My Canada Day Soundtrack

This year I will be spending my first ever Canada Day abroad. My husband and I are heading to San Francisco for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary and will be in California when our home and native land turns the big 145 on July 1.

I love Canada Day. I love being Canadian. I love it so much that when I was 18 I had a Maple Leaf tattooed on my thigh.  In all my teenage wisdom, I thought that having it on my thigh would be discreet, something no one would really have to see when I was old and my thighs all dimply (note: that day has come sooner than I would have liked). It wouldn't be so bad if it were actually a nice tattoo, but it's not. True story: the tattoo artist used the maple leaf from a bottle of Molson Canadian to trace the design. THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A SIGN, is what I wish I could yell at my younger self. 

And there you have it: I am so proud of this country I will sport a bad tattoo of our national symbol on my body for eternity (or at least until I can pay for the laser removal).

Then, just as I'm wondering how we'd acknowledge Canada Day on Sunday, one of my favorite songs ever came on the radio and I started to put together a soundtrack for my life full of songs by Canadian artists. They aren't all popular, but they all represent a certain time in my life and a playlist is easy to take over the border. So without further adieu (look, bilingual!), here is My Canada Day Soundtrack: (DISCLAIMER: These are not necessarily my favorite Canadian songs. Some of them are admittedly pretty lame and - while I am not above being pretty lame myself - this is more about songs that take me back. Kind of like the girl out there who in ten years will always think about the boy she met in 2012 whenever she hears Carly Rae Jepson. You know, the one she actually told to call her, maybe?)

1.  Boy Inside the Man by Tom Cochrane AND Red Rider - I'll admit I didn't fully appreciate this song until I was 31 and had lost and won. Still, I've been a big fan ever since I was 13 and a friend of a friend stored his massive ghetto blaster (ha!) and CD's (another ha!) at our place while he was traveling. One of the CD's was Tom Cochrane with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and their version of this song is gold. I would also like to take a moment to remember ghetto blasters and CD's.

2. Good Mother by Jann Arden - I always really liked this song, but it wasn't until I had reached certain milestones in my life that I really "got" it. When I could sing along to the first verse and IT WAS ALL TRUE! The idea of coming into your own and being able to acknowledge the role that your parents have played in getting you there is so powerful. Also, Jann Arden is so genuine and hilarious and talented that I had to have at least one of her songs on my list.

3. Tonight is a Wonderful Time by April Wine - Grade 8. Chicken arms. There's a dance. That's all I can really say.

4. Wheat Kings by The Tragically Hip - Really, this could be any number of Tragically Hip songs: Ahead by a Century, The 100th Meridian, Fireworks. But Wheat Kings takes place in the "Paris of the Prairies", that city where I went to university and met my husband and that will always be a little bit of home. The city where I went to see The Hip at Another Roadside Attraction and went body surfing and then was almost crushed by the crowd when everyone left the beer gardens and rushed the stage. Silly drunk people.

5. Runaway by Great Big Sea - Remember the mid-90's, when everyone dreamed about being in Riverdance? No? Just me? Anyway, East Coast music was huge and I was totally into it. I mean, my name is even Irish, right? I loved Great Big Sea and was crushed when they came to my university campus for The Year-Ender Bender because I was still underage. I vowed that I would go see them the next time they came to town...which ended up being the day before my 19th birthday :-( I *may* have sneaked into the venue anyway. Now, of course, my favorite Great Big Sea song is the one about the pirates that they sing all the time on Kids CBC.

6. The entire Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album by Sarah MacLachlan - Because I was a teenager and had angst, but not, like, punk rock angst. It was really just good girl pretend angst. As one of my university classmates once told me, "You're trying so hard to be dysfunctional. How cute!"

7. Fare Thee Well Love by The Rankin Family - I used to pretend that I could sing like a Rankin. And I kind of could (for serious!), but those days are long gone.

8. A Case of You by Joni Mitchell - Once, Joni Mitchell walked past me. We almost touched. I was afraid of her cigarette. And how Canadian is a song that has the line, "I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet"?

9. Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen but sung by kd lang - Last summer at the Calgary Folk Fest, kd lang sang this song and all of Prince's Island Park was quiet, captivated. But it's not that it's such a beautiful rendition of a Canadian classic, to me kd lang illustrates how far we've come as a country. She can come home now and get married (if she wants to)!

