Going down a rabbit hole: Learning from GOMI

September 22, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ Leave a comment

A blogger I follow on Facebook recently mentioned GOMI and why she didn’t want to know what people said about her on the popular forum. GOMI stands for “Get Off My Internets” and is a blog about blogs. The blog itself follows the big names on the Internet but wading in the forums will show you the second tier bloggers, popular enough to annoy people but not so much that they would land a mention on the blog. And oh my goodness, “wading” is the proper term.

I first went wading into GOMI forums out of curiosity. My husband and I are preparing a re-launch and re-branding of this blog with the hope of building an income-generating website. Reading GOMI was first shocking, then amusing, then I figured that I could probably learn a thing or two about what pushes people’s buttons. Not being popular enough to register on the GOMI scale also means that I am not popular enough to have dedicated haters. There is something about popularity and envy that draws people to read something just to get their buttons pushed. I’m not sure I understand this about human nature but I’ve been around the Net enough to know it’s true. I think that people who don’t like my blog simply stop reading it. That’s the advantage of being small fry. Of course the disadvantage is that I don’t earn income from my writing.

Freed from the fear of finding my blog mentioned on GOMI, I was able to find a groove reading people’s beef. I focused my attention on the “Mommy/Daddy Bloggers” and the “Annoying Catholics” sub-forum found in the “Fundie Blogging” (Fundie as in fundamentalist as in “cults or extreme religion” which in reality means “Christianity writ large with a sprinkling of Mormons”.) I don’t think I broadcasts my beliefs too much on this blog but as a practicing Catholic homeschooling mom of 9 children, I think that I get an Annoying Catholic mention just by getting-up in the morning. I swear that’s not why I do it.

I learned a few things about the treacherous waters of mommy blogging, and the even riskier waters of Annoying Catholicity. How do you feel about each of them? True, false, OMGoshNailedit!?

There is a fine line between showing your children and exploiting your children. The raison d’être of family bloggers is to let readers peek into their lives but readers will turn on their favorite bloggers if they cross the line into exploitation. If it looks like your children are making the money and you’re just using it, watch out. Think Kate Gosselin.
Bloggers should respect their children’s privacy. Think about your 2 year-olds as job-seeking 25 year-olds. How will they feel about having their anal retentiveness expounded over a Google-searchable 10-posts series? You can write about potty training challenges without naming names.
You should be “relatable” but not too real. That’s a tricky one. If you are a lifestyle, food or fashion blogger, you have to look perfect. However, if you are a mommy blogger you are expected to perform a tightrope act between looking like you have it all figured out (condescending) and being too whiny (get off the Internet and figure it out). This is especially true for Annoying Catholics who do not use artificial birth control. If you make having 10 children in 8 years look easy and fun you are obviously hiding something (like a full time nanny and a six-figure salary). If you make having 10 children in 8 years look difficult and challenging then you should start thinking for yourself and get an IUD.
The way to make money blogging is through sponsored posts. A sponsored post is a post for which you are paid by a sponsor. It is usually written by the blogger although it can also be written by the sponsor and published on a blog. This is another tightrope act: it’s ok to make money blogging but you can’t be too obvious about it. You’re damned if you read like hired PR but you are also damned if you bite the hand that feeds you. In other words, if some clothing company flies you and your family someplace warm for a holiday-photo-shoot and you publish a sponsored blog post that is both crass and poorly written, and the sponsor gets angry and withdraws its sponsorship and you whine about it ceaselessly on your blog, you’ll end-up on GOMI. We’re not even close but I promise that if you fly my Annoying Catholic family anywhere south of Ottawa, Ontario, I will write you the best and brightest write-up you’ve ever read. I don’t even care if it’s for cat shampoo and we don’t own a cat.
People want drama. But not too much drama. People want drama they can consume with their popcorn. Nobody wants to be privy to a train wreck in slow motion. It’s better to take it off-line for a little bit and write about the experience in hindsight (and with a little bit of perspective) than fall apart in public. It makes people squirmy and it makes the popcorn soggy.
Finally, all of the above can be forgiven if you are a really good writer.

In other words, I will never get rich writing.

What’s for supper vol. 5: The generosity of others

September 18, 2015September 19, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 2 Comments

This week’s dinner round-up was delegated to the generosity of others. I bring meals to others in their time of need, that’s my shtick, and it has been a singular blessing to have my family fed by others as I recover from last week’s health crisis. Feeding the hungry is at the top of the list of corporal works of mercy in the Catholic Church, it shouldn’t be surprising that a hot meal in a time of need feeds the body as well as the soul. Still it’s one thing to bring a meal to a friend in need and another one to receive it. Words cannot express the gratitude felt when someone takes-on the intimidating task of feeding a family of 11.

The days of the week have all been mixed-up and I can’t really remember what we ate when. I also wasn’t home for 3 days and goodness knows what happened then, food-wise. All I know is that some pizza was ordered and when I came home from the hospital one of my children exclaimed: “We were like orphans! It was AWESOME!”

ON THE FIRST DAY

(Which might have been Monday? Or was it Sunday? Yes it was Sunday because I missed Mass.)

When I came home from the hospital, I could barely put one foot in front of the other. My oldest daughter had been to Mass that morning and asked our parish priest if he would come to our house to give me the anointing of the sick. It was the first time in my life that I was sick enough to receive the anointing of the sick and it deeply moved me. He also brought me Communion and pizza for the kids. Corporal and spiritual works of mercy in one fell swoop, he’s an awesome guy.

ON THE SECOND DAY

My mother came to spend the day with me. Sometimes a girl just needs her mama. My husband made me some liver and onions. Of course, the kids were not too eager to share so we still have leftovers. Anyone? Sadly, 3 meals of liver and some pretty hardcore iron supplements didn’t impress my hemoglobin much. It went down further and I was back in hospital on the third day.

ON THE THIRD DAY

The children ate at the IKEA cafeteria while I went back to the hospital for a blood transfusion.

If canned yellow beans don’t pump you back up, what will? *Big Wink*

I wanted to post a picture of my hand and my IV pump but I thought that the sight of blood and a big needle might make some of you squeamish. Instead, here is the picture of me before the transfusion and after the first unit. That’s just the difference it made on the outside. I was also given some delicious hospital food. A friend came to pick me up at the hospital and drove me home. I felt like a blood-doped athlete and joked about starting my marathon training that evening.

ON THE FOURTH DAY

A friend who always has a lot of common sense wisdom to share suggested that I eat ice cream 3 meals a day until my heart felt better. I might have done that on the fourth day. I might need to find a way to do that without needing to wear maternity clothes because that ain’t helping much. See “marathon training” above. Training starts with “waking and talking at the same time.” The things we take for granted, I’m telling you…

ON THE FIFTH DAY

I received a visit from two dear friends who brought me soup, casseroles and chicken broth. In case the first 4 volumes of “What’s for Dinner” have not made that point clear, feeding a family of 11 day after day after day is hard work. It looms really large in my daily horizon. It’s more work than homeschooling, it’s more work than breastfeeding, it’s more work than laundry, it’s probably 50% of my daily effort expenditure, 365 day a year except for that blessed week at Family Camp when we hire a camp cook. If I were to leave for a weekend away (*snort* like that ever happened), I would need to make or plan all the meals in advance. When I give birth, I make sure I have a month’s worth of dinners in the freezer, make that three months for twins (we bought a second deep freeze for the occasion, if you are expecting twins do it, it will be worth every penny and you’ll make it up in savings on pizza and take-out, take my word for it.) When friends bring me meals, it is the single most helpful thing they can do to keep me off my feet. Because even when I’m supposed to be resting — as I am now — the question “What’s for supper?” invariably lands on my desk every day around 4 pm. It’s just the way the world goes round.

