My Dream House

Recently I wrote a blog for Health & Harmony talking about what my dream house would look like...versus the one my six-year-old son just "built" for his pet Webkinz.

You can read all about it here:

http://www.healthharmony.ca/Kathy-Buckworth


Tell me I'm not alone in this.

Motherhood Hurts - When I Laugh

On Friday night I was invited to attend the Opening Night of Diane Flacks' one-woman show, Bear With Me, based on her book of the same name.

The play is running at the Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley Street, Toronto) until January 24th...so if you have the time to go between now and then, you should.

Diane is hysterical - I've only met her once before and clearly it was not enough time to appreciate her talent for creative dance (while shaking a fake pregnant belly), stuffing herself into a trunk (while miming morning sickness) and the ability to mimic everyone in her life that she met during her pregnancy and labour/delivery period.

Her impression of the mellow voiced yoga instructor going through her own personal crisis was just ridiculously funny.

Armed only with a Pilates ball, her childbirth scene was bang on.

"What's the one question every mother asks the minute her baby comes out into the world?"


(Wait for it.)



"Did I poo?"


If you can't get to the show, pick up her book.

If you need something more serious, I'll be on City TV's Breakfast Television (Toronto) tomorrow morning to talk about "Parenting Resolutions".

Laughing more should be one for everyone.

Resolutionary Thinking

Happy 2009!

I'll be kicking my year off with two shows tomorrow - starting with Canada AM and an early start (I'll be on at about 7:40). I'll be talking about trying to get the entire family organized in the New Year - of course with the end goal of trying to split the workload around here with the four kids. And minimize the fighting. And have a clean house once in a while. And get to the gym.

Hey, it's the New Year - I have to at least try.

Then I'll be driving down to the CityTV studios to talk about 3 "Resolution Solutions" I've been working on with the Proctor & Gamble folks. If you want a preview, go to my website and click on the Tide logo. The show will be live at 12:30 p.m., and its a phone-in, so if you can, please do.

Then I'm letting my family organize themselves, and the resolutions land where they may as I head out for a girls' weekend skiing. There may be more apres than ski, but it'll be a good ending to this holiday season before I'm back in the routine on Monday.

(Actually the real holiday starts when the school bus rolls by - with my kids on it. Don't tell me you weren't thinking the same thing.)

Happy New Year.

I Can Tell You Where To Put That Christmas Angel

If one more person asks me "So are you ready for Christmas?" they may just find themselves on the receiving end of a well placed piece of tissue paper.

Is there a more annoying question? Are we ever really ready for the carnage on Christmas day? Tis truly the season of annoying questions...like these classics:

Will Santa be good to you this year?
(Which is swiftly followed up on the 26th of December by "Was Santa good to you this year?)

Mom did you mail my list to Santa yet? I want to change it.

So, visiting the out-laws this year?

Honey where's the scotch tape?

Weren't you going to get the teacher gifts?

Yes, the only thing more frustrating than the folks who waste their breath on these remarks are the ones who also say:

"New Year's just not a big deal to me."

Umm have you EVER met anyone over the age of 21 to whom it is?

Now excuse me while I go exchange the kitty Webkinz for the alligator one...

And pass the egg nog while you're at it. That'll get me in the mood.

Now HE's FUNNY

Most writers will tell you that the best and worst part about getting a book published is doing book signings. For most of us, who are NOT Stephen King or Stephanie Meyers, this usually consists of sitting at a little fold out table in the middle of a busy retail store where shoppers frantically avoid eye contact with you. You don't even really care if you sell that many books - you just want to not look like such a loser, mostly. But it's always cool (and somewhat surprising) to meet people who would actually spend their money on your book.

Last night I went to Massey Hall in Toronto to see writer David Sedaris ("When You Are Engulfed In Flames", "Dress Your Family In Corduroy & Denim") who not only did not look like a loser, he had long lines for people waiting to sign his book, before and after the show.

And the kicker? The "show" was simply him reading from his books, radio show, and other diary entries. He was fantastic. Hysterical. Had the sold out crowd in the palm of his hand as he talked about, well, mostly HIS book tour, and his own cringe-worthy sittings in between the Frozen Food and the Tires at Costco.

