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WTF????

WTF?

When our son was three, we had just moved to Vietnam.  He’d been talking for ages and was like a steel trap when it came to words and phrases he’d heard.  Thus, we felt it prudent to dial back the language in his presence.  It’s not that my husband and I have such foul mouths, but in certain situations (i.e. mornings, airports, high holidays) profanity becomes the lingua franca.  So, out of respect for our toddler, the f-bomb was replaced by “effin,” our landlord was an “a-hole,” etc.  We felt quite smug until the day we heard our son’s high-pitched voice in discussion with our Vietnamese maid.

“Miss Mai, are you an effin a-hole?” he asked.

Admittedly, I was more proud of his correctly identifying the adjective and noun than appalled by his question to Miss Mai.  And since, he hadn’t actually sworn, it was more funny than troubling. 

The years passed and eventually, he started school.  Where, of course, he learned what the f-word was (and told his little sister), what the middle finger meant (and told his little sister), and a smattering of playground smack talk. But despite having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, our kids don’t swear.  This is rather mysterious given that there have been some serious “truck-stop-full-of-angry-longshoreman” mornings in our house.  But lucky us--our kids do as we say, not swear as we swear

Then, a few weeks ago I was picking my kids up from school.  There we were, in the throng of parents and kids waiting for the command to “Point and cross” when our dog’s leash got tangled up in my son’s legs.  As he stumbled forward, he blurted out, “Angus!  Don’t be such a PUSSY!” (The volume of his voice was such that the word “pussy”  seemed to echo at least twice.)  Heads turned.  Eyebrows rose.

Once out of earshot of the crowd, I took a stab at tactfully handling things.

ME: “You know, it’s not good to call Angus that name.”

SON: “What name?”

DAUGHTER: “You called Angus a cat!”

ME: “Well, not exactly.”

SON: “Yes…a pussy is a cat.”

ME: “Where did you hear someone calling someone else a “pussy?”?

SON: “At school.”

ME: “Well, it doesn’t exactly mean ‘cat.’”

DAUGHTER: “Does it mean ‘kitten,’ Mama?”

ME: “Uhhm. No.”

SON: “It does mean cat.  Remember when Dad and Uncle Greg were laughing because they said their grandpa called their cat “puuusssssyyyy”?”

ME: “Well, see, the reason they were laughing about that was…. Okay.  Never mind. The thing is, when you call something or someone a “pussy” it is kind of a bad word.  Not as bad as the F-Word, but pretty close to the SH-word.”

SON/DAUGHTER:  “What?  Why? WHAT DOES IT MEAN??”

ME: “Well, it is kind of a nickname for a girl’s vagina. And calling someone a ‘pussy’ is like calling them a vagina.  So, it’s not very nice.  And you might get in trouble with your teacher if you say it school.  So just don’t.”

The kids knew I meant business because I actually used the word “vagina.”  Usually, we call it a “V” to avoid anyone (mainly the adults in the house) feeling uneasy.  We call the penis a “D”.  I know.  We suck.

Then again, maybe not.  Lately, my son has begun using some alternates for the much-vaunted F-word.  When frustrated, he says, “Feeg!” and when annoyed with anyone, he gives him or her the little finger.

Since I’m nothing, if not a corrector of what I deem to be reproachable behaviour, I told him that even using proxies for the f-word was not good form.  But after a couple days, I reconsidered.  I was now curious as to why he had created this alternate for the f-word?

He told me that a number of his friends always use the actual f-word and middle finger at school and he didn’t want them to get in trouble.  So he devised a substitute.  “And mom,” he excitedly reported, “lots of people say “Feeg” now.  And the girls always give me the little finger!”

All things considered, I think that’s pretty f—king awesome.

