My daughters 3rd birthday was coming up.  Where do I begin?!Planning her party was a no-brainer.  I heard about Gymalaya  (http://www.gymalaya.com/) a few months ago and knew that it would be the perfect spot.  And it certainly was.Having about 25 children and about 35 adults doesn’t give you too many options that can accommodate that many people.  Gymalaya, offered up more than enough room in the air-conditioned state-of-the-art modern facility.The staff were amazing.  They were helpful from the minute we got there.  Setting up the food, plates, party hats and just ensuring everything that we needed to organize was taken care of was such a treat for Mom and Dad.  It’s nice to feel as though you can take some time to sit back and watch your child and interact with them at their party. The room was set up wonderfully for a birthday party. It lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes, 1 hour of fun instructed activities in the gym where they taught gymnastics through “Fun, Fitness and Fundamentals” , followed by 45 minutes in the largest and cleanest decorated party room that I have seen.Before I knew it, lunch time had arrived and once again the staff made it so easy and enjoyable for me that I was actually able to sit down and enjoy lunch with my daughter.  I didn’t have to lift a finger.  I had brought matches and a knife for the cake, but they were all prepared with the essentials that I didn’t even have to take them out of my diaper bag. One less thing to worry about.All of the kids had a wonderful time, and the parents were equally impressed. Most importantly, my Birthday Girl had a blast and really, that’s all that mattered to us. Check out their website for classes or to book your birthday party - your child will thank you for it!www.gymalaya.com   

I have this friend Steve who was recently on a flight. Across the aisle was a new mama with her babe and a very elderly man, who from here on in shall be called ‘old dude’.

As the airplane was taking off, mama started breastfeeding babe. As any travelling mama knows, it’s good if you can get babe to feed on the way up and the way down to relieve any ear pain due to changing air pressure.

As she is feeding, old dude is shuffling around, mumbling under his breath, clearing his throat and basically looking uncomfortable with the breastfeeding situation that is going down beside him.

It was a short flight so before long decent had started and mama sensibly put babe back on breast. Old dude could not contain himself any longer and said “this is clearly making me uncomfortable and yet you continue to breastfeed that child.”

At that point, old dude should have been happy he was not sitting next to me. I feed anywhere, anytime and in front of anyone. If someone feels uncomfortable, they are welcome to leave. Indeed if that sentence had fallen on my ears I likely would have experienced something very close to rage.

Old dude had the good fortune of sitting beside a very gracious mama who very politely and respectfully explained why it helps baby to feed when there is change in air pressure. Old dude seemed satisfied and quite pleased that he had learned something new that day.

The plane landed and old dude was shuffling around looking for his cane and belongings when he turned and looked at my friend Steve and with a quiet smurk said:

“Huh, and to think for all these years I’ve been chewing gum”.

I go to the Mabel’s Labels HQ about two and half days a week and work from home the rest of the time. I like going to the office for the obvious reasons – it’s quiet, no one interrupts me to say they want a snack, and I get to dress up a bit (OK, admittedly “dressing up” is only about a half step up from my mama uniform).

There’s something else about the office that I like that’s tricky to describe – a certain dynamic that makes ours not your average office.

One thing is that our staff is just plain fun – a real mix of humour, passion, intelligence and quirkiness. All this while also being completely professional and skillful. It’s a tall order, but we seem to have pulled it off. I’ve always had a hard time exactly pinpointing what it was about our office dynamic that made going to work so enjoyable. I never knew how to define it until Elia came along.

Elia recently completed a co-op placement with our Production Department. She was diligent and made countless contributions during her time at Mabel’s Labels. Elia also has autism. One of the skills we appreciated most was Elia’s ability to spin a regular occurrence into something memorable.

There was one situation that we all got a kick out of – whenever Elia was placed alongside a certain male student to work; she got a little twinkle in her eye and spring in her step. She would giggle and joke with him as they worked together. Then one day she said about this student what I have not been able to summarize about our work environment. She said “Oh Alex, you’re contagious!”

Contagious! That was the word that best describes our staff team – we hire people who are contagious. To celebrate Elia’s completion of her term with us, we had an office ice-cream party. Even though Elia is back at school and done here at Mabel’s Labels, her contagious personality will not be forgotten anytime soon.

Elia with one of the Mabel babies

Several years ago, I reluctantly moved to the suburbs. I missed my life as an urban mama cruising all the mama haunts with my three babes loaded up in a triple stroller. Suddenly every outing involved a mini-van. Since the move, my kid crew has doubled in size and like it or not, suburbia is the very best place for us.

