Author Archives: Sarah Carmichael

A Walk in the Woods

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Alternate title: Honk if you’d like to kick a Canada Goose in the neck. (I figured this title would get me unwelcome traffic, though).

The plan for today was to take the kids on a walk in the woods, which seemed simple enough. Since it’s so warm, I figured I couldn’t go wrong spending the afternoon outside with the kids. They would get fresh air and I would get out of the house: win-win.

After a few false starts to our outing (including both kids falling asleep in the car and me  realizing that was best case scenario for me), we reached our destination at a local conservation area. We hadn’t been before and I was looking forward to a change of scene. A couple of friends had taken their kids bird-feeding there and although I am not fond of birds, I decided to suck it up and take my kids. After all, they are suburban kids and I want to make sure they spend a lot of time in nature.

When we finally arrived at the conservation area, I realized we had to pay for parking. I grabbed my credit card and headed to the machine.

“Coins only”

Great. I never have cash. Somehow, whenever I have coins, they magically turn into caffeinated drinks. I went back to the car to dig around for quarters and headed back, impressed that I had manage to find six.

“Minimum $2.00”

Obviously, I should have read the sign the first time. Note: this is when I should have given up and gone home. With a roll of my eyes, I headed back to the car. Again. A few nickels and dimes later, we were set for two hours.

I unloaded the kids and, thinking the trails wouldn’t be stroller-friendly, put Em in a carrier that I hadn’t used before. Off we went.

At the entrance of the trails, we were welcomed by geese – so to speak; they were there and so were we. I hate geese. Dirty, loud, aggressive geese. Sucking it up, we entered the trail and I took some pretty photos.

Opting not follow the bird-feeder trail, we kept walking along the swampy water snapping photos. About five minutes in, I knew the carrier had been a mistake. Small as she is for her age, Em was getting heavy and I was already aching.

I took her out and slung her onto my hip, walking ahead while Q hung back stuffing handfuls of gravel into his pockets to take home to his “collection.” Weighed down as he was, he couldn’t walk without risking losing his pants, so he asked me to help him take the rocks out. I crouched down, positioned Em on my leg and proceeded to empty his pockets.

Cue freak-out in:

3, 2, 1…

Nothing says “lovely nature walk” like a 4 year old throwing a tantrum because his gravel was emptied onto the trail from which it came.

I turned around. We were going home. Forget the plan. Forget the quarters and nickels and dimes. This outing was a bust.

Holding Q’s hand and carrying Em, we headed back – with Q half-heartedly dragging his feet in protest. Thankfully, we hadn’t gone far and would be back in the car in no time.

Not so fast.

Enter evil geese. Did I mention I hate geese?

We were met by three evil geese at the exit of the trail. Stupid geese. My human arrogance kicked it – all-powerful rulers of the Earth and all that. Tucking Q behind me and boosting Em a little higher, I walked on.

We didn’t get far. Before we could get close, one goose hissed. Loudly and fiercely. For a split second, I could have sworn it had teeth, and visions of the evil goose from Shrek Forever After popped into my head.

And then one charged.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

The goose chased us back up the trail and the one with the teeth stared us down. There I was with a 4 year old, a 10 month old, and no phone. I wasn’t about to play chicken with that goose and tempt fate.

So, I did what anyone would have done; I took a photo of the offenders. Then, I just stood there helplessly, wondering when Mr. T would notice we should have been home.

After finally scanning for possible escape routes, I scooped up my kids and booked it through some brush, over a ditch, and back onto the road. Take that, geese! Who is all-powerful, now? OK, it was still the geese.

As we approached out car, I saw another mother about to pay for parking and offered her our parking voucher. Apparently, after all that we’d only used 20 minutes of it. Twenty long minutes.

While I was putting him in the car, Q looked at me, held out his hand, and opened it to reveal a piece of asphalt that he’d rescued from the rock-dumping. Asphalt. Of course. Way to teach my surburban kids about nature.

A Lesson in Acceptance

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Dear Q,

Don’t tolerate difference. Tolerance is not enough; you tolerate something you don’t like, but can’t be bothered to try to change.

Accept difference. Embrace how people differ from you, differ from your expectations, and differ from what you are conditioned to believe people should look like, act like, live like, and be like.