Wife/ Mother

Although this blog is about ‘motherhood,’ I find the mom thing to be very much tied to the wife thing. No matter how hard you try to separate church and state, your effectiveness as a wife can sometimes be undermined by your dedication to the practice of motherhood. Before you get nervous about the direction this missive might be taking, relax.  This is no rallying cry for wives to meet their husbands wrapped in Saran Wrap.  I just wanted to set the stage.  See, last week, my husband and I skipped town for four, fabulous, fun-filled days in New York City.  Maybe it was because our time there was such a total juxtaposition to the previous 11 months, fraught as they were with moving, pregnancy and new baby-- or maybe it was because I actually had the time to think deep thoughts?  Whatever the reason, I took these two things away from our weekend away:

1)    Your husband gets cuter and funnier the longer you are away from your children.  I was telling my friend Sarah about this and she added, “Also, the more drinks you have.”  Well, this is also true--and sage advice--for a short term fix, like if you’re having a ‘date night’ once a month and you and your partner are both keen to know one another in the Biblical sense.  However, I can’t recommend enough getting out of town without your kids.  I remember another girlfriend telling me about the time she and her husband went to Paris for 10 days.  She said it took 3 days for her to fully unwind, but then…City of Lights was City of Love.  And that’s just it.  You can’t expect your jaw to unclench when you’ve only got three hours out of the house.  To truly decompress—which is vital if you want to ignite the pilot light—you need to get away.  And yes, it’s totally important to do things as a family, but you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your individual selves on the alter of parenthood.  You should occasionally unearth the fun people you used to be before the kids came along and siphoned off 97% of your attention span.

2)    We did a number of fun things while in NYC.  We went to MoMA, took a carriage ride through Central Park at dusk, saw a great Broadway play, saw Bruce Springsteen at Madison Square Gardens, and purchased some Fifth Avenue baubles to commemorate my bearing a third (and final) child. Lot’s of stuff that was primarily on my fun tab. However, the event that was actually the most noteworthy for me was watching the NY Giants play at Meadowlands.  I am not a sports-loving woman.  I NEVER watch any sports on TV.  In fact, I discourage it.  I don’t mind to see sports live on occasion, but I’m not one of those girls who would wear a jersey to the game. EVER. All this to say, I didn’t go all charged up for some NFL.  But it was actually really fun.  The weather was perfect, the stadium huge and boisterous, and the game a good one. I’ve never been around so many men in one place and it was interesting to observe them interacting in their native environment.  While listening to them heckle the ref or converse in short, clipped sentences about uncomplicated topics like sports, other guys they know, vehicles, and occasionally, girls in the vicinity, I realized anew what simple creatures the male species can be. Going to a game is all most of them really ask for.  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was feeling very magnanimous following the Fifth Avenue shopping spree.  But still, I was touched.  I even went so far as to privately concur that most of the time, men are either at work or they’re with wives/girlfriends/sisters/mothers, getting some manner of grief for not doing whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing fast enough or right enough. Or perhaps that’s just my husband? Anyhoo…when they’re at a sporting event, enjoying easy camaraderie and a cold one while watching great athletes play a game they love, guys can exhale.

Him going to the game is the man-equivalent of you going for a nice lunch with your girlfriends, discussing six different relationship dramas ad nauseum, and then buying fabulous boots at 60% off.  It’s primal bonding with your own kind.  He needs it, just like you need it. 

And while I’m totally not endorsing season’s tickets to every game with a ball, I will try to be more benevolent as we head into play-off season.

I will even go so far as to say, (ahem) “Go Riders!”

T & A

We all have our petty jealousies.  We envy the woman with straight hair if ours is wavy.  We envy the children with nice table manners because our kids wipe their hands with their hair.  Me?  Nothing turns my blue eyes green like the woman who just snaps back to her former self, post-pregnancy.  Seriously.  I am nothing but happy for you if your labour was six minutes long then you sneezed--and out popped baby!  But let slip that you were back in your True Religion’s later that week?  My heart is suddenly two sizes too small. 

For me, it is blood, sweat and tears (in that order) to get back into the jeans I was rockin’ 9 months previous.

With my first baby, I made the rookie mistake of taking to heart the advice of breast-feeding gurus who insisted I should snack often to keep my milk up.  To that end, I mowed through three cups of bulk Trail Mix every time I nursed.  (For the record, Trail Mix can only be safely consumed by those actually ‘breaking trail’ since there’s no other way to burn off the approximately 4000 calories per 100g of the stuff). I gained about 15 lbs in that first post-partum month and hence, was not back into my jeans until my baby took his first steps.

