When you have kids, making plans is hard work. Even if you only have two kids, it seems that as soon as you are walking out the door, someone comes down with fever. Plans are never made with complete confidence.

When you have a bunch of kids, there are way too many variables involved. At any given time someone either has a cold, pink eye, fever, rash, the vomits, head lice, a broken leg, or all of the above. On the rare occasion that every single child is in perfect health, plans are often interrupted by hockey play-offs, music recitals, and dance lessons.

If the stars are all aligned, we actually have a chance of getting to our destination.

I recently made cottage weekend plans with three other families. There was one major complication – each of the three families has four kids. Do the math and you will find that the four families involved had a kid total of 18. To plan for a crew like that, there are a lot of stars that need to be aligned.

The cottage weekend planning Olympics officially kicked off about two months ago and involved four mamas exchanging countless Facebook messages. After pouring over our personal calendars and the children’s schedules, we accomplished the near impossible – we nailed a weekend that we were all available.

Planning is one thing, executing is another entirely. We were fully prepared for and expecting the last minute bail-out due to some infectious disease that no one wanted shared around. What we didn’t account for was the other risk involved – the plans of the daddy-o. In the end, one of the involved families was not able to come because the daddy-o had plans that were not on mama’s radar when she went ahead and made plans with us.

This is easily done. In our family, there have been countless times that daddy-o and I have left each other out of the loop on some pretty significant happenings or events. We have combated that by adopting an e-mail and outlook appointment policy – plans are not considered officially made unless they come across our laptop screens. If this sounds ridiculous, then enjoy the calm and peaceful household you live in. If this sounds sensible and effective, then welcome to my club.

I suppose we’d have greater odds of getting together socially with families who have fewer children. However, there’s something nice about spending time with mamas of many because they understand the dynamics of a big family - and heck, what do they say about misery loving company?

I’m never quite sure what to do about Father’s Day. Is it a time when daddy-o is supposed to spend the whole day bonding with his kid crew, or is it a day he should get a break from them?

After pondering the question for about five seconds, I decided to go with the bonding. Fact is, he spends a lot of time at work so doesn’t exactly need a ‘break’ from the kids. As such, I lined up a few dad and kid activities for the morning.

Breakfast in bed was not on the agenda, so the first activity was to send him off to his favourite greasy spoon with the three biggies followed by a trip to the golf store where he cashed in a gift certificate that was two-years-old. The rest of the day mostly involved daddy-o swimming in the backyard pool with the gang. Father’s Day is now wrapped up for another year.

Around here I feel that Mother’s Day should be treated a little differently to Father’s Day because of the difference in our parenting roles. The one fundamental difference is that I’m around the kiddos a helluva a lot and he is not. I need more bonding time with the kids about as much as I need a hole in the head. I like to celebrate Mother’s Day by having a few moments to myself - nothing drastic, maybe a sleep in until 8:00am and an hour in the afternoon. I don’t think that is too much to ask. Call it a double standard, but I don’t need to be surrounded by my peeps on my day, but daddy-o does on his day.

Years ago, on my second mother’s day, life was hectic as I was juggling Law School and two babies. I’ll never forget waking up on the morning on that Mother’s Day and daddy-o saying “I’m just going out for a couple of hours to do some Mother’s Day shopping”. Gulp. Do ya think maybe that should have been done during the week? My idea of Mother’s Day didn’t involve him going on a shopping excursion.

The rage that consumed me at the time makes it difficult to recollect or re-tell the story. All I know is that he gently threw me his wallet and car keys, grabbed the children and gently backed out of the room muttering phrases like “don’t rush back…..go for a coffee too….visit friends….buy whatever you like.” Again, the red I was seeing blurred my vision so this is just a vague recollection.

So here’s to every daddy-o out there. I hope the mamas spent the day doing exactly what I did - showing their great appreciation of you by providing you with opportunity to spend time with your lovely children!

The picture you see is of my beautiful nephew Emmett with his dog, Magnum. A picture of our family pet does not exist because we do not have, nor will we ever get a furry friend. My kiddos often complain about how difficult it is having a mean mama. I like to remind them that they may luck out in their next lives, but for now they are stuck with me.

Nagging for a pet is a hobby for my kids. Last summer I compromised and told them they could have fish, but not the pet store kind. You see, there are these nuisance fish called globbies that hang out in Lake Ontario and eat the eggs of native fish. When you pull a globbie out of the lake you are not supposed to put it back in, so they generally become lunch for the nuisance seagulls.

