A Good Mother.

January 15, 2016February 18, 201610 Comments

This is not exactly my typical type of post, but I needed to get something off my chest. That’s what blogging is about, right?

Today marked a milestone in my life as a mother. Nope, not a tooth or a first food. Not a birthday or a first step. Not a smile or a word.

Today was the first time I experienced extreme judgement from a complete stranger, all because of the actions of a child.

It’s Friday afternoon and a dear friend and I got together for lunch. It’s dreary, it’s January. It’s miserable. We had both had tough weeks with our little ones. We enjoyed coffee and a chat and fed our babies lunch. Words such as “we’re surviving” and “its fine” came up. It was refreshing to get together and discuss the good, bad and ugly. And besides, we made it to Friday, so it can’t be all that bad, right?

As we started packing up to go, my friends’ little one starting fussing. The fussing turned into crying, and by the time he was strapped into his stroller, the crying had escalated into full-on screaming.

We soldier on and make a hasty dash towards the exit. We are both holding our breath as we take those last few steps to the freedom of open air where the screams don’t seem quite as loud.

And at that very moment, that “I-just-need-to-make-it-to-the-door” final push, a miserable-looking woman stares my friend straight in the eye and says:

“You’re a terrible mother. You should have never had children. My children never cried like that”.

You’re. A. Terrible. Mother.

Read that sentence one more time. Do it.

It took every ounce of self-restraint in me to not march back in there, stand up for my friend, and retaliate. But do you know what? It wouldn’t have made any difference. That woman had made her judgement as soon as that little guy started crying, and no explanation or reasoning would have changed her mind.

So what is it that makes a mother so terrible that a complete stranger would feel compelled to say such a thing?

I don’t have the answer. But I do know that I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, especially as I round the bend of my maternity leave. My days are filled with researching full time childcare options for my son.

I’m leaving my son in the care of someone else, 5 days a week, so that I can further my career.

Does that make me a terrible mother?

My husband and I had our first overnight away from our son in December. It was a big milestone for us, for our son, and for nana and papa who looked after him. Many friends suggested that I “try not to miss him too much”.

I didn’t miss him. I enjoyed every minute of it and look forward to booking the next night away.

Does that make me a terrible mother?

We made the decision to sleep train. Early. Like, before 3 months old, early. Our son has slept soundly for 12 hours a night since he was 3 months old. He has slept in his crib in the nursery starting at week 2.

Does that make me a terrible mother?

I let him fall. I let him shove too much food in his mouth. I had to perform the Heimlich maneuver a few weeks ago because of said food. I let anyone and everyone hold him. I don’t pick him up as soon as he cries. I breastfeed him pretty much anywhere. I let him watch TV and play with my iPhone. I started him on solids at four months old. I give him baby formula rather than breast milk when I go out because I am sick of pumping. I throw my hands up in the air in the middle of Starbucks and proclaim: “I have no idea why you are crying!!!”

Does that make me a terrible mother?

NO.

I am a GOOD mother. I am AMAZING mother. I am SUPER-FRICKIN-woman. And I will remind myself of this every. single. day.

Every day that my son looks at me with his huge smile and love in his eyes and I give him the same love back. That’s all it takes to be a good mother: love. Love is all you need.

So I challenge you: remind yourself how awesome you are. Look that screaming child of yours in the eye and tell him how much you love him. Look at your tear-streaked face in the mirror and tell yourself how amazing you are. Look at the other mothers in your community and tell them they are GOOD MOTHERS and that they are doing an AMAZING JOB.

Say those words to someone today. Because we don’t always know how long it takes for the sting of negative words to wear off.

YOU are an amazing mother. YOU are LOVED.

Photo Credit: Little SugarPlum Photography, Vancouver

Party Planning 101: British Invasion

January 14, 2014March 20, 20161 Comment

Well e-friends, it’s been 1.5 months in our new home and we’ve already survivied the “ice vortex” (including 3+ day power outage), nearly completed a basement renovation, spent a few sick days on the couch, and have thrown two significant parties! We’re starting to feel good and settled, with the exception of the empty living room (we’ll get there one day). I also owe you a post about buying awesome furniture on Craigslist. But today’s post is reserved for a topic that I truly love: party planning!

My former career before joining the dark side of sales was event planning. I’d like to think that I always had it in me, and that my professional experience just made me fall in love with (some) elements even more. Over the years, I have helped to plan and execute 4 friends’ weddings, plus my own wedding, and now I’m in the midst of helping my dear sis prep for her upcoming April wedding! I also threw a heck of a 30th birthday (if I do say so myself).

This past weekend, Christian and I hosted his mum’s 60th birthday. She’s was born in England and lived there for the early part of her life. Although she’s been in Canada for decades, she still loves all things Brit – I look forward to pouring over her “Hello!” magazines every time we visit. You can take the Brit out of Britain….

