What I'd do differently next time

After reading this post on Babble about things the writer would do differently with a second child, I started thinking about what my list might look like. I have to say, I thought about a lot of things carefully before doing them. I think this was because of a couple of things: having two years between trying to conceive, losing our first baby & Sprout's birth probably gave me more time to think about how I wanted to parent. Being older in the first place (nearly 35 when Sprout was born) probably helped too.

Baby bathtub was useful... like, three times.

However, there are still a few things I think I'll do differently this time around. Here's my list so far. Please don't hold me to it in future! ;)

1. Buy lots of gear. We tried to restrain ourselves & got a lot of loans/hand-me-downs, but this time we just don't need much of anything. Also, despite avoiding a lot of gadgets, we still ended up with quite a few things that were unnecessary.
2. Try to toilet train because of other factors than the child's readiness. I thought Sprout was almost there back in February, but the main reasons I was trying to train him is that he was going to daycare & he was getting diaper rashes a lot again. (cloth or disposable--it doesn't seem to matter, they cause problems) It didn't work. After a couple months, we backed off & he wasn't ready until about a month before his third birthday. Then he was really ready & it just happened all within a month: daytime control over pee & poo as well as nighttime dryness.
3. Not going back to work for nearly three years. I started to realize after two years of stay-at-home parenting that it was driving me crazy. When I was younger, I never really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom & after a few years of trying it, I can confirm that it's not really my thing. I think staying home after my daughter's birth for a year, maybe 18 months tops will be enough.
4. Worry so much about everything. I like to think I'm a fairly laid-back parent in a lot of ways, but there are still a lot of things I could relax about & hopefully I will with our daughter. I've already relaxed about what I'm eating & drinking during my pregnancy. Last time around I never had a drop of alcohol, would obsess over every ingredient in herbal teas & I never ate anything that was on the no-no list (deli meats, soft cheeses, hot dogs, etc). I'm still avoiding all these things, but I know that the amount of active ingredients in herbal tisanes is very unlikely to have any effect on my fetus, as is a sip or two of beer.

Baby Led Weaning in action

These are some things that I think worked well, so I want to do them just the same:

1. Baby Led Weaning. This was so much fun & easier than making purees. The book promised a child who is an 'adventurous eater' & Sprout has truly become that. We can feed him pretty much anything & he really loves a lot of healthy foods.
2. Cloth diapering. It is more work than using disposables, but not much. I feel proud that we only contributed a few garbage bins full of disposables to the landfill, rather than the house-sized pile it would have been if we hadn't used cloth. We have the laundry machines in our house & I have the time to wash the diapers, so it just makes sense for us to do it again. Also: with two kids in diapers for five to six years total, using mainly the same set of diapers, I estimate we'll save several thousand dollars.
3. Putting as much effort into breastfeeding as possible. This time around, if I have low supply issues again, I'm not sure I'll be able to do all the pumping, appointments, gear washing/sterilizing, etc that I did last time around. I'm trying to do as much research as I can & get myself prepared with supplements & a plan to get things started off as well as possible from day one.
4. The birth. I guess getting to the hospital a wee bit earlier would be a good idea (I was fighting the urge to push before we even got in the car) but otherwise, BC Women's nurses & my midwife gave us great care & I'd be really happy to have a repeat of the short, drug-free birth that I had with Sprout. I know I haven't got a lot of control over how it all goes, but I'll keep my fingers crossed!

How about you? If you have two or more kids, what did you decide to do (or end up doing) differently with subsequent children? Got any advice for us?

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The Faces of Trades: Rivers Stonechild (+ $100 Home Depot Gift Card Giveaway!)

Rivers Stonechild, apprentice steel fabricator

Do you ever feel like you're stuck in a rut when it comes to your career? Maybe after five, ten or fifteen years, your heart just isn't in it, or you've realized that it just doesn't work for you & your family anymore?

That's where I was at not long ago & why I went back to school, so when I heard Rivers Stonechild's story, I could really relate to it. He's taking advantage of some great programs with ACCESS Trades & the Industry Training Authority (ITA) to retrain as a steel fabricator. I had the pleasure of interviewing him over the weekend. (contest details to follow the interview--don't get impatient!)

Originally from Saskatchewan, Rivers was born in Denver, Colorado, grew up in East Van & now lives in Burnaby. Just over a year ago, he was working at a Downtown Eastside shelter as an emergency weather relief worker, with irregular hours & shifts. With a family--he got married in 2011 & not long after discovered that their three kids were soon to become four--this job just wasn't ideal for him.

