Friday was a BIG day: focus on each kid!

Cookies for Graydon’s school closing ceremonies—flowers, stars and ice cream cones—and initial cookies for my friend’s five-year-old Antonia’s birthday party on Saturday) The Friday sked was jam-packed with special parental moments, so jam-packed that this post reaches you three days late! But it’s here… Friday morning was the closing ceremony for the school year at [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! WFMW The perfect garden

It’s Works for Me Wednesday, the day of the week when Shannon hosts a blog carnival for bloggers to post and exchange tips and tricks of every kind imaginable. Once you’ve read mine, click through to her site to find several hundred more! I love a good garden, but I’m a lousy soil conditioner, planter, [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! Friday at the ER

Is there any experience more central to parenting than spending the day in ER? Notice I said “the day” and not “two hours”? When I was a child, it seemed you fell out of a tree, you went to the hospital, you came home two hours later with a cast and an ice cream. Now, [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! Root canals and raccoons

Isn’t this pretty? I am trying today to focus on pretty, sparkly, pleasant things because yesterday I capped off seven days of increasing tooth and jaw pain with an emergency pulpectomy, which felt as horrible as the word sounds. This morning I am off the painkillers, hitting the ibuprophen, taking four horse-pill clindamycin HCL 300mg, [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! WFMW faster, lower-fat sandwiches

Yes, it is time for Works for Me Wednesday, a blog carnival where bloggers offer tips and tricks that work for them. It is hosted by Shannon, so when you’ve read my offering, check out the several hundred bloggers’ tips there! Shannon’s tip today is that she is on a diet—she calls it Changing and [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! Mum’s Day presents

I often say at the end of a posting, pics to come tomorrow, and then like the “I’ll call you! We’ll get together for drinks!” that never happens, so do my photos. But those days are gone. We now have a little light table and two lights, and for the first time in a long [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! Mother’s Day

I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day, or Grandmother’s Day, or Auntie’s Day. Mine started with breakfast in bed (actually, mine started at 2:00 a,m. when Tessa came rushing into my bedroom in a panic over a fish-tank trauma, but I’m saving that for another day. This is an uncomplicated Mother’s Day post). I [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! Children’s Mental Health Week: Kids with social anxiety

Hi! To tie up Children’s Mental Health Week, I welcome a guest blogger to Canadian Living’s Mom Blog. Let me introduce Darlene, who has been advocating for her daughter for more than three years now. As Darlene knows, you can (and she has) read textbooks on anxiety disorders, but in the end we seem to [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! Children’s Mental Health Week—my favourite kids books

This is NOT one of those bloggy things where I take a photo of my bedside table and then dissect the books piled there (you lucky people!) (the list includes more Grade 2 books than mine, and more magazines than books). In keeping with Children’s Mental Health Week, I’m going to share a few of [...]

Mom blog: Because I Said So! The choking game?

“What’s the choking game?” That was Luka’s first question in the car on the ride to school this morning. Hmmm, he was listening to the news in between reading a book and trying to sneak a peek at Pokemon. There was an item on new figures from a study by the Centre for Addiction and [...]