All my bags are packed...

I am leaving for a 3-day mini mommy break to NYC tonight with my good pal CrabbyKate. Kate was going on business and made me an offer I couldn't refuse: everything paid for except the flight. How could I turn that down?

Lately I've been feeling a lot of guilt about being a "leaver." I can't believe I have so much to get out of my system still. Like this first round of motherhood didn't quite take. Nate is so lovely, so well-adjusted, independant and accomodating, that sometimes I forget that he might actually notice when I'm not around. In the mornings he sometimes says, "No. Home," in response to our putting his coat on to get him to daycare. But when I go to pick him up, he refuses to leave. On the weekends, he gladly goes off with Grandma or Yaya, whom are more than eager to spend the day with him.

I thought I'd prepare him for my departure. So Monday night I told him that I was going away for a few days. He decided to stay up till 10 PM, because he was afraid that I was leaving right then. Then he woke up at 3 am screaming, "Mommy gone!" Something he hasn't done in weeks. Thank goodness for short term memory, because yesterday he was fine.

Then this morning he was fully ignoring me. I asked him for a hug and a kiss. "No!"

"Are you mad at mommy?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said sadly.

"Why?"

"Mommy gone."

Holy sadness and heartbreak. It made me question why I even need a break from my little peanut. I definitely need to get these selfish needs out of my brain before Baby # 2. * sigh *

Be back online this weekend folks! Have a good one.

This would so happen to me

Remember when THIS happened? I rest my case.

This is how I feel

As promised

I am a woman of my word. Though I purport to tell everything there is to tell on this site, I'll admit that even I have my secrets. This is perhaps the most embarrassing story I have ever told you -- though that's up for debate.

Lately I've been trying to have more sex. Now that we're not using birth control, I figure that we should be "trying" -- especially when I'm not ovulating. I don't want to get preggers after only one foolish time like the previous time around. I want to make the most of condomless sex. You know, before I get pregnant and start to hate the two dicks that did this to me?

Last Thursday night, I went out with The Moms for a bitch n' brew session. I came home before midnight, far drunker than I thought I was after two(?) glasses of kir.

What I am about to reveal was embarrassingly recounted to me the following morning.

Apparently I got into bed and proceeded to caress my husband. Then I tried -- forcefully -- to make out with him. (OMG, I can barely get through this story, it's so humiliating) So I allegedly woke him out of a deep slumber, got him aroused, then rolled over (as in turned my back to him), patted his youknows awkwardly a few times, and then whispered sexily, (wait for it) "Touch yourself."

NO.

Please tell me you're joking?

NOOOOO.

The Dog tells me he's serious, but that the story actually gets worse. After I woke him up and was so lazy that I told him to do all the work by himself, to himself, I rolled over and masturbated until I passed out drunk.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Clearly I don't reeeeealy want to get pregnant.

Cute, kid-friendly online videos needed

Hey gang, I need your help. I'm doing a Video of the Day column on BB and wanted to know what you've been watching. If you have any favourite online videos of kids, or anything kid-friendly that you may have seen on YouTube and the like, drop me an email at scarbiedoll[at]sympatico[dot]ca and I'll credit you on Blogging Baby.

Oh, and um, if you haven't already, would you mind voting for me? Thanks!

Um, so, er, apparently I'm up for an award or something

Funny how you find things out. I was over at the Mothership, when I read a post about the Canadian Blog Awards. Then Bunmaster mentioned something about voting for me. I scratched my head in bewilderment and thought, "Is there going to be an awards ceremony? What will I wear?"

Apparently I've been nominated for Best Personal Blog. Before you get excited, it seems like every mom blogger in Canada has been nominated for a Canadian Blog Award. It's because we're Canadian -- we feel bad if our friend isn't nominated. So we all go an nominate each other and then we can sleep better at night.

Fuck that shit. I'm not going to lie. Victory is sweet. Losing sucks ass. If I wasn't a selfish, fame whore who hangs her dirty laundry online (unmentionables and all) just to get validation from total strangers... well then I wouldn't be writing this post. So awesomest readers in the universe, head over and vote for me! I'll outline my platform in case that helps to make your decision.