For my second baby, I cooled it on the snack front and just ate sensible meals and chased a toddler around.  I was back in my jeans within six months.

My third (and final) child, Zoe, just celebrated her four month birthday this week and I celebrated by wresting myself into last summer’s jeans!  When my girlfriends and gay friends tell me I’m looking great and ask what sort of diet I’m on, I reply, “I’m not really on any diet.  I just rarely eat.”  The girlfriends wonder if that’s healthy?  The gays high-five me.

But it’s really the only quick way to try and erase the last vestiges of pregnancy and I’m impatient to get back to my fighting weight.  See, I’m in the old jeans, but not exactly in a good way.  There’s an egregious muffin top all around the perimeter of the tight, low-rise jeans. In addition, wedging yourself into any pair of pants greatly increases the probability of camel-toe.  Combine the two and the look is dangerously verging on skanky.

I’ve found that one way to eclipse the collateral damage to my post-partum mid-section is to unleash the ‘weapons of mass distraction’—my 36DD’s.  Nothing diverts attention away from your ass like three-inch cleavage.   Indeed, I’ve discovered that it’s almost impossible to maintain eye contact with anyone—man, woman, or frightened child—when I’m wearing a clingy V-neck.

Now, I know plenty of women who loved, loved, loved their big, breast-feeding rack and even took surgical steps to retrieve it after they stopped nursing.  Not me. I find this heaving bosom terribly unwieldy.  I am used to a more aerodynamic physique…one that lets me jump on a trampoline or bend over a wailing infant without it becoming an R-rated event.  

Further, I’ve discovered that women with big boobs aren’t just trying to show off their assets in v-necks and stretchy sweaters.  They can’t wear anything else!  Put them in a blouse and watch those gaping buttons fight for dear life, trying to contain the madness.  My closet full of cute blouses misses the good ol’ days of 34B.

However, the best weapon in my weight-loss-holster is these big guns.  They burn about 500 calories per day, which is golden for someone whose current exercise regime consists of folding laundry and heaving a car seat into the SUV. So for now, I’ll wait to say ‘ta-ta’ to the ta-ta’s.  And since I’ve got the accoutrements, I’m thinking Loni Anderson for Halloween…

4 Day only Sale!

 

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Returning home after "Expat Life"!

A good friend of mine recently left Vietnam and relocated to the UK.  As usually happens when we former ‘ladies of leisure’ move home, there was a lengthy period of dead air on the email front.  In my experience this silence is due to culture shock-- the sort experienced by someone who is used to having a spotless home AND dinner ready at 6 AND clothes laundered, pressed, and hung, AND not doing any of these things themselves—suddenly finding themselves having to do everything the paid help used to do.

So when this aforementioned girlfriend finally got around to sending out her “We’ve Landed!” email, I opened it eagerly.  It’s not that I wish ill on any of my girlfriends, but hoooo boy, I do enjoy hearing tales of shock and awe from those recently ripped from the Promised Land.  It’s a misery-loves-company thing.

However, her email was disappointingly upbeat. It was “fresh country air” this and “pastoral vistas on the way to school” that. There was a passing homage to domestic disarray but that somehow segued into a vignette describing how she and her three boys play every day in the garden and sometimes just lie on blankets in the yard and share their innermost thoughts. I hastily closed the email when my husband walked in.  Like he needed to read how much she adores her new life after I’ve spent the past eight months hammering home how hard my wife-life is.

I promptly wrote her an email demanding the dirty dirt.  I didn’t want the sanitized version.  I wanted the one where she called her husband at the office just to start a fight and hang up on him.  The one where no one noticed or appreciated what goes into keeping a house moderately acceptable.  The one where you make a nice pulled pork dinner and your children start crying and saying, “I hate this meat.  It looks like guts!”

She responded immediately, admitting she had written a false-positive email because she didn’t want to sound whiny—then, gave me what I was looking for.

