Regarding "The Mom Stays in the Picture" Phenomenon

Ok, I might be late to this Aha-Moment party, but I know I’m not the only one.

Moms, have you seen this?! The Mom Stays in the Picture is an October 6th blogpost written by Allison Tate that relates her experience with hating to be in pictures because she never feels happy with how she looks.
 
Quick question ladies: how often have you ducked out of a picture that was finally being taken of you, because you felt greasy, chubby, unfashionable, gross, exhausted, bitchy, puffy and/or zitty? What's that you say? One bazillion times? Yeah, me too.  

My mom mentioned that a woman was on Katie Couric last week and she really wanted me and my sisters to look it up because it was pretty profound. So I Googled it this morning, teared up because I TOTALLY GOT IT, and then decided to get the message out to as many people as possible because it's SO MUCH BIGGER THAN PROFOUND!

Since sharing it on my own Facebook feed at 8 a.m. it’s been shared numerous times and several friends and family have written the same teary-eyed-goose-bump-inducing comments that I thought myself: “Wow. That is me!”

 
Does this sound familiar? I am forever complaining to my husband that I'm never in pictures. He always corrects me and says, "no, you never WANT to be in pictures" to which I yell "you only take the camera out in the most unflattering circumstances for me!!". And it's true. He does. Take Saturday mornings as a perfect example. My 5yo and/or 7yo is doing something super cute with me. Steve takes out the camera and aims and I yell STOP! Why? Well, since it's a non-work day I am inevitably greasy-faced and crusty-eyed, wearing a ratty tanktop, and always with my hair piled on the top of my head. I may or may not have coffee stains on me may be wearing unflattering glasses. But guess what? THAT'S ME! And that's how they know me and (still) love me. 

 

Me (feeling too exposed and roly and dough-y and greasy) and D finishing a really, really hard lego vehicle, but look at our pride!!

G and me (feeling crusty-eyed and greasy in the a.m.) but look at how funny something is!

 

It seems that no one ever feels good about themselves, especially in a society that Photoshops already “beautiful” models (remember Dove’s mind-blowing Evolution of Beauty commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U ?). Couple that feeling of “not-ever-pretty-enough” with a new mom who is in that state of first year sleep-deprived chaos, or a mom who has just not been able to lose the baby weight, or a mom who has just not been able to find time for a haircut, or a mom who only has out-dated too-tight clothes, or a mom who has just not felt GOOD about herself for whatever reason, and BANG! You have the recipe for never wanting to be in a picture and therefore ERASING YOUR OWN PARTICIPATION IN YOUR FAMILY'S HISTORY!!

The amount of pictures we have of my mom with her hand up, face posed in the formation of her yelling "NO!" far outnumber the photos we have of her being candid or posing (If I can find one, I'll post for sure). We have joked about this in my family for years. And my aunt does it and my sisters both do it and my friends do it and ohmygod what are we doing?!

Moms, I'm talking to you: SNAP OUT OF IT AND GET IN THAT PICTURE! You are YOU! Embrace it.
 

Kudos to Allison Tate (@AllisonState) for making this into something that we moms need to take seriously. For all the moms who feel embarrassed of what they look like, remember Allison’s sentiments: you may not be “perfect” for your child/ren to look at, but you are perfectly their mother.

All the best,

Ssy

My first "pin"

So I've been addicted to Pinterest for about four months now. I have turned countless friends and family members into addicts of the site, and yet I have yet to come up with an original "pin" myself. Until now.

Low Fat Oreo Blizzards, people!!!

Who doesn't love going to DQ, especially with 40+ degree humidex readings? Save yourself the added expense, fat and calories. It's so easy and totally satisfying.


Ingredients:

1/2 c frozen yogurt (PC brand is 100 calories and 2 g fat)
2 30% less fat Oreos (110 calories, 5.5 g fat)
Directions:
Spoon frozen yogurt into bowl.
Place 3 Oreos into food processor and spin until you reach desired crumbliness.
Put crushed Oreos into bowl.
Smash together.
You can do this with any toppings so get creative (I've had great results with M&M’s as well).
Enjoy.
Ssy
(@ssyreebs)

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Compare:
1 mini OREO Blizzard (195 grams) = 380 calories, 14 g fat
Nutritional Info Source:

http://www.idq.com/content/Nutrition/DQ%20Nutrition%20Allergy%20Treat%20Brochure%20-%20Canada.pdf

Rant: Supersuckers

So I go to Legs Beautiful in First Canadian Place yesterday, to buy a little something to smooth my stomach (yes, I sometimes need smoothing, shutup).

I already have the Spanx Power Panty from 5 years ago, but I was wearing an above the knee dress and I didn't want the shorts part to show. So I walked to a display table of unpackaged super-suckers and honed in on two different kinds of exactly what I wanted - and they both happened to be Spanx. I asked the salesperson what the difference was between the two and she quickly nudged me toward the one with better stomach support (as opposed to the better butt-support style). It was the Spanx Simplicity High Waist Panty in nude.

