August 31st, 2008
Written by: Julie Cole
Back to school is upon us and we mamas all have different feelings and emotions about that first day back. Summer goes by quickly, and if you are sending your first child off to JK you suddenly realize that a little life goes by quickly too. Some mamas have a little teary in the eye as the tiny students wave good-bye from the school gate ,wearing backpacks big enough for them to fit into.
Then there are mamas like me. We load the kiddos on the school bus and do the happy dance down the street. The post carrier gets a high-five before we make it home. I’m told that I may feel those sentimental pangs when my very last child goes off to school, but I wouldn’t be putting any money on it.
This September my score sheet is as follows: three down, two to go. That first day couldn’t come soon enough simply because I can not listen to any more bickering. I have re-named my family by deed pole – we are now officially known as The Bickersons.
Veteran mamas tell me the bickering is not going away any time soon. The bickering puts me completely over the edge when I’m in the mini-van with the lot of them. Five kids in car seats and boosters means there is no vehicle around that separates them appropriately. They are always within reach of each other. I have been known to pull over on highways, ripping out car seats and re-locating boosters in hopes of strategically separating the most obnoxious combinations of kiddos. Short of doing that, I’d be looking for the nearest bridge to drive over.
Our last week of summer transformed my house into my mini-van. With five kids at home and no camps, I hosted Bickerfest 2008.
As most “mamas of many” can attest, the more children you have, the sooner they join in on the bickering. My 22-month-old gets in on the action and the newly three-year-old has bickering skills that make me think she must have been practicing back when she was hanging out in my uterus.
I fondly remember a time when I had three babies/toddlers who were all non-verbal and in diapers. Most qualify those years as the hardest times for mama since it also involves severe and prolonged sleep deprivation. During that time, new parents are always keen for the walking and talking milestones. Well, mark my words – that time comes quickly and you’ll find yourself wondering if they ever just sit down and shut up. In these last days of summer, I have mourned those days of silence.
I’m the kind of mama who comes up with strategies to deal with undesired behaviours. We have a “Peace-Keeper” award where kiddos are rewarded for minimizing conflict. Re-enforcement is the cornerstone of any smart behaviour plan and I have certainly seen some results.
My other strategy has turned out to be a bit of an expense with all the material and construction costs involved, but I’m counting the days until my sound-proof room (the “playroom”) in the basement is finally complete.
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August 24th, 2008
Written by: Julie Cole
My kids like sports and do a lot of them. Mostly I like that sports tire them out so they go to bed early and don’t bug me during the night. Last weekend they did a kiddie triathlon (see pic!) and they just wrapped up two weeks of a fantastic sports camp run by a local University.
With all this sports stuff around me, I got to wondering why I don’t really get into the Olympics. The best way to describe my “Olympic Fever” would be to say it is VERY low grade. I feel a bit like the Scrooge of the Beijing games.
I went into these summer games not knowing the name of a single athlete. Not one. Not even that American swimming kid with big feet who was set to win a truckload of medals. I suppose any interest was completely wiped out when I heard how much the opening ceremonies cost. Something about that price tag while starving baby girls hang out in orphanages down the street didn’t sit so well. Oh, and then there was that issue about banning the ‘ugly’ 9-year-old from taking to the stage to sing. Clearly her face was so hideous it would cause international offence, which is odd since I have yet to meet a 9-year-old who is not adorable.
I understand the Olympic psyche and appreciate that the games provide communities with a tremendous amount of pride, hope, spirit and entertainment. I don’t think anyone should carry any guilt for indulging in the Olympic hype. But, I am left shaking my head now and again wondering why it matters who gets to the other end of the pool first. My feeling is that all the great stuff sport has to offer can be found at the amateur level. This is where kids are empowered with confidence, skills and life-time friendships. Many adults will credit sport with keeping them off the streets and on the right track. All this for the fraction of the cost of an Olympic event.
When people lament about the lack of funding Olympic athletes receive, I’m left a bit stunned. This comes from my position of having a child with autism and being a part of entire community of desperate parents who can’t afford treatment for their children. Believe me, an athlete untrained is a far prettier image than a child with autism who has had no therapy. I just read that one country estimates that every medal costs them 16 million bucks. Gulp. I’m breaking out in a sweat just thinking of how much early intervention that could buy. It begs the question: do we really want to spend our money making people run fast?
I love watching my kids play sport. I’m the excited/obnoxious parent cheering loudly and shouting out bad advice from the sidelines. But watching my non-verbal three-year-old learn to communicate was more fulfilling than seeing any one of my kids score a goal or win a race. I can assure you, it is more rewarding to see your child with autism transform into a fully integrated and on-curriculum student.
So, we can spend our dough on making a few parents proud of their medal winning children, or make thousands of parents proud because their children with autism will one day live independently.
