Cat Skinner Club

It’s Coming, I Promise

Okay Southern Ontario friends. I know it’s nearly impossible to believe that Spring is on the way, on a day like this when I can’t even see out the window because the snow is blowing so hard. But keep hope alive! Remember yesterday when it was 10 degrees and nearly all the snow had melted? We snatched the kids from camp and went to the playground where Mamma S snapped these gorgeous photos. A day like yesterday wouldn’t be possible if there weren’t more just like it to look forward too. Hopefully these will cheer you up, and help remind you that winter isn’t forever.

Photos courtesy of Sarah Jamal Photography

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NoodleSpringGlee

Noodle Wrangling

If you were my breast, you'd have seen a lot of this today.

If you were my breast, you’d have seen a lot of this today.

It seems that since embarking on the journey of homeschooling my two daughters, I have forgotten how to take care of my son. He’s now an active and very willful toddler, and I’m learning how little time we actually get to spend together. I’m learning this because when we are together, I think I suck at being the parent I want to be.

I started this week with what I thought was a great plan. It’s March break, so the girls are in a camp, hopefully making lots of local friends. I figured that since we have finally nailed the sleeping thing with Noodle, and since I would be hanging with the little dude all week, I could try to start moving towards weaning him. I wanted to start a meal strategy that I read about in a book called ‘The New Basics’ by a pediatrician named Michel Cohen. Cohen suggests limiting meals to four times a day with breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. I thought this made sense so I decided I would start to tell Noah that he could only nurse at those times. I have a love/hate relationship with this book, so no real surprise when my baby boy thought this idea was bullshit.

Noah’s still getting teeth, and the big ones are coming in now. For those of you who don’t know, breast-feeding releases delicious chemicals that help to relieve pain. There was much screaming and many tears as I tried to make this transition to regularly scheduled feeding times today. I tried clove oil, and it didn’t seem to work one bit, though we’ve had success with it in the past. I caved. I couldn’t hold out, and everyone around me seemed to think it was a bad idea too. Especially Noah.  The result – an entire day of a baby on my breast, and some very tingly clove oil marinated nipples. I’d like to wean Noah by the summer time, but I honestly don’t know how anyone has the resolve. Feel free to post some advice, you mammas and dads who have lived through this.

Getting Noah to eat lunch was just as impossible as getting him to stop dive-bombing into my shirt. For the sake of transparency, I will admit to plunking down with him in front of our TV, then using the remote to bait him with his favourite show. For each bite, the program was un-paused. We’re supposed to be TV-free this month, but this technique was working so well. At least that’s what I thought until I realized he was taking bites, then waiting until I hit play to subtly turn his back to me and deposit the entire mushy mouthful of goo on our hand-woven carpet.

I’m in the PMS zone this week, so I was really trying to take this in stride, but was starting to feel a bit harried. I freely admit that I often sweat the small stuff. Then I attempted a poopy diaper change and realized that the nursing/feeding thing was a cakewalk compared to what I shall call the shit-flinging bucking bronco ride. He screamed, kicked and punched until Daddy came from the other room to lend a hand. Even when I tried to give him a toy to play with (read my iPhone) he tossed it aside and tried to roll away. He didn’t want to get changed, he wanted to nurse. As I’m typing this, I remember a great Mamma S strategy that involves pinning him down beneath my leg. Hind sight. (See what I did there?)

I’m not sure why he’s wanted to nurse all day. He’s not sick. Maybe it’s because it’s so novel to have me all to himself? Maybe it’s because I’m boring, and like a bad boyfriend, playing with my tits is all he can think to do to have some fun with me? Maybe it’s because every time he walked away, I was furiously trying to bang out this blog post. I’m feeling like I need a lot more practice with Noodle-wrangling. I’m also feeling like I need a two-hour nap. How does my nearly seventy-year-old mother keep up with him?

Dear readers, I welcome any and all suggestions for amusing a seventeen-month-old, without the television. I want this week to be fun, and I want it to be the bonding experience I was hoping for.  I advise you to expect minimal posting from me this week.

Although, the girls are home now and all three kids are playing delightfully in the family room as I ‘hide’ in the classroom.

Hmmm….I wonder how much writing I can do?

Links of the Week

bambooplay

I like to spend my weekend being lazy in my pajamas, and hanging out with the kids. I take breaks from my own activities to hike through our forest, make hot chocolate or try beating our little brainiacs at a board game. I don’t want to spend my time in front of the screen.

It’s nice to keep in touch with all of you though, so I thought I’d try something new, inspired by some of the other blogs I love. Each weekend, I’m going to try to share a few links to some of the Internet treasures that have helped to shape the week that has passed.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

My week started with much fear, anger and stress after I read this rather epic article and subsequent related links from Mother Jones. Plastic is still toxic friends, even without BPA’s and it’s everywhere.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certichem-eastman-bpa-free-plastic-safe

At home, we’re changing our food storage containers to glass, and sorting the kids out with stainless steel lunch options. I appreciated the well-researched nature of this article, but I found it, and all the other related links on Mother Jones to be very hysteria-inducing, without offering many helpful solutions. I don’t like the ‘sky is falling’ approach to life, and I’ll admit I’m a bit pre-disposed to it. I turned to the Internet and found the following helpful posts about trying to live more ‘plastic-free’. I can freely admit that I’ll never be able to be as extreme as some of this bloggers, but there are some practical changes we can make with relative ease.

http://plasticfreeguide.com/
http://plasticmanners.com/tips/

Here’s a downloadable PDF from the Suzuki Foundation with an easy guide to which plastics are safest:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/publications/downloads/2012/qog-plastics.pdf

In semi-related subjects, I was thrilled to see that the Environmental Working Group finally has a Skin Deep cosmetics app available. The Skin Deep website is my go-to site for checking the safety of beauty and cosmetic products. You can download their app here:

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/app/

My heart was heavy after all of this reading about large corporations who care so little about our health and our environment. I was very glad to discover this amazing clip as I spent a lazy morning in bed today. I love humans who dedicate their lives to the betterment of this world:

And finally, as we joyously witness our trees starting to bud, I’d like to share this post from one of my favourite blogs ‘Let the Children Play’. This wonderful resource celebrates a back-to-nature approach to kids relishing their childhood and the outdoors. I found it kind of awesome that this post hit my radar as we were combing through Chinatown because it’s all about fun uses for bamboo:

http://www.letthechildrenplay.net/2014/03/what-can-you-do-with-bamboo.html

The Day We Made the News

The Skinner-Jamals - photo by Galit Rodan

The Skinner-Jamals – photo by Galit Rodan

Our family was featured in the Life section of the Globe and Mail today.  Check it out here.

I like Leah McLaren’s unbiased interpretation of  our two interviews. I wish she hadn’t referred to me as a stay-at-home-mom. I mean, in some respects that’s true, but I feel like I’m also an entrepreneur and an educator. I would have appreciated a fuller picture. I also don’t love that she lumped us in with the “orgy-obsessed swingers” and “S&M enthusiasts” who she claims are included in the polyamorous group. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of consenting adults doing what they want – I just don’t think that McLaren needed to draw that parallel in an article that I thought was supposed to be about how much we love our kids. Those who are gonna lump us in don’t need their hands held. Also, based on my experience of the world, S&M lovers and swingers can be found in two-partner hetero culture and homosexual culture. Finally, I wish Sarah would have blown off her work duties for half an hour to add a couple of her incredible witticisms to the piece. She is, after all, the boss.

Oh, and one more – I wish that she hadn’t suggested that Nekky is free to come and go “at will” between my bedroom and Sarah’s. Those of you who know us know that our sleep schedule was forged through pain, tears, metamorphosis, care, love, epic amounts of communication, and finally some truly profound self-realization and vulnerability. I wasn’t about to get into all that with a reporter. It also makes Nekky sound like some kind of iron-fisted patriarch, who calls all the shots about when he decides to lay with his women, which is kind of ridiculous. We share our sleeping time with each other carefully, and if we change plans, it’s not without a careful check-in with one other.

We did feel like the article was well written, and McLaren seems careful to not be judgemental. It was almost totally accurate, and we LOVED the photo that the paper chose to print, even if it is a bit sombre.  My sister-in-love pointed out that it’s very Wes Anderson, and I agree. In fact, I often feel like our life would make a great Wes Anderson film. The highlight of the whole “we’re-gonna-be-in-the-news”  was the incredible day we spent with the photographer, Galit Rodan. What a lovely, talented young woman! She came and hung out and Noah took such a liking to her (Noah is usually very disinterested in women who aren’t either his Mamas or his sisters). We made pizza together, played in the snow, and just let her shoot us enjoying family time. I hope she’ll let me share some of her photos here, but you should also check out Galit’s beautiful blog.

As I expected, the comments have been amusing, interesting and not terribly surprising. I’m pleased to see that there isn’t anything terribly inflammatory or rude posted thus far. We’ve had such an outpouring of support and it’s only noon. I love our community of friends and family. We’d never be as strong as we are without them.

The Thing About Lassie

lassie

My sixteen-month-old son has an obsession. We don’t watch a lot of television in our house, so I’m not sure how this even came about. The little man is completely and totally in love with Lassie. I don’t mean the old black and white TV series, I mean a very specific made-for-tv movie based on the original novel. This film was made in 2005 and features a star-studded cast, including Samantha Morton, Peter O’Toole and Peter Dinklage. Lassie scores 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and I’ve seen it about twenty times now, so I can agree that it’s a solid film. It’s feature length and my sixteen-month-old will watch it from beginning to end.

Not only will he sit quietly and watch this entire movie, but he also has favourite moments. We know these moments are popular with Noodle because he becomes quite animated and insistes that you watch, by grabbing you with his sweet little hands and often panting, which is his way of saying “doggie”. Every time his favourite horse comes on the screen he says “neigh neigh!” and he furrows his little brow whenever it’s a tense moment or tragedy strikes. He wants to watch this movie at least once a day, and we indulge him because, well, here’s why I’m writing.

I get a thick lump in my throat and a stinging behind the eyes when I witness how much my little baby boy loves this movie. It seems a ridiculous thing to get emotional about, doesn’t it? I don’t know why his love of Lassie affects me so…

It could be because I love dogs more than most people, and movies about dogs always make me very emotional. It could be because the little boy in the movie, with his serious face, prominent nose, and sticky-out ears reminds me of Noah. The little boy loves his dog and gets his heart broken. Maybe the film is making me realize that my own little boy is vulnerable and now that he’s old enough to appreciate film, he’s one step closer to being exposed to a world that can be quite cruel? Maybe his infatuation with the movie is making me aware of the depth of feeling that a tiny person can experience which is humbling? Am I depressed because my husband is allergic to pets and I don’t think our children (or I, for that matter) will ever get to enjoy a dog? Does his captivation with this movie  mean that Noah is growing up quicker than I realize and I feel like time is slipping away? I’m not pre-menstrual, could I be peri-menopausal?

Now when I hear the soundtrack from the film, I feel this incredible sense of melancholy or  perhaps its wistfulness. My son seems to understand every nuance of this story that he watches daily, and I’m amazed by this. I realize as I’m typing this that I want to witness him take in every amazing thing he will discover, but of course I can’t. Time is fragile and fleeting and I have such a short window where I get to observe him being moved, or delighted, or touched by the world around him. It feels like there is never enough time to breathe in all of his wonder.