“We have a rule in our house,” said a female Member of the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly at an event called Campaign School for Women that I was attending all weekend. “Whichever parent that is not in the middle of an election is what we call the P.I.C. – the Parent In Charge. The P.I.C. makes all the…
Fatherhood
Distraction
Distraction. Before becoming a parent I thought I understood the term. After all, life is full of distractions for every single one of us. But kids bring a particularly insistent type of distraction. When I was a kid, having to buckle my pants after a trip to the bathroom was a distraction. As a…
What Marriage, Doctor Who, and the Kardashians Have in Common
Some time ago Laura asked me to contribute something to her blog. And like any good husband I procrastinated, delayed, and invented implausible excuses. Years have since passed. Thankfully, Laura is less patient about other requests, otherwise dishes might be stacked to the ceiling, the floor might be covered in cheerios and we would have…
Not Crying Over Spilled Milk
Text message. 10:24pm. Tuesday night. Hi. Any idea when you’ll be home? When I arrived home from work earlier that day, I didn’t automatically run to my bedroom to take off my bra and throw on sweat pants and put my hair in a ponytail, like I normally do. In fact, that morning I had…
Least Favourite
It was Sunday morning and we were on our way to church. I was in the driver’s seat and my two babies were sitting peacefully in their carseats behind me, watching the word zip by outside the windows. As I pulled up to a red light, I took a peek at each of my boys…
Little Too Big
As Cameron’s language skills have been developing, we have gotten to a point as a family where we can pretty much understand everything he is trying to express. At times though, there have been words that stump us for a long while. “Ridrent” was one. It took me weeks to finally figure out that Cameron was…
The Father He Is
I don’t know why it is so hard for me to express my Father’s Day thoughts. I write about family. That is what I do. But today, it isn’t so easy. Maybe it is because I know that no matter what I do, I cannot make this Father’s Day great for my husband. In fact,…
Deflated
As I neared the end of my pregnancy with Gavin, I wanted to ensure that Cameron would still be getting entertainment and stimulation and special Cameron-only activities. I signed him up for a few programs that were to start a few weeks before my due date. Specifically, I had him enrolled in a program at…
Imagine Life Instead
Truthfully? Things have been tough lately. Today marks the start of Gavin’s seventh week on earth and Dan’s third week back at work. The transition to full-time solo-parenting between the hours of nine and five would be a tough transition for anyone, but we’ve been faced with a slightly more challenging scenario. As I type…
The Tweetest Thing: A Birth Story
Here is my confession: I don’t like reading Birth Stories. I love the actual story, but when written down they tend to get long and wordy before they start getting interesting. While I’m at it, I might as well admit something else: After going through hours of labour, the memory of my birthing experiences always seem…
Mama Home
“Dada? Mama sick. Mama sick. Mama no home.” We had just seen Cameron for the first time after leaving home for the hospital nineteen hours earlier to deliver his baby brother. For the first time in a long time, someone other than Mommy or Daddy had put him to bed the night before and for…