10. Small Town, Big Dreams by Paul Brandt - You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl.

11. There Will Never Be Another Tonight by Bryan Adams - Waking Up the Neighbours came out when I was in Grade 7. My sister, brother and I were into making our own music videos and this was an early one. We hung a blanket on the wall to be our background and danced around and lip synced and my brother practiced his unique camera technique.  

12. Try by Blue Rodeo - Okay, this is probably one of my favorite Canadian songs ever. The first note is - as far as I'm concerned - one of the best notes sung in any song, ever. The first time I heard it was during a summer vacation to my aunt & uncle's home in North Battleford. My cousins and I would sit beside the tape player (smaller than a ghetto blaster) and write down the lyrics to our favorite songs, "pause, rewind" until we were sure we had it right. Then we would walk up the street to the Day & Night Deli convenience store and get slurpees.

As I was writing this I realized that it could probably be much longer. I know I'm missing some big ones, but at some point I had to cut it off. Maybe next year I'll do My Canada Day soundtrack part 2....

What would be on your Canada Day soundtrack?

I Don't Think I Want to Be a Hockey Mom

The end of June seems like a funny time to talk about winter sports.

Like many Canadians - especially those of us who were raised in a small towns on the prairies - I grew up around hockey. I never played it myself, but most of the boys I knew did. Macklin Memorial Arena (I think that was its name) was the busiest place in town. In a time when the opportunities for social outings were few and far between, it wasn't unusual for bored kids to ask each other, "Want to go hang out at the rink?" It didn't matter if there was a game or just a practice. That's how it was. I've lived that myth. 


It's been years since I've been to a rink.

Now my son is getting to that age when we'll have to decide whether or not to put him in hockey.  He enjoys watching the sport on TV and has been to a few games, but I wouldn't say he's obsessed. I mean, he knows some of the names of the big players, like Sidney Crosby and during the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs he became enamored with Tim Thomas (I don't even know how that happened, and I'm glad that phase appears to be over.) But then there are times like on our preschool hike a few weeks ago, the kids stopped to play in a creek. The next thing I know, Gavin is standing on a rock in the middle of the water and announced to all of the parents that he was "the best hockey player champion of the world." This is especially ironic because he's not a fan of actually skating.

He's afraid he'll fall down.

Still, both my husband and I feel like we have some kind of patriotic duty to let him try. After all, if we don't, aren't we depriving him of a quintessential Canadian experience? Who cares if it's expensive and takes over your life for the better part of the year? I suppose that these are things that I could live with. If he liked it, great! If not, well that would be okay too.

Then I read that Hockey Calgary and its member associations voted to strike down a ban on body checking at the pee wee level (around age 11). A majority of associations believe that it's important for kids that young to learn how to hit properly. This, despite overwhelming evidence that kids who start body-checking at this age are more likely to suffer concussions and related injuries.  And I guess that this is where my main hesitation comes in.

Why do I want my child to be part of a sport where the actual athleticism, and the actual point of the game itself, has been diluted to the point where hitting - and how to take a hit - is so important? This was not the game our parents and grandparents grew up playing; there is no hitting on the pond or the backyard rink.

My dilemma is that I don't want my kids to fall in love with a game and a lifestyle that could potentially have devastating consequences.  Yes, I know that kids get hurt falling off their bikes and have all kinds of opportunities for injuries in other sports, whether its gymnastics or soccer. Stuff happens, I get that. I just don't know why they have to learn how to hit so young when the chances for serious and chronic injury are so high. If I wanted my kids to learn how to hit and be hit I would put them in MMA.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Hockey Calgary has indicated that it is investigating its options to ensure the safety of its players, and perhaps by the time Gavin gets to pee wee there won't be any body checking. I am hopeful that in time this will all be a non-issue.

This is a picture of Gavin playing hockey on Lake Louise this past February. He didn't want to stay on his skates, but he had his little stick and wanted to get in on the action. He was by far the smallest kid on the ice. The woman in the Montreal Canadiens jersey let him take shots on her for a long while. It was a great afternoon.  To me, this is what hockey is about. 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

My husband is a gardener. He can talk varieties of trees with the best horticulturalists. He will spend hours researching ways to mix the soil properly for certain plants so that they'll thrive in our climate. In the four years that we've lived in our house he's built a plot for a vegetable garden, planted a cherry tree, raspberry bushes and a blueberry bush; it already had apple (2) and plum trees. Last weekend we were in Edmonton, (where we'd lived in for six years before moving to Calgary) and he wanted to drive past our old house FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE of seeing if they'd kept his vegetable garden and whether they'd cut down the oak or maple that he'd planted in the back yard (veggies were gone; oak and maple stayed).