Rivers heard about ACCESS Trades, an ITA funded program that supports aboriginal British Columbians to upgrade their skills & retrain for a better life. ACCESS helped fund a living allowance while he was in school, plus tuition & books, tools for entry level positions in trades, as well as public transportation. Rivers says it's this support that made it possible for him to go into the trades: "It would have been really hard for me to sustain my living environment, transportation while I was in school. They even helped a bit with childminding too during summer (daycamps)."

Because he hadn't been in school for over 12 years, returning at age 32 was a little intimidating at the time. However, Rivers knew that upgrading his skills (he did about six months of math, reading skills & document use classes at ESAF) then seeking an apprenticeship was what he wanted to do. He jumped on the opportunity he got through ACCESS & the ITA, not letting his fear hold him back.

Though you might expect his classes to have been full of late teens & early twenty-somethings, Rivers says half the students were his age or older. "As time went on, I became more & more comfortable with that environment. I found it really enjoyable & I really miss being at BCIT. There were a lot of good people, the instructors were great." He also credits the mental, emotional, physical, & spiritual support he got from the aboriginal services on campus for helping him succeed during his five months in the BCIT metal fabrication foundation pre-apprenticeship program. One of the counsellors, Joanne Stone, was really important to Rivers' journey. "It was a special treat to have someone like that in my corner."

Since starting work as an apprentice steel fabricator, Rivers' life has changed in many ways. One of the major things was stability. He went from being a front-line worker where his job was year to year. Working at a shelter in the Downtown Eastside--as is so often the case with non-profit organizations--funding wasn't stable, so he never really had job security. For Rivers, apprenticing a trade like steel fabrication "...was a change for the best. It helped me to change that ability to have some solid work, a solid place where I can earn my Red Seal Journeyman qualification."

In a typical day at work as a fitter, Rivers gets material for journeyman, unloads trucks & equipment, as wells as supplies for around the shop like oxygen for burning. He's currently working at a CNC plasma high definition cutting facility. As an apprentice he's learning on the job: how to run the machines there; all about the material; the way that the people work in the shop.

Having just started his apprenticeship, Rivers has nearly three more years to go but he seemed very optimistic about his future. When I asked his advice for other people thinking about going into the trades, Rivers had this to say: "It's very important to set goals & follow your dreams, without that you never expand your horizons. Put yourself out there--if you don't, you'll never know. Push yourself, don't be afraid."




The Industry Training Authority (ITA) leads and coordinates British Columbia’s skilled trades system. ITA works with employers, employees, industry, labour, training providers and government to issue credentials, manage apprenticeships, set program standards, and increase opportunities in the trades.

ITA is a provincial crown agency and governed by a nine-person Board of Directors, who have skills, experience and qualifications directly related to the trades. ITA was established in 2004.


For more information, visit the ITA website, follow them on Facebook, Twitter & take a look at their other videos on YouTube. 

Thanks for reading! & now for the contest...


a Rafflecopter giveaway


Disclaimer: this is a sponsored post.

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The Trouble With Home-Based Daycare

Waiting for the bus on our way home from daycare.

Our home daycare provider is awesome. I’m very happy that we found her back in February. She really cares about each of the kids & runs the daycare like a little preschool. Sprout has thrived under her care & comes home every day singing a new song or demonstrating new skills like identifying colours & letters or using better manners than we’ve taught him.

However, the trouble with a home-based daycare is when she gets sick, it closes down. This week we had three days of scrambling for care while our daycare provider recovered from a nasty bug. We’ve been lucky to have flexible hours at work so that we can make four hours of grandparent care a couple of days & work from home another day, with some entertainment provided by Uncle Mikey. I'm not sure what the other parents did.

I don’t blame our daycare provider—she’s doing the best she can. It's awful to be really ill when she's pregnant with a toddler to look after too. I blame the BC government’s lack of investment in early childhood education. If we’d been able to access a daycare centre—say, one of the 25 that I called to try to find a place back in February—this wouldn’t likely be an issue. If one staff member gets sick, there are other workers. The place doesn’t shut down.

It’s great that families can find care for their children with home-based daycares, but this isn’t really a solution to the childcare crisis in this province. Besides the issue of the daycares closing down due to illness of the provider or their child(ren), there’s also the fact that many of them cost more than a childcare centre. I found after calling literally dozens of centres that their rates were on average lower than what I found with home-based care providers.

Again, I don't blame the home daycares--I think everyone who takes care of children should be well-paid & well trained. I don't understand why our government seems to think that children younger than five don't deserve to have well-educated & fairly paid workers taking care of them & teaching them. 