The closing ceremonies are about to start and I’m quite sure I’ll break out into hives sometime tomorrow when I hear how much it cost to shut down the event. I suppose it would be fitting for the Scrooge of the Beijing games to sign off with a bah hum bug.
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August 17th, 2008
Written by: Julie Cole
It’s the small and uncomplicated things in life that really contribute to happiness. The best moments I’ve had with my kids don’t involve fancy trips and expensive adventures. The times we’ve shared over a Popsicle or while feeding stale bread to ducks are the most meaningful to me. Some might describe those activities as mundane. Regardless, they work for me.
This notion of the ‘little things in life’ can be extended to several areas of my mama existence. After my washing machine recently broke down, I realized that nothing makes my life run more smoothly than a fully functioning washing machine. Quite frankly, I’d sacrifice almost anything to have a consistent and reliable method of washing clothes – whether it is the sacrifice of rare “me time”, the even rarer “date night”, or even the fully extinct “girls’ night out”. All those happenings are meaningless if I live among urine soaked bed sheets and school uniforms decorated with dried up and crusted on banana.
With so many humans living under one roof, it makes for a lot of laundry – two loads a day to be exact and that excludes the special contributions made by bed-wetters. A day off laundry compares to taking a holiday from work only to return and wonder why you even bothered. That first day back at the office you find yourself buried in e-mail and voicemail – the piles and files staring you down, taunting you. You don’t even know where to start and catching up seems like a daunting and impossible task. Such is a “laundry holiday” at my house.
The beloved washing machine started off seeming a bit under the weather. Immediate action needed to be taken because taking a ‘wait and see’ approach with large appliances is out of the question. I was facing a busy day of work meetings which forced me to delegate the operation to daddy-o. I assumed he’d know a guy who would call a guy who knows a guy, and then a guy would come to our house to fix it immediately.
Daddy-o let the power and responsibility go to his head and without consultation purchased a brand new washer and dryer. Did you get the ‘without consultation’ part? How about the part that mentions him buying a dryer to replace our perfect dryer? He then announced that the new appliances would be delivered…..in FIVE days! I can’t remember much about what happened next because I started hyper-ventilating and passed out.
Eventually I came to, the new washing machine (and dryer!) arrived and we were back on track. But during those five days, the kiddos discovered several new activities including burying each other in filthy towels and mountain climbing on a clothing mound of mess. Again, it is the little things in life, isn’t it?
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August 12th, 2008
Written by: Julie Cole
Stacy!
Please e-mail Caitlin in our Marketing Department to let her know what you would like: caitlin@mabel.ca
Enjoy your Mabels and look out for more contests on the blog!
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August 10th, 2008
Written by: Julie Cole
A few years ago, four women did something a few people thought was a bit loopy. I got together with three gals and we dropped out of our professions, cast aside our collective eight or so degrees and designations and started Mabel’s Labels. We also made another big decision and purchased a cottage together. Considering we were all having babies at the time, I like to blame the hormones.
I have fantastic childhood memories of summers at the cottage. When my siblings cooked up a plan that we should purchase a cottage together, I jumped at it. Memories of fishing off the dock, swimming out to the floating raft and roasting marshmallows around the campfire – all memories I wanted my children to have. Thing is, I should have paid more attention to what my mother was doing during those trips to the cottage. If I had, I might have noticed that going to the cottage is no holiday for mama.
My mom didn’t spend much time lounging in a Muskoka chair sipping a glass of red. When we were swimming, my mother stood anxiously on the shore counting heads (“one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four”). And as for those campfires – my nerves can’t handle seeing one more excited three-year-old waving a wand of flaming marshmallow in the direction of innocent bystanders.
Fact is, going to the cottage means mama has to do the same work but without all the conveniences of home. Suddenly we’re pulling out portocots, piling too many hyper kids into one room to sleep, and living without the safety devices that were created to make our lives easier. When will someone invent a toddler gate that goes around an entire lake? At our cottage, we don’t even have a shower or washing machine and dryer. I don’t mind the kids running around looking and smelling like forest animals, but if you have a bed-wetter or a tummy bug goes through the joint, it is game over.
I’m married to a non-Ontario type so with all the cottage talk a few years ago he made an interesting observation. It went like this:
“So, in Ontario people work really hard so they can afford to buy a place where they go and live like they have no money. Is that right?”
Bingo! Daddy-o was starting to understand cottage culture! Five years into cottage ownership, and we head north every chance we get. The cottage provides us with the opportunity to watch our kids run wild together, forgetting that TV and Nintendo even exist. We get to witness sibling camaraderie at its finest. So, even with all the head counting at the lake and marshmallow dodging at the campfire, this memory building is worth the hard work. I’ll have plenty of time to lounge in a Muskoka chair later.
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