This was reinforced last week when we held the Mabel’s Labels Staff and Family Summer Sizzler in my backyard. I gotta say, life is pretty good if you are a kid hanging out in my backyard. We keep things pretty kid focused around here so there is no shortage of activities – we have a heated swimming pool, trampoline, sand pit, swing set, and bikes and riding toys galore. To top it off, our house backs on to a huge park that is easily accessed by a gate in our back fence. Last Thursday, the Mabel team (and kiddos) rocked up and had a taste of my life in the suburbs.

Many years ago upon arriving to Canada, my grandparents co-founded a local Irish Club. Every year there was an annual picnic that was jam-packed with activities like running races and relay games. We enjoyed the picnic so much that it became a highlight of the summer.

In the spirit of the old Irish Club picnics, I put together an agenda of cheesy games and races. On top of doing the usual three-legged race and egg-toss, I added a few new ones to the mix that were nothing short of hilarious!

1) The Mommy Call:
You sit all the kids in their sibling groups at the finish line. The mamas get blind-folded at the start line. The kids then all start screaming “MOM! MOM!” and the first mama to find her kiddos is declared the winner.

2) The Daddy Piggy Back:
This activity requires dad to carry all of his children on his back while racing to the finish line. If a child falls off, dad is not allowed to move until child is back on. Clearly, the daddy-o in our family was at a disadvantage, but that didn’t stop him from giving it a good go. I pulled some rank and only allowed him to carry four of them at once – the thought of them all falling and landing on the baby was really too much for one mama to handle.

So maybe life in the suburbs is not so bad. Just imagine trying to pull off some of this fun elsewhere – dads stumbling through the city streets, loaded down with kids and tripping over the latte-sipping city folk in sidewalk cafes. Yep, I think for now this is right where we belong.

Since most parents are not particularly fond of whining, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” is a common mantra in many households. It is most often heard immediately following annoying requests such as “but I wanted to sit in THAT chair” or “no, not the blue plate, the RED one!”

The adult version of “you get what you get” is when you have a baby. Not a lot of social engineering is involved so you can’t exactly order a baby of a particular gender or personality type. You can’t even count on baby being healthy so parents everywhere have to take what we get.

When my son was diagnosed with autism, I was pretty darn sad. I quickly realized that it was time to look myself in the mirror and scream the mantra. Being upset was not going to help me and it certainly was not going to contribute to my son’s development.

My SIL had to say the mantra to herself a few years ago upon discovering she was pregnant for the third time. She had two little boys already but being pregnant again was not the issue. Indeed, she had decided to quickly squeak in one more baby, preferably a girl, before changing her mind on going for a third child altogether. You can likely predict the ending – instead of that little girl, she got identical twin boys landing her in the glamorous position of being a mama to four boys under four.

Despite our reproductive plans going a bit pear-shaped, both my SIL and I have survived our adventures with laughs and a lot of love. Strangely, we’ve experienced some disapproval from those on the outside. While pregnant with the twins, my SIL had to listen to comments such as “oh, how awful!” when announcing she was having two more boys. People have expressed that I must be crazy to have more kids considering my risk of having another child with autism. I get that raising a kid with autism or having babies two at a time may not be on everyone’s “bucket list” of things to do before dying, but I can think of worse things.

So we grown-ups get what we get, and as you have probably figured out for yourself – getting upset is pretty much pointless. I can’t imagine a world without my boy and I can assure you that my SIL wouldn’t trade in “Thing One” and “Thing Two” for the most adorable girlie pink princess up for offer.

Like any kiddos, mine are big fans of critters and creatures. They are particularly fond of chipmunks, and at the cottage they spend a lot of time feeding and basically domesticating these little creatures.

Turns out they have made fast friends with the little critters at home as well. That was all fine until I noticed the filthy little rodents started tunneling everywhere and patio stones were sinking all over the garden. Daddy-o basically went nuts and started threatening rat traps and shot guns – he experienced “Chipmunk Rage” and it was not pretty. It became his obsession – every conversation became about chipmunks and I even caught him one night on Google using words like “chipmunks” and “death” in the same search.

He went to war with the chipmunks, and it became a battle he was losing. Badly. We were overrun with the little garden wreckers.

The kids were delighted when we picked up some chipmunk traps and began planning a chipmunk relocation. The rock quarry two kilometers up the road seemed the perfect destination for our furry friends.

I was explaining our little plan to another mama one morning at summer camp drop-off. She explained that some animals don’t relocate well but couldn’t comment on how chipmunks fair. When passing along this information to daddy-o, it became clear that he was not concerned about the stress levels or survival statistics of the relocated chipmunks. Fair enough – I think the chipmunk rage daddy-o experienced took a good few years off him.

