dear so-and-so

Bubble Wrap, originally uploaded by Andy C – Brighton.

Okay, time to get back to the blog. There were some sicknesses, a death and a period of… what can I call it? Teenage emo ennui – after which, I was cured, if not for the time spent in cafe world and farmville wasting my precious hours then the spring weather and the 60 dozen emails piling up in my inbox about things like garden work, grid projects, newspaper interviews and vacation plans.

Get up, Ada.
Brush it off and get busy.
The world doesn’t revolve around you.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t.
I know. It shocked me as well.

Anyway.
I was coming here to talk to you about a topic I’ve had written for awhile. Yet, I have woefully blathered on about nonsense for a good 10 or so lines here. GET TO THE POINT, DAME ADA.

Hyper Parenting.
At my work, it is a topic we discuss often – the parents who are a little too involved in their children’s lives. The children who are supposed to be independent but who still depend on their parents for advice at every single turn.

Parents.
Damn us, parents.

But you know what? I don’t’ think it is entirely our fault.

I see the parents everyone is talking about. I know what doc zone is trying to say. I get it. Really. But isn’t this more of a societal problem? If parents are told to step back then why, as a partner of the World’s Most Laid Back Perspective Focused Man in Canada, do I feel constantly pushed into the game? If we are going to spank the parents, should we not be correcting the educators as well?

It’s not just me and my deep-seeded competitiveness.
Really.

Franklin is in Aikido. He is 7 years old. He is working toward his yellow belt and so what are the requirements? It’s not merely to pay attention in class or practice his Tantodori at home. Instead it is to come to two classes a week – perhaps even three (the third class is the one for “fun”). It took concerted effort to explain to the Sensai that we felt this was too much. Three classes?!?

Gymnastics.
There are parents by the sidelines who regularly shout out “helpful tips” to their kids as they are jumping on the trampoline or doing a cartwheel but there are a large majority of us who screw off to the coffee shops and have a cuppa in blissful silence. Dickson brings his headphones and likes to watch kids clumsily leap into the foam pit to the sounds of Rural Alberta Advantage. I read J.M. Coetzee and occasionally look up to see some kid poking their finger in Franklin’s ear or Franklin showing other kids the correct procedure on how to wield a light saber if one is Jedi Master Mace Windu. Yet, the gymnastics leaders? They are measuring up who is the Next Olympic Hopeful. Which one is promising? Which one should they spend their time on? Which are the ones with “natural talent”. Which one gets the award at the end? Dickson and I are left scratching our heads. We only wanted to put Franklin in gymnastics to get him comfortable with his body. Also, he has fun.

Fun.
Concept of pure genius, that is.

I called last week to inquire about an art summer camp for Franklin. Painting, learning about Pollock, mucking about with clay – you know, kid stuff. Kid stuff? I’m such an idiot. After hammering out the dates and for some odd reason, discussing the pros and cons of having week long versus two week long camps (to really “delve into the theory”) the administrator asks me the following:

“So at what level of artistic talent would you place your son in?”

WTF?
And I said that – except instead of “Fuck” I said, “Are you crazy?”
My son is 7 years old. He’s perfect because he’s my son but to try and judge a seven year old kid on their artistic “talent” for a SUMMER CAMP is ludicrous. Am I the only one who feels this way?

Ahhh, I’m bitter. I don’t like repeatedly being told that parents need to step back when all our life we are being told to get more involved, to get our kids prepared, to give them the “advantage”. The teachers, the coaches, the administrators of summer camps… the list gets longer and longer the older Franklin gets.

This summer we are skipping the art camp. We are doing the science camps but that’ll be it. The rest of the time will be spent playing with fire, throwing sticks, getting lost in the woods and taking apart broken appliances because you know, you only get to be a kid once and I’m tired of people trying to measure my children’s sucess.

Success means you are a happy in your own skin and we are determined to keep it as simple as that.

A Varied Lawn, originally uploaded by ZhivanaDesigns.