We really need a government that is willing to invest in childcare so that every child who needs it has a space in a childcare centre. I support the $10 a day plan because that would make childcare so much more affordable for most families, which would mean more parents (read: moms) would be able to rejoin the work force. The impact of subsidized care is pretty obvious in Quebec--studies have shown that for every dollar invested in subsidized childcare, about $1.40 comes back by way of income & consumer taxes from more working parents as well as actual provincial GDP growth. (This article has links & more info)

You can read more in the Coalition of Childcare Advocates of BC's fact sheets here, then personally endorse the $10/day childcare plan here, then start bugging your MLA & the candidates in your riding about this issue. Talk to your friends, post it on Facebook & tweet it. Tell them about the return on investment & get the word out that (contrary to what Christy Clarke says) it would be a net gain, not an expense for our province.

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A Day in the Life

A whole lotta this...

After my first full week at school in the PR program at SFU, plus a little 'networking' with my classmates (read: pigging out on panko-breaded chicken strips & fries with tonnes of ketchup), I was ready for a weekend.

Sunday was my 'Saturday' (keep this in mind when you're all yelling TGIF--I've got one more school day to go! :P) & I spent the first half of it researching potential practicum placements. In the afternoon, after we actually managed to get Sprout to nap, we headed to the BC Home & Garden Show. I have to admit, I was underwhelmed. True, we did get there in the last hour & a half of the show, but I was expecting it to look a bit less like a trade show, I guess. I didn't see any kid-friendly stuff there either, except one booth with wooden playground structure thingies.

Today, my 'Sunday', I had a really productive day. I biked Sprout to daycare by a little after 9am, picked up a book at the library that i need for school (Canadian Press Style Guide) & biked back home in time to do an information interview with the lovely Jeanette of Limelite PR, via Skype. Between that & the time my stomach rumbling got the better of me, I did an overhaul of my LinkedIn profile.

While munching on a bagel & an apple, I sorted out some Sprog-related business & responded to literally dozens of emails relating to school stuff & my board work with the Mount Pleasant Family Centre Society. I got started on some of my homework & then realized it was time to go pick up Sprout from daycare, so I zipped over by bike again.

With just a little bit of this.

Once Sprout is home, it's pretty hard to just jump back into work, so I made us some smoothies (banana, mango, soy milk, oatmeal, hemp hearts & chia, in case you were wondering) while he rode around on his collection of ride-on toys on the deck. Oli got home at this point & I was able to get back to work for an hour or two while he made dinner & Sprout alternately tried to sit on me or hijack my computer. I managed to get started on redoing my resume & do a little writing work for Hawksworth as well, despite some Gmail issues, dinner & toddler tantrums.

At just after 10pm, I'm pretty tired. Also proud that I got so much done today on only five or six hours of sleep. Here's hoping I can sustain this productivity for the next, oh, eight weeks.

What was your day like today?


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Hitting the Ground Running

Higher learning: a uni on top of a mall.

First day of school down. My transit connections went well on the way there & I arrived quite early for class. In the morning we began our first assignment, a bio of a classmate, due tomorrow morning. I was lucky enough to be put in the only group of three, so I got to know two of my PR Program classmates a bit better today.

We talked about our practicums quite a bit in the morning. April--when we're set to do our three weeks of work experience--seemed so far away until we started talking about deadlines, information interviews & networking to set it all up. I have about three weeks to decide which direction I want to go in with my practicum, secure myself a place & officially confirm it.

The afternoon was a workshop mainly on the labour market, the hidden job market & networking. (Speaking of networking, if you know anyone working in PR/Communications in the Vancouver area...) It seems odd to be talking about how to get work almost before we've started the program, but in such a compressed program (six weeks of classes, then a three week practicum), I guess it makes sense.

I've started making lists already of contacts & even emailed a couple of people for information interviews. I feel like I should be able to find a good practicum on my own, if I don't apply for one of the already established ones on the list, but I need to figure out what exactly I'm looking for. Do I want to work for a PR firm? A bigger one or a boutique? Should I try for the non-profit sector? A charity? What about working for the in-house PR of a big corporation? Maybe a political party? A lot to think about...

A view from the Skytrain. If you look past all the parking lots, the mountains were quite lovely...

