that said that maybe next time we would be lucky enough to produce a tiny penis.

Well, to that look of pity I will say this. Fuck off.

Pretty sure Beyoncé was as clear as fuck when she said who run the world. Girls. As a woman, I am well aware that sexism and bias exists but to think of it impacting you in any way makes me mad because it’s fucking dumb.

Oh, sorry that we have no one to take on the family name which is a stupid construct of an antiquated tradition anyways. Pretty sure you can pick whatever name you want. I could be Mrs. Potato Head if I wanted so…

Oh, sorry that we don’t have to have genital mutilation served on a platter beside smoked whitefish for all the old men in our community to witness making our baby closer to godliness. I’ll pass on the physical torture and the whitefish platter. Thanks.

Oh, sorry that instead of another boy we are bringing a girl into the world who will fucking make shit happen AND may be the bearer of the future people who will make shit happen. HOW BRUTAL.

That innate sexism and weird religious feelings about sex come up before the baby is even born is exactly what’s wrong with the world – religion and otherwise. How totally shameful for a grown woman to poo poo the life of another future woman. You should know better and you should hang your head in fucking disgrace. I don’t want to say you don’t deserve a vagina, but I hope that today it gets itchy in public. Just cuz.

Baby, know this: being a woman is hard. It’s an unfortunate truth. There are so many balancing acts that you will have to do in your life and you will always thrive and fall. Depending on what you want out of it, you will have to find creative ways to make life work for you and navigate the waters of being a woman, mother, friend and professional – all come with challenges that men will never know. I read this study once that because of good ol’ hormones, a woman’s brain changes radically each month while a mans stays relatively the same throughout.

But this is not your disadvantage and you are not less than. You are great if not greater than. Not only can you truly be whatever you want to be in your life, you will also have the superpower to make other humans. I can’t promise you that you won’t face a whole lot of the same kind of male dominated bullshit in your life, but I can promise you that your dad and I will raise you to know that it IS bullshit and that the people who spew it are just fucking idiots.

So to you my precious DAUGHTER who I am SO happy to have and to your unborn sib who I am also so happy to have, just know that your being female is something I will celebrate every damn day. You should too.

xo

Mom

PS. This no offence to boy babes, I would have been really happy with a boy babe too – they are awesome. This is in offence to anyone who would suggest that not having a boy babe would be anything less than perfect too. You suck, people. Get your head’s out of the past and come join us in the future, it’s a great place to be.

April 16, 2017

Dear Baby,

After several months of a tease serenade of the title song, we finally took you to the zoo with some friends. I don’t really know how I feel about the zoo in terms of it being a weird place where wild animals are put on display for our amusement but nonetheless, it was high time you saw some animals in real life.

I worried that you might be fearful of seeing them as you were last summer when we took you to Riverdale farm and you cried at the horses but figured you’ve come a long  way with maturity and animal related interests.

You were a star. You love seeing the animals and their weird habitats and you only cried once when the hyena came to close to the glass wall you were watching him from. I can’t blame you. We’ve all seen Lion King and the hyenas are worth fearing.

The Toronto Zoo is fucking crazy because it is massive so you can basically walk for a zillion hours and see like, 2 animals. We actually saw 6 animals (and partially due to about 20 minutes of empty space we had to walk through that used to house the elephants who no longer reside at the zoo.)

I can’t say it was a workout but I can’t say that I wasn’t DYING for a nap after either…

You also rode your first carousel which you took to in a funny way. I didn’t know this but you seem to have a strange fear of riding on animal backs. You were happy to sit in a pod but you’d be damed if you were going to ride a monkey or parrot. DAMNED. That’s a weird fear that I think maybe we need to work on because I’ll be damned if you won’t go on rides with me when you are old enough. Your dad already cacked out on me a few years ago claiming that rides make him nauseous all of a sudden so you are my second last hope to have fun at Wonderland and other parks. No pressure.

Overall I would say that your enjoyment and delight outweighed my hesitation about the zoo even though I still don’t think it is a very nice place.

But the moral of this post is to be kind and respectful to animals and know that the zoo can be a great place to observe and learn but that animals are the happiest and best when they are left to themselves in their natural homes. What? We put you in a cage? It’s called a crib and it’s for your own safety. Get over it.

xo

Mom

April 12, 2016

Dear Baby,

Something kind of scary happened the other day. You slept in (not scary and kind of awesome), but at 9, I was getting concerned so I went to wake you and found you listless. You barely moved, barely talked and hardly wanted to get up. This compared to your usual AM routine of singing at the top of your lungs and then showing all your animals and saying hello to every single thing in your room was a hard contrast.

