Roula

March 25, 2014

Internet is down…now what?!?

Our house was thrown for a loop on Sunday when our TV, internet and phone went down. Yes we’re one of those old school homes that still have a land line. A little good it did us when it is all connected via one modem. After almost two hours on the phone with tech support, hubby was able to convince them that we needed a new modem. 18 hours later, our problem was solved. When I mentioned this to a friend she said, it must have been like being pioneers again. That got me thinking, how attached we are to our communication devices. I have been trying to limit my online time in anticipation of the little one’s arrival. I know I won’t have the free time to respond to messages, texts, check Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, etc. So why not limit everything now in advance? I don’t think that this is good just for new mothers but for everyone. Truly how connected do you need to be? I actually just purchased online Arianna Huffington’s book Thrive which talks about disconnecting and living a more, “sustainable, fuller and more impactful life.” You can find out more about the book, as well as order it here.

So you might ask, what did you do for 18 hours without anything? Well of course I slept, or attempted to sleep as well as anyone can with less than 20 days to go. I finished a book that I was reading and I decided to work on some sewing/embroidery projects that I wanted to finish.

I added some feet to a receiving blanket that I had purchased. No it isn’t blue, it is teal, so don’t get any ideas 🙂

I also completed some embroidery on a bib that was plain white with a yellow border.

And finally a work in progress another bib with a baby on it.

Let me know what you think and of course as always, thanks for following! Come back next week for the second installment of our blog collaborators.

A little ditty about Jack and Diane...no really in all seriousness I'm a daughter, sister, wife and mother. I'm a Greek-American, who has transplanted in Canada. As a first time mom I'm sharing some things as I go along.

March 18, 2014March 17, 2014

Less than a month…

Well we’re in the home stretch for real now as we’ve closed in on the 30 day mark, actually less but who’s counting?! Oh that’s right I am!

I decided to make some of the decorations in baby’s room. I purchased these letters at Michael’s and painted them a teal colour. Since the furniture is an espresso colour and we don’t know baby’s sex I thought that would be a neutral enough colour. I also bought plain white canvases that I painted dark brown and then put the letters together. I think the decals just add to the whole look.

I also decided to pick up some animals from Michaels to go along with our jungle theme. I again painted the white canvas brown, the words teal and put everything together. The baby monkey and frog are my favourites!!

I’ve also been able to spend some time with family and friends that are near before baby’s arrival and do cherish each of those moments. One of those came during a recent afternoon when I was able to go for high tea for the first time with two cousins. Never having been to high tea before, I found the entire experience amazing. From the private room that we were in, to the delicate china that we ate and drank from, no detail was missed. We were so engrossed in our conversation that I forgot to take pictures of the delicious sandwiches, desserts and delectable scones. I do have a couple photos to give you an idea of the table setting.

If you have a chance to participate in high tea, do it! It’ll be something that you won’t forget!!

Roula

March 11, 2014March 11, 2014

Blessed are the children…

Hello everyone,

It is so hard to believe that in a bit over a month our bundle of joy will be here. That is if they aren’t stubborn and follow the “timeline”. I’m packed and ready as they tell me you never know when the time will come. Saying all that I wanted to take some time to discuss something that is very important in the Greek Orthodox faith and that is the 40-day blessing. Similar to Jesus’ presentation to the temple, the thought is that you bring your child to church at the 40 day mark to be blessed by the priest. Forty days after birth and in accordance with the Old Testament tradition observed by the Virgin Mary (Luke 2:22-24), the mother brings her child for its first visit to the Church. If they are a boy they are entered into the altar as well. The Greek Orthodox Church still has a closed altar and females are not allowed to enter. Certainly I have thought about having my child receive this blessing but as the time gets closer for our little one to arrive I wonder what does this really mean? Will I be stuck in the house for 40 days without being able to leave ever? I asked this question and some others to some of my girlfriends who have agreed to serve as ‘blog collaborators’ on certain subjects. Certainly they have MUCH more experience in mommyhood than I do and I am so excited to be able to share all of this with them.