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What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up

Me at work a few years ago: ESL teacher on an excursion*

It's that time again... Listicles! This week's topic is pretty awesome: ten things you thought you'd do or be back when you were a child. My ideas about what I'd be & do when I grew up changed every year. I can't really come up with ten jobs that I wanted as a kid, so I'll have to include other things too. Here's a list:

1. Artist: I started drawing as soon as I could hold a crayon & my love for making visual art eventually led me to a couple of years at Emily Carr after high school. I don't really make much art anymore, though as a stilt performer, I suppose you'd call me an artist.
2. Nurse: my mom had these books with envelopes for each school year where we'd write our height, weight & career aspirations next to our school photo. I think I wrote this one year.
3. A lawyer: I think I put this down into the book one year... or thought about it for a few months. I like arguing... but I wasn't interested in the actual job when I realized what the working environment & hours would be like.
4. Writer: this was one that sort of alternated with artist from year to year. & I'm proud to say, as of 2011, I've actually gotten paid to do it, if not made an actual living at it. Though not as a novelist, which is what I was envisioning in those ancient times before blogs & laptops.
5. Well-travelled: I've done a couple of month-long international trips to Europe. I've been to Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands & England. Also the US, on other trips, mostly with family. I'd still like to do a lot more travelling, but MAN is it expensive & Europe is REALLY far away from the west coast of Canada.
6. A fashion designer: I started really basic hand sewing when I was in kindergarten & was using my mom's Singer by age 9. Combined with my love of drawing, this was a natural fit. I still sew & I love to see a designer's couture line on the runway, but as a career? Nah.
7. A librarian: I think I wanted to be this at one point when I was small. I love reading & always have--a big thanks to my parents who are both bookworms & passed it on to us too.
8. A book illustrator. A bit more specific than artist. I'd still like to do this some day...
9. Married: When I was little, I always assumed I'd meet someone, fall in love & then get married. Though there was a brief few years where I decided marriage was backward & didn't fit with my politics, I eventually caved to societal pressure in 2003. Also, I wanted to have a big party.
10. A mother: This was step two after the fall-in-love-&-get-married bit. Also decided I wasn't ever going to have kids when I was 21ish. I pretended I didn't want to have kids for years after that so my mom wouldn't hassle me for grandchildren as much. Didn't work. She started knitting for the grandchildren YEARS before she ever actually had any.

I'm pretty sure if I looked back at that book, I wouldn't find teacher written in there. I thought it was the last thing I'd do, particularly in high school. I didn't become a high school teacher, but in my eight years as an ESL teacher I did teach my fair share of teenagers, as well as adults. Spending most of my childhood in small towns in BC, I wasn't exposed to a lot of crazy circus performers, so I didn't really envision becoming a stilt walker until I was an adult & I started to see them at festivals here in East Van. I also never could have anticipated the way the internet would become such a huge part of my life: blogger or social media manager just didn't exist in the 1980s.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you do it or were the results completely different from what you expected as a child?

*APOLOGIES for the quality of this photo. It was taken on my first camera phone: a 0.3 megapixel Nokia something-or-other.

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Daycare Decided

We did it. We picked a daycare for Sprout. I'm relieved that the search is over, happy it didn't take too long & hopeful that we've picked somewhere that will work for all of us. He'll be with three other little kids & I think he'll really enjoy the outings planned, as well as the music & singing they do each afternoon.

Because the area where we live is full of young families, there are tons of home-based daycares to choose from. We found one we like that's close to home & will be directly on our way to work & school. Though I am still annoyed at the lack of interest our government has in funding childcare in this province & I think there should be many more spaces at group childcare centres, I'm happy with our choice of care. Sprout will start there in less than a month, about a week before I start school so we can ease him into it as gradually as necessary. He's already very comfortable at the house--the two times he's been there, he made himself right at home immediately--it's just being away from me for up to nine hours that he'll have to get used to again.

Farmer at the dentist, Johann Liss. Wikimedia Commons

I have to admit--I'm really looking forward to that week he starts--I don't have much planned except a dentist appointment. But what luxury: just going to the dentist. By myself! No stroller to wrestle through heavy doors! No squirmy small person to dress & undress for the winter weather! The other days that he'll be there for a few hours I can... say, sew something without him stealing pins out of my pincushion. Or read a book without him jumping on me. Or go shopping & look at something for more than a minute without him either running off or trying to tip the stroller over.

I love my son. But after two & a half years of being with him pretty much full time, I'm really looking forward to some time to myself. I probably won't even cry when I leave him a full day at daycare. Probably.







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A Busy Week Ahead: Friends, Fish, a Fairy & Fun!

I feel like I'm getting busier & busier with events & various commitments these days. I'm not really complaining though--it's manageable & I honestly like being busy. Today I'll be attending a Board Basics workshop, to help learn how to be a better board member for the Mount Pleasant Family Centre. Then Sprout & I will be getting a tour of the Vancouver Aquarium with some of my favourite blogger friends. (Stay tuned for more on that later or watch my Instagram feed if you must see something today!) If I've still got any energy left, I will head up Burnaby Mountain to help celebrate my cousin's 30th birthday tonight.

