Within the last month, three of my six kids have had birthdays. It’s a very lean month in our household – topping up RESPs along with throwing a few birthday parties can take its toll on anyone’s budget.
In addition to not liking birthdays’ financial implications, I think birthday partie… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on November 30, 2009 at 1:21pm —
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So we finally bit the bullet and are moving house. The thought of it is overwhelming – so much crap to be sorted, packed or purged. With six kids, I know you can imagine just how much crap we’re talking here. Adding further stress is the prospect of making our current house look nice enough that… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on November 23, 2009 at 6:56am —
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So we finally bit the bullet and are moving house. The thought of it is overwhelming – so much crap to be sorted, packed or purged. With six kids, I know you can imagine just how much crap we’re talking here. Adding further stress is the prospect of making our current house look nice enough that… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on November 23, 2009 at 6:56am —
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As all you mamas know, once one kid is down, it’s just a matter of time before they all start dropping like flies. I’ve got a lot of flies, so things can drag on for quite some time. In fact, with so many flies, the whole little germ fest tends to recycle and the first kid who brought it into the… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on November 16, 2009 at 9:27am —
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We can all give in little ways that make a huge difference. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want their children to be kind and generous people who grow up with a desire to make contributions. There is no question that the best way to teach kids is through role modeling. At Mabel’s Labels we wanted our work lives to reflect that value, so over a year ago we started a Community Relations Committee. We recently had a look at what we have accomplished and it left us with a decent case of the warm fu… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on November 9, 2009 at 11:14am —
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I’m not a fun person. Let me qualify that – I’m not fun in the traditional sense.
I don’t dress up for Hallowe’en and I have never met an April Fools Day prank that I didn’t think was stupid. When people send me funny jokes by e-mail, the joke gets deleted immediately and the sender receives a message requesting removal from the group list since I have no time for such nonsense. There is a long list of things that prove that I’m not a fun person.
So imagine the surprise my neighbours got this… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on November 2, 2009 at 11:43am —
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I have people send me this link regularly:
I’m always so chuffed when people take the time to forward something that might be of interest to me. Have a look – this clip is a beauty. A lovely teenager with autism gets his chance on the basketball court and absolutely shines – elevated to hero status by his supportive peers cheering him on. It is truly moving.
It also annoys the crap out of me.
When I see this clip, it makes me want to scream “So what? You think the only thin… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on October 26, 2009 at 6:59am —
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Last week on October 15th, many mamas were lighting candles in remembrance. That day has been designated as National Pregnancy Loss & Infant Loss Awareness Day.
I had a miscarriage soon after my first child was born. My loss was accompanied with some guilt too – finding out I was pregnant while having a newborn left me horrified. I quickly adjusted to the thought of my “Irish Twins” and was devastated when I miscarried. Then came the guilt – how could I have initially greeted this pregnancy… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on October 19, 2009 at 7:47am —
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I was miraculously alone in my car the other day tuned into CBC, hoping to catch the dreamy voice of long- time crush, Jian Ghomeshi.
Being interviewed was Shane Earle, Mount Cashel Orphanage survivor. Something he said really resonated with me: the way we live each day as an adult is a constant reaction to how we were treated as a child.
That really spoke to me – although the majority of our years are spent as an adult, those childhood years are with us always. We carry those around with us d… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on October 13, 2009 at 11:27am —
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I have wrapped up my maternity leave and am now enjoying my official Mabel duties. One of these duties includes overseeing the Sales Department, which is kind of funny since I almost killed a sales guy this week.
The other evening I was nagged by the sound of a faint knock at our door. I was just starting all the bedtime routines and it was a particularly challenging evening since daddy-o was out of town.
I ignored the nagging knocking as long as possible then finally opened the door. There he… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on October 5, 2009 at 6:52am —
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I have this friend Steve who was recently on a flight. Across the aisle was a new mama with her babe and a very elderly man, who from here on in shall be called ‘old dude’.