We set our traps and began to catch them one after the other. When I went to do the first re-location, I noticed dear chippy had a bright orange spot on his back. Apparently daddy-o and the kiddos thought it appropriate to implement a poor man’s tracking system. If chipmunks with orange paint were in our backyard a few days later, it meant that we need to relocate further afield. It seemed I was the only one concerned about how the little critters were going to camouflage with the bright orange spots on them.

Needless to say, 11 trips to the rock quarry later, no orange chipmunks have returned to our property. While driving past the rock quarry last week, I noticed a little orange splat of something on the side of the road. Now my only concern is that the animal services folks might catch wind of our chipmunk relocation. If they rock up to the house asking questions, I think I’ll spray daddy-o with some orange paint and tell them to relocate him.

My cousin just had her first baby, an adorable girl named Claire Maeve.

It was discovered at an early ultra-sound that the baby was going to have a cleft lip. Although minor on the scale of things that can go wrong, it is still news that parents need to digest. The mama and papa (to-be) were amazing - they digested the news quickly, did their research, met with professionals and spent the rest of the pregnancy excitedly anticipating the arrival of the baby. This baby is definitely getting some family favourite status – she is the first grandchild on both sides, has loads of adoring aunts and uncles, and a handful of kids like mine all wanting a piece of her.

The day after Claire’s arrival, my three little ladies begged to go to the hospital for a visit. The new parents are good sports and confirmed they were up for some little visitors.

I had already prepped the girls about the cleft lip but thought I should do a quick refresher with them before heading over to the hospital to meet wee Claire. The highlights of the refresher course included information about what cleft lip is. I explained that her lip would look different to our baby’s lip and talked about the operation she would be having in the months to come. I knew they would worry that Claire’s lip would hurt, so assured them that Claire was in no pain at all.

Sounds like a fairly reasonable amount of information, wouldn’t you say? Well, apparently not. When we walked into the hospital room, the three girls ran over to the baby when one of them promptly gasped, grabbed my leg and said “why does her lip look like that?”

Are you kidding me? I went through that whole educational piece TWICE with the kid. I turned a slight shade of pink and gave a little smile to the new parents then went through the whole cleft lip explanation once again. The new parents were not even remotely fazed by the faux pas which is an early indicator that this parenthood stuff is going to come easily to them.

The third explanation did the trick then she immediately started fighting with her sisters over whose turn it was next to hold the baby. I guess the lesson here is that no matter how much you think you have prepped your kiddos, you just never know what they are going to blurt out. If embarrassing us is their job now, I look forward to the teenage years when the roles are reversed and embarrassing them becomes my job. I suspect I will find that new role quite fulfilling.

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I was in Chicago last weekend, attending the BlogHer conference for the first time. In the world of mama blogging, this is the biggie. I was in the company of 1,500 amazing women bloggers — attending great seminars and fabulous parties. It was great fun to see online relationships transform into real life friendships. Really, it was like one big reunion of people who have never actually met before.

In the build up to BlogHer, all the talk was about fashion. This fashion chatter started early on and only got worse. In the final week before BlogHer, the topics flying around Facebook and Twitter focused on what we were wearing, or whether there was time for a French manicure or to lose that last pre-conference10 lbs. It felt like I was getting ready for a really long first date, but one with 1,500 women What was I getting myself into?

I got to thinking about all this fashion fuss. As it turns out, all the fashion hype was in good fun and no one seemed to take themselves too seriously. I did, however, consider a few theories as to why physical appearance was getting so much attention from a bunch of people who spend most of their time getting excited about words and the latest iphone applications.

1) Bloggers spend a lot of their time hiding behind computer screens. The conference provided an opportunity to come out of hiding and show our faces in the light of day. Breaking free from behind-the-screen justifiably warrants some highlights and a mani/pedi.

2) Many bloggers there were mamas. Any opportunity to shed the mama uniform should not be missed. All of our overworked yoga pants deserved a three-day holiday. What a great excuse to go shopping.

3) Our gorgeous profile pictures. No one puts a crappy picture of herself on her profile. That profile picture can be a tough standard to live up to, inspiring all of us to go for that last minute eyebrow wax and other grooming procedures before our in-real-life debuts.

I had the added complication of having to glam up my 12-week-old son. His baby uniform consists entirely of sleepers at this point, so I was hard pressed to turn him into a fashion statement. My solution was to put him in sleepers that had only gone through one or two of his five siblings and if they didn’t have stains on them, I considered it a decent enough effort.

A highlight for me was meeting some other “Mamas of Many”. Mom of quadruplet boys, Jen Murray, was there. I was chatting with Christine Young and Tara Kuczykowski. and discovered that between the three of us we have 17 children.