Question 1: Did you bring your child to church to be blessed on or around the 40^th day and your thoughts on the overall blessing?
One friend says, “I did bring both my children to be blessed around the 40^th day and I really enjoyed the experience. It was a chance for the baby to have an official outing, go to church and be introduced to the community. It was an important milestone for me!”
Another friend says, “I have had all three of my children brought to church for a blessing. It was more towards to the 30 days, our priest does allow you to bring them a bit sooner. I wanted to get them blessed because I have a strong faith and always seek God’s help in my daily life.”
Yet another friend stated that before her second child received their 40 day blessing she went to church for a Μνημόσυνο (memorial service) for her Godfather’s passing. When she was spotted by the church secretary, she was shocked to see my friend and asked why she was there. She explained and later found out that the blessing is as much about the mother as it is the baby. She apparently wasn’t supposed to step inside of the church prior to the 40 day blessing. She didn’t know this and felt anxious the entire time leading up to the blessing thinking something “bad” was going to happen to the baby or me. Nothing did of course!

Question 2: Who went with you for the blessing?
One friend said, “…whomever was available: husband, yiayiathes, and other children.” Another states, “The godfather and yiayia came for my first child and the grandparents and godparents came for the second child. ” Yet another states, “…my husband for my first and my husband and older child for my second…I learned that our priest does not like it at all for other family members to attend.”

Question 3: Did you stay at home the entire 39 days leading up to your child’s blessing? Or did you go out but baby didn’t?
One friend says, “At first I scoffed at the idea not understanding the reasoning behind it, I chalked it up to superstition. However after two pregnancies I realizes that a woman does need time to recover after her pregnancies. I did find myself staying in most of the time when it was possible.”
A few friends stated that they went out but baby did not unless it was for an appointment with the doctor. And yet another did venture out of the house before the baby was blessed but only during the day.

In reading all of this I found it interesting the differences between churches, priests and countries. One friend stated that her aunt in Athens said something about the 40 day blessing now being 20 days staying at home but she didn’t doubt for a second that her deeply religious cousin stayed in the entire period. Some priests do the blessing as part of the ceremony after the Sunday services and others have the family come in on a Saturday so the blessing is more private.

I always wonder if sometimes we Greeks of the diaspora have held on to these traditions more closely than our Greek counterparts. Simply because we were brought up with the traditions of Greece circa 1950/60/70/80 or whatever year our parents immigrated to their new country. They held on to this Greekness so tight in order to not lose their Greek identity and instilled in us these values and traditions. I know that it is important for my husband and me to have our child blessed and start his/her life in the Greek Orthodox Church. Whether or not I stay in the house for the 39 days prior or even if baby does, I’ll fill you in once that is happening. Did you have your child receive the 40 day blessing? Did you stay in or go out during this time? I’d love it if you shared with me!

I did find a great section of Myth busters on a church site in Australia. If you want to check them out, click here and go to the Myths ‘busted’ about Birth and Baptism section,

Roula

March 4, 2014March 4, 2014

Do you talk and drive?

So today’s blog is a cross between a public service announcement and my personal rant. I guess that is the good thing about having your own blog…you can do that!

I was driving to OB appointment last week on a not so busy road. I had about 20 cars pass me during my time on this road. This is either driving in the opposite direction or to pass me (I do follow the speed limit, more so now that I’m pregnant). Saying that 12 of these people were talking on their cellphones. Full on holding a phone up to their ear and holding a conversation. Now I should let you know that I live in the province of Ontario in Canada and this is illegal. There is a law on the books that bans this. The summary is below and the more information can be found here.

Ontario’s ban on hand-held devices while driving took effect on October 26, 2009.

The law makes it illegal for drivers to talk, text, type, dial or email using hand-held cell phones and other hand-held communications and entertainment devices. The law also prohibits drivers from viewing display screens unrelated to the driving task, such as laptops or DVD players, while driving. The use of hands-free devices is still permitted, and drivers may use hand-held devices to call 9-1-1.

‘Hands-free’ use means that apart from activating or deactivating the device, it is not held during use and the driver is not physically interacting with or manipulating it. Actions such as dialing or scrolling through contacts, or manually programming a GPS device, for example, are not allowed.

Now many people are offenders of this law every day. I guess you can say it just REALLY bothered me on this particular day. Was I more sensitive because I’m with child? Would it have bothered me just as much on any other Wednesday? Probably, I just don’t know how vocal I would have been about it.

I talked about this with some friends and asked what they do when they get in the car? Most friends put their phone in their cup holders or their stands and go about their ride. One friend actually had a phone that once the Bluetooth was enabled it shut off all notifications until they were out of the car. I thought this was brilliant! My problem is once that ding, ring, ping, whatever the sound may be goes off, my brain is distracted and I’m wondering who called, emailed, texted.

Do we really need to be connected 24/7? A few years I would have said absolutely. Today I’m not so sure. I think we all need to be good stewards of the heavy machinery that we are operating and of our fellow citizens around us.

