| I blame the butterflies |
Every now and then I like to blame things that happen in my life on the likelihood that the vibrations of the Universe shifted some random nebula’s interstellar dust cloud off balance and then a speck of it hits Earth and because it was traveling at, oh, what? A bazillion trillion times the speed of light it caused our pretty little planet to tilt ever so slightly off its axis and ultimately, that damn nebula is responsible for my kid’s meltdown because we do not have any chips in the house.
I guess that sounds kind of like The Butterfly Effect, too. You know how you might have a kid that is at that tender stage where he is afraid of the dark but you can still manage to rock him to sleep at night because you are his mommy and even though you cannot sing worth crap its sounds beautiful to your child. But then, as you’re singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for the 100th time, across the world there is this beautiful little gossamer butterfly somewhere in Thailand that gently flutters its wings sending an innocent wisp of a breeze drifting through the air across Asia and Europe until it collides with the heated blast of some dude’s fart in France, propelling that once gentle breeze into a turbulent air mass across the Atlantic ocean where it gains momentum and inertia over such a massive body of water for a couple of weeks until it eventually hits Ajax with the biggest mother fucking storm in the history of all storms making my already afraid of the dark child scream in terror as the entire house shakes under the violently loud thunderous booms happening directly outside his bedroom window. At night. In the dark.
So yeah, after the massively crazy storm we had a few weeks ago Nate couldn’t stop asking if the Thunder was going to get him, and of course, we did our best to reassure him that thunder is only a noise outside and that there is nothing to be afraid of, but gawd, what do us parent’s know right? Because no amount of soothing or consoling and trying to assure him that thunder is not scary seemed to matter.
And to make matters worse, Nate has cathedral ceilings in this room with palladium-style windows, so there is a little section at the top of them that doesn’t have blinds and in the eyes of a two-year-old, this means that if he can see the dark, then clearly, the dark CAN SEE HIM, too, which basically means that because some stupid butterfly in Thailand decided to flap its oh so dainty little wings and cause a massive Thunderstorm in Ajax, we now have a tiny human that will not sleep on his own and insists on nestling directly between Mark and I every night, which also means that butterfly is totally responsible for the reason why Mark and I don’t get to have sex anymore.
So you know that saying, Necessity is the Mother of all Invention? Well last weekend Mark had a brilliant idea. The windows in Nate’s playroom are fully covered in blinds, so we asked Nate if he wanted to switch rooms so he could get a better night’s sleep because he wouldn’t be able to see the dark outside anymore. And by better night’s sleep, we meant we would like to resume our regularly scheduled (or not) intercourse programming.
We let him think it over for a few days and he seemed really excited about the idea so we made a BIG DEAL about the room switch, you know, telling him how proud of him we are, what a brave boy he’s being, blah blah blah.
Last night was the first night in his new Big Boy bedroom and before bed all three of us snuggled together in his Big Boy bed and told silly stories and although a bit reluctant, Nate fell asleep on his own. At least for a little while because when Mark and I went to bed a few hours later, we found Nate curled up with his blue blanket, on the floor, outside our bedroom door.
I’m pretty sure he isn’t really afraid of the dark so much as he doesn’t want to be alone; an innately profound characteristic of humanity. And how can I argue with that?Labels: Marriage, Nate |
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| The way to a woman's heart |
I have something very important to announce. Something extraordinary happened last weekend and I’m pretty sure that if I don’t document the momentous occasion I will wake up next week and think it was all just a fantasy.
People, I have known Mark for over half of my life and have been sleeping with him for almost just as long and aside from the occasional hang-over peanut butter saturated bagel he’s made for me, the man has never ever, not even once cooked me a meal. I know! Let me clarify something about this situation though. I am perhaps the world’s pickiest eater. Worse than a toddler really, except for the part where I eat all of my vegetables, you know, as long as they weren’t cooked near, on or beside a meat product. And if you think that sounds crazy, you should see me in a restaurant or when I order a take-out sandwich and ask someone to change their gloves please and thank you because dear god those gloves probably touched MEAT!
I’m pretty sure this confession totally classifies me as legally insane and overly anal. I know this because you should see how many times people have rolled their eyes at me. But suffice it to say, my avoidance of meat, and Mark’s avoidance of vegetables plus the addition of a new life into our family means that over the years, Mark and I have moulded our relationship into a comfortable harmony of compromise and that means he is the breadwinner and does not have to touch vegetables and I am the spender, er, I mean, investor of our money and cooker of food and picker upper of his man socks.
