Okay, I’ve heard the folks that defend the wildlife that hangout on hiking trails built straight through the forest, or even those animals that roam the streets of towns plunked down in the National Parks. Sure, sure we humans have “encroached on their territory” mixing up the poor creatures about what really is their natural habitat (or maybe it’s the McDonald’s French Fries they’ve been hand fed that have caused their confusion). But it is not those particular hapless creatures that I have a beef with.
The ones that have me and my neighbors up in arms (just figuratively speaking – so far) are the gang of pushy deer that have encroached on us. I’m stymied as to how the hec it came about – it started with a couple of the agile ungulates making what we thought was a guest appearance on our city street.
Now understand, we’re not on four acre lots easily mistaken for wild countryside. No, no, for years (and years and years) the city has moved south and our very residential neighborhood is almost inner city – as in metropolis. I think it went like this – Bambi and Flag in an amorous spring romp accidentally bounded into a neighborhood far from ours and went on a tear. Suddenly they came upon true civilization and a road with a zillion cars on it. They dared each other to shock the drivers and somehow sailed across it – making the pair feel rather brazen. “That was a heart stopping blast, Bambi,” shouted Flag over the din of traffic, “But where the hell are we?”
“Who cares?” Bambi called out, high on adrenalin, “I want to do that again dude.” So on the two clomped – into our freaking territory. They would have trotted by elementary schools, and high schools, service stations and pizza parlors, hair dressers and tanning salons.
“Yo, so this is where the people come from,” Flag, the smarter of the two might have figured out, as they stared down from the top of a pedestrian overpass, unless Bambi had his way and they skidded through the traffic again. Now, there are miles and miles of city streets before ours, with yummy spring tulips waving their colorful blossoms on all of them, but it was on our stretch of suburbia that they decided, holy cow, they’d hit the mother lode. As they made their way from yard to yard crunching flowers down to soggy nubs Flag paused long enough to lick his lips and say, “We have to get word back to the gang to head out here. Who needs to trip through the messy forest foraging for sustenance when this is here all laid out in even rows ripe for the picking.”
“Whoa Flag buddy, watch out. There’s a crazy woman at three o’clock that just chucked a shoe at me. Didn’t hurt, but now she’s waving a broom. Want to get the hec out of Dodge?”
“Shoe Shmoo. You’re kidding me about ever going back, right Bro? We’ve found the Promised Land. I say let’s call in the troops and lay down roots. Baby, I feel like I’m home.”
text me love mom
The Homecoming Dance For Spring
Who knows where you will discover the tid-bits of information that ease you through life from season to season? Long ago, a neighbor – a guy who studies entomology (bugs) and engages in long treks in foreign places – told me he never pulls up all his spent plants in the fall, leaving instead a ‘winter garden‘. So I pass by flower beds where the owners have meticulously cleaned up every last bit of perennial foliage, undertaking a clean sweep of orderly beds, so only stubble remains in the black earth, readying them for the coming seasons – and I’m so tempted to follow their methodical inclinations.
Somehow I resist, instead I carve out a place for small heaps of snow to pile around a stand of stiff delphinium stocks. I leave a nest of black eyed susans stems to sparkle with crystal hoarfrost . In the back garden the morning sun reaches a small bed of gangly flocks and shines through the tired golden leafs. This year I even left the most stately eight foot hollyhocks, rising out of a bed of snow.
I’m grateful to my neighbor who led me to the winter garden inspiration, but now it is late February. The snow is crusty and hard, the dry crisp leaves rattle in the breeze, clinging to the stems like winter clings to the landscape. On the February long weekend we made the drive through the mountains to our cottage seven hours west. Home in Calgary, Alberta is a gardening zone three. A hardiness zone is a geographically defined area in which a specific category of plant life is capable of growing, as defined by climatic conditions, including its ability to withstand the minimum temperatures of the zone. [1]The cottage, in the interior of B.C., is in a place called the Shuswaps and is a more encouraging zone 6.
During a short break from the wet weather we were having that weekend, the sun slanted through the slate blue clouds and searching hard, I found the smallest promises of spring’s revival. These weren’t tulips or even wee purple and yellow crocuses. There wasn’t even a brave pale snowdrop blossom in sight. But on the far side of the cottage, against the warmest wall I found teeny weeny hollyhock seedlings, dotting the damp earth. I had shaken the small flat seeds from spent buds and stamped them into the ground on a fall day months previous, and now here were the beginnings of hollyhocks that would grow to reach the kitchen window high above them, and by August the long stems with a multitude of ruffled pink and white blooms, encouraged by the sun and warm nights, will stretch even higher. 