 “…It doesn’t help that I completely cleaned the house last Thursday and again on Monday-- I am talking 5 hours both days of vacuuming, mopping, washing, bathroom cleaning-- you name it--and my husband didn’t even notice. But he does tell me that because both younger boys are suffering with allergies, I should vacuum twice a week!  This from a man who, before we left HCMC, proceeded to figure out MY domestic schedule and said, 'Well there won’t be much washing, I think you should do a load on Friday as you don’t want your whole week taken up with domestics so you cannot go to the gym'!  What planet is he on?  I do a load of wash a day, sometimes 2 and yesterday 4 loads because I did all the linen and tomorrow probably 2 or 3 cause of towels. I mean seriously.”

While basking in the warm glow you get when you hear someone else’s life is actually more fraught than yours, it occurred to me that I never hear these housework laments from my local friends. They seem very at peace with unmade beds and petrified Kraft Dinner noodles crusted into the area rug.

It reminded me of an email I received in March from a friend in Vietnam, who was either trying to shut me up about How Much Housework I Was Now Doing, or was actually, very wise.

“The problem with once having staff is that having someone pick up after everyone all day and wash floors AND iron dishcloths just sets too high a standard.  Once you have been there a while you will also relax, lower you house-cleaning standards.  There are shortcuts.  Soon, you will only iron your husband’s collar and tell him to keep his suit jacket on all day and buttoned up!  I have a friend with a sofa in her living room but you can never see it, as it is full of laundry. To save time she no longer folds or puts away clothes, or even carries them upstairs.  The family all wanders downstairs in the morning and rakes through the clothes on the sofa to find something to wear…”

Had we former expats--with our fond recollections of our maids--flown too close to the sun? Were our standards too high? 

Clearly.

Why were we killing ourselves trying to replicate our former gleaming homes, when keeping it that way was a full time job for a pro??   It was my Ah-Ha Moment, Oprah.  Nobody CARED if my floors gleamed.  Frankly, nobody in my house even notices.  And from now on, as long as our sofas don’t become the default laundry basket (have some pride, ladies), I’d say we’re doin’ just fine.

ABOUT THE BLOGGER

Dona Johnson is a 40-year-old mother of three who has recently returned to Canada after spending much of the past ten years in Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam. It bears mentioning that this would be a much more positive blog about motherhood if she still enjoyed the services of the maid, nanny, gardener and driver she regretfully left behind in Ho Chi Minh City.

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“A LOW PROBABILITY”

Last Friday, I had to take Zoe for her first round of immunizations. Before the nurse brought the needle out, she told me she had a questionnaire for me to take. I thought it would be a “Rating Your Public Health Experience” questionnaire and was surprised when the first question read,

“I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things:
• As much as I always could
• Not quite so much now
• Definitely not quite so much now
• No, not at all”

I just had my third child two months ago. I am jiggly all over, my older kids often freely comment on how much their lives suck because I am ALWAYS FEEDING THE BABY, my husband has been working a lot, and we just hosted 60 people for brunch for my husband’s parents’ 50th anniversary. I thought I was a champ for choosing the “Not quite so much now” option.

I answered the remaining nine questions as honestly as I could. No, I never feel scared or panicky for no very good reason, but yes, I have felt sad and miserable sometimes. I only occasionally have cried, but the thought of harming myself has never occurred. Yes, sometimes I felt things have been getting on top of me, but no, I haven’t been so unhappy that I have trouble sleeping.

I scored a 7 (out of 24) on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, which was on the high end of the 0 – 8 score, indicating “a low probability of postnatal depression.” The nurse felt it was enough of a concern to follow up and ask some more questions, including “Do you ever feel like shaking the baby”!

“My husband, yes, but the baby, no,” I replied. She didn’t laugh. I then felt the need to explain that I had two older kids, and my life has changed vastly in the last six months-- at this time last year I was living the life of my dreams in Vietnam (kids in school all day, household staff, lunching with friends, manicures, great shopping, etc.) She still didn’t seem convinced that I wasn’t about to pack everyone into a minivan and drive them into the river. I sighed.

“Look, even before I had the baby I think I would have scored the same. I am Type A and impatient and anal at the best of times. And if it helps at all, I love this baby with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s everyone else that bugs me.”

Oddly, that reassured the nurse. She wrapped up by telling me I should expect moodiness for up to a year due to hormonal swings. As I was driving home, I felt like a weight had lifted. It was no longer my fault that I was a first class bitch on mornings that I got puked on three times before I’d had a coffee or that I was tremendously terse on the phone when my husband called to say he’d be 45 minutes late for dinner. I was well within the normal range.