ON THE SIXTH DAY

It was the twins’ 4th birthday. There’s always a party here to keep your mind off what ails ya.

No hair was burned in the making of this collage.

ON THE SEVENTH DAY

My mother will be back to make some meals to get me ready for next week. Because that’s the beautiful thing about feeding your children: IT NEVER ENDS! Not only is my mother still feeding me, she is feeding me times 11! Except that now it’s different. I know because I have children and someday they will still need me. And I will still be there.

A Large Family Manifesto

September 15, 2015December 9, 2021 ~ Veronique ~ 24 Comments

I recently read a beautiful blog post written by a mother of 6 and was inspired to write a similar manifesto of my own large family. I doubt that I can write as well as she does, I love how she includes the beauty of the ordinary in her hopes for her children, not only the great things they could accomplish directly but how simple lives well-lived could also change the world. To read the original, please follow this link. (Do it!)
This is my oldest daughter. I was 21 and unmarried when I got pregnant, right out of my first year of Law School. The doctor who confirmed the pregnancy told me that mothers in my situation usually ended-up poor, uneducated and single. My peers told me: “You’re not going going to keep it right?” I told my parents I was pregnant and they still loved me. I told my boyfriend I was pregnant and he still loved me. She was born with the sunrise on a Wednesday morning. I didn’t believe in God back then but when they placed her on my chest, I knew I had touched eternity. She was more than a birth control flub, more than an “it”, she was a person who had been meant from all times to be placed in my arms. A unique and timely mix of the right chromosomes, meeting at the right time, never made before, never to be made again. Clara opened my heart to a love that defied every other kind of love: a love devoid of self-interest, a love of the other for the other’s sake. She gave me a new heart and new eyes. And so I was made a mother and never looked back.
Our second child was conceived when our first was still a baby. Few people plan their children to be that close in age but we did. If we had started young, we would finish young and so he was born, 14 months after his sister, my little breechling. I don’t remember much about his first year beyond the shock of having a normal baby. My first one had prepared me for babies who slept through the night at 3 weeks and napped for 6 hours during the day. I fought him a lot in his early years, trying to make him sleep longer, nurse better, learn some darned independence already! Sleep training, schedules, methods, I read all the books, tried all the tricks. Thankfully this was before the Internet, blogs and social media. Until it hit me like a ton of brick when he was a toddler: he is not a mountain, standing tall and alone; he is a gregarious, engaging, people person. He taught me that “needy” babies are just people babies; and that loyalty, first expressed as a need to be in contact with his tribe, was an adult quality worth nurturing. Colin taught me to look beyond the challenges of early babyhood and use my imagination. And so he made me a better mother and I never looked back.
I was taking a prenatal yoga class when I realized that my third child was raising eyebrows. We were in the changing room when I mentioned my two oldest children and a fellow mother asked me if I had two boys or two girls. “One of each” I replied to which she asked, genuinely puzzled: “You have a boy and a girl and you still wanted a third?” And thus I boldly entered the world of nosy strangers and weird personal questions. “Was it planned?” asked me a stranger at the pharmacy. “After that you’re done, right?” told me countless well-meaning acquaintances. I tried to answer with confidence but deep down I was terrified and full of doubts. It would have been easier had those doubts not been unknowingly confirmed at every turn. She was born at home with the sunrise on a crisp winter morning, an easy and smiling baby who still needed more than I could give. Éloïse taught me that nothing is as easy as it looks and that the picture of perfection can hide deep fears and insecurities. And so she made me a better mother and I never looked back.
Our fourth child came at a time of great personal turmoil. I was struggling badly with 3 children, how could I ever handle a fourth I asked myself in tears one day. I thought I was done after the third. I had tried different kinds of hormonal birth control methods but they had left me suffering unbearable side-effects. After having my IUD removed for cause of blood bath, I had reluctantly embraced Natural Family Planning (NFP). Within a year of trying to learn the sympto-thermal method on my own, I was confused and pregnant. And so snarky comments about NFP joined indiscreet questions about our reproductive life and our intentions. “There’s a name for those who use NFP you know…” She was born quietly and peacefully in the middle of the night on the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. Her name, Marie, had been chosen years before but she chose her birthday. She was a beautiful, sensitive baby. Easily overstimulated, she needed peace and quiet to be content and so I became known to myself as the “nap witch” and wondered if my irrational accesses of anger at every noise my children made would be remembered as the dominant theme of their childhood. I sunk into post-partum depression and self-destruction, turned away from my faith and dove straight for the bottom. Marie taught me that you can love your children fiercely while motherhood chews you up and spits you out. And so she opened my eyes and my heart to the pain of others, made me a better mother, and I never looked back.
My fifth child wasn’t supposed to be. I had proven my inability to climb past the highest mountain. I had run headlong into the wall of parenting and smashed myself to smithereens. As a girl, I had dreamed of having five children but four would be all I could take. And yet, that fifth child was haunting me. One day we were walking on a snow covered sidewalk, my four children walking ahead of me in a single file, when the hole left by the missing fifth child engulfed me. I could never shake that image and the following summer, we conceived. There is a four year gap between our fourth and our fifth. That pregnancy worried those who knew me. It was too fast, not the right time, was I back on my feet, could my marriage take it? Most people doubted it. But in my own insecurities and fears, I was happy and serene. He was born between lunch and dinner on a beautiful spring afternoon. From my bedroom window I could see the sun shining and I could hear the birds sing and the snow melting off the roof. David thought me that you can stand taller than your fears, that you don’t have to listen to the little demon on your shoulder telling you that you can’t. He taught me that the first step, taken in vulnerability, is the most heroic but that the journey is healing. And so he made me a better mother and I never looked back.
I call my sixth child the undoing of all my pride. She ushered us in the realm of “real” big families, the crazies, those who reproduce to please a demanding God. “Are you doing this for spiritual reasons?” the lady behind the counter at the license bureau asked with unveiled curiosity, as if I could give a short answer as I held up the line with my fidgety children. “Are you Catholics?” strangers would ask with the tone reserved to heaping scorn. “My cousin is Catholic and she had her tubes tied” they would invariably add, as if I needed to be reminded that living the Church’s teachings on the theology of the body was a radical decision even amongst Catholics. She was born with the sunrise but I never saw it, the curtains of the hospital room were shut tight as a crowd of medical personnel attended her difficult birth. From infancy, she was “more” than everyone else. She stretched me in every direction, made me a thinner, more flexible version of myself. We tried everything to make her sleep better, longer nights. Read all the books. Tried all the sleep training methods, including every cry-it-out method. And she cried but she never gave-up. And we cried. And we broke down. Sarah taught me that some children are just “more” of everything. We stopped trying to train her and started simply loving her as best we could. Nothing will ever be easy with Sarah but accepting her is half the battle. And so she taught me humility and acceptance and made me a better mother and I never looked back.

