I don’t want to be JUST mom enough!

If you’re a parent, you’ve most likely seen the newest cover of TIME Magazine which shows a mother with her 3 year-old son breastfeeding while standing on a chair, with the headline “Are you mom enough?”.  I first took notice of it last Thursday when just about every other post on my Facebook News Feed had the picture of the cover on it with a tag line question such as “What kind of mom do you want to be?”  While most mothers reading this were uneasy with the picture or disagreed with attachment parenting, the majority of mothers were just plain disappointed with TIME putting out such a story, creating what is commonly referred to as “mommy wars”, especially so close to Mother’s day.  Some mothers were so upset that they didn’t want to comment on it one way or another.  While I understand their reason for concern, I think there’s nothing wrong with a healthy debate and conversation on parenting styles.  And so, buying into the hype, I went and purchased my copy the day it hit newsstands. Continue reading

The Two Million Dollar Family

I’m always writing about some of the challenges that I’ve encountered to-date as a parent to one kid; now imagine four! Last week, my husband, son and I all flew to Edmonton to visit my brother and his family. They had just welcomed home their 4th child two weeks previously.  It also happened to fall on the Jewish holiday of Passover which made the dinners even that much more special. My brother’s kids are 6, 3.5, 1.5 and 0.08 :) . However stressful and chaotic their home might be, my brother and his wife don’t skip a beat. It’s as if they’ve done this four children thing their whole life. Continue reading

The church of the flying spaghetti monster?!?! Is this for real?

I was at a wedding a few weeks ago and a friend of mine mentioned, in passing (as if this isn’t a big deal), how her brother-in-law recently got married under the traditions of the church of flying spaghetti monster. She kept on talking to get to some other point of her story, but I had to stop her right then and there. I mean, was she joking? Did she make it up? Did she really say The Church of the Flying spaghetti monster?

Sure, I’ve heard of the church of scientology. I mean, Tom Cruise is the President or something which obviously made that famous. But I can’t say I’ve heard of the Church of the flying spaghetti monster (FSM)? I have since confirmed it exists! Apparently, the church is 10 million followers strong and is continuing to grow. Followers of this religion refer to themselves as Pastafarian; Continue reading