Urban Suburban Mommy

Tag Archives: girls

Raising Boys and the Art of Poop

Posted on by Posted in The Struggle is Real .

I’m raising three boys. I married one, gave birth to the other two.

Before you label me an emasculating nag, let me just tell you that my husband is an awesome father and partner, and he routinely scrubs the finish off of my plastic cookware, at least he’s doing the dishes.

Also, he once tried to fix an electrical outlet with a butter knife. While the power was still on. So, that’s what I’m working with.

The trajectory of learning to raise boys was not so much a curve, but rather an abrupt drop that plummeted to the depths of sanity, with me shrieking all the way. I have a sister. My mom has a sister. My maternal grandmother had two sisters.

“Girl” is a language I’m familiar with.

My husband prepared me for raising boys in bits and bites; by the time I was pregnant with my first child, I was ready to have a toilet seat perpetually raised, a trail of clothing on the floor (presumably, to help him find his way to the kitchen) and an affinity for sports. My husband was rebellious and untamed back in his day (he specifically asked that I not mention the time he stole a street cleaner, so I won’t.) We thought we could anticipate and be prepared for anything our boys threw at us.

As it turned out, we were dumb.

Boys are encoded with baffling behaviour and unexplained rituals. Every time I catch up, something new comes along. If you have any insights on the following, I’m all ears:

Mess:

Imagine a dumpster fire. Now it’s in your living room. My home is a constant eruption of indelible markers, old food, new food and toys that are designed to break the sound barrier and the human spirit. I don’t need a nanny, I need a priest.

Smell:

I’m not talking about the obvious shaboomie in the diaper after taco night. I’m talking about the pervasive, insistent aroma that follows my boys around. Nate’s natural smell seems to be yogurt and dirty running shoes. And sometimes poop. Which leads me to…

Poop:

My kids are obsessed. They talk about poop constantly. They think it’s the most hilarious word in the English lexicon. Nate has even developed a highly sophisticated language whereby every other word is “poop”. It took a while to crack the code, but now we watch Frozen together and happily sing along to “Let It Poop.”

Danger:

If there’s a way to climb something, dangle from somewhere or perch precariously on something that’s not meant for climbing, they will find it. The calm, centred, nurturing Mama inside of me says “They’re just testing their boundaries. Let them explore.” The part of me that’s attached to my face screams “For the love of GOD get off that scaffolding before you break your neck!”

What I couldn’t have known, what no one prepared me for, was the utter love and devotion my boys have – for me. While I was busy falling in mad, deep, crazy love for my kids, I hadn’t noticed that they were doing the same thing. Of all the “boy stuff” I was unprepared for, that surprise was the most welcomed.

You throw like a girl – be proud of that!

Posted on by Posted in Urban Suburban Mommy .

Throw like a girl? That’s a good thing – a great thing in fact! And we caught up with Dana Bookman, the Founder and Executive Director of Toronto Girls Baseball to find out more about getting girls in the game!

girls-play-baseball-1 girls-play-baseball-2A friend told me a story the other day. His son’s hockey coach told the team they skate like girls.

Not ‘skate like girls’ because there’s actually a girl on the team and she’s really the best skater they’ve got. More like the ‘skate like girls’ in a ‘you guys suck’ kind of way. Those boys (and that one girl) have sisters and mothers. Whether that coach knows it or not, he’s teaching that team that skating like a girl, throwing like a girl, being a girl means that girls are weaker, less athletic and slower than boys.

Do you, as mothers believe that’s true of your daughters? I sure as heck don’t.

A recent study by Indiana University found that until puberty girls and boys are equally athletic.  It found no difference in performance between boys and girls under 8. It also found little difference in girls and boys 11 and 12 year olds.

Last year, when my daughter was 6 years old, she wanted to play on a baseball team. She can hit the ball out of the park, but she didn’t want to play with boys. When I searched for baseball leagues for girls my daughter’s age (not softball) there were none. Not in Toronto, not in the GTA, not in Ontario. So I started one.  And within weeks we had dozens of girls registered.

Within 6 months we had more than 200 girls on our roster.

girls-play-baseball-4 girls-play-baseball-3And we’re still just getting started. But one program in one city is not enough. In Canada, 41% of girls ages 3-17 do not participate in sports. And young girls who are not physically active by 10 years old only have a 10% chance of being active as adults.

Two recent studies featured in the New York Times suggest that participating in physical activity, particularly sports, has benefits for girls including a reduced risk of developing cancer, better grades, and high self-esteem.

Toronto Girls Baseball shows the girls what they can aspire to be. The club has players from the Canadian National Women’s Baseball team as coaches. They bring their heavy silver medals from the PanAm Games and from the 2016 World Championships in South Korea, and players try them on and take photos. The coaches are role models, showing our girls what they can achieve if they find a sport they love.

