First Monday of school break - how's that going so far?

So it's the first Monday that the kids don't have to go to school. How is that working out for you, particularly if you intended to send your children to city-run daycare or camp?

Here's our latest thing on the negotiations, and a look at how people are changing their habits by switching to cloth diapers, pooling kitchen scraps in backyard composts, etc.

Some people have been contacting me on Twitter to tell me about camps that still have room. These include Inner Golf, Lytton Park Tennis Camp, and ArtsExpress. If you've got others to share, please let me know.

On a related topic, I kind of woke up with a bit of a New Year's resolution sort of feeling today for no good reason. To me it feels like it's the real first official day of summer since the kids were allowed to laze about in jammies this morning. On odd time to get motivated, perhaps, given that I would rather have enjoyed a summer-holiday Monday myself. But because mine is one of those personalities that clings to firsts of any new season as an opportunity to get my goal-setting freak on, I decided to turn over several new leaves today:

1) No longer will I use personal life calamities of eight months ago to justify driving to work. I don't need to be alone in my car that badly. I'm wasting all kinds of money on parking, but more importantly than that, it's heinous for the environment and a crap example for the kids. I've been a rocket rider for most of the last decade. I'm getting my bum back on the subway and streetcar where I will enjoy reading my paper (when I'm lucky enough to get a seat) and feeling virtuous. (Thank you, dude who gave me his seat just because I was having a hard time keeping my balance in my fetching orange wedge sandals.)

2) I'm buying smaller amounts of produce at once because this strike makes it all the worse to throw stuff out. Of course it's never a good time to have to chuck entire bags of organic salad greens but it just seems terrible right now, particularly since everything we cart to the transfer stations is just put in one big ol' pile to go to the landfill. Item 1 will make that easier, because I'm more likely to stop by a green grocer when I'm walking by each day, rather than when I have to find somewhere to park (note to self: pay parking tickets).

3) I'm bringing my lunch to work more often. I don't like the cafeteria food, it's a waste of money, it's not good for me, and, again, I don't want to be responsible for Styrofoam and it's Michigan odyssey.

4) I'm renewing my commitment to my exercise routine, which has somehow come apart a bit in the last six weeks. Setting aside the obvious health benefits, I need it as a mood-lifter and stress-buster to counter the truckloads of working-parent anxiety and guilt I experience each week. And I like having the boys see me leave the house in my running gear. It gives me a little more credibility when I'm turning off Treehouse and hauling out that old chestnut: "Just go outside! You'll LIKE it when you get out there."

Despite stinky garbage piles and an uncertain camp schedule, I'm looking at the summer with a fair amount of optimism. May we all have the picnic days and sandcastle builds of our ideal family summers. Why delay? Have a picnic on Canada Day or next weekend because there's nothing like Labour Day "we never went to _______" regret). Don't let it happen to you.

Employers: This is a week for childcare compassion

When Toronto municipal workers walked off the job at midnight last night, that left 2,800 kids without daycare. There are 57 city-run daycares that are now closed, leaving hundreds of families in a bind.

Most vulnerable here are the people who rely on city daycares to mind their children while they're at work full-time, and who don't have grandparents or other family members ready to help out in a pinch. I'm thinking particularly of new immigrants, of single parents raising children without help from the other parent, and of those in low-paying service jobs where not showing up could mean immediate dismissal.

Some people will be able to get away with taking their kids to the office for a day or two. Others will start eating into precious holiday days or - if they're among the lucky few - some family emergency days.

This is the time for managers to be compassionate and throw out the rule book. Who cares if you're not meant to use your sick days for anything other than being sick yourself? (Hell, it's a rather luxurious sick-days package that has, in part, got us into this mess.) Maybe there's an empty office where a few stray kids can play computer games or watch a DVD. Perhaps some of your employees can work from home. Business won't grind to a halt, and it's just this sort of decency that builds company morale and trust, particularly in difficult economic times.

And childless eye-rollers be damned. Our kids may be sitting next to us colouring with the highlighters from our desk drawer for a few days until we figure something out. It's incredibly stressful to be torn between work and family responsibilities, particularly if you've got mouths to feed and concerns about keeping the paycheque that allows you to do so. Don't like it? Plunk on some headphones and maybe throw your extra Post-it notes our way. We might just get a few more things done while Junior uses those to decorates the filing cabinet.

Cameron quote of the day

On a hot walk home from a playdate:

"How about nine jugs of water? Would that stand you for a whole desert?"

See this movie! The Baby Formula

Last night I watched a screener of The Baby Formula, a Canadian-made comedy about two married women who are desperate to have their own biological child. They become the first women to conceive using "female sperm" created in lab from each others' stems cells. The movie is funny, clever and provocative. AND IT OPENS THIS WEEKEND, timed to the start of Pride.

Shot in various locations around Toronto as a sort of "making-of-a-documentary" (moms-to-be Athena and Lilith have a somewhat hot-and-cold relationship with the filmmakers), the story gets both hilarious and heart-wrenching as they tell their families about where the babies come from.

Incidentally, the premise isn't completely weird science: Spermless offspring have already been achieved with mice in labs, and manufactured sperm is being developed as a potential fertility treatment for men with low sperm counts.