Difference is not to be feared; it is to be celebrated. Allow your self the power to accept someone other people don’t. It takes far more strength of character to accept people who fall outside your social expectations than it does to tolerate or fear them.

Let them be and express themselves without having to explain and defend themselves.

Love always,
Mom

Living Online: The weight of it all

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I have been living online and connecting with people on the internet for almost 20 years. In the early 90s, I’d hang out in chat rooms until I heard the birds chirping just before dawn, when I’d shut down the computer and crawl into bed as the sun peeked through my venetian blinds.

Over the years, I have met countless amazing people – companions with whom I have navigated this information highway. Some of the most meaningful friendships of my life started online – a few have moved offline and have become my most cherished.

I cannot fathom what my life would have been like without chat rooms, forums, Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. Immeasurable good has come out of them and they have been a huge part of my life for more than half of it.

However, there is a price I pay for living online. No, it’s not the time spent – that is a choice I make and something I can control. The price I pay is the weight of it all. So often, I come away from social sites with a heavy heart.

Years ago, I made a conscious decision to not engage in controversial topics online, especially ones that mean a lot to me and can easily become polarizing – religion, race, oppression, gender politics. Sometimes, I break my rule and it almost always leaves me feeling uneasy. Everyone has their own agenda and, to be honest, I no longer have the energy to put myself out there. I save that energy for offline discussions – and believe me, those discussions happen all the time and are infinitely more productive.

Something about the internet invites people to say exactly how they feel and what they think, regardless of how it might affect someone else. People will type things that would never come out of their mouths. For that reason, I backed away from Twitter in October and have hardly been back. There is just too much negativity and judging and criticism and agenda-pushing.

Fast forward to last night and the announcement of Whitney Houston’s death. A friend told me the news on Skype and I took to Twitter. I should have known better because last night exemplified why I backed away from Twitter in the first place.

Someone died – a music legend who provided the soundtrack to my childhood. A person. A mother. A daughter. A friend. A loved one of many. I may not have known her, but you’d better believe she impacted my life. Her songs not only throw me back to places and times, but they trigger memories of smells and textures. So many memories flooded my conscience when I found out she had died that I couldn’t sort them quickly enough.

Am I mourning her death? Not exactly. But, I sure am glad she lived.

Twitter quickly blew up with tweets about her drug addiction, assuming that was the cause of death. People tweeted that they didn’t care about her death and that she’d brought it upon herself. That is simply callous and disrespectful. I don’t understand what compels people to make comments like that after someone dies, regardless of the circumstances of the person’s life or death. I even read tweets saying she had wasted her talent. Wasted her talent. This, about a woman who during her career won 415 awards and was one of the best-selling female solo artists of all time? How is that a waste? Whitney Houston shared her talent and we benefited from it. If you weren’t a fan, why comment on it? Why choose to be negative in that moment?

Online social sites can be ugly places that bring out the worst in good people. Insensitivity, criticism, mocking, and polarizing debates reign supreme. It’s a heavy weight. People can’t tweet about what they feed their kids, how and where their kids sleep, where they shop, what they wear, or how much TV they watch without running the risk of someone picking it apart and telling them how wrong and bad they are. I don’t have time for that. I see and hear enough of that in my offline life.

Here’s to a talent not wasted:

How do you deal with the weight of online society?
Have you ever backed away because it all felt so heavy?

Fiercely convicted at the age of three: my first memory

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30 Day Blog Challenge topic: Your earliest memory

Candace of Name Your Tune inspired this post when she posed the following on her Facebook page:

Ladies, when you got married, did you take your husband’s last name? Was it an easy decision or were you torn? Was it hard for you? I would love to hear about it.

It just so happens that one of my first memories is about this very topic. The answers to Candace’s questions (and others before it) are fascinating. So many perspectives and so many reasons. I have always known that if and when I got married, I’d keep my last name. It has never been up for debate.

I remember clearly the first time I had a conversation on this topic. I was about three years old and was shopping with my mom and my paternal grandmother. I’m not sure how the conversation started, but that was the day I learned that my grandmother had had her married name longer than her birth name. I was scandalized and responded with:

“No man is gonna take my name away from ME!”

Yup. I was three. Fiercely convicted. To a fault, perhaps.

My decision has never wavered and it won’t. That is why both my kids have my last name as their middle names.

