On writing it down

Friends, time has either stopped or raced by me, I can't quite decide. One day I'm writing almost daily about my small world, and the next it's been months and months since I've taken the time to document a few pieces about life with my family. I am terribly sad not to have posted more than a few times in the past (almost) year, though I'm not really surprised. Since I'm a full-time student, part-time instructor, chaotic parent, wife to a very patient spouse, and generally-slightly-overwhelmed human, it isn't quite a shock that I have very little time at the end of my day to write. And why do I miss it so much? Because it makes me still.

Writing a post forces me to stop, drop, and roll look, and listen. It is an invitation to pause and consider my days with just a little bit of quiet. Oh, how I miss that! I am missing the chance to share what I have learned about my girls in the past months, or what makes me sad or grateful or delighted. Documenting my life as a parent, wife, future midwife, baker, and person in the world forces me to think, even if playfully, about the things I love most in life. Even when it's only my mum who reads my posts, I feel as though I've given some of the moments in my day the pause that they deserve.

The other thing? Life moves quickly. I've been reading through the archives here lately and I'm stunned at how much the girls have grown and how many adventures we've been on (adventurous to us, at least). Can you believe that Shira used to be a baby, and that Alyce once didn't know how to read or build her own snowman? Or that Matty and I used to live in another country, and that there was a time when I wasn't a student midwife? Because I can't. Having these posts as pieces of evidence for all the days that have come before today is a bit magical. In other words, I'm selfish. Writing this blog allows me to navel-gaze in the best possible way.

So much time has passed, but I have returned. I want to feel selfish again and make a few notes about how Alyce lost her first tooth in December and how Shira wrote her name for the first time. I want to write about what a challenge it is to adjust to new jobs and new dreams. I hope you'll join me, stay awhile, and let me know how you're doing, too.

Be well.

I just couldn't write what I wanted to write

I should have known that baking cookies would do it.

I've been quiet around here for the past month. Some of that has to do with our big move to Toronto, not an easy feat with two young children. (We say that a lot, don't we? That things are made more difficult with the addition of young children. It's true that little ones are pure chaos sometimes, and their schedules often make planning life a challenge, and their whining can drive you to madness. But I do want to come right out and declare that life is made infinitely better when you throw young children into the mix, and I wouldn't have it any other way.) I've been busy readjusting to how this new life fits. So far I'm happy with our choice.

I've also been busy teaching again, an online course at a nearby university, and this just makes life very full. I'm learning a lot as I reintroduce myself to my course after two years off, including how to run a course in between all the events of my days at home with the girls. It looks something like this: get up and return emails. Read some posts from the discussion forums. Make breakfast for starving children in my kitchen. Return another email. Take children on new city adventure. Eat a popsicle. Do a tiny bit of grading during Shira's nap. Unpack. Chase children around park. Tuck them in after dinner, collapse, and then peel myself off the couch to start actually working for the night. Rinse and repeat.

But I'm always busy. We're all always busy, yet we still find time to do the things we love. I love writing this blog. What's stopped me from finding the time hasn't been all this other stuff, busy as I am. I could post three times a week instead of five, or one time instead of three. There are always ways to readjust (and I'm already doing a lot of readjusting this month). Nope, I'm quiet because I'm afraid. I'm suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable here on the internet. I love the internet, love it a lot, but all of a sudden I'm feeling awfully open. A big part of this comes from my return to teaching. I know some of my students have read my blog, and this kind of exposure is a first for me. I've always been an open person and it's translated into my style of teaching. When I teach in-person courses I learn about my students quickly, and they learn about me. I don't hide my love of cooking, or my enthusiasm for Sookie Stackhouse novels, or that my American husband just doesn't get the CBC. But my academic mentor always taught me to keep a distance from my students, even when you share parts of yourself as you teach. I remember when an undergraduate student asked her religion, and she emphatically explained that it was None Of Their Business. Her interaction with the inquiring student left a mark on me, because my mentor shared so many things with her students, even her home sometimes, inviting us over to share a meal or an extra lesson. But there was a line, she taught me, and it was critical. The space of the classroom, it seemed, had boundaries.

