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.

Dear Em,

You will spend a lifetime creating a story that the lines on your face will tell. Embrace them.

May your laugh lines run deeper than your frown lines.

Love Always,
Mom

Dear Q,

This world in which we live tends to focus on who and what. We are fascinated by other people and what they are doing and saying.

The question we often do not consider is why. Why do people do what they do or say what they say?

Most importantly, why do you do what you do? Why do you say what you say? What is your motive?

Check your motives. Pause, ask yourself why and adjust accordingly. Let your true self shine through your motives and your actions.

Love always,
Mom

Dear Q,

This world in which we live is a judgmental place. We judge people based on their appearances, attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, and motives.

To negatively judge another necessitates you believing yourself to be superior and right. You can’t think less of another unless you think more of yourself.

Remember that everyone makes choices for their own reasons – reasons that you don’t need to know and might never find out.

Just because someone doesn’t make the same choices you do, doesn’t mean they are making the wrong ones. Judging others solves nothing. It proves nothing. Presuming yourself to be superior does not make it so.

Embrace your freedom of choice. Embrace the power you have over your self. Allow others to embrace theirs. Let them be. Just be.

Love always,
Mom

Pregnancy is a wondrous thing. It absolutely amazes me that an actual human being is developing in my belly. The more I think about it, the more I am filled with awe by the whole process.

But, pregnancy isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s scary. It’s uncomfortable. There seem to be countless potential complications of varying degrees of severity. It’s heartburn and leg cramps. It’s swift kicks to the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of you. It’s an inability to sleep due to hip pain and general discomfort. It’s all these factors that can lead to stress, isolation, and sleep deprivation. It’s not all fun.

This pregnancy, I have had my fair share of complications; it has been one thing after another for the past nine months. Fortunately, I have felt better in the past couple of weeks than I have at any other point in my pregnancy. It’s unusual to feel good at the end, but I’m taking what I can get!

But that doesn’t mean I am sleeping. I am up at night with heartburn and hip pain and a general inability to sleep. So, what’s a girl to do when up in the middle of the night?

#zombiemoms

Now, if you are not on Twitter, that might not make any sense to you. #zombiemoms is a community on Twitter of sleep-deprived moms – many have newborns, a few are pregnant, and others have sick kids up in the night. #zombiemoms is a hashtag. On Twitter, that means if it’s added to a tweet, it creates a link that when clicked, accesses all the other tweets with #zombiemoms in them. That is how we keep in touch and follow the conversations.

On any given night, I can reach out to other moms who are also not sleeping. It is great to have company when we feel most isolated. We chat, ask each other questions, joke around, and support each other. Our little corner of Twitter has been invaluable to me. I feel connected to women who get that I am not choosing to be watching infomercials at 4 a.m. And, when the baby comes, I’m sure I will be checking in even more often.

I am a zombiemom. I put ice cream in the fridge and milk in the cupboard. I get little sleep and it comforts me that I am not alone. It’s nice to know that I am not the only one for whom pregnancy and parenting is not all butterflies and rainbows.

Are you a Zombiemom? Are you on Twitter? Check out #zombiemoms and join us – anyone is welcome, any time of night (or DAY!)

Today is April 1. I am a couple of days away from 36 weeks pregnant and a month away from my due date.

And our baby doesn’t have a name. It’s a nameless wonder.

Over the past 9 months, we’ve settled on about a dozen names, all of which we abandonned after a week (for whatever reason). They just fall out of favour; none of them fit.

Now, we’ve been told it’s a girl, but there is always a chance it’s not. Girls names are hard for us! This is much, much harder than choosing a boy name.

It doesn’t help that we have a list of random criteria:
- can’t start with A (because Q & A is corny)
- can’t end in M and preferably not start with M (because of last name)
- not too old-fashioned
- not trendy
- not common
- not too unique
- pronunciation has to be obvious
- seriously, the list goes on…

I’ve (kind of) decided to wait and that I’ll know her name when I see her (or him, but boy names are easy). But I’m not sure I want it to be any of the names from our list. Nothing fits right.

