centre of the universe

Category: Children

  • Dreamlet

    A friend had invited me to the ‘viewing’ of their first grandchild in a community centre, or maybe in the common room of a condo complex. The new baby was teensy, with a shock of bright red hair. We’re talking Beaker hair, here, and it was perfect. When I got there, the Aunties had placed […]

  • Back to Back to School

    A Story of Parenting, Told in School Supplies Kindergarten, First Child: I purchased these school supplies over a year ago, have been awake since Friday labelling every pencil, every marker, every individual crayon, every eraser, and every individual tissue in the box. I have labelled every article of my child’s clothing, and moved on to […]

  • Danger Zone

    Please go read this article (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gretchen-kelly/the-thing-all-women-do-you-dont-know-about_b_8630416.html). I’ll wait. If you’re already on Twitter, you’ve seen this already. I spent about a decade trying to look not-female (which was tough, given my body shape) and being very angry that I couldn’t go out to the club or the bar without having to be “on guard”. I was […]

  • Acting Your Age

    Acting Your Age

    Here’s the thing. We live in a society that values youth over experience, wisdom, ability and knowledge. I’m not sure why we do that, but children are more valuable to us than non-children, which also translates into vilifying people who opt not to breed. There’s a whole bunch going on in this statement, and I […]

  • The Inadvertent Feminist

    I have the most bizarre memory. I mean, I can remember things that happened when I was 2. I remember locker combinations from high school. I remember school seating plans from elementary school. Yet I can’t remember my kids’ names on a regular basis, or whether I’ve seen a particular movie. This is nothing new. […]

  • Fuck Libraries

    The Saskatchewan government, in its 2017/18 budget, has slashed library budgets around the province. It’s done all kinds of other things too like force civil servants to take a 3.5% cut in pay, shut down the only highway bus transportation service in the province, increase the provincial sales tax, and basically pissed off pretty much […]

  • Shelf this.

    So here’s the thing. Nigh on about this time of year, I start seeing all this crap about ‘elf on a shelf’. The basic premise is that there’s this satanic doll that lives on a shelf in your house and it watches you with a keen Orwellian eye to your behaviour, and if you fuck […]

  • Growing Pains

    We talk a lot about milestones, when we have kids. Milestones and rites of passage. By 18 months, your baby should be able to… Baby’s first tooth, baby’s first step, first day of school, first girlfriend, driver’s permit…the list goes on and on and on. But those aren’t the real rites of passage. Those aren’t […]

  • Why we can’t be friends when you’re in Hawaii

    My cousin is in Hawaii right now, and I have vowed that she and I can NOT be friends until she is home. Now. She’s a professional photographer, so all of her pictures of her little “vacation” are fucking gorgeous, and because I am not at all petty or jealous, I’ve decided that I’m going […]

  • Believe it or not, walking on air

    I was tagged by Julian (@saskajules) to post five pictures in five days. Today is #TheNipper’s birthday party. He wanted to come to the giant warehouse full of trampolines. The WAREHOUSE full of TRAMPOLINES. And because the parts of my brain that process fun are stuck in the 90s, I’m in love with the blacklights […]