The curse of the family photos...

Let me start with a few apologies. Over the past week, I've been alerted to two things:

1. People who have sent me a message through my website www.janita.ca have not received a response. Let me assure you Oprah and Ellen, for I have a feeling it was you cause you hound me every week, it's not because I don't love you and deeply admire what you do. It's just that it wasn't working properly. Up and restored. Send away.
2. After watching videos on my blog, particularly How to kill a mocking turd... and What not to do 2 weeks after giving birth..., users have been subjected to related YouTube videos popping up, particularly some good old-fashioned porn. Apparently including the words “R-rated” and “giving birth” and "this has nothing to do with having sex" in my blog post gave YouTube (solid) justification to pop a related video on my blog of a woman named Beyoncé giving birth in a bathtub (not the Beyoncé, but still...), followed by a woman...how shall I say this....being delivered...doggy style...by a man over a desk. Fair enough. Who am I to judge? At any rate, to those who were offended, my deepest apologies. To those who enjoyed, you're welcome. I successfully wasted 30 minutes of my life coding HTML to fix this problem so you'll now have to go elsewhere to get your thang on.

With that out of the way, on to the topic at hand. Family Photos....insert shudder. I'll confess, I'd rather pull out my eyelashes, one at a time, than take a family photo. Without fail, we all end up getting pissed off at each other, and look ridiculously irritated in the final snap. Getting one photo with everyone looking at the camera at the same time, both eyes open, with something resembling a smile is about as elusive as obtaining photographic evidence, or scat samples, of Sasquatch.  At some point, I'll show you the highlights of our ill-fated attempts to capture love and peace over the years, because dudes, do I have some shockers. Until then, let's talk about the appointment I had scheduled for James's 6-month photos a few weeks ago. I had initially booked it for Friday, January 13th. If I wasn't suspicious of Friday the 13ths before, I'm having second thoughts about it now. Because it hindsight, the whole venture may have been cursed right from the beginning.

So remember I told you the flu virus hit our home with the wrath of Genghis Khan? Well, so happens that was the day family photos were supposed to happen. That, and James had developed a nasty ear infection; seeing as he was the man of the hour, I cancelled and rescheduled for two weeks later to give him a chance to get better.

So, fast forward to the last week in January. Over the course of the two weeks leading up to the rescheduled appointment, a few things happened. James, as if sensing I was making fun of him for not sitting up yet, decided to do just that a day before he turned seven months old. But he didn't stop there. Immediately after accomplishing that, he decided to start crawling, grew a couple of front teeth to match his bottom two, and decided to start tackling the stairs. Within those two measly weeks between initial photo shoot and the rescheduled one, he went from cute little baby (hence the desire to capture the 6-month phase) to beat up looking I-do-stairs-now-and-other-badass-things. I may as well have rolled a pack of smokes up his sleeve and gotten his (inevitably horrible) Grade 10 photo out of the way.

Needless to say, he was almost bruise-free the day before the photo shoot. I was watching him like a hawk, keeping him as far away as possible from any potential danger; it was like he was in the witness protection program. The day before the shoot, I had made an appointment to get my naturally 27 years ago blonde hair enhanced. Translation: I looked like roadkill. A skunk, to be exact. My sister graciously agreed to watch James while I slipped out for my repairs. When I dropped him off at her house, I said something over-the-top grateful, like:

"Please don't let your kids claw at him like a pack of bush wolves."

I returned a while later to find him in good health, completely unscathed. Apparently my sister held him for the entire two hours to make sure he didn't get a scratch. I'm menacing like that. So I proceeded to bundle him up in his carseat, chatting away with my sister, blah, blah, blah, go to set him off in the corner by the door to start packing up the diaper bag, when we hear a gigantic thump. I looked over to see that the car seat had tipped, but he was still in there, trapped by the car seat cover I had snapped around the top. "What the hell happened there?" I thought.  We raced over to find that I had in fact not strapped him in. Rather, clearly I was too preoccupied chatting with my sister; when I was putting his sweater and jacket on, I must have had the sensation that I was strapping him in. Please don't ask how my brain works. (Quick answer: sometimes, it doesn't) At any rate, he had flipped around in his seat, was face down and had smoked, I repeat, SMOKED his head off the top of the carseat.

"I'm pretty sure that counts as being on your watch, not mine." my sister said. There was really nothing to do at that point but laugh, because I'm such a loser. (We only laughed AFTER we made sure he was alright. I'm not entirely heartless; he's a wee baby after all, not a toddler.)