Being form the United States originally I know that each state has its own laws on cellphones. Did you know that only 15 states have a total handheld device ban? I was shocked that it was so low. I am also aware that are a few organizations in the United States where you can pledge to not text and drive but what about talk and drive? Oprah has a “no phone zone” but only 423,000 have taken the pledge. Seriously when Ellen can get millions of retweets on a picture from the Oscars, Oprah can’t get more than 500,000 people to pledge? What is the issue? Why have we become such a connected society? I certainly don’t have the answers but I’m ready to start the conversation. Did your cell phone habits change once you became pregnant or had kids? Are you a believer that we shouldn’t have any laws against this? Some laws? Let the conversation begin!

Roula

February 18, 2014February 18, 2014

Just letting myself experience

There has been lots of action in our household since last week. Baby has a crib and change table, and mommy has a rocker for those late night feedings. Many of my friends recommended purchasing one of these even though I wasn’t fully convinced. Hopefully in a few months I can write a blog about how much Baby loves being rocked to sleep at night.

Through my entire pregnancy I have avoided reading too much. I didn’t pick up What to Expect When Your Expecting, any of the Doctor Spock books or actually any other parenting books in general. Now if you know me, you know I’m inquisitive by nature so for me not to do this, it is a big deal. You might as why? Well I’ll tell you…my thought on the whole process is that I want to experience everything for the first time in the moment. I think being a mom for the first time over the age of 35 might be one reason for this. I could either drown myself in information from books, websites, online applications, other mothers, etc., or I could actually take the time to feel this blessing inside of me as it practices its Cross Fit. I swear this kid is either going to be a soccer player or a boxer and I love it!! All of the little moves, hiccups, etc., that you feel are amazing bonding opportunities that I might have otherwise missed/lost if I had been enthralled in reading about that moment.

Circling back to our preparations for Baby, so many people talk about the pregnancy, but not many people discuss what happens once you give birth. I had a friend offer to tell me the “dirty details” of giving birth if I wanted them. I gratefully thanked her for the offer but declined. Again, whether I know about it or not, it isn’t going to change what I have to go through, nor will my experience be exactly like hers. So knowing about it, in my mind, isn’t going to necessarily help me.

So many people have told hubby and me that our lives are going to change forever. I sit here and I ponder that. Yes I realize that things will change as now there is this little miracle that we’re responsible for. I realize that we may not necessarily be able to pick up at a moment’s notice and drive to Buffalo for a Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffee—at least not until we can get Baby a passport. I realize that a random weekend getaway won’t be as easy since we now have to pack for the wee one and for little people I’ve already come to find out they need a lot of things! Clothes, receiving blankets, burp cloths, diapers, wipes, bibs, creams and lotions for their sensitive skin, and all the things that I don’t even know that I’ll need. I realize that we’ll be sleep deprived and probably irritable in the beginning as the wee one won’t be able to communicate with us.

But as I ponder I’m also thinking about watching this little one sleeping in its crib for the first time and watching as they smile up at us. I’m thinking about when they start to crawl and eventually walk. I’m thinking about first words and when they start to cheer for their (or mommy’s) favourite sports team..sorry dear! I’m thinking about the lifetime of memories that we’re about to embark on and how that will start yet another chapter of our lives.

Roula

February 11, 2014February 11, 2014

Coffee with a friend turns into a religious experience

I had the pleasure of catching up with a former volunteer who turned into a friend on Friday. We met at a local coffee shop and were all ready to catch up. Before I know it the first hour of our conversation had been taken over by chatting about religion. He being Catholic, me being Greek Orthodox, we have many similarities in our religious backgrounds. He went to Catholic school growing up and a Catholic High School, as did I. The only difference was the location–mine in the States and his in Canada. It was interesting to chat about how religion in our lives helped to mold us into the adults that we are today. He recalled a hockey tournament in Detroit where his parents made him still go to Sunday Mass even though they were away and I recalled walking to church as a child during a snow storm so that we could get there. Now I’m not writing this to spark a huge religious debate, I’ll leave that to the professionals, it was just interesting how this somewhat taboo subject by some had us gabbing for over 60 minutes.

One story that I relayed to my friend is a conversation that I had when I was in my 20’s with a Catholic Monsignor of the High School I was working at. No I never taught, I worked in their fundraising department on a multi-million dollar capital campaign. I remember joking with the Monsignor that if I wasn’t going to Heaven on the Greek Orthodox card for some reason, I better be going in on the Catholic card. My friend let out a hearty laugh. Yes some people would call that ballsy, but I truly believed it. I am a good Christian, I follow the Golden Rule, I help wherever I can and I pray that I will be rewarded for that in the after-life.