In that zone six it is exhilarating to reap the abundant beauty of nature’s kindness, but my heart swells with admiration for the determined and faithful green thumbs working the soil in Calgary’s much cooler zone three designation. Gardening in our foothill’s city is an exercise in patience, optimism and hope. It might be long weeks before I find the hollyhock seedlings here where crusty snow is still the tired background for my now unappreciated winter garden. But alas, when I do see the itty bitty pale green seedlings peeping through the earth, displaying their own determination, they will beckon my faith in the homecoming of our sweet, though perhaps, too short, summer.
[1] wikipedia.org
Oh Baby – Let’s Swing
“How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside–
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown–
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down! ”
The Swing – Robert Louis Stevenson
Up at our cottage there is a small clearing in the trees, with a view toward the lake. It is a place some of us (probably the girls) always looked at as if it was where you would slip off to with a new boyfriend when it seemed you had been inundated with aunts and uncles, and cousins or other lakeside visitors – to get away and whisper, or steal a kiss without being observed by dad.
It is a place to go when you are feeling like a moment, or being contemplative, or are in love, or out of love – a place away from the other places, a place to steal a kiss, or tell a secret. 
And then our eldest had a baby who has a love of swinging, and we’d drive for twenty minutes to the park beside the local baseball diamond. At last I knew what the spot in the trees needed – a swing – a swing for a toddler, but a swing for a long-legged kid or a grown up, too.
Lucky for all of us my son-in-law, the toddler’s daddy, is a recently graduated architect with a passion for building – no pre-packaged swing set kit for us. On three of the hottest days of last summer he happily constructed the perfect, simple baby swing and a ‘big’ swing, and a place to climb and slide – with awe struck assistants from those of us eager for the finished product.
It was a hot summer with the lake temperature invitingly warm, so swimming and boating and floating we’re so much of what we did – not much swinging at all.
But it’s British Columbia, Canada and there are long crisp seasons where the lake is the backdrop for more quiet pursuits, times when there will be a fussy baby that needs to be soothed or too many folks will be crowded inside, and two others will have to slip out to that spot in the trees and take turns simply swinging.
It’s January now, the ground is icy white, the still air promises more snow and cold. But hey, it’s time to dream of spring and going “up into the air and down”….
Santa – please come take back ‘walking doll’
When I was a little girl, four or five, I asked Santa for a ‘walking doll’. I don’t remember sitting on the old guy’s lap – maybe my mom had written a letter for me, but clearly a request had been made. I woke with a start on Christmas Eve, and thinking it was already morning, I ran down the hall in my pajamas, stopping short at the entrance to the living room and peeking around the corner. Nothing can erase that moment, even now all these years since, for what I saw was my dad arranging presents under the tree and there front and center – was the unwrapped wonderful ‘walking doll’. I slid back into bed unnoticed, but absolutely delighted – not at all traumatized that Santa had blown his cover. Surely it was the jolly old elf who left the doll for my parents to display, and now I would be able to play with her in the morning, and all the mornings after that.
My mom wanted us kids to use our imaginations so she didn’t want us to have any of those crazy high-tech battery operated toys. The beauty of the tall hard plastic ‘walking doll’ was that her arm bones were connected to her leg bones by some mysterious inner wires, and so when you lifted an arm and moved it, her lovely flat footed leg took a step – no batteries involved.
‘Walking doll’ hasn’t fared too well over the years – at the hands of my two brothers and umpteenth male cousins she’s somehow suffered damage my sisters and girl cousins wouldn’t have inflicted. A blinking eye has been pushed into its socket ,and some horrible boy shot her right foot with a BB gun (back in the day when boys shot BB guns).
Since my own kids left home I’ve kept a few cuddly baby dolls for visiting little ones to play with and even a soft plastic one that never loses its sweet soft- plastic smell. And of course, I’ve kept ‘walking doll’ on a shelf in the basement – beside my own grown daughter’s fancy porcelain faced Anne of Green Gables doll.
Recently, seeking order before the house fills with family for Christmas, I did another overhaul of great magnitude of the junk stored in the basement and vowed ‘walking doll’ needed to go. It was rule #1 in the decluttering handbook – if you are not going to use it or display it, let it go. Those anti-clutter gurus dictate that I’m supposed to accept that even special gifts have played their role and to be content to hang onto the memories, but not the item taking up space and gathering dust. So I was determined to give ‘walking doll’ up, to tuck her into a bag of used kid’s clothing and take it all to a local charity. (Now I don’t actually believe a charity will want to pass along low tech walking doll with her matted hair and busted eye and foot, but I could never pitch her into the garbage myself.) Somehow the bag of clothes went and walking doll is still here.