"Great", I said, "where can I try it on"?

She said, "Oh, you're not allowed to try it on. Store policy".

I said, "But they're $90. Do you know how many times I’ve bought packaged pantyhose that promised not to "roll down" but then totally rolled down by the 2nd minute of sitting? I'm not falling for that again, especially not for $90".

"Sorry Ma'am (P.S. I HATE being called Ma'am but that's another post), it's store policy that you can't try this pair on".

"But I will leave my underwear on, obviously".

"Nope, sorry".

"But people are allowed to try on BATHING SUITS, for crying out loud".

"Yes, but bathing suits have that little plastic sticker on the inside".

Exasperated at the ridiculousness of her comment, I rolled my eyes and countered, "Then give me a plastic bag or some tape and I'll put it in the crotch area".

"You can't do that. And anyway, the integrity of the product will be stretched out if you try it on".

"Really? So what you're telling me is that I should spend $90 on a product that may or may not suit my needs, but that the products' integrity will immediately be rendered imperfect if you let me TRY IT ON ONCE. I’m pretty sure the brand would not be as successful as they are if they lost their integrity with one try-on".

"Sorry Ma'am <cringe>, it's store policy".

"So, what else do you have then, that isn't $90 and that will help me out"?

"Well, we have this $30 kind but it's not Spanx".

"Great," I said, "can I try them on"?

"Yes you can, we have a sample in a medium if you'd like".

"Seriously? You have demos of THIS brand, but you won't buy a sample from Spanx, THE most POPULAR super-sucker brand known to womankind"?

As if I was a complete idiot, she cocks her hip, tisks her tongue and says, "Well if we did that, what size would we use"?

"Um, how about medium, since there's 10 large, 11 small, and only one medium left on your display? It's obviously your most popular size".

"Well, we just don't do that".

"But you DO! For this other brand! Oh. My. God. Goodbye".

"Sorry Ma'am". <shudder>


Boycott of Legs Beautiful has commenced.

My Community Rocks

Today's the "last day of school" in my 'hood and I am super-excited. Why? Because there's a big party for all the kids and all the parents. And I love it. I love celebrating something as a pack.

It's our third year attending and I look forward to it every year because every year I feel a bit more comfortable, I know a few more of the parents, and I have a tad more experience so I can help out the newbies. It's a time when the parents drink cold beers and discuss everything about the school year - past and upcoming, good and bad, gossipy and informative - while 30 kids have a massive water balloon fight and play at the park under a bunch of teenagered-supervision.

It's a backyard filled beyond capacity with relaxed people, delicious food and ample excitement. And I love it.



Two hour water balloon filling initiative - we broke more than we filled, but we still managed about 70 total, and I have a balloon-tying-blister on my finger to prove it.



The Caring Continuum

This is brilliant. I found it on @kellyoxford's blog (http://kellyoxford.tumblr.com/post/24914248261 and it perfectly explains my biggest verbal pet peeve. Read it and exercise it people. EXERCISE IT.

Birthday Party Madness

I don't know where it came from, I don't know how long it'll last, but I am obsessed with creating completely over-the-top birthday parties for my kids (but subconsciously, it's likely way more for me).

It began when I was on my 2nd mat leave and I had time to bake my own cake for Steve and thought it would be fun for my 2.5 yo to help out. We decided on a dinosaur themed cake, since Duncan was obsessed with dinosaurs, and this was the result:

Really bad, right? Tasted good though. And it got the creative juices flowing.

Not great, I know, but that was free-hand with only Betty Crocker French Vanilla icing tinted with normal food colouring, on a boxed cherry-chip cake. And so the madness began.

Every year since daycare started, I had to bring in treats for the daycare kids, so enter extra-large iced cookies:

I made this with Pillsbury Cookie Dough in the tube and some more french vanilla icing with normal food colouring, all for under $5 bucks. So good, so easy, high impact and doesn't cost $35+ dollars <ahem> Mrs. Fields (I'm not kidding - look it up).

Then I tried my hand at rice krispie squares - topped with icing (natch), a delicious and easy treat:

Duncan was obsessed with Thomas at the time - pretty primary, but the kid thought I was Picasso.

As for actual birthday parties, we usually rented a big play space at the very last minute and at a ridiculously high cost and large guest list (trying to get our money's worth).

That is, until last year. That was when we failed to book something in December for Duncan's 6th party at the end of January 2011. We decided to try our hand at having an at-home party. I mean, how hard could it be? It's just an exaggerated play-date, with cake and presents, right?

Holy shit, no it wasn't.

