To B or not to B

If you could use one word to describe 2015, what would it be? 

My word is Busy. Busy set the stage for my whole year.  And on that stage, I was Busy's puppet, doing shows night after night. It got a little tiring.

But I'll let you in on a secret - despite the exhaustion and stress, I think I'm secretly addicted to being busy. This addiction goes way back to high school, when I wanted to join every activity and club that was offered. It led to burnout, but didn't seem to slow down my desire for constant distraction. The internet took off in the late 90s, leading to more time on the computer. In university I was like an activity yo-yo, declaring my love of WRITING or MUSIC or ART or DATING, only to abandon these "hobbies" after a whirlwind affair (ok fine, dating is not really a hobby, but it could be, right??)

In my twenties, at the suggestion of my yoga teacher, I signed up for the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program. I had tried meditation several times, only to fall asleep or give up in frustration. This was different, though - backed by an experienced teacher and supported by a large group of wonderful people, I buckled down and just did it. 45 minutes of silent meditation every day, whether I liked it or not. I went on to try my first silent meditation retreat, and didn't speak a word for four days. The breakthrough came on that retreat, when my mind finally settled down long enough to take a good, deep breath. Oh, I thought.  This is what people mean when they talk about peace.

Although I carried on with meditation when I could, over time, Busy chipped away at my resolve to live a slower life. Ten years later and I'm still battling my addiction to Busy, fueled by life with two kids and the financial burden of mortgage and debt. It's easy to give in to Busy when you need to pay the bills. So what if I have three jobs, I thought, at least we're getting by.

But of course, I wasn't getting by - I was missing my kids, my husband and a predictable schedule. I was missing life without a knot of stress in my stomach. I was missing baking in the kitchen on Sunday afternoons, and EXERCISE!

By the end of 2015 I realized that life could not go on the way I was living it, and that I needed to get back to the other "B" - Balance. I closed up shop on my Birth Doula business, and just this past week, my professional membership expired. My domain name will also expire early this year. I'm still teaching prenatal classes, but it's a set schedule of one weekend per month - on-call hours are a thing of the past. And of course, there's my full-time job as a researcher, which is quite busy and rewarding. 

The thing about Balance is that is takes time to master. There is no highway to peace, and I don't expect my life to be magically different in 2016. But the first step to overcoming any addiction is admitting to the problem - letting my love of Busy show itself, and at the same time, refusing to be its puppet. 

I will practice saying No to activities or events that don't serve a specific purpose in my life.

I will practice being present with my children for the time I DO get to spend time with them, letting go of the guilt I feel for the time I don't spend with them.

I will practice putting my Busy energy into helping others - in 2016 I will be matched with a family of refugees, providing three hours of support to them per week, to help them settle here in Canada. I'm excited about this one, because I can also involve my kids in activities with THEIR kids.

I will practice doing things I love, not for the money, but because it makes me happy.

I will practice patience - with myself, with others, and with life in general. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it will take some time to find this Balance thing I seek. As a wise friend recently said: "...it's growth, and growth is good. But it hurts sometimes, like yoga."

Which reminds me...I also need to be doing yoga ;)

What are you going to B in 2016?

Looking Back: Our Most Popular Posts from 2015

By Misty

What a year it's been for Kids in the Capital! In January we launched a brand new website, and we love the new look! We also received many great articles from our contributors over these past twelve months, and we're looking back on 15 of our most popular posts. Is there one that we missed? Send us an email and let us know what YOU loved reading this year: kidsinthecapital@gmail.com.

15) Reinventing Goldfish Crackers - back when I had more time (time?? What's that?), I tried out a much healthier version of Goldfish crackers and they were a huge hit!

14) Choosing the right camp for your child: there's a lot of time that working parents need to fill when their child is off school (or maybe you just want your child to experience camp). This post has some great tips from a past camp director!

13) Save money using Flipp: who doesn't love to save money? Cheryl tells us how to use the Flipp app to price match and save hundreds of dollars each year.

12) Worth a Visit: Almonte - we started 2015 with a new series "Worth a Visit." (Side note: I failed in keeping up with the weekly posts, but I'm looking to re-launch a monthly series in 2016!) Amy wrote this post for us, and it went a teeny bit viral. Those Almontonians love their town!

