Cat Skinner Club

School of Mom

Portrait by Mama S

Portrait by Mama S

Things my children have taught me:

  • The importance of play, even for grown-ups
  • How to inject new life and meaning into household tasks/chores
  • A whole new pleasure in cooking for (and with!) my family
  • How to view everything like it’s fresh and new
  • How to slow down
  • How to lower my expectations of perfection (from myself)
  • How to be okay with not being on time sometimes
  • How to be creative and make art every single day
  • To enjoy sewing!
  • To be thrifty and frugal
  • Patience that I never thought I’d have
  • How to laugh at myself
  • To turn inward and really work on my own struggles
  • To respect money and resources
  • That I want to be a writer, who writes books for them to enjoy
  • To be reverent and terrified of the passage of time
  • That there are one million outlets for my imagination
  • That their opinion of me is the only one that matters (after my own)
  • How to melt away my hard exterior
  • To (always try to) speak with love and respect even when I’m feeling frustrated or tired
  • That their ideas, insights, theories and notions are often more touching, profound, brilliant and pithy than those of most adults I know
  • That I am a good mother and dedicated parent
  • How to (strive to) make them feel how loved and cherished they are all of the time
  • That I belong somewhere, to someone
  • That my family, in all of it’s quirky, evolving, unusual glory is the most important thing in the world to me
  • That their amazing, delightful, beautiful selves are proof positive that I am good and doing something good for the world

Happy New Year!

Noah Challenge

Noah says “You can do it!”. Be your best in 2013!

Happy New Year beautiful readers!

I am completely, totally, head-over-heals in love. The object of my affection has, in a most clichéd fashion, completed me. I am a calmer, more patient, more compassionate woman, and I am living in the moment in a way I had assumed was lost to me. Of course I’m talking about the love I have for my wee son Noah. What a beautiful blessing to cruise into a new year with!

I am happy to report that I’m back to normal, in all ways post-partum, and breastfeeding is a piece of cake. In fact, I love it. We do it anywhere and everywhere, and sometimes even in our sleep. My body rhythms fell into place just in time for me to return to work with Les Coquettes and get back on stage to host our New Year’s Eve show in Brantford. It was a blast. The matinee performance to a crowd of nearly 300 people with an average age of 75 was an experience I won’t soon forget.

As the holidays approached, something big happened for me. The horrific shooting in Connecticut rocked me to my core. I think it impacted me just as much as that September 11th horror from years ago. I think about those beautiful little munchkins and their families every single day. The headlines may have moved on to other subjects, but that particular event really cemented how precious life is. CNN may not be thinking about that city anymore, but I sure am. I wonder if I would have been affected the same way if I wasn’t a mom?

Last year at this time, I resolved to take great care of my health so that I would hopefully be able to get pregnant. Then, at the end of January Noah was conceived. I love this time of the calendar because I fully subscribe to the “fresh start” mentality and I have always thought that the beginning of a new year is the very best time to enjoy the feeling of a clean slate. This year, I’m resolving to be the very best Mommy I can be from top to bottom, to be a great mom to all three of my children. Here are some of the steps I’m taking thus far:

I’m working with my amazingly talented brother Kyle to get into hella shape this year. Both of my partners and I are on board to streamline our lifestyle in order to promote optimum health.  We’re eating low carb, low sugar, and starting to make sure we get daily exercise.

I’m organizing my home from top to bottom, and taking on household management and mothering as my new full-time job. I’m crafting and creating, and looking for fun new ways to enjoy my children, and hopefully get more involved at their school.

I invested in a session with a financial advisor as a Christmas gift to my partners, so we can make the most of our resources and work towards realizing more of our dreams of travel.

In 2013, I’m going to take the biggest bite out of life yet, and I want to share it all with you here. I’ll give you the inside scoop on my fitness routine, my dietary changes, my creative exercises, and my experiences in personal growth. What are you resolving to do this year?