The bulk of our conversation focused on the Eucharist: commonly in the form of a wafer placed in the hand or on the tongue in the Catholic Church and a teaspoon of red wine to be followed with a piece of bread in Greek Orthodox Church. My friend told me how he was a bit relieved when he saw the Eucharistic Ministers in the Catholic Church use a hand sanitizer prior to receiving and then passing out communion. I returned and asked him if he knew how we received communion in our church? He did not so I explained to him that it was actual wine on a gold spoon. The parishioners lined up and received the body and blood of Christ in that way. He couldn’t believe that everyone partook from the same spoon. It wasn’t only until my recent years that I wondered truly how ‘safe’ that spoon was. I remember once asking when I was younger and the answer I was given was because it was 18K or 24K gold it killed all germs. I know that was just an answer to appease a child 🙂 But really how else could they distribute Holy Communion? I remember a woman I encountered who was Byzantine Catholic and a member of a church in New Jersey who told me that in her church they used plastic spoons? My question around that was what happened to the spoons after Mass? How were they disposed? Burned, thrown in the garbage, recycled?

At coffee our discussion continued on was it right to try and change something that was written over 2000 years ago or do you just go on believing? We didn’t solve the world’s problems but I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion.

If you are interested in reading more about the common spoon/chalice, I found an interesting article here.

Roula

February 7, 2014

Here goes nothing!

Well its official, I’m back to my blogging ways. Different site, different focus but the same little ole me. A lot has changed since the last time I was writing. I celebrated another birthday, I’m now closer to 40 than I am to 35. I left my senior level management job in downtown Toronto to start working on my own. Primarily I work on social media marketing, along with some website work. It has been completely great to be my own boss and to make my own hours. The biggest change in all of this is that I’m a soon to be Greek μαμά (aka mom).

To say that the last few months have been a whirlwind would be an understatement. I haven’t been crazy hormonal, although my hubby is probably a better person to ask about that, but to have this little being growing inside you is surreal. You worry about things that you normally wouldn’t, or at least I do. You have to make sure you’re always taking your vitamins, of which I wasn’t the best at remembering before. You have to prepare, as best you can for the little bundle of joy that will soon be joining your family, and of course you’re doing all this while being the best Greek wife, daughter, friend, co-worker, and soon to be μαμά that you can be. No pressure right?!??

To give you some perspective, I guess I should start with the Greekness. I am 100% Greek-American that has been transplanted to Canada. I also am married to a 100% Canadian-Greek. Yes you read that correctly, I put the Greekness first and hubby puts it second. More on that another time. My parents immigrated to the United States in the 70s in search of a better life for themselves and their future family. I was raised in an all Greek household. This means we spoke Greek, we ate Greek, we did everything but watch Greek TV as this was the age before satellites. Everyday I’d go to school like every other child but three days a week I’d go to Greek School. This was in the afternoons after regular school. I remember my mom picking me up from school, taking me home to change clothes (I went to a private school so I wore a uniform), giving me something to eat, and then driving me to Greek School. Here I had the opportunity to interact with other Greek children from my church and make bonds that are still in place until this day. I’d then go home to do my homework from regular school, which in the early days was a struggle. I was the first grader who needed to go visit my 80 year old tenant for help with my spelling list on Thursdays as she was the only other person in the house who could help me. My father always says, “I didn’t learn English so my children will learn Greek.” It wasn’t until I was much older that I finally understood what that meant. Look out for this story in a future blog. J I was a member of GOYA, the Greek Orthodox Youth of America and went to their dances and basketball games. I event was vice-president of the Hellenic Society at my college and lead the charge in the March 25^th parade.

All of this would lead me to deciding I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a fellow Greek. This was very important to me. Not that I didn’t date non-Greeks but I knew that when push came to shove the values, traditions and things that were important to me, needed to be important to him as well. I didn’t want to fight about sending the kid to Greek school, or what religion they would be raised in or even what languages they would study. For me all of this was important and non-negotiable. Now before the bashers come in and hate, I must say here that I have many friends who have married non-Greeks and are leading very happy lives. I am just sharing with you what I was looking for.

All of this comes with some pressures—or at least perhaps a pressure that many Greek women I know manifest on themselves. The pressures to be the best at whatever it is we’re doing. The best wife, daughter, mother, employee, boss, friend, etc. Through this blog I hope to share with you my journey through life and the challenges that this soon to be Greek μαμά faces.