I’ve never actually had the urge to skydive before, but when I heard a friend of ours wanted to celebrate his birthday by going indoor skydiving at iFLY Toronto, I was in!

I really had no idea what to expect at all. I just knew I was excited!

iFly Toronto is located in the Oakville Entertainment Centrum in Oakville, Ontario.  Children aged 4 and up are able to experience the free-fall sensation in the tunnel.  Once I heard the minimum age requirement I knew that I shouldn’t be scared since apparently even children can handle it.

Once we arrived at iFLY we were met with a front desk that reminded me of a check-in desk at the airport.

We already had a much needed reservation (the evening was totally booked), we were weighed to assist with the air pressure of our flight, and then we checked-in via their touch screen computers.

Next we headed upstairs to sit in the viewing area.  This is where we could watch other groups skydiving!  I started to get a little nervous at this point.  Were we seriously going to do this?  I knew nothing about skydiving.  Sure everyone looked like they were having fun, but weren’t they terrified?

We were brought into a training room where we watched a video explaining our skydive, and we met our flight instructor.  He allowed us to practice some of the signals we would use during our dive, and ask any questions we had.

We then went to change into our tunnel gear which included a flight suit, goggles, earplugs, and a helmet.  The nervousness was increasing!

Finally we were ready to fly!  We all had a seat in the waiting area where we could take turns for our flight time.  The package we chose included two flights which were 2 minutes each.  That may sound short, but it actually felt like a lifetime!

Its hard to explain what it felt like.  It’s like there was no way you could stand up straight or fall over – you had no choice but to just fly.

It was really fun.  It was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and I felt super safe with our flight instructor right beside us every second of the flight.  There was no way I was going to fly off into the sky or, or fall to the ground.

IFLY Toronto also hosts birthday parties which sounds like an amazing and unique idea!

I would really like to go back and try out iFLY again.  I realized later I was only breathing through my nose with my mouth nervously pried shut so I felt a little panicky, and I couldn’t fully enjoy myself.  I really want to try again and see if I can relax more and enjoy the flight!

for more information visit www.iflytoronto.com.

I was nominated for a Liebster award by two lovely bloggers last week.

A Liebster Award is awarded in the blogging community, and I was nominated by:

Caffeinated Chaos

Mommy’s Time-Out

Basically there are 6 rules for the Liebster Award:

• Acknowledge the blog who nominated them and display the award
• Answer 11 questions that the nominating blogger gives you
• Give 11 random facts about yourself
• Nominate 11 blogs that you think are deserving of the award
• Let the 11 bloggers know you’ve nominated them via social media
• Give them 11 questions of your own to answer

Here we go!

11 Random Facts about myself:

1. My socks never match. If they do, one always has a hole in it.

2. I get into a really bad mood when I’m hungry. Like that commercial on TV where the guy turns into Joe Pesci. YouTube it.

3. I can’t eat an open bag of chips. I usually eat one bag a night (I know, it’s terrible), and it has to be a fresh bag.

4. I eat pizza with a fork and knife.

5. Sometimes I watch soap operas in Español hoping to learn a few phrases, and because they are so dramatic you don’t need to know what they are saying to understand what is going on. Best drama on TV.

6. I can’t parallel park or back into a parking space. I also failed my driving test twice.

7. It often takes me two times to do anything before I get it right. I’m not a natural at anything.

8. My favourite thing to do is take $20 cash to the store and just spend every cent on candy.

9. I buy flowers for myself a lot.

10. I’m pretty sure I apply deodorant 25 times a day.

11. When I make my husband his favourite meal of either sheppards pie or a roast, I usually pick up McDonalds and eat a Big Mac combo with him because I hate sheppards pie and roasts.

Questions for me to answer from the bloggers:

1. How did you decide on the title of your blog?

I was interviewed once and asked to explain myself using only a few sentences. When I was done the interviewer said you really seem to love things that are sparkly and shiny, so I came up with sparkleshinylove.

2. Wine or Beer?

Wine!

3. Where was your last trip to?

Turks and Caicos (also known as paradise).

4. Share a photo that represents you and explain why.

This is just my favourite photo right now.

5. What’s your go to meal or dish to cook? share the recipe!

It’s called a Quarter Chicken Dinner, and I prefer to order it online from Swiss Chalet.

