the birds and the bees

I was recently faced with the daunting task of talking with my 14yr old nephew about the value of condoms. Uncomfortable? Yes. Unnecessary? Also, yes. He knew where to get them, how to use them and more importantly when to use them, which is every time. Whew for me, that part of the conversation was short! It was also important to me that he understood beyond the mechanics of sex that no matter how much fun he was having, to make sure he was never disrespectful – to either his partner or to himself - treating girls the way he’d want guys to treat his younger sister. (At this he made a face and said “She’s only seven.” Ya ya, you get my point.) He agreed breakups online weren’t cool and that switching girlfriends every 5 minutes wasn’t either. He volunteered that he wasn’t having sex, and I said that I would never judge him if he were but made him promise he’d be smart about his health and his future. Soon after that, a friend told me her 5yr old was asking questions, beyond the garden variety version of where babies come from. Both situations have got me thinking about when my mom had the talk with me, and how times have changed in the thirty years since.

One day, after I had called one of my grade 4 classmates a ‘prick’ at the dinner table that resulted in very shocked looks from both of my parents, my mother came to my room with a book she wanted me to read with her. It was called “Where did I Come From?” and the cover had a cartoon picture of a really cute baby. Being an avid reader and having no clue what was in store for me, I eagerly agreed to join in. We had already had a very basic talk that went a little bit like this:
Me: Mommy, where do babies come from?
Her: Well, a Daddy plants a seed in the Mommy.
For years I had visions of my dad with a gardening trowel digging through dirt in my mother’s navel to plant a seed, water it and watch it grow. It made no sense, but I didn’t have the imagination to conjure up anything even remotely closer to the truth. I also didn’t have the courage to speak up and challenge the explanation. Well, this book cleared some things up but also left me completely deluded about others! I mean, sperms in tuxedos??? My mother concluded the reading with the following:

Her: Now Lori, when a man and woman love one another very much and are married, they show each other how much they love one another by having sex. Nice girls wait until they are married. Do you understand?

Me: Yes, Mommy.

Her: Do you have any questions?

Me: Mommy? How does the sperm know it is time to leave the man’s penis and go to the woman’s egg? Does it come out in his pee?

Her: (squirming) Well, that is a very good question....(she then proceeded to tell me about ejaculation that I heard in a wah wah wah Charlie Brown Grown Up voice because it way over my head and kinda gross too)

Her: And this is something we don’t talk about to anyone. It especially isn’t appropriate to talk about sex with your friends.

Me: Yes, Mommy.

Naturally my friends and I did talk about it. We tore the clothes off our Barbie & Ken dolls and mashed their plastic naked bodies together making kissy-face noises hoping that Barbie would miraculously become pregnant. Sometimes, Barbie cheated on Ken with GI Joe, He-Man or Donny Osmond. Just because we had to behave like nice girls didn’t mean she couldn’t have some good times!

Flash forward to the year 2010; I am shocked at how openly promiscuous kids are today. I attribute my shock to the fact that when I was becoming sexually curious/active, it was during the onset of the AIDS crisis which at the time instilled fear (and ignorance) into the masses. So it makes me happy to report, that kids are very aware of and are practicing, safe sex, even if they are engaging in things like sexting, rainbow parties and sex bracelets. Add to the mix the accessibility of information via the internet, movies, video games and tv shows contributing to their overt sexuality...and it all has me asking, whatever happened to the simple days of ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ in the garden shed?

let me give thanks

I hope you all are enjoying the last long weekend of 2009, the weather could not be more fitting for Thanksgiving - sunny skies paired with the crisp Autumn air and the crunch crunch crunch of leaves beneath your feet.  Today I want to list the things I am thankful for, as I am about to close an old chapter and start a new one, and that has found me feeling a litte reflective...

