One recent morning while I was getting dressed, my four-year-old daughter had some advice for me: “Mama, I want you to eat and eat. I want you to always eat lots of healthy food because then you won’t get skinny”. Where was this conversation going? Was this about body image? I have a good appetite most of the time, I’m not particularly thin, and my weight hasn’t changed much recently, ...

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada not long ago, and I spent the holiday weekend in deep contemplation and reflection about all I have and where my life has brought me. Aside from the obvious things for which I feel thankful — health (a big one this year), family, home, and food on the table — I feel particularly grateful for the invaluable time I can spend with my children in their ...

A radio interview I heard yesterday completely derailed the blog theme I’d planned for this week (I’ll have to save the sex topic for next time). Let’s just say I’ve become a little obsessed with obsessiveness since hearing the program. The interview (from CBC radio’s “The Current”) was titled “Obsessive Work” and featured an ornithologist named Glen Chilton who’s just ...

Health care is on the minds of Canadians these days, just as it is at the forefront of discussions in the United States. However, our fight is by comparison much easier than that which U.S. citizens face. We’re simply trying to keep our existing universal coverage strong and well funded since cuts to health care are the first things politicians go for when there are budget shortfalls. Here in ...

Every year at this time I re-evaluate my daily schedule and get ready for the start of the new year. It’s that time when I try to get a head start on anticipated back-to-school dramas by making lists of things to remember to send to school on the first day, waking up earlier in the mornings so that the first week of school preparations won’t be so difficult, and marking the start of after ...

My household is a bit disrupted this month with a visit from my sister and her family. These get-togethers are rare since they live thousands of miles away in Europe, where my sister and her husband are both professional musicians. We treasure this time when the cousins can spend the days in one long, extended play date, while the grown-ups eat great meals and sample one bottle of wine after ...

With summer vacation comes a flurry of activities to keep children occupied. We’re blessed in our community with all kinds of day camps, sports venues, and art classes through the city’s parks and recreation department. The problem: few of them are in walking distance. A few things appropriate for my son’s age are close by, but activities for my four-year-old daughter require a drive. And ...

I found the recent Wall Street Journal article about family-work balance blogs surprising. After all, in my own family my husband and I frequently check in with one another and analyze how we’re both feeling about the family-work juggle. We’re both guilty of being pretty intent on our navels much of the time. But we find that we haven’t just made static choices about how to divide our work ...

We celebrated the last day of school and report card day at our house not too long ago. I know that one day I’ll get over this living vicariously through my son’s school experiences, but I still relive the trepidation I felt at opening up my end of year grades. There was one I always feared: my gym class grade. I was the quintessential anti-athlete and the slowest runner in my classes. Most ...

For the past nearly two months I’ve been working towards some sort of new normal as I recover from and work with my doctors to figure out how to live with the illness I never dreamed would turn our family life so utterly on its head. Since then we’ve been taking one day at a time, each day assessing whether I need to spend extra time in bed on pain killers to get over a bad migraine and ...