Our seventh and eighth children arrived as a combo. An earth-shattering twin tornado. One of my dear friends who has 10 children, including a pair of twins, has a knack for telling me things I don’t understand until later. Upon learning that we were expecting twins she exclaimed enthusiastically: “This is awesome! This will really make you put family first!” I was mildly offended: was she suggesting that as a mother of 6 I wasn’t putting family first already? Her words came back to me with their weight of wisdom after the twins were born. If we thought we were placing family first before, nothing had prepared us for the life-changing momentum the twins brought with them. As high functioning individuals, my husband and I are not often placed in front of our limits but suddenly, at 24 weeks when I was placed on bed rest, we were. We had to ask for help. We had to limit our commitments. We had to start saying no and knowing when to stop. Suddenly the futility and the long term risks of our affluent, debt fuelled lifestyle hit us like a ton of brick. We sold our house, paid-off our suffocating mortgage and our significant consumer debt and moved into a rental house to live according to our means. We eventually moved to the country and started homeschooling, two decisions made in their own right to slow down the pace, to focus on the essential. Lucas and Ève taught me that I only have one kick at the can in this lifetime and I have to make it worthwhile.

By the time I had given birth to the twins, the friends I had made when my oldest children were little had long stopped having children. When we made arrangements to meet for coffee, they would glance at my double stroller, my toddler and my preschooler and say: “Oh, you brought everyone…” like they had forgotten what life with little children was. “Better you than me” some would add with relief tinted with an appreciable amount of what-were-you-thinking. I found a new community of mommy-friends, young and old mothers, mothers who had children the age of my little ones, mothers of twins. I found a new village of contemporary parents who introduced me to peaceful, gentle parenting. Lucas and Ève taught me to always remember and honour where I came from but to be open to change. And so they made me a better mother and I never looked back.

Our baby number 9 existed as an idea long before we heard the first murmurs of his tiny life. He was “the baby after the twins”. “Imagine,” I told my husband, “having a baby just to laugh at how easy it is. Because we didn’t know how easy a singleton was until we had twins!” My friend, the mother of 10 who has a knack for telling me things I only understand in hindsight told me, just before I told her I was indeed pregnant: “Consider having another one. It will shift the focus off of the twins as this big life-changing event. It will make your life normal again.” And she was right. My family was worried about my health and my age but with the help of a naturopathic doctor and the attentive care of my midwife, my healthiest pregnancy welcomed me into my forties. Our ninth child was born at home after lunch on Easter’s eve, peacefully, in the caul, after a short and easy labour. My midwife tucked me in and left me in the care of my family before going home to share an Easter meal with her family. Beauty and joy seeped all around us and joyfulness became our baby’s banner. He was the glue that held our family together through a difficult year of transition. Damien has brought me to a place of pure joy and delight in the beauty of my family. Seeing him put a smile on everyone’s face is the highlight of my days. He has taught me to see the beauty in the chaos, the calm in the eye of the storm. And so he made me a better mother and I never looked back.
Who was this little person, only as big as a grain of rice? When I started writing this post, it was meant to be an announcement for our Baby Number 10, due with the spring of 2016. Shortly before posting, I started to bleed and lost our baby at 12 weeks of gestation. The ultrasound showed only the remains of a 5-week embryo, the size of a grain of rice. Here’s what I had written:

“Even among large families, we’re getting larger than average. If you have a large family and you are tired of nosy questions and inappropriate comments, just get to 10: the news leaves people sufficiently aghast to allow for a quick escape. Still… “Exactly how many children do you want?” is a question I already heard several times, as if a family was a number you committed to . Exactly how much love is enough? I want to reply. Because now that I know how much I will love this new person, how can I say no? How can I close the door on someone who will stretch my horizon even wider? How much delight is too much? How much humility and hard work do I still need to become the best possible version of myself? Now that I am approaching my 42nd birthday and that my cycles are slowing down, my reproductive years are counted. I look forward to find out how this little person will weave itself into the fabric of our family, seamlessly yet uniquely. A new journey of self-discovery awaits and so he or she will make me a better mother and I won’t look back.”

Today, as I lay recovering from a very scary miscarriage and hemorrhage, I am reflecting on the journey of self-discovery that I thought awaited me and the real journey that lies ahead. Baby number 10 has ushered me into the community of mothers who have lost a little one to miscarriage, an unfortunately large community. It is a journey that I enter at my weakest. Empty-handed, empty-wombed, receiving someone else’s blood to keep me going. Stripped of my new identity as a mother of ten and half of my blood supply. I am battling conflicting emotions, exhaustion and trying to keep grief at bay. I know that I will need to let it wash over me at some point but not now, not when I am so weak. How will this tiny life I held for such a little time change me? I can’t even begin to imagine, but I know it will.

Published on the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.

“When the hand of death is laid upon those whom you love and your heart seems torn in two, climb to the Hill of Calvary to be consoled by the Mother of Sorrows who is also the Cause of Our Joy.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Man for All Media)

What’s for supper? Vol. 4: More muffins and spaghetti sauce

September 12, 2015September 13, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 7 Comments

What did we eat this week?

MONDAY

Monday was Labour Day. My husband took the children to visit family but it was David’s turn to process our family’s friendly virus. I took a pass and stayed home with the sick and the underage. We had chips and ice cream for supper. Yes we did.

TUESDAY

Remember the Thai squash soup with coconut and shrimp I made last week? I usually buy a second bag of shrimps to add to the leftover (because there is soup leftovers but never shrimps). Then we have a second round of squash soup.

WEDNESDAY

Last weekend I mentioned making Spicy Peanut Chicken (with pork) in the slow cooker. I warmed it up on Wednesday and we ate it with fresh corn. My 9 year-old son announced that he was thirsty so I asked him to go get the water jug for the family. Without missing a beat he told me, very matter-of-factly: “No, I’m just going to get water for myself.” Err, no buddy, please bring back the water jug for the family, said I. “Ok then, I’m not thirsty.” he replied. “You can still get the water jug please. Which led to him saying no, me taking away his plate until he came back with the water jug, and he stomping away to get said water. Friends, if you wonder how we can raise such self-centered children in a family of 11, imagine if we had stopped at 2! Believe me, the world is a better place because we have 9 and it’s not because we are superior human beings. Pride runs strong in that gene line.

THURSDAY

Spaghetti sauce day. My children and I are not fond of chunks in our spaghetti sauce. I like to put all the veggies and herbs in the food processor and give them a whirl. I don’t puree them to soup level but I find that along not having chunks, it mixes-up the flavours nicely. This specimen has red bell pepper, cremini mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh herbs from my potted garden (basil, chive and parsley), dried oregano and sage. I saute the veggie mash in olive oil, add an entire Costco pallet of tomato sauce and 3kg of ground beef. I stir until the meat is all separated and let it simmer forever. Add salt and pepper to taste et voila. That day, I also made orange cranberry muffins and oatmeal chocolate chip muffins. Our homeschool had to be on auto-pilot and we didn’t get around to do history and science. Note to self: you can’t cook up a storm and homeschool at the same time. I use this recipe for the cranberry orange muffins. I use frozen cranberries instead of fresh and it works fine. Just a note about the streusel topping: it’s a simple mix of sugar and orange rind. I prefer to put the orange rind in the muffin batter. The streusel falls apart when freezing anyway. On a more positive note, sugar mixed-up with orange rind and left to sit on the counter for a day can be eaten with a spoon or melted over a candle and shot-up your arm, oh my goodness, someone make it stop!!