I so impressed that a writer could not only turn a book reading and signing into a ticketed event, (which he is doing across North America), but I was also inspired. As a humour writer, you want the laughs. How awesome for him to hear the laughs in person, instead of missing them as someone reads his book on the Go Train and bursts into laughter (as I do when I read him), feeling themselves like a loser.

"Humour is just the truth being told quicker to you than you're used to", he said in his closing remarks. If that's true, he's one of the quickest talkers I've ever seen.

If this is Friday it must be Hamilton

It's been a hectic week travelling from Calgary to Vancouver, back to Toronto, Hamilton and Mississauga going on shows to talk about bedtime tips for kids. It has of course resulted in me not being around to tuck my own kids into bed for quite a few nights.

The kids seemed pretty well rested when I got back so I can assume my husband was following all of our regular routines (for my tips, visit www.tech4kids.com and click on my book - you can also see some great nighttime products I highly recommend).

I left town and only left him my contact information - no pages of lists, post-its stuck to every appliance, meals made in advance...forget it. He's a grown up and can figure these things out for himself.

A friend asked how the poor fellow survived and I said "He did, and I don't want to know all the boring details. I don't normally share them with HIM, I don't want them shared BACK either."

I did hear from the kids about arriving at a hockey game at the wrong time, the laundry ending up in the wrong baskets, the oven timer that mysteriously stopped working when I left the house...and for a bonus one child even vomited. As far as I'm concerned, it was a total success.

FYI - for readers wondering about the Staples Teacher Appreciation Contest Winners - they will be announced in January, and I'll post them on my website at www.kathybuckworth.com Sign up for the "Funny Mummy Files" newsletter on my site and you'll be the first to know.

Pretend We're Normal

This is advice that I often give to my children, my husband, and whisper like a mantra to myself when entering social situations where I am about to inflict my family on innocent bystanders. Such will be the case tonight, when we venture into the treacherous land of the Public School Open House.

I'm somewhat of a veteran at these affairs (given my oldest children are in high school), and I have insider knowledge from my sister-the-teacher, so I thought I'd share some tips for newbies.

1) This is an Open House, not a teacher/parent interview. Likely there are 25+ kids who are all clamouring to introduce the teacher to their Mom or Dad. Say hi and step aside. You'll get the signal if they need to talk to you some more. They want to go home.

2) You're there for the kids - admire the classroom, see their desk - you can gossip about whether you think the head of the school council had Botox or not later (chances are, she did - she fought to be head of the school council so we know she does weird things).

3) If you bring flowers or any sort of other butt-kissing present to the teacher, they will know that you think you need to apologize for your behaviour in advance. Yes, of course your child is more special.

Above all, avoid using the phrase "well I don't know where he learned that!" in front of the teacher - she knows where he learned it.

Act normal.

No Time To Pre-Soak

One of the things I love most about my life is the variety of things that I get to do. One of the things that is hardest about my life is making the transition between the variety of things.

Mondays are always a very exciting day for me as it's Laundry Day. Four messy kids and a slight A Personality means I do it once a week - to get it done - and to check it off my list.

Two loads done, four lunches made and sent with (hopefully) the corresponding kid, moving to a Total Body Conditioning Class I'm still feeling two days later, back home to work on edits for my next book, take some calls, get some groceries, then finally get that shower in. I realized I was attending a ceremony where the finalists for the Mississauga Arts Awards were being announced later that evening, so I put the outfit on for that, zipped to the bus stop, handed over my car to my daughter for her part-time job, shoved dinner down the kids and noted the just-in-time arrival of my husband, dropped two of them at a neighbour, raced out to the ceremony, posed with my certificate, raced home, picked up the kids, checked the homework, filled out the innumerable school forms, finished folding the laundry...and marked October 20th in my calendar - the day the Arts Awards will be given out.

I'm up for the Established Literary Award (I refuse to believe that "Established" means old, versus "Emerging", which means young.)

I should have something clean to wear anyway...as it lands on a Laundry Day.

There IS an age limit...

Or at least there should be. For their own good. No, not talking about women over 40 wearing belly tops, men over 10 wearing "short short" athletic shorts or even anyone over the age of 6 months wearing socks and sandals. I'm talking about the woman in France who just gave birth to triplets. At age 59.

