My Floors Are Always Dirty

4 Comments

My floors are always dirty.  Especially in the Spring and Summer.  Especially the kitchen floor.

cause it's summer

You see, our back patio door opens off our kitchen, and we spend more time outside than inside when the weather is nice.  Our backyard is our oasis in the city- complete with trees, grass, and a sandpit.  The sandpit that we have may be the same kind that you have….. you know, the kind that sand seems to jump out of and stick to any child or dog within a 5m radius?  Yep, that kind.  This sand is then tracked into my house via the patio door via my kitchen floor.  Along with grass clippings, pebbles, sticks, twigs, rocks, bugs, dog food, flowers, grass seed, leaves, and all other backyard flora and fauna.

By day’s end, my floors feel more like sandpaper than tile, they look more beige than white, and they sound more rough than smooth.  Out comes the broom and the steammop, and I have nice clean floors again between the hours of 8pm and 8am.

But the sand I clean up reminds me of the huge sandcastle my son built, and the pride I saw on his face.

The grass clippings remind me of the excited smile my daughter had when she felt the lawn on her bare toes, and the sense of wonder in her eyes.

The sidewalk chalk dust reminds me of the artwork that graces my driveway, and the creativity and imagination it inspired.

The twigs remind me of the fun our puppy had exploring his new environment.

So I will take the sand.  And the grass clippings.  And the chalk dust and the twigs.  Because a clean kitchen floor means far less to me than a day of backyard fun with the dirt to prove it.

My floors are always dirty.  And I like it that way.

***This post was originally written as a Guest Blog post for Momstown.ca.

The Kid’s Menu

12 Comments

We went out for dinner as a family on Saturday night, which we don’t often do.  With our 4-year-old and 1-year-old in tow, we got to the restaurant around 5:30pm to keep things early and kid-friendly.  Great.  Good.  Having fun.  Then the waitress gave us a ‘Kid’s Menu’.

The Kid’s Menu did not contain miniature portions of adult menu items, but rather a list of entirely different offerings.  Things like Kraft Dinner, cheese pizza, and french fries.  Things full of white flour and salt, with very little nutritional value.

I don’t get it.

As mothers, we find out we’re pregnant and we do our very best to grow a healthy baby.  We eat well, we stop smoking and/or drinking, we stay well-hydrated, and we make safe choices.  When our baby is born, we continue to do our very best to keep them healthy-  we often choose breastmilk, we often make our own babyfood (only organic, right?), and we avoid giving them extra sugar, salt, and processed foods.  Their bodies are little temples to be grown and supported with only the highest-quality ingredients.  We discuss topics like folic acid, BPA, and omega-3s.  We listen to the buzz surrounding gluten-free, dairy-free, and non-GMO food.

And then we take them out for dinner, and we’re given choices like this.

If we aren’t eating these things, then why are we feeding them to our kids?  Kids need top-quality food to grow top-quality bodies and brains and immune systems.  Kids need top-quality food to support learning and attention and behaviour.  Kids need top-quality food to help them make top-quality food choices as adults.

I don’t get it.

stop-marketing-unhealthy

The Millionaire’s Family

4 Comments

I don’t like this phrase.  I especially don’t like when people say this phrase to me.  Oh, I know, ‘they’re trying to be nice’, ‘they mean well’, and ‘they didn’t mean it that way’.

But what I hear when someone says this phrase is not the pop-culture definition of having one boy and one girl; what I hear, is that I must’ve been trying to have one child of each gender.  Like I would be disappointed if I wasn’t blessed that way, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Some people even one-up the cliche, and tell me I have a ‘Billionaire’s Family’ because I had a boy first, girl second.

Let me be very clear on this: I am extraordinarily grateful to have two beautiful, healthy, happy children.  The fact that they are different genders is completely beside the point.  In fact, if I am being truly honest, when I was pregnant with my second child (my daughter), I was thinking about how much ‘easier’ it would be if she was another boy- I already knew a bit about raising a boy, I had all the boy ‘stuff’, and I wouldn’t have to deal with teenage girl drama, which most certainly is coming my way if karma plays a role.

We chose not to find out both of our baby’s genders until they were born.  Going against my typical planned, organized, Type-A self, finding out the baby’s gender on delivery day seemed like Mother Nature’s most wonderful surprise.  Truth be told though, we didn’t find out because it just didn’t matter to us.

Just as I didn’t have my first baby to have a boy, I didn’t have my second baby to have a girl. I had my first baby to have a baby.  And I had my second baby to have another baby.

I am very lucky, very blessed, and very, very, very grateful.  But I’m not grateful for a Millionaire’s family, I’m grateful for MY family.

photo-1

***This post was originally written as a Guest Blog post for Momstown.ca.