`I would allege to you that the ultimate pollution is pollution that affects the cognitive ability of future generations.´
- Dr. David Carpenter

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There’s a lot of “meh” that goes around these days. I think much of it stems from the overwhelming barrage of information thrown our way as a parent – research about immunizations, vaccinations, allergies to peanuts, floride toothpaste, organic food, formula, breastmilk, ADD, ADHD, capital versus small letters of the alphabet, PVC, and Phathalate in raingear…oy, the list goes on and on.

I think it’s basic survival “meh”. I think there is only so much we can take before we give up with the pathetic, “My parent’s fed me Chef Boyardee everyday and I’ve turned out just fine” excuse. Of course, if you take a step back and take a look at us, we aren’t “just fine”, are we? Rates of cancer are increasing (and not just with our baby boomer parents), allergies and sensitivity to nuts are everywhere (we can’t always blame the over-protective mothers), the amount of children with ADHD is higher than every before (it can’t all be chalked up to more accurate diagnoses). When do we stop and wonder if what we did as children was actually healthy? When do we finally admit that the adage “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” is actually quite inaccurate in that it only makes you die… slower?

I’m a doomsday kinda person. I’m sure you’ve realized this. David Suzuki and Micheal Ruppert are not doom-and-gloomers in my eyes. Instead they are loraxes and how-to-manuals. I eat their stuff up. Suzuki take less chewing on, mind you, but I’m a firm believer that things are happening to the general population not because we don’t care but because there is a business out there to make sure we can’t absorb the information in order to make an informed decision.

Thus, the “meh”.
It’s the equivalent to the white flag of surrender.

Sometimes this “meh” is a survival tactic. We can’t always know what to do. Even the experts are fed erroneous information. Facts change. We interpret with the only history we own and often we can’t see the forest through the trees.
Sometimes it’s too difficult a battle. We see the problems and we can only shake our collective heads and worry about the world we’ve brought our children into. Will they survive this? Can we change it before it’s too late?

Many times I sit myself down in front of this computer and research issues until the wee hours of the morning. Then I go to bed feeling defeated. Sure, I can make sure my children wear PVC free rain gear and eat organic food. I’ll also charge through breastfeeding and immunize for all those forgotten diseases. I’ll even teach my children about where their food comes from and the importance of recycling. Nevertheless, there are things that no matter how many safe choices I make and how much information I give them, they will be in danger.

But right now! Right now we have an amazing opportunity. We can read, become informed and then act on an issue that we would normally have very little control over. These times don’t come all that often!

Last Thursday I went to a screening of the documentary, A Chemical Reaction.

The reason why the documentary is so important is not only because the issue is vital to the health of our world, most especially to our children, but because the BC government is considering “new statutory protections to further safeguard our environment from cosmetic chemical pesticides.” Canada’s two largest provinces, Quebec and Ontario, have already banned the use and sale of many landscaping pesticides. This is our chance to be heard – but we have only until February 15th, 2010 to tell them!

Read about how pesticides can be associated with serious illnesses, including cancer, damage to the immune system, and neurological problems. Children and pets are particularly vulnerable.

David Suzuki Foundation

The Canadian Cancer Society

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

Toxic Free Canada

The New War on Cancer: Against All Causes – Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD

A Silent Pandemic: Industrial Chemicals Are Impairing The Brain Development Of Children Worldwide – chemicals in some pesticides may be linked to lower intelligence, behavioural disorders, autism, ADHD and asthma in children, even in low-dose exposures.

Please send an email to the BC government to tell them how you feel. You can bet that there are corporations, the same ones who are suing Ontario and Quebec for breach of NAFTA due their provincial bans, who will make their voices (and money) heard.

Do it for our children.
Do it for June, my hero.

julie, originally uploaded by Ada I dirtyolive.

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Taking down the Christmas tree always has a purging effect on me. Once the needles are all swept away and all that’s left of the decorations are a few boxes and tins, everything feels so.. spacious.

- and I loooove spacious

I don’t love spacious in the sense that all our furniture is pushed to the sides of the room (that’s actually a strange annoyance of mine) but I love spacious in a totally opposite of a hoarder kind of way. I love minimalist, simple, uncrowded, room to breathe, everything has a purpose, no superfluous decorative what-have-you’s.

I love space and room to breathe so much that I’m almost going insane over this hair of mine. I have to face it. While I can appreciate the lovely locks on other people, such as Cathrine Zeta Jones (I would practically kill for thick long dark waves like that), I can’t handle it on myself.