11) 5 Tips for Being an Anglophone in a Francophone System: I may speak French, but I'm certainly not bilingual. Some tips 'n tricks for sending your child to French school.

10) Mother-Daughter Journals: Donna wrote about this fantastic idea for connecting with your daughter(s).

9) I let my kid go to the park by herself...and then I wrote about it! Most readers were very positive, although many thought that 5 (the age of my daughter last summer) was too young. She's now 6, and already asking when she can start to walk to school by herself!

8) Don't tell my daughter to cover up! I write a lot about raising daughters, and the issue of dress codes is a controversial one.

7) Walter Baker Park: we got a lot of views on this post by Tracy. A park with an adult workout zone!!

6) Do you suffer from Mommy Disease? This post resonated with a lot of our readers - we're clearly all suffering from something :) I'm planning on writing a follow-up post in 2016, as health-wise, I'm doing a lot better!

5) Buy Nothing Ottawa: the act of giving and receiving, with no strings attached, is a heartwarming thing. Andrea gave us a great list of all the buy nothing groups here in Ottawa.

4) One thing you can do to save your sanity: this one was written for all the moms out there - can you guess what the "one thing" is?

3) Mommy Needs a Drink: the idea for this post had been "brewing" for a while before I wrote it. Do we live in a culture that makes light of problem drinking?

2) Holiday Gift Guide: Lara and I searched far and wide (well, not really...we patronize a lot of these businesses ourselves!) for great holiday gift ideas. All of these businesses are local to Ottawa or Canadian.

1) The Holidays in Ottawa: 25 things to do under $25 - clearly the winner and #1 on our blog this year, with over 20,000 hits!! 

Our readers love posts about things to do in Ottawa, as well as personal opinion pieces and parenting tips. We plan to bring you much more in 2016, and a big thank you for taking the time to visit and comment! What else do you want to read? Leave a comment and let us know!

Winter activities in Ottawa: Feeding the Birds at Mer Bleue

While Misty is dreaming up ways to make things feel a bit more winter-y I'm all for embracing the warmer temperatures and doing some of the outdoor things I usually avoid because I don't like being cold. 

This weekend I thought we would enjoy the lovely weather and get outside and we headed to Mer Bleue Boardwalk to see if we could find some chickadees to feed. Mer Bleue is a few minutes down Anderson Road from the 417 so it's a short drive from a lot of the city.

What to feed the birds

I'm no great expert on this but we stopped at bulk barn and for $2 or so of the wild bird seed I got enough seed that we could visit at least 5 more times without running out. Someone else who recently went to feed the birds said the birds seemed to love black sunflower seeds even more (and you can get that at bird shops). I stopped for coffee for myself on the way and asked for three small empty cups for the kids so they could each have something to carry a reasonable amount of seeds in on their own.

Where to find the birds

I've only done this a couple of times but here's what I've found to be key (please leave a comment if you have other/better ideas :).... listen for the chickadee dee dee noises... they tend to be close to treed areas, and then put some seeds in your flat hand and wait to see if they show up.

It's not very scientific, we found the birds in quite a few different places around the boardwalk, including in the tree right next to where we parked in the main parking lot. In fact, the most photos I got that I love were taken within 10 feet of my van!

I learned something pretty quickly with my three though. While the birds will land in a completely flat hand that isn't moving, the sensation of having a bird land on your hand is kind of strange and the kids didn't love it so much. My daughter dealt with it best. The boys each tried it once and then wouldn't try it again.

So what do you do instead?

Birdseed on the head! The birds happily landed on all three kids' hats within a few minutes of me putting some seed there.

Birdseed on hat works well. Beware the six year olds who will take off their hat and dump the seed directly into their hair.

Enjoy the Boardwalk

The Mer Bleue Boardwalk is a nice 1.2 km walk that is completely flat. The three kids (9, 6 and 6) made it the whole way without anyone trying to convince me to carry them or having to be left behind (at least not for long). It's beautiful, there's a self-directed tour if you're interested and if you're lucky your kids will pose for a few pictures for you.

If you're more of a winter person than I am, you can go and check this out once there's snow on the ground too!

