Mothers can have bad days – kids misbehave, work gets on top of you, the house is a dump, your husband is being useless, etc. Mothers often tell me that when they are having a bad day, they think of me and they instantly feel better. The chaos in my life provides them with some comfort in those manic mama moments.

But I have to let you in on a little secret: it’s not that bad. In fact, it’s pretty darn good. Sure, I don’t get a lot of sleep and nights out on the town are few and far between, but that’s what I signed up for when I had six kids.

Between my babies, business and blogging, there are quite a few balls in the air. So the question is often asked about how I manage it all. I could go on and on, but since this is a blog and not a book, I’m keeping it short with just a few little things that are firmly entrenched in my brain that help me get through my busy days.

Keep everything in perspective
When things are hectic at Mabel’s Labels and stress is creeping into our lives, my business partners and I look at each other and remind ourselves of this: We are making labels; we are not saving lives. This is not to downplay how seriously we take our business. If a customer has not received labels on time, that is a dire Mabel 911 situation. Should we let it keep us up at night? Probably not. We’re better off engaging in more proactive responses such as finding out what went wrong and changing our system. Fix the mistake, move on and remember: no one died.

Don’t take your kids so seriously
My kids are kids, not projects. Don’t obsess over whether your kids are academically gifted, going to get MVP or be chosen for the competitive dance team. When my kids grow up, they will be like most others – they’ll get a job. They may become teachers, bricklayers, doctors, bus drivers, parents, whatever. Hopefully they’ll have a fulfilling personal life. I want them to be happy and the best people they can be. Stop taking them so seriously and worrying about what they’ll be later, instead of what they are now.

Don’t take yourself so seriously
You’re a parent, not a miracle worker. You’ll make mistakes and feel crappy about it. So learn from it and move right along. Dwelling is pointless. Sometimes as you try to balance all your roles, you’ll notice everything becoming unaligned – several balls you are juggling come crashing down at once. On those days, order pizza, give the kids bowls of cereal for dinner, let them watch too much TV or go to bed without brushing their teeth. I think they will be OK if they don’t have veggies with dinner two nights in a row. No one is going to turn you into the bad mother police for letting the kids eat hotdogs off their laps on the family room couch. While they’re doing that, for goodness’ sake, go get yourself a well deserved glass of wine!

So this Mother’s Day, give yourself an invaluable Mother’s Day gift. A healthy dose of perspective will make you happier than a dozen roses or new pair of earrings ever will.

I posted a blog recently about the value of saying “No” to kids. The gist was:

1) Your kids will be fine if they don’t get what they want all the time.
2) If you’re going to say “No” then be sure to follow through – unless you like to lead the double life of parent and white noise machine.

I just discovered another good time to say “No”– when it comes to buying them nice things. Ya know why? Because they don’t care.

Months ago, in spite of my no pet policy, my cheeky friend promised the kids a fish. She arrived at the house with a tank and all the fishy trimings. We negotiated that a fish could join us only after we moved into the new house in March.

March arrived and we moved into the new house. It is just lovely – big enough to suit our family, sitting on a quiet court and backing onto fields and ravines. The kids’ days are full of road hockey, catching tadpoles, chasing deer and trampolining. Soon summer will be here and they’ll be passing their days basking in the pool, enjoying all the water fun summer has to offer.

On moving day, the kiddos had all been shipped off to various locations. When they arrived home to their beautiful new house that evening, they screamed in unison:
“Did we get the fish??”

Daddy-o and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes and thought: we just bought a new house, and all they care about is that stupid fish!

And that is not the end of it. I had decided (OK, my bank account decided) that we would not be buying new furniture for the house. I made one little exception. With the three girls sharing a room, I thought it would be nice to ditch the garage sale beds they had been using, and replace them with three new little beds with fresh and fun bedding. They excitedly picked out the beds that were being used by the athletes in Olympic village.

So you can imagine my frustration when I go into their room at night and this is what I find:

So if you are the kind of mama who worries about your kids doing without stuff, I think you can stop. Just go buy them a fish and let them to sleep on the floor. Clearly, that is all they need.

People often tell me I make things look easy. I think the reason I make things look easy is because they often are. A perfect example is the neighbourhood Easter egg hunt I recently organized. Please note that when I say “organized”, I am using the term very loosely. I sent out an e-mail to everyone on the neighbourhood e-mail list. It was the same e-mail I sent out last year.

So I managed to get some cred and kudos for doing pretty much nothing.

The e-mail included information about how many eggs to stuff per kid in your family, what area of the park to hide the eggs in (based on kiddo ages) and what time to have it done so that we would be ready to start on time. Oh, I also told egg hiders to bring plastic bags with them in case they came across some dog poop or other park treasures.

That’s it. That is me organizing the egg hunt. Note what I didn’t do:
- I didn’t stuff eggs for kids in the neighbourhood;
- I didn’t hide eggs for kids in the neighbourhood;
- I didn’t go and clean up the dog poop in the park before the egg hunt.

Surprisingly, with all that I didn’t do, I still got a handful of e-mails from highly appreciative mamas. They all mentioned how remarkable it was that with six kids and a business I could find time to organize the egg hunt. I reminded them that forwarding the e-mail from last year took me about 15 seconds. Regardless, these appreciative mamas unanimously came back with “Well, someone had to send it out – so thank-you!”

Perhaps a case can be made for the old expression: “if you want to get something done, ask a busy person to do it”. Maybe all of us busy folks have just figured out the real trick – don’t just make it look easy, make it easy!