Me? I've killed a cactus.  And one year I planted canola in our front yard, thinking that it was "wildflowers" (hey - that's what it said on the seed!). Gardening is just not my thing.

Because my husband knows I won't be much help with the plants, we've settled into an arrangement where he grows the food and I come up with ways to use what we harvest. Most of the time this works well. Sometimes though, a tree or bush will flourish fairly spectacularly and I'll have more of that particular fruit or vegetable than I'll know what to do with. The first year we were here it was the apple trees. The second year we ended up with strawberries galore. Last year it was pumpkins, of all things. While summer is only a day old, I'm already declaring this year to the The Year of the Rhubarb.  I mean, look at this thing:

That is just one of our rhubarb plants. There's another smaller one in behind it. We figure it's over eight feet tall and the stalks are as big as a young child's forearm.

I started with rhubarb crisp. Then rhubarb crostada. Rhubarb banana muffins. Rhubarb strawberry pie. The list goes on. I've just found a recipe for rhubarb syrup that I could use for Italian sodas and snow cones. I'm learning the possibilities are endless. Obviously, I'm not the only person with a rhubarb problem.

What I love most though about having a garden and fruit trees and bushes though is not how it forces me to develop my culinary prowess.  It's how the kids are learning where food comes from. They know that carrots and strawberries and beans don't magically appear in the store. At least in theory, the produce was grown in someone else's garden or on a farm before finding it's way to our table.  One interesting thing that happened this year was when Mia wrecked a shaker instrument that Gavin had made at preschool. They had used beans to make the shaker and we calmed Gavin's tears was by showing him that he could plant them in the garden. He and Murray went outside and chose a special spot, and now Gavin watches "his" plant grow.

That's the other thing that's special: gardening is something they can share with their Dad. Murray enjoys teaching them about what he's planting and allows them to help as much as they can. I hope that they are better learners than I was.

 
So what about you? How does your garden grow?

For This I am Grateful

Twice a week I leave work around 11:30am so that I can pick the kids up at the dayhome and get Gavin to preschool on time. Yesterday was one of those days, and as I was driving along the radio traffic report tole me that there had been an accident on a major roadway near my route. I could tell as I approached the underpass to this roadway that traffic was barely moving. I said a silent prayer that traffic along the road I was on was moving okay and didn't think much about it for the rest of the day.

This afternoon I discovered that a 15-year-old boy was killed in that accident. While I didn't know him, I know his Mom. She's an absolutely lovely person who cared deeply about her family and the world they were growing up in.

It reminded me once again of how we really do take our time for granted. After something bad or tragic happens, we spend hours dissecting those moments before everything changed. Did we know? Could we tell? Were our last words to someone kind or mean? And perhaps the most common question: Why? 

As a general rule, we spend much less time making the moments before a tragedy occurs really count. As a former estate lawyer, I saw firsthand the number of people who believed that their death or incapacity was not going to happen anytime soon. People do not rush to get their wills done unless they're actually dying; everyone else takes their sweet time, if they manage to get around to it at all.

For this I am grateful: The opportunity to kiss my children good night, to scold them when they've done something wrong, to let them know that even if they think that I'm the meanest Mommy in the world I still love them.

I have no illusions about understanding what this family is going through right now; I can't pretend to have any idea. But I also know that when this Mom and I and millions of other people woke up yesterday morning, we had about an equal chance of having something bad (or good!) happen to us. There's probably an actuary out there who could throw out some specific numbers, but none of us hold the hands of fate.The best we can do now is to hold each others' hands and hang on until we make it through.

For this I am grateful:  To be certain that no matter what joy or sadness may come my family's way we will have people standing beside us, sharing it with us as best they can.

I don't know that I can really ask for anything more.

Getting Creative

There are many things that I am, but being artistic or crafty is not one of them.  I would say that I'm not creative, but that's not entirely true. I am a creative thinker. A creative writer. A creative problem-solver. But ask anyone who's had the misfortune of playing Draw Something with me - I cannot make a pretty picture to save my life.  And crafts? Ha! I once spent two hours putting together what I thought was a spectacular scrapbook page. When I finished it I showed it to my husband and his exact words were:

"That's a good start."

He said it with such sincerity I couldn't be mad at him.  The scrapbooking supplies (all $100 worth) sat in a box until I donated them to a friend who has put them to very good use.