When fishing at the lake last summer, I let my kids put a few globbies in a bucket and bring them home. Generous, I know. We made a nice fish habitat in a big plastic container in the backyard. The excitement ended in disappointment the next morning when we discovered the local raccoons had a feeding frenzy on our pets - fish heads and guts scattered around the backyard. “Never mind” said I and back to the shores of Lake Ontario we went. We were determined to beat the raccoons at their own game. The next morning we were delighted to see that our pets survived the night. Things went pear-shaped later in the day when we went to check on our fish and they were all belly-up. Clearly, we are not a family well suited for pets.

The recent birth of Finian caused my sister to get a bit clucky. Her kids are now ten-years-old and six-years-old so she was not really thinking another baby at this point in the game. But, she was clucky enough that her kids were able to successfully talk her into a puppy. In comparing our baby and puppy stories, my sister and I have discovered is that we are going through remarkably similar experiences - except that her puppy is more work than my baby. Puppies don’t wear diapers and when they have ‘medical’ appointments, they are not covered by Medicare or any benefits plan.

Since playing with their cousins’ puppy, the nagging for a pet has started up again around here. I keep reminding them that we have wee baby Fin, to which they respond “but he’s a baby not a dog!!” Hmmm, can’t outsmart my clever kids.

I get that pets are good for kids – teaching them about responsibility, life cycles and all that good stuff. My feeling is that as long as I’m cleaning up human poop I’m steering clear of animal poop. Besides, spring is here so we can head back down to the lake for some more pets. Who knows – maybe we’ll be able to keep them alive for a full 24 hours this summer!

I was recently sitting around with my business partners chatting about our Mabel journey. We realized that over the last few years, the Mabel lifestyle has at times been a bit crazy. We have certainly found ourselves in some pretty wacky situations. So entertaining was the discussion, it’s worth sharing a few moments.

The Early Days:

- We were working out of a tiny basement making labels until 3:00am then going home to start the day with our kiddos at 6:00am. Oh, and three of the four of us were pregnant. You can understand why whenever we heard our friends complaining about being tired we’d quietly roll our eyes. Doing that first trimester fatigue on three hours sleep…..well, not our best days.

- We did everything ourselves, including licking the envelopes. Ellis and Cynthia licked so many one night, they almost vomited. We had flashbacks to George Costanza’s fiancé’s untimely death on Seinfeld, the direct result of envelope licking. We quite easily could have been a sit com, but the star roles were very unglamourous!

- One terrible night a printer broke. We went into action and quickly problem solved the situation - my mom was called in immediately. You see, she is a retired primary school teacher with very nice handwriting. She hand wrote the address on every order that evening.

- We once folded 5000 brochures by hand because we couldn’t afford the $100 folding fee.

- We paid our first web designer with a foosball table in lieu of cash.

Other Crazy Stuff:

- While at a Baby Show, Mumby fixed Sarah’s (savvymom.ca) BlackBerry with a bunch of Sticky Labels samples. When I saw Sarah six months later, she proudly showed me her BlackBerry – still being held together by Mabel’s Labels. We’ve seen some good customer hacks in our time but this takes the cake.

- After doing a recent Pirate themed Baby Show (yes, weird, we know), for days Mumby’s facebook status updates only said things like “a-hoy”, “errrr” and “eye matey”.

- I once became a ‘camping expert’ in less than a day after getting a request for such an expert to appear on Breakfast Television. I’ve never googled so much about any one topic before in my life.

- Mumby has been known to chit-chat with the editors from Penthouse while trying desperately attempting to come up with a PR angle.

- Mumby has been seen walking around Chicago with Oprah labels, just in case she ran into Oprah.

- Cynthia and I once drove for six hours for a four minute TV spot, only to then turn around and drive home.

- We once sent a box of brochures off to a camp then found out that a camel arrived instead of our brochures. Yes, a camel. We still have no idea who intercepted the package, but this is the stuff Mabel legends are made of. The camp even forwarded us the picture of the camel, which arrived with a Mabel magnet attached to it! Full story here: http://www.mabel.ca/wordpress/?p=252.

And just when we thought we’d done it all and seen it all, last week Ellis and I somehow ended up modelling in a mama fashion show. Uh, you remember that I’m five weeks out of my sixth c-section, right? Well clearly I forgot that fact when I agreed to strut my mama stuff. Three words: pass the Spanx!