Tomorrow I'll be volunteering for Modo the Car Co-op at Got Craft!, so if you're going to be there from noon to about 2 pm, look for me! I'll be roving around & talking to people about how car sharing works. Next up the same day is the Vancouver Mom Christmas get together. I wasn't able to make it to last year's, so I'm really looking forward to seeing all the Vancouver Mom crew in real life--I usually just talk to them via email & tweets.

The Christmas parties keep coming with the Mount Pleasant Family Centre staff & board party on & Hawksworth Communications next week. I guess this is a benefit to freelancing--more parties!

Thursday is the Mount Pleasant Family Centre's big Holiday Party. If you're in the neighbourhood, come on down to the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House on East Broadway. Decorate cookies, visit with Santa, sing & have fun from 9:30am-12:30pm. I'll be performing there (look for a 9-foot fairy) along with Dawn Dreams & Pete "Redbird" Graham-Gaudreau.

One last thing to mention: I'm selling tickets for the Mount Pleasant Family Centre's holiday raffle. It is a fundraiser to help support all the wonderful work that the Family Centre does throughout the year. There are more than a dozen prizes to be won, donated from some awesome local businesses: a three month pass to Eastside Fitness, gift certificates from Collage Collage, Wee Ones Reruns Children's store, Beaucoup Bakery, the Outpost Cafe, Fray restaurant ($100!), Lucky's Comics, Sal Y Limon restaurant, 4Cats Art Studio, Beansprouts, Granville Island Toy Company, The Tipper restaurant, a gift basket from Nester's Market & a St. Moritz watch! Tickets are $2 each or $5 for three of them. Please contact me if you'd like to buy some!

Hope you're having a great holiday season so far, full of mandarin oranges, hot chocolate, parties & whatever you love to do & eat at this time of year!



Nothing says “best gift ever” like a caribou!
 

Starting at just $40, Gifts of Canadian Nature help protect habitat for Canada’s native wildlife. A Gift of Canadian Nature lasts for years to come and is a gift that gives thrice! Once to the recipient with a personalized certificate and a beautiful calendar, once to the giver with a charitable tax receipt, and once to Canadian wildlife. This year we are featuring the snowy owl, the grizzly bear, the caribou, the gray fox and the Canada lynx. Click the image or follow this link for more information.

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Helicopter Parenting

Have you heard of 'Helicopter Parenting'? If you haven't, it's the newish term for parents who are overprotective & too involved in their children's lives. Check out this infographic on the impact of Helicopter Parenting on the lives of young adults.

What do you think? Should parents stay directly involved in the lives of their children when it comes to post secondary education & careers? When is it time to let go? 

I'd love to hear what you think in the comments below...

 

Happy Labour Day, folks!

Graphic nabbed from the Facebook page of The Other 98%

Stopping to smell the flowers & chat with strangers

City worker just finished raking up the last of the tree bits.

Something I love about parenting is how it makes me stop & pay attention to things I'd ordinarily ignore. A couple of days ago, a city crew was out pruning trees on our street. Sprout heard the noise of their saws & was drawn to the window. I brought him outside & we watched from a safe distance on our front steps. Sprout paid rapt attention as the men cut low branches & suckers off the base of the trees, then tossed them into the truck.

After the guys had finished the work with the power saws, we went a bit closer & they chatted with us a bit as they used loppers & hand saws to finish off the job. The younger guy on the crew told me proudly that he had a 15-month-old & showed us a photo of her on his smartphone. Situations like this happen all the time when I'm out & about with Sprout. People seem more inclined to talk to you when they have a baby or toddler watching their activities. 

I think the frequent conversations with strangers--be it other parents at the playground, elderly ladies on the bus, city workmen of various sorts in our neighbourhood, people asking about the bike seat when we're stopped at lights--has really helped me feel more connected to my community. I find regularly talking to other people & finding common ground with strangers (we both have toddlers, for example) is so key to maintaining empathy for others, seeing that we're all in the same boat. I hope that it'll rub off on Sprout too.

It's not just about having a child, however. Living in a pedestrian-oriented urban neighbourhood, taking transit & cycling a lot, we have so many opportunities to interact with people. I wonder if we'd talk to strangers as often if we lived in a less dense car-oriented suburb?

Do you find that you talk to strangers more since you have a child? (or a dog--I hear you get a similar effect)

 

Change.org|Start an Online Petition

"So, what do you do?"