There are so many great activities in Ottawa, leave us a comment and let us know where you like to go out and enjoy nature with the kids.

How to celebrate a green Christmas

Rumour has it that Mother Nature has left Old Man Winter for El Nino - the hot, young stud about town. I'm all for love affairs when warranted, but this is a bit much.

I'll admit I've never been a fan of long winters here in Ottawa, but I've always enjoyed snow in December. We get out and do ALL the activities (even skating, which usually involves the kids throwing themselves onto the ice in despair over their cold toes.)

So here are a few ideas to enjoy your green Christmas (although I do have hope that Mother Nature will see the error of her ways, and be welcomed back into the cold embrace of the Old Man.)

Go steal snow over at the ice rink

Seriously, they just dump the stuff in the back parking lot. Either go play on the mountain at the rec centre, or pack some into buckets and get home quickly to make your snowman

Make fake snow

Honestly, this sounds like the worst idea ever. All I can think about is my carpets caked in this stuff. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Check out this tutorial, but not if you have OCD or Obsessive Cleaning Disorder.

Freeze Stuff

The weather is so warm right now, you could actually play with rainbow ice cubes outside. That said, it can still be a bit chilly, so I would probably let my kids go wild with these in the bath tub! 

Make Paintsicles!

What a fantastic idea for some messy, painting fun!! 

Bring on Elsa

Create your own Snow Dance by blasting Frozen music and having the kids "bring on the snow." Then shoot confetti out of canon and have it rain down on the kids. Or not...Elsa music on its own is just fine.

What will you do for your green Christmas?

The day I walked by Maisy

It was a chilly day in late 2008 and I was walking along Rideau St. in Ottawa. I was in a hurry - head down, and feet moving quickly past the others sauntering along the sidewalk. I was also in a terrible, no-good mood. I can't even tell you now what had me so upset. Probably something trivial.

Up ahead I saw several people with flyers, attempting to stop pedestrians.

No way, I thought. Not today.

I assumed the people were going to try to sell me something. So I plowed ahead, and when a young girl attempted to hand me a flyer, I snapped at her; "I'm late!"

In a flash, I saw a young girl's face on the poster. It was the face of Maisy Odijck, a 16 year-old Indigenous girl who had gone missing. No amber alert had been issued. No search party had been sent out. Just those lone people on Rideau, trying desperately to reach out to those of us passing by.

A young girl was missing. And I walked right by.

This memory came flooding back to me this morning as I sat on the 174 listening to Dawn Harvard (President of the Native Women's Association of Canada) talk about her child's innocent questions after an interview Dawn had given. "We're Native, right? Does that mean I'm in danger Mommy?" I could hear the emotion in Dawn's voice as she talked about her struggle to answer her young child.

From an article by Dawn on Today's Parent:

"On a general level, the devaluation of Aboriginal girls and women, the impacts of systemic racism and the lingering effects of the residential school system have also contributed to the high rate of Aboriginal girls and women who have been murdered or remain missing.

Decades of silence on this issue have allowed it to continue. While the media has begun to draw attention to the problem, parents—both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal—must start the difficult conversations about racism, discrimination and historic oppression if we are to break the ongoing cycles of sexual and physical violence." 

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After I saw the flash of Maisy's face on the poster, my steps slowed. I realized that the people on the street were not trying to sell me something. I now know they were doing the job of our police, and our society - taking on the burden of finding a girl who had essentially been abandoned.

I turned around and ran back. I apologized to the young girl, and asked to see the poster. I looked right in Daisy's eyes and took in her general appearance. I told the girl I would keep my eyes and ears open. Then I walked away, and tears fell down my face. 

I knew I would not find this young girl, and that most likely, no one would. It's been 7 years, and she's still missing.

Yesterday our government announced the first phase of a public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. They plan to meet with parents in the coming weeks with the goal of hearing their views and what they want to see come out of an inquiry. I think of Maisy's mom, and wonder whether this offers her any comfort.

As parents, we have a duty to stop 'walking by.' It's time to start a conversation with our girls and boys. I know we're years too late, and we'll never get that back. But that doesn't excuse us from moving forward.

How do you talk about racism and oppression with your child?