Naming a child seems like such a major decision, but why? What is in a name? How much do our names shape our identities and who we are? Why are we judged by our names and what assumptions to people make about us based on what our names are?

All those questions run through my mind and I wonder if this child will ever have a name! Q’s name was a no-brainer. It was set from day one without question or doubt. So, why is it so hard this time around?

How did you get your name?
How did you chose the names of your kids?

Yesterday morning as Q and I were sitting in the local coffee shop, a black woman walked by our table. “Mommy!” Q said, “Look! She looks like Auntie K!” He was referring to Mr. T’s sister. Interesting, I thought. The woman was about the same age, but the only physical attribute that resembled Auntie K was the colour of her skin.

Intrigued, I asked Q “Is there anyone here who looks like mommy?” He nodded and pointed to the closest white man in the shop. “Anyone else?” I asked. He scanned the room and pointed to three other white men. Interesting! I probed further and said “How about daddy? Is there anyone here who looks like daddy?” Immediately, Q pointed to the older black woman sitting at the next table. “Her. She looks like daddy.”

Interesting…

What do you think this says about gender?
What insights have you had into how your kids sort the world around them?

It is a little know fact, even among those close to me, that I have hypermobility syndrome (HMS). I don’t talk about at all and I am sure that people who know me will be surprised to hear that I have it. It isn’t something I ever thought I would share on my blog, but my pregnancy has forced me to put it out there in the hopes of connecting with others who are also affected by HMS. I need support and I need some coping strategies as I move further along in my pregnancy and get heavier.

The easiest way for me to describe HMS without falling into the ‘double-jointed’ misnomer is that it’s a connective tissue disorder that causes my ligaments to be stretchy.  Basically, my connective tissue doesn’t offer enough support to my joints, leaving my muscles to pick up the slack.  Each case of HMS is different and different joints are affected.  In my case, my major problem areas are my hips, wrists, elbows, shoulders, rib cage, and back.  The result is pain in and around my joints as my muscles compensate for my ligaments.  The harder they work, the more pain I feel.

I don’t talk about my condition for a variety of reasons.  First, I don’t think it’s a big deal; I have adapted my lifestyle to accommodate it.  I know my limits and I have effectively managed my pain for as long as I can remember.  I avoid activities like yoga and pilates, while focusing on strengthening my muscles so they can pick up the slack and keep me stable.  Secondly, there are a lot of people who are far worse off than I am. I don’t complain; I just deal with it.  Lastly, I don’t want sympathy, special treatment, or for people to question my ability. I do what I can and I live my normal.

Unfortunately, HMS can complicate pregnancy and this time it has for me. Not only do I have a lot of pain in my hips and pelvic area, my ligaments are not holding up my belly, so my abdominal muscles have to compensate more and more as I get heavier.  I can only speculate why it’s worse this time; every pregnancy is different.  This time, however, I am chasing around a two year old.  I am constantly bending down and picking things up off the floor.  And, I am lifting and carrying around a 28+ pound toddler all day, everyday.  It all has taken it’s toll and as my pregnancy progresses, the pain gets worse.

The belly pain came first and early.  When it did, I searched online for information, explanation, and any indication that this was normal for those of us with HMS.  The information out there is limited and has left me feeling a little isolated.  I see women seemingly unaffected by pregnancy – carting around many kids, working, working out, doing yoga, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping without leaning on the cart for support, and doing everything that they would do if they didn’t have a being growing inside them.  I marvel at how refreshed they appear and have to remind myself that I am not those women.  I have to remind myself that the farther along I get in my pregnancy, the harder it will become to function.  I have to prepare myself for that and not compare myself to others. I am not a failure because I have trouble maintaining my house, or carrying a basket of laundry up the stairs, or repeatedly bending over to unload the dishwasher.

I am not writing this for sympathy, but with the hope that maybe another woman who is struggling can know she’s not alone – that she can find me and let me know that I am not alone.  That I am not a failure.  That I can’t do it all right now and that it’s alright.

