This past week, Mother Nature unleashed her winter wrath up here in Calgary, Alberta.  We’re talking large dumps of snow and temperatures than hovered between -25 and -40 C  (that’s -12 to -40 F).  And though I’m accustomed to extreme weather conditions being a born and bred Canuck, something REALLY stood out for me during this cold bout:  awareness of my own mortality…and the effect my death or a serious injury would have on my young children.

I don’t know if it’s because my 40th birthday lies on the horizon that I’ve become increasingly concerned (paranoid?).  It also didn’t help when I heard the story of a woman in her late thirties who hit black ice, flipped her car and today is confined to a wheelchair.  Regardless, I realize that there are matters I need to tie up to protect and care for my kids – just in case.  Here are few points you, too, may need to tend to:  (read more here)

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She said that within seconds of meeting him, she knew she was attracted to him. And over the next two hours as they sat laughing and talking on their first date, their chemistry was so intense, it was palpable….

But somehow…somehow, she sensed there was something different about this man. There was just ’something’ in his energy…the way he looked at her…the way he held himself. And when he unexpectedly reached across the restaurant table and cupped her cheek with his large hand, her response was frightfully strong…

Eyes closed, she nestled her cheek into his palm, lost in the exploration of his fingers.  He didn’t hesitate – he knew to immediately get up and slide down in the booth beside her while she was still semi-dazed.   He turned his body to her; she found herself oh so close and oh so buried by his energy and massive, hard chest.  He lifted her chin and and drew her mouth to his…a soft yet powerful kiss.  And though a thought in her head quickly protested, You’re in a restaurant, get control of yourself!, she couldn’t stop.  She was lost in the command of his taste and touch; he was making her his, as if he knew he could meet her every need. (read more here)

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It happened last weekend.   My eight-year-old son asked if he could bike over to his friend’s place two blocks away.

Right away I said no.   What if they got hit by a car?  What if some predator chased them down the residential streets?  I wanted him within eye/ear sight.  Just in case.

But when I opened the front door, there sat his two friends on their bikes waiting for him. 

“YOUR mom said it’s OK?”  I asked one. 

He nodded and said: “I’ve done this many times before.”

I turned to the other: ”And YOUR mom says it’s OK?”  He nodded vehemently.

I exhaled hard.  “Alright.  But you guys stay together, you hear?  And be VERY careful of cars!”

And I watched them gleefully ride off, remembering the ‘good ol days’ when I used to bike around the entire neighborhood; you know - back in the days when it was ’safe.’

Today, however, I read an article on Yahoo that says crime today is on parr of that of the 70s, according to Crimes Against Children Research.   From 1970 - 1993, crime was on the rise, but ever since it has plunged dramatically - particularly sex crimes which are down 79%.

I was shocked - I thought the world had gone to hell since the good ol days.  From what I’d seen on the news and TV commercials and from parenting experts, a hovering parental eye was always required.

Then I read about mom and author Lenore Skenazy - a woman labelled “America’s Worst Mom” because she allowed her 9-year-old son to ride the subway alone in New York last year.  A resident of New York, she armed her son with a subway map, a Metrocard, $20 in cash and a few quarters in case he needed to phone her.  The point of this exercise?  To teach him independence and self-confidence.  She felt he was more than capable.

Lenore is the crusader of a new movement in safe but ’sane’ parenting.  She says we’ve become so accustomed to thinking someone’s going to hurt our kids that we deny them life skills including those around independence.  The aforementioned statistics she says, speak for themselves: crime is on parr of that of the 70s.  She says we’ve been so bombarded with stories of the opposite, that we’ve become ‘helicopter parents’ that unnecessarily limit our children’s personal growth and enjoyment of life.

Do I agree with her?  The helicopter parent in me says no.  But I’ll be hovering over her website to check out her ideas.  I know my son was thrilled to ride over to his friend’s place last weekend with his buddies.  Maybe the good ‘ol days aren’t totally gone - just daddy is.  *grin.

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It happened while waiting for my son’s school performance to begin. I was sitting in a packed school auditorium amongst row after row of seemingly devoted parents.  

I watched couples sitting side-by-side, some not talking, some holding hands, and the odd mom or dad sitting solo.  Suddenly, the questions began floating through my mind:

Who, here, is truly happily married? 

How many people in this room have a great sex life, a lover on the side, or perhaps no sex at all? 

Who is carrying secrets, restless desires, and who will pretend to be happy in public, only to return home to a glass house?

Since I got divorced my eyeglasses have changed.  Perhaps to a greyer hue.  But I think I’m more realistic. Secrets and lies permeated my home for years prior to my divorce, and I wasn’t some exceptional case.  I’d wanted normal.  I’d wanted simple.  I’d believed and worked hard at the family dream.

We’ve all heard the expression, “You never know what goes on behind closed doors.”  So I sat in the school auditorium looking closely at people’s faces: 

Did he meet a lover earlier in the day? I wondered.  