Duncan had a new obsession at the time - Harry Potter. Even though he hadn't even seen any of the movies or read any of the books, he HAD to have a Harry Potter birthday party. I was totally game - I had read the first five books a decade ago and had seen some of the films. I was actually really excited to have a common interest with Duncan that we could both get excited about.

So, as any mother would do when faced with an exorbitant task with very little time and very little inspiration, I googled the hell out of "Harry Potter Birthday Party for a 6 year old" and all the variations I could dream up.

After reading countless posts from the prior ten years, I copied the text of an invitation, replacing some things, here and there. When I printed it off, it looked pretty plain, so I found a Hogwarts Logo, and pasted it in as a watermark.

 

It still didn't have the old-worldly vibe that I was going for, so I decided to try colouring the stark-white printer paper with a wet tea bag and then let it dry over our floor heater in the kitchen. It turned out PERFECTLY  - the colour was a nice tinge of old, while the wetness of the tea bag created a nice weathered and crinkly feel to the paper. And just to go completely and obnoxiously overboard, I found a red candle, and after tri-folding the letter, I sealed it with the wax. We delivered them to the daycare the next day and to my surpsrise, the majority of the parents responded in the role-play genre.

After the invitations were taken care of, I had to begin the planning of the actual party. From all of the ideas I gathered from the interwebz, I settled on the following:

Sorting Hat and House Badges

I made this sorting hat out of brown paper bags that I taped together and just played around with the design. It worked out pretty well.  Then I printed off the house badges, cut them out and put double-sided tape on the backs. When the kids came in, we used an iPad Harry Potter game that had a part of the game that would allow you to have the sorting hat choose your house. If the kids liked what they were given, they kept it - if they wanted to change houses, they could. Because he was only 6, we didn't really break off into team game-play, so it was just something cool to start out with.

After the kids got settled in, we got started with Potions Class. I had 3 big bottles of Bubbly Water (Club Soda), Sweet Bubbly Water (Sprite) and Puddle Water (Root Beer). Each kid had a clear plastic cup with a stir stick.

Potions Class set up for 16 kids.

Nice sugar rush for the kids right off the bat.

Then on the side I had jars set up with Dried Dragon Spit (Pop Rocks), Frog Eyeballs (peeled grapes frozen in ice cubes), Frozen Rodent Poo (wild blueberries frozen in ice cubes), And other special powders (coloured koolaids) and sprinkles. After we poured the liquid, we passed aroung the other stuff and let them add as much or as little as they liked. Kids enjoyed it and the sugar rush it gave them.

Next, we had the kids select wands. I had a ton of chopsticks from years of take-out gluttony, so I used those and prettied them up with electrical tape and ribbons. Then they stood in a cup and each kid could choose their own. Unfortunately, the only picture I have was of one of the boys collected and pocketing the leftovers at the end of the party.



If you look closely, you can see the differnt coloured tips.



I looked up some simple spells online and we gathered in the basement. I taught them the spells and we played around with falling down, or freezing people or making them go crazy or making them lie down.

Next we brought out the Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans for the adventurous ones:

I kept the chart hidden and made up names for all of them and let them go at them.

Then we did Care for Magical Creatures. Again, I did NOT get a picture of this and it was sooo cool. Steve and I spent a half hour the night before stuffing little Dragon and Magical Creature plastic figurines into dark gray and black balloons and then blowing them up. It was pretty awesome. I still don't know how we got them into the balloons but we did - and with only 3 minor skin wounds.

This is what they creatures looked like and if you look hard, you can see the wand in the backgroun too.

We let the kids pick their own balloons and play gently with them for a while. Then I got the scissors out and began "hatching" the "eggs". They added those toys to their lootbags.

Lunch (pizza, fruit, veggies) was served with juice boxes. Then the cake came out. It was my first foray into the magical world of proper cake-decorating food-colouring gel. Besides the black icing tasting like hell, I think it turned out really well.

My Harry Potter Cake - a coloured representation of all the Hogwarts' Houses.

After the cake, we did the Defense Against the Dark Arts Class. After training, I pulled out the Dementor Pinata and the kids had at it for about 10 minutes, before we had to get a knife to help them.


Dementor Pinata - made with black tissue paper and some black eyeshadow trying to define a ghastly face.

 After the pinata, it was almost time to go. I had a huge display of candy laid out (ala HoneyDukes) and gave each kid a plastic bag and said they could choose 5 different types (gummy worms, ring pops, chocolate rocks, licorice, etc.). Obviously, the candy store was a huge hit.

All in all, a very rockin' party. My favourite part was the huge hug I got from Duncan right before bedtime - by total surprise - and when he said, "thanks for the awesome party, Mommy". He really loved it and I almost felt like he was proud of it. Score.

This post is now out of control, so I'll wrap it up.

But be prepared for my next blog documenting the most AWESOME 7 year old Star Wars party EVER...!