ABOUT THE BLOGGER

Dona Johnson is a 40-year-old mother of three who has recently returned to Canada after spending much of the past ten years in Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam. It bears mentioning that this would be a much more positive blog about motherhood if she still enjoyed the services of the maid, nanny, gardener and driver she regretfully left behind in Ho Chi Minh City.

Spring 2010

What a crazy week! Our Spring/ Summer 2010 Collection is 95% ready to go. We are so happy with it! I will post more pics later this week. If anyone wants a catalogue emailed to them let us know! The bamboo material is amazing!

The business

What a week. We viewed our Spring Collection 2010 for the first time. So exciting- we love all the pieces! Lots of raw edges, great colors and amazing bamboo materials. Our little models to try on all the pieces were amazing. Such cute little girls with great personalities. It was fun to hear which pieces they loved! Today we go to Press with all of our tees and then next week the photoshoot start. Must start bribing my children to be my  models again. Should have a catalogue by the end of next week. We are on our way! 

Motherhood

We have officially joined the blogging world! schatzi inc. is proud to announce that Dona Johnson will be blogging for us and discussing motherhood, fashion, travel and day to day life with kids. I first met Dona overseas. We were both expats, I was living in Oman and she was in Vietnam. Our husbands had worked together in Canada, so when we were traveling through Vietnam we had a great dinner at their beautiful villa. I have enclosed a picture of my kids in Vietnam. Now we have both relocated back to Canada! We hope you enjoy her witty and creative writing style. She will be guest blogging for us every couple of weeks.

Just a side note... We are hard at work at the head office of schatzi inc.! Linesheets, catalogues, patterns, and sample are all being designed and coming to life! Our Spring 2010 line is almost ready. We are excited to share our "green" line with you.

July 14, 2009

When my friend Tanja emailed me to ask if I’d be interested in writing a blog about motherhood for the Schatzi web site, I was one week postpartum. I’d just delivered our third (and final) child, Zoe, and all was pretty much well with the world. Zoe was adorable with her big, crazy mop of strawberry blond hair. Our son and daughter loved her muchly and my husband and I were well pleased with ourselves for having another baby. My mom was staying with us and doing every earthly duty save for breast-feeding the baby. This general feeling of contentment was a welcome change from the general feeling of resentment, which characterized the previous six months. In mid December, we’d moved back to Calgary from Vietnam, and then dealt with a long renovation, a longer winter, and the longest third trimester imaginable.

Since then, the other shoe has dropped. My mom left the building five weeks ago, the kids now think the baby is fine except when her needs come before their wants, which is most of the time. And I’m regularly barely civil to my husband, mainly because he gets to leave the house every day and I don’t.

In addition to guilt and exhaustion, I’ve been wearing a pad for six straight weeks, there are a good two inches between button and buttonhole on all last summer’s shorts, my boobs hurt, the laundry is relentless, and it’s troubling how often I fantasize about getting hammered. I had concerns my blog about motherhood would be the world’s best case for birth control.

But thankfully, every single day, my postpartum hormones do me a solid and the pendulum swings in the other direction. Countering all the negatives is one huge positive: I am deeply and madly in love. I completely forget about the size of my ass when I look down and see Zoe earnestly sucking away, all the while gazing steadily up at me with clear, blue eyes. Then, she pauses with mouth full, to bust out a grin. Later, when she’s dozing in my arms, eyes lolling to the back of her head, she does a run-through of all her faces—smile, ‘ohhh’ mouth, grimace, lop-sided grin, furrowed brow, yawn, sigh, sleep. At those moments, it doesn’t matter that my kids were fighting outside the baby’s room while I tried to put her to sleep or my husband never, ever washes the coffee press in the morning. I am content. For now.

ABOUT THE BLOGGER

Dona Johnson is a 40-year-old mother of three who has recently returned to Canada after spending much of the past ten years in Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam. It bears mentioning that this would be a much more positive blog about motherhood if she still enjoyed the services of the maid, nanny, gardener and driver she regretfully left behind in Ho Chi Minh City.

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