Parents in the Capital: Meet Sara

Ottawa has some wonderful bloggers and we are lucky that many of them are Kids in the Capital contributors and readers! We want to share some of our favorite Ottawa parent bloggers on a more regular basis so we are introducing a series of posts called Parents in the Capital. Say hello to Sara!

Tell us about yourself and your family I am the proud mom to two boys, the firefighter, who is 5, and the monkey, who is 2 and a 1/2.  My husband, who does not have an endearing nickname other than ‘DH’, and I have been married for almost 9 years.  We recently moved further out into the suburbs and I joke we now live closer to Montreal than Ottawa.  Orleans really is that far east.

Since the firefighter was born I have juggled part-time work and at-home motherhood.  I am a photographer who specializes in couples, children, families, maternity, and newborns.  The very same photographer who does not have a recent picture of her entire family together and instead decided to include this outtake from our Christmas photos.

What is your favourite activity to do with your kid(s) in Ottawa? We love the newly renovated Museum of Nature and our favourite outdoor haunts are Parliament Hill (“the place with all the grass and cats” according to the firefighter) and the Mer Bleue boardwalk.

What is your favourite at home activity to do with your kid(s)? Both boys are at a place where they live in a world of make-believe.  More often than not we are firefighters and rescue personnel of some sort but depending on whatever dress-up outfit or accessory they’ve unearthed we might be construction workers, hair dressers, secret shark divers, or cooks.

What was the biggest surprise that parenthood has brought into your life? I am incredibly tidy and neat.  I even blog once a week about my neurotically clean and organized ways.  However, I also embrace the mess and chaos of being a mom to two small kids.  We play in the puddles and the mud, we paint almost everyday; I fill the sink with soap and bubbles for them to play in; and there is always play-dough stuck to my kitchen floor.  Despite my preference for all things orderly, I’m surprised at how easy going I am about all the fun and mess that makes childhood so great!

What parenting tips/advice do you wish you'd known when you first became a parent? It gets better.  Parenthood is wonderful and full of joy and amazement.  It’s also exhausting and can be the source of so much despair.  So many times my friends reminded me “this to shall pass”

Tell us about your blog and how you discovered blogging. Less than a year ago I discovered Kids in the Capital and contacted Lara and Brie, asking if I could write some guests posts.  I had kept a password protected family journal for three years but wanted to write for someone other than my immediate family.  Two months later I started My Points of View.

I am also one of the bloggers at Losing It in Ottawa.  Last but not least I have a blog for my business, Sara McConnell Photography.

I have Kids in the Capital to thank for my discovery of blogging :-)

What do you love best about being a parent in Ottawa? Other than the fact that my entire family is here as are all our friends, I love all the green space.  Both my husband and I love the outdoors and there is no shortage of fun things to do with kids outside in Ottawa, irrespective of the season!

Thanks Sara! We are so glad that you found us and blogging.

Parents in the Capital: Meet Ezmy!

Ottawa has some wonderful bloggers and we are lucky that many of them are Kids in the Capital contributors and readers! We want to share some of our favorite Ottawa parent bloggers on a more regular basis so we are introducing a series of posts called Parents in the Capital. Say hello to Ezmy!

Tell us about yourself and your family  My husband A. and I are both Political Science geeks. He’s from Nova Scotia and I’m from Vancouver Island. We met in NS and bonded over beer and a mutual loathing for all things Ann Coulter. We moved to Ottawa five years ago - A. for work (he’s a Foreign Service officer) and me for school (I’m mid-MA). Three years after the move we got engaged in Italy. Our son Ewan was born just over a year after that, in June 2010. We had a kick ass wedding six months ago and now our little family of three (+ one plump house cat, Zoe) enjoys patio lunches, reading, walking adventures, and watching The Office.

What is your favourite activity to do with your kid(s) in Ottawa? Oh walking adventures, certainly. But once the weather gets better, we are looking forward to fun times in the park. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a little geo-caching got thrown in there as well.

