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A date by any other name…

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I was recently shopping for massage oil for my baby. Rather than read the labels I was selectively sniffing each sampler in my quest for the right smell. Is it surprising that the right baby smell happened to emanate from the “sensual” massage oil? It was almost funny – no, it was downright funny – when the cashier gave me an innuendo-charged look: do I really look like I need help in that department? Do you sell skunk-based massage oil and bath products? Because I’d much rather keep my babies more than 9 months apart. Really.

In the six weeks since my last post, my littlest girl turned 2 months, got really sick with a respiratory virus and is now turning into an adorably pink and chubby heartbreaker. In the six weeks since my last post my biggest girl turned 13 and made me a teenager’s mom overnight. I will write more on that later but for now, I want to tell you how my life has changed since my daughter became old enough to look after her siblings: my husband and I get to go on dates. But dates aren’t what they used to be when we had no children. Here is a snapshot of honest-to-goodness dates my husband and I had in the last three months:

1. The “Grocery”: Put the children to bed and head out grocery shopping. We get to argue about nutritional labels and how much sugar is too much sugar and why I never buy whole wheat rotinis because they remain chewy even overcooked. That’s when my husband realizes that I buy the fancy tomato paste and asks if this is how I squander his hard-earned money and I pretend to start crying and say “aren’t we worth $1.09 to you?” and the single guys with their cart full of frozen pizza and TV dinners think “just when you thought it was safe to go out…”

2. The “24”: Put the children to bed early, get yourself a treat – my husband likes expensive scotch, I like expensive ice cream – and head downstairs to watch our weekly dose of Jack Bauer. We don’t technically need a babysitter for that one.

3. The “Do you come here often?”: A variation of the movie date but we each see a different movie and meet for coffee after. Isn’t that awful? But since we go out to the movies once a year, we might as well see a movie we really want to see. And it’s not like we speak during the movie, right?

4. And my favorite, the “Who are these kids and why are they calling me Mom?” We figured that one out by accident when there was no table for eight at our favorite restaurant. They set us up on two tables for 4 at opposite ends of the dining room. The four oldest children – three girls and one boy aged 13, 11, 9 and 7 — got their own table, ordered their own meals and sent the bill to our table. Not having to deal with their minor table misdemeanors was so relaxing and we actually got to have uninterrupted adult conversation.

When it comes to keeping your sanity with six children, every little bit helps.

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Andrea adds: Now I understand why married folks have improved health outcomes. You bicker in the grocery store over tomato paste, but you are, after all, in the grocery store, buying tomato paste. I tried doing groceries and being healthy for a good two months in winter just now. It is very time consuming and inevitably left me with healthy leftovers, now stockpiled in my small freezer, which my Polish Wartime Mentality won’t let me throw out. So I have changed my tune, oh yes. Clearly, it is the right of every single person to have cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And then it is my right to demand socialized medicine treat me for scurvy.

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Véronique adds: I dream of eating cereal three meals a day. And according to cereal makers, they are chockfull of vitamins and nutrients!

One month check-up

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My new baby turned five weeks last weekend and boy, does time fly or what? I am still getting the hang of surviving a six-kid family which may or may not explain the light blogging. Writing anything coherent is challenging on two three-hour stretches of sleep and the challenge is compounded by single handed typing: by the time the first half of the sentence is written, I cannot remember where the heck I was going with it. My days as a graduate student seem so far away and I can hardly believe I finished writing a whole thesis last summer. Today, I can barely keep on top of emails, to say nothing about birth announcements and thank you cards.

Many people think I’m brave to have such a large family. I think that “brave” is what people say when they don’t want to say “insane” in front of the children. I have been considered “brave” since my fourth child and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to questioning my sanity on a regular basis.

Recently, on a particularly hairy evening when my husband was away, the baby was fussy and the toddler was screaming his head off, I issued a teary “I quit this job!” to the world. The world didn’t accept my resignation and so here I am, as “brave” as ever, trying to juggle a modern life with three times the national average of children.

