What Makes Me Unique: My So-Called Cookie Cutter Life

Todaysparent.com put out a call for parent bloggers to write a post about what makes them unique. Here's my post:

You know those old-school, romantic movies where the infectiously cute girl meets and falls in love with an equally cute guy, life tries to separate them but they stick together and eventually get married, buy an adorable house with a white picket fence, have kids and grow old together? That has always been my dream life and minus the white picket fence, I pretty much live that life.

I hear you say "OK, big deal. You live an ordinary, normal life. How exactly does that qualify as unique?" Let me tell you how.

I was born in Calgary but I grew up in the UK. I lived there for a short time with my parents and my three siblings. When I was eight my parents split. My Dad and my siblings moved back to Calgary while I stayed in the UK with my Mum. When I was eleven I was sent to an all-girls boarding school. At the time I was devastated, but now I'm grateful for that experience and the friendships I made with some fabulous girls.

When I was sixteen I was fed up with my boarding school life so during the Christmas break I managed to convince my Dad that I should move to Calgary. The following summer I packed up my things, said a tearful goodbye to my friends, my Mum and my cat and flew across the ocean. That September I started Grade Eleven in a huge, co-Ed High School (talk about culture shock!).

Miraculously, after several "Oh my God, what have I done" moments, I survived the transition and, like the plot of one of those fantastic movies, I met an amazing and cute boy who became my best friend and would later become my husband and my son's Dad.

Fast-forward seventeen years to the present day. I live in Calgary. I am married to my High School sweetheart. I live in a nice neighborhood in an equally nice house. I have a wonderful little guy who I stay at home with while his Dad goes out to work everyday. I cook, I clean, I grocery shop, I take my son swimming and to Gymboree, I plan creative projects and I make sure that we have quality family time together everyday.

My Fabulous Family!

But you are still scratching your head, thinking what exactly is unique about that, so let me answer your query. The normalcy of my life, given the family I come from (Mum operates a b and b in a Scottish castle, where she lives with her concert organist boyfriend, Dad spends most of his time traveling the world as a substitute doctor, brother lives in San Diego with his wife and two kids, sister lives in London after getting an MFA in art history and other sister owns and operates a make-up school), is a choice and is certainly not the default setting. My uniqueness comes in the form of my desire to give my son a normal, family-centric life. I want my son to have a sibling and I want us to eat dinner together every night, have family movie and game nights, go on family vacations every summer and visit with Grandma and Grandpa as often as we can. I want to give my son the life I craved and never had.

Oh, and my three favorite posts:
So What Do You Do?
Lest We Forget
Secret Spy Day

Uniquely and Creatively yours,
Maya :)