Dusted off, with her hair fluffed up, she sits bleary- eyed on a bench in the front hall. I have a fuzzy plan to let her sit under the Christmas tree one more time amongst the glitter and lights. It must be the magic of the holiday season, that makes me hope that maybe Santa will hop out of the chimney (if we had one), pop her into his sack and take her back to where they take the broken toys, and I won’t have to play a guilty hand in letting dear ‘walking doll’ go.
Blog, by Blog, by Blog – Until There Was A Book
Both of my daughters have struggled through long distance relationships with boyfriends. Our eldest daughter, Zoe, was away starting university in Vancouver in her lonely (with roommate but no big family) apartment and she and the guy she’d left behind pined for each other through long distance phone calls – until it just didn’t seem like the right mix. My youngest daughter, Lily, was later off on the opposite side of the country discovery Quebec and Montreal and devotion to studies in a little studio while working her way into, and out of, a relationship that started long distance – and ended that way. Both girls tell me long distance is hard. Their dad and I did it too, decades ago, so I know that’s true, but sometimes you get lucky.
It is fall, the trees are golden, the sun is warm and all my four kids live away now. I miss them the most Sunday afternoons when their dad and I consider a bike ride or a drive in the country with not much thought to Sunday dinner. I come from the tradition of Sunday dinner and if any of them are home I try to do it up right. I’m okay now – after their long and gradual departure from our too big, too quiet nest. And now we’re the ones engaged in long distance relationships. I have friends who are melancholy because their kids have just recently left home for places in the city. And I’ve been reading September blogs from women – strangers to me, who are pining for their recently departed kids. For both types of parents, who I know reminisce for a September of grumbling about buying kids new gym shoes or calculators, and the morning chaos of getting a family out the door, I’ve decided to re-post my first few ‘letting go’ blogs.
I set up my wordpress blog two years ago while I worked at writing a book about all the crazy ways my kids left home – four kids – four different pursuits – one stunned mom. I was still pining over the firstborn’s swift departure, and only starting to see the humor in the second’s being held at the Canada/U.S border with all his belongings in a plastic garbage bag, at the same time confused about whether it would be a positive or negative for our third child to enter an ashram, when our youngest, a sensitive homebody, left to spend five months in Italy. It is about how during all that our family of six, learned to disconnect, discovered independence, (sometimes scaring the crape out of both parents) and how we all found new ways of being close. Text Me, Love Mom – Sending Your Kids Into The Wide, Wide World – the book is finished. To go with this ‘kids leaving home’ season I’ve decided to look back at the days when Zoë, our eldest of four was first living away from us – over the mountains, beside the ocean – far from our home, and I was afraid she would fall in with west coast nudist, vegans, (which she did) and never look back….
IS THERE A PATCH FOR THAT?
So we had our babies young by today’s standards. While mini-SUV’s stuffed with our peers offspring were trucking between Sunday music recitals and vogue over-the-top children’s birthday parties – my husband, Will, and I had already survived hip hop concerts in our basement and read the riot act at a host of eighteenth birthdays for young-adults-gone-wild. Of course, I didn’t feel that young. While my same-age friends were doing espressos to make it through the day, after getting up in the night with the little one’s bad dreams and winter colds, I needed a daily fix of latte and chocolate cake because one of my kids hadn’t returned a phone call in two days and another one would be calling incessantly because the road trip he was on had gotten a little sketchy.
Life is a journey and all that. But during what part of the journey was it easiest to deal with colic and a latent thumb sucker, and when have we learned all the skills necessary to convince a sixteen-year-old that they have to take pure math and that all the kids who say they’ve had sex really haven’t? I was only forty-two when my oldest daughter left our chaotic home in Calgary. I can see now that I was guilty of stalking Zoë with emails and phone calls, though it’s hard to believe I had time for stalking while still immersed in patrolling two teenage boys’ covert activities, and being a choir-mom for my youngest.
I had all these cooing babies that became boisterous teens – to fill our home and hearts and consume my time, patience and energy. For years and years, I had never thought much about them moving out and how my heart would deal with that. It was what was supposed to happen – the launch from the nest.