Even if I did dye my hair and blow-dry it so that I had volume, I would still hate it. I think I’ve finally realized why: it is decoration. You have to bunch it up with goo to make it stay curly. You have to continually brush it to make it stay sleek. To ever have a consistent style from morning until night I would have to return to my hair choice from Grade One and refuse to brush it. Then it would be a tangled mess from the moment I woke up until I went to bed at night – combining both the volume with the curls!

At least, that was my hairstyle until my mother decided enough was enough and I became Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music. At the time, I was devastated. About 2 hours after that, I loved it.

This might explain my delusion toward having long hair (“It will be so easy!”) and my excitement to cut it short every time it gets to a stage where people start to remark, “Wow, your hair is getting so long” and where I notice that my head actually feels physically heavier.

I’m trying to get Dickson to cut my hair. I tried last night. I tried tonight. No dice. I may have to resort to a stylist but the only one I actually liked and who “got my style” (and whom I met through this blog) went MIA once her salon changed hands.

In other words… this is a long and elaborate way to plant a google seed of sorts for someone who may or may not be reading blogs any longer and who I completely blank on the last name.

Renee, from The Fix.
Where are you?

I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who was attached to a stylist but there you go. The woman was good at her job. Also, she was super nice and her daughter was a cutie.

Thank-you, Taita, originally uploaded by Ada I dirtyolive.

Our little family is truly blessed to have such wonderful people looking out for us. Both my parents and Dickson’s parents are some of the most selfless and generous people I have ever met.

In the last few months, there have been days where I was so sick I couldn’t open my eyes, never mind move – but my Mom was here, chasing after Franklin or Eliza and making sure everyone had eaten and were getting enough sleep. When I had taken an indecent amount of time off work and Eliza had still not recovered from pneumonia, I knew that she would be safe, well cared for, doted on and understood when I left her with her Taita.

I know that not everyone is so lucky to have such support in their life. I know that my own parents were not this fortunate.

I don’t think I can express how grateful Dickson and I are to feel this kind of love. Not only do we know that you are able to come, but we understand that you relish the opportunity – even if it means that we contaminate you with our viruses and exhaust you with our lumpy hide-a-bed.

Thank-you
Thank-you
Thank-you

I’ve been asked many times over the last week, “How do you know you have H1N1?” and although the question is valid, we have no idea if we actually got the much publicized flu, I think I started to resent the insinuation that perhaps what we were going through wasn’t – valid.

Of course, on the surface, I know this isn’t what people meant but it still got to me after awhile. I was worried. The chance of anything actually going wrong, actually causing a death, was extremely small – H1N1 or not – but that chance was big enough for me. Any chance is big enough.
I’m not a big fan of regret.

My doctor was worried enough to subscribe Tamiflu for Eliza and ahead of time for Franklin. Didn’t that say something? The fact that she told us to stay isolated for 7 days after the start of symptoms say she thought it was more than the regular flu?

All this time I’m taking off work, is it being questioned?
The Tamiflu? Thought of as unnecessary?
Am I scaring people? Am I crying wolf?

Everything was so confusing on television and online that I finally just went by one person’s advice, our doctor.

When I mentioned the odd email questioning my label of H1N1 (“how dare you self-diagnosis such a thing?”) to my husband last night he calmly replied, “But we don’t know for sure. If we did, we wouldn’t be planning on getting the vaccination once they are well enough”.

And he’s right.
We don’t know for sure.
We do plan on vaccinating for the H1N1 on Friday – once everyone’s no longer contagious.

There is no harm in questioning my diagnosis. I hope I’m not adding to the hysteria by doing so, but perhaps I am. However, I’ll repeat my reply to Jessica’s comment on Monday’s post – if it smells like a fox, sounds like a fox and looks like a fox, it’s probably a fox. Pretending that we have a big, wild, long haired dog like creature doesn’t make it any less scary. It also wouldn’t have changed a thing we did – the Tamiflu or the extended time at home now. In fact I’d like to know, if I’m supposed to be cautious in case it’s H1N1 then why the hell am I not supposed to call it H1N1?

