Welcome to My New Blog!

I have been asked many times, "Lesley, why on earth do you keep yapping about birth and vaginas? Don't you have anything else to say?" Indeed, I do. I have been writing my Musings of a Montreal Doula Blog for a couple of years and it caters to those who are interested in or involved with birth and those who work with birth.

So as not to appear one dimensional, I've decided to strike up a new blog. For those of you who are fans of my birth musings, don't worry...I'm not going anywhere. There are many of you, however, who have expressed enjoyment of my writing, but just aren't as consumed with the process of birth as I am, and would prefer to hear about other things going on in MotherWit Land.

I like to talk about what I know...or at least what I think I know. I enjoy talking about parenting. I feel reasonably qualified to do so, being a mother of four. I love talking about food, music, films, running, crafty stuff, and things of the soul.

I guess I'll start by introducing myself properly. You know me as a doula, and while this is a large part of my life, I have other stuff going on too.

As I mentioned, I have four kids. Their range of ages is quite spread out. A couple of years ago, I had one in daycare, one in elementary school, one in high school, and one in CEGEP (Quebec style college). Now that my third child is thirteen, I officially have three teens in the house, though this won't last long, as my eldest will be twenty in May. I have 2 girls and 2 boys (girl boy girl boy), and have had the pleasure of being the mother of a young child (in my opinion, meaning kids under seven), for almost twenty years.

I will admit it, most would consider me a "crunchy" mom. I have home birthed. I have breastfed veeeerrryy long term, including having stints of tandem nursing. I have co-slept for the vast majority of my mothering "career". I didn't have my sons circumcised. I have crumpled up prescriptions of antibiotics and anti-asthma medication written for my kids at various times by stern faced folks "in authority", looking askance at a young me in dreads and docs, and headed off to the herbalist's instead. I have home schooled. I bake "sugar free" for my kids, do organic wherever I can, and have had memberships with various csa's. Don't ask me about vaccinations, as it seems to be a really loaded issue, and I'm here to have fun, not to argue. My kids roll their eyes at my hippie lala ways. Yet I am not as granola as I appear on paper.

I am also practical. And I am not an extremist either. I have eaten at McDonald's, I love coffee. I used to have a terrible battle with nicotine (which I have happily conquered entirely), and when I'm not trying hard to eliminate bad stuff from my diet, I am happily eating crap food. My mothering is not consistently granola, because nothing's more fun than taking the kids to Southern Barbeque (it's the only food we all agree on as being awesome), and I'm not the type of mom who is a martyr for her kids. I don't make them tons of special things because they don't like the food I'm making, I never really played with them because it kind of bores me (though we love reading together), I think sometimes a little negligence is a good thing, as I have a hard time indulging kids who need constant attention, and I smell lies. Or at least my kids think I do. I tell them lies smell like the worst farts. If I suspect a lie I just start sniffing, and the expression on their faces let me know if I'm right.

I'm really weak in some areas. I am rotten at policing the kids to clean up after themselves. Probably they take after me. I'll admit, our house is a pit of mess and chaos much of the time, but hey, they haven't shut us down yet. I'm not great with helping with homework. They help each other. And I admit I don't really get hung up on grades. I don't care if my kids are thought of as the smartest or most creative, or worry how old they are when they toilet train, or how many languages they speak by the time they're five months old. By the time we're adults, those things mean jack anyway. I much prefer nurturing their emotional intelligence. I figure their natural curiosity and enjoyment of all things intellectual develops individually when they find something they're interested enough in. Luckily, I seem to have some pretty smart cookies on my hands, though it's not always reflected in the grades of some of them...and frankly, I'm not so invested in that. I'm strict about some things (the movies and tv they watch) and not so much about others (okay, you can clean your room tomorrow). Do I think I'm a good mom? I think I do okay, though there are days I feel like the mom of all moms, or other days I feel like I never should have been allowed to have kids. I struggle to find balance, as every mom does.

A bit about my education: I studied many things in university, from philosophy to English literature, to creative writing, to Western civilization. I never got a degree though, because I got knocked up, became a doula, and never looked back. Though I my not have a university degree, I have a LOT of training under my belt in various forms of bodywork, psychotherapy, breastfeeding and birth support, and am staunchly auto didactic in many things ranging from Ayurveda, knitting, instrument playing, and herbal stuff.

I have been working as a doula for eighteen years. I am most fortunate to work with the most phenomenal team of doulas a girl could ask for. Not only are they all amazing doulas, they are dear friends. I could send out a mass SOS email saying, "I'm in a bad space. Spa and brownies NOW" and barring any births, kid gastros or important recitals, they'd be there. It's a great thing.

My husband Mitchell and I have been together for twenty-one years. What keeps us together is the fact he knows how to make me laugh my head off and ground me when I'm off the wall. We love to browse through fancy food shops. He has always been in support of my work and my way of mothering. We share an adoration of the same kinds of music, are GREAT traveling together, and always snuggle when we watch movies. We fight sometimes and bicker quite a lot in the stress of what is, by today's standards, a large-ish family, but "I love you" is said at least once per day, and usually more than that. We are looking forward to spending our post parenting years exploring the world. We have not done enough traveling, as we've been parenting young children since we were very young.


Anyhoo, that's a bit about me. Off to fold a week's worth of laundry. Check back soon! I will write periodically when something tickles my funny bone or stokes my ire.