The interesting thing about this story is that after doing some research tonight, I realized that my grandmother never legally had my grandfathers name. Being from Quebec, she had to assume her husband’s name. It was the same for my mom. It was a technicality more than anything, but it blew my mind a little that at the time of her death, she was still a Williamson.

A day in the life…

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30 Day Blog Challenge topic: Bullet your whole day

People have asked me what I do all day. For the most part, I am a stay-at-home mom. I do occasional freelance work, but between contracts, it doesn’t occupy much time. So what do I do all day? Honestly, I am just as curious as some who have asked. Usually when people ask me, I sit in stunned silence because a) it’s kinda rude b) I don’t really know.

When I saw that the 30 Blog Challenge called for this post, I embraced it. Fair warning, it’s a detailed account of my day. Once I started taking note of my day, minute by minute, I started to wonder what it would reveal.

Here is a peek into what an average 24 hours looks like in my house.

12:00 am

  • Attempt to go to bed.

12:02 am

  • Em wakes up.

12:55 am

  • Finally get Em to sleep.

1:05 am

  • Settle in for the night.

1:23 am

  • Q wakes up.

1:43 am

  • Settle back into bed.

2:48 am

  • Em wakes up. Nurse Em.

3:55 am

  • Wake up to go to the bathroom.

5:05 am

  • Em wakes up itchy. Rub her head.

5:55 am

  • Nurse Em.

7:08 am

  • Realize with horror that the alarm will go off in 22 minutes.

7:30 am

  • 22 minutes later.

7:37 am

  • Go to wake Q and discover he’s wet the bed.

7:38 am

  • Em wakes up.

7:40 am

  • Get Q dressed for preschool.
  • Get Q breakfast.
  • Nurse Em.
  • Change Em’s diaper and realize it leaked. Change her clothes.
  • Make some caffeinated dirty water.
  • Gather change of clothes, shoes, mitts, etc., for preschool.
  • Throw on yoga pants and hoodie.
  • Check Mr. T’s car for snow pants and backpack.
  • Realize that Q’s snow pants and backpack were left at his cousins’ house.
  • Accept that I’ll be that mom who sends her kid to preschool, ill-prepared.
  • Organize and take out two weeks worth of recycling.
  • Feed Em.
  • Bundle Em up and put her in her car seat.
  • Brush my teeth.
  • Nag Q about his jacket and boots.

8:35 am

  • Leave the house.

8:45 am

  • Arrive at preschool (am reassured that preschool has extra snow pants).

9:00 am

  • Get home.
  • Sit down for a few minutes with (hour old) coffee and jot down morning.
  • Facebook while Em sleeps.

9:44 am

  • Jump in the shower.

9:56 am

  • Get dressed.
  • Put kids’ clothes away.
  • Strip Q’s bed.
  • Start a load of laundry.

10:05 am

  • Respond to a bunch of text messages.
  • Make call for work.

10:17 am

  • Fold laundry in front of the TV.

10:34 am

  • Get ready to run errands and pick up Q.
  • Switch laundry.
  • Update bullets.

10:46 am

  • Leave house.
  • Go to drugstore and bank.

11:15 am

  • Pick up Q.

11:25 am

  • Get home.

11:27 am

  • Bathe Em and do her skin care regimen.

11:45 am

  • Feed Em and Q.
  • Nurse Em.
  • Eat lunch.

12:30 pm

  • Deal with temper tantrum.
  • Make Q’s bed.
  • Start Q’s quiet time.

12:40 pm

  • Update bullets with Em on my lap.

12:45 pm

  • Turn on webcam for Em (it’s the new “mirror”).

    webcam!

1:10 pm

  • Put Em down for a nap.
  • Sit still in the quiet for 20 minutes. Breathe.

1:30 pm

  • Clean bathroom.
  • Tidy and sweep kitchen.

2:00 pm

  • Q finishes quiet time.
  • Tidy living room while Q watches a show.
  • Make Q a snack.
  • Sweep front hall.
  • Take garbage to the garage.

2:30 pm

  • Update bullets.
  • Cuddle with Q for a quick minute.
  • Help Q pick up his toys.

2:57 pm

  • Em wakes up.
  • Cuddle Em.
  • Play with Q.
  • Update bullets.

3:30

  • Get Em a snack.
  • Sit on the floor and play.
  • Fight fatigue.