I’m sick of the debate. I’m sick of the vaccination debate and I’m sick of the H1N1 conspiracy debate. It is a pandemic. It’s not a serious pandemic in that there is a vaccination and it is not fatal for most people but why are people hoping, praying that this isn’t a big deal? Why are people willing to put more stock into conspiracy theorists than researchers and scientists?

What happens if it’s not a big deal? My thoughts are that in the long run, it’s an economic problem; which when it comes to the government’s point of view, is a big scary deal.

1. you get the flu, you suffer, and then you go back to work with a cough and a bit of a runny nose.
2. your cough-about-town sends a dozen people to bed – people you met in the grocery store, the pregnant lady at the pharmacy, and the entire staff at Starbucks goes down because you hacked on a pin pad and “Alexia” can’t afford the time off so works through the flu while at work.
3. your boss doesn’t get her Starbucks before work because the shop is closed, comes in grumpy and then fires your ass.

It’s economics, baby.
That part’s not confusing.

Expect Good Things Rug, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

I love this rug hooking. There is so much in the world that is not going well these days that this rug’s message is the only recourse, really.

Expect Good Things.

I’m worried about H1N1. I’m worried because many of my co-workers and acquaintances don’t believe in vaccination. They don’t vaccinate for measles, mumps or rubella. They don’t take the flu shot. They don’t use antibiotics and they don’t use any kind of pain medication. They are “holistic”.

I’m all for holistic medicine. Clove oil instead of Motrin, Arnica for the bumps and bruises, changing of the diet for mental health… all that hippie stuff is good. However there would seem, in our technologically advanced age of the twenty-first century, some science can be given credit. I tend to think the eradication of child killing diseases is a good thing.

sigh

But! Expect Good Things.
Hope that this flu season doesn’t kill anyone.

oops. Has that already happened? To healthy children?!?
Say it ain’t so!

Yes.

So the idea that you don’t think you’ll need it, that you will be able to weather the flu fine, that you are healthy and without pre-existing immunity problems…

None of this means that you won’t / might / could give your “not a big deal” flu to a child, or to a parent of a child, or to a sibling of a baby.

Perhaps most significantly, clinicians from around the world are reporting a very severe form of disease, also in young and otherwise healthy people, which is rarely seen during seasonal influenza infections. In these patients, the virus directly infects the lung, causing severe respiratory failure. Saving these lives depends on highly specialized and demanding care in intensive care units, usually with long and costly stays.

I’m trying to Expect Good Things but I’m a mother and I prepare for the worst.

Alberta Pacific Grain CO, originally uploaded by bealluc.

Iris Evans made a comment last month about family life, childcare, education and mental illness. What she was supposed to be focusing on, as Alberta’s finance minister, was finance – and she was doing that. In fact, what she was proposing was pretty news worthy in itself – the ALBERTA BOOM apparently needs Five Billion Dollars after reporting its first deficient in more than 10 years. I’d hate to think what they would need had they been a “Have Not” province… not that I’m saying anything about how well she does her job at all. She would know the state of Alberta’s finances much better than I.

See what I did there? I admitted that I may not know the full picture.
I’m not saying I don’t have an opinion on it, though.

Just like Iris Evans has an opinion on how to raise children. She’s allowed an opinion. In fact, she has experience in this area. Apparently, she has raised her three sons through some of her own financial difficulties. So when she offhandedly remarked that good parenting requires one parent to stay home, admitting the financial sacrifice that this would incur, she had done some personal research in the area.
And even though this was her opinion and not a move toward changing government policy, the general public went a little wacko. She tried to apologize but the debate had begun and I still get the odd email with a link to her statements.

The thing is, Iris Evans said what a lot of people think. Hell, if more parents stayed at home then governments wouldn’t have to fund day cares or consider full time Kindergartens – regardless of the research proving the benefits for these programs on children’s development.

Five Billion Dollars.

If one parent stayed at home then perhaps we wouldn’t be using our tax dollars for funding those Baby Boomers and their nursing homes, either. They can move in with the grandkids!

Five Billion Dollars.