STILL THURSDAY

When I did a Whole 30 back in January I had to stop eating pasta. I discovered zucchini noodles and I actually prefer them now to pasta. I don’t have a veggie spiralizer so I use my veggie peeler and peel the zucchinis until I am almost peeling the tip of my fingers (sometimes I do.). Lucas enjoys chopping the leftover zucchinis with a big knife. As an aside, I used to pay a whole lot of money so my kids could do just that at a Montessori preschool. Which brings me to homeschooling preschool: stop worrying already!! If I got a dime every time a stressed out mom asks about a preschool curriculum, I could retire happy. Preschools need a curriculum because they are accountable to their clients. Preschool is just life. You need to live with your children and engage with them positively. Read to them, snuggle with them, let them help with cooking if you have the patience to do so. Take them outside and show them the dirt: here’s your preschool curriculum.

Back to the zucchini noodles… I slice an onion or two in very thin slices, smash some garlic and saute everything in olive oil with salt, pepper and dried oregano, then I cover for a while to let it steam a little. Zucchinis lose their water like nothing else so 6 zucchinis is barely enough for two adults. Unless they are the giant ones that neighbours leave on your doorstep.

FRIDAY

My teenage daughter announced that she would make crepes for supper. I said: “Fine!” She used the recipe from Ricardo but I prefer Josee di Stasio’s recipe. I usually quadruple it — that would be 4 cups of flour and a whole dozen of eggs — add beer to the milk and keep it in the fridge in an air tight container. The kids will make crepes for breakfast, snack or lunch using the batter all week.

Et voila, this is it for this week. I’m sparing you the weekend because it ended-up in take-out pizza.

Homeschooling Questions: Working with different ages, grades and interests

September 12, 2015February 29, 2016 ~ Veronique ~ Leave a comment

The second question that appeared in my homeschooling questions post on Facebook was how to teach multiple children, with different ages, needs and interests. Just like everything homeschooling, my answer will reflect my family’s dynamic, attitudes and hopes with regard to homeschooling. I think that it also reflects my family’s situation: we have 9 children aged 19 all the way down to 17 months. Day-to-day, our homeschooled children are in grades 10, 9, 4 and 1 and we have 3 preschoolers aged almost 4 — the twins — and 1.

As a parent, your “education” personality matters to how you will handle different children with different interests. What is your vision for your homeschool? When you think about your homeschooling do you envision yourself reading to your children in a field of yellow flowers? Do you see yourself in a modern classroom? Do you see yourself in a one-room schoolhouse in 1930?

My friend Lindsay just started homeschooling and blogs about it at http://www.myfourcrowns.wordpress.com In one of her recent posts, she shared a tour of her new homeschool room, you can see it in all its awesomeness here. Other than Lindsay’s impeccable taste, what can you tell about her homeschooling personality from reading her post? Well, for one, she has a dedicated homeschool room in her house. She has desks in it, and a map and a whiteboard. It’s well organized, it looks crisp and inviting. I know from chatting with Lindsay that she toyed with the idea of having a homeschool uniform. And the picture of her desk shows printed copies of the Ontario curriculum. Whether she ends-up sticking to the curriculum or not is irrelevant: the presence of the documents on her desk suggests that she likes rules, structure and direction. Heck, being able to paint navy horizontal stripes suggests some serious ability to plan, focus and follow through. All these details point to a very distinctive homeschooling personality. We all have one. I also have friends whose house shows no outward signs of homeschooling, other than children. Their children learned to read around age 8, several have not seen anything resembling a math course manual before they were 14. Their learning is happening organically and creatively, at the rhythm of the family’s life. How you handle teaching multiple children will also be rooted in your homeschooling personality.

My homeschool and my laptop reside on my kitchen table. We designed our house with a view to have the kitchen table serve as the nerve centre of the whole homeschool operation. My vision of the homeschool is something akin to a one-room schoolhouse where children of different ages, abilities and interests work more or less on the same topics at their own levels. If you look at my homeschool book shelf you’ll see “The Well-Trained Mind”, “Designing your Own Classical Curriculum” and “The Charlotte Mason Companion.” I find that the classical curriculum lends itself well to working with children of different ages and stages as long as you approach it with flexibility.

In practical terms, I gather all the children at the table in the morning at 8:30am. We are Catholics so we always start the day in prayer. We say a prayer to our Guardian Angels for guidance and a morning offering. I check-in with the teenagers who are mostly working on their own via online classes and assignments. We iron-out kinks, they tell me if they need help with this or that and off they go. After the teens are off, I set-out to work with the elementary school aged children. I compare our groove to a ping pong match where I will give David some work, then help Sarah while David does his work, then give Sarah some work, then help David, and so on. While I am doing that, I’m also making sure that the twins are not destroying anything. I can reasonably expect about one hour of sit-down, written work in the morning. That’s when I stack-up writing-intensive work such as French, English and math. Because my children struggle with writing and are almost exclusively auditory learners, we can learn a lot by reading on the couch. We do history, science and religion on the couch through reading and retelling. I am also adding a literature reading of a book related to our history subject (currently Ancient Egypt). In terms of academics, I do not follow my children’s interests. For instance, we are all learning about Ancient Egypt in history, natural science in science and going through the credo (what we believe) in religion.

Here is a bullet-point list of things to consider when teaching multiple grades. The take-home message of these bullets is “transitions may and probably will kill you.”

Be ready. Children don’t wait. In the evening, I like to prepare the books and notebooks the children will be using the next day. I talked about using spiral bound notebooks to keep track of the children’s work. The notebook are ready. This way, if David is ready to start and I have to go change a diaper, he can start on his own. Having our books ready on the table minimizes the time wasted looking for things.
Be predictable. Having predictable routines help the children know what’s coming. I find that it helps with focus and continuity. As a parent, it also helps me remember what’s coming next and minimizes the time spent thinking “Ok, now what?” Because that’s all the time the children need to start a fight or set something on fire.
Feed the children. Regular snacks and body breaks ensure that I don’t lose whatever small attention-span my children have. If I stay ahead of the curve foodwise I can minimize inattentiveness and tantrums.
Stack transitions. Since transitions can and will kill you, try to keep them to a minimum by doubling-up. Try to work on one subject until snack time for instance, so the subject transition and the snack transition happen together.
Be focused. It took me a while to understand that I couldn’t write a blog post or check Facebook while homeschooling. Any inattentiveness on my part multiplies with the children.
Don’t squander your best work time. My children work in the morning. It takes a really big deal for me to schedule an activity or running errands in the morning. Try to adapt your schedule to your children as opposed to adapting the children to the schedule. Trying to homeschool after lunch is always a disaster.
Know your limits. I couldn’t homeschool four different grades. We registered the high schoolers with Mother of Divine Grace School so I could focus on the little kids. Whether you seek help by getting a cleaning service, tutoring or a babysitter, realize that housekeeping, schooling and childcare are all jobs that people get paid full time salaries to perform. If you can’t cram it all in a 24h period by yourself, give yourself a pat on the back: you’re normal.