3:53

  • Nurse Em.
  • Check Facebook.
  • Play with kids.

4:58

  • Tidy front hall.
  • Mr. T is bringing home dinner!!
  • Tidy living room again.
  • Put away groceries Mr. T brought home.
  • Watch Q and Em play together.
  • Update bullets.
  • Read this blog post and relate, considering my chosen exercise for the day.

5:34

  • Eat!

6:20

  • Go upstairs to lay down. Finally.

7:02

  • Come down to inconsolable Em.
  • Nurse Em.
  • Bathe Em and do skin care regimen.

7:30 pm

  • Put Em to bed.

7:50 pm

  • Mr. T takes Q to bed.
  • Unload and load dishwasher.

8:00 pm

  • Veg in front of the TV.
  • Check Facebook and Pinterest.

This was an interesting exercise for me because we don’t really pay attention to clock time in our house. In fact, most of the clocks in our house are wrong. Unless we have somewhere to be at a certain time, I hardly ever look at a clock. We don’t have a rigid schedule, but as I look at our day, I realize that we do have a definite routine that happens at roughly the same time every day.

I also realized that almost every minute of my day is accounted for. As much as I think I sit around, idly, I realize that when I am sitting, I am nursing Em, or entertaining her, or eating. I am not idle. I think if I was actually idle, I’d crash. If I sit too long, I might pass out.

The other thing I noticed is that it doesn’t take me near as long to do things as I would have guessed. I can do far more in 10 minutes than I would have given myself credit for. I’d expect that my house would be tidier after cleaning that much in a day, though. I wouldn’t even say it’s company ready. Sigh.

unadulterated

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Today as I was driving, I tuned into the easy listening station. You know, the one that starts playing Christmas songs at the beginning of November. I turn to it every once in awhile with the hopes of catching a song from my youth. Today, I was not disappointed. Lo and behold, after the commercial about the monster truck rally, Kenny Loggins’ Footloose came on.

Immediately, I was taken back to a childhood friend’s home. We were jumping on the trampoline screaming “burning urine” at the top of our lungs. As I listened, I wondered why her mother never corrected us. Suddenly, it dawned on me that she probably never knew of the misheard lyric. She wasn’t there. She didn’t watch us as we risked life and limb on the trampoline, except from the kitchen window…maybe…if she felt so inclined.

She also wasn’t there when my friend and I explored the pastures, dodging cow pies and the animals that produced them. One time, we wandered all the way to the highway and no one ever knew but us. We climbed trees and swung from ropes in the hay mow in the barn. We cuddled filthy kittens and crawled through chicken poop on the hay bales. It was wonderful and pure and unadulterated fun.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been involved in quite a few conversations about free range parenting versus helicopter parenting. One thing that has emerged from those conversations is the realization that my fondest, most vivid childhood memories don’t include my parents. Instead, they are filled with the faces and voices and enthusiasm of my friends and my brother and my cousins – my peers and the ever-so-cool kids who were just a little bit older. Those are the memories triggered by songs and smells and conversations about parenting philosophies.

So, where were my parents? They were there. If I look hard enough, I see them looking through windows and peeking behind doors. They are driving us to camps and friends’ houses and events and lessons. They are cheering us on and grinning goofily as I take my first steps. They are behind the camera and waiting in the car. They are signing permission slips and shelling out money. They are excited and petrified as they wave goodbye. Every time.

They made the memories possible. They provided the opportunities for me to create those memories of rolling pastures and Kenny Loggins. They let me live and play…unadulterated.

Where does this leave me? With a little more clarity of purpose. It is my job to weave myself into the fabric of my children’s lives. My beliefs, opinions, perspectives, and ways of living will shape my kids. My parenting will teach them the ways of this world and how to live within it. I need to be the yarn with which memories are woven without making every memory about me.

As a parent, it’s my job to lay the foundation and help guide the building process. I need to always be there for them without always being with them.

I give a lot of credit to my parents for being able to raise my brother and me the way they did. I have realized so much about my own childhood since Q was born. We feel so much pressure to always be doing; it takes strength to just let our children be.

It’s not about me. If when my kids look back on their childhoods and their fondest memories are of them playing and exploring with their peers, I will consider that a success.