Recently someone asked me what I do for a living & I replied, "I'm a writer & a stilt performer." Without hesitation or qualification.

When I thought about it later, it felt really good to realize that I've sort of grown into this new identity. I'm no longer a mostly-stay-at-home-mom-blogger-who-used-to-be-an-ESL-teacher-&-does-a-bit-of-writing-&-stilting-on-the-side.

Sprout visits Mama 'at the office'

Though it's a challenge to rebuild my stilting business after two years off due to pregnancy in an environment of severe arts funding cuts, I have been a professional stilt performer for nearly a decade now. I've taught classes in stilt walking & building. I've performed at hundreds of events: parades, festivals, grand openings, parties, weddings & a TV commercial this week.

Saying I'm a stilt performer wasn't really that tricky. The writer part of my identity is the newer one, though I've been writing for myself--in diaries, terrible teen angsty poetry & blogs--since I was about ten. I have put in who knows how many hours writing research papers in literature, language, anthropology, women's studies, linguistics, psychology, art history & more that I've surely repressed. I wrote a lot of tip sheets & lesson plans for my classes when I taught ESL. But I never actually got paid to write until about a year ago.

Since then I've started writing articles for Vancouver Mom Magazine, about where to eat, what to do & what's going on in the city. Not long after that, I started writing for Hawksworth Communications, crafting press releases for their clients' luxury hotels, resorts & restaurants, chef & restaurateur bios, plus copy for a new website (check it out here: O! Osoyoos Celebrates!).

An added complication to the answer to "What do you do?" was that I decided to go back to school to become a Speech Language Pathologist in 2010. I did ten university courses in just over two years (with a few months off to, you know, have a baby & all that. It was only in my last semester that I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get the straight A+ grades that I needed to pull up my only-slightly-above-average GPA from my undergrad degree. & that was just to meet the minimum requirements for the program. Competing with hundreds of keener applicants for 23 spaces would probably mean I'd need a much higher GPA, plus a lot of volunteer experience.


I struggled with the decision, but I just wasn't willing to stay in school another few years so that I could try to get into a program to go to school for two more. I just didn't want it bad enough to be able to compete with the twenty-somethings who seemed to have nothing else in their lives but school. So I quit once I'd completed the last semester worth of requirements for a Speech Sciences certificate (still have to apply for that). Since I made the decision, I've thrown myself into writing & I haven't looked back.

A lot of big & small opportunities have come my way since I started writing seriously. I won't bore you with all of them, but here are my favourites.This spring I was honoured with a spot in the top 30 of Vancouver Mom's Ultimate Blogger competition. I also got to work with the lovely ladies of Limelite PR to help promote the Vancouver International Children's Festival as a Superfan. I've recently done a couple of interviews for other publications & started interviewing people myself for The Sprog's Bike Life feature. A few writing & social media related jobs have floated my way because of the writing I'm doing. Even if I didn't get the gig, it was still flattering that someone came to me to ask me to apply for a job.

Being a writer feels right to me. It's not easy to get out coherent prose when there's a toddler demanding my full attention & I struggle to find the self-discipline to work for myself after a lifetime of being told what to do, how to do it & when I was allowed to go pee. But this identity as a writer fits, better than being an ESL teacher did.

 Yup, I'm a writer & a stilt performer.

What I've been reading lately

Great article on avoiding gender stereotyping with your children. It's much more than boys wearing blue & girls wearing pink, it's about boys not learning to talk about their emotions & girls learning to be passive.

Since I first wrote about it in my post, Mount Pleasant Pride, I've learned a lot more on Vancouver's Smallest Park, aka, 'Gather Round' & how you can get involved in greening our city further.

Source: amightygirl.com via A Mighty Girl on Pinterest

Some picture book suggestions from A Mighty Girl. Even if you don't have a daughter, don't you want your son to see examples of strong girls too? It's not just girls who need these role models & great characters they can identify with. Boys need to see girls in stories that aren't pathetic princesses. 

A really long, but worthwhile op-ed on the myth of having it all as a working mother. Creating a mythical SuperMom ideal just makes most of us feel like crap because we can't achieve that. We need fundamental change from our workplaces to make work & family more compatible for mothers.

A perspective on how much freedom to allow a toddler. I'm constantly asking myself, "Should I let him do that?" I can't swaddle him in bubble wrap & prevent every single bruise, but where's the line between overprotective too lax?

Not really something I've been reading, but rather watching: a short CBC news story on a few warrior princess type characters in movies marketed at girls. Maybe, just maybe, Hollywood & Disney in particular are getting the message that the passive pink princess types of yesteryear need a serious revamp. Check it out:

Countdown

Not the most thrilling reads, sadly.