The problem is that the kids are at the age now where they want to do more "crafty" things. My tendency is to show them some colouring books and crayons, maybe throw in some stickers if I'm feeling fancy and let them go at it. We tried paint once.  This is what happened:

But even with stickers we have to be careful. After all, not all sticky things are actual stickers, as Gavin found out when he showed me this beautiful craft he had made:

Those are real Canadian postage stamps he'd found, making this particular piece of art worth at least $2.15.

But that all pales in comparison to the wonderful drawing Gavin showed us this weekend. We were in the car on a road trip. The kids were looking at books. Mia kept asking for a crayon, "Like Gavin". I hadn't packed any crayons, so I wasn't sure what she was talking about. She dropped it for a bit and then Gavin announced, "She wants to do this."

That is probably one of the best pictures he's ever drawn. It just happens to be in a book that I'd borrowed from the library.  And the book's title?

Good Enough is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood

So crafts may not be our thing. But you know what? It's pretty entertaining anyway.

Get 'em While They're Young

Two days ago I took Gavin and Mia on their first trip on a Calgary Transit bus.  The "malfunction indicator" light had come on in our car and I had to take it to the dealership to find out what was up.  I thought the kids would enjoy taking the bus home, kind of like an adventure. It had been raining earlier in the day and the kids were up early and nap-less, so it could have been all kinds of wrong, but everything worked out fine and the kids thought it was pretty fun.

Part of my reasoning for taking two small children on the bus by myself in the rain was because I want them to think of public transit as a valid transportation choice. This will be necessary when they're older and have places to go; I'm their mother, not a chauffeur, and may not be able to drive them everywhere they need to go. I believe that if I start this behaviour now, they will be more likely to view it that way when they're older.

I also think that this attitude is essential when it comes to raising good citizens in general. The younger they are when they start giving back, the more likely they are to do it when they're older.  This is true from my own experience of being raised by parents who were always involved in the community and who repeatedly emphasized its importance to me and my siblings.

Lots of Moms with young children use their kids as an excuse to not get involved. And I get that. Life is busy and it's better to do what you can well than do a lot of things half-assed. But there are some very easy ways that you can do stuff with your kids that will show them how easy it is to help other people out and build community.  Here are a few that I've come up with:

1. Take your kids with you to vote - You're going anyway (right?) and it usually takes just a few minutes to mark your ballot. As your kids get older you can talk to them about what voting means and what some of the important issues are.

2.  Help them write a letter to an elected official (or authority figure) about something important to them - Every day our office gets letters from kids who have noticed a problem in their community and have a question about it that they want answered. Maybe your son or daughter wants to know why they have such a long bus ride to the nearest school, or would like to see a crosswalk in their neighbourhood. Recently, we received a letter from a young girl concerned about the garbage from new home sites that was being blown onto the pond behind her home.  City crews have been out to clean up. Her actions made a difference.

3. Participate in a neighbourhood clean-up - Most of the neighbourhoods in our area have a designated day when everyone meets at the community centre and then sets off to pick up all the litter left after the spring thaw.  Check with your local community association to see if there's something like this where you live. If not, it's pretty easy to take a garbage bag with you on a walk and pick up any litter you see.

4. Participate in a family fun run for charity - It seems like every weekend there are several of these types of events going on in every city across the country.  Small children can ride along in a stroller if they can't walk the entire way (most routes for the family walks are about 1km). As your kids get older you can involve them with choosing which race they'd like to participate in and asking their friends and family for donations.

5. Donate toys/clothes to kids in need - I don't know about you, but my kids have way more toys than they will ever use. Ask them to choose one of their toys that they would be willing to donate to a child who might not have any. Giving up a toy can be tough, but I think that most kids are more generous than we give them credit for. If you're donating their old clothes and toys to a local charity, take your kids along and explain what it is you're doing and why.

6. Be an example of the type of citizen you want your children to become - As I said before, my own parents took an active role at school, church, town council, and other groups in the community. I grew up believing that this type of involvement was just something that everyone did; I didn't know any different. So whether you sit on the board of your son's preschool or coach your son's soccer team or make a point to cut an elderly neighbour's lawn, know that your children are watching. If they pick up your swear words, they'll pick this up too.

What ideas do you have for raising good citizens?  

5 Days a Week

On Friday morning when I dropped the kids off at the dayhome, our caregiver told me how on the day before, Mia had comforted two little girls who were upset when their Mom left. The girls were crying and Mia went up to them and explained, "It's okay. Mom's just going to work. It's okay."