So from the dark and dreary corners of a basement to the catwalk, I can only imagine the weird and wonderful places Mabel will take us in the next few years!

If you commented on the Name Game blog entry, keep watch on Caitlin’s “Mabel Files” (www.blog.mabel.ca) where she will soon be posting the winner of the Camp Pack. Caitlin takes care of all the official stuff and I get to have the blogging fun. Heck, I’m on maternity leave so it seems fair that I run the contest and someone else worries about monitoring entries, wouldn’t you say?

Although I’m on mat leave, I have not fallen off the face of the earth entirely - still blogging, checking facebook, on twitter, etc. To simply disappear from social networks and ignore good online discussion is not something this chatty mama is cut out for. Cocooning for an extended period of time off-line with my kiddos wouldn’t really work for me. And last I checked, my inbox didn’t get the memo that I’m on maternity leave.

In the last few days I’ve had both a radio and magazine interview. We like Mabel to get some airtime so an interview request is not the time to pull maternity leave rank - save that for when you want to guiltlessly forward annoying sales messages to your colleagues.

All things considered, my maternity leave rocks - I do what I like and ditch what I don’t. Not a bad gig really. But everyone has a different idea of what works for them.

I know one woman who was enjoying a long and successful legal and academic career when she gave birth for the first time at 43-years-old. When I was at Law School I would occasionally come across her articles which were nearly impossible to read - she spoke an entirely different language and it certainly didn’t involve words like “lactation” and “play date”. The transition from working world to mama world was too great a leap for her - she only lasted two weeks before heading back into the traditional workforce.

I know other mamas in similar situations who take great pleasure in retiring their blackberries for the full maternity leave then reluctantly blow the dust off them when it’s time to head back.

There is no right answer to what consitutes the perfect maternity leave. I’m officially heading back to Mabel life in September. After having six kids under foot all summer, the return to work will likely be a nice break from my maternity leave!

photo #1 - yes, checking my blackberry from my hospital bed

photo #2 - on the Enterprise Toronto panel last week. Finian at three weeks old was the youngest entrepreneur in attendance. Can you see the little guy on my lap?

I know a woman named Iona Dick. Go on - say it out loud. The kicker is she took her husband’s surname when she married so actually decided to become Mrs. Iona Dick.

I have a friend whose little boy is named Owen Vary. Nice name, lovely kid. Two weeks ago, Owen’s poor mama got hit with the realization that his first initial with last name makes the word “ovary”. She is hoping the kids he ends up in high school with don’t clue in.

It’s fair to say that we Mabel mamas are mildly obsessed with baby naming. It’s a bit of a sport around the office. We get irrationally excited by names and you can often hear squealing in the Mabel’s Labels production area when someone comes across a new or unique name.

My last pregnancy went very quickly and a fast pregnancy qualifies as a good one. The one drawback was that I kept thinking I had loads of time to come up with a fun and clever name. It’s tricky business to name a baby when you’re in the baby name business. It also doesn’t help when you’ve already named a handful of your own kiddos.

I’m generally pretty satisfied with my kids’ names so was worried about finding a sixth name I would be happy with.

When our little boy arrived four weeks ago, we had settled on “Finian Aloysius”. Daddy-o and I think we are both funny and clever because it shortens to a very cool rapper name (think J.Lo or K.Fed). Confused? Well, take the first part of both names and you get “Fin Al”. Yep, you got it - FINAL, as in last one, done, no more babies! I figured with a rapper name like that I would be immune to any future temptation to go for baby #7. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.

Have you got a funny baby name story? How did you name your kid? Head over to The Mabelhood to share your funny baby name story and read about others!  http//:www.blog.mabel.ca

Want to stay current on the Mabel name trends AND get some free product? Just add the Popular Baby Names application to your Facebook profile: http://apps.facebook.com/popularbaby…

Invite your friends to add this application to their profiles and for every 5 friends who do, you will receive a coupon code entitling you to 15 free Classic Sticky Labels.

**Big thanks to Nicole for the awesome Finian image that went of the very cool cards she sent me. Check her stuff out: http://NSCcards.com

Katrina Carefoot, Mabel BlogHer correspondent, from Fickle Feline, is guest blogging while Julie recovers from the birth of her 6th baby - welcome Finian Aloysius!  Julie will be back next week (talk about a whirlwind maternity leave!).