Over the last five weeks, I have developed a system of priorities deployed whenever the baby gives me a break. As soon as the baby settles down, I go through the list until she wakes up. The list goes a little like this: personal hygiene, prepare supper, tidy kitchen, fitness training and housework. I sometimes switch fitness and housework according to need: yesterday for instance, the bathrooms were so gross that Public Health would have closed the whole place down. As for fitness training, my rebel streak believes that a mother of six shouldn’t have to train to be fit… and so I sit on my extra 30 pounds trying to will it off my midsection. Last week, we were eating in a fancy restaurant and the waiter said: “Six children! And a seventh on the way…” To which my husband replied cheerfully “Oh, this is just leftover from the sixth” and I thought “Guys, a slow and painful death will be too good for you” and ordered the goat cheese crème brûlée to drown my sorrow. The baby sleeps so well in the jogging stroller that colic-avoidance and self-preservation should whip me back into the shape of my life by the summer. In the meantime, a brownie a day keeps the baby blues away.

That’s what I like to believe anyway.

Random bullets

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  • Things the women’s liberators didn’t tell you: this – pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum – was a lot easier in my twenties.
  • Note to first-time moms: breastfeeding will help your uterus get back to its pre-pregnancy size faster. Emphasis on uterus. Not to be confused with waist line. For tips on getting your waist back to pre-pregnancy size, refer to bullet 1.
  • The size of the diaper bag and the time required to leave the house are both inversely proportional to the size of the baby.
  • The amount of laundry generated by adding a new member to a family is exponential, not proportional.
  • Soft spots are very soft but also very intriguing. If fontanels were created through intelligent design, why not a smaller head or a shorter pregnancy? On the other hand, how could fontanels be the result of evolution and natural selection if human babies could not be born without them? It’s the chicken or the egg question, really.
  • Can you tell I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at the top of my baby’s head lately?

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Tanya adds: According to Dr. Harvey Karp and his book, The Happiest Baby On the Block, human gestation used to span over 12 months.  He claims that’s why some babies suffer colic for the first 3 month after birth.  Heads got bigger as brains got bigger, so we delivered them earlier as a matter of survival.  (Whether that’s true of not, his “swaddle-suck-shush-shake-stomach” method definitely works.)

Checking in from Planet 6

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Well, I’ve done it again! I have run the 40-week long race from gamete to infant for the sixth time. My little girl is now a week old and, as many will tell you, I can’t imagine life without her. As with previous deliveries and early postpartum periods, I am going through a roller-coaster of emotions – no doubt 90% hormonally-driven — and an uncontrollable urge to binge on carbohydrates and chocolate. Must. Stay. Awake.

Being a parent for the sixth time is a lot more fun than the first three. Sure, mild neglect of house chores tends to have bigger consequences faster. I am presently staring down a 1-foot high pile clean laundry that completely covers the surface of a king size bed. But my little bundle of joy is only happy when she is held. So there goes the laundry. And most of the meals. In fact, I am writing this post cradling baby in my left elbow so I can type with both hands. She is not the first newborn who will not put up with being put down. But I remember her siblings – particularly her oldest brother, now 11 – as fussy babies whereas I think this little one is pretty easy going… as long as I hold her. What 6 children have taught me is that the laundry will not have changed tomorrow but my little girl will. At this point, it is far more important for me to enjoy every minute with my newborn – her smell, her skin, her little noises, her little fingers, her hair – than take pride in having the best folded laundry in the neighborhood. In the mean time, my little girl learns that it’s okay to fall asleep, that someone will still be there when she wakes-up. And when I get overwhelmed and wonder if I will ever get anything done, I look at the big bodies that live in my house and am reminded how quickly the last 13 years have gone by. Before I know it, this little girl will be 13 and her biggest sister will be 26 and I will wonder where the days have gone.

I love the wisdom and perspective – and helping hands — that come with a large family. The more children I have, the more I truly enjoy and appreciate them. Now, to all the people who ask me if “six is it, are you finished?” I answer that with my first four children, I couldn’t imagine having one more. Since the fifth, I can’t imagine not. And whether or not my baby ends up being the last one – and she very well could be – I am thankful for the love she and her siblings have brought into my life. Because each child doesn’t take away from the love pie: it’s the pie that gets bigger.

