Category Archives: Attempted Parenting

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Posted by on March 13, 2012 7 comments

Kids sometimes say the darnedest things, don’t they? Just when you think you’ve heard it all, they stop you in your tracks with something hilarious, something insightful, or something incredibly wise. Today the stories I have to share with you feature two kinds of babes: a babe-by-virtue-of-being-a-baby, and a babe-by-virtue-of-being-a-gorgeous-teenager.

Babe The First: Miss Babe Ruth

This particular Babe Ruth is no baseball player – she’s my niece. Ruthie is the youngest of my four niecephews. She’s two years old, and has three older siblings: a sister and two brothers. In a family like that, if you want to be heard, you’d better come out swinging, so it’s really neat to watch Ruthie’s personality develop as she grows. When she’s not busy being loveable and huggable, she’s sassy, opinionated, persistent, and has a fascinating sense of humour.

Case in point: last weekend, Ruthie and her older sister had a sleepover at Nan and Boo’s house (my parents), then on Sunday the whole family got together for the first BBQ of the season.

At some point, my mom put a ten dollar bill and some change on the kitchen table after a trip to the store. Because of the high-traffic, kids-smashing-into-everything nature of the party, my brother thought it wise to put the money up somewhere so it wouldn’t get lost, but he got distracted as he was doing it, and couldn’t remember afterwards where he’d put Mom’s money. A long, drawn out search of the house ensued. Finally, my niece Ruthie shyly snuck into the kitchen, pulled the ten dollar bill out of her jeans pocket, and handed it to my mom.

“When Daddy said he was gonna keep the money safe, I took it so MONSTERS wouldn’t get it,” she whispered to her grandma.

Babe the Second: Miss Gwen Junior

Gwen Junior is my daughter. Two months shy of her Sweet Sixteen, she is by far my favourite person in the universe. For over a decade and a half, awesome shit has been falling out of her face:

When she was four, she accompanied her grandma to a podiatrist appointment and, thinking he could stump her (she was going through a slight know-it-all phase), the doc pointed to the model leg skeleton on his desk and asked her what a particular bone was called. Without batting an eye she replied, “sure, it’s a metatarsal!” Turns out she learned it on her LeapPad.

On her first day of grade one, I caught her singing “where oh where oh where is my backpack?” under her breath to the tune of “I Was Made For Loving You” by Kiss.

You’ve read the blog post about the time she found a syntax error on a subway poster, and you’ve read my tongue-in-cheek entry about the slang terms and expressions she uses that drive me bonkers and/or make me laugh.

But by far, the most incredible thing she’s ever said actually occurred quite recently. Earlier this month, I was down with the sickness – the flu bug that was making the rounds of the city finally caught up with me and I spent almost a week in bed wishing for death. She was a good kid while I was sick – made her own meals, didn’t push her luck, gave me an occasional hug.

One evening, I simply had to go to the store, even though I physically wasn’t up to it and should have stayed home. But we had no food, and Gwen Junior was studying (studying!!!) for an exam, so off I went. Because I was all punch-drunk on Nyquil, I accidentally left a loaf of bread on the bus, and didn’t realize it until I got home. When I discovered my loss, I burst into tears. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My wailing drew my daughter from her bedroom into the living room, where she found me standing in the doorway berating myself between sobs: “I’m so STUPID and I’m such a CRAP MOM and I CAN’T EVEN FEED MY CHILD and who even loses a loaf of bread?! Now we have no bread and I’m too sick to do anything about it so they might as well just take her away! Wahhhhh!”

Well, my fifteen year old daughter stood in front of me, hands on hips, with one eyebrow cocked in a WTF expression I know well because I see it in the mirror every day. In a stern, no-nonsense voice, she said, “hold on there just a second, and f*cking relax already. It’s just a two dollar loaf of bread. You are not a bad parent. You are certainly not stupid. You’re only saying those things because you’re feeling sorry for yourself, which I can’t blame you for, but pity parties don’t help anyone. But you’re right about not being able to feed me, so take a breath, sit down there on the couch, and I’ll bring you some of the soup I just made. You feed me every day. Today I’ll feed you.”

Sure, she dropped an F-bomb. Sure, she reprimanded her mother, which normally she wouldn’t have gotten away with. But her glass-half-full, take-a-chill-pill attitude stopped me in my tracks. She’s absolutely right, I thought. This is not an insurmountable crisis. And besides, I won’t lie… it was WONDERFUL to be taken care of.

Out of the mouths of babes…

I am Without a Heart, And The Space Has Been Broken

Posted by on January 14, 2012 No comments

Actually it’s my toe that was broken! It happened in late November. Don’t ask me how I did it, though. I mean, well of course I stubbed my toe and that’s how it broke, but I am ashamed (actually not that ashamed hah) to admit I don’t remember doing it. I went to my friend Michelle’s house for dinner one night before the holidays, you see, and we had some wine. Then we went to the liquor store and bought… more wine. When that wine was done, we went to the bar next door to Michelle’s house (how convenient is THAT?!) and had whiskeys. That’s where it gets a little hazy. Michelle and her fiance poured me into a streetcar and I magically floated home, where I put myself to bed without having three bowls of cereal or emptying my sock drawer, honest.