What about that comment regarding mental health issues? Seriously? We are up in arms about the Stay At Home Parent thing (which is nothing new) and let the fact that a former minister for Health and Wellness links parenting skill to deficiencies in mental health?!? Of course, parents who might be plunking their children in front of Sesame Street telling themselves that they are teaching their precious offspring to read are better simply because they are at home? I highly doubt this is what she was saying and yet… this is what she said.
Or perhaps children with mental health issues are less likely to be diagnosed at home? There are no educational professionals at home who notice warning signs, ask for tests, or begin early prevention. From my own experience, if a mother thinks there could be something wrong isn’t she a lot easier to dismiss as paranoid or “searching for perfection” than someone trained in Early Childhood Education?

Again, Five Billion Dollars.

I’m not trying to say Iris Evans is a part of a conspiracy to save the government billions of dollars in social care costs. No one listens to a conspiracy theorist on the internet (or off, really). However, to lump educating your children about the value of a dollar AND raising the stay at home parent flag AND the root cause of declining mental health all in one package either says she’s never had any coaching in public speaking, is extremely ignorant or maybe, just maybe… she’s getting good at her job.

Witty’s Lagoon, originally uploaded by TT_MAC.

On Friday, on my way to pick up Franklin from school, I got a call that Eliza had thrown up. I knew a call like this was bound to happen. This is what happens when you stick a group of children next to each other – they swap bodily fluids – some of it is harmless, some of it causes puke.

So the weekend wasn’t all that great. Dickson got sick on Sunday morning and Franklin got sick on Sunday night. I didn’t get sick until Tuesday afternoon which is typical. I got to clean up all the puke and just when I started to think that I had avoided the whole mess and I replace my facebook profile with a photo of Wonder Woman, I break down at 4pm and drag this nauseous hero home.

Eliza has been sick more than any of us. She seems to be recycling the illness throughout the house all week. Every time we think it’s a brand new morning and we’re all going to lick this thing, someone pukes or has stomach cramps. She’s also been a bit of a whiny bucket of blech.

How’s that for a metaphor?

However, out of the two kids, the one I feel the most sorry for is Franklin. We had big plans that were continually dashed due to the 2009 May Puke Festival of Sustainability. Aikido on Friday was canceled so we could dash up the hill to pick up his sister. Monday’s school trip to Witty’s Lagoon (see above photo) was missed because all he had energy for was watching Lego Builds on youtube. All week while he stayed at home with Eliza and I, or Dickson, he took a back seat to the moaning and groaning of a teething, puking toddler. Not that he particularly minded that last part as it gave him free reign to create lego contraptions and then rehearse reviews of his creations in the same manner of the lego geeks/designers on lego.com.

Here, geek out to this nugget…

This weekend we are going OUTSIDE.
We will see OCEAN.
We will ride BIKES.
We will NOT PUKE.

(knock on wood)

Tremulous encounters between two worlds, originally uploaded by thaneeya.

Sometimes you cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end, it’s all a question of balance.
- Vasantrao Valmik

I’ve been writing a few emails lately. Long emails. Emails that explain why I write a blog, why I write what I write on my blog, why I don’t want Eliza looking to princesses and barbie dolls as ideals and why I worry about Franklin’s emotional strength.
The problem with blogs is that it is a very very small picture of someone’s life. It’s also a very small picture of someone’s thoughts. Many times, more times than not, I sit down to write something here and end up on another tangent all together. My last post was like that. I actually sat down to write about Eliza’s birthday falling on International Woman’s Day and how this seemed fitting considering her personality and my hopes for her. Instead it turned into a post about raising a boy.

Waxing on about how wonderful my life is would probably make a lot of people feel a lot more comfortable. Then again, waxing on about how rosy my life is makes a whole different section of readers send me emails about how they can’t relate to my life and question why their life seems so much harder. The thing is, my life has it’s ups and downs and when I write about the ups, I write about the ups. Sometimes I write about the downs. Sometimes I just write about things that I think about when I can’t find my glasses and my garden’s already mapped out.

To keep balance, I need to feel inspired. I try my best to feel inspired every single day. There are days when I’m not feeling it and those days… well, they suck. It doesn’t take much to inspire me though. Right now I’m designing a Bar Mitzvah invitation and learning how to use more than $25 worth of our Photoshop software. This should tell you how easy I am to please. I’m finding inspiration in my garden, in picking up garbage, in using my creativity, and in raising my children. All the things you’ve been reading about over the past year.