The movie doesn't sidestep, but rather tackles with humour, the hot-button ethical issues that surround stem cell research. One of the super-nerdy scientists (a man) says something like, "People say we're making men obsolete. That's not true. We're simply making them unnecessary."

Athena's super Irish Catholic mom is appalled (to start with that her daughter is in some sort of "perverted" relationship with another woman) by the news: "These scientists are trying to steal the immaculate conception from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour." Lilith's two gay dads (both struggling with notions of staying on the wagon for their impending granddaughters), on the other hand, think it would be super fun to make some belly casts. Athena's granny is supportive and hysterical when she attends the Pride Parade ("I just thought all the wee dingle dangles were pear shaped!").

The uniqueness of the conception plot aside, the story is relatable for anyone who has been pregnant. And because it's well-told generally, it's a good choice for all kinds of movie fans.

The movie opens today at AMC Yonge/Dundas. If you check it out, not only will you be seeing an entertaining indie film before most of your friends, you'll be helping a Canadian filmmaker to get decent distribution of a funny and thought-provoking movie.

Plus, the My Humps send-up at the end is worth the price of admission. Here's a peek:

Cameron quote of the day

"Maybe there isn't an actor that plays R2D2 because he's really weird."

Stuff that's currently in my bag

List of things I found in my tote bag while searching fruitlessly for a hair elastic:

one notebook with yellow damask cover
one orange marker
one grey marker
keys
hair spray
hair defrizzing stuff
Tide-to-Go pen
pencil
picture-hanging kit
several pacifier covers
package of wipes
Blackberry
mints
cosmetics bag
Toronto Star Saturday Living section
two parking tickets
bib
Filofax
wallet
drycleaner receipt
dinky car
deodorant
basketball key chain (still in cello for restaurant kid emergencies)
package of sunflower seeds
Epi-Pen
compact mirror
bag of microwave popcorn

Father's Day contest

If you haven't already, please check out parentcentral.ca's  "Dad's Ultimate Prize Pack" contest from Canadian Tire.

You could win the dad in your life all these fancy gardening things (retail value $500):

* grass trimmer/edger (I'll just say now that I would really appreciate one of these for Father's Day because I am the manly gardener in my life)

* chainsaw (because some people really do cut up cords of wood in their Toronto backyards and I hope it's with their shirts off)

* hedge trimmer (self-explanatory)

* pole-saw (I have no idea what that is but I'm making an educated guess that it involves cutting stuff that would normally be out of reach)

* leaf blower (bad for the environment but very manly — why rake leaves when you can blow them onto the neighbour's lawn?)

* lithium-ion charger (because the words "lithium" and "ion" sound really impressive when put together even though nobody knows what they mean)

Check out the prize details here and enter to win all this stuff here.

Thanks for entering. Please tell your friends.

Early learning - about time!

I hope you've all had a chance to check out our coverage of the Pascal report findings released today.

The long-awaited report recommends, for starters, bringing childcare and education under the same ministry in the Ontario government. The priority in the vision outlined by the report authors is to provide full-day learning for 4- and 5-year-olds. Full-day kindergarten exists in some parts of the province and there are pilot projects sprinkled plenty of places. But the idea here is to make a new gold standard for early care, levelling the playing field so that all kindergartens will have access to quality, licensed childcare throughout the day.

It's been interesting to witness the dialogue happening in the comments on our main story. The level of contempt for working parents from some commenters is really remarkable, and I find this sort of polarizing debate a little 1982. Are we still worried about the erosion of the nuclear family so much we're getting our ginch in knots over subsidized childcare?

I said this earlier today on twitter, but I just don't believe this means anyone who wants to be home with their own children is going to have their four-year-old dragged out of the house for 10 hours a day. You know that thing, "The years before five last the rest of their lives?" — a phrase adopted about a decade ago as a result of advances in neuroscience that showed us exactly how young brains are wired? Well this is the Ontario government maybe starting to catch up to, and make our education system reflect that. It's about ensuring the child from a low-income family isn't stuck in some unlicensed, dismal basement daycare while his more affluent peers are ferried by at-home parents or nannies from one enriching activity to another.

I agree with the commenter who pointed out that the same people who react so negatively to any nanny-state notion are the first to cry foul and demand government interference when kids from poor circumstances get in trouble with the law.

As a mom with one child in the school system and another entering in 2011, I'm very hopeful and optimistic about this initiative. It could mean that there will be decent-priced childcare in place by the time Alister is in Junior Kindergarten, and that'll save me from hustling to figure out how to drop him off at 9 a.m. and get him picked up at 11:30 a.m. and still make a living. And maybe it means there will be some funds to expand the limited space in our school's current after-school program so that fewer parents are stuck choosing between the limited selection of so-so daycares that walk kids to and from school.

It's not about leaving our children to be raised by someone else. It's about taking a little page from the books of more forward-thinking nations (heck, even from our neighbouring province, Quebec!) and making life a little easier for families.

That's my soap box, and now I'm getting off it.

Cameron quote of the day

 

"Oooh, it would be a lot easier to change a toy doll."

-Cameron, gussying up his brother in preparation for the arrival of grandparents

Cameron quote of the day

Cam: "What is Chewbacca's favourite movie? You say 'I don't know?' because this is a joke."

Me: "I don't know?"

Cam: "Monsters vs. Aliens!!! Ha ha! Because he's a monster and he's from outer space just like an alien do you GET it?""