Monthly Archives: February 2010

Bizarre Baby Names

Posted on February 26, 2010 | 12 Comments

It all started off innocently enough. William had brought home a school library book entitled, A Porcupine Named Fluffy. This is a picture book that we used to own, but my twins have a Bachelors of Loving Things To Death and a Masters in Destroying Anything Else. Given their two advanced degrees, I had recycled the remaining pages of this dear book a year ago.

A Porcupine Named ???

William has a penchant for things familiar. Even at age five, he still enjoys watching the Baby Einstein DVD on occasion. I liken it to my affinity for Kraft Dinner: I know I’m beyond it, but sometimes it reminds me of easier days.

So, there I was, reading A Porcupine Named Fluffy, seated cross-legged on the couch with a twin under each armpit. Rereading this once-favourite was a trip down memory lane for all of us, and the conversation about the protagonist, a female porcupine, continued even after I got up to unpack the dregs of Vivian and William’s school lunches.

“I think they should name the porcupine Prickly,” William said.

“No,” Vivian said, “they should name it Prick.”

“Prick’s not a girl’s name,” Will replied.

Nope, definitely not, I thought, scraping mushy apple core from the inside of Vivian’s lunch bag.

Later that day, I picked up the newspaper and read an article about the top baby names of 2009, at least according the vital statistics branch of my province, Alberta. William, my son’s name, ranks 9th overall, as 197 Albertan boys were given that name last year. Vivian is more unique, with fewer than 20 babies sharing that name. Interestingly, more than two times as many girls were named Kennedy, possibly demonstrating that Alberta just might be the 51st State.

But neither Kennedy nor Vivian are unique monikers. You want unique? Try these for girls: Peanut, Epic, Fyre, Mischiefs, Twinkle, Comfort.

And for boys? Bison, Chaos, Whip, Mystery, Draco, and – for all you NHL fans out there – Ericlindross (yes, one word).

After reading the lists of bizarre names, I’m starting to think that Prick is sounding pretty good.

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Posted in Slice of (My Psycho) Life

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Raising Normal Kids

Posted on February 24, 2010 | 16 Comments

This parenting thing baffles me. Generally I’m so lost in a labyrinth of fuzz that I don’t even bother to think about it. But today, I’ll wander back in.

A recent MRI of my brain (post-childbirth). Yes, my head is rectangular.

In many ways, I don’t have high expectations for my twins. I don’t expect (or want) them to be the top of the class, famous actors, or even Olympic athletes, although I have fleeting moments when I feel like pushing them down an icy luge track, with or without the sled. More than anything I want them to be normal, or (do I dare say it?) average.

This won't be one of my kids, unless I lose it and push them down the track

I think my own perfectionist tendencies fell off the cliff when I was pregnant. It was not an easy pregnancy – two bouts of mandatory bedrest in a foreign country, far from my own mom. After the first crisis (bleeding at nine weeks), I panicked. When our Thai doctor did the scan, I just wanted him to say the word “normal.” Or, as he said in his accented English, “Nor-MAALL” (to get the approximate punctuation, it rhymes with “Sore-GAL”).

Every appointment from that point on, I would come armed with a paranoid woman’s list of concerns and he would gratefully answer, “Nor-MAALL, completely Nor-MAALL”.

Later, my husband would imitate me, “Doctor, I’ve grown a third eye and there are mushrooms sprouting from my ears.” “No worries,” my husband would continue his impression, “it’s Nor-MAALL.”

It was then, during those stressful months, that my husband and I hung up our Going-for-Gold armchair parenting mentality and switched to something more lackluster. We weren’t planning to Own the Podium; we were hoping to cross the finish line.

Thankfully, we did. William and Vivian were born with Apgar scores that were good enough.

Now, nearly six years later, I still try to retain this Ode to Nor-MAALL. It’s hard, though. The current parenting culture seems to pressure parents to schedule their kids with activities that would rival the agenda of a CEO. It’s confusing, though, because in striving for Nor-MAALL I don’t want to raise underachieving kids who don’t have the confidence to push themselves.

What do you think? How hard do you push your children?

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Posted in It's a Rant, Lackluster Parenting, Memories No Longer Repressed

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Fat in Thailand

Posted on February 22, 2010 | 6 Comments

There are stories that become part of a family’s lore. These are the stories that are pulled out at dinner parties like an old, time-tested joke. Even if people know the punchline, it’s a guaranteed laugh.

The story of my husband taking our five-week-old twins for a stroll in our Bangkok neighbourhood may be one such story. I wasn’t present, but somehow it’s become my story too.

*             *             *

August 2004 — To give me an hour alone in our apartment, my husband decides to take our twins out in the stroller. After he ferries them down in an elevator smaller than our refrigerator, he deposits Thing 1 and Thing 2 into the limousine stroller (which is too long to fit in the elevator).

It is important to note that Bangkok is not stroller – or wheelchair – accessible; it’s barely even pedestrian accessible. If you’re on a fairly quiet street (relative to Bangkok traffic, that is), you push the stroller on the actual street. If you’re on a busy street, you brave the sidewalk and steer around street stall vendors and over two-foot curbs.

On this fateful day, my husband opted for the middle-of-the-road approach, literally.

Deep-Fried Duck, anyone?

So they’re off, bypassing the Chinese-duck-soup woman, the fruit guy, the truck with the squawky loud speaker selling vegetables, the traffic, the elevated sewer grates. You get the idea. It’s mid afternoon which means, like most other times of the day, the sun is relentless and the air is heavy. Breathing can cause you to perspire. If you do the push-the-twins-in-a-stroller obstacle course, a full-scale tourist sweat is guaranteed.

Now my husband is generously proportioned. Plus, he’s in Thailand. To put this in context, I generally wear a medium shirt at any Gap. Plop me in Thailand and I can’t even fit into an XXL top from any Bangkok department store. So, my husband, being big, is supersized in Thailand. This is our fifth year in Bangkok, and –nice as the Thais ares — we’re both more than a little sick of looking out of place.

It’s minute forty of the stroll. My husband’s dodging another tuk tuk and turning the corner, which is as easy as trying to steer an overloaded supermarket cart that has two locked wheels. His shirt is stuck to his back, he’s squinting in the sun, and he’s trying to ignore the jingle of the ice cream bike that’s never quite out of hearing distance.

He’s approaching the motorcycle taxi drivers. On this corner, there’s about twelve of them, outfitted in matching vests, joking with each other, playing the odd game of checkers with bottle caps. They’re doing what they do: entertaining each other while waiting for customers.

Bangkok Motorcycle Taxi Drivers

Smiles on, they watch as my husband heaves the twins past them. They look at the stroller, and chat to each other in Thai.

Then, as my husband trudges further along, one says, “Hey, farang! Fat!”

My husband pauses. He knows farang means foreigner. And he’s sick of the fat jokes.

“Ya,” chimes another, “fat!”

My husband stops and looks back. “What did you say?”

“Fat!” one repeats.

My husband yells obscenities at them. I would exceed the word limit of this blog if I bothered to list them all.

He takes a short cut home.

Later that day, we share the story with a Thai friend. She proceeds to tell us that “fat” (or something very near to that pronunciation) means twins in Thai.

Cultural confusion 1, Cultural harmony 0.

For our remaining months in Bangkok, my husband avoids the motorcycle drivers…especially when he’s pushing our fat.

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Posted in Memories No Longer Repressed, Slice of (My Psycho) Life

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