Christian and I chatted about a way to elevate the fun factor of the shin-dig, and quickly landed on a “British Invasion” theme. So fun.

First, the menu. A good theme starts with some menu planning. And plan we did:

Cottage Pie (basically the British version of Shepherd’s Pie)
Bangers and Mash
Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding (our first time making either)
Classic Fish n’ Chips

We cheated and just did store bought Fish n’ Chips, but everything else was made in our new kitchen! Here’s the Cottage Pie coming out of the oven on Saturday afternoon, all bubbly and delicious

Whilst our food was being prepped and cooked, I got to decorating! I managed to find a few jems on-line, including a red, white and blue pennant banner (aka – bunting) that I strung from the ceiling.

Then it was onto the little touches, some of which you can already see in the photo above (yes, there are cut-outs of a London Bus and Beefeater on my patio doors). One of my favourite big-bang-for-little-buck decorating ideas it to find simple printables on-line. Who doesn’t have a bunch of simple photo frames kicking around the house? (yes, I removed family photos from some to make way for my British invasion). Stack ’em up and replace your framed photos with some clip art or printed pics from Google images. Here below we pay homage to her Majesty the Queen. The Union Jack flags were a steal from the Dollar Store at 3 bucks a pop:

Now that the mantle is looking festive, on to the next location = the couch! We actually had Euro-sized red cushions on our bed upstairs, so I brought them down to the join the party. My wonderfully generous colleague brought a toss cushion of the London tube map from his bed at home! The best part is that the pillow is made out of tea towel (next project anyone!?). Anyways, it came together quite nicely in our living room with the red pillows in the background:

Onto other areas: the bar! The bar menu included:

Gin & Tonic (Bombay Saphire Gin is my fave, but a friend recently introduced me to Dillon’s Small Batch Gin. It’s quickly become my “lady” gin. Delicious)
Pimm’s (apparently the second most popular beverage in the UK after tea?). Check out the receipe here, but we made ours with Pimm’s, lemonade, cucumber, blueberries and strawberries. It’s very refreshing – you can see it in the pitcher below!
Boddington’s beer, Strongbow & Guiness

Yes, even Christian’s City of Oxford bar towel made an appearance – an ode to his time spent there on exchange in university!

And finally, dessert! We opted for classic English Trifle and my favourite: Sticky Toffee Pudding. To make these mess and fuss free, I actually found these neat little disposable baking cups at Home Sense (they come in mini loaf containers as well). You actually don’t even need to put them on a baking sheet or anything and they are good in the oven up to 400F. I was able to serve out of these as well. The best part? No pre-greasing required! They are coated and ready to go in all their non-sticky goodness:

Because I’m all about the presentation, I took a cardboard cake stand (also purchased from Home Sense for just $3.99! Again: big bang, little buck) and attached a Union Jack decoration that I picked up for a few bucks at a party store on top with scotch tape. Instant pizzaz!

You can see my sticky toffee puddings have now been topped with caramel sauce…and that a few have already been eaten – nom nom!

Playing in the background for most of the evening was Songza’s British Invasion Playlist. Oh, and we of course awarded the birthday girl with a jeweled crown and sash when she arrived – living like the Queen herself for the evening!

So there you have it – how to make a theme flow 101, brought to you by Melissa. The opportunities are endless…just remember to think beyond the napkins and include all the senses 🙂

IKEA date night

March 25, 2013March 20, 20161 Comment

Date night has been a little lacking these past weeks as Saturday nights are spent passed out on the couch after a full day of work, and weeknights are spent (trying to) catch up on household chores that didn’t get accomplished on the weekend!

We originally were going to do the “wait at the doors when the store opens” trip to IKEA first thing in the morning, but I convinced Christian that we could turn our little shopping spree into somewhat of a date night.

Our mission? Get the materials for our first IKEA hack! Haven’t been to the IKEA Hackers website?? You are missing out on a lifetime of furniture recreation opportunities! Go there….NOW….I will wait…..

Ok, so back to “date night”: our mission was to purchase PAX wardrobe sliding closet doors for our newly built upstairs hall closest, as well as interior shelving to help create storage inside. After conducting a lot of research, we quickly learned that other sliding doors are either a) way overpriced, or b) just plain ugly. IKEA Pax are inexpensive and come with a 10 year warranty! We’ve had the full wardrobe system in our bedroom and its been going strong for 3+ years.

But back to date night. Our first stop was food, including this odd sparkling pear drink that was rather delicious:

Horse, or no horse, we were getting meatballs:

After a romantic dining experience in the IKEA cafeteria (for future date night reference, they are licensed!) it was off to pick up our goodies. Our original plan for interior shelving was to use Expedit, but we quickly realized that adjustable shelving was way better, so we instead picked up the deep Billy Bookcase. For the exterior doors, the glossy white ones we wanted we on sale (score! Like these ones but in white). A few $1 ice creams later, we were ready to rock and roll