I know I need to manage my expectations, take it easy, and set my priorities.  I know that if I pick up all the toys with Q before he goes to bed, that it will cut into the time I can sit on his floor at bedtime and read books and rock him gently. I know that if I go out in the morning, I will need to take a nap in the afternoon. The pressure to do it all is palpable. Although, I am good at not doing things I can’t physically do, the guilt remains.  It sucks, but my children and my health have to come first.

I have managed to find a few ways to ease the pain:

1. Baths: Buoyancy is a wonderful thing.
2. Maternity support belt: I recently got a support belt that is great for walking and standing.  It lifts my belly and takes the pressure off my muscles and my back.
3. Body pillow or pillow wedge. Though sometimes uncomfortable and annoying, they support my belly when I am asleep. A pillow between my knees also helps take the pressure off my hips.
4. No heels. This might seem like a given, but it makes a huge difference with balance and hip placement.
5. Clothing: Sweater-dresses and leggings have saved me.  Also, over-the-belly maternity pants offer just a little extra support and don’t cut into my pelvic area like waistbands do.

Aside from those, I am at a loss. I am always open to ways to make myself more comfortable. Suggestions welcome!

Thank you.

How did you get comfortable when you were pregnant?
Do you have any ideas or suggestions for me to ease the pain?
Do you know of any online resources about HMS and pregnancy that I may have missed?

It has been almost 2 months since I’ve posted. Somehow, I am still getting steady traffic (many thanks to Jacki at what did she say?!) and I’ve managed not to lose any Facebook fans. Humbling.

After catching up on some blog reading today, I have decided to let everyone know the main reason I have been absent from my blog. I am pregnant. I am creeping up to my third trimester at 24 weeks!! This pregnancy has kept me from blogging for a few reasons.

1. Any free time I’d have to write, I spend napping.
2. For the first 17 weeks, I was miserably sick and even the thought of sitting in front of my laptop made my stomach turn.
3. Did I mention that I’m tired?

As my belly grows and it becomes more obvious to the general public that I am pregnant, I decided that it’s only fair to bring you all into the loop.

I have heard 2011 described as the year of babies and a quick count of the women I know having babies this year (10+) suggests that it just might be true.

Stay tuned… (or don’t, ’cause I can’t promise you won’t be waiting for 2 months).

Today, I am saturated. I am running low on energy, patience, perspective, and sanity.

I have a good kid. Q is amazingly well-behaved and doesn’t really live up to the terrible of two. He rarely to never throws tantrums and he is an absolute dream in public. He doesn’t act out or yell or even outright refuse to do things we ask of him. He is remarkably accommodating and says okay more often than no.

But, he’s not perfect and the last two days have made that abundantly clear. He throws. Everything. He throws food. He throws toys. He will throw anything he can get his hands on. He doesn’t seem to think about what or who he might hit. He just throws. He always has.

The other day, someone said “if throwing is all you have to worry about, then you have it made!” Not really. Not when he throws a truck at a 2 month old. Not when he throws his food all over the floor and across the room during every single meal. Not when he throws a metal car in my face, or a shoe at my head when I am driving. No, I don’t have it made because this throwing has the potential to cause serious damage.

He has been throwing indiscriminately since he figured out how. It’s been an on-going problem that I was hoping he would have grown out of by now – at almost 2 and a half.

I am really at a loss as to how to stop it. Nothing has worked. If he throws a toy, he automatically loses it. He doesn’t care. He just goes and finds something else. Once, we took all his hard toys away so he couldn’t break anything or hurt anybody. He didn’t care; he happily played with stuffed animals. We have taken away TV privileges, but he doesn’t associate it to his behaviour. We give him time-outs, and he just sits there quietly, unfazed.

Nothing seems to have an impact. We have made preventative efforts, too. We don’t allow balls in the house because we don’t want to encourage him to throw anything inside. He is also not allowed metal cars until he can learn not to throw them because they can cause real damage. And, toys are banned in the car.

So, what else can we do?

Does anyone else have a thrower?
Has anyone found anything that has worked to stop it?
What suggestions do you have for me? Help?