What is your favourite at home activity to do with your kid(s)? Well, Ewan likes to practice his rolling and crawling poses on our bed so one of my favourite things to do is to fold laundry while he rolls around, giggling like a maniac. We also dance to a lot of Queen - he currently enjoys waving at the stereo.

What was the biggest surprise that parenthood has brought into your life? I’m amazed by how little sleep I can survive, and indeed thrive on. And how much fun it is to do simple things like eat dinner. Watching the little man explore new foods is just a blast.

What parenting tips/advice do you wish you'd known when you first became a parent? It’s a simple one - the Gro sac. I have one now but I could have saved myself a month of worry if I’d had one earlier. This thing rocks my socks, particularly since Budsie is a) a tummy sleeper and b) apparently hell bent on eating an entire blanket.      Tell us about your blog and how you discovered blogging. My blog, Ezmy, simply follows the last five years of my life. I started blogging on the advice of a friend. At the time, I was in a miserable relationship, up to my eyeballs in academia, and I desperately needed a creative outlet. Interestingly, the blog also ended up documenting my relationship with A. from the first day we met, about four months after the blog’s creation. My highs and lows have been recorded here - one major break-up, tales of singledom, the big move to O-town, A.’s year away for work, terrible apartments, thankless jobs, academic successes and failures, ridiculous cooking experiments, the horrors of wedding planning, adventures in morning sickness and bed rest, the birth of our son, and more recently, my efforts to improve myself from the inside out using daily resolutions. Blogging has become a part of my day like eating and sleeping. It’s the way I keep in touch with others and with myself.

What do you love best about being a parent in Ottawa? Access to some wonderful museums and galleries, the ability to take my kid to Question Period, and the newly discovered, and greatly appreciated, online support system for fellow parents.

Thanks Ezmy!

Parents in the Capital: Meet Yumi

Ottawa has some wonderful bloggers and we are lucky that many of them are Kids in the Capital contributors and readers! We want to share some of our favorite Ottawa parent bloggers on a more regular basis so we are introducing a series of posts called Parents in the Capital. Our first Ottawa blogger profiled in Yumi. Hello Yumi!

Tell us about yourself and your family. I live very happily with my husband of 10 years and our little boy "Moe" who was born in February 2010. My mom lives next door, and my mother-in-law lives a block over. It isn't anything like Everybody Loves Raymond - it's great. I work for the National Capital Commission (and love it!) and my husband is a bookstore manager. Our goal is to raise a patriotic reader. ;)

What is your favourite activity to do with your kid(s) in Ottawa? We are both museum junkies and are trying to foster a love of museums in our son.

What is your favourite at home activity to do with your kid(s)? I love watching Moe discover music. We sing, dance and make music together. It's one of the best parts of my day. (Plus, my kid totally has rhythm.)

What was the biggest surprise that parenthood has brought into your life? We are both constantly hit with waves of emotion over how incredibly lucky we are. We knew this would be fun, but we didn't imagine it could ever be THIS much fun. Moe brings new joy into our lives every day.

What parenting tips/advice do you wish you'd known when you first became a parent? People told me this, and I tried really, really hard to do it. I think I succeeded. Here it is: savour every freaking moment of that first year.

Tell us about your blog and how you discovered blogging. My parenting blog is at http://kidsquared.livejournal.com, and I started it in May 2005 with the intention of using it to blog my efforts to conceive, my pregnancy and eventually my journey as a parent. Things didn't go as planned. We became one of the one in six couples who struggle with infertility. My blog became a record of that journey, including a diagnosis of premature ovarian failure at the age of 29, a year of mourning, a very special offer from a friend, and a round of IVF via egg donor. Our story has a happy ending, but I don't ever forget what it took to get here. Now, the blog is a parenting record, including monthly letters to my son. I also keep a photo log at http://www.flickr.com/photos/yumikid.

What do you love best about being a parent in Ottawa? I grew up in Ottawa and so did my husband. We love raising our son here because we can share all the things we love about living in the capital with him - things we enjoyed as kids and new things we discover as a family. All three of us were just so lucky to be born and live in the best city in the world.

Thanks Yumi!