I returned on Sunday, excited and head spinning from the non-stop conference action. Although overwhelmed and exhausted I’m already counting the days to BlogHer in NYC next year — which leaves me about 12 months to figure out what I’m going to wear.

**Looking glam at one of the parties with my Mabel’s business partner, Mumby.

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As some of you know, my oldest kid has autism. We take this autism stuff pretty seriously and as a result he has made remarkable gains. Indeed, to the untrained eye he is indistinguishable from his neuro-typical peers.

Last weekend four of the kiddos did a triathlon. When “Number One Son” finished the running component too early, it was obvious he got confused somewhere along the way. Turns out he went around the wrong pylon cutting the run short.

That evening my 8-year-old daughter came into my office to have a chat about her brother:

Kid: “Why did he get confused in the run today?”
Me: “Well, there were no marshalls directing the kids so he went around the first pylon and came back.”
Kid: “What is his ‘diagnostics’? I heard talking about it at a meeting once.”
Me: “Was it the Autism Ontario meeting?”
Kid: “Yes”
Me: “Well, uh, autism. But he has worked pretty hard and kind of outgrown it.”
Kid: “Like I outgrew my milk allergy?”
Me: “Yes, kind of.”
Kid: “Does he still have autism?”
Me: “Do you think he does?”
Kid: “I think he still has it a little bit.”
Me: “Yeah, I think you’re right. Listen, I have not talked to him about it yet so you need to keep this private until I speak to him about autism.”
Kid: “no problem.”
Me: “Thanks for being such a cool kid.”
Kid: “you’re welcome. Can I have a cheese stick?”

Although I was shocked that the conversation happened, it’s actually kind of weird that it took so long to come up. I mean, we have an autism logo on our car, we do Cycle for Autism, hang out with people whose kids have autism, and participate in all kinds of activities within the autism community. Didn’t they ever wonder?

I got to wondering about their lack of wondering – do all the siblings and cousins know about his autism on some level but just not question it? Maybe it’s a kiddo case of “it is what it is”.

My mother often reminds us of the time she sat us down as children to discuss her sister, who has a mental disability. Mom first asked us if we knew anyone with a mental disability. We rhymed off the names of kids at school, a neighbour and other random people who did not actually have a mentally disability. The one name we didn’t say was that of our aunt, and this was an aunt we were close to and saw regularly. My mom always says that to us, our aunt was just herself – no title, label or explanation necessary.

I’ve been dreading the day when I have to “out” my son to himself. I’ve played the conversation in my head a thousand times. This incident got me thinking that maybe all this worry is for nothing - maybe he is just like his siblings and cousins and already knows and accepts his autism.

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I’ve been doing a bit of complaining about having to find a car that suits our family. I was whining about this on my other blog (www.thebabymachine.com).

The biggest issue has been that it seemed like no one wanted to help us out. I e-mailed contacts in the car industry and didn’t hear back. We went to a car lot and looked at a bunch of vehicles and the guy said he would call if something suitable arrived and we never heard from him again. I actually wanted to be pitched by the stereotypical cheesy car sales guy and he was nowhere to be found.

In despair, I blogged about my car issues, threw it on Twitter and it got re-tweeted a few times. The next thing I knew I received an e-mail from GM Canada. Finally someone had heard my cries for help and responded.

The response was a shiny Buick Enclave on my doorstep for a two-week trial with no strings attached. Why? Well, basically they knew we were a tough family to suit up with a car and they wanted to help me out. Shocking, I know. Finally my customer service woes had turned around.

Obviously I was concerned by my family’s potential to either trash or crash the big fancy-schmancy car. I drive cars that get me from point A to point B without caring if there is food on the floor or ice cream smeared on the windows. This car was just too good for me and the likes of my offspring. To add more stress to the situation, I learned that the owner of the vehicle was the President of GM. Yep, my stinky, dirty kids were driving around in Mr. President’s vehicle.

Since we were finally able to travel as a family, we decided to head to the cottage last weekend. After 3.5 hours in the car and only two kilometers from our cottage when we got the call from the back of the fancy-schmancy car: “GET THE BUCKET!!” Not being in my regular van, I did not have my trusty vomit kit with me which meant there was no bucket to pass. Next thing we knew, the big almighty vomit had taken place all over Mr. President’s vehicle. We got the kid beside the puker out just as she started gagging in reaction. It was a bad situation, but at least we were able to limit the damage to only one puker.

The two weeks ended and my friends from GM arrived at the doorstep to collect the fancy-schmancy vehicle. I had a moral dilemma – do I fess up about the puke disaster? I figured if the car couldn’t come clean, then I had better. The reaction was fantastic – they didn’t expect anything less from my family. I’d never been so happy to have such low expectations set for my kids.

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