Just one night….

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An interesting – if mortifying – article in today’s Citizen. One that hits particularly close to home: our family enforces a strict no-sleepover policy from birth until making your own mortgage/rent payments. Our children are mostly okay with it… except when they’re not. In a nutshell:

“Children kick up a big fuss. Parents need to get more backbone.”

Sleepover invitations start with school. Yes, that’s 4 years old in Ontario. When my older children were young, the no-sleepover policy was mostly based on self-preservation: I didn’t want to feel like I had to return the favor. Plus, who needs a cranky, sleep-deprived 6-year-old? Really. But as my children grew older, my concern moved over to the parenting skills and judgment of my children’s friends’ parents. What do they consider an age-appropriate game? An age-appropriate TV show? An age-appropriate movie? An appropriate age to be left alone in the house while the parents go out? An appropriate way to spend adult time? Do I want to find out the next day, when my child comes home, and tells me that Jimmy’s Dad turns into a screaming drunk after 9 pm? What is the first comment everybody makes when a family turns up dead at the hand of another family member? “They looked so normal!” I don’t trust anybody’s definition of normal but my own, especially where my children’s well-being is concerned.

As my older children crawl into adolescence, the issue of sexual health, morality and behavior comes to the fore. At the age where children are slowly growing discernment skills, hormones come a-kicking and your child’s safety no longer depends on your parenting skills or how well he or she has internalized family values but also on how well their peers have been brought up. In today’s culture of entitlement, there is nothing I trust less. Reading the article mentioned above, I realized that the three parenting dilemmas presented in the introduction were not so many dilemmas but a progression of the first dilemma into adolescence and adulthood. As a parent, where do you draw the line? Notice how the parents featured in the article relate their “decision” to allow sleepovers not so much as a decision but as a progression from one thing to the other. Do I want to leave my child’s sexual health in the expert hands of parents who are cornered into compromise by their teens? Even for one night?

That’s how it works at my house. What about yours?

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Patricia adds: I don’t  have a general policy against sleep-overs. I just find that very rarely are they a practical fit with my kids’ schedules, my firm belief that no one can deal with life unless they’ve had a good night’s sleep and my general reluctance to have to reciprocate.

It goes without saying that any family my kids is staying with will be one which I know very well. And I feel pretty confident that any of these mothers and fathers would laugh hysterically at the very idea of a co-ed sleepover for 12- or 13-year-olds.

Honestly, this is not exactly rocket science. “The dear little androgynous puppies” all snuggled up in the rec room. Does that really sound like a good idea to anyone?

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Rebecca says: This hasn’t been an issue yet in our family – nobody is old enough yet to want to sleep away from the parental home. Since the question hasn’t arisen, I haven’t wrestled with it. What I do worry about sometimes are plain old simple playdates. While one devoutly hopes that daytime playdates between elementary school children won’t involve anything remotely like sex, there are lots of other matters in which other kids’ parents might make different judgments than we do. This applies to trivial things, like sugary snacks and whether or not to call adults by their first name, but it also applies to more important issues, like how much TV or video gaming is permitted, what specific shows or games are allowed, and the influence of others in the house, like older siblings, who may behave and speak in ways that you wouldn’t normally want your child to be exposed to.

One doesn’t want to raise hermits, but on the other hand, it is depressing to put a great deal of effort into insulating your child from a particularly noxious trend, only to find out that in ten minutes’ conversation with a classmate, they have learned all about the latest inappropriate TV show/song/gossip or whatever.

Is that what 6 months buys you these days?

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Wife abuser sentenced to six months. Woman’s subjugation ‘appalling’ judge says.

6 months for an ‘appalling’ crime, I thought? Can’t be that appalling. But read on and if you have a stomach for abuse and cruelty, you will have to agree that the abuse the woman suffered was truly appalling. Am I the only one to think that six months imprisonment is a joke in light of the circumstances?

I was wondering… What if the same man had inflicted the same violence to a by-stander — man or woman — on the street, in a club, or on a bike path? Regardless of the fact that such violence all in one dose would likely have killed the recipient; do you think the man would have gotten away with 6 months imprisonment had the victim not been his wife? So what are the attenuating circumstances? He knew the woman? She thought it was okay? She tolerated it? He managed not to kill her?