On this blog I write very explicitly about breastfeeding, my religion, how it feels when I lose my patience with my children, and the devastation I felt when I wasn't accepted into midwifery school. The space of my classroom has changed a lot from the days with my mentor. Of course blogs don't reveal everything. I am always choosing to tell a very particular story in my posts and details are overlooked (I hope, the very boring and the parts that involve another person's privacy). But when I write I'm not trying to deceive anyone, and at the same time I'm intending to share some very honest, and traditionally private, feelings and ideas. It's this kind of exposure that makes writing and reading blogs both so exciting and so overwhelming.

Teaching and blogging, at the same time, has forced me to think about what I want to share on my blog. As soon as I realized that students were reading I felt paralyzed, caught in the act, if you will. I would jump up to write a post, or be brainstorming in the shower, and instead of wondering how I would tell a story in a way that was honest and interesting, I was worried about how a student might think of me after reading it. I immediately began censoring myself. If I wanted to write a post about how much my breasts were hurting because my two year old was enjoying yet another renewed fascination with nursing every two hours, I held myself back. No one wanted their paper graded by someone who had just moments ago complained loudly about her breasts. Or if I wanted to write a post about postpartum depression, my own included, I withdrew the idea before I could even consider how to write it. Writing about how to cope with the stress of multiple deadlines while parenting two little ones? Forget it. If I'm not perfect, I'll lose their respect. Or so I thought.

It turns out that I have no interest in writing about my life if I can't be honest. I don't want to write about my trip to the museum if I can't also write about how many times my toddler pulled my shirt up to nurse. I can't share with you how hard it is to balance all the competing demands of my wonderful life if I can't permit myself to admit that re-learning how to fit in grading papers is hard sometimes. If I was so concerned with censoring my posts, I felt pretty sure I didn't want to blog anymore.

Nah. I won't stop. I just don't want to. And I've reached a decision about how to manage my concerns about exposing myself to my students: they'll get over it. Or they won't. Either way, it's fine. I'm not doing anything scandalous here (hardly). I'm not inappropriately discussing my course or students. I'm just writing honestly about how I spend my time, how I choose to carve out this life of mine. I'm a parent. I want to be a midwife one day. I want to be a doula right now. I love to teach. And I bake a lot. Nothing too crazy.

So when I was baking today with Alyce and Shira, the first real baking adventure in our new kitchen, and Shira's first time as sous-chef, I wanted to share it with you right away. I took their picture, the two of them bickering over who would sprinkle the baking soda into the bowl, and I wanted to share with you how glorious it feels to have our own space again. I wanted to tell you that I felt comfort baking with my girls, while Matt chatted with us from the other room. I wanted to tell you that adjusting to our new life in Toronto, as happy as it makes me, is sometimes hard, and that some days I spend a lot of time worrying about how we'll make ends meet or where we'll end up a year from now, but that no matter how much I worry, that baking with my daughters makes everything ok. That makes me human. I think my students already knew that. You already knew that, too.

So, I'm back. Let's get this going.

See you back here tomorrow. Let's make it a good Monday.

Ten reasons I should write for Babble

Babble is looking for a new blogger to contribute to their blog for parents of kids four and older. I thought I should let them know that I have a four year old, and I like to write about her. And me. And our adventures. Here are ten things the editors at Babble might be interested to know:

1. Every week my tutorial on how to remove a foreign object from a child's nose helps people all around the world. Or at least a few people. But those people seem very grateful when that bead or jelly bean or dried cranberry comes flying out of that nostril. I like to help.

2. On account of Alyce's extraordinary skills and abilities, making it so that she doesn't need to breathe all day long and can instead talk for twelve hours straight, I am never wanting for material. Ever.

3. For example, this morning she watched me getting dressed after my shower and gleefully observed that I am, for lack of a better word, a bit lopsided. Isn't she observant? I could write about the impact of that observation all day long.

4. I am equal part calm, patient parent and part prone to anxiety, am I doing it right, oh my god I'm breaking the children parent. I think this balance is both fruitful and ridiculous. And Alyce is equal part absolutely in love with me and part already rolling her eyes at me. We're a good team

5. Alyce is also an older sister. Since I was raised as an only child I have absolutely no idea what to do with siblings. When they argue over barbie dolls, I find myself standing in the next room curled up in a ball in the corner. I'm a slow learner.

6. Speaking of the younger sister, Shira is almost two. On most days she is so attached to me that I fear she will climb back in the womb when I'm not looking. We haven't made any decisions yet, but both my husband and I want more children. I don't know how we'll make it work, but our family isn't done growing. Alyce has ordered a baby brother and Shira, you can imagine, is in complete denial.

