Jackie Rose tried to be a good 21st-century wondermom. Really, she did. But somewhere at the corner of Career and Motherhood, she realized that balance is an illusion and retreated back into the comfort of chaos. Now, Jackie’s pregnant with her third kid – what was she THINKING? – and taking a moment to wonder whether she’ll actually be able to sleep in the bed she made for herself without having bad dreams...

July 2008 - Posts

• The Perks of Pregnancy: Shiny, Lustrous Hair at Last!

  I feel a bit bad about my last post. Candy Land, while no doubt moderately evil, does provide good clean fun for innocent children who don’t know any better. At least Abby’s not into playing Grand Theft Auto, right? And so, to balance out some of those Bad Things and therefore attenuate all the negative energy I’m putting out there, I’ve also decided to post some nice, friendly, positive things from time to time. Today I’d like to sing the praises of pregnancy. This is especially important since you will soon surely tire of hearing all about my anemia and swollen ankles and constipation and weight gain and leg cramps and blurry vision and mood swings and insomnia and incontinence and bleeding gums and round ligament pains, to name but a few.   The Perks of Pregnancy #1: My Shiny, Lustrous Hair     Part of the miracle of growing a new life is that the gardener gets to stop dying, just a little bit, for nine whole months. Indeed, my skin is aglow, chubbier cheeks have plumped up my laugh lines and crow’s feet, and my nails don’t crack anymore. Best of all? My hair – I haven’t lost a single strand since I peed on that stick. Normally, the bottom of my bathtub looks like a colony of tribbles:     But now, I’m like the girl from that stupid Fructis commercial who pulls a pick-up truck out of a ditch with her ponytail. And it’ll stay this way, too, until I stop breastfeeding. Then, within a few weeks, I’ll be nearly bald. My plumber will be on speed dial again, and I’ll burn out yet another vacuum cleaner motor. Until then, it’s all good. Posted Jul 30 2008, 09:44 PM by Pregnant Pause with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Grand Theft Auto, Tribbles, Pregnancy Perks, Hair

• Bad Things, Part 1: Candy Land

  Since the crafty and well-organized among you already have Martha Stewart and her endless list of Good Things to make the rest of us feel useless, I believe it’s my duty to counteract all that cottage-y goodness by including here, from time to time, a few of my very own Bad Things. Bad Thing #1: Candy Land I hate this game. If Milton Bradley had been around in the early 14th century, Dante surely would have included an endless round of Candy Land in his description of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Yes, playing Candy Land is the bane of my existence. Of course, Abby loves it. Particularly the Dora the Explorer version. As if a 45-minute tour through Candy Cane Forest and Gum Drop Mountain weren’t bad enough, Dora and her pals add just the right amount of child-targeted subliminal merchandizing I feel we’ve been lacking in our home.   Candy Land has been in heavy rotation here since Abby was about three. But at least in the beginning, when there were no Terrible-Two types in the picture, we could make it through to the end of the game in an orderly fashion. Now, we have to start over at least three times whenever we play because Asher tosses the cards into the air or throws the pieces across the room. Last week, he even tried to eat Boots. These days, I usually rig the card deck to expedite things. Sometimes, I just hide the box and pretend I can’t find it. Candy Land has turned me into a terrible mother. Seriously. I would rather be in labor, trapped in an elevator, than have to play this game one more time. Posted Jul 28 2008, 04:02 PM by Pregnant Pause with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Candy Land, Bad Things, Family Fun

• They Ought to Be in Pictures...

  Well, so far, the feedback for Pregnant Pause has been great! Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and check me out – I really do appreciate it. (If you want to be informed whenever I post something new, subscribe to my RSS feed here.) A few of you, however, mentioned that it would be nice to have a visual of my family. While I admit I was a bit hesitant to post pictures of my kids at first, I’ve decided that I think it would be okay, as long as you all promise not to stalk them. So without further ado, here they are... the stars of the show... my adorable children:   Paris is on the left, and Blanket is on the right. For any interested parties who happen to be in the Montreal area later this afternoon, I will be dangling Blanket over the balcony at around 4. Bring your cameras! Posted Jul 25 2008, 12:02 PM by Pregnant Pause with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Asher, Pregnant Pause, Abby, Michael Jackson