The Other Side of Pregnant

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We’re at the Niagara house as I write this, and I love this place. It’s gray and misty today and the back forty looks like a painting with the tall grasses a rich palette of umber and golden. I’m watching my family pass around little Noah who is snoozing peacefully in their arms, and my girls are curled up on the sofa with Faerie Tale Theatre playing on the television. My life feels very rich.

In my vast amount of pregnancy reading, there seemed to be lots written about how the bonding process isn’t always instant. I had no worries about bonding with my baby. I knew when he came out into the world I would feel very connected to him, and feel very natural about my role as mother. What I didn’t count on was how much love I would feel for him. I love this little creature with every ounce of my being and I feel that he is completely a part of me, which I guess is true – I grew him with my body, and with my body he continues to grow. Deep in my heart, I know he knows that I am where he came from, and that we are connected by blood.

With parenthood comes the knowledge of the very deepest kind of fear. Never before have I been so aware of my own mortality, or of the finite amount of time we have in this life. One of the easiest triggers for my postpartum tears was contemplating how soon my little babe would grow out of his tiny clothes, how fast the passage of time would fly, and how one day he’d be in the world without me. I cannot imagine a time when I can’t just reach out and touch my son, and yet that is exactly how the natural course of things unfolds. We create lives, we nurture them, and then we set them free to find their own way. I want this little man of mine to experience all of the richness and love that his own life has to offer.

This love I feel is so profound that now I understand why people unflinchingly say they would do absolutely anything for their children. This love is the deepest ache I’ve ever felt, and that ache is compounded whenever I think of my own mother, and any of the moments when I was unkind to her. I cannot imagine that anyone has ever felt for me what I feel for little Noah, and the realization of that love is the most humbling thing I’ve ever felt. I hope my children can look at the scope of their parents’ love one day and feel like they are worthy. For me, it is only through having children who are so beautiful and inspiring that I feel like I’ve done anything to deserve a love as deep as a mother’s love.

My heart is on my sleeve now. If I feel like compassion is hard to reach, I merely think of my baby and then think of how each person (hopefully) has a mother who loves them as I love my little boy. I think of how they were once perfect and unmarred by life’s heartbreaks, and how they received such deep and simple comfort in their mother’s arms. With my stepdaughters I feel a true sense of sadness, realizing that I missed so much in not knowing them when they were babies, and I understand so clearly now the bond they share with my partners. I know how despite loving them with all of my heart, and knowing I want their lives to be filled with love and happiness, there is something unique about shepherding a tiny life from conception on.  I understand the huge risk my partners took in deciding to let me be a part of the girls’ lives.

Have you had friends who’ve had children, only to vanish from your life, forsaking you for the company of their new parent friends? I now realize that this choice isn’t personal. The experiences of childbirth, postpartum hormones, insane new sleep schedules, and early breastfeeding woes are not unlike having survived a traumatic event. You are left raw, and changed forever by what you have felt and seen. You need the company of other survivors who know what it’s like to glance up from the dinner table when your baby coos, only to burst into tears as you realize you’ve created this magnificent little life and he totally depends on you. We probably don’t give our child-free friends enough credit, but I think we’re afraid to speak candidly about these feelings and experiences in case we frighten them, or worse, have them judge us.

I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to make a baby. Now, on the other side of baby-making I have few regrets. Each step I’ve taken has led me to the path of motherhood, and I feel confidant in my abilities and so very blessed to be able to give life. My child has three amazing parents, two unbelievably brilliant and beautiful sisters, three adoring grandmothers, three proud grandfathers and some truly golden aunties and uncles. We have the means to provide for our children, we have a wonderful network of friends, an incredible school family, we live in a beautiful house in the heart of a beautiful city, and we are healthy enough to enjoy the life we are living. Without the mistakes of my past, I would not know the success of my present, and this present really does feel like a gift.

16 Days

A Little Tin of Chocolate

I began writing this blog in 2008, fresh after a breakup from a very complicated relationship, and filled with excitement because I was about to embark on a solo vacation to Paris. Life felt pretty huge and terrifying then. I was raw with emotion, and apprehensive about what the future held for me. When I returned from my trip, I would have no place to live, and I’d be facing the realities of being single and thirty-something.