So I called our photographer that night...told her what happened. Left out the details of how it actually happened, as I'm not sure she actively books lunatics for sessions.

I sent her a few photos...tried to make the damages appear small.

After reviewing these photos, here's what she said: "I'm a photographer. Not a magician." No, she didn't actually say this. She's far too nice for that. This is something I would have said to someone like me. Hence, why I don't take people's photos for a living. She, being the wonderful trooper that she is, told me to bring the family on down, she would see what she could do. Bless her cotton socks.

But that's not all. I then had to tell her that over the course of the past two weeks, my daughter has developed a lazy eye. I told her that I didn't want to talk about it in front of Peanut, make her feel bad about it, so not to worry about getting any shots where they're all looking straight at the camera. Doesn't appear that will be happening anytime soon. I'm not sure how this happened so quickly, but friends, her beautiful big eye is stuck. More on that optometrist visit in a post later this week. Here's what I'm talking about:

All this to say, my husband now refers to these maladies as The Curse of the Family Photos...

We soldiered on and got the photos taken. Terri Schous is a magnificent photographer here in Regina; we've gone to her for professional photos for all three of our kids so I can vouch for her. If you want the money shots of your wee babies, then she's your gal. As for the rest of our clan, I was one big hot, stinky mess during the entire photo shoot. Roddy had to dash off after a few minutes (fake meeting, I assume...) leaving me alone with three kids. I don't know whether it was the hot, bright lights, my cramps or just the pressure, but I don't think it was my finest hour. You see, I'm not good with professional photographers, period. This is by no means an indication of Terri's personality; hell, she's one of the nicest people on this planet. No, it's not that. It's more to do with their apparatus. I'm very frightened of their powerful I-can-see-that-nose-hair lens and that holy-shit-it-appears-as-though-you-have-not-slept-in-47-hours mug shot. That, and the smile on my face in most of these photos has an element of: "I sure as hell hope you're not capturing my face from that angle because let me tell you, I look completely bat-shit from that angle." I swear, you can sometimes see the actual fear in my eyes. Leave it to a professional photographer to capture that, too. (I prefer to call this realism, not vanity. Work with me, here.)

In the end, my husband took a few photos of me with the kids that weekend. Mainly because I had showered and got my hair done, which in and of itself is a brief, miraculous moment-in-time worth capturing. That, and I'm much more relaxed when we're not under the bright lights in a studio. I'm at my best when the pressure is off.

Here are some highlights:

Jack's new thing is to make this ridiculous face for all photos.

Wonder who he gets that from...

Needless to say, we can't seem to take a photo without looking like a pair of fools.

Which pretty much captures the both of us perfectly.

His joyful spirit leaves me breathless, and in tears of laughter. 



My little Peanut...oh, how she warms my heart. Her shy smile, her infectious giggle.

I think she knows she holds our hearts in her hands.

This little guy? He's the highlight of everyone's day.

There's usually a fight to see who can hold him and make him laugh first.

The good news? He's got a big enough heart to make us all feel special.

This picture makes me laugh. Hard.

I've heard that blowing on your child's face

will get them to look at you for photos.

That is, unless your breath makes them want to hurl.

Then they'll just close their eyes, attempt to click their heels three times

 and dream of being transported to Kansas.

Jack and my own little Jimmy Dean......

I'll leave you with this video of James's first official crawl. I had just put out this green playmat for him so he could get a better grip and learn how to crawl...turns out he didn't need it. Did a few yoga moves and then crawled right off the darn thing in less than a minute. Show-off. I love how textbook his crawl is as well...no sliding around on the tummy to get used to the idea for this little guy. He decided to get right down to business. He's like a wind-up baby. Thump, thump, thump, thump. (It's also rather embarrassing to admit that his downward dog puts all my yoga attempts to shame. I may enlist him to do the 30-day shred with me...that'll give me someone else to yell at.)

p.s. if a porn-related yoga video pops up after this video as a result of the content in this post, well then, as the saying goes: "Namasté, motha f*ckas."

I may have recoded the HTML to "fix" this problem but with "me" and "HTML" in the same sentence, hell, in the same universe, there's a much better chance this blog will self-destruct. It's been nice knowing you.

A word of advice on ice cream cakes...

They’re made from ice cream. They’re not really cakes. So when your lovely friends pay you a visit and hand-deliver a beautifully decorated red ice cream cake, you have to put it in the freezer. If you put it in the fridge, your poor unsuspecting husband will pad down the hallway the next morning, at the crack of dawn, to find a trail of red dye flowing across the floor. At first, his heart will stop, as he suspects his beloved has been stabbed. He’ll then follow the trail of “blood” that has leaked right up to your office door, to the pool of it deposited near the bottom of the fridge door. He’ll cautiously open the fridge, suspecting he’ll find the remains of your chopped up body, only to discover a mound of what used to be a cake. An ice cream cake.