It's end-of-semester crunch time: today I have a phonology midterm, then several articles & chapters of reading to do for all my courses, next week I have a report due on a neurolinguistics article, the following week I've got a big research proposal paper due, as well as another phonology problem, then near the end of April an exam in my speech science course. Taking three courses at SFU while contributing to Vancouver Mom, doing a little freelance writing, posting articles here daily--oh, & parenting a toddler--has stretched me. There are a lot of things that I should be doing or would like to be doing that I've been able to shove to the back burner, put on the after-April-22-when-I'm-free list. I'm kind of looking forward to getting at that list.

Minimizing: my electronic 'diet'

Cartoon by Dave Walker

While reading through my Google Reader stream, I came upon a post by The Minimalist Mom which had a cartoon in it. The cartoon was apparently free to use for bloggers, so I followed the link to see more. I found the site of Dave Walker & a few more cartoons. There I got the idea two write this post.

For the last few months I've been trying to become a bit more productive in the use of my computer. A big part of that is gradually reducing my Facebook time. This is easier said than done because a lot of my family is on FB, not to mention all my friends, at least to some degree or another. I get news there, I ask for advice, I hear about events... but I also waste tons of time just surfing, reading useless information & plain old voyeurism.

Since I'm on my computer for several hours a day, every day of the week & FB is often open in a tab somewhere, it was difficult to estimate how much I was actually using the site. So when I found the app RescueTime (sorry, can't remember where) I downloaded it right away. RescueTime keeps track of what apps & sites I'm using & sends me a report at the end of the week to let me know how productive I was. I've customized it to categorize my use of OpenOffice & Blogger as productive writing time, for example. Adobe Reader is also in that category, as a lot of my course reading is PDFs of journal articles or eBooks. Using FB or Google Reader is in the not-so-good category. Getting a weekly report has helped me whittle down my FB time to under an hour a day. I suspect in some of my worst weeks, before I started my 'diet', I was probably on FB for at least double that much time.

Another way I've been pruning my less-than-productive screen time is by editing my Google Reader subscriptions. Just a few months ago, I was probably sifting through maybe 70 blogs, many of which  post daily. The topics ranged from politics to crafting to parenting to personal finance to fashion to home decor to environmental issues & more. But it was a huge time suck just to sift through all the posts, even though I wasn't reading every one. So I started deleting the subscriptions to the blogs I wasn't reading much.  I also cut out anything that was too focussed on product reviews, giveaways & basically just the whole business of making you want to buy more stuff. I don't really need a constant diet of beautiful photos of well-curated, spotless show homes or gorgeous, thin, young models in expensive clothing in my RSS feed to make me feel inadequate, thankyouverymuch. Then I got more ruthless & started deleting the blogs that were nice, but I wasn't really learning anything from. Now we're down to 45 subscriptions in total, about ten of which are friends (in real life) who rarely post. I look forward to seeing how this affects my productivity score in RescueTime in the coming weeks.

Have you ever gone on an electronic 'diet'? What did you try to reduce? How did you do it? What were your results?

Night owl or early bird?

I remember someone asking me if I was a night person or a morning person & I wasn't entirely sure. If I get  into a routine like I did with my last full-time job, I can get up at 7am without an alarm every day, no problem. But really, why is that question hard for me to answer? Sure I can get up in the morning if I have to, but when I don't have to my natural sleep rhythm shifts later & later.

I'm at my most creative around midnight, typically. In fact, it's 1:45 am right now, as I'm typing this blog post. Writing seems to come easiest to me at night, but it's not limited to that. I used to do tons of drawing & painting into the wee hours, way back when I used to do a lot of those. I tend to want to bake things in the evening too. Tonight I made a double batch of gingersnaps at 9:30pm.

Also, if I think back to the days when we had two healthy kitties, I didn't exactly spring out of bed to feed them when they demanded it at dawn every morning. I love cats, but they are definitely better for early risers.

I'm very happy that I have a child & husband who seem to have similar proclivities when it comes to sleeping. Oli hates mornings a bit more than I do, I think. Sprout has never been an early riser either. He usually goes to bed between 9 & 10pm, getting up for the day at 8 or 9am. He generally wakes up earlier than that, but goes right back to sleep when brought into our bed for another hour or three. I really enjoy the morning family cuddle that's become the routine now.

Are you a morning person or a night owl? What about your family or pets? Have you had to compromise for work?

What are we working for anyway?

Photo from  Mamboman1 on Flickr.