And then what? Will 6 months in jail turn him into a respectful man or a loving husband? Will the woman be better off once her husband returns after 6 months in jail?

So many questions. So little time.

Where is freedom of choice when you really need it, part II

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One of the best parenting tips I was ever given was to save righteous indignation for things that were truly abhorrent. If you go hysterical on your children for every piece of clothing they toss on the floor, what are you going to do when they call from prison at 16 because they got caught driving drunk without a license, I ask you? It doesn’t only make good parenting sense, it also makes good common sense. My day-job puts me at the receiving end of a lot of disgruntlement from all sorts of people. Believe me: when you start questioning someone’s moral fiber because the latest press release contained a typo or because the French translation came after the English version or because your phone call was returned the next day and not the same afternoon, it affects your credibility. Somehow.

What was I saying? Yes, righteous indignation for really bad things. Everything else can be handled in a mature, rational matter.

That’s what I thought when I read this piece and the comments page to this post.

So we live in a country that is so progressive and so in love with a “woman’s right to choose” that we can’t even discuss abortion without being labelled “anti-choice.” Our government recently thought that in order to secure re-election, it had to slam the door shut on Parliamentary debate on abortion and muzzle its cabinet. We are so darn progressive — can’t you hear my suspenders snap (that’s a French expression, se péter les bretelles, look it up) — that we can’t even handle a law on abortion thus making it legal to abort a child throughout all nine months of pregnancy while saving premature infants born as early as 23 weeks. And don’t get me started on not getting a pedicure to save a child I could still legally abort, no questions asked. But let’s not talk about all that. We’re going to get our collective nose out of joint over mothers feeding their children because *gasp* they do it with their breasts!

That’s how pro-woman we are. We institutionalize equality according to a male standard of sexual behaviour. That is, to be equal, we have to be able to have sex without having the kids. To achieve this great ideal, women have to stuff themselves with synthetic hormones, contraceptive devices and, failing that, undergo invasive surgery in the form of abortion. Then, having convinced women that they are really like guys, we will bombard them at a very young age with suggestions of proper sexual behaviour: “51 tricks that will make him jump for joy,” “Release your inner vixen” and “How Hally got her bikini body back only 3 months post-partum.” (3 months post-partum I’m still thinking up an action plan for getting out of my PJs).  And that’s saying nothing about fashion images that show just about every inch of skin except the nipple. Which is really too bad for the children who depend on the poor nipple for their physical or emotional sustenance. Well, grow up kids! Society needs that nipple for titillation and had you stuck with the bottle, there would be no problem. Forget those pesky health advocates who suggest that the nipple is put to better use feeding the kids than entertaining the adults.

All it underscores is the vast hypocrisy of our society’s liberal, pro-choice rethoric. We are not really pro-choice, we are pro-Me. Me support your choice to whatever as long as it doesn’t affect Me. That’s why Me supports abortion as long as we don’t talk about it publicly. And Me support your choice to breastfeed as long as Me doesn’t have to look at a working boob (as opposed to the decorative variety which is usually bouncier and better-looking).

My point is not to start a flame war on breastfeeding in public but to question the hegemony — and hypocrisy — of choice and equality. The biological purpose of breasts is to feed children just as the biological purpose of sex is to conceive them. How can we pretend to have reached equality when we deny the biological dimension of womanhood? As for making breastfeeding into a moral issue, as I said, righteous indignation for things that are righteously abhorrent…

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Brigitte disagrees: Well, in part anyway. Specifically, about whether it should be a big deal to breastfeed in public. There are ways of doing it that aren’t as in-your-face as others, but some people insist on thrusting their private parts in your face regardless, and I find that unbecoming. In this as in many other things, it’s all in how it’s done: I understand that small breastfed babies do not always send their moms advance notice of when they’ll be hungry. And that when they are hungry they’re hungry right now!!! But that shouldn’t be an excuse to let it all hang out. Yes, it’s a small thing. But small things say a lot more about a person than we sometimes think.