6. Vanilla or Chocolate?

Chocolate

7. What are 1 or 2 blogs that you check daily?

Reality Tea and Lainey Gossip

8. How do you drink your coffee?

I don’t drink coffee – just hot chocolate, frappacinos and tea lattes!

9. What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?

Reality TV. All of it, I don’t discriminate.

10. What pandora station did you listen to last?

Oh god what is that?

11. Share the last photo you took on your phone.

It’s blurry but ok!

Round Two!

1. What inspired you to write your blog?

I’m not sure exactly what it was. I think I thought it would be fun to do something creative and fun, and I for some reason thought I had lots of time to do it.

2. Who is the woman you most look-up to?

My Momma and my sister – they both kick butt.

3. Favorite place to shop?

Um, everywhere.

4. Fave Dessert?

Chocolate Molten Lava Cake, or macarons.

6. Dream Vacation spot?

Bora Bora or the Maldives

7. Greatest personal accomplishment?

Raising a child to the ripe old age of 2.5.

8. Children, pets or Both?

One toddler, one Yorkie.

9. Last book you read?

Crazy Rich Azians. Pages from being finished.

10. Favorite Movie?

Too many – Goodfellas, The Godfather II, Pride and Predjudice, Love Actually, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Camp Sleepaway

11. Tattoos?

Nope.

My nominees for a Liebster award are:

Brand New Mom

The Holistic Foodie

DIY Design Mom

The Fabuless Wife

Seeking the South

The Crunchy Chronicles

Deeva Designs

honestly: motherhood

The Urban Traveller

Reality Mom Blog

Skinny Belle

Check out some of these great blogs over the next little while. They’ve all had some great content and are worth a look at!

Here are my questions for them:

1. How did you choose the name of your blog?

2. What is the last thing you broke?

3. What was the last purchase you made that had you feeling guilty?

4. Favourite Band?

5. How long was the longest time you haven’t looked at your phone?

6. Favourite Book?

7. When was the last time you went on vacation and where?

8. How long have you been blogging for?

9. If you could bring three things to an island, what would you bring and why?

10. Which do you like better? Instagram or Facebook? Twitter or Pinterest?

11. What’s your favourite quote or set of song lyrics?

As a Mom there are definitely more than a few more things that seem to land under my job description compared to my son’s Father. That being said, our job to raise our son is equal. Sure I am the one who shops for my sons clothing, I am usually the one who makes all of the meals (conveniently because my husband burns everything – smart way to take yourself out of the equation), and I take our son on most of his playdates since they tend to be with the children of my girlfriends. When it comes to everything else like teaching him how to ice skate, dropping him off or picking him up from school, or our new venture of potty training, my husband and I split these tasks down the middle.

So why is it that when I have a dentist appointment after work, I ask my husband if he can babysit? It just sort of pops out of my mouth without me thinking. Babysitting to me implies that someone like a grandparent or relative is filling in or watching your child when you can’t, but that really isn’t what I am asking my husband to do. I am really just letting him know I won’t be home and he’s on his own. He isn’t taking over my role – he’s just doing his own alone.

My husband hates it when I slip up and call it babysitting. It offends him, and says me not being home does not mean he is babysitting – he is doing his job.

He’s totally right. From day one he has been very involved with everything when it came to our son. Every feeding I did for the first three weeks after my son was born my husband would come with me just to keep me company. When he went back to work after those three weeks he would still sporadically pop in for a 3am feeding to check on us. He couldn’t exactly help me out with the feeding, but he wanted to be there to help me with anything I needed. His favourite line is always “what can I do to help?” when I am turning around in circles in the kitchen trying to get my life together.

So why is it when I want to take my son to the zoo on the weekend I ask him if he want’s to come instead of planning it with him? This also drives him crazy. It’s like I have this idea burned into my brain that my job is to do everything, and if he can help out or come along it’s a bonus.

What I think I have figured out is that from the time I became pregnant things already weren’t split between us 50\50. I had to carry a small little human inside of me for 9 months, and don’t think for a second I let him forget it. I gave up some of my favourite things to eat and drink for the sake of our son’s health, and then there was the whole giving birth thing, and as soon as that was all over I had to breast feed.

A part of me must have decided from the beginning that this whole parenting thing was mostly up to me since I was already doing more than my share of work.

What I need to do is get that chip off my shoulder. My husband does everything right – as long as he’s not working he goes to every birthday party with me because he says he wants to help me out, he may not cook for the family but he does all of the dishes, he often packs our son’s breakfast