When I woke up the next morning, I was a bit hungover, but not that bad. I did the whole take-stock-before-moving-or-opening-my-eyes thing, and went through The Hangover List, one by one:


1. No headache, good.
2. No nausea, good.
3. Little thirsty, no big deal.
4. Pain scan… good, good, so far so… WHAT THE HELL?

Just after I stretched my legs, I wiggled my toes. Stars exploded in my vision and I was immediately sick to my stomach. The baby toe on my right foot suddenly became the centre of the universe and everything pulsated around it, absorbing it, trying to deflect the pain of it, simultaneously keeping it at bay and swaddling it tight to ease the torture.

I attempted another wiggle. This time, I could not contain myself, and I cried out in pain. Which brought my teenage daughter in to investigate why mom’s crying like a baby at seven thirty on a Sunday morning. Here’s the exchange that occurred:

Gwen Junior: What’s wrong, Mom?
Gwen: I think my toe is broken.
Gwen Junior: What?! How’d you break your toe?!
Gwen: I can’t recall, actually.
Gwen Junior: Mother. Did your toe get broken because it was drunk? *chuckles*
Gwen: Yes. *hangs head*

SO THEN I DID WHAT ANY RATIONAL PERSON WOULD DO. I took three Tylenols, put on a pair of Birkenstocks and went out for brunch with my girlfriends because nothing makes a broken toe bearable like three dollar bloody caesars and brunch.

How Far Would You Go To Protect Yourself?

Posted by on March 17, 2011 1 comment

Imagine yourself in physical or mortal danger. If you don’t do something to protect yourself, serious harm or death will befall you or your family.

How far would you go to protect yourself? What would you do? I’d do anything to save my family, you’re  thinking. I would kill to save my son. I would do whatever it took. No questions asked.

Would you lie? Cheat? Steal? Would you defend yourself physically, even if it meant the harm or death of your attacker?

What if your attacker were your own child? Would you kill your own child to protect yourself, if your child were trying to kill you?

Seems a little far-fetched, even to me, that this would happen. I mean really, what child would try to kill its mother? And what parent would, in turn, place more value on her own life than their child’s, and actually kill that child to save their own soul? I can’t imagine that ever happening.

Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine it happening. Reality has supplied us with this exact scenario in Calgary, Alberta, where Aset Magomadova, a refugee from Chechnya, stands accused of killing her fourteen-year-old daughter Aminat by ligature strangulation [link] in what she calls self-defense.

[link] Toronto Star article
[link] Global News, Calgary

According to the media, the fourteen-year-old girl had a history of drug abuse and regularly took crystal meth, which is known to cause erratic, violent behaviour in users [link], as well as mood swings and unpredictability. The articles go on to say that the police had been called to the home five times in the last five months, by the mother, who feared for her safety and that of her young son, who has muscular dystrophy. Aminat was often brought home by police, high, after violent fights with her mother.

This family obviously had a lot of problems, but despite repeated visits from police for domestic disturbance, no authorities were ever brought in to assist the family, despite Aset’s desire for intervention. She felt she could no longer control her daughter, and with the help of her sister, attempted to convey this fear to the police. She even stayed in a battered women’s shelter for a few days, less than a month ago.

Nobody ever referred her to the appropriate social services, such as the Calgary and Area Child and Family Services, or the Domestic Dispute and Cultural Resources units of the Calgary Police. This family could have been helped. This girl could have been saved.

How did Calgary fail this struggling family after it survived refugee untold horrors at the hands of Russian soldiers? Who knows the horror in that girl’s mind after living through what we can only imagine in our worst nightmares. It’s no wonder she turned to drugs to alleviate the damage done by terror. But it all went horribly wrong.

Now, the girl’s mother is in jail, charged with second-degree murder, and her wheelchair-bound son is in foster care. It breaks my heart. However, I am torn.

I’m trying to put myself in this woman’s shoes. I imagine that Gwen Junior is older, the same size as me, and prone to violent drug-induced rage. I imagine that she beat me. I imagine that she smashes furniture, breaks windows, and runs away constantly, only to be brought home by police time after time. I imagine her coming at me with her fists or with a weapon, hatred and rage in her eyes, intent on causing me physical boldily harm. What would I do? Would I allow her to hurt me? Would I try to protect myself without causing her pain, if it were at all possible? Or, with my backagainst a wall, would I fight back?

The thought haunts me. What would be more powerful: maternal instinct or fight-or-flight response?

* Article originally written in March 2007



Overheard In The Office!

Posted by on February 10, 2011 No comments

While it’s definitely true that I’m a nosy Nellie and no cubicle conversations are safe when I’m around, on this particular occasion I was actually trying not to hear my colleague talk to her girlfriend on the phone in a very exasperated way about her failed attempt to determine her unborn baby’s gender. But I thought one thing she said was so hilarious that I immediately sent the quote to OverheardAtTheOffice.com which I absolutely love.

Fast forward several months. Yesterday, I got an email from a guy named Morgan over at OHATO who told me that my quote would be published that day!

I trolled the site obsessively until, at just after three o’clock, there it appeared!

Pregnant employee on personal call: I tried to have an ultrasound done but it didn’t work out. Nothing to do with the baby–it was my uterus. It’s an asshole.

Toronto, Canadia

Overheard by: Gwen Styles

Yay! I’ve been published!!