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.

Last year, Treehouse TV debuted Big Day Out – a two day “festival” for preschoolers and toddlers centred around a concert featuring our family favourite The Wiggles! I had a chance last year to interview the team about the show, the charity it supports and their new (then) album: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RlMlKzakC4[/embed] This year, I was so excited to learn that Big Day Out was happening again, and that The Wiggles...

A few years ago, I was outraged at the idea of a celebrity wearing a corset 24/7 in order to get her body back after having kids. Subsequently, I’ve learned about diastasis separation, the pelvic floor and that peeing your pants when you laugh or work out is not normal. Let me repeat that – if you pee a little when you laugh, walk or exercise, you need to see someone to help restore proper function to your pelvic floor. Even if you’ve...

I recently had my third baby. He was born very quickly and shares a birthday with his older brother. When we were having Henry (number one!), we toyed with the idea of storing cord blood, but the price tag actually scared us off. This time around, we were given the opportunity to bank with CReATe in Toronto, and after meeting with them, learning about the program and company, we made our decision. CReATe Stem Cell and Blood Bank is part of a...

How my third baby changed my mind on labour and delivery. My first babe, Henry, was born on a freezing winter day after a long and anxiety inducing induction that I did not want, but had to have due to his being 2 weeks late. That, my first labour was totally against everything I wanted as a mother (you know, like never co-sleeping, exclusively breastfeeding and more). The hospital birth was not what I wanted, but thankfully, I got to have...

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...

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Well, it is, for the most part, entirely true. You see, about halfway through 2010, I got pregnant with Henry who is now 4. He was born in 2011. Then, in fall 2012, I got pregnant with Lauchie, who was born mid 2013. Again, in fall 2014, I got pregnant and am due to have a baby in aproximately 7 weeks (but who’s counting?). Five years of pregnancy, fourth trimester, nearly one year of postpartum depression and...

I know that the term “terrible twos” was initially meant to describe the two years between two and four, but we found the age of two to be lovely with Henry. Three was where the real problem behaviour set in. As we’re approaching four, we’re finding it hard to even deal with the aggression, the rudeness and the talk-back attitude of our once kind little guy. By all accounts, Henry is an exceptionally kind, generous and helpful little...

The mean mom. And no, I don’t mean your mom or your mother in law. I mean those moms in your neighbourhood, at your coffee shop or in your parenting group or even a friend you have who had a baby around the same time as you but who is so negative. Maybe she mocks women who babywear/use a stroller/breast feed/bottle feed. Maybe she comments on the state of dishevelment of another mom who’s harried and tired and just needed to go for a walk....

So, we’ve told Henry we’re having another baby. He was very excited at first, and now has decided that he’s not excited and doesn’t want another baby. And while he did eventually use words to explain his feelings, we spent a few weeks dealing with a toddler whose behaviour went from bad to worse, as their behaviour often does. But this time, we’ve decided not to fight against it. One of the big things experts always tell you is to...

Before we had kids, Matt and I had at least two dinner parties a month. We had regular old parties, we hosted brunches and lunches and we generally always had people over at least one time over each weekend and during the week. It’s taken us nearly four years of parenting to figure out how to do that with the kids. We’ve had a few birthday parties and such, but nothing to crazy. Last year, despite my desire to entertain over the...

Matt and I have always talked about having a big family. Before we ever had our first child, we talked after a party in our apartment about having four kids. FOUR. I don’t know what kind of millionaires we expected to be, but I think that was our “if money was no object hoop dreams” situation. Colour us surprised when we found out that we were expecting our third baby – and it was happening at least six months before we’d wanted to...

This Christmas is the third year that we’ve had a very lean time around the holidays, so I’ve become pretty adept at keeping too much “stuff” out of our holiday season. We limit the kids to two presents each from us (one from “Santa” and one from us), and stockings are usually full of colouring books, stickers and small games that come from the dollar store. It’s really easy to give and give and give each year but for us, we’re...