Zoë found her way to leave home with her copies of Love in the Time of Cholera, Harry Potter, and Dragon Quest gone from the shelves, her colourful collection of shoes gathered up from the closets, and the vanilla scented products stripped from the bathroom. Were my parents just as stunned and confused to have a child slipping out of their grasp and away from their influence? The media would have us believe that we have overindulged, overprotected and generally, now that parent is a verb, over-parented. Could this explain why I suffered from the jitters when one by one, all too quickly, my children dispersed and I desperately wished I could visit my local pharmacists and buy a patch to help ease me off them. What, I wondered, would be released for not NRT (nicotine replacement therapy), but rather CAHRT (children at home replacement therapy)? A chemical that could create the sound of their cell phones chirping incessantly, or of the front door creaking and them downloading a movie at two a.m., or produce the irritation caused by the sight of their chaotic rooms, or imitate the sensation of pleasure when one of them slowed down long enough to wrap their arms around me in a hug?
An astute observer would recognize that, though I was attempting to pull myself together, I was unable to concentrate on a task and was lumbering back and forth from one activity to the next. Bewildered, I felt like a mother bear I had seen in a film whose cub had been taken away too early. She had rolled her head from side to side, and clumped through the forest in a distressed fashion. Learning to deal with my first strayed cub my heart pounded, my sleep was uneven and I couldn’t concentrate to complete a task.
My kids say I could start my own lending library with my vast collection of parenting tomes, yet there was a void of information to guide me through these turbulent times, starting with the spring day that I scrunched up the envelope so I could see through its window that my daughter had been accepted at a university across an entire mountain range from home, until I realized I had worked myself out of a position with which I was damn comfortable.
They left home in the order they were born. Not enough time passed between Zoë, the oldest, moving out and Lily, the baby, phoning from a crowded European city to tell me how hard it was to find a place to cry out loud, the way she preferred to cry. Back up you kids, I thought. I want to run through that all again.
Come Back, You Summer Revelers
Tell me, how can it be that my husband wants to go back to the cottage this weekend and take the motorboat out of the water. As usual, as is my role, I protest. “No, no, no, it can’t be time to take the boat out. Summer is hardly over.”
It was only a month ago that we had sixteen people at the cottage, some bedding down on air mattresses or couches, others wondering if they could sleep in the boat, rocking on the water through the night. And a few weeks after that we had loads of folks again, and in exasperation of emptying the dishwasher another time from meals of fresh buttery corn and juicy burgers and failed popsicles – I declared – “When will this end?”
And then it did.
Come back, you summer revellers. I don’t want to put the floaties away and stack the outside chairs and tie up the canoe against the rising water of next spring.
Let’s squeeze our eyes shut from the smoky fire and then squint into the night sky at the mid- summer comets. Let me get mildly upset that someone’s used my beach towel in their impatience to dry off from a swim so that they could slice the last peach in the box, before dribbling it with cream.
I want to not be able to decide between reading my book on the dock (yes, that silly book), and chatting with my visiting kids and their gregarious friends, or trying again to make those popsicles.
Even more so I want to take another solo early morning kayak ride on the lapping lake, watching in awe as the osprey flies over.
And so I wish now, that with each swim I had stayed in the lake even longer, floating on my back, adrift in water that was ever so, never so warm.
Peas, Ice Cream, Smarties and a Little Blue Potty
Hey, while Grandma’s trying to catch her breath – I’m writing this on her iPhone to let you know what’s going on here, Mommy, but first I have to shout at Grandma, “No, No!” because there is a tiny piece of blueberry stem in my breakfast and she will come remove it from my presence. You know how I hate anything nasty like that cluttering up my highchair tray. I’ll digress, Mommy, to tell you I have Grandpa trained, too. Yesterday he found out some other grandfather has his grandson call him ‘Bronco’, so decided he wanted to be called ‘Cool Guy’. I say it and he’ll watch the ‘puppy’ movie with me another fantastic time. 
So the morning I found you’d left me, your two-year-old sweet baby girl, to go reclaim your misspent youth at that music festival for what? Five sleeps? – I was fine, really. I had my cousin to hang with and the other Nana and Papa before I got plopped in the car with this Grandma and caught up with some zzz’s all the way to the city. Grandma’s first stop was Toy R Us – what’s with you never taking me there? I think she was nervous when she saw my eyes bug out – she bought another potty and had me packed out of there in no time and over to Great Grandma’s (GG’s) and Great Grandpa’s so I could amaze them with my dexterity and climbing abilities and they could say over and over, “I’m just afraid she’s going to fall,” and encourage me to eat my dinner. Grandma didn’t want to let on that when I started to squawk the last twenty minutes of the three hour car ride (I mean really) she had passed me back a big old bag of potato chips and ruined my dinner.