Is she daydreaming of meeting her lover later on? 

Was his smile genuine, or a well-practiced ‘super husband/ dad’ smile? 

Will she deliberately delay going to bed tonight because the thought of his touch disgusts her? 

For I now know that secrets, lies, and hidden desires…are everywhere.  Even buried amongst row after row of seemingly devoted parents in an elementary school auditorium. 

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We hear about it all the time – this thing called “balance.”  We’re told it’s something we need, something we should strive for, something we should achieve.

But you know what I’ve never understood?  How it is measured.  Do all balancing components, i.e. work vs. play, have to happen every day?  Can they divide the week in half?  Or can a full month of work be balanced with one day of play? (Read more and add comments here)

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I wasn’t looking for him.  He was totally unplanned.  But our emails progressed so quickly – naturally – that now, one month into our daily correspondence, his purpose in my life has emerged:    

The universe has deliberately brought me a Good Man.  Not to be my partner, nor champion of life dreams.  But to help restore my faith in men. (read more & add comments here)

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A girlfriend of mine says she’s fallen in love.  She’s met him only three times – he lives thousands of miles away in the United States.  She talks now of how she plans to move there at the end of the year.  She will find a new job.  Move away from her family.  Her eyes go soft and dreamy as she talks about their future… in her mind, he’s The One.

I love this woman.  I love her like a little sister.  She’s only 27-years-old.  I know how badly she wants to find the Real Thing, how much she wants children, and the family dream. 

Yet I am torn…

(Read more and add comments here)

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A child psychologist told me that one of the best skills I could teach my kids to help them adjust to my ex’s and my different parenting styles was the ‘Tethlon Suit” technique.  It involved me explaining  what tethlon is and how it enabled all food to just ‘slide off off” pots and pans.   This same ‘slide off’ analogy applied to the tethlon suits my kids then imagined putting on; for any kinds of mean words or actions were to simply ‘slide off of them.’  

I found myself using this technique on myself this past weekend when talking to my ex.  But instead of just envisioning myself wrapped in tethlon, I literally slid the phone away from my ear when I heard mean remarks; I was energetically ‘pushing them away’ so that they couldn’t penetrate me… (Read more and add comments here)

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To many parents, married or single, Spring Break can send a jolt of  anxiety through them.  Cause for many of us, it doesn’t involve a one-week trip to Jamaica; it involves extra planning and work while we simultaneously tend to our full-time jobs.  

Myself being ever-the-organizer, I’ve always started planing well in advance for this holiday in past - play dates, mini-trips, special outings - whatever it would take eliminate the dreaded ’I'm bored’ whine and keep choas from running rampant.

Well, Spring Break is now over for my kids - two of my three kids went back to school this morning.  And I can’t help but notice how it FLEW by this year, with minimal planning, minimal whining, and maximum fun.  What was the difference this year?  My ex took the kids for five days.  This was the first time EVER - all my married life included - that I didn’t have my three young kids solo.

I can not express enough how recharging it was for me to have five days off to myself.  I still spent most of it working.  But just knowing I could do whatever I wanted, whever I wanted, was  absolutely intoxicating.  Oh, you know I love my kids more than anything in this world.  But as any full-time mom will say, me-time is always the last thing on the list and often not tended to.  Consequently I end up feeling stressed out and burnt out more often than I care to admit.

But what five days off also meant was that the mom my kids returned to was totally fired up and ready to maximize the time we had together.  And like I said, those five days FLEW by.  It’s not that we did anything extraordinary together like go to Disneyland - but it translated into me being more patient and present with my kids whether we were out and about or simply hanging around at home.  In fact, the memory that stands out most to me was yesterday when I had a bunch of kids playing at my house.  Everyone decided to ‘love mommy and show her how much they appreciate her cause she does so much for us.’ (And no - it wasn’t my idea!)  I was then ordered to lie down as one child proceeded to brush my hair, and two others scrubbed my feet and massaged them.  Another brought me snacks and fed me, while another cracked my back.  But the ‘mommy-love’ didn’t end there - they then eagerly did a myriad of chores around the house with big smiles on their faces and their little chests puffed out with pride… 

And in my mind, that memory will be emblazoned as sweetly as any future trips to Disneyland.

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Almost all women at some point in their lives attract a ‘bad man’; some of us marry him.  And by ‘bad,’ I’m not simply referring to men who are drug lords, pimps, or wife abusers.  No, “bad men” are regular men who don’t treat us and love us as wonderfully as we deserve.  They are, as author Sarah Breathnach puts it, “spiritual disgraces sent in disguise to teach us, through torment, to love ourselves.”

It can be hard to identify the spiritual ‘gifts’ our bad men have brought us – especially if they cheated and left us for another woman.  When everything first erupts, we’ll say they’re ‘bad’ and mean it literally, venomously, blamefully…(read more and add comments here)

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