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Véronique says: Don’t get me wrong: there is still an argument to be made about whether it should be a big deal to breastfeed in public and how. I once had a 18-month-old nursling who would start howling as soon as we stepped into a restaurant because he knew I would nurse him right away to shut him up. I didn’t like feeling like a self-serve and I like to teach my children some self-control, yes, starting at 18 months. So I stopped and got nasty looks of a different kind for a while until the baby got the message (nobody likes a screaming toddler in a restaurant more than a nursing one, believe me). I once saw a nursing mother at a public pool with her one-piece pulled down to nurse and I thought that a towel wouldn’t have been out of place.

That being said, it’s the whole “moral argument” that gets me going. Appropriate or not, sure. Let’s talk. Moral or not… Let’s not forget that we live in a country where you can abort human babies in the name of equality. If that’s our standard of morality, then the least we can do is to leave the poor nursing mothers alone.

Where is freedom of choice when you really need it??

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I had the great pleasure of celebrating yet another birthday last week. And with every birthday comes a hot stone pedicure. As my 8-year-old puts it: “It’s still a gift even if its no longer a surprise.” That’s fine by me: after my husband treated me with my first birthday-hot-stone-pedicure I informed him that he no longer had to wonder what to give me for my birthday. Or Christmas. Ever.

Last year was a little touchy since I almost left the spa with the police on my heels. When the pedicure was over I took my things and left. Except that my husband had only booked the treatment, not paid for it. Followed an interesting discussion where he (The Guy) said: “Why does it matter if I pay for it or you do? It all comes out of the same account!” and me (The Gal) replied: “It’s not good form to know how much a gift costs, let alone pay for it!”

This year, my husband booked and paid for the hot stone pedicure and I was instructed to show up. Which I did… looking very pregnant (as I always do, 25 weeks and counting). “Oh, the pedicure girl said, you can’t have a pedicure when you’re pregnant, especially not a hot stone pedicure.” “Why not, I replied.” “Well, putting heat on your feet might increase your blood pressure and when we massage the feet, there are acupressure points that might trigger premature labour.”

I suppressed the urge to laugh hysterically and said: “Is this a liability thing? ‘Cuz I’m not concerned: I’ll sign a waiver.” “Uh, not really, said the girl, it’s a rule here: we can’t give you the hot stone pedicure but I’ll give you the regular thing and avoid the pressure points.” She looked at me like I had two heads, probably wondering what kind of irresponsible hedonist would put pedicure ahead of risks of premature labour and preeclampsia. I got the same look the last time I picked up a diet Pepsi and a well-meaning observer said that aspartame crossed the blood-brain barrier and shouldn’t be consumed by pregnant women. I replied that at this point, I was more concerned about not gaining 75 pounds than having a brain-damaged child. That settled the matter… although I’m sure some people will never think of me the same way again. Sometimes, you just need an easy way out of a conversation, you know.

The esthetician asked: “Is this your first?” (I get that a lot: I must look younger than I feel). “It’s my sixth…”

Once she had picked her jaw off of the floor I added: “I’ve been 41 weeks pregnant before. Those pressure points? Believe me, they don’t work.” I didn’t get into the minor detail of having spent the last two years in the company of very premature infants. I understand the risks of premature labour, believe me. But I also know that there isn’t much you can do to prevent the birth of a baby who’s decided to come out 3 months early. Just as there isn’t much you can do about a baby who is decidedly staying put past 40 weeks, thank you very much. “Plus, I added, I have 5 busy kids, a husband and a full-time job. Surely, I do worse things to my feet on any given day.” She was not convinced. “Are hot stones worst than running after a two-and-a-half year-old boy??” Apparently not. Yeah right…

So I resisted very, very, hard the urge to say: “Fine, I’ll go get a second trimester abortion and come back for my pedicure. How’s that?” Because in Canada, I can. Can’t get a hot stone pedicure if you’re pregnant. But while we hold legal liability to a moral absolute, the pregnancy part can be dealt with easily.

Where’s freedom of choice when you need it, I wonder.

