Things I Would Tell My Daughter (if I had one...)

You know, now that I'm almost 35 I just feel like I have so much...wisdom. 

Did you laugh? I know I did.  If I had been drinking milk I would have snorted it out my nose.  But seriously, if I had a daughter I would tell her so many things that I know now.   Or if I could travel back in time, I would tell my younger self to smarten up.

1.  Date the super nice guy in high school.  For me, it's the one...the one who's last name I can't remember, but he sat next to me in home room.  He was shorter than me, but guess what...who cares???  Who cares!!!  I remember how he would take you to his grandma's flower shop and let me pick any flower I wanted.  We could just sit and read alone together and be completely content.  He was sweet and kind and thoughtful and didn't want to change anything about me.  Ya, that's the guy you want to date and then hopefully marry.  He's the one that is awesome husband material. 

2.  The guy who has been married twice, makes you fight for time with him, and always has a bevy of ladies around him?  Ya, he's not going to change.  He is NOT going to change.  He is not good husband material.  His bad boy image, while it might be totally attractive now, is NOT appealing when you're 8 months pregnant and he's making plans with all his girlfriends for a Friday night.  His ways will not change.  You will not change him.  You WILL NOT change him.  Be with someone who wants to be with you, not with someone you have to beg to be with.  You will be sooooooo much happier.

3.  Make peace with your body early on.  It is an amazing vessel that sustains your life.  It is capable of doing incredible things (like, say, pushing out a 10lb 6oz baby with a 14 inch head and shoulders like a linebacker).  So love it.  Treat it well.  Be easy on it.  Everyone has cellulite, stretch marks and scars.  You are beautiful beyond compare even if you have a 5 o'clock leg shadow.  If you get that early on, you will save yourself years of unhappiness and feelings of inadequacy.

4.  If you have no idea what you want to be when you grow up, and you find yourself out of high school and in University....take Business Management.  Seriously, these are courses that will come to save you in the future no matter what you end up doing in life.  I seriously wish I had taken those courses instead of the Philosophy courses and History courses and English Lit courses I ended up spending thousands and thousands of dollars on, before I nearly had a nervous breakdown.  Coincidentally, I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, but I really wish I had some management techniques to show for all that debt.

5.  Learn how to do some really cool things for yourself.  Example?  Learn how to change a tire, fix a vacuum, some basic plumbing skills.  It's super empowering to know you can do it and don't need a man.  Then when you find a man, you'll know you love him for him and not for what he can do for you.  Seriously, when the power went out and I had to reset the garage door opener so it would open???  I wanted to tell people, strangers on the street, that I could fix my own garage door and I didn't need a man.  It was awesome.  When I put together the elliptical we decorated with lights at Christmas time (as I didn't actually use it....), ya...super amazed and proud of myself.

6.  Have a budget.  Save money.  If you cannot afford it, do not buy it.  Simple.  I wish, to this day, that I could listen to and follow this advice.  It eliminates a load of worry and needless stress.  And how amazing would it be to buy a house or condo at 25 with a 20% down payment?  Am I right?  You cannot live in a Coach purse, even if it is Fuchsia pink and lovely.  You will just end up selling it again on e-bay so you can spend that money on something a little more practical.

7.  Listen to your intuition.  Your intuition is God's way of communicating with you.  I truly believe this.  The *many* times I have not listened to my intuition, I always have regretted it.  It is a gift that lets you know you might be in trouble even when everything else around you seems completely legit.  I'm not saying be a paranoid freak - I'm saying if, deep down, you feel awkward, frightened, or whatever...it's okay.  Listen to it, and do something about it.

8.  Your feelings matter.  Like, a lot.  The importance of this is two fold.  First of all, people in this world will like to tell you you're over reacting.   "I don't know why you're so angry about this...you're over reacting."  No.  No, you are not.  If it's what you feel, it's what you feel there is no apology meant.  However, this brings me to point two...while you may not be able to control what you feel, you CAN control what you do with that feeling.  For example, it's completely okay to feel angry with some guy for standing you up on a date.  It is not okay to use that anger to spray paint the side of his house or key his car.  That would not be appropriate.  Use the anger to fuel growth and healing instead.  Jail would not be fun, I'm assuming.

9.  Googling a crushes name is not stalking.  It's researching.  It's important to be informed about the choice you're going to make.  I figure if companies can google a candidates name before they hire them, we can google a potential boyfriend.  Driving by a crushes house at two in the morning to see if they're a night owl like you?  Ya, stalking.

10.  Be the nice girl.  Be kind to everyone.  Smile.  Don't gossip.  Be the girl who, if a horrible rumour was going around about you, no one would believe it because your actions speak louder.  People might hate you anyways, but it's so much more important what you think of yourself than what others think of you.  You might be the sweetest peach in the bunch, and still find someone who hates peaches (Courtesy of Dita Von Teese). 

Any tips to your former self?  To your daughters? 

Uh....any tips for me??