When I write about questioning society’s ability to create healthy boys and men it is because I want to learn how to raise my own son to be a happy person. I want him to feel good about himself and see himself the way his father and I see him – full of promise and joy. I’m not wringing my hands and pacing back and forth in the middle of the night worrying if he’s going to become the Canadian version of Columbine’s Eric Harris or Dylan Kleboldor. I’m just thinking about how to teach him inner strength. Every parent wants this for their children. My parents had huge hopes for every one of their children but guess who didn’t go to medical school because she thought she wasn’t smart enough? I need to learn about this inner strength too.

lethal litter, originally uploaded by promqu33n.

Remember that movie, Sex Lies and Videotape? With Andie MacDowell, James Spader and Laura San Giacomo? The one where James Spader’s character turns Andie MacDowell’s repressed world upside down with his fetish for sex interviews?

There’s a part of the film, right at the beginning, where you start to get a glimpse of the kind of life Ann (MacDowell) is leading when she is talking to her analyst;

“Garbage.All I’ve been thinking about all week is garbage. I can’t stop thinking about it. I just… I’ve gotten real concerned over what’s gonna happen with all the garbage.

The last time… I started feelin’ this way is when that barge was stranded and, you know, it was goin’ around the island and nobody would claim it.”

Then her therapist goes on about how she’s only concerning herself with things she cannot control and blah blah blah… foreshadowing…. blah blah blah… character development…

I’m beginning to get a little more than “concerned” about the garbage. We live right by the university – in fact, we have a trail that leads to the campus practically right outside our front door. However, we aren’t “on” university property which means any garbage thrown by wonderfully distracted university students or from the high school students down the road is left to blow in the breeze… and then into the rose hip bushes.

They are prickly rose hip bushes.

Want to know how I know? Because last weekend Franklin was required to count out 100 “things” to bring to school for One Hundred Day. He thought about pennies but he did that last year. Then he thought about lego (but didn’t want to lose any). Then he thought about shreds of paper (he likes to use the shredder).
Then I asked him if he would help me pick up 100 pieces of garbage around the area and he could bring that to school. I thought he was going to come back with a sigh and repeat his request to shred paper but he agreed! We talked about what happens when garbage is left to fly around and where it eventually ends up. He concluded that as we live by the ocean, it will get blown into the water and join the rest of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (which is what that photo above is about). He’s quite angry with garbage in the ocean. He worries about the sharks.

So we collected garbage.

Well, I collected about 75% of it and he took care of 25% while pointing out the rest of it to me in the bushes. It was horrible. Most of it was chip bags. Behind some evergreen trees we found diapers. Old, soaked, and heavy as fcuk. The decoration on the outside was gone but they were still totally intact. We found bottles and cans. We didn’t actually find all that many plastic bags though. We found a billion paper coffee cups.

Franklin went to school with the garbage and afterward told me that there were a lot of kids who brought Pokemon cards but interestingly, no one else brought garbage… Pretty cute that he thought this was an unexpected event.

I still pick up garbage. Every day I make sure I pick up one thing but I can’t keep up with the litter. When it’s windy it’s especially bad. I wonder if it’s always been there but I’m only noticing it now – now that I’m on maternity leave and a little more relaxed and a little more cognoscente of my surroundings. I’ve been out a few weekends before our 100 trip and picked up a few grocery bags full. I don’t feel like I’m making that much of a dent.

And then there’s the fact that all I’m doing is placing it out of my field of vision. Where does it go after I throw it in the dumpster? This gets me even more. This stuff – the chip bags, the plastic and the diapers. They don’t decompose. You can’t compost this. Not only that, it’s toxic to make – some would argue toxic to even use.

I live in one of the most environmentally, politically, socially conscious cities in Canada and I can count the number of moms who use decomposable or cloth diapers on my hands. We have a overflow storm water discharge system that runs into the ocean making it ripe with fecal coliform all because people are throwing crap into their streets. Garbage floats into my stroller on windy day walks.

We are The Garden City and we stink.