If you vote for me, I promise to:

1. Offer more cock talk. (Operation Baby 2007 will surely bring forth some good stories. In fact I got a freshly embarassing one from last night.)

2. Offer more free book giveaways. I can't promise an author blogging here every time, but I can give you books! For FREE!

3. Be better about returning emails to readers and lurking on other bloggers sites. I always read, but I'll try to leave more comments.

4. Pimp your blog(if you have a blog) on my new Blogging Baby Saturday Sleepover post. I'll be featuring new and diverse parenting blogs every week. I'm rooting for the underdogs, because the popular blogs don't need more promo.

5. Take into consideration the feedback of my voters. Got something you'd like to read more of? Email me at scarbiedoll(at)sympatico(dot)ca. (My husband has access to that email, so try to keep your "I wanna see your sugared cooch" emails to a minimum.)

6. Stop acting like I'm bigger than wanting to be nominated for awards and shite. I'm so not.

Good luck to all the nominees. May the biggest skank win.

For Posterior's Sake

Sometimes I forget that I started this site to document my life as a mother. So look away if you must, but I'm going to write about my small victory today.

Nate did a pee on the potty!

The photo to the left is from a year ago. My mother, being the old skool chica that she is, was determined to have him potty trained by a year. I thought that to be horribly cruel so I made her stop. But sites like Diaper-free Baby and then Madonna's comments last year about children being potty trained by the age of 2 (yeah, yeah, I know she's an ass for acting like she's the one who potty-trained her children.) made me think that I should start trying.

Nate has been running up to us and telling us when he has done, or is about to do a poop. He calls it "peeee" but you get the drift. So in order to get him back (yeah, I'm that petty) for keeping me up all night for the past few, I decided to sit him down and see what happens. We've been doing this for a while. First we had him sitting on his potty with his clothes on (a good distraction when you're home alone and need to pee yourself), then we started un-diapering him first.

Today, success. I ran the tap, I put his hand in warm water (yeah, that old sleepover trick), I even poured some water on his thingy. Normally none of these techniques work. He's too stubborn. The key was doing it first thing in the morning I think. I mean, who doesn't have to pee first thing in the morning? And piddle piddle it went in the plastic receptacle.

We called everyone we knew. It was worth it just to hear Nate say with enthusiasm, "I-a pee pee on a poddy!" We haven't been able to repeat it since, but I feel like we had one small triumph on the throne.

Sick again?

Nate is friggin sick again. It just erases anything good that happened over the past few days. Mostly because I lie awake in bed listening to him wheeze in his sleep, worrying that he's going to fade away in the night. The next morning I'm a zombie and I can get nothing done. I can barely type proper senteces, but I just needed to throw this out there so I can fucking get on with my day now that he's finally decided a nap would be good.

The two jobs plus mom job thing is killing me. It's still early, but I haven't found the balance yet. Add my stupidly busy social life in there and sleep becomes the thing to suffer. It's dumb. I need to learn to say no, to cut things out of my life. Instead I do dumb things like sign up for a card-making class in buttfuck nowhere, or organize a brunch and a dinner in the same day, only to have to cancel the dinner because my kid just barfed.

Then nighttime comes and all I can think of is all that I have to lose. How I've built up this tenuous house of cards and it's all going to come crashing down with the next wind. I can't just accept that I'm happy. My psychotic Middle Eastern upbringing has me believe that when things are going good, it means that bad is on its way. So then, in order to feel in control, I have to go and ruin a good thing so that someone else doesn't do it first.

It's like I somehow believe that I don't deserve to be happy. I feel like I love so HUGE and so hard that I have everything to lose. Then I end up thinking that with my luck, I'm bound to lose. The odds are in favour of death and destruction I think to myself. If only I could silence these stupid voices in my head.

It's like I've taken my anxiety about my own death, and projected it onto Nate. My husband continuously tells me, "Get busy living or get busy dying." He says that by focusing on this idea that Nate could die, I am killing him before he has a chance to live. That I am not giving him a future. He's right. But that only makes me feel more helpless.

All this is amplified when I don't sleep enough. So I am going to try a new schedule. One that involves going out less, taking on less and sleeping more. In bed by 10 and if I am up early enough, I can work on other things (like blog posts) at the crack of dawn. I've never been a morning person, but perhaps now is the time to try. I'm fresh out of ideas.