What’s for supper Vol. 3: Pork, fries, and pizza two meals in a row

September 6, 2015September 6, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 3 Comments

Last week I posted about all the delicious foods I cook for my family and admittedly, it had been a good week. This week has been less stellar, a combination of not feeling it, having a parade of sick babies and being too hot to cook (summer’s last Hurrah has seen temperatures rise over 30 degrees Celsius in my area.) We’ve also had to shop for fall clothes, go to the clinic (twice) and generally cope with sleepless nights and hectic days. Don’t forget to visit the instigator of the What’s for supper linkup, Simcha Fisher.

In true social media fashion, I neglected to take pictures on our less-than-stellar meals. You can take my word for it though, it really happened!

MONDAY

Chicken drumsticks, green beans and leftover red cabbage slaw. Any coleslaw gets better after a few days in the fridge, remember that. I cook the entire Costco pallet of chicken drumsticks regardless of the number of people eating. If we have 11 people around the table, it will barely be enough but this time we had leftovers. You are probably wondering what I use to marinate the chicken to perfection. Nothing, that’s what. I often hear about people who can’t figure out how I fit everything in a day. But the truth is (a) I don’t; and (b) I cut corners everywhere. Who has time to manage marinade? Not me. I have lost pounds of meat to spoilage because I kept forgetting to marinate the wretched thing day after day. If I feel like a master cook, I might remember salt and pepper. And guess what? The kids don’t care: it’s chicken! Remember the simple things like salt, pepper and onion flakes.

TUESDAY

On Tuesday my parents came for a visit and asked me to call-in a pizza pick-up that the children would like. I called the pick-up and they showed-up with the pizza. And some desserts. And some cookies. And lollipops. And juice. After they left, it was too hot to cook but mercifully there was enough pizza, desserts and juice to make a second meal out of it. This is one I forgot to immortalize so you’ll have to believe me. Nobody died, nobody got scurvy and children’s protection did not show-up at my house.

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday, we decided to do an errands run into town. Which in husband-speak meant: shop for clothes at the children’s consignment store, buy groceries, socks and underwear at the Superstore, go to Costco, eat and hit the mall with the teenagers for their clothes shopping. Believe it or not, we made it (with 5 minutes to spare before the mall closed). We have this thing figured out. We can do Costco and supper in under an hour. First we hit the club. Then my husband takes one teen to do the groceries (we need two carts) and I hit the snack bar with the rest of them. We eat fries, chicken fingers and hot dogs, we never buy drinks. My husband comes out the cash line and eats the leftovers and the teenager grabs a poutine for the road. Bam!! No, I don’t have pictures of that one either.

THURSDAY

Thai squash and coconut soup with shrimps. This is hands down my family’s favorite soup. I rarely make it because it involves peeling and cubing a squash, which makes me run for the hills. Thankfully butternut squash keeps forever in the pantry: I had two specimen waiting since the beginning of August and so I decided to be a good mom and make something all my kids enjoyed. A few notes if you are trying this recipe (you should):

My children don’t like chunks in their soup so I skip the part where half the squash is boiled and the other half is kept in cubes for the soup. I just boil and process the whole darn thing. Well, the two of them in my case.
The recipe instructs you to chop the onion, sweet pepper etc. “finely” or something equally egregious. What you should know now is that everything gets processed in a blender at some point. So don’t obsess over having perfectly square cubes or you’ll cry later. I chop everything coarsely.
If you use fish sauce, don’t forget to crank the range hood way up while it evaporates or the stinky fishy smell will not only cling to your clothes and your hair, it will make the kids run upstairs and swear never to taste what smells so awful. Your husband will come home and wonder who’s rotting in the cellar. Just make sure the air is on full blast before you add the fish sauce.
I use raw peeled shrimps. They taste way better — less rubbery — if they cook in the soup but who has time to peel whole shrimps? Not me. You don’t need to blast the heat to cook the shrimps and the coconut milk. In fact, both will be better off if you cook them slightly using residual heat (if the shrimps are small) or on a low simmer. I have yet to find raw peeled shrimps anywhere else than Superstore.
An immersion blender is your best friend. It makes the clean-up so unbelievably quicker than using the regular blender. This is a staple of the large family kitchen: I make soup, batter, whipped cream using the immersion blender.

FRIDAY

Friday was sick day. I spend the day trapped under various feverish children and the children had a sports night at church. I threw together my usual freezer meal: fish and chips. I also served a big bowl of fruits (melon and nectarines). I’m not a meal absolutist: leaving bowl of fruit out ready to eat counts as vitamins and fibers, who says you have to have some horrible veggie that no one likes on offer?

SATURDAY

Today is the Feast of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and we are celebrating by eating pork Vindaloo, rice and naan bread.{***EDIT: a friend asked me on Facebook how I got the children to eat vindaloo since it’s very spicy. I don’t put chili pepper that’s how. We add spice after.} Follow the links to find the recipes I used. I had 3+ kg of pork loin from Costco so I cubed it and separated it in two batches of 3-4 lbs each. I turned the first batch into pork vindaloo. I used the recipe linked above, added a bit of water to the vindaloo spice paste and threw everything in the slow cooker. The smell was heavenly. I turned the other batch into slow-cooker spicy peanut chicken (yeah, yeah, I know it’s pork) from the gluten-free slow-cooker book by Judith Finlayson. I also have her book of Paleo slow-cooker recipes and everything is fantastic. The reviews on GoodReads are low because people can’t cook and expect the slow cooker to do all the work. I like the books because it makes my recipes taste like the Indian restaurant and my house smell good. I highly recommend those two books if you prefer cooking from scratch from recipes that don’t start with a can of Campbell mushroom soup. Now, the last time I posted about these books, someone asked me what a gluten-free slow-cooker was. The recipes are gluten-free, not the machine. If you want a gluten-free slow-cooker just buy a normal slow-cooker and never cook foods containing gluten in it. Ta-daa. As for the slow-cooker that turns normal food into delicious gluten-free foods, the prototype is still in development.

We have two slow-cookers. The larger one is sold at Costco and often comes on sale for under $40. It works just fine.

At 5:30 pm, the children were hungry as a fresh batch of oatmeal chocolate chip muffins came out of the oven. They had a few each and weren’t hungry for supper. We saw an opportunity and decided to keep the pork vindaloo and naan bread for a late supper with the teenagers. We essentially fed the children chocolate chips muffins with a side of pasta and hot dogs and let them watch a movie. Sadly, I did not get a picture of that either.

For the naan bread, I used the basic Artisan Bread recipe. It was decent but it didn’t taste the way it was supposed to. Next time, I’ll try making it with a real naan dough recipe. We had a chat with the girls about Blessed Mother Theresa that devolved into the futility of arguing online with Internet atheists and devolved even further into the hilarity of my (French) pronunciation of the word “atheist.”

SUNDAY

On Sunday, we grabbed fresh fries from the Chip Wagon in Almonte (the one by the Esso Yes So!), butter tarts from the grocery store and celebrated carbs of all shapes and sizes. Supper will be leftovers. Have a great week everyone!

What they ate (or didn’t) this week and some thoughts about keeping Fridays

August 30, 2015August 31, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 6 Comments

One of my favorite bloggers, Simcha Fisher, started a recurring — or not — feature on her blog I have to Sit Down called “What’s for Supper?”. Because I also feed a crowd every day and because I’m not one to miss a good link-up (I like having a topic picked for me, I’m that kind of lazy), here is my contribution.