Anyway, back to last weekend. Mark asked me what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day and to be totally honest; I don’t get too wrapped up in this kind of holiday. Or any holiday for that matter, except for Christmas. If it was up to me, I’d leave a Christmas tree up in my house all year long. But birthdays? Meh. I’d rather someone take me for good conversation and a soy latte rather than eat a slice of cake. And instead of a dozen roses, I’d rather one hour alone to soak in bathtub overflowing with gossamer apple-scented bubbles that are not tainted with toddler pee. And then maybe a sensual massage by someone with strong man hands. Or a foot rub.
Oh! Right! Last weekend. So Mark asked what I wanted for Valentine’s Day and I told him that I would be totally smitten if he cooked me dinner. And then he froze and asked what I would like to eat and I played coy and was all, you know, whatev, food.
And man oh man did his meal ever impress. The man who does not eat vegetables unless it is broccoli covered in cheese and that is only maybe sometimes/never a) came home from the grocery store shaking his head wondering how a bevy of multi-coloured peppers and bok choy costs more than a giant box of hamburgers and b) made me a meal that was perhaps the most delish cashew-infused stir fry that I have eaten in my entire life.
And then! And then! For dessert, since he knows I don’t love pastry or overly sweet sugar-laced treats he bought sumptuously plump fresh berries to dip in the most creamy and tasty organic strawberry yogurt I have ever tasted and served them to me from a wide-brimmed crystal wine glass.
And they say the way to a man’s heart is through is stomach. My still goose-bumped woman skin begs to differ.Labels: Mark, Marriage |
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| DIBS |
Dear Mark,
Remember the mountain of plastic kid toys and bouncers and exersaucers that have been cluttering the garage floor for the past few months? Yeah, all the crap we’ve tried to take out of our house to make room for like, oh, you know, beer cases and a new wine rack and a Christmas tree? Yeah, well, this morning my van’s doors were frozen shut and I said fuck this and cleaned the chaos of toys in the garage.
Honestly? I froze my ass off, and the entire process involved some rather creative hanging from the rafters and cirque du soleil acrobatics to arrange, no wait, scratch that, stuff all that crap into the storage loft. And because I so could have died from being squashed under a mass of plastic and blinking lights, I so call dibs on parking my car in the garage this winter.
Love,
Your newly skilled wife in rafter hanging acrobatics.
P.S. This may have worked to your advantage in the bedroom, if you know, we had a storage loft in there for me to hang from. I'm sorry, no, the closet organizer does not count.
xoLabels: Mark, Marriage |
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| Shattered |
Sarah is exactly the kind of woman you can only hope marries into the family. Warm, caring, chalked full of etched-in family values. She’s bright, eager and well respected in her ever-advancing career.
I just remember them always being so…happy, you know? Young. Vibrant. In love. Echoes of laughter and almost of a decade of commitment reverberating inside the warmth of summer’s evening walls. Embracing under the orange glow of a setting sun.
And now here two broken-hearted families stand, backed up against a wall of issues that are not ours to face, but standing directly in the middle of two lives that mean the world and back to us.
As I slid between the bed sheets last night, it was hard not to feel the weight of sadness for my brother and his wife; they cupping the shattered remains of a broken dream in their hands while I gently cupped a warm cheek of the man of my dreams in my palm, silently clinging to this mystery called love.
Labels: Marriage |
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| Etsy |
There is one very big difference between Mark and Me.
Every morning, he wakes up, showers and gets dressed in nice clothes and then he spends his day dealing with grown-up people doing very important grown up things in the very important field of health care.
Me? Every morning I wake up and change a pee-soaked diaper and then proceed to spend my day with a pint sized dictator who couldn’t care less if I even brushed my hair as long as we can play hide and seek and colour and waddle and quack like ducks together. And when Nate goes down for that oh so precious nap every day, that’s when I perch myself behind the glow of a notebook screen which, incidentally, makes strange rattling noises from being tossed on the floor by an unnamed tiny human one too many times, and do things like write, blog, twitter, or process photos.
So because Mark’s all OUT THERE and I’m all IN HERE, he doesn’t always get me. And by doesn’t always get me, I mean, he teases me. Like the time I finally got on board with the whole twitter thing and Mark thought that meant past tweets were twats.
And then yesterday, I opened up an Etsy store, and when Mark came home from work and I told him about it, he was all, “a what?” And I was all, “Etsy! You know, Etsy!” You’ve never heard of Etsy?