As the airplane was taking off, mama started breastfeeding babe. As any travelling mama knows, it’s good if you can get babe to feed on the way up and the way down to relieve any ear pain due to changing air pressure.
As she is feeding, old dude is shuffling around, mumbling under his breath, clearing his throat and basical… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on September 29, 2009 at 11:34am —
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I go to the Mabel’s Labels HQ about two and half days a week and work from home the rest of the time. I like going to the office for the obvious reasons – it’s quiet, no one interrupts me to say they want a snack, and I get to dress up a bit (OK, admittedly “dressing up” is only about a half step up from my mama uniform).
There’s something else about the office that I like that’s tricky to describe – a certain dynamic that makes ours not your average office.
One thing is that our staff is just… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on September 21, 2009 at 7:23am —
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Several years ago, I reluctantly moved to the suburbs. I missed my life as an urban mama cruising all the mama haunts with my three babes loaded up in a triple stroller. Suddenly every outing involved a mini-van. Since the move, my kid crew has doubled in size and like it or not, suburbia is the very best place for us.
This was reinforced last week when we held the Mabel’s Labels Staff and Family Summer Sizzler in my backyard. I gotta say, life is pretty good if you are a kid hanging out in my… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on September 8, 2009 at 11:15am —
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Since most parents are not particularly fond of whining, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” is a common mantra in many households. It is most often heard immediately following annoying requests such as “but I wanted to sit in THAT chair” or “no, not the blue plate, the RED one!”
The adult version of “you get what you get” is when you have a baby. Not a lot of social engineering is involved so you can’t exactly order a baby of a particular gender or personality type. You can’t even c… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on August 24, 2009 at 7:17am —
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Like any kiddos, mine are big fans of critters and creatures. They are particularly fond of chipmunks, and at the cottage they spend a lot of time feeding and basically domesticating these little creatures.
Turns out they have made fast friends with the little critters at hom… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on August 17, 2009 at 8:14am —
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My cousin just had her first baby, an adorable girl named Claire Maeve.
It was discovered at an early ultra-sound that the baby was going to have a cleft lip. Although minor on the scale of things that can go wrong, it is still news that parents need to digest. The mama and p… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on August 10, 2009 at 10:10am —
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I was in Chicago last weekend, attending the BlogHer conference for the first time. In the world of mama blogging, this is the biggie. I was in the company of 1,500 amazing women bloggers — attending great seminars and fabulous parties. It was great fun to see online relationships transform into real life friendships. Really, it was like one big reunion of people who have never actually met before.
In the build up to BlogHer, all the talk was about fashion. This fashion chatter started early on… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on August 4, 2009 at 8:22am —
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As some of you know, my oldest kid has autism. We take this autism stuff pretty seriously and as a result he has made remarkable gains. Indeed, to the untrained eye he is indistinguishable from his neuro-typical peers.
Last weekend four of the kiddos did a triathlon. When “Number One Son” finished the running component too early, it was obvious he got confused somewhere along the way. Turns out he went around the wrong pylon cutting the run short.
That evening my 8-year-old daughter came into… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on July 20, 2009 at 7:23am —
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I’ve been doing a bit of complaining about having to find a car that suits our family. I was whining about this on my other blog (www.thebabymachine.com).
The biggest issue has been that it seemed like no one wanted to help us out. I e-mailed contacts in the car industry and did… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on July 14, 2009 at 6:55am —
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One week down, eight more to go.
This week four of the kiddos were enrolled in a little tennis camp in the neighbourhood for two hours a day. The plan was that in those two hours I would have enough time to clear out my e-mail inbox, update my Facebook status, spend a few moments on twitter, read a couple of blog posts and run an errand. The rest of my day would belong to the kiddos.
It rained this week and while I don’t mean to carry on and complain about the rain, tennis camp gets cancelled… Continue
Added by Julie Cole on July 7, 2009 at 6:59am —
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