• the tinkling laughter of children – little giggles that remind me almost everything is funny if you open up your mind enough to see it
• Trixy, who constantly expresses her love for me with great exuberance, and Chloe, who does the same with much more subtlety
• the seasons...all four of them, each with their own distinct beauty and the reminder that life always comes full circle
• family and friends who understand that when the chips are down, often I am too – they tolerate, support, advise and encourage...and know exactly when to deliver a well deserved kick in the ass... I love and appreciate them all dearly
• snowflakes, that stay on my nose and eyelashes
• beer
• the freedom to say what is on my mind without risk of ‘formal’ persecution
• having found the courage to try something new, to take a risk, to create something with my own hands and put it out into the world
• celebrity gossip, it is my guilty pleasure
• making a difficult decision, sticking with it, and having it work out the way I’d hoped it would
• people without common sense, they give me something to bitch about (and you know I am never truly happy unless I have something to bitch about)
• supportive women who never made me feel like I didn’t belong, even though I wasn’t a proper member of their club
• being on the winning side of things, for the first time in what feels like an eternity

Happy Thanksgiving! Please pass the gravy and share what you are most thankful for this year...

a bushel and a peck

"I love you, a bushel and a peck...a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck"

I will always remember my Nana singing this song, in her kitchen on Sturgeon Lake. I spent every summer up there, hearing her sing and her ha-ha-ha laugh. Yesterday, we spread her ashes. I was sorry to see they were in a plastic bag inside a cardboard box - she didn’t want a funeral or any fanfare, but she was a very classy lady and deserved better than that.

Today is a much harder day, emotionally, than yesterday. The finality of that act followed by the passing down of her things did not bring the closure I’ve been longing for. The ache in my heart is stronger and the tears in my eyes more heavy, when I think of how much I love and miss her...but there is a sense of guilt too, because I didn’t tell her during that last visit in January, and she was gone shortly thereafter. I couldn't say I love you, I couldn't say goodbye. I knew she was dying, and I didn’t have the courage to say the words out loud. I didn’t have the courage to make it real.

I love you Nana. I miss you, too. I talk to you, sitting on the mantle. Do you hear me? I wear your wedding band almost every day; I get choked up when people ask me about it. I often see a white butterfly in my yard – I talk to it and when I do, it comes closer. I like to think you have something to do with it. I like to think that maybe, it's you.

I love and miss you so much, Nana...a bushel and a peck.
xoxo

The first of many summers spent with my beautiful Nana.

the lolita factory

Is it just me, or are there some of you out there in bloggerland who also have a strong disdain for Disney and their 'Lolita Factory'? You know that place where young girls are being groomed into prepubescent stardom and taught that traits like sauciness, sassiness and sexiness are appropriate for today’s teen/tween audience? I don’t blame it all on Disney – there are parents out there who allow their kids to be treated like a commodity - Lindsay Lohan and her mother Dina are a perfect example - but an attachment to the Disney brand and the money that follows are what makes it all sooo attractive. And if you’ve seen ‘Bruno’, you’ve seen that some parents will allow their kids to do anything for a chance at Hollywood’s brass ring.

My 6yr old niece’s name is Hannah. Everyone at her school, and even some members of our family, call her Hannah Montana. It makes me cringe! Miley Cyrus is a 16yrs old smoker who started living with her 20-something boyfriend with her parent's consent at the age of 15, and who at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, where the audience is...well...teens...was pole dancing dresed in next to nothing. Meanwhile, girls with a ‘cleaner’ image like Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez are being pushed to the backburner, clearing the way for the red-carpet antics of their sexier counterparts.

Now throw into the mix shows like 'Toddlers & Tiaras'; in our current society tramping up young girls is becoming the norm and good old fashioned values are being thrown by the wayside.

I remember when Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields being accepted into Yale and Princeton respectfully was considered celebrity news; giving girls at the time (like me) something real to aspire to. Now all it takes is a flash of skin without panties and 'hacked' cell phone pics to become CNN headline news.

So I’m fighting back. How? I have started watching Little House on the Prairie with Hannah, so that she can learn it is not cool to sass grown-ups, attitude will not win you friends (courtesy of one Nellie Olsen) and that doing the right thing will always earn you respect (remember when Laura and Bunny won the horse race and she gave the cup back to Mrs. Olsen?). She calls it ‘our show’ and often has to remind me when it is on. In addition to that, a full Miley/Hannah boycott. Not a dime to be wasted on that crap. And I am always on the lookout for more positive role models for young girls – like Demi and Selena – to encourage Hannah to look up to. Any suggestions?