The first night was hell going to bed without you folks. I started to cry – like seriously wail, and you won’t believe this Mommy, but somehow Grandma had left ‘Baby’ behind. Her and Grandpa started dragging other ratty old dolls up from their basement but Mom, Baby is Baby, no substitute was filling that void. But then ‘Cool Guy’ offered a movie and Grandma remembered you’d pulled the plug on my viewing ‘Bolt’ for the summer – the flick that I cleverly refer to as ‘puppy movie’ to help you all forget that the action packed animation is scary and that amazing puppy, Bolt, demolishes a ton of bad dudes. Well, that was the old folks solution to my frantic tears. Grandpa found it on his big screen TV. It was bliss Mommy, cuddling with them and watching puppy movie. Grandpa was such a fan of it that the next morning while Grandma ran out to buy me a big bucket of fat baby Lego and stock the fridge with my favourite healthy fruits and juices (like that lasted) Cool Guy and I watched puppy movie again.
Grandma’s been showing me off to her friends. It’s a pretty easy gig – she get’s me to say a few words that come out clearly, and you know, I show them that I know where my nose is (duh) and they are down on the blanket doing baby Lego with me or asking Grandma in a challenging way if she’s spoiling me with ice cream – and then she does. She had invited two grandma wanna-be’s-but-not-too-soon over passed my erratic bedtime and I know they were looking at us like the whole situation was out of control. But really, Mommy, it was late and I was bored with the fat Lego. She didn’t want me to watch puppy movie again (Cool Guy wasn’t home yet), they’d kiboshed my attempt at grabbing that glass ball dangling over the window seat (who makes a ball out of glass anyway), and I was so over toys. Someone came up with the ice cream idea and yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to say “all done” instead of mucking in it and pushing the dish off the tray, but honestly I was spent, and Grandma was frazzled. I knew if she’d just put me in the bath I could amuse her again.
Speaking of amusing people – the other great-grandparents came to see moi and were spellbound by my using Cool Guy’s iPad – iPad, iphone – it’s not rocket science – you scroll, you push, you tap – a baby could do it. Even more exciting – as time goes by Grandma lets me get into the cupboards she’s said no to earlier – so why wouldn’t I give that a go? Isn’t that what they’ll want from me when I’m older – persistence – going the extra mile? So finally I got to play with the glass candle holders and the fragile Easter decorations tucked away behind them.
Did I mention that people bring me presents – a new doll – so cute, but not Baby. Speaking of Baby – what’s this I keep hearing, something along the lines of, “do I understand about the new baby?” Seriously folks? Word here is that I’m too little to stress about a new sibling yet. Oh, and speaking of stress… Grandma gave up on the potty thing. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I like this new potty. She thought the other one wasn’t comfy. This one is so comfy and supposedly my using it for my business instead of perfectly acceptable diapers could have something to do with eating Smarties.
Hey, I can’t believe you’ve kept those from me too. I guess we’re even – you’re having a wild time at the music festival with Daddy and I’m kicking it up here with those chocolate bits of loveliness. It seems Grandma thought she could train me, but she handed over the Smarties when I whimpered at bedtime and she sort of whimpered herself about how she trained her four kids – you can train me, and good luck to you. I think it was a weak moment.
Today she took me out to visit another sweet grandma wanna-be… for more presents and you know it – ice cream. Grandma was super late getting there and I have to tell you, Grandma told this friend that she can’t believe she suggested to you, Mommy, that maybe you could do some of your art while I sleep. “As if!” she said to her ice cream serving friend. “I totally get that when this toddling ball of energy stops spinning circles all you want to do is catch your breath, or clean up the mess, or maybe for fun throw in the laundry and watch it go around,” Grandma said gulping back a glass of vino.
She brought me home and for dinner she let me pick and eat a zillion peas from what she calls her slug invested garden. After that I tried once more to stand at the top of the stairs to the lower level and shout what Daddy shouts at you when we’re all here together, “Zoe, are you coming?” Just hoping that you might be down there. That really got to the old folks – Grandma hugged me and told me “just two more sleeps” and Cool Guy said he’d watch puppy movie. They were both asleep before Bolt returned from his exile.
You two have fun – we are. But it will be blissful to snuggle with you and see ‘Baby’ again and get off this ice cream diet. Love you guys. XO Tessa (Grandma says I need an alias in case this is all too embarrassing later.