7. Lately I find myself standing in the middle of a lot of change. As I try to navigate my next move, determining what is best for both myself and my family, I'm taking a moment to rest in the eye of the storm. I'm watching my children learn the ups and downs of new surroundings, watching my husband take his own first steps on a new path, and listening to myself, trying to figure out what I want. There are times when the all the unknowns feel overwhelming, but at the same time it is also a bit magical. I'm spending time at home with my girls and dreaming up new possibilities. I know I'll look back on this time in our lives with a quiet fondness, but for the time being I am filled with more of a range of emotions, from complete panic to nervous excitement.

8. Did I mention that we're living with my mother and stepfather? Exactly.

9. I think and write a lot about what it means to raise daughters. I worry about how they will come to understand themselves in a world of princesses, warped body images, mean girls, and generally annoying expectations about what they are, or ought to be, like because they are biologically and socially girls. I wrote a Master's thesis about gender, so both my heart and brain are programed to think about this. I also spend time not worrying about them, and instead just enjoy all the rainbows, princesses, sparkles, acrobatics, and stories that fill their worlds. (And because I spend a lot of time thinking about raising girls, I then start thinking about what it's like to raise boys, because people, gender does not exist in a vacuum. Girls and boys, they both need us.)

10. I like to write. And I like to read what other people write. I was destined to overshare.

Authentically speaking, I'm often afraid of authenticity

 This is the real me, and my real Alyce.

I'm not really sure what "being authentic" means. The word "authenticity" is thrown around so much that over the years I've become suspicious. It seems that we're encouraged so often now to be "authentically who we are" and to "live an authentic life."  Certainly this sounds ideal. I don't think anything good comes from hiding our thoughts and dreams behind a facade we think is more socially acceptable, and I know some of the most exciting conversations happen between people (or a person and his or her internet) when we tell the truth, when we put our feet down against what we think people want to hear.

Isn't this why so many mothers started blogging in the first place? To tell other mothers and whoever else was listening that motherhood was so much harder/exciting/exhausting than had been publicly discussed, and that motherhood is complicated because we're all actually different human beings with different experiences? Hell, yes. We outlined our hopes and expectations, the day-to-day challenges, and reflected on what did or didn't work. We did this to vent, to make other people laugh, and to offer some support to other mothers and parents. This, too, happened to me. And I survived. Or, I feel this way and I'm still a good parent. One way of understanding these new narratives of motherhood is to consider these perspectives as an attempt at authenticity. No longer would we talk about our transitions to motherhood as seamless, or dismiss time spent at home with children as unimportant.

So why am I suspicious of the term? Like I said, I think it's because I don't quite understand it. My only experience with it comes from my liberal arts background where I was surrounded by teams of people arguing for an "authentic" view of the world. They were right: too many of our stories have been told by the same few people. We needed to deconstruct our assumptions about the world, to ask the right people the right questions, and most of all, we needed to listen to their answers. But looking for authenticity--for the real story, so to speak--seemed to spiral into an identity politics that plagued my academic world. Every statement, every research question, became a competition over who had the right to speak about a given historical experience. While I am grateful that the status quo of academia got knocked down a few pegs, at times I was frustrated when valuable conversations about gender, for example, were paralyzed over arguments about who could authentically speak to a given issue. It's one of the reasons I lost interest in my research.

When it comes to blogging, I wonder sometimes about how much our pursuit of authenticity is really about how we want to appear to each other, rather than truly representing ourselves. I have been moved to tears reading about the experiences of other parents, seeing my own struggles in their words. And I've mentioned before how my isolation as a new parent in new country was softened by my discovery on this online community of parents, and of mothers in particular. But sometimes I wonder if so much of what I read online is actually prescriptive, rather than descriptive, especially when it comes to living and parenting authentically. Are the descriptions I read about days spent playing and crafting with kids, making mountains of food for growing children, and political statements about how and what to buy for our families about what really happens in our home, or about what we want to happen in our homes? I love staying home with The Children, including the cooking and crafting and chaos, but my home doesn't always look the way homes sometimes do in blogland. When mothers reflect on their own authentic living, are they telling us how they live, or how they'd like to live? Because I'd like to the live that way, too.

