I just want to say that the term “getting your body  back” is offensive.  It’s not like your body leaves you when you are pregnant, it’s just busy creating a human. And it doesn't matter how quickly you lose the weight, or find your abs -- you never end up with the same body you had before.

Pregnancy and birth are such natural and amazing things and yet a few weeks after the baby is born, the only thing we focus on is how is the baby sleeping; and how the mother looks. Guess what? The baby is not sleeping and new mommy has a pile of weird loose skin around her midriff.

In the pre-mommy life going shopping with the girlfriends was a common occurrence. But it’s been years since I have hit the stores with some friends. Which is too bad because shopping with the ladies is really one of the best things about being a woman.

Yesterday morning, however I had the pleasure of walking up and down the aisles of the One Of A Kind show in Toronto with three friends. This is a massive artisans show which has row upon row of local artists showcasing their beautiful (and ugly) art, baby stuff, clothes, food and things that you can’t even describe. It’s like the website Etsy come to life.

When I was born in 1969, fathers did not usually venture into the delivery rooms. My dad was perfectly happy sitting in the waiting room with all the other dads-to-be but he made an error. Because he is a professor, his credit card says ‘Dr. Waverman’ (he used to say he gets better service at restaurants) and so the nurse mistakenly called him for the big moment. I’m not sure he ever recovered.

Now that the idea of dads in the delivery room is so normal, it’s hard to imagine that it was ever any different.

As if parenting isn’t anxiety-producing enough? Last week, Maclaren strollers were recalled because of hazards to babys' fingers. And now 2-million drop-side cribs from Storkcraft are deemed hazardous, it feels like each week  there are recalls of commonly used baby and toddler toys. How does anyone keep up?

Luckily, we are out of the stroller and crib life, so unless the Wii is recalled, we are going to be okay. But I really feel for the parents who own those recalled cribs.What kind of night do they have ahead of them?

  I have been lucky enough to be in Jamie Oliver’s hotel room. And I doubt there is a woman (or man) alive who wouldn’t feel a little heat rising when the Naked Chef call you "cheeky" in close proximity to his  bed (even if you don't have a thing for chefs). That was eight years ago and even then, his passion for food was evident but who knew that underneath the rumpled fauxhawk there was a crusader waiting to come out?

Fast forward to the present day and Jamie Oliver is still the same sexy, charismatic, man-child chef. But now the father of three is on a mission to change the way people cook, eat and subsequently live.  And in doing so he may just may change the world. Hyperbolic? Perhaps, but spending time with Jamie Oliver is like that, his passion is contagious even when you are sharing the room with 2300 other fans.

I am in some kind of deadlock with my son’s teacher over cookies. Usually I just ignore people’s sneers at always having a jar of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. They are obviously jealous, because my chocolate cookies are a helluva lot healthier than caramel-coated rice crackers or whatever is passing for a healthy snack these days. And it's not my fault that all their kids want to come to my house for snack.

But teachers hold a lot of sway over young kids and my son is literally shaking when I throw in a couple of cookies into his snack bag. His teacher seems very concerned that the kids have snack for both morning and afternoon recess and double-checks their bag each day. She has even kept my son in for recess because he didn’t have snack which was total overkill. That kid was lucky he even had a jacket and lunch because that was during our Swine Flu Central period a couple of weeks ago and there were no groceries in the house until I was partially recovered.

Dear Disney,

We haven’t really been too friendly since you started hawking all that princess stuff. In fact, I haven’t really invited you over too much to play with my daughter. I don’t mean to be rude but I just thought that your values and my values didn’t really match. Some of your princesses did make it into our toybox and they don’t seem to have caused harm, but I just don’t seek you out. I am sure you understand. I know some other moms on the playground have also been giving you the cold shoulder, but I also know that the princesses have a lot of devoted fans out there.

I had three kinds of labour: a c-section, an epidural and natural. And all three had the same outcome: a healthy baby. People ask me about the joys of natural childbirth versus an epidural, expecting that I somewhow feel more proud of my "natural" labour. But you know what? Every birth is natural and I don’t mince words – go for the drugs.

The days are long, but the years are short. My sister told me that early on and I think of it often because it is so true. How does a year fly by and yet the hours slow down to a crawl?

The days of wiping bums and sharing beds are almost over for me as my youngest turns four. My nine-year old only hold hands occasionally (but it's lovely when he does).

And my 6-year old is in Grade One. First grade seems to be the line between little kiddom and real kids.

I have been avoiding writing this post for days, I just can’t manage to get it together – the research, the coherent thoughts, I should really just leave it and go on to something more fun, oh look Lainey is writing about Katie Holmes -- she looks dreadful today…

And these are my thought processes as I write this post (and most others).