Toddler Trials

Kat is mama to two wild boys, wife to one wild husband and owner of one lazy dog. When she’s not freelance writing, she writes her own blog This Is The Place. She lives near the lake in the west end and wears strange clothes. She’s also trying to see how abstract she can get her bio.

My first Mother’s Day as a mother was also my first without mine. It was bittersweet, although looking back, I don’t think I actually enjoyed it at all or was happy about anything. Henry had been born in February, and a few short weeks later, my mother passed away. Her timing was always really quite spectacular. That Mother’s Day, we drove out to the cemetery (in Mississauga) and laid flowers with my brother, we stayed for all of five...

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I ran through a mental list of all the things I was going to teach him; how to tie his shoe, how to read and how to ride a bike were just a few. It never dawned on me that the lessons were going to run both ways. In the years since I anxiously awaited the arrival of my first baby I have learned so much. Never in a million years did I think my children were going to teach me so much about myself, about who...

When it comes to eating habits, kids can throw you for a loop. One day they gobble up everything on their plate, then the next time you make them the same meal they barely touch it. Or even worse, you go to the extra trouble of making a very special meal and they turn their noses up at it. For instance, my homemade mini beef pot pies; hubby and I gobbled them up and the girls barely touch theirs. I could've just made mac and cheese and I'm...