Spring Time Knee Socks – la dee da
When I was a little girl Easter was the dawning of spring. My mom, an accomplished seamstress, sewed me and my two sisters twirly Easter outfits – new cotton dresses or skirts and one year, I recall, she even fashioned us bonnets after taking a hat making course. Our family of seven would take the first trip of the year Up North to Vermilion, Alberta to visit my grandparents. On Sunday morning, we’d take the curlers from our heads, shake out our bouncy curls (from our normally pin-straight hair) and deck ourselves out in our new Easter outfits. Despite it being cool enough for crusty snow along the fence and under the trees, it would be a treat to leave off itchy leotards, and pull up instead, brand new white knee socks. I remember the freedom of that – my bare legs eager for a bit of afternoon sun to warm them.
Now I have a granddaughter myself and I no longer have a grandmother. I rarely sew anything and despite having purchased some lovely material, the outfit I bought my granddaughter for an Easter celebration at the family cottage was her first pair of overalls and a bright white onesie with teeny flowers on the collar. But some Easter traditions must be resurrected each year and in the spirit of that, I brought up the famous Paas Easter egg decorating kit and after the two-year-old was tucked up in bed, her mom, and my mom and my sister and I, all dyed the tips of our fingers green and blue and red, in the process of creating the fancy eggs of my youth.
And of course, all of us sentimental and reminiscing adults, laid out an Easter egg hunt for the only wee one young enough to be captivated by the search for the over sized-chocolate-holding plastic egg containers, though still too young to grasp the suggestion that a big bunny placed them in their obvious spots among the crocuses and hyacinths. 
Maybe by next year I’ll sew her a twirly dress and find some teeny knee socks – but I think we observed enough tradition to successfully call up the glory of spring.
I DO, I DO – Wedding Do’s and a few Do Not’s from a Recent M.O.B
T’is the season of summer engagements and mid summer weddings. All four of my twenty-something kids have been invited to witness and celebrate friend’s nuptials on hot afternoons and long summer nights. Because love is clearly in the air I’m re-posting the bit I so eagerly wrote after my eldest daughter’s sweet, romantic – but not entirely perfect wedding.
…The rose petals have settled. The five hundred photos have been printed. The gorgeous dress awaits the cleaners with bits of grass and twigs in its elegant bustle. Though we never thought of it as a destination wedding per say – our eldest daughter and her groom choosing to be wed on a coastal island three and a half hours from their Vancouver home involved some degree of strategic planning. Let’s say “it was an adventure” and I do love an adventure. though there who didn’t quite see the ‘fun’ in not being able to get off the island the day after the nuptials because of a unseasonal storm that kept the ferries from traveling the rocking seas.
I started out a bit lonely in my stretch as a mother-of-the bride. ie. a MOB, but by the time I hung up my MOB dress – (elegant, classy and reserved and not sexy, loud or scene stealing ) –a few friends had joined my ranks as MOB’s themselves and were asking if I could jot down a few bits of advice. Of course, every journey is unique, and the journey involved in helping someone else plan a wedding, will be as distinct from this as apples and oranges, or rather as a six layer marzipan topped fruit filled cake extravaganza compared to a tray of fanciful butter-cream topped floral cupcakes.
The first step is finding the venue. To do that you need to determine your number of guests. Everything follows suit after that step has been taken. Zoë and her guy’s wedding was on a weekend in late Sept. because of booking issues, though a wedding during the summer or on a long weekend would make it easier for guests to attend.
Zoё printed the guest’s addresses on clear labels with a lovely cursive script. She researched the etiquette on handwritten vs. printed envelopes and found both are considered acceptable. She had the foresight to print up copies of the sheets of labels for shower thank-yous, wedding invites and wedding thank-yous and had them on hand over the months. 
Oh, we’re big fans of all those glossy wedding magazines – a friend coined the term ‘wedding porn’ for them – for their addictive, seductive qualities causing an – I need to see more and more of those over the top dresses, those exotic veils, the juicy center pieces, the stunning bouquets – reaction to them. My daughter definitely borrowed ideas from them – an example being purchasing ballet flats in her wedding colours to peek out from under her dress. It lent a surprising and sweet pop of colour to catch glimpses of her fanciful magenta flats .
One of the easiest additions to the fun was little bottles of bubbles we ordered from a Canadian company (weddingfavours.ca) that came with optional labels with the couple’s names on them. Guests of all ages (seriously) loved blowing the bubbles after the ceremony and during the couple’s first dances – they gave the celebration a joyful quality (the photos, too). I surprised the bride and groom with inexpensive retro match books with their names and wedding date printed on them – from the same company.