I drank Paris in, and fell deeply in love with a city that I always suspected would have a special place in my heart. Because I was on a very tight budget, I allowed myself only a few token souvenirs, mostly purchased at a well-stocked supermarket and the Parisian equivalent of Winners. One of these mementos was a tin of French drinking chocolate, so I could enjoy the delicious little ritual I had created for myself each afternoon no matter where I ended up back home in Canada.

When my new family and I combined our households, the chocolate tin came with me. I hadn’t expected the chocolate to survive, but the tin was pretty so I imagined we could use it for storage in our kitchen. French chocolate is resilient though, and to my amazement still tastes as good as it did when I first bought it almost five years ago.

On Tuesday night, A and Daddy made us a post-dinner hot chocolate and marshmallow nightcap, and all five of us sat around the table enjoying it together. As I gazed at the faces of these beautiful girls who have been one of the greatest gifts of my life thus far, I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Strolling through the aisles of that Parisian grocery store, trying to choose just the right thing to bring home, I had resigned myself to believing that children and family were a long, long way off and perhaps something that were not meant for me in Schnooville. But now I sat surrounded by my family, (a family I have chosen against all odds, and a family who freely chose me despite all of my flaws), drinking that Parisian chocolate and ready to burst with another brand new life who gets to go through each day with these wonderful people. I feel no fear about this huge milestone because my heart believes I am exactly where I should be, with the people I need most in my life.

Look defeat in the eye and love yourself even harder. Tell disappointment that you deserve better. Treat your broken heart to vacations and decadent chocolate and trust that somehow, probably in the most unpredictable way, it will all work out. If you believe that you are lovable, the love you crave will find you.

The Big Happy

My pregnancy app told me to have a pajama day today, and after surviving a birthday party in our smallish house with twenty-five of H’s friends and cousins yesterday, this is exactly what I did. Who am I to argue with technology?

So today consisted of me padding around in my Nick & Nora flannel pj pants (Japanese parasols) and a new maternity tank, with my one and only maternity jacket (a grey zip up hoody) to keep me cozy. I packed up all of the birthday treasures in a large basket, stored the gift bags and tissue in our storage closet downstairs and tucked the cards away for keepsakes. I spent much of the day wrapping up the last bits of my Coquettes work and doing laundry. I think with some practice I’ll be able to walk away from the Coquettes work, but the laundry will always be there.

I love doing laundry. It’s the only chore I really like, and I know this will seem weird, but I always feel really close to my family when I’m taking care of their clothes. Folding their socks and sweaters, I think about each of them and what they mean to me. I think about how much the girls are growing, and how they’ve moved through so many different sizes since I met them. I think about Mama S and how strong and brave she is, and all we’ve been through, and where we’re headed. I think about Daddy and how I never get tired of spending every day with him working, living, and dreaming. Now I’m washing lots of tiny things for baby, and that brings a new kind of bliss.

Now it’s the end of the workday, and while dinner is in the oven (shepherds pie) I’m stealing a couple of minutes to write. A Facebook friend tipped me off about a live Mumford & Sons concert as part of the iTunes Festival and so now that’s playing in the background as the girls mill about and Daddy finishes up his work. The kids are totally into the music (A is presently dancing naked, waiting for the washer to stop so she can have her shower). I love this band. Their music is so uplifting and beautiful, and it’s kind of the perfect soundtrack to this fall day. Tidying in the kitchen and glancing up to see my family all bopping their heads to the music just filled my heart suddenly and unexpectedly with floods of love.

The very best people, the people I surround myself with, are the people who make me want to be better than I am, either because they inspire me with their work or by virtue of their warm and wonderful hearts. H’s birthday party turned into a bit of a family hang out after her school friends left, and I got to spend time with some dear friends and close family, unwinding together and eating our way through the rest of the food. I feel so, so lucky to have such incredible people to surround our children with love.

This week my goal will be to focus on our family business, keep really active, and continue with the various housekeeping tasks that need tending to before baby arrives. I want to finish up the homemade baby book for Noah, and spend some time writing in various journals. Most of all, I want to relax.