Parenting Advice - Single Mommy Style

I have a wonderful, beautiful, amazing friend who has a daughter who is predisposed to learning languages.  By the time she was one, she was spouting full sentences and saying words like, "Stethoscope".  She is now almost eight and she speaks fluent English, Croatian, and French.  Her next language will be German, she says, because it's so useful.  My beautiful, amazing friend and her husband would smile to themselves and think, "Ahhhhh, we know how to teach our children languages!" and then they had a boy.  Now, I'm not saying it's because he's a boy...but Q was slow with his words too.  Anyways, my friend and her husband now realize their daughter is amazing with languages and they had something to do with it, because they are her parents after all, but she had the most to do with it.  I tell this little story because I have a brilliant little boy (and yes, I am a little biased, but hear me out...)  I can list on one hand the number of times he has had a temper tantrum in 8 years.  You know when they have to do something by the count to 3, well I have never, ever reached 3 - neither Q nor I know what happens when I get there.  He tells me when he does something wrong before I find out, because he has a conscience.  He has such a gentle demeanor with other children who are either less fortunate or who have special needs.  While I think I'm a great mom, I also know that a lot of these qualities are *just* Q.  He most likely would be exactly as he is, whether I was his mommy or not. 

However, I am going to take some of the credit because I have spent the last 8 years with him, and it's not always a walk in the park.  Without further ado, here is my advice for how to raise a little boy as a single mommy...

1.  Tell him you love him.  Like, every single time you think of it, say it.  This might mean that you say it 20 times a day, and that's okay.  One of the many reasons my relationship with his dad didn't work out was that he couldn't say (nor show, really) that he loved me.  His response to my question would always be, "Well, I'm here, aren't I?"  Knowing you're loved is one of the most amazing feelings in the world.  It makes you feel safe, secure and well...loved, for lack of a better word.  And, you never, ever, ever know when may be the last time you get to say it.  So say it, and say it often.

2.  Cuddle.  If you have a cuddler, take advantage of every single minute.  One day they won't want to cuddle anymore (and that makes my heart ache), but as my child turns 8, I see there is no way to stop  him from growing.

3.  Tell him you're proud of him.  Yes, of course, when he brings home a test that he did really well on, by all means tell him then...but I'm talking about when he's standing there and he remembers to say please or thank you or he does something the first time you ask or when he tells the truth when a lie would have been easier.  Tell him you're proud of the person he's becoming.

4.  Let them talk.  And talk, and talk and talk and talk.  Q went on a road trip with my brother and sister in law last month and I laughed out loud when A said he talked the whole 5 hours it took to get there.  First, it means he's comfortable, because he doesn't do that with everyone, but secondly...it might not seem like anything important to you, but it sure is important to him.  If you listen, really listen, to all their little *nothings* they'll come to you with all their *somethings*.  

5.  Give them choices.  This sometimes bites me in the butt, because it takes patience, and sometimes one of the choices doesn't end up working, but for the most part, giving him two choices works really well.  It works because he feels involved, but it also works because when he has the choice to do the good thing or the bad thing, he recognizes it as a choice.  For instance:  You can put your toys away where they belong, or I can put your toys away in the garbage.  It's your choice.  

6.  Encourage alone time.  This is actually also 'Have a sibling', but like me, not always feasible.  It's exhausting trying to entertain him all the time and get everything else done around the house.  He's going through a you're-not-entertaining-me-so-I'm-bored phase right now, so I really understand how important it is for him to be able to entertain himself.  What is he going to do when he's 20 if he needs me to entertain him???

7.  Let them use technology.  Our children are going to have jobs that we don't even know exist yet.  Technology, whether we like it or not, is not going away.  I have a co-worker who always jokes that he never thought computers were going to catch on, as he types with his two index fingers.  Oh, it's caught on.  My child can use my iPhone just as well as I.  He knows how to record series on our PVR and I don't.  He can log onto my computer and access his websites.  And these are basic skills that a whole lot of children his age do not have.  When I volunteered in his class, some children didn't know how to even hold the mouse.  These children will be left behind.  Give your child a head start now.  Give them a time limit, monitor what sites they're seeing, obviously, but do not kid yourself by thinking computers aren't going to "catch on".

8.  Sports, sports, sports.  I have a couple of friends with teenage boys and these kids are really, really good kids.  Of course, it's the parenting (!) but it's also because these kids have been involved in sports from an early age.  They're too busy playing sports to get into any trouble.  Their friends are too busy playing sports to get into any trouble.  They're having fun, they're busy and they have positive roll models.  Win-Win-Win.

9.  Make memories.  One day, my son will be a man with smelly, hairy feet.  Ugh, it makes me shudder.  But I want him to have memories with me now, that make him the man he is to become.  I was thinking the other day of all the opportunities my son has had that many are not as fortunate.  We've been to Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, DisneyLand, Science World, The Aquarium, the Capilano suspension bridge, fireworks, the beach, zoos, day trips to Seattle, movie date nights.  My heart swells with joy when he says, "Mommy, remember when we...."    

10.  This is my favourite...

I tried it the other day, and it was awesome.  It really worked.  It even freaked me out a little bit!

Oh, and I have more...but 10 is such a nice, even number.  Maybe I'll do a part 2.  Any parenting tips, either for boys or for single mothers or girls or not single mothers that I should include???