Do you ever just get the desire to opt out? Just leave civilization & become a hermit off the grid? I find this feeling has been coming up more & more lately because our little family is at a crossroads. Neither of us are working much, Sprout's not in school yet--other than social & family connections, what's tying us to our neighbourhood? Our province? Our country? I start asking what if...? What if we rented the house to someone else & moved to Germany for a while? What if we sold the house & bought a home on Bowen or a Gulf Island? What if we sold the house, bought some land in the middle of nowhere & built a treehouse run by photovoltaics & turbines?

So far, a lot of our time & energy has gone into the goal of owning a house in Vancouver, not Greater Vancouver, but the City of Vancouver. Because we're nowhere near rich & neither of us made a lot of money when we were working, there had to be some serious compromises to do this. Our choices were limited by the fact that the house had to have one or two rentable 'mortgage helpers'. We had to buy an older place: built in 1946, the last time it was renovated substantially was 1969. Sadly, this house hasn't been cherished or invested in by its previous owners, judging by how many people bought & sold it in the last 20 years or so during all that real estate insanity. Unfortunately, the condition of the roof, sundeck & downstairs suites reflects this lack of concern for the future. Most of the previous owners' repairs have been half-assed quick fixes to hide the problem then make a quick buck, things our home inspector called 'years of marginal renovations'.

Enough whining about the house. First World problems, right? Even though it's on a somewhat busy street, it is in a neighbourhood we like. Transit is really good here & we're close to several bike routes, plus there are lots of Modo vehicles near us, so we don't need to own a car. We can walk to cafes, restaurants & shopping within five minutes & there are plenty of parks, community centres & other places for Sprout to play. We have a full-size city lot with lots of room for veggies in the back yard.

But is this what I want? Do I want to be paying off a mortgage here until I'm 60? Do I want to stay in such an expensive city? I find it a bit depressing that only the friends who got onto the rickety 'property ladder' a decade ago when we did are homeowners. It's hard not to wonder what it would be like to live in one of those towns where we could get a beautiful new home for less than half what our house here in Vancouver is worth. Do I want to live in a busy city? Might I be happier somewhere rural, where I couldn't see or hear my neighbours? Somewhere that my concerns might shift to bears raiding my freezer, rather than junkies stealing my bike? I've always thought of myself as an urban person, but then again I've never lived anywhere else as an adult. Maybe I just need a vacation...

Whether or not we make any big changes, I think it's still worth asking the questions because we haven't got great jobs that we'd hate to give up, Sprout's pretty portable, I'm two months away from finishing school. If we were to move to Europe for six months or a year, we wouldn't have to worry about finding a cat sitter now that Stimpy is gone. I mean, we'd have to figure out what to do with our house plants & all our stuff, sort out renting the house or something, but we could. We could just go somewhere.

Exam #2 of 3

Just a quickie post today, as I've got an exam. It's for my Syntax course--absolutely thrilling, I assure you--my second exam of three this semester. Besides the fact that there's a small person crawling around my ankles, trying to interest me in a game of  'point at things we see out the window' or 'look at the high thing I can now climb on top of & teeter on', clambering onto my lap, poking my chest & demanding noms, I've got a lot on my plate at the moment. Trying to find time to study has been a serious challenge at this time of year: I've found that so many other projects have piled up & need my attention. 


I'll breathe a big sigh of relief when I step out of my last exam Saturday & head home. Then I'll have a beer--maybe one of the various Belgian ones we've collected over the past year, or another Bête Noire. Those are tasty...

Performing at the Christmas Market

Come out to the Vancouver Christmas Market's Winter Carnival December 10th. This year is the second for the traditional German Christmas market & it's going to be even better than the last. There's a Carousel, lots of booths selling holiday goodies, gifts & you can warm up with a cup of traditional Gluhwein (hot mulled red wine). There are Christmas trees & twinkly lights everywhere, gorgeous decorations from Germany on offer & German snacks aplenty (bratwurst & Bretzel, anyone?). The market is located next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, enter at the corner of Georgia & Hamilton Street. Admission is $5 for 13+, $2 for ages 7-12.
I'll be there, performing as Jacqueline Frost, sporting a newly revamped costume, with another wintry tall person. We'll be roving the market between 11am & 1:45pm. Look for a couple in sparkly white & blue, about ten feet tall...

PS--If you don't make it on the Saturday, try going on a weekday if you're free--admission is only $2 for everyone before 4pm.

Paperless Gift Wrap Tutorial

I made my first video tutorial to explain how to wrap gifts with my paperless gift wraps. If you'd like to buy some, I have a few still available on Etsy.