I probably shouldn’t admit this in such a public forum, but I have a thing for office supplies.  Meaning, I fancy really nice, top notch pens, rulers, paper, notepads, mechanical pencils, paper clips, scissors and staplers.  If my work doesn’t happen to supply my preferred brand of a specific office product, I will bring my own from home.  Yes, I’m that particular, specifically about my stapler.  But my stapler - it isn’t just any stapler.  It has a special history.  It is a burgundy, Swingline stapler.  And how do I say this nicely?  No, you CANNOT borrow my stapler.  Uhh…I mean, of course you can borrow my stapler, just please be sure to bring it back to me when you are finished.  And be gentle with it, it was a gift.  A Valentine’s Day gift.  Specifically, my first Valentine’s gift from my husband after we got married.  But, you know, no pressure.  However, be aware that if you scratch it, dent it, or ding it, I will never speak to you again.  Otherwise, we’re cool.  There is also the fact that it matches my Blackberry Curve perfectly.  I know…that’s just crazy talk, I mean, who accessorizes their office equipment?  Probably the same type of person who labels it…

Don’t you touch my stapler!

The labelling thing, it started out as a way for me to keep the kids organized, to make sure their stuff came home from daycare at the end of the day.  Then, I realized, after leaving my notebook in a meeting room for the 3rd time in a week (I guess my brain is still in mommy mode), that I could use some labels too.  Hey, if it works for the kids, why wouldn’t I label my stuff too?  That way when I leave my stuff behind in meeting rooms, the local coffee shop, or my boss’s office, everyone will know who it belongs to and everything will find its way back to me.  Mommy brain problem solved, right?

You can take the girl out of the Mabel, but you can’t take the Mabel out of the girl.

So far my strategy has proven to be successful.  But I might have overdone it, just a bit.  You see, in an effort to ensure my highly prized office supplies (like my much loved Swingline) are always returned to me, I labelled every square inch of my desk.  I have a feeling my coworkers are now afraid to borrow anything from me, because I seem a bit “attached” to my stuff.  But maybe that’s not such a bad thing?  Maybe my label strategy is actually two pronged - it helps people return things to me when I have forgotten them, and encourages them to not borrow things in the first place, as they will inevitably look like a thief when my visibly labelled stapler sits, waiting to be returned to me, on their desk, my name label a beacon, calling out to me in the night “Katrina, Katrina, Come Save Me!!”.

Wow.  My stapler is talking to me.  And I thought Izzie was nuts.  I need to get more sleep.

Katrina Carefoot, Mabel BlogHer correspondent, from Fickle Feline, is guest blogging for the next two weeks while Julie recovers from the birth of her 6th baby - welcome Finian Aloysius!

Me at the beginning of my 1st week back at work.

I survived my first week back at work.  I’m not going to lie, the mornings came early, the days were long, and most nights I fell into bed not long after my kids.  But I made it, and I learned some important lessons along the way.

Ten Things I Learned My First Week Back At Work:

1. Coffee tastes better when you don’t have someone pulling on your pantleg.  So does lunch.

2. A 5:30am wakeup call always feels like the middle of the night, no matter how early you go to bed.

3. My kids will be okay if someone else takes them to doctor appointments and therapy sessions,  but it still kills me that I can’t be there for everything.

4. My baby sleeps better when she spends the day at daycare - in fact, she sleeps through the night!

5. I like getting dressed up every morning (with a regular bra rather than a nursing bra) and putting on makeup.

6. It’s not such a bad thing to get a chance to miss your kids, it makes you appreciate your time with them.

7. Sometimes it seems like a good idea to just go to bed and not lay out clothes, prepare lunches, and set up coffee for the morning…but what takes five minutes at night seems to take a half hour in the morning. 

8.  Morning traffic isn’t so bad, except when you have a 9am meeting.  Who schedules 9am meetings?? People without kids!  

9.  Most mornings, somebody’s going to poop right when you’re trying to get out the door. Note: It’s never me, and it may not be one of my children.

10. Blackberrys are highly addictive.  I am not sure why I waited so long to get one.

Me at the end of my 1st week back at work.

As I prepare to head into week two of going back to work, I will admit that a) I’m already looking forward to my first statutory holiday and b) I’ve already scheduled some vacation time.  I do like my job, I really like my boss, and I think I’m going to be okay.  But check back in with me in a few weeks and make sure I’m still standing!

Katrina Carefoot, Mabel BlogHer correspondent, from Fickle Feline, is guest blogging for the next two weeks while Julie recovers from the birth of her 6th baby - welcome Finian Aloysius!