You will then receive an email from him later that morning, stating: “Jesus. (Quit calling me Jesus...) Ice cream cakes are made out of frozen ice cream. Operative word here being frozen. They must go in the FREEZER. I damn near had a heart attack this morning. I was on my hands and knees for 25 minutes in an attempt to wipe up a 15-foot train of red ice cream juice. I thought someone had been stabbed and bled out on the kitchen floor.”

You will then pee your pants from laughing too hard, because your bladder can no longer handle this level of excitement. You will then thank Jesus that your husband woke up before you, thus saving you from mopping it up. You will also come to the sad realization that if somewhere along the way, you've incorporated the term "bled out" to your nomenclature for baseline communication, then you've likely watched far too many episodes of Breaking Bad and The Wire. The end.

The Russian River....

What's new, pussycats? At this end, I've spent the past week making edits and revisions to my book...I'm fresh out of copies and need to get more printed. For those of you who aren't aware, I published a book back in 2007 titled Postcards Never Written. It's loosely based on a round-the-world trip I made with my husband back in 2001. It's about what really happens when you're travelling, along with the sanitized postcards sent home to the parents...sane people do not share everything with their parents. After all, why worry them? 

Side note: this is all fine until the day you decide to write a book about it and come to the following realization: "F*ck. My parents are going to read this whole thing." Gulp. "Better make it fiction." Followed by comments like, "Of course that's not what happened, Mom! God. Who do you think I am?"...eyes darting nervously from side to side..."It's fiction, for heaven's sake. Jeez. NO! I did not shit my pants on a chairlift. Do I look like a monster?" I could write an entire novella about that discussion. In the end though, they both gave me their blessing, which to me, is as good as getting it from the Pontiff himself.

I was over the moon when it was announced that my book was the winner of the Saskatchewan Readers' Choice Award and also listed by CBC as one of the top funny books in 2009. I continue to donate a portion of all proceeds to World Vision, and thanks to your amazing support and positive word-of-mouth, I've since donated over $10,000! That right there makes it all worth while. Thank you, from the bottom of my grateful, little heart. (You can learn more about my book by clicking on the photo of the book on the top, right hand side of this screen. You can also visit my website at www.janita.ca)

So, in the process of gearing up for my next printing, I scoured my book for typos and sentences that didn't make sense. (When you, and you alone, are the writer, editor, agent, marketer and publisher, things tend to get a little hazy...there's shit I wrote in there that I have no recollection of...did I mention I used to drink? A lot.)

Yesterday, I sent the final list of changes to my printer. I told him in advance that the list looked long and grotesque...well, because it was. Furthermore, I told him that I had come this far so I wanted it to be the best it could be. He refrained from telling me if that was the case, I should rewrite the whole effing thing. Small mercies he's polite that way. I'll tell you this: after reading my book again for the first time in years, I was slightly appalled by all the drinking stories. Several times, I had to put the book down to wipe tears from my eyes, stare off into space for a few minutes and wonder, was I really this off-the-hinge, and if so, for how many years?  I'm all for shaking a leg and enjoying your youth but hell, I need therapy just reminiscing about my past adventures, never mind what I must have needed back then. I believe the fancy new term for it now is intervention. At any rate, the point of writing the book in the first place was to make people laugh, and hopefully, it does just that.

I'm really excited to show you the updated cover, but it's not ready yet. Once everything's in place, I'll randomly choose a follower from this blog to win their very own updated copy of Postcards Never Written. Until then, I'll share this story from my book. 

For those of you who have commented that my son will kill me when he's older for sharing this video, How to kill a mocking turd...let me assure you, he'll die of embarrassment first, after reading the following story. Should we both survive the shame of full disclosure (oh, the horror of being honest...), he'll always have the upper hand; at least he was sitting on a toilet.

I share this story for one (or all) of the following reasons:

1. It makes me out to be classy and sophisticated. (duh)
2. In case you're having a crappy day (pun obviously intended) , my hopes are that this will make you laugh.
3. In the off chance that you've soiled yourself today, and you're unbearably humiliated, may this give you hope that there is life beyond this disastrous moment, and you'll pull through to the other side. I promise.

Pick your poison; they all work for me.

