Oh C-Eh-N-Eh-D-Eh! Eh?!?

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

I love beat poetry and remember seeing this during the 2010 Olympics and thinking how perfectly this represented Canada. Enjoy.

Pretty Little Girl

Almost every night before going to sleep I lie in my bed and cuddle up next to my iPhone to Facebook creep*. It’s a bad habit and one clearly not conducive to slumber but so it is. Last night the last thing I saw before calling it a night was the following video, posted by an old friend from university.

When Gaia was a wee one, about 3 months old, a mama-friend and I discussed the ramifications of constantly praising our “pretty” babies. We discussed gender politics. We discussed theories in education. We discussed our own hopes and fears. I confessed I found myself hastily adding “and smart” to the tail end of every “you’re pretty” even in the days when Gaia could barely hold her head up. I later found I did this even more in the days when she was making choices like eating out of the garbage can and running head first into the walls. My mama-friend confessed to throwing in a “and hard working” lest her babe be giving the impression smarts alone were enough. God forbid our infants rest on their laurels.

Two baby girls lounging lazily on the floor – “You’re pretty... and smart... and hard working.” Their twinkly baby gazes gave little indication that the message was getting through.

Since Gaia was born there’s a whole portion of my brain that’s dedicated to raising a teenager. I fear it in a way I never expected and one that at times consumes me. Somehow I grew up with a healthy dose of self esteem. I’d always been a “pretty little girl” all big eyes and dark lashes. My big teeth turned into a perfect smile without the rite-of-passage that is braces. I hit puberty hard, and early, but even that only slowed me for a second when in the back of a car while I pretended to sleep my parents talked about the relief they felt that their “pretty little girl” had a new layer of fat to protect her from dangers I didn’t fully understand in grade five.

“Thank God she’s a little bit chubby because with that face we might have been in for trouble.” I stored it away in a place I don’t often visit.

I’ve always dressed and acted how I wanted. Always got what I wanted, in school, at work, in life, with men. When I look in the mirror I see so much more then my reflection. How could I waste time on my muffin top when it's so hard to see among what I’ve accomplished and what more I have to conquer? The real question then, is how did that happen? I am the minority among my friends who use their reflection as an excuse to forgo the life they long for, who poke and pinch and prod and one who did such damage to her body with years of grasping at straws to keep those bones that jutted from her hips that she struggles, nearly ten years after recovery, with the most basic of bodily functions. Nagging me constantly is the story that has burrowed into my brain about one friend who refused to have her picture taken for years because she couldn’t stand her own visage. She wasn’t even ten years old. Growing up my house was filled with fad diets and low-fat recipe books and Weight Watchers magnets and still, I have never defined myself on being “pretty”. When a car accident in 2004 left half my face scarred and broken after countless stitches that closed the gaping hole in my forehead and ran down my cheek I used the settlement money to pay debt and buy a laptop. The thought of plastic surgery receded with the reality of what the money could do. The scars, which are so faded already they’re almost invisible remind me pretty isn’t everything and that life doesn’t stop when pretty is compromised. I love them. I don’t want Gaia to define herself on being “pretty” and still I watch her play and can’t stop myself from scooping her up and whispering in her ear that I know... I KNOW... she is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.

One little girl laughing at the playground – “You’re SO BEAUTIFUL. No one. NO ONE is as beautiful as you.” She smiles and hands me a fistful of sand.

Of course what I really mean is that no one has her personality or the way she twists her face into a myriad of expressions that make her a little baby pantomime. The way she stubbornly problem solves, refuses help, runs ahead to assert her independence only to cautiously wait for me to catch up and tickle her round Buddha belly. When I say she’s beautiful I mean that the very inside of her emits such a stunning light that sometimes I am blinded in wonder of her... all of her. That she is the very best parts of me and her father and that every time I see her she helps me remember everything that’s good in the world. That the parts of her that are hers alone and that shock me every day with how much of her own person she already is are the most amazing parts of the most amazing human being I have ever met. And yet, I praise her with words like “pretty” and think she’ll catch the subtext.

I’m nowhere closer to knowing how to raise her to be who I hope she’ll be. She’s my “pretty little girl” all big eyes and dark lashes. My “pretty little girl” with wild hair and a dirty face with runny nose and sticky hands and skinned, chubby knees. Pretty isn’t a disease, but pretty isn’t everything.

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* For those of you not familiar with this terminology please see here. I feel I’ve raised it to an art form.

Giving Thanks

Music Credit: Thank You by Led Zeppelin

The Half Birthday of (Big) Baby G

Gaia is six months old today. Well, as my mother pointed out, technically she's six months old today at 9:30pm. Still. I made her this video (and yes it's for her... I have dreams of her watching it when she's away at university while she weeps over how much she misses me). Six months may seem like nothing to you but wow... it's been a lifetime... Gaia's lifetime. The video is as long as a primetime sitcom with commercials and it's my first ever attempt so there's one point near the end when the music just stops for about fifteen seconds. Sorry. I don't expect too many people to watch but that's okay. I didn't make it for you anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say is this...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY G!


Music Credits: Lullabye by The Dixie Chicks/Hold You In My Arms by Ray LaMontagne/Upside Down by Jack Johnson/My Girl by The Temptations/Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison/Better Together by Jack Johnson/(Big Girl) You Are Beautiful by Mika

Woof

It's true that I take an exorbitant amount of pictures of my daughter. She's four-months old and there are almost two thousand pictures in my Gaia Favourites folder which accounts for less than half of the total pictures I've taken. Sigh. More ridiculous still is that I feel compelled to post the majority of these pictures on Facebook. I think I have a problem. If I were Facebook friends with myself I'd be seriously annoyed. In fact, I'd probably delete me from my friend list. Still, at least Gaia's a human baby who shot from my loins. If you put me up next to my friend Jaydeen whose dog not only has thousands of headshots, but is also the star of her very own website that includes an increasing number of snazzy videos I look positively sane.

PS. Just kidding Jay. You know I loves me some Keelah Cornbread!