Blink. Is it over already?

After spending the past year on maternity leave with baby #2, I’m heading back to the corporate world tomorrow and shedding the mommy uniform (at least between the hours of 9 and 5). To be honest, I haven’t let myself think too much about the fact that I’m going back to the working mom role. Up until this past week I was operating business as usual, my days were filled with taking care of my baby girl, shuttling my Autistic son, Max, to therapy, doctor’s appointments, and assessments, and trying to keep our household running as smoothly as possible. So, as usual, the dishes were overflowing from the sink, we were all out of clean socks and underwear, and emergency calls were being placed to my husband for him to pick up milk on the way home.

I’ve put a lot of preparation into going back to work, just not in the way I did when I went back to work after having my first baby. The focal point this time around was trying to figure out how we would juggle all of Max’s therapy –specifically the to-ing and fro-ing. We are very fortunate to have support from my husband’s parents, who will be picking the kids up from daycare every day. They will also be helping us get Max to his therapy appointments twice a week. I have been training one of our friends to take Max to therapy once a week as well. My daughter, Cameron, has been easing into daycare for the past 3 weeks. The first week was rough, but it has been progressively easier each week. I’m hoping we can all keep the tears to a minimum on my first day back at work, lest my mascara end up running down my cheeks.

Getting everyone else organized is one thing, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to get myself back into the “professional woman” head space. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see a Marketing Manager, I see a worn-out mommy, and that just won’t do. How do I update my exterior in hopes that my interior will start believing the hype? I started with a trip to the salon to get my hair done. Instead of doing the usual highlights, I opted for some lowlights to break the colour up. I also got more layers cut in so I’ll have something to work with when I’m styling my hair. Note - I used the term “styling” loosely. Usually this involves flipping my head upside down for a quick blow dry and then speedy work with my flat iron and a spritz of hair spray.

My hair was only the tip of the iceberg. My hands and feet were in rough shape, begging for a mani and pedi. My eyebrows were far from kempt and my skin was looking dull and uninspired. Feeling like I not only deserved some time at the spa, but my career clearly depended on it, I booked myself in for a two-and-a-half hour appointment with my trusted aesthetician, Emily. She worked her magic and after a morning with Emily, I left feeling shiny and new. I may in fact have proposed to Emily during my facial — she has the magic touch.

Hair? Check. Face, eyebrows, hands, feet? Check x 4. Undergarments? FAIL. I haven’t worn a real bra in almost 2 years. Once I got pregnant with baby #2, I immediately ditched my underwire bras for soft cotton nursing bras that make me look like I have uni-boob (comfort is king when you are preggers, perky boobs be damned). My underwear drawer was in an even sadder state. Worn out and faded jockeys that do nothing for my figure, let alone my self-esteem, and they show off ugly underwear lines (because, you know, I’d HATE for anyone to be thinking I actually wear underwear). I trekked out to The Bay today to buy some new bras and panties - the kind that match and make you strut and feel like a million bucks even if all you are wearing on top of them are a white blouse and black skirt. I hate to admit it, but I had no idea what bra size I wore. I wrestled with the measuring tape for about a minute, and then threw it in the corner, opting instead to bring a range of sizes (practically everything from 32AA to 40DD) into the fitting room so I could figure out my bra size by trial-and-error.

After trying on a million bras, I finally settled on a white bra, a black bra, and a hot lacy number with a matching thong (it was on sale and it’s nice eye candy for hubby). I also bought the dreaded pantyhose — is there any escaping them? Now that I know I’ll be well-groomed and have new undergarments on, I think my first day back at work will be manageable. I may not feel like a deal-making, moving-and-shaking, no-B.S.-taking professional woman, but I’ll look the part. Deep breath in, deep breath out… Wish me luck!

It is with great excitement that Julie Cole and “daddy-o” welcome their sixth beautiful child into this world, proving that six c-sections is possible!

It’s a boy!

Name: Finian
Weight: 7lbs 6oz.

The sibling team of brothers Maginnis and Clancy, and sisters Posy, Spencer and Jessamy are delighted with their new brother!

And of course, everyone at Mabel’s Labels is thrilled to have a new little Mabel baby to spoil!

Big thanks to all who have followed this pregnancy with interest and care. It has been fun sharing it with you. Now, let the real games begin!!

Enjoy guest blogger, Katrina Carefoot for the next couple of weeks and Julie will be back on the blogging board very soon!