We've been really lucky that our kids never experienced much separation anxiety.  At first I was almost insulted that the other kids would leave their mothers reluctantly (if at all) while mine would run away with a, "See ya later! I'm going to play!" Half the time I'm sure neither Gavin nor Mia would even notice that I'd left the room. It could break a New Mom's heart. *sob*

I've since learned that this is a sign of a healthy parent/child relationship. They never worried when I left because they knew I'd always come back. In that respect, what Mia told her friends wasn't too surprising. She's been in daycare since she was just over a year old. She knows the drill.

So what happened later that night caught both her Dad and I off-guard.

We were helping the kids get ready for bed. Each night Murray and I take turns reading to them and that night it was my turn to read to Mia. At some point in all the commotion, one of us had made a joke about going to "Aunty's" (that's what they call our caregiver). I walked into Mia's room where she had arranged herself in her bed with the book that she wanted me to read. As I knelt down beside her, I saw her bottom lip trembling. I asked her what was wrong and she looked up at me with her big blue eyes, pleading:

"Mommy I not go to Aunty's."

"No Mia. It's Friday. You're not going to Aunty's until Monday. We have two whole days to spend together."

And then she just started sobbing, repeating that she didn't want to go to Aunty's.  I held her and reassured her that she wasn't going anywhere, and she nodded. We read together and she went to sleep, calm and quiet.

Now, some other parents might take this as a sign that something was wrong at Aunty's and would be concerned about her care there. I'm confident that's not the case. I can get the kids out of bed just by telling them that we're going to Aunty's. We are so fortunate to have found someone who loves our kids almost as much as we do. Gavin has been going there since he was nine months old. All of the other kids have been there for nearly two years. It's not just a dayhome, it's a kind of family. And if that weren't enough in itself, she even has a BOUNCY CASTLE! No. I'm not worried about the care they're receiving at all. It was something else.

Mia's tears were her way of telling me that she will give me up to go to work, but that she has her limits. When the week is over, she needs her mama. And truth be told, when the week is over I need my kids too. I need to have family movie nights and go to the park and cuddle and read stories and just be with them.

Mia and Mom 

This morning - Monday - I walked into her room to find her already awake, lying on the floor looking at a book. When I told her it was time to get dressed she asked, "We go to Aunty's? Yay!"  She left me to go play with her friends immediately. I had to call her back for a goodbye hug and kiss. She'll be fine.

Until Friday, anyway.

"Give Good Blog"

Purpose.

Over the past few months I've had to figure out what exactly the purpose of this blog is. At first, it was just a space for me to voice my opinions and record stories about what was going on in our family. I didn't promote it, didn't post all that regularly, and it just kind of sat there, occupying space.

Lately, I've taken a bit of a different tactic. I'm ready to 'own' my opinions and stories and I'm not as reluctant to have them out there to be shared. But there's still that part of me that needs this time and this space to be useful if I'm going to be spend so much more time on it.  Is there a meaning behind all this madness?

At the same time, I've been trying to figure out what my 3 Things for Calgary will be. 3 Things is an initiative of the Mayor's Committee for Civic Engagement that is meant to build community, and anyone, anywhere can do it. I thought about 3 Things when I read Mom 101's story about her daughter's quest to improve the school cafeteria this morning. I think about it every time I read about people taking action to improve the lives of those around them. These stories inevitably remind me about how I need to get my own act together and at least do one thing, let alone three.

The way 3 Things works is this:

1. Think about 3 Things you can do to make Calgary [or your own city or town] better.  These things could be for your street, your neighbourhood or for the entire city.
2. Do those 3 Things.
3. Encourage 3 more people to do the same.

I have a lot of ideas about what I can do to make my community better. It's #2 where I run into problems.

Then I came across Her Bad Mother's page about Giving Good Blog (I give her the entire credit for the title of this post btw) and thought, "Now that's something I can do."

So in this spirit of 3 Things and Giving Good Blog, I have added a page where I will list non-profit organizations in and around Calgary - to start - that specifically help Moms and their kids. There are tonnes of valuable organizations in our city, but I would like to keep this particular focus so that it doesn't get too unwieldy.  The page is a work-in-progress, and if you hear of any groups that should be on the list, please let me know and I will add them as soon as I can.

I will also be taking time to highlight particular groups, initiatives or stories as they come to my attention, and again, I am relying a bit on you to let me know what those stories might be.

This isn't much, but I figure it's a start. I'm looking forward to see where it will go.