A tale from Postcards Never Written...fact or fiction? I'll let you be the judge.
The chairlift incident…it still gives me the shivers when I think about it. I don’t even feel safe writing this in my journal, but chances are good that no one will ever read this. Here’s hoping. It happened during my third year at university, when about ten of us decided to head down to Whitefish, Montana for spring break. I don’t ski all that often (or well) but the thought of a vacation at a mountain resort sounded appealing.

Once there, we promptly agreed that it was far too cold to actually ski, not to mention the effort required, so we buckled down in our rental chalet and started to play a drinking game. The game itself was easy. Or so I thought. There was a deck of cards and you had to guess whether the card being flipped would be a black suit or a red suit. Not exactly a mind bender. (Hey, we were Aggies, not bio-chemical engineers. Translation: we were cool...other-side-of-the-pillow cool) But if you were wrong, you had to drink your beverage. Active listening not being one of my core strengths, I was downing my entire beverage each time, rather than taking just one sip. I don’t recall anyone mentioning the “one-sip” point during the initial reading of the rules. In a disastrously short period of time, I ingested copious amounts of alcohol and retired from the game rather early, finding comfort and solace face down in an empty pizza box.

The next day, wiped but determined, we got up and hit the slopes, ready to exercise and sweat out the alcohol and vanilla-cherry cigar impurities. Truthfully, I felt like death warmed up, however I put on a brave face for the crew. I even attempted to hit a few jumps on the way down to see if I looked anywhere near as cool as the Olympians on television. (Scattered reports gathered much later indicated that a three-legged mule strapped to skis would have appeared more graceful.)

Does it bear mentioning that this landing didn't go well?

This photo was taken on a different ski trip although my technique across all slopes remains uniformly consistent...

there's another word for it...horrific.

I can assure you, had I stuck that landing, there would've been shin splints.

As it turned out, my shins were the least of my concerns.

 I’m guessing that all the bumping about on the jumps led to the serious loosening of my guts. As I was lining up for the chairlift afterwards to head back up, my stomach started making some very strange sounds. It felt like something was kicking me from the inside – something large. With a violent temper.

My friend (who shall remain anonymous) was with me when I heaved myself back onto the chairlift. I was desperately trying to pay attention to her endless chattering, while all my focus was on not crapping in my ski-pants. I was in full state alarm. Have you ever tried to cross your legs in an awkward attempt to squeeze your ass cheeks together really hard, while wearing skis that are six feet long, whilst desperately clinging to a chairlift? No? Then, I dare you. Double-dog it.

The panic that overtook me can’t be described. Here I was, hundreds of feet in the air stuck on a chairlift, in minus God-knows-what temperature, about to ruin my brand new ski-pants. Really, can it get any worse than that? Noticing my discomfort, my friend asked me what was wrong and I told her that I didn’t know exactly, but I didn’t feel too good. I told her I had to go to the bathroom really badly, and that I didn’t know if I would be able to make it. I vaguely remember her asking what I meant exactly by not being able to make it. My answer came loud and clear; the sound that sliced through the crisp morning air, and ricocheted down through the valley, confirmed our worst fears. It was meant to be a tiny harmless fart to let some of the pressure escape, but it ended up being just a little bit more. This cat shat.

As Sigmund Freud so cleverly discovered when treating patients who experienced puzzling losses of normal functioning, the shame was merciless. I believe our friend Sigmund used the term hysteria to describe the aftermath of such an event, and suggested an associated unconscious conflict. I can’t comment on the unconscious conflict, but the conscious conflict I was having at that exact moment was not to faint with embarrassment, for fear of plunging to my death. My friend was laughing so hard she almost knocked the both of us off the chairlift with her incessantly shaking. As my good luck continued to run its course, she managed to catch her breath long enough to scream to our friends on the lift behind us, eloquently informing them of what had just happened. A voice like hers really travels through a mountain range; I’m certain only four hundred fellow skiers, give or take, heard about my accident. At least it was contained to that. When you're ready to die, four hundred people isn't that many. Did I mention I was suffering from hysteria? I made my friend ski right behind me all the way back to the chalet, just in case it was visible through my ski pants. Children don’t need to see these sorts of things.

In the end, it sounded worse than it was, with minor skid marks being the extent of the damage. I’ve clocked it as a small miracle. Although I did lose a few barrels of dignity that day, my ski-pants were salvageable. And really, that's all that matters; those things are expensive.

I’ve since heard of this vodka phenomenon being referred to as The Russian River. It was rushin', alright. Furthermore, let's be clear that the vodka company that produces Silent Sam should seriously rethink the name of their beverage. There’s nothing even remotely quiet about it.