A few years ago I wrote an article about a woman, who, at the tender age of 57 gave birth to ONLY twins. She was, apparently, an amateur. Still I believe some of the observations I had still hold true for this new crazy lady.

Click here if you wanna read it.

One week down, about 40 to go...

So the first week of school is almost officially over. My youngest started Grade 1 French Immersion and is convinced he will be fluent by next Tuesday. I admire his confidence. I do think, however, that I shook it when yesterday he tried to share some of his language skills with me, with his declaration at our local McDonalds of "Je m'appelle toilet." Hmmm. Was the name calling starting already? I insisted, no sweetie, it's "Je m'appelle Nicholas."

(This is the same kid, who minutes upon landing at the airport in France a couple of years ago, passed gas and announced "My butt says bonjour!" I'm already looking forward to potty talk in two languages).

Yet he started to get quite irate and red in the face with his "my name is toilet" statement, insisting he knew what he was talking about until he finally blurted out "I can't think when I have to pee! I need to GO to the toilet!"

Multi-tasking has never been a man's strength.

Where's my gold medal?

Here's a sneak peak at my September Funny Mummy column. Think most Moms can probably relate.


Faster, Stronger,...Quieter?


Like many, I’ve watched the Olympic Games and have been impressed by the strength, stamina, and relentless effort and energy of the athletes in Beijing. However, it made me think about how today’s Moms compete at an Olympian level every day, in many challenging and sometimes stupefying physical efforts. Take, for instance, the following events I myself personally competed in during the past week:

• Hurdling: We’ve running 10 minutes late for a doctor’s appointment, and due to an unfortunate incident involving fighting siblings and an errant softball throw, I’m jumping over knapsacks, skateboards, laundry baskets, and assorted rubbery clog shoes to get to the family room, retrieve the crying child’s favourite blankie (which will cure the pain of course) and get back out the door before the doctor decides to punish ME for being late…for once.

• Sprinting: Yep, that’s me, running through the aisles of the grocery store. Bought all the ingredients for my daughter’s special dinner, but forgot her favourite topping – get out of the way old lady I need to get to the sour cream and back again before the cashier abandons my order (yes those are my kids wandering the parking lot – I was only supposed to be five minutes!)

• Long Distance Running: “Long”, being a virtual thing. Yes, the 1000 meters to the park seems like 10,000 when towing along a screaming six year old who desperately needs to go pee but simultaneously doesn’t want to leave his friends on the jungle gym.

• Long Jump: From one side of the family room to the other just in time to catch the spilling chocolate milk from hitting Daddy’s precious rug.

• Water Polo: More like Water Haul-O, an annoying and exhausting event created by Dads which involves inexplicably picking up and hurling young children from one end of the pool to another. Oh, where’s Dad? Resting his weary arms at work while I pick up the slack (a.k.a. the kid). Again! Again!

• Beach Volleyball: Yes there’s nothing quite so attractive as watching a mother of four in an ill advised bikini, leap about on the beach trying to wrestle the Monsters Inc beach ball from a teasing teenage brother and return it to its rightful teary younger sibling.

• Javelin: This wasn’t a physical sort of javelin throw attempt, rather a metaphysical or “shooting daggers” style of competition which took place during a fight between my two children while other pleasantly disposed children played like lambs at a public swimming pool.

• Weight Lifting: No, not my own girth off the couch after watching seven straight hours of Olympic coverage, but the Herculean effort of carrying the Wal-Mart disposable shopping bags which are ubiquitously filled with juice, milk, pop and heavy frozen items. Could they have made these bags any bigger? Can one of you kids get the one full of bread? Sheesh.

My best event is still to come. The High Jump. The one I’ll be doing the morning of September 2nd – the first day of school.

A Wee Bit of News

I'm pleased to announce that starting today, you can find my Funny Mummy Files blog on one of Canada's greatest parenting sites and services, www.weewelcome.ca My good friend, and the president/founder/human dynamo of Wee Welcome, Maureen Dennis, recently relaunched the site, and it is better than ever.

Wee Welcome's philosophy has always been "Have a baby...and a life" and the site allows new parents to do just that. They've been carrying my Funny Mummy monthly column for years, and I'm proud to have contributed to their guides as well. They have events, news, reviews, products, services, and of course the blogs.

If you need to reaffirm that there is indeed life beyond diapers and drool, get to their site immediately.