• Retail Rant

  If you read my first post you know that I’ve come out of the closet. I am Canadian. While I won’t bore you with all the pros and cons of my nationality right now, I will say this: Unless you’re in the market for bagels or obscure European home appliances, shopping sucks up here... especially in Montreal, where I live. Here’s a quick snapshot of what it’s like trying to buy the basics, or even just take in 4800 calories in appetizers alone while breaking for lunch...   What We Don’t Have: * Cheesecake Factory * Pottery Barn, in all its incarnations * Abercrombie and Fitch * Restoration Hardware * Gymboree * Crate&Barrel * Pretty much every other obnoxious yet bewitching chain of overstylized retail institutions anchoring each of your glorious malls from Maine to Malibu.     What We Do Have: * <<crickets chirping>>   No Seriously... What We Finally Got, Like, Last Year: * Banana Republic (whoop-dee-doo) * H&M (not bad for disposable maternity clothes) * TiVo   What We Finally Got Last Month: * Sephora (and now I owe the Devil my third-born)   What I’d Sell My OWN Soul For: * Trader Joe’s * Anthropologie * three magic beans   How I’ve managed not to starve to death, naked in the streets, is a miracle. As it is, my kids can hardly sleep up here from the dearth of Indonesian-made pastel-hued gingham sheeting with ric-rac trim. And it’s not like we can buy any of it online, either, since shipping to Canada is way too complicated for most of these Fortune 500 companies. (Remind me later to tell you the story of how I once smuggled a Pottery Barn Kids 8x10-foot Bunny Rug over the border from Plattsburgh, NY, when I was nine months pregnant with Abby. Dan was beyond furious when I got home, of course, though not because his wife almost got arrested and/or might have delivered his first child alone in a foreign land. Rather, he was worried that my illegal antics might retroactively get him disbarred one day, even though he was only in his second year of law school at the time. What a nerd!) Anyway, the good news for my creditors these days is that Dan and I are going to Vegas next week for our Big Babymoon Blowout, the guilt of dumping my kids on my mom for a week being only slightly less compelling than my urge to splurge. And so, in addition to the empty suitcase I’ll be toting along to accommodate any impulse buys, I’ve also been shopping up a storm online in order to take full advantage of our temporary U.S. mailing address. When Dan sees what’s waiting for us in the hotel mailroom, he may actually go into cardiac arrest. But since he’s worth way more to me dead than alive at this point, that may not be such a bad thing. Okay, enough about the shopping already. Instead, I’d like to leave you today with a more serious question, one I’ve been quietly meditating on all week: Is lorazepam really safe during pregnancy?   Posted Jul 23 2008, 10:20 AM by Pregnant Pause with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Ativan, Retail therapy, Shopping, Travel, Las Vegas

• Because Subject Matters

  Hi everyone! Well, I’ve finally summoned the courage to unleash my internal monologue upon the general parenting public, and ePregnancy.com has been gracious enough to lend me a soapbox. Since there are plenty of mommy bloggers already out there chronicling every burp, poop and mispronunciation ejected from the orifices of their adorable offspring, I’d like to try something a little different here. I will therefore be allotting this blog’s content as follows:    • Pregnancy complaints: 65 % • Career confusion: 43 % • Doubts, fears and misgivings regarding parenting abilities: 31 % • Marital woes: 26 % • Shopping links to shoes, handbags and luxury baby items I’ll never buy: 24 % • Body-image crises: 13 % • Sweet stuff: 8 %   ...which brings the grand total to... hang on... 210 percent of pregnant, bitchy, porky, but always pertinent me. Yup. That sounds about right.   About The Author: • I’ve been happily-ish married to Dan W. for 8 years, bless his heart, but more on him later. This is Me Time, after all. • I’m 28 weeks pregnant, and I already have two crazy kids – Abby, 6, and Asher, 2.5. Dan and I decided to become parents because we don’t really like anyone besides each other, and we hoped making a few people in our own image might restore our faith in the human race. (It has.) • I write, but I don’t think of myself as a writer. That would require a level of self-confidence (and pretension) that far exceeds both my comfort level and my creative output these days. My aging oeuvre includes two novels (Slim Chance and Marrying Up), one non-fiction book (The Newly Non-Drinking Girl’s Guide to Pregnancy), lots of weird medical history articles, and an upcoming (ghostwritten) book on baby names. • Embarrassing but true: I’m also a regular contributor to US Weekly magazine’s "Fashion Police" column ridiculing the famous and fashion-challenged. Sadly, my once-grand literary ambitions have been put aside for the pleasures of torturing Paris Hilton and coming up with movie-title puns to humiliate celebrities. I am not proud of this, and yet it is undeniably enjoyable, despite the terrible headshot that accompanies my bi-weekly byline. • I’m Canadian. I’m not very polite, but I do speak French and live in an igloo. • I have a hemorrhoid. It’s sort of like the boil on that guy’s shoulder in How To Get Ahead in Advertising in that it gives me good ideas sometimes, but it also keeps my rapidly expanding backside on my mind 24/7. • I may not post pictures of my kids here. Haven’t decided yet if public brag-books are cool or crazy.   Oh dear. The order of the above list suddenly seems quite revealing: wife first, then mother, career, country, health and, finally, the safety of my children. Nice. Maybe that’s why I haven’t eaten a single vegetable besides corn in five days and my kids are currently sitting in a cold bath three rooms away. What else? Well, I do love my children. Adore them, actually. Some days, they’re the only reason I want to get out of bed, depressive little minx that I am. Sure, Dan and I may sweat the small stuff sometimes, but we agree that at the end of each exhausting day, our little ones – and our relationship with each other – are our one true source of joy. Well, that should do it for today’s eight-percent sweet stuff quota. In conclusion, I hope that Pregnant Pause will be a healing, sharing place where we can all evolve into perfect people and parents together in an atmosphere of mutual respect and spiritual harmony. Failing that, may my problems make you feel a bit better about your own... and may this blog remind me to count my many blessings from time to time instead of just kvetching about them...   Posted Jul 21 2008, 02:29 PM by Pregnant Pause with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Dan, Asher, Parenting, Pregnant Pause, Abby