I was worried. Worried enough to take you to a walk in clinic.

Lo and behold you had a double ear infection. POOR GIRL!!!! That must be the fucking worst. I don’t think I was an ear infection kid but my sister was and your dad was and it sounds fucking awful.

The bad news is the ear infection. Good news is that you are a fucking junkie for your banana medicine (amoxicillin) and it can be used to bribe you to do things. Come downstairs and you can have banana medicine makes the long walk downstairs so much less of a thing every day.

This short but sweet post serves to tell you an important thing. Know the people around you and trust your gut when it comes to assessing how they are. I know you SO well that I knew in 5 seconds something was amiss. I literally can tell any time you have a good change, what is going on and it is because I take the time to really know you and pay attention. Do the same for the ones you love.

And trust your gut. If you feel like something is wrong, it probably is. No one ever got hurt by avoiding something their gut said was a bad idea – know what I mean?

xo

Mom

April 10, 2017

Dear Baby,

It’s Passover and here is something I have learned from my mom and mother in law. Turning over a kitchen and then cooking for a zillion people is not a fun activity. You do it, and I’m sure there is some kind of weird sick pleasure in it, but overall it makes people  feel overwhelmed and tired.

One of your Bubbies got literally sick and the other is still recovering from escapades in the kitchen. Worth it? I mean, people love brisket but I’m not so sure.

Passover to me seems like an expensive and burdensome venture. Like should you have to shell out tons of money and time and effort to recall the journey that our forefathers made out of Egypt? Pretty sure that being together with family, sharing an oral tradition and making memories would be the key ingredients to any holiday, not spending millions of dollars on food and then also throwing away tons of food because it isn’t “kosher.”

I can’t say for sure but I’ll bet our forefathers would fucking plutz if they knew that people were wasting money and food just to keep a K for P home. Like, what would even make a pickle kosher for passover. A pickle isn’t made with anything bread related. Then you end up with shitty pickles that you have to throw out and people that were once slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt (as the story goes) would fucking shit bricks to see a whole jar of pickles be wasted because they were shitty in the first place.

But, I like tradition. I like holidays, I like hosting and I like celebrating. We want to incorporate some of the pieces of our heritage into our home with you. We want you to grow up enjoying the passover meal. How to do this in a way that doesn’t feel counterintuitive? Not sure.

I guess as we all grow together as a family, we will make our own rules and traditions. I can tell you that I will never buy shitty pickles (sorry mom, they were really bad) or weird yogurt, that I am not having a whole separate set of dishes in my home (WHO EVEN HAS ROOM FOR THAT) but that we will most certainly have a lively seder meal and bad-ass Charoset.

And so continues the saga of how to have religion in your home and life when you don’t quite subscribe to it.

xo

Mom

April 9, 2017

Dear Baby,

K, we are home now from our weekend away from you. Here’s what I can tell you. I was nervous to leave you. REAL nervous. Your dad and I have gone away independently leaving only one parent with you for a maximum of 2 days but NEVER have we left you alone with anyone else together. This was a big deal.

It had to happen for several reasons. The top 2 being that first, we are about to have another baby and the times we will have to get away alone (or even just be alone) in the next while are minimal at best. Second, although your dad and I do a lot to enjoy and respect our relationship and we didn’t need the time together per say, I believe it’s important to work on your relationship after having a baby so that you don’t become people who watch TV in separate rooms every night for the rest of your lives.

So, with hesitation, we left you with my parents ( your grandparents, obviously) and were 40 minutes away at Langdon Hall. I’ll be honest. The Friday we left I could NOT relax. I kept thinking about you and worrying about you and then thinking about you… I felt so not present and then annoyed with myself for not being present. But by Saturday we had really begun to chill the fuck out with the help of a massage, facial, nature hike and the best fucking food on this planet.

Seriously Baby, one day when you are older and wouldn’t be bored by having nothing to do all day, we will take you to this place and you will totally love it. It’s like the ultimate relaxation indulgence in total opulence with tons of rich people. Suffice to say that your dad and I didn’t pack according to the seemingly universal dress code of “preppy” and our hoodies were WAY out of scope. Whoops!

In the meantime, you were fine. You had a good weekend with your grandparents (minus the double ear infection that was brewing and subsequently erupted on the Tuesday following our return) and you didn’t seem traumatized at all by our absence.

The truth: maybe one day we will change our tunes and have a whole different perspective on vacations and I say this knowing that our opinion is NOT the norm but Baby, vacationing without you wasn’t as amazing as I thought it might be. We missed you and I would give up a million fancy dinners and perfect prenatal massages to spend time just watching you go down a slide 40000000 times. So far, to date, I don’t require a break from you for any more time than about an hour here and there.