About registering. Guests really do like to shop from a registry BUT Zoё found that they didn’t do it until quite close to the wedding date. The bride and groom registered early and then found many of the items were seasonal and not available when their guests went to purchase them. They registered at a large department store and a popular more modern kitchen and bath shop. Young people shopped at the first, and older people at the second. I’d recommend registering or updating the registry closer to the wedding date.
Here’s an annoying point – people of all ages (who should know better) don’t RSVP! We had to chase down responses. I think older people (relatives) thought we knew they were attending – true- but maybe what they aren’t accustomed to because this wasn’t the case ‘back in my day’ is that we gave them a choice between a meat entree, a fish entree and a vegetarian (which I was surprised to learn is the common practice these days) and had a space for guests to indicate special diet requirements (again not done in my wedding era) so we wanted to get the card back. Accept the idea that you will have to hound people for responses.
Zoё created a seating plan which involved her own art all over the large chart – (as did the invites and thank-yous.) She was attempting to arrange where guests would sit early on, but now she recommends leaving a space of time five days before the wedding to make the seating plan. Once older guests said they were coming, they were committed, but young people canceled right up to the last week putting the seating plan out of whack.
Aside from the weather and incredible scenery– an entire day of gorgeous sun during a week of rain and coastal storms – the most talked about ambiance of the wedding was the musical selections of the DJs. They played the crowd like a book. It was 80’s and 90’s tunes that had everyone, young and old, on their feet dancing the warm autumn night away.
We were advised to not let people wait too long for the cutting of the cake or the garter and bouquet toss – lots of older people are waiting for those events to happen so that they can retire for the evening. Speaking of cake – another little endorsement –Zoё ordered stunning and life-like sugar paper butterflies and had the resort’s chef decorate the wedding cake with those, from a company called SugarRobot – off the etsy.com web site.
We all agreed that we were glad we never pre-determined when to close the bar. We decided to close it when it appeared that people had enough to drink. A few complained half-halfheartedly, but they were the ones we were cutting off and the rest were happy on the dance floor.
My final bit of advice, I’ve always thought this – I think that the bride and groom should go away on a honeymoon for a least a few days RIGHT after the wedding. It is so chaotic and stressful in the days leading up to the big event and so nice for them to go just be calm and happy together – even if they are planning something else in the future.
My daughter and I both like to entertain and looked forward with delight to the chance to plan and carry out a wedding. I advised her that she had to enjoy the process because the day itself would pass in a surreal blur. A dear friend who runs a wedding planning business preeminent tip was this nugget – the purpose of the day is to celebrate the ceremony. The reception, dance, and dinner are important, but don’t overlook the fact that everyone is there to witness your wedding ceremony, so put thought and time into it – making it unique and special to the two of you with personal music and readings or poetry.
The most sage piece of advice from another young bride was simply – ‘remember to have fun’. You’ve been planning and thinking about this magical day for so long, stop worrying (leave that to all the people you’ve hired or friends you’ve delegated, or your mom) and really enjoy your day with your groom and everyone that came to celebrate this exhilarating occasion with you. Brilliant advice – that.
To read the book about all four of my kid’s with their rock star mentalities and the chaos of family life as they hop from one adventure to the next go to http://www.amazon.com/Text-Me-Love-Mom-Girls/dp/1771800712
* photos by Chris Stash
Ding Ding – You Have A Text
Texting has been a part of the way I communicate for so long I can’t remember doing without it. The urban dictionary’s sassy and irreverent definition of text is “text messaging is the act of sending a typed message via cell phone; a very efficient and addicting way of communication,” but their alternate definition is, “The dumbest thing in the world, why would you spend 15 minutes writing something on your phone, when you can call them up and tell them in a minute. 
F – ing waste of time and money.”
I have to say, I agree with both definitions. But if it is a waste of time, and I could talk instead of text, why did I glum onto to text and never let go? Because with our boys it was their preferred way of communication – fast, efficient and when they were younger – one of them hanging with his snowboarding crew at Whistler, or the other during his first months at university, I imagined they could hear the little ding ding of a text and swiftly text me back. I do think they wanted to communicate with home, and in the new world of texting that they were part of, they could whip off a message to me, just to let me know that everything was cool, and none of the guys around them with bent heads and tapping thumbs knew it was mom they were updating, it could just as easily be a girlfriend or someone getting directions to the next party they were off to.