I think I'm over-thinking this. I know, you're shocked. I've been hesitant to describe my own writing as a quest for authenticity because my graduate training left me a little shaky. But when I quiet those voices in my head (still quoting Foucault and Butler) and ask myself what I'm doing with this blog, I am sharing my life as I understand it. I talk about loving my girls because these are my days. I am sharing a part of myself, and while it isn't the whole me, it is still me, still authentic. And when I tell you things about my life that still only exist at the level of ideals, this is still part of me, even if it isn't fully realized yet. This doesn't make me inauthentic, it just means I'm in process. And the same goes for other bloggers and writers.

Do you read A Cup of Jo? Joanna Goddard writes a beautiful blog (and her Friday links are the best around), and today she posted about her own thoughts (and fears) on authenticity. She is ready to reveal something about herself and in the process she is a bit afraid of the whole thing. Naturally, it is scary to share. We are vulnerable, defensive, and downright petrified. For the time being (she hasn't made the big reveal yet) she is sharing some encouraging words from her mother:

"It seems to me that being authentic is being brave enough or just candid enough to be honest about what you are experiencing or who you are, whether it is popular are not. A person gives a gift to other people when they say, 'This is what happened to me or this is how I truly feel, no matter what the popular belief is about what I should feel.' Whenever you are honest, you are speaking for a thousand silent people who don't have the voice to say what they really feel or are really experiencing. So, if you ever talk about [the thing you went through], you will touch a million hearts. Because you are speaking for more than just yourself. You are never alone in what you are feeling. I love you."

Find the rest of the post here.

Joanna's mother's description of authenticity makes sense to me, takes away some of my suspicions. Because this is exactly why I share my experiences about motherhood and life as a post-graduate student-teacher-soon-to-be-midwife-I-hope, and why I share in others' experiences about life as mothers and parents. Life feels decidedly less scary when I know I'm not the only one. Although she doesn't plan to share this particular experience until next week, for today Joanna invited us to reveal something true about ourselves, big or small. You can find hers here.

Here are some of mine. I promise they are authentic:

• I've struggled with depression for a long time.
• It takes me weeks to put away laundry.
• I am terrible with money.
• I often forget birthdays. Or I only remember at the very last minute.
• I've never read anything by Charles Dickens or a Russian.

What about you? Do you have anything to share?

Is it quiet in here, or it is just me?

Blogs are a strange thing sometimes.

I began writing this blog because I wanted to write, and I wanted to join a community of other people who liked to write. It's not just about the writing, of course, but about the sharing. I could write in a journal or a private file, but instead I have this space, where some people stop by, where I write for anyone to read. And by anyone, I mean people I know, and then some. (I am still amazed when Blogger tells me that someone in Indonesia or Latvia is a faithful reader. Hello there in Indonesia! Hello Latvia! I do hope you'll say hello yourself one day.) So I'm writing, I'm sharing, and a few people are reading it. The internet is a crazy place.

Is it just narcissism that makes me want to spill all my thoughts? (Don't answer that). Is it just run-of-the-navel gazing? (Probably.)

I have a voice, but sometimes I feel as though it's been quiet for too long. It's not that I'm quiet, exactly, because honestly, I rarely stop talking. Just ask my husband, or my mum, or that unsuspecting woman at the store I was snooping around in the other day, who learned--without asking, of course--how excited I was for Alyce to have her first day of Junior Kindergarten. And that I was torn between the butterfly and the fairy tale lunch bag (I didn't get either because I need more time to snoop out my options). Talking isn't my problem. Sometimes, though, I still feel quiet, as though I'm not saying what I want to.

I have my suspicions about why I lost my voice. I used to feel so confident about how I saw the world. I felt strong and passionate and I shared my feelings with anyone who would listen. I was younger, and braver, and I truly felt the world open up for me just a little bit more each day. I had some fears, some anxieties, but nothing that stood in my way. I really do wonder sometimes how people didn't get more annoyed with me, with all that confidence. But if they had asked me to take it down a notch, I'm not sure I would have listened to them. It was too much fun to speak my mind, to feel excited and passionate and ready to tell the world.

So I feel like I've lost that voice a bit. I share a few things, and what I do write in many ways faithfully reflects my little piece of the world, but so often I want to share much more. I tend to spend some, ahem, time reading blogs and articles online, and when I stumble on a great post or debate my first response is that I want in on the action. I'm a reader and writer by trade, and so much of me wants to stand up (so to speak) and add my own take. For example, I come across some incredibly thoughtful pieces on motherhood and identity that make me want to jump in and say Ooh ooh ooh. Me, too! Or, Here are all the reasons that this doesn't make any sense to me, or This is making my brain hurt it's so messed up. But as soon as I decide to turn my reaction into a post of my own, I feel quiet. I become a little afraid, that my voice is wrong. I worry that I'll offend someone, or that I'll bore them. I worry that I've forgotten how to craft an argument. I worry so much that I never raise my voice.