And he was all, “Is an Etsy like a Twitter? Because OH BABY, I’m all over twittering with your Etsy’s.”Labels: Mark, Marriage, Photography |
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| It's all about The Compromise |
I never really got to finish the story of our five-year anniversary celebratory weekend sans toddler. It started with me spending the entire day Friday scrubbing this house from top to bottom. Somewhere in between scrubbing toilets and folding man socks, I got my hair did. The last time my hair saw the shears of a stylist was over nine months ago. Christmas of 2007, to be exact. I’ve been waiting, ok fine, procrastinating nine long months for this haircut, so even though Mark was hoping to come home to a lingerie-clad wife ready for a romp in bed, humans are able to gestate and birth their offspring faster than I get to the salon and you can bet your sweet ass I didn’t want to ruin my hair for a quickie. God, like, as if. Instead, I put on a super low cut shirt and while waiting for Mark to get home from work, I shampooed the carpets in my sexy mom van. Hot, I know. And because I am all about The Compromise, I left a cold bottle of beer on the hood of the van for Mark when he got home.
We cooked the most delish dinner I’ve eaten in months. Unfortunately Mark hated it, but whatev. I wanted to eat something grown up-ish for a change. Too bad that Mark thinks vegetables taste stupid. This reminds me of the last time I asked him bring me home a vanilla soy latte with no foam from Starbucks. He told that my request undermined his ability to be a heterosexual man and that I might as well be asking him to place an order for a great big giant froufrou rainbow.
We had a wild and crazy night doing all the kinky things that married couples with kids crave. Sleep. And after sleeping for 11 hours straight, that’s right, 11 glorious hours of coma-like uninterrupted sleep, my muscles came thisclose to completely atrophying.
We woke up the next day and set out for a mid-morning hike. After following the path for a while, Mark wanted to try my new Canon EF 24-70mm L USM f/2.8 lens, and I hemmed and hawed about it, because we all know what kind of pictures the man takes, but I made him promise that he had to take interesting pictures of nature-y things that did not include my ass. I have to hand it to him, he tried, he really did. He just needs to work on his angles. And by angles, I mean pointing the camera 180 degrees away from my ass.
And this is exactly what makes us such a perfect couple. He wants sex all the time, and I want him to pick up his fucking socks all the time. It’s a good thing we’re all about The Compromise, because if one of us always got our way, we’d either end up with like 400 kids, or, gasp, a clean house.
Labels: Mark, Marriage |
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| Five years |
Tomorrow is Mark and my five-year anniversary. It’s the day I married my best friend. The man who I’ve known for more than half of my entire existence on this planet. And you know? After two years of inseparable friendship, seven years of dating, and five years of marriage, I can say without a doubt that we're both totally different people than those awkward 15 and 17-year-olds crossing the alcohol-enabled boundary line to kiss their best friend. But I also know, without a doubt, that friendship has been the glue that has kept us connected all these years.
Mark is my rock. My perpetually hot man rock that lets me warm my frozen toes against his legs every night and wrap my fingers through his burly man hands while drifting off to sleep. And this is how I know he’s a keeper; because even when I tell him that my vagina is too tired for sex. Again. I know. I’m so sorry honey. I can’t control these things, but here, let’s hold hands! He respects that. At least, until, you know, the next night. He’s patient. And clever. Because he totally knows that my vagina can’t possibly be tired forever.
We aren’t doing anything extravagant for our anniversary, unless you count sending our kid to visit his Grandparents for the weekend extravagant. We’ll probably stay in and cook an honest to goodness grown-up meal that isn’t made of pizza, peanut butter or French fries; practically the only food items that exist on planet earth that my kid will eat.
Incidentally, when Nate was in the hospital a few days ago the Pediatrician noted how skinny he is. And really, he is. The kid has no meat on his bones. But then again, I’m sporting clavicles so pronounced that gymnasts could balance on them, so his small frame comes as no surprise. But just to be sure, as part of the routine blood tests, various nutritional tests were also done, and LO! He may only weigh 22 lbs at 20 months, but somehow, somewhere, buried in the depth of my homemade wheat germ-infused whole wheat pizza crust; he’s getting all the nutrition he needs.
So, our kid is miles and miles away, and Mark and I have an entire house, sans toddler, to ourselves for the entire weekend. Mark’s still at work, and so far today, after dropping Nate off, I’ve vacuumed and shampooed the carpets, scrubbed two bathrooms from top to bottom, called my mom to talk to Nate, only to find out he was too busy having fun to care, cleaned dog snot and sticky peanut butter coated fingers prints from every glass surface in the house and washed and folded three loads of laundry.
And I know if Mark is reading this, his heart is sinking to unfathomable depths because the last time I cleaned this much it sent my vagina into a coma.
Don’t worry baby, I promise I'm still in tip top shape to perform the number one thing we wanted to do this weekend.
Sleep.