My first feeble attempts to text back when Hudson, our youngest son, first started university away from home had him sending me a mocking text, Mom, lernt to text and spel. My keyboard was tiny, three letters to a key, and my thumbs inexperienced. Plus I had autocorrect and my messages were constantly being autocorrected to autowrong. When my three youngest let me into their texting world they used abbreviations with me, but after too many texts saying, Hudson, I don’t know what rofl (rolling on the floor laughing), or Cole, I’m stymied. Did you really mean to type PMS? And him explaining, Mom it’s P.M.S. meaning Pretty Much the Same. I thought I was catching on to some of the lingo and at the end of a sentence to our youngest daughter, Lily, wrote Peace. She had to text back, Mom, Peace is like Peace Out, when the conversation is over. It DOESN’T mean it‘s the other person’s turn to talk.
I once texted Lily a funny story about her dad and I finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning when we didn’t have to play the parent role in a house empty of kids, and she sent me back this – “Oh Mom MSOOMN”. I was finally onto the Urban Dictionary and looked that one up – “An acronym for Milk Shooting Out Of My Nose. An alternative for ROFL or LMAO (laughing my ass off).” Wow, MSOOMN – I’ll use that one, I thought. But the kids stopped using text abbreviations with their old school mom. They spell it all out. I spell it all out.
Our oldest, Zoё, would rather talk then text, maybe because her hands are busy creating art, and she can tuck a phone under her chin. Cole is a fast efficient texter, and almost always responds to my text queries. Hudson, like Zoё, is text stingy, but I can get his attention, and if asked a direct question he would sooner text me back then listen to my voice mail message. In fact, he’s let me in on a youthful secret. Don’t leave voice mails, Mom. Nobody does that any more. If I see you’ve called. I’ll call back. But if you leave a voice mail, then I know what you want and I’m less curious. I think I get it – it’s a lesson in technological manipulation.
During our years of texting I have been guilty of many infractions, as defined by my new resource – the often helpful, but occasionally annoying Urban Dictionary. Cole, Lily and I might be text addicts, but not textaholics, though according to Urban Dictionary definitions during our text volleyball we have of course, engaged in text tiffins (arguing via text messaging), and even text tirades, which has of course, caused text anxiety defined in the Urban dictionary as- “when you are texting someone and they don’t answer creating anxiety of why they aren’t texting, are they mad, are they being arrested, or what is taking them so damn long?“
I have been entertained by lively text-versation, have sent countless text-minders (“Grampa’s birthday tomorrow – call him, he doesn’t text”), and on days when I was busy with my own work, or trying to avoid it, I’ve sent all my family different text missives, having learned on my own to only ever ask one question at a time to receive an answer, and then waited for the little ding dings indicating one of them have answered me. I have sent far too many text pas, usually involving sending a text to the last person that texted me, instead of the intended recipient – yikes! Hudson has frustrated us all with his many textascapes – an escape from all texting or other text based communications. Commonly occurring due to losing ones phone, and realizing shortly there after just how relaxing the break from technology is.
I’ve witnessed my kid’s blossoming text romances right from the text mackaging – a message sent with the purpose of ‘macking’ or ‘hitting’ on a person of desire. Flirtatious in nature, usually cryptic or ambiguous in hope for a response. And then seen them go on to engage in back and forth text flirting. And let me tell you, any text sex better have taken place behind closed doors. If I have butt into their text business it was to warn them against ever being so pathetic as to commit the text relationship dump.
Myself, I have tried not to be a text stalking mother, or to suffer text blindness – A person afflicted with text blindness is so absorbed by walking and texting that they have lost the ability to see oncoming danger. I have caused textafusion with unchecked typos. I know I have used the text stretch or even the text embargo to try to illicit a response (usually to no avail – it was probably in my first enthusiastic days of texting and some quiet from my cell phone was what they wanted). 
On the other side of that I have been the recipient of the text that said simply, “Mom, I’m lonely“. Or the more practical, “How much milk do you use to scramble two eggs?“ I’ve gotten a photo with a text that said, Does this raw beef look edible or like it’s gone bad?” And of course the, “Please help, I’ve got 58 cents in the bank and my phone bill is overdue.” There has also been the late night text, “Mom, you awake?” before a long conversation in the dark living room. Best of all I have felt the thrill of the text surge on a quiet day at home, missing all the chaos and noise of a house full of our family, when I’ve heard the repeated ding-ding of a new text, and then – oh joy – another and another.
Text Me, Love Mom 