Other times my fear involves a different kind of sharing. What has surprised me since beginning this blog is how much I would enjoy writing honestly, in the wide open space of the internet, about my life.  I'm in the centre of quite the transition right now, and all I want to do is share how I feel. I want to complain about not being able to find a job, about wanting to start a dream job but having to wait just a little bit longer, about the stress of starting over new, with very little money and a whole lot of responsibility. About the fact that my work-loving husband can't work because of his immigration status. But again, I don't. This time my fear is that kind of fear you can really touch, those practical things that a worrier like me will worry about. If someone googles me will they find this blog? Will they dismiss me? Will someone reject my application for a job because I'm some crazy over-sharer who spends too much photographing her kids and then imagining that anyone else actually wants to see them?

I feel a bit ridiculous, as one who blogs, saying that I can't find my voice sometimes. And seriously, I annoy people daily with how much I can talk in a single day. But I don't know how else to describe it. Beginning this process of trying to write honestly about my life, in such a way as to join a community of other people online, has brought me face to face with this shrinking voice of mine. In graduate school I always felt like a fraud, but I know from speaking with other graduate students that most of them felt the same way. A constant sense of inadequacy is par for the course in graduate school. But to sometimes feel like a fraud now, in a world of my own making, feels unbearable to me. All the photos and stories I post now, mostly about The Children, mean a lot to me, and I have no intention of slowing down on those. This blog is in part a way to document our lives as a family and I'm already grateful for it.  It doesn't have to be more that that, but I want it to be.

For those of you blog, how do you deal with this? How do you create your boundaries for sharing with all of us? I'd love to hear your advice on this.

Good things on Thursday night

I'll just start by stating for the record that I thought Grey's Anatomy was good tonight. I know, I know, they threw in all that singing, and sometimes it was a bit irritating, but I think they pulled it off. I'm always a sucker for a storyline that involves either babies or Callie and Arizona, so maybe I'm not the most objective judge. But I'm guessing nobody actually cares what I think about Grey's Anatomy, so I'll continue with favourable reviews. Actually, that's not true. Matt cares very, very much because tonight Grey's interrupted the first night of baseball season. He is now finally able to finish his game.

I don't have much in me right now. It's been a busy couple of days. Did you know that tomorrow I can start declaring, "next month we're moving!" This time last year I would have been saying, "next month I'm going to give birth to my second child!" A lot happens in a year.

But I couldn't go to bed without sharing two great things with you.  I love the internet. I love that I open up my reader and discover that some really smart people have left a message just for me (and maybe a few other readers). Yesterday I stumbled across this post. There has been a lot of talk lately about what it means to make your family vulnerable in wave of oversharing, first-person parenting blogs (like this by Katie Granju), and I think Alexa over at Flotsam has nailed it. I could read her blog all day long.

I also found this post, over at The Leaky Boob, and yes, it might be the greatest blog name of all time. If you have a thing for breastfeeding (like I do), you might want to check this out. It's a nice reminder that sometimes breastfeeding is just breastfeeding. Not a parenting philosophy, just feeding your baby. Honestly if were more than just food and time spent with a delicious baby, I might have given up long ago. Plus, it's called The Leaky Boob.

A Habit of Writing

Me and Pomegranate, trying to start our day.

I'm never alone. Ever. Even when Alyce has left for preschool with Matt, who then heads off to work for the day, and Shira is napping (finally), and I sit down to work on a post or answer the emails I've avoided since yesterday, I am never alone. Without fail, one of three cats appears, incapable, it seems, to be more than one foot away from us at all times. So I work with it, because as much as I fantasize about it some days, they aren't going anywhere. And so it is that I begin my Tuesday morning writing, supervised by Pomegranate.

(See how I managed to write a post without actually saying anything of value, but still in keeping with my brand new habit of posting every day? I come by it honestly. I remember driving my grade six English teacher crazy with my poems and short stories about absolutely nothing. Poor Mr. Allison was often subjected to limericks about broccoli or a story about my shoe, simply because I liked producing quantity. Maybe even then I realized that developing a consistent writing habit would pay off.

Not likely.)