The ground rules as far as our family of 11 is concerned are simple:

The meals must be simple and contain easily identifiable ingredients. Casseroles rarely fly here, unless they are a simple gratin.
My husband and I try to avoid grains during weekdays. Fresh corn doesn’t count as grain.
We don’t eat dessert on weekdays.
Normally I make a meal plan on Saturday, shop for food on Sunday and will often need another produce run midweek. For the last 9 months, I’ve been out of meal planning and our grocery budget is running amok.
Supper needs to be figured out and started by 3:30pm if we want to eat by 5:30pm, clean-up the supper dishes and have the five younger kids in bed between 7:00 and 8:00 pm. Lately — because of absentee planning — supper gets going around 5:30pm, we eat at 7:00 and we’re lucky if the kids are in bed by 9:00pm. We are still in “summer mode” but we’re fraying at the edges. Chaos and exhaustion are threatening our entire livelihood and we hope to return to normal as soon as we can find the energy to turn this boat around.
My husband is often gone from home from 7 am until close to 7 pm. We live in a rural community so we avoid evening engagements such as extracurricular activities as much as possible: driving into town at supper/bedtime was in fashion in 2010-2012, now we’re traumatized.

MONDAY

Eye of round roast (this one has to be started in the afternoon)

Roasted potatoes: I just quarter a whole bag of baby potatoes from Costco, lay them on parchment paper, drizzle with oil, salt and pepper, and bake at 415F for about 20 mn.

Red cabbage slaw. Or as we are expected to call it “red-but-should-be-purple-cabbage”, with vinaigrette (1/3 red vinegar, 2/3 olive oil and a splotch of Dijon proportional to what you used as a basic measurement. I do 1 cup red vinegar, 2 cups of oil and a heaping tablespoon of Dijon. There’s leftovers.)

Broccoli . Because everyone here eats broccoli but red cabbage slaw is touch and go. I like giving the kids a chance to win.

TUESDAY

Blog post_WHat they ate this week tue I — Tuesday, we received our school books. Yay?

Fish and fries. That’s what I make when I forget to take meat out of the freezer. I don’t consider cucumbers to be a real vegetable, it’s mostly water and seeds, but I just can’t sleep unless there is something green on offer. And cucumber is green.

WEDNESDAY

Roasted chickens and fresh corn on the cob. I use the organic chickens from Costco, throw them on a roasting sheet with salt, pepper, onion flakes and smoked paprika and roast them at 415F for 45mn or something. Two chickens and 12 corns fed my “small” family: the three oldest were out of the house.

When I cut the chickens, I throw the carcasses and drippings straight into a large Dutch oven. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar, fill with water and make broth right away. I used to keep the bones in a ziploc bag in the fridge until I had the optimal broth ingredients, also known as “until the carcasses turned moldy and my husband threw them out.” Water, bones, vinegar, boil forever.

THURSDAY

We had friends for lunch and I made quesadillas with the leftover chicken and corn.

For dinner, I roasted sweet peppers, carrots, garlic and a Lego wheel — just kidding! I removed the wheel before roasting. Then I had afterthoughts and checked the oven again. Phew! I did remove the wheel… — and made some orange soup with the chicken broth.

I also made a tomato salad with cherry tomatoes from my sister’s garden and basil from our garden. I used the same dressing as earlier this week.

FRIDAY

Here comes Friday. I follow a few Catholic bloggers from the United States and was curious as to why they seemed to universally abstain from meat on Friday. It picked my curiosity because I know some very legit Canadian Catholics who do not abstain from meat on Friday. Recently, I spoke about it with my spiritual director, as I was really struggling with the concept of abstaining from meat on Friday. The problem seemed to be twofold. First, meatless dishes in my family are mostly party food. They are also really easy to make for me. I felt like pancakes were too much fun for a Friday observance of the death of Jesus, fish is too good, soup and bread are comfort foods, sandwiches are a get-out-of-jail-free card for me, and so on. I came to the conclusion that the only sort of meal that would look like a universal family sacrifice would be a dish that is really complicated to make for me and that the kids don’t like, like vegan moussaka or lasagna. But making food that everyone hates is wasteful. Back to square one. Making an elaborated, suitably mortifying, vegan dish also prevented me from going to Mass and Adoration on Friday evening, the only weekday Mass offered in my Parish at a time later than 8:00 am. My spiritual adviser wisely noted that in Canada, the Conference of Catholic Bishops did not require the faithful to abstain from meat on Fridays outside of Lent but encouraged us to keep Friday through some kind of penance, prayer or act of charity. Maybe, she added, organizing your day and your evening meal so that you are able and ready to leave home at 6:00pm to go to Mass and Adoration is all the penance you need to keep Friday? Well… Now that you mention it yes, having supper ready, served, eaten and cleaned-up by 6:00 pm requires my entire day to shift 2h early.

So we had hamburgers. And Mass was cancelled that night. Oh well.

I make hamburgers using an entire pallet of ground beef from Costco. That’s in the vicinity of 3-4 lbs I think. I season the meat with my usual suspects (onion flakes, salt, sage and smoked paprika) and beat it into large but thin patties. As you can see from the picture above, they fluff-up as they cook. If you make them small and thick, you’ll end-up with a meatball on your bun. Know what I mean?

SATURDAY

On Saturday, we traveled to Kingston, Ontario to attend our son’s entrance ceremony to the Royal Military College. We called-up some old and dear friends and asked if we could stop at their house with our burgers and sausages for a last minute BBQ. We left home with a cooler full of meat and ice packs for the supper and a picnic lunch. When picnicking with van full of little kids, simple is key. I bought a big bag of round buns from Costco, some ham, celery sticks, apples and go-go-squeeze tool of the devil and a big jug of lemonade. The picnic by Lake Ontario quickly degenerated into underage skinny dipping and we made it to the ceremony well-fed, bathed and relatively dry.

For the history buffs amongst you, the middle picture in the collage above is the parade square at Royal Military College. In the very background on the left hand side of the picture is Fort Henry, a National Historic Site of Canada. The building immediately behind the parade square is HMCS Stone Frigate. Yes! The building is a boat! It’s Colin’s dorm and it’s called affectionately “the boat”. It’s the oldest building at RMC and it even has its own Wikipedia page. Can your dorm say as much??

After the ceremony, we headed to our friends’ house for an impromptu BBQ. There are a few things I enjoy more than seeing old friends, especially when our children get along well. Feeding 4 adults, their 9 children and the 6 children we had with us in one sitting was impossible so we took turns. First thing children, then the teenagers and eventually the moms and dads got to have a seat. Their 4 year-old twins Binh and Phuoc ate through all three sittings, a wonderful sight when you think of everything these girls have been through. ← (The article linked there is excellent. You should really read it.)

And there you have it my friends, what we ate last week. Now I must hang-up and run make supper. Another week awaits.

Homeschooling Questions: To plan or not to plan?