And because it’s a special weekend, seeing that it’s our anniversary and all, I promise to spoon with you instead of the dog. Just don't forget to bring home the vino, mmmkay?
 Labels: All in the Family, Mark, Marriage |
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| What happened in Vegas |
I was so born in the wrong climate region. Even at 40°C (105°F), the dry desert heat was sheer bliss. We keep telling our families that we're going to move somewhere warm because we don't like the freezing cold Canadian winters and breath-hindering high humidity-soaked summers, and they’re all, oh, you would miss the snow eventually. And I’m all, yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll be thinking about when I’m 60 and lying on a beach somewhere not perpetually encased in a stiff snow suit and shivering in sub zero temperatures.
We didn’t end up staying up all night like we thought we would. After a couple of drinks with dinner I’d pretty much fall asleep in my salad plate. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s nature's way of protecting sleep starved parents or if it’s because I spent the day drinking my body weight in alcohol at the pool.
I’m not sure how he managed to muster the energy, but while I slept, Mark would rise with the sun and go jogging along the strip in the morning. One day, because half the people in Vegas have not gone to bed by 6:00 a.m., Mark passed a group of young guys who were still out partying and when they saw him running they were all, dude, are you seriously jogging? And Mark was all, no man, I’m just trying to hurry back to the hotel before my wife wakes up and realizes I’ve been gone all night.
In all seriousness though, this trip was hands down the best vacation we’ve ever had. Better than our honeymoon even. This was our first vacation that did not involve awkward disagreements around procreation sex or fleeting attempts to escape the devastation of loss.
This time around was nothing but laid back fun in the sun, mind-blowing entertainment and hand holding under twilight skies. And everything else that happened in Vegas will stay between me and Mark and the privacy-enhancing tinted glass of a floor to ceiling window.
 Labels: Marriage, Vacation |
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| What Happens in Vegas |
It was the summer 2004 and Mark and I had been trying to conceive since just after getting married in September of 2003. With each passing month that my period arrived, despite perfectly timed sex according to my very normal 28 day cycle, 16 day luteal phase, I grew increasingly despondent and withdrawn. Having a baby consumed me.
In June, we decided to go on vacation to Las Vegas. We tried to plan it around my cycle, but we went away with another couple and the dates didn’t quite work out the way I wanted them too. Our week in the City of Lights would either greet with me a baby or my big stupid period.
Even though we were on vacation, I was still temping and charting, and when I woke up on day 29 of my cycle, I fully expected my temperature to have dropped and my period to have arrived. But Lo! That was not the case. My temperature 17 days past ovulation was still up. My heart fluttered with cautious hope and anticipation.
By evening, when my period had not yet arrived, I decided to take a pregnancy test. I walked into a CVS Pharmacy on the Strip, grabbed a test and approached the cashier to pay for it. The girl behind the counter looked at the pregnancy test, gave me a sheepish look, and rang it in.
“Good luck,” she mumbled as I walked away.
I can only imagine how that whole purchase must have looked in the self proclaimed City of Sin.
I took the pregnancy test in a public washroom at the Bellagio. It was negative. And that was exactly how I would describe my attitude for the rest of our vacation.
The next morning my period arrived, compounding my misery. There we were in a city of perpetual reinvention, distilled neon history, high rollers, night clubs and non-stop mind blowing entertainment, and all I wanted to do was sulk. Not even the majestic grandeur of the Grand Canyon seemed to mend my crushed spirit.
Mark and I always swore we would go back to Vegas someday. And that day will arrive in two months when we return to the Kingdom of Surreal to spend a full week lounging by lavish pools and swaying to the rhythm of sizzling Vegas nightlife.
This time, however, we’re going to do Vegas right. There will be no sulking, no big stupid periods, and no baby-making. Just pure, mesmerizing fun with some much anticipated unadulterated sex between consenting adults.
And it is very likely that what happens in Vegas will end up on this website in a much edited PG version.
Labels: Marriage, Vacation, Video |
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| A Married Man |
My baby brother, Jay, is a married man, but barely. The Minister who officiated his wedding had the dates mixed up, and this is how I know Jay must be adopted because the guy totally kept his cool and was all, “meh, whatevs."
If that was my wedding, I would have so had God on the phone demanding to know where his posse was at, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because there is wine waiting to be uncorked. Amen.
 Labels: All in the Family, Marriage |
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| The Mind of a Married Man |
Mark rented a movie on Friday night that I was totally not interested in seeing. For reasons that I do not quite understand, I can’t bring myself to watch movies that include swords, sprawling empires and crusading medieval characters riding horses pimped out in more sartorial bling than I've had in my entire wardrobe since birth.
