The Mom Blah Blah Blog

I’m not a writer.  I’m a fraud, a sham, a chartitan.  A jack of all trades, master of none.  I feel these things deeply as I read the works of the fellow members of my writing group.  I feel them deeply as I walk around in my skin every day. My inner critic is loud.  He is unscrupulous and harsh.  He doesn’t limit himself to a simple critique of my writing either, he shows up in my day to day life.  Lately I’ve become more aware of him.  Before it was just a quiet voice that whispered in my ear.  He talks all the time!  His voice background noise, static that I could tune into whenever I wanted.  It’s his right to address any part of me that he would like, talking about my appearance, my skills, my work, my hobbies, my weight.  Lately I’ve been addressing this voice, recognising him for what he is, a naysayer, a cynic, my harshest judge. A asked my husband what his inner critic sounded like after he had commented about a project he felt he hadn’t done well enough.  “I’ve never tho

I participated in a writing workshop this summer and the first thing we did as an introduction was a writing prompt about chocolate. This was my submission. It had been a while since I had written anything using a particular prompt. I enjoyed getting into the flow of writing creatively again. One dark, rich and earthy One white, sweet and buttery Different in every way Yet named the same The dark, flavour subtle Sits unmelting I stroke it with my tongue Turn it over, coax the flavour out There is depth A gentle smoky sweetness Nuts, coffee and warm seats by the fire in winter Comfort An invitation to stay longer Linger, settle in. The White It seems to start melting before it even hits my tongue Silky smoothness envelops me Coating my mouth and throat as I swallow It’s summer Bright, light and cool A refreshing walk on the beach Toes stretching out into the calm water I’m drawn more to the dark Always the dark The

Lately I have been in a few interesting and thought provoking conversations.  One of those revolved around an article entitled Why I Gave My Daughter Permission to Kick Your Son in the Balls.  The thought behind the article was that if you have exhausted all options and someone is persistent in assaulting you that you can defend yourself by any means necessary, and that includes kicking them in the balls. Another parent had then asked if it is okay to tell her son the same thing.  If it’s okay to tell a girl to get physical if she has tried to stop the perpetrator then would the same advice apply to a little boy who has been pestered or bullied by a girl.  This is not to say that she is implying a boy has every bit as much right to fight back as a girl but a question of if violence should be presented as an option for either sex.  Maybe we shouldn’t be telling girls that it’s okay to use physical retaliation either. I think this is quite sound reasoning.  Violence

Yesterday I was talking with my 8 year old boy.  We had discussed some issues with teasing at school throughout the evening and he had admitted that last year there was a boy that would tease him.  We knew that last winter he decided he didn’t like his coat.  After some prodding about why he eventually told us that someone had told him his jacket was puffy and made him look fat.  Apparently it wasn’t just about the jacket.  This little boy continued to tease our son for being fat over the course of the rest of the school year.  He has only just confessed this to us now.  Apparently our kids are brooders.   At one point in the summer Alex went downstairs after breakfast and was using the elliptical machine.  He told his sister it was because he was fat.   Our 8 year old boy thinks he needs to start working out to lose weight.  Let’s think about that for a second.  He vehemently denied that reasoning to us afterwards but we were a little concerned and had some conversations about hea

I have been noticing a disturbing trend on my social media feeds lately.  There are a number of people I am seeing that are posting articles (many not checked for legitimacy) that are calling on society to look at the damage that Antifa is perpetuating.  They would like for everyone to notice that there is violence on “both sides”.  I was speaking with someone as well who challenged me to see that even though white Supremacists aren’t good that answering them with violence and pulling down confederate statues is not doing them any favours.  It’s only stooping to their level.   Though I would agree that answering violence with violence is ineffectual and that it does give the white nationalists something to point fingers at I am extremely bothered by this pointing of fingers at Antifa and I will tell you why. When we start a cry of “but look at what the other side is doing too” it makes me think of children, crying to their parents.  It’s classic blame shifting.  I know I did thi

I did not attend the Women's March on Saturday, January 21st and I now regret it.  I have a lot of excuses why I didn't go.  It was over an hours drive away, I already had plans, I only heard about it vaguely, I didn't know who else was going and the biggest one, I'm Canadian. In fact I'm starting to think that my husband might be on the verge of having me committed for my obsession over this Donald Trump phenomena.  So when I heard that there was going to be a march my first though was that he might think I have gone completely off the deep end if I start going to protests of someone who isn't even my President.  Truthfully I didn't expect the march to draw the type of numbers it did.  I thought the Toronto march would be pretty sparsely attended and I might end up standing on the sidewalk with 50 or so lunatics like myself.  In order to spare myself the embarrassment I stuck to my plans. NO ONE predicted that this would turn out to be a record breaking