August 27, 2015February 29, 2016 ~ Veronique ~ 3 Comments

To plan or not to plan, that is the question…
In a recent Facebook post, I asked friends to send me their homeschooling questions, as if I could answer any of them as I emerge from a very difficult first year and enter the second. I meant to write a Q&A type of post but the questions were too far ranging to fit on one page, each one deserving a full post to itself. The first question came from Jenna. She asked (edited for length):

“I always love hearing about how/when homeschoolers fit in planning….and getting a glimpse of what a typical day looks like. I am constantly battling with the idea that we need to have a structured routine, but fail to have one every single day. Sometimes I feel great about our go-with-the-flow approach, and sometimes I feel like my kids need more consistency and I should work harder at that.”

I think that personal style and what works for your family are key. For us, planning is a must. Like you, I tend to fall on the go-with-the-flow end of the spectrum but it is a complete fail with my children. In fact, nothing guarantees a bad day like not having a plan. As a result, I need to walk roughshod over my personal preference and manage to work with what works best for my children. And that’s a lesson plan, attached to a schedule. My children need to know what to expect or their brains short-circuit. On the positive side, when they have a lesson plan clearly laid-out, they work well and thoroughly.

user-experience-vs-design
Last year, I planned our work using Laura Berquist’s Designing you Own Classical Curriculum and Jesse Wise’s The Well-Trained Mind . While I really liked the classical approach, it required a lot of work and advanced planning on my part, especially since my children were something-less-than-enthusiastic. Their school experience had not prepared them for the type of work and inquiry that the classical curriculum demanded.
Mid-year I started using spiral bound notebooks to prepare the children’s workweek. If I had a chunk of time on Sunday I would plan the entire week day-by-day. That rarely happened so I was normally planning one day at a time, after the kids’ bedtime. When the children got up in the morning, they knew right away what they had to do and would often power through most of their school day in a few hours. Whenever we didn’t get to the end of the list, the work got reported to the next day. I never scheduled Fridays and used it as a bumper day to finish the week’s work.

Using the spiral notebooks really made things easier for everyone but I was still struggling to keep on top of the highschoolers: making sure that their work was completed properly and corrected, that areas of concern were addressed, etc. As former school students, they both had a tendency to stop working whenever they encountered a problem they couldn’t solve.
As a result, this year I registered the highschoolers with Mother of Divine Grace School. They are taking online classes in math and religion, have tutors for the other subjects (science, English, history, latin) and I teach French using these resources. The Mother of Divine Grace syllabi are very clearly (and expertly) broken down in assignments by days and by weeks. The curriculum is demanding, clocking-in at 5 to 6 hours per day for the highschoolers. In other words, it will suck back a lot of our homeschooling flexibility. But the reality is that my teens don’t know how to use their time wisely. I was hoping that homeschooling flexibility would allow them to delve into new interests and develop their talents but it hasn’t. Unless Tumblr, Netflix and Starbucks count as talents.
Another dimension of planning are your needs as a parent. As usual, a little bit of critical self-examination can go a long way. I find that there is a very predictable arc to my day depending on where my butt sits around 7:30 am. If I am on the couch with my phone, in my pajamas, having my coffee, chances are I’m still there at 10am (or more likely I got up in a panic as the twins dumped a bucket of outside gravel into the couch and I am now cleaning it up as they flush dominoes down the septic tank and Damien is drinking toilet water from the dog’s water dish. I wish I was making this up.) If I have gotten-up before the kids, stretched a bit, said my morning prayers, eaten and dressed, I’m less likely to get caught-up in the wave of chaos that represents my family. Because my brain is impervious to routines – no matter how long I stick to a routine it never becomes second nature – a plan help me remember where I’m supposed to be at a certain time and what I’m supposed to do.
Finally, one last dimension of planning is that it really clears hours off my day. I know because I’ve been operating plan-less for most of the last 9 months and the insanity of doing all the cooking, all the cleaning and all the homeschooling for a family of 11 is really catching-up with me now. A plan allows me to assign tasks to the children and keep them accountable. It’s easier to keep them doing their chores if there is a predictable list of work I can pin to their foreheads. Left to my own devise, I tend to rely heavily on the most naturally helpful children, which of course breeds resentment on one end and unrealistic expectations of being left alone at the other end. I purchased Managers of their homes in a fit of despair last year but it’s still shrink-wrapped and glaring at me. I’m scared witless of this thing but I’m afraid we’re at that point of disorganization.Many friends have also recommended Holly Pierlot A Mother’s Rule of Life but I can’t buy another book until I have read all those I ordered last year so it may have to wait until I’m in a nursing home.
My thoughts on planning, in a nutshell: If you think you need it, give it a try. If you are happy and healthy, why fix what is not broken? I would much prefer following my children’s learning cues and enquiries, if the cues weren’t always about Paw Patrol.

Fashion intervention

July 25, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 17 Comments

Recently, a friend posted a link to this article giving a big fat middle finger (or two) to the idea that anyone should have to “dress for their shape.” Everyone should be able to wear what they like, it claims, regardless of body type. I agree, in theory. That said, I wonder if in all our conviction about avoiding body-shaming, fat-shaming and recognizing the sad reality that most people don’t receive a loaded credit card one morning to turn their wardrobes around we haven’t thrown the baby out with the bath water. By this I mean that some people might want to know if they look ridiculous.

Case in point: me.

I am the type who gains weight while breastfeeding. My body is a wonderful baby-making machine. It conceives easily, carries uneventfully, delivers at home and breastfeeds for years. Only, it’s taking its job too seriously, to the point of overdoing it a little. This would have been an important survival scheme in prehistoric times but in today’s context of overabundance, it bites a little. Especially since fashion is so cruel to the curvy. I used to consider “extended” breastfeeding to be anything past the introduction of solid food and never had trouble regaining my pre-pregnancy weight before conceiving again. Now that I get pregnant with the next child while still nursing the last one, I just pack-on the pounds.

Last winter, I found myself weighting just shy of 200 lbs and that was not cool. I shared about my weight-gain-loss journey on my babywearing blog. I started a Whole 30 program and lost almost 20 lbs. I kept eating Paleo but the weight-loss leveled-off. Oh well. I’m 15 months post-partum, I have back fat and love handles, a twin muffin-top and cleavage. I went from being a boxy size 6-8 to an apple-shaped size 12-14 and I don’t know how to dress!

Whole 30 before and after. I’m still as heavy as I was 38 weeks pregnant with twins on the after picture. For realz.

My idea of clothes-shopping involves grabbing a pair of jeans between a box of pancake mix and a head of broccoli, thank you Joe Fresh. You can do that when you’re a size 6. Recently, I learned an important lesson upon returning from a family walk during which my oldest daughter held the camera: you can’t do that when you are not mannequin-shaped! Exhibit A:

What? Is this really what I look like with skinny jeans? I used to look great in skinny jeans! Those skinny jeans were $19 between the tea bags and the Epsom salts! But the most pressing question is: WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME I COULDN’T WEAR TAPERED LEG ANYTHING ANYMORE? WHY? It wouldn’t have been body-shaming, it would have been good judgement!

Now can we talk about low-rise jeans and t-shirts? Regular normal t-shirts? Once again, you can’t do that when you carry 45 extra pounds between your chest and your midsection. Listen, it’s not that I’m ashamed of my muffin: it has successfully nourished my last 3 children. My belly has accumulated the pounds where my children needed them. But! Being body positive doesn’t mean I have to flaunt my muffin. So why am I still wearing low-rise jeans with fitted t-shirts I ask you?