Mommies Who Drink

*** Now with photos!

Just as I was reading my New York Times update and mentally drafting a post about what I'd just read, Dutch had already put down his thoughts about the piece on Blogging Baby. So I'll weigh in on it here.

The New York Times has published this fab article on "happy hour playdates."

I don't know why, but I feel validated that they are even talking about moms and social drinking in the Times. Not everyone agrees whether or not a mom should have a margarita while Charlie plays in the Turtle pool. Some people think it makes you a bad parent.

Personally I think it's funny when people get upset because I am open about my love of a stiff one, er... I mean a cocktail. My favourite evenings of late are spent at my friend CrabbyKate's, drinking a glass of wine while the kids happily play together within reach. I also enjoy when the three of us (including Marla) go out for a drink (and leave the kids with daddy) and bitch session. No one is getting so sauced that they couldn't parent. We're just taking the edge off while kvetching about our day, about the milk the husband didn't buy or the poo that made its way into the tub.

This is normal. This is what they've done in Europe for centuries. Why do we in North America feel we have to give mothers a lobotomy once they give birth? Why do we feel that mothers should be sealed off from the rest of the world to do their precious mothering? It's like going into the witness protection program. You give birth and they give you a new identity, one that forces you to move to a quiet suburb and lay low for a while. Puh-leez.

When we were in Philly this summer, we took our son with us out to dinner in Manayunk , a cute neighbourhood just outside the city centre. The tourist brochure said it was a "great place to have an evening stroll." We took that to mean family-friendly. It was an early dinner, but by the time we wrapped up it was getting close to 9 pm. Other women in the restaurant were giving me cut-eye, a look that said, "What kind of person has her child in a restaurant at 9 pm?" Now I'm no fool. I was a waitress for years and often thought that myself. But where did this preconceived notion of how late a kid should be out come from?

Nate was not acting up. He was having a fabulous time, the little bon vivant that he is. The truth of the situation, the one that was not visible to the public eye, was that I had spent the past two weeks couped up in a hotel room every night with my sleeping son. It was taking its toll. The pre-child me enjoyed dinners in foreign places and walking down an avenue at night, soaking up my surroundings. The mom-me was forced into a hotel room, a box, because going out with children is frowned upon.

You say, "Oh, well that's what you signed up for when you decided to breed." Says who? Where did this attitude come from? How can people, who were once children themselves, hate children? How can we be a healthy, peaceful society if families are ostracized and banished from cultural and social exploits?

If a mothering revolution is indeed to take place, judging your fellow woman will have to have less weight than it currently does. And the only way to make judging not count is to not give a flying fuck what others think of you. You do what you can to get by. Sure, some people seriously fuck it up for the rest of us. But in general, parents today are trying to find a balance between who they were as adults before children and after. Between doing what society deems is right and doing what is going to get them through the next 10 minutes. And more often than not, what's going to get you through that 600 seconds is not harmful to anyone. What's harmful is forcing mothers and fathers into a single box that doesn't fit everyone.

Question of the Day

I know that blueberries are high in antioxidants, nature's perfect food and you will actually eat them, but do they have to make your shit that nasty purpley-green colour?

You think I woulda tried this by now

Two lone male readers, please look away.

So on Friday, I ducked out during naptime to go to a little salon by my house for some much needed hair removal. The big three. Legs, bikini, armpits. Being that I often write about my sasquatch woes, you would think I would have tried sugaring before. I hadn't. It was a revolution from the root! And gentler to the environment too!

Just wanted to share that tidbit. From my bush to yours. It hurt a lot less than waxing, though it did take more pulls to clean up my Mediterranean mess than waxing does. The key is to go right after your monthly visitor packs up and takes the train back to Utica. You are the least sensitive then.

Being hairfree means that I am actually getting some, even with the arguing over should-we-shouldn't-we-have-another-child. It also means I can bust out my beloved skirts again! November is looking up.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

The debate on Operation Baby 2007 rages on. It's the most controversial topic since Lin Lo and Mischa Barfton started sporting those suicide wristbands. (Broken perfume bottle my ass.)