Mabel’s Labels is having a loot bag giveaway to celebrate our 7^th birthday. From March 9th – 17th a surprise pack brimming with goodies from Mabel’s Labels will be added free to randomly selected orders!

There are a few things that are irresistible about the Holiday Season:

1) Dressing your kids like idiots. Yes, I dressed my daughter in a Santa suit dress for her violin recital. Why? Because I can.

2) Elf Yourself – really, we can spend hours doing this using different combinations of family members. Go on, have a look: http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/XIf7mBPW2SSHOgIG

3) ‘Tis the season to throw all parenting rules out the window. The notion of Santa watching for good behaviour is really just a combination of bribery and empty threats.
Bribery: “If you are good, Santa will bring you presents.”
Empty Threats: “If you are naughty Santa won’t bring you presents”.
Yeah right, I know some pretty naughty kids who have never woken up to lumps of coal in their stockings.

So go on, take advantage of your bad parenting free pass and be sure to engage in what at any other time of year would be considered cheesy behaviour. I’m enjoying every minute of it!

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

I was 18-years-old when the 14 women were gunned down. As an earlier adopter of feminism, I had already done much of the reading required of a budding feminist and had some very decent mentors in place.

When the Montreal Massacre happened, it rocked my young world. Twenty years have gone by and never have I forgotten that day. Throughout my life, I have remembered.

I remembered the 14 women the year after the massacre, as I sat in my first year university lectures, imagining what it would be like for someone to walk into my lecture hall and kill me – because of my gender.

I remembered the 14 women as a graduate student working with women’s groups – planning memorial services for December 6th.

I remembered the 14 women when I was at law school, choosing subjects like Feminist Legal Theory and writing papers that focused on gender, violence, Battered Women’s Syndrome, etc.

I remembered the 14 women when I worked at a women’s legal service, having to go through security to get into the building and working behind bullet proof glass. All that because of the men in the lives of our clients.

I remembered the 14 women when I gave birth to my first daughter on International Women’s Day in 2001, wondering what her life would hold and what the women of her generation would face.

And how do I remember the 14 women now?

I remember them as I raise my sons and daughters. I remember them in simple ways – conversations with my children, the way I use language, through setting expectations and by bucking gender stereotypes within our home. Feminism is not a big scary word. It is founded on the basic principle that women have choice – the choice to have six kids, the choice to have none.

The choice to become an Engineer.

When do you remember the 14 women?

So we finally bit the bullet and are moving house. The thought of it is overwhelming – so much crap to be sorted, packed or purged. With six kids, I know you can imagine just how much crap we’re talking here. Adding further stress is the prospect of making our current house look nice enough that some other family will want to buy it.

Getting our house sale-ready will be a big job. My kids have left their marks – on the walls, carpets, curtains and pretty much everywhere else. In addition to the cosmetic issues, we don’t really use our house in the traditional way. My dining room has been transformed into a children’s study, and the kids’ dressers are in the hallway to make way for all the beds that need to fit in the bedrooms. In short, there is a house staging expert out there who is going to make a lot of coin out of me.

We told the kids about the move and they generally greeted the news well. We’re only moving up the street to a house on a court with some more square footage.

The four-year-old was most reluctant. After some discussion, I realized that she didn’t understand what a move meant. Turns out she didn’t want to move because she would miss her bike. I explained that all our crap was coming along with us and she went through the house item by item for confirmation that it would be coming along. Yes darling, even the plates are coming with us.

So I thought she got it: we bring our stuff with us; they take their stuff when they leave.

The day came when we were able to take the children through the new house. Thumbs up all around. The sellers are empty nesters who seemed thrilled that their house would once again be alive with the energy of small children.

After having a good look around the new digs, I noticed the four-year-old had a little worried look on her face. I asked her what she thought of the new house to which she replied:

“I like it, but there’s one problem: NO TOYS!”

I’m now thinking this move is going to take more patience than I originally anticipated.

As all you mamas know, once one kid is down, it’s just a matter of time before they all start dropping like flies. I’ve got a lot of flies, so things can drag on for quite some time. In fact, with so many flies, the whole little germ fest tends to recycle and the first kid who brought it into the house is starting round two of something while the last kid is just heading into recovery mode. It’s like a twisted game of germ tag.

So what was wrong with them? We probably had a bit of swine flu love, but it was nothing more than what seems to be regular winter germ fare – fevers, sore throats, coughs. I didn’t feel it was necessary to drag them to the doctor only to be told to get their germs out of her office and back home because they have the flu. Did I vaccinate them? Nah, waiting in line for five hours with six kids sounds more hideous than H1N1 itself.

Everyone ended up missing out on a few days of school and activities. Once things seemed to perk up they were back in action – a little case of the sniffles does not warrant a sick day around my place. They’re well versed on keeping their green bits to themselves and I’d never put them back into circulation if they posed a risk to their friends.

We seem to be nearing the end of the first round of this nonsense and my overall assessment of sick round #1 for this season is a mark of B+. Marks got docked because baby ended up in ER on Ventolin. We gained marks back because we got through it without any pukers, and most importantly mama didn’t get sick! As long as mama doesn’t get it, we’re golden. Once I go down, it’s all over, red rover.

Two particular quotes indicated we were nearing the end of round one:

1) 6-year-old who had spent a few days frequenting “the loo” called me over to the toilet to do an inspection and announced “Look! I think my poop is feeling better!”
2) 3-year-old whose nose resembled a leaky tap for several days said “Mama, my nose has gone quiet!”

So come on round two, we’re ready for ya – we’ve got immune systems and we ain’t afraid to use ‘em!