So while he watched his movie, I huddled next to him on the couch and sought alternative sources of entertainment from my laptop.
I recently joined Twitter after learning about it from one of my all time favourite bloggers. I swear I am always the last to know about everything. A meteor could be barrelling towards earth at an alarmingly devastating breakneck speed and I bet I would be the last human to know about it because the memo was sent while I was stuck in a line up at Wal-Mart trying to buy a sippy cup that does not leak, for crying out loud, and then seconds before the impending earth-shattering collision, I’d catch a fleeting glimpse of the cosmic destroyer before it landed directly on my head.
Anyhow, as Mark reached his hand into the bag of Zesty Doritos carefully positioned for equal ease of access between us, I saw him glance over at the computer screen.
“What’s that,” he asked, nodding his head in the direction of the most recent tweets.
“Twitter.”
“Twitter?”
“Yeah, Twitter. It’s a social media thing, to keep in touch with people. And you know, be nosy.”
“So, if you twittered in the past, does that make it a twat?
And that friends, is an inside look into the mind of the man I married. It’s all about knighthood chivalry and twats.Labels: Comic Relief, Mark, Marriage |
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| Aye, or Nay? |
The key to our marriage has been compromise. A little give and take here and there seems to keep everyone happy. Like, when Mark wants sex, and I want the dishwasher emptied, we usually meet somewhere the middle with a foot rub.
But lately, a war has been brewing in this household. It’s all a matter of him thinking he’s right, and me thinking he’s wrong, as per the norm, but where we are usually able to find some sturdy middle ground to stand on; this issue has no foreseeable solution in sight.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know when to pick my battles. I mean, I could easily make a legitimate argument as to why sex should be directly correlated to how often Mark picks up his socks, but life it too short to sweat the small stuff, you know? That’s why I just suck it up, pick up the damn socks, and then yell at him when he tosses his shoes in the recycling bin.
This time however, we’ve both fastened on shoes made with soles of lead and neither of us are budging.
It’s about Nate’s hair.
Mark wants to cut it, and I don’t.
I think it’s high time that we settle this once and for all.
All those in favour of snipping off his locks, say Aye.
Those opposed, say Nay.
 Labels: Baby Nate, Mark, Marriage |
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| A Very Nipply Winter's Silence |
We finally got around to painting our kitchen last weekend.
Again.
I should probably stop living with my head inside of a paint can. I also probably need therapy, but at least I’m a good painter. Actually, make that a good paint supervisor because Mark is the one who actually does all of the rolling. I had the very fatiguing tasks of running errands for missing supplies and lifting my exhausted fingers to wipe the sweat off of Mark’s brow.
I also may have strained my neck trying to check out the pecs of a shirtless hunky adonis while I was out on a coffee run.
But we did it. The paint job I mean.
And now my entire main floor is painted in colours that sound like Mother Nature sneezed and wiped my walls with a tissue full of Autumn Haze and Winter’s Silence.
Paint colour names is the one thing about painting that Mark and I do not see eye to eye on. I like the girly names because they sound dramatic and impressive. He thinks they sound too girly and lame and should instead be given number codes, like green 4569, because going to the store and asking for a can of Winter’s Silence is no different than walking up to the person behind the counter and asking them to rub his nipples.
Labels: Comic Relief, Home Improvement, Mark, Marriage |
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| My Box |
A few weeks ago I bought a box.
The purpose of this box is to serve as a place where Mark can empty the contents of his pockets at the end of the day in one neat and tidy spot so that we can stop running around like we have firecrackers up our ass every morning trying to find his wallet and his keys.
I knew I would need to find a creative spin on selling the idea of using this box to Mark because keeping things organized is not how his brain operates. So instead of explaining to him how much easier it would be to find stuff and how much time it would save him from running around trying to find things while his eyes glazed over like lifeless orbs from how dull that all sounds, I just told him how fun it is to put stuff in my box.
And as soon as undertones of sex were brought into the conversation, that damn box became the most important box in the whole wide world and he has been storing all of his man stuff inside of it every since. 
Labels: Comic Relief, Mark, Marriage |
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| This is not a hint. |
“Did you change the sheets today?”
“No. Why?”
“They feel clean – did you vacuum them?”
This is from the lips of the same man whose socks I used to find in my planters back when we first moved in together. Although the sock flinging has stopped, leaving socks randomly all over the floor has not, and I’m pretty sure that he still believes there is a magical sock fairy that spends her days skipping about the house with a laundry basket in her arms in search of his fusty sock carcasses to fill it with.
If I believed in fairies, I’d say she deserves a big long back rub tonight.Labels: Comic Relief, Mark, Marriage |
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