I was doing my work on Blogging Baby today (AKA hogging the computer) while The Dog cleaned the kitchen. Nate was happily playing by himself.

"Are you really ready to have another kid?" my handsome homebody asked. "Honestly?"

"Honestly, absolutely. I'm as ready as I'm going to be."

Translation: No, but if I show you that I'm as afraid as you, we'll never get this show on the road and my ovaries will dry up like prunes.

"I'm not."

Ugh. Here we go again.

"Well. You shoulda thought of that earlier this morning when you decided to have sex with me without a condom!"

Translation: Fertilize me or fuck off already.

"I know. I'm regretting that."

Translation: I really should stop thinking with my balls.

Say what? Some men are so clueless about the female reproductive system. Really, really dumb. I can say whatever I want and he'd have no idea if it was the truth. "Um, we can't have sex because I'm super-fertile right now." (The headache excuse is so 1986) or "I still have my ... you know..." If he did the math, he'd know there is no way I would menstruate for 2 weeks! But the mere mention of anything ovulatory (Did I just make that up? Prolly.) has him tune right out.

Anyway, I'm not ovulating right now, so the chances of getting pregnant -- contrary to what I was taught in Catholic school -- are pretty slim. But I kinda wanted to rub his face in it, because I'm tired of his waffling on the issue.

"I just feel like if we do it, I can say goodbye to my brain for the rest of my life!"

Translation: I will never be able to make a feature film if we have two kids, because you will have me slaving twice as much.

Why so dramatic? Oh wait, the truth is coming...

"I just don't think I can handle picking up after four people!" He was angrily wiping the counters as I continued to type. "I thought I could be the housewife, but I can't."

Translation: I don't like doing the woman's work anymore darling.

Ugh. Why are modern marriages so frustrating?

"Do you hear me complain about cooking for everyone?" I retorted.

Translation: Don't even fucking try to act like I don't pull my weight around here.

"I cook sometimes too. Not nearly as often as you, but I do it."

Translation: I cook sometimes, but you NEVER clean.

Can we just get a friggin cleaning service in every other week already so he shuts up? How long have I been wanting this? Does anyone in Toronto have any recommendations on services they've used? I'm torn between Molly Maid ($60 a time) and Enviromaid ($80 a time but with enviro cleaners). What sayeth you Internets?

Wait, the fight's not over yet. "I feel like you are pissed off that I'm spending my time establishing a career when I should be doing your dishes."

Translation: I need to make you feel bad about something. I'll stun you with a feminist angle.

He didn't like that. And so on, and so on.

A few hours later, when he was leaving for work and saying his goodbyes, he turned to Nate and said, "I love you bud." To which Nate responded, "I wuv ooooh!" The Dog's eyes glistened and his face softened. My ovaries smiled. One point for us.

So what if the kid is parotting everything we say these days? I slipped him a fiver and some Pocky anyway.

Two months to plan a birthday

22 months today. (Yes, that's crayon on the mirror.) The Terrible Twos are encroaching. The worst part is that Nate is a pretty good kid. The kind of kid that makes my other mom friends roll their eyes to say, "As if!" when I say, "Oh man, he's totally freaking out right now."

And they're right. His bad is not that bad. So I'm afraid of two things:

1) He has a hidden (EVIL) personality that will take over the moment he becomes two.

OR

2) He will stay the same, but Baby #2 will be hell-on-Robeez.

I'm not crazy. I know that the Creator, if he/she exists, is fair. First child nice/second child BAD. First child BAD/second child DREAMY. Examine other sibling combos you know, or your own family. You'll soon see that I'm right.

I am not pregnant, so Baby #2 is still a glimmer of fear in my eye. Still the thought is kicked about from time to time. Should I follow my own advice and leave on a high note? Quit while I'm ahead? Leave well enough alone?

Dunno. I feel like I don't really have a choice. I've made up my mind on giving Nate a sibling. So we'll roll the dice and see what we get.

In the meantime, what do I do for a two-year-old's birthday? He's actually got a few friends now, but they're mostly at daycare, so a cake and loot bags there oughtta take care of that. My house is small and I can't have the entire extended family over, plus the big deal of the first birthday is over with. What to do, what to do? I'm open to suggestions. What did you do (or are you going to do) for your two-year-old's party?