Please feel free to weigh in - I would love to hear your thoughts...whether you agree, disagree or agree to disagree!

Cheers,
Lori

the games we play

We play games. It is instilled in us at a young age to strategize, to expose our opponent’s weaknesses and manipulate their strengths to our advantage as a means to coming out on top. Thinking back to games like musical chairs, duck-duck-goose, hide and seek, it was key to always be one step ahead, while watching your back at the same time.

We apply these strategies at work to outshine our colleagues and land the promotion.

We apply these strategies with our friends and neighbours to keep up with the Jones’.

We apply these strategies with our hearts hoping for happily ever after.

A very good friend of mine is ‘Gigi’ from “He’s Just Not That Into You”. She is attractive, intelligent, funny, independent, kind...but so eager to find Mr Right that she embarrasses herself trying to force relationships with guys who are clearly Mr Wrong. She insists she’s cool being a single chick on the loose, but obsesses over texts, emails and phone messages...overanalysing the finest of details...naively making excuses for the games they play.

Now there was a time when the game came with flattery focused on physical attributes...great body, nice smile, pretty eyes. The compliments now come with words like ‘astute’ and ‘insightful’. Are boys using intellect to raise the bar and set themselves apart from the pack? Or is it that in the year 2009 girls are still playing the dumb-down game because they think that’s what boys are looking for, making smart the ‘exception’?

We were taught that it wasn't about whether you win or lose but how you play the game, and as kids we were okay with that, but as adults, why do we feel the need to always win...and in the end, are we really winning?

I thought games were supposed to be fun...

road trip

Two friends, on a road trip – not trying to escape the law like Thelma & Louise (though one of us did come home with a warrant for her arrest in the state of Pennsylvania), just hoping to escape reality for a couple of weeks. Driving from Ontario to Florida for New Years Eve...no plans, no where to stay, completely by the seats of our pants.

Allow me to backtrack. I am an uptight vacationer. I need a vacation after planning a vacation. Every last detail painstakingly thought out, analysed, researched, short-listed and confirmed. From what day of the week is best to exchange money, what sales taxes are charged in each state, what hotels offer free Wi-fi (because laptops are mandatory on holiday?), weather patterns and of course, where to find the best outlet malls.

None of these, not even the least significant of plans, actually made it to execution. We got in the car and drove. No plans. No where to stay. And guess what?? It didn’t kill me!

*Sidebar: I really did believe I was dying at one point, though it turned out to be nothing more than a nasty throat infection that thanks to the United States Food & Drug Administration was cleared up in a matter of days.

The most important part of this trip, aside from the five pairs of shoes I came home with, is that I learned something about myself. That my life doesn’t have to be scheduled to be enjoyed, that being spontaneous is not a killer, and that facing my fears has been a healthy part of moving forward while overcoming a setback. And that the setback is not much of a setback at all, but an opportunity to enjoy more of the journey.

thank you for being a friend

I learned today of the passing of a girl I’d known from kindergarten. We hadn’t spoken since high-school but had reconnected through the magic of social-networking. She was funny and kind. And I am saddened for the obvious reasons, but also because as we’d fallen out of touch and moved on with life, the rekindling of our friendship never extended beyond our keyboards. You were always a bright light Karen, with your easy laugh and warm smile. I will miss you.

As a result of this sad news, I struck up a conversation with another friend from lower grade school. My very best friend. Peer pressure got the better of our relationship once we started high school but I always remembered how much fun we’d had as kids. Today we acknowledged the loss of our camaraderie and said things that were overdue. She also told me she’d been reading this blog...I had no idea but it brought a tear to my eye. My partner in crime, with whom for years I did almost everything, is supportive of me once again.

Growing apart is one thing, but it is a shame that friendships can end as a result of petty arguments. Certainly some disputes are irreparable, but in the grand scheme of things, they are seldom worth losing a good mate over.

Cherish your friendships, they can be gone in an instant. Cherish those that come back to you after a long absence. Cherish those that develop tomorrow and in the days that follow.

Thank you for being a friend.