Ug, mom. So lame. Ok, fine. Don’t come with us on our next trip. See if I care. Kidding, you’re coming.

xo

Mom

April 7, 2017,

Dear Baby,

Today marks my 35th birthday and since I have been around for 34 years more than you (33.5 if you are being particular), I thought I would share some knowledge and wisdom to celebrate my birthday this year that may help you celebrate your birthday in the future.

So….

1. Share your birthday celebrations and any celebrations with people you love. Your dad and I went away for the weekend for the first time ever without you (more on that later) and although it was insanely fun and very necessary, in hindsight I would have spent my actual birthday with you and left the next day because you would have made my day complete. Seeing you for a quick second in the morning before leaving was not enough.
2. While we are on birthdays, don’t be all drama for yours. I am always such a loser on my birthday because I have these grand expectations of what it should mean and the truth is that all it means is that the people who really love you will acknowledge that you were born and that they are pleased about it.
3. Treat yo’self. On the note I made above in point 2, you are basically the only person who will make your birthday a big deal past age 16 so do something awesome for yourself with no guilt and no hold barred. I took myself out this year for a chocolate, mani and pedi.
4. Balance stuff with doing stuff. Yes, getting actual physical presents for your birthday is good. Real good. Getting experiences? That’s good too. Too much stuff will make you spoiled and you honestly won’t remember a pair of shoes that you received for turning 20. You will probably remember a thoughtful dinner or getaway. Memories are better than things – even though things are also really fun.
5. Take a break. A REAL break. I define a real break as one where you actually leave your home and go do something 100% relaxing. Whether you have a fuckig delicious toddler who you never want to part with or a hard job or demanding social life, everyone needs a break to reset, regroup and revive their soul.
6. Take time to make time with your partner. On that note, when you take a break – consider bringing along your partner. Chances are, if you are stressed, they are stressed and distressing together is more fun. Make love your priority always because love is a many splendour thing.
7. Take time to make time with other people you love. We saw a whole slew of moms and daughters, friends and girls or boys groups away the weekend we went. People taking time to spend time with other people they love outside of their spouses. I’m ALWAYS down for a trip with you, Baby and I can’t wait until we can start making those kinds of memories together.
8. Good parties are always a good idea
9. Seriously. Have lots of parties. We will have lots of parties for you. Don’t spend your birthday doing lame shit. Do something really fun.
10. But if you don’t like parties (which would be kind of shocking as you are our kid), do other fun stuff. Whatever you like to do, do it.
11. EAT CAKE
12. OMG – don’t fucking miss out on cake.
13. Don’t bank too much on your birthday candle wish. We are not living in Sixteen Candles and Jake may or may not be around. Have you even seen that movie?????
14. Feel free to treat your birthday as your personal new year. I always make a small resolution for my new year to help make it feel like the start of something.
15. Don’t save all your cards. I have this horrible guilt about throwing away cards (or anything ever – wonder why that is????) and I feel like I am tossing aside people’s hard thought sentiments. Then I go back and look and it’s like “Happy Birthday. Love, me” and I’m like, why the fuck did I keep this? Honestly, don’t be like me and have built about everything. Just throw shit out.
16. OMG I don’t really have enough substantial material to get to 35 things. Being old is so annoying.
17. Ok, got one. Don’t say that you are old. It’s annoying for people who are actually old.
18. Ok, here’s another. If you wear sunscreen all the time and take care of your skin, you will always look younger than your age so you won’t feel wrinkly and miserable on your birthdays.
19. Ok, I’m back on a roll. Here’s something to think about. You are (all things being well) about to get a sibling. Their birthday is their special day and your birthday is yours. No getting you a present on their birthday to make you feel better shit in this house – k? Everyone gets a special day and you should learn that fun is having a special day AND celebrating other people’s special days. Gifts do not = fun.
20. If they don’t call you – not text, CALL you on your birthday, they are not your loves. Not to say that any birthday message isn’t kind and valued but a text is not the same as an old fashioned ring a ling.
21. UG. I’m out of material again.
22. How
23. Can
24. We
25. Kill
26. Some
27. Space
28. Don’t forget to celebrate with me on your birthdays because I have the scar to prove that I am the one who birthed you to begin with.
29. Let’s always do something fun together. Spa and dinner?
30. Or a vacation – I love vacations.
31. Fine. All of the above.
32. Blah
33. Blah
34. Blah
35. Hope that I can witness your 35th year here on this planet. For me, the past year and a half has been the best ever so 35, although slightly scary is mostly amazing courtesy of your peanut face.

 

I’m done.

xo

Mom