My body likes being pregnant so much that it wants to look pregnant all the time. Nice.

Because I don’t know how to dress that body, that’s why. It’s a new body that came to me in my early fourties and that I have to tame. I want to see that body as beautiful and it’s hard to see a size 12 as beautiful when you’re trying to fit it in size 8 style.

This article is an invitation. And invitation to send me ~~a fully loaded credit card~~ your best fashion tips, tricks and resources for turning my wardrobe around on a dime. Style inspiration, shopping websites, links, how you do it (especially if clothes shopping involves a lot of little people and very little time), banks to rob, you get the idea. Post your best links, tips and recommendations in the comments and be assured of my eternal gratitude. Friends don’t let friends go out looking like that.

Answer me this: The superhero edition

July 20, 2015 ~ Veronique ~ 1 Comment

Answer Me This is the internet’s favorite virtual cocktail party where we all answer the same six random questions and get to know each other a little better. Originally hosted by Kendra at Catholic All Year, I invite you to post your answers in the comments or publish them on your own blog and post the link in the comments. Unless you just want to sit back, relax and read. That’s ok too.

1. What’s currently on your To Do list?

I not a list person. The only thing on my to-do list is to write a to-do list because the lack of sleep and exercise is finally getting to my brain. Sitting down to write a to-do list is the best way to obliterate any memory of what I need to do. Clean slate. If I manage to jot a few things down, I’ll forget I even have a to-do list.

Would we still have time to discover new donut shops because a sign said “Donuts TODAY!” and go eat them by the side of a lake if i had a to-do list? I think not

2. Better type of superhero: magic/radioactive powers? Or trauma/gadgets/hard work?

I am not well-versed in the world of Superheroes. In fact, I don’t really know any. I don’t watch TV, I rarely go to the movies, it’s just not my cup of tea. But from what I heard, I think I prefer the magic/radioactive powers. There is a scene in the movie Frozen — I know, not a superhero movie but bear with me — when Elsa and Anna’s parents bring the girls to the trolls after their games with Elsa’s magical powers turn deadly. The chief troll asks the parents: “Born or cursed?” meaning “was she born with her powers or did they come as the result of a curse?” I think that we all have gifts that sometimes feel like curses. Or gifts that we misuse and turn into curses. I am an introvert who moves slowly. I process my feelings inwardly and I abhor conflict. My husband is the quintessential “type A” personality. He can do more in 5 hours that I can do in 5 days. He is driven, energetic and decisive. I am mellow, consciensous and ambivalent. For many years, I saw him as a model to emulate. I felt inferior, I didn’t see my phlegmatic personality as a gift but a liability. I was unable to appreciate what it brought to the equilibrium of our family. It took me a long time to see that my temperament was a complement to my husband’s. That slowing him down was not a bad thing. That tempering the drive with a little human touch was creating a much more pleasant mix than pure unadulterated energy. The born or cursed superhero has to learn to use his gifts wisely, for the service of the good. Like us, he didn’t choose to be that way. In that, his struggle is a lot more relatable than that of the whiz kid superhero who tinkers his way to greatness. I often encourage mothers who are feeling inadequate because they are not able to keep the children entertained while keeping the fridge stocked and the house clean on their way to a volunteer board meeting. I tell them: “What if your gift was not to be supermom? What if it was not to run a successful business with 7 kids dressed to the nines and a pitch perfect Instagram account? What if it was to curl-up on the couch, read stories, forage for wild berries and look for weird spiders in the backyard?” What if you have an illness or your children have special needs and you are showing the world fortitude and and perseverance just by getting up? Can you make way cheerfully to the needs of others? Are you able to put people before things or accomplishments? These abilities are gifts. If you don’t believe me, just ask the grown children of successful entrepreneurs and neat freaks, they’ll tell you. The trauma/gadget/ hard work superhero personifies one of today’s most popular attitude: the idea that all your dreams are within your reach if you only dream hard enough. This not only false, it’s not even that good an idea. If we all followed our dreams, there would be only artists and organic farmers and no one to pick-up the trash. The magic/radioactive powers superhero must choose to put his powers to good use, regardless of his dreams and aspirations. How much suffering would not have been relieved had Robin Hood been working at dreaming to be Superman? Not everyone was made for great things. Some of us were made to achieve little things with great love. And that’s ok too.

3. Finding out if baby is a boy or a girl before birth: Good idea? Bad idea?

As a rule, we don’t find out. With exceptions. When my first four were little, we had 3 girls and a boy. My son once asked me:

– I’d really like if God would make you pregnant. Because I really want a baby brother.

I answered: “You know, if I got pregnant it could be another girl.” To which he replied, incredulous:

– Why would God do *that*?

When I did get pregnant, Colin wanted to know so badly that we indulged and found out. It was a very happy moment and I didn’t regret finding out. But I still prefer the surprise at birth.

I also found out with the twins. The pregnancy was a big, shocking surprise. Finding out at 15 weeks that I was having twins was a big, shocking surprise. I was all surprised-out for 2011. I just wanted to know.

With Damien, I found out by accident 2 days before he was born. I had an ultrasound and the technician, who knew I didn’t want to know, let it slip. She said: “He is going to be surrounded by so much love…” Then caught herself and said: “I mean he, like “the baby”…” I would never have noticed her slip had she not caught herself because the noun “baby” in French is a masculine noun (nouns have gender in French, did you know that?) but I left thinking “I think I’m having a boy.” I didn’t tell anyone else so my husband and children were still surprised. When Damien was born, my husband whispered “It’s a little boy!” in my ear and I thought “yup!”

Two of my friends expecting twins kept the surprise. I really admired their self-control — because there are so many opportunities to ask when you have weekly ultrasounds!

The moment we usually find out baby’s sex

4. Have you ever appeared on a stadium jumbotron?

I haven’t but my oldest son has. When he was about 8 we went to Parliament Hill on Canada Day and he got the idea of seeking out the Jumbotron camera dude. That’s when we realized that he had a bit of a showman personality. It was all downhill from there (in a good way!).

Parliament Hill, view from the Laurier street bridge.

5. Are you more book smart or more street smart?

That’s a funny question because I am a book-smartie who married a street-smartie. Almost 20 years later, I am more street-smart by association than I ever thought I could be. Still, my situational awareness is legendary, in the wrong sense. My husband recently moved the camping trailer we used as a base of operations during our house construction. It was located in the field immediately in front of our front door. I didn’t notice, even though I had been asking him to remove that eyesore from my field of view. I think I’m still more book-smartish.

Would you notice if this was parked in front of your front door? me neither

6. Have you had that baby yet? (Feel free to skip this one if it’s not applicable to you.)

Well, no. I’m not even pregnant. We hope to have some good news to share soon but that old body of mine seems to be closing shop early after 20 very intense years. I was chatting with my healthcare provider after an early loss last month (what they call a chemical pregnancy: peed on a stick, saw a faint line, got my periods 2h later). She was asking me if I wanted to do anything about it, specifically look into supplemental progesterone. And upon thinking about it, I decided that accepting not conceiving was the flip side of accepting unplanned pregnancies. Also, being unable to conceive when you are 41 and tandem breastfeeding your 8th and 9th children might actually be a wise thing. As in: my body might be telling me something. And I’m willing to listen.

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Ya think getting pregnant could wait?