Being part of a team is not just about being active, it’s about confidence, coordination and teamwork. And it teaches our daughters that throwing like a girl – and skating like a girl – is something to be proud of.

outlookemoji-1474046667369_tgb1-jpggirls-play-baseball-5

dana-bookamn

Dana Bookman is the Founder and Executive Director of  Mighty Girls Sports and Toronto Girls Baseball. 
She has two kids, ages 7 & 8 and lives in Toronto.

Send them back to school rocking a cute new ‘do!

Posted on by Posted in Mommy Approved .

It’s that time of year again…
All the school supplies and back to school shopping for new clothes have been bought but what about a fresh haircut?

Don’t be afraid to cut and style your kids’ hair. There are lots of low maintenance looks, fun ‘dos and ways for them to express their personal style (or mama’s fashion sense) with a great cut.

Here are some great styles I guarantee will make them the coolest kids on the playground!

erica with clientErica H. Wearing has been a stylist for over 16 years and she absolutely loves what she does . “It’s a great feeling to help people feel and look their best when they leave my chair. I wouldn’t trade this for any other job in the world!”
Check out Erica at Ka!Boom Hair Salon 1129 West Pender Street, Vancouver B.C .
(604)681-6003

alissia marciano hairbyericaw

Don’t you love the unsolicited advice?

Posted on by Posted in The Struggle is Real .

For me, the most annoying part of parenthood has nothing to do with how to raise my children and everything to do with everyone else’s opinion of how to raise my children.

I’d be giving my baby a bottle, and perfect strangers would tell me “You should give breastfeeding a chance.”

I struggled with extremely low milk production caused by a medical issue – people would tell me not to put so much effort into pumping – that formula would be fine.

One person said “They should sleep on the tummy” while the next article insisted back-sleeping for infants.

Time-outs are good. Time-outs are damaging their confidence.

Put them to bed early. Put them to bed late. Add Omega 3, stop adding it…

AAAAAHHHHHRRRRRGGGHHHHHHH

It’s no wonder that we have these poor moms in every mommy group on Facebook (and there are hundreds of these groups) crowdsourcing Every. Single. Thing. Which formula is the purest? Should I put my toddler in Nike or New Balance runners? My baby sneezed, should I go to the emergency?

All of this unsolicited parenting advice is turning all but the most confident people into jittery parents who constantly second guess themselves and don’t have any faith in their own parenting instincts any more.

I was just out with my friend Carol – a mom of three boys and a well-loved mommy blogger, friend, and founder of Plenty, and we were commiserating. It’s not just “boy mom” stuff, because I know that there are some little girls that are a serious handful. It’s not just a “mom-of-2” thing or a “mom-of-3” thing – because there are parents of singletons that have way more than enough to handle with just one, but let’s face it. Two or three rambunctious little boys only two years apart is a much different parenting experience than a quiet, well-behaved singleton.

We shared a laugh at some of the unsolicited advice we’d recently received.

“Put them on a schedule” she chided. “Like ‘OOOHHHHH! I never thought of that!’ Don’t they think that if it worked for my family I’d have done that?” I countered with “Well I just expect my child to listen to me. They know what I will tolerate and what’s not allowed.”

Yes, seriously, we laughed and laughed.

And while whatever works for your family is fine, we, as parents, are all just trying to survive our offspring.

Good for you if you have a child that will come, go, listen and obey “because you say so” but that doesn’t fly with my 6 year old son that I’ve always (lovingly) called “The Triplets” because I feel like he’s the effort and has the energy of at least three. Every family is so different. Sure, there are truisms – like “if you don’t want cavities your kid should brush and floss after every meal” but schedules, sleep routines, discipline, feeding issues and other dynamics are very individual.

We’re all special snowflakes.

Carol and I laughed as we compared notes on the things we’d been told by parents, friends – even childless friends – and more.

If you still don’t understand why I don’t like unsolicited advice, think of it this way: Don’t you hate when millionaires say “It’s easy to make it – if I can do it so can you.” If it were so *effing* easy we’d all be millionaires. I also recall this Beck quote about making music being the most fun job in the world and he didn’t understand why everyone didn’t become a rockstar.

Umm…

It’s all in perspective. Sometimes people that have control of a situation seem to feel the need to tell the less-in-control people how easy it is. There’s no empathy. It really just comes across as people not having a clue.

It’s not easy.

It’s not easy to become a millionaire and not everyone can do it. It’s not easy to become a rockstar and not everyone can do it. It’s not easy to manage children and, well, you know…

I know that friends, family members and colleagues only want to help. Perfect strangers trying to put their two cents in honestly baffle me.

I do have one piece of advice I will give unsolicited when someone I know gets pregnant: You know what you’re doing, don’t take any unsolicited advice.

So take my advice here (😊) the only advice you need is the advice you ask for.

Suburban Mommy Michelle adds: The minute I threw away those parenting books and stopped listening to everybody’s two cents, I became a happier person and a better parent. Go with your gut!