Parenting advice. There's a lot of it out there—speakers and authors telling you what to do, other moms offering up often unsolicited advice, message boards where everyone is free to weigh in, and even your own mother, or mother-in-law, or step-mother, or grandmother, with well-meaning advice . . .
I can vividly recall a moment in my childhood when I was subjected to "relational aggression," though I'm certain it didn't have such a fancy name back then.
So it's the first week of January and I finally have some time to sit down and think about what I want for this new year. Pre-kids, I would have been more organized and would have gotten around to setting goals or at least thinking about resolutions while it was still December. But not anymore! The last few weeks of December were spent trying to keep my kids entertained and busy during the holidays after our plans to go to Ottawa were called off due to the crazy ice storm.
A few weeks ago my incredibly brave three-year-old took my mother by the hand and pulled her toward the Dragon Roller Coaster at Centreville, the amazing kid-friendly amusement park on Toronto's Centre Island.
My mom went with her because I refused to. I don't like roller coasters. Even if they don't go upside down.
While the title of this blog is Our Happy Place and I try to wear my rose coloured glasses whenever possible, truth be told, I'm a bit of a nervous Nellie. I freak out and call my doctor over innocuous medical symptoms. I read the news and imagine terrible things happening to me and my family. And, I yell at my husband when he pushes my daughter too high on the swing.
If there has ever been a time in my two-and-a-half years of parenthood that I've NEEDED wine (and I mean bottles and bottles of wine) it would definitely have been this past weekend when I embarked on the task of toilet training my toddler. And yet, by the time I got around to taking this messy and tantrum-filled bull by the horns, wouldn't ya know I'd be pregnant and not even allowed to drink.