Playlist

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30 Day Blog Challenge Topic: Put your iPod on shuffle and write first 10 songs that pop up

Here’s a secret for you. I don’t own an iPod. I have never owned an iPod. No Mp3 player, either. Nothing. All I have is a Blackberry with a memory card that I put some songs on a few years ago and all of them were ripped from my CDs.

The sad truth is that I don’t know how to consume music in this century. I have never even been on iTunes. If I am not listening to five year old CDs, I have the radio on. I know, I know…soooo last century.

I resisted CDs when they came out, too. I loved my cassette tapes. Eventually, I couldn’t get what I wanted on tapes, so I gave in to CDs. Now, I’m not ready to quit them. Problem is, I would feel so OLD and out of touch if I were to go into HMV to buy music.

So, this is what I’m left with. The most recent song on this list is Footprints by TOK (2005). Sigh.

Hip Hop – Dead Prez

Footprints – TOK

Break Ya Neck – Busta Rhymes

I Hear a Symphony – The Supremes

Fight the Power – Public Enemy

If You Don’t Know Me By Now – Otis Redding

Cat Stevens – Morning Has Broken

Take Me There – Mya ft

Back In The Day – Pharcyde

Heaven Only Knows – K-OS

I actually really love all these songs. As far as I’m concerned, they are all timeless. In keeping with the sentiment of this post, here is some old school for you. Enjoy!


 

Household manual

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I am a sucker for reality TV. I used to watch a lot more – now, I stick with competition shows like American Idol, The Voice, ANTM…nothing that delves too much into the lives of the cast.

I have been known to, occasionally, watch Wife Swap when nothing else was on, but the show makes me uncomfortable. Recently, my friend Kelli at kellidaisy.com mentioned that Celebrity Wife Swap was actually pretty good. So, I set my PVR to record it and figured I might watch it when I was desperate to escape and nothing was on. It recorded two episodes before I even considered viewing it. Last night, I watched them back-to-back. Mr. T pretended he wasn’t watching the first one, but by the second, he was hooked. Hehe. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, because as much as he claims not to be interested in the goings-on of pop culture, he regularly watched Celebrity Apprentice until I refused to watch once Trump requested Obama’s birth certificate [video].

Why did we like Celebrity Wife Swap? I dunno. Nothing says glitz and glam like sausage left out on Carnie Wilson’s stove.

When the wives get to their new, temporary homes, there is a ‘household manual’ waiting for them that is written by the other wife or couple. The manual sets the tone for how the household operates – roles, expectations, routine, child-rearing philosophies, relationship overview, politics, religion & values, and basically anything else that happens in a household. This is household manual for Gary Busey’s family.

It got me thinking about what would be in our household manual. What would I write if I had to leave a Coles notes version of the inner-workings of our family? What would I say about my relationship with Mr. T and how that functions in our household? What would I say about how we raise our kids and maintain our house?

I am still thinking about it and am thinking I might write one just for the fun of it. I wonder what it would reveal when laid out on paper.

Do you think writing a household manual like the Busey family’s would reveal surprises about the inner-workings of your family?

I don’t do resolutions, but if I did…

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1. No more Starbucks…unless someone else is paying, I’m going on a road trip, or I’m meeting someone for coffee.

2. Simplify & organize…starting (and perhaps ending) with Pinterest boards and Facebook albums

3. Fold laundry straight out of the dryer…unless there is no empty laundry basket, (see: piles of 2011)

4. Write weekly meal plans. (well, that was easy)

5. Prioritize – kids before cleaning, Facebook before Pinterest.

And, done.

Comfort Foods

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Today’s 30 Day Blog Challenge Topic: Comfort Foods

When I think comfort foods, I my mind immediately conjures images of my youth and the food I ate as a child. Two foods stand out more than others and are the ones I turned to when I was recovering from gall bladder surgery last month.

The first is is tuna on toast and it is very specific. Clover leaf Flaked White Tuna mixed with vinegar, mayo, and pepper and spread onto dry toast. Mmm. It’s actually the only fish I will ever eat.

The second is weiners and beans. Again, very specific: Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce. My mom always made them with molasses, brown sugar, and dry mustard. Sometimes, I forgo the sugar. Then, I drown buttered toast with them. Yum.

I don’t make either often enough for them to even be on my kids’ radar. Maybe, I should rectify that.