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Andrea adds: Oh dear. How annoying. Tell you what. I’ll toss some stones in my oven, and you come on over, Véronique. We’ll get you your Hot Stone Pedicure Birthday Treatment. Though me doing it may be something less than relaxing. A different kind of relaxing.

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Rebecca adds:

And for the record….did she never consider that the ludicrous nature of her assertions might be more likely to raise your blood pressure, and be even more conducive to pushing you into premature labour, than the pressure points she was worried about fondling??”

This is brilliant. If (big if) I’m pregnant again, I shall inform everybody who irritates me that they are risking raising my blood pressure, and I shall endeavor to hold them liable. Think it’ll work?

Health class

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My husband has been away for the last couple of days and hoo boy, the guy sure pulls his weight around here. I didn’t look at the blog yesterday — in fact, I missed turning on my lap top altogether — and there has been some highly interesting posts and comments. I was thinking of elevating the discussion but I don’t think I have the mental capacity at this point. So here is a highly educating account of a discussion I had with my two oldest while washing dishes:

Oldest daughter (grade 7): We had Health class today.

Me: Oh yeah? What do you learn in Health class?

Oldest son (grade 6), interrupting: We learn about sanitary diapers in Health class.

Me: Aren’t boys and girls separated for Health class?

Oldest son, shaking head in consternation: no

Me: Can you tell me why grade 6 boys need to learn about sanitary napkins?

Oldest son: Uh… So they’ll know what to buy their wives once they’re married? Say mom, does dad ever buy you the wrong kind?

Me: I buy my own, thank you very much. What about you, oldest daughter, are boys and girls separated for Health class?

Oldest daughter: Yes, thank God. The girls talked about puberty but the boys were too immature to talk about puberty so they got the talk on nutrition and the Canadian food guide…

Me: Great. Can you bring back any hand-outs you receive in that class? I want to make sure they teach you the right things about sex.

Oldest daughter: Yes, my homeroom teacher said she wanted us to use the right vocabulary when talking about sex.

Me: I’m not so concerned about how they teach you to talk about private parts. I’m concerned about how they teach you to use them.

Oldest daughter: Mom, what’s herpes?

Me: Herpes is a sexually transmitted disease. I don’t remember it’s symptoms but you can avoid it by not having sex.

Oldest daughter: It can be transmitted to babies…

Oldest son, interrupting again: Why would babies have sex???

See, I had this plan about keeping my kids no older than 6 years of age. But I keep feeding them and they keep growing. The task of raising kids healthy in mind and body sure seems overwhelming at times.

Giving thanks for tolerance, Québec-style

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[Turn on sarcasm]

A little while ago, I posted on the Conservative candidate in St-Bruno QC who was “outed” by Gilles Duceppe for having Catholic principles. Principles that do not reflect the open-minded ways of the Québécois people (a loose quote) according to Duceppe. Worst than being Catholic, Nicole Barron-Charbonneau was piloried for being a practicing Catholic, one that abides by the teachings of the Catholic Church. Gasp. My local MP was similarly outed by the local French paper for having — get that — a picture of the Pope in his office. And, believe it or not, a small statue of the Virgin Mary on his desk. Egad. Apparently, the chap goes to *Church* on Sunday. Not the mall, ladies and gentlemen, Church! We owe an eternal debt of gratitude to such devoted members of the fourth estate and the Bloc Québécois for seeking to save us all from principled would-be politicians. Because goodness knows that the only thing worse than a politician without principles is a politician that has some. Moral compass as a disqualifying factor in Canadian politics: another feature of our proud heritage!

[turn off sarcasm]

Yes, hum. My in-laws live in St-Bruno QC and volunteer on Nicole Barron-Charbonneau’s campaign team. I was asking them how the campaign was going, what was their feeling about the outcome, you know, small talk over the turkey. They said it was really sad because many of her campaign signs have been vandalized following Duceppe’s comments on her religious beliefs. Signs have been torn-down and “Opus Dei” spray-painted on others (Barron-Charbonneau is believed to be a member of this Catholic organization).

Vandalism as a virtue of open-mindedness. It reminded me of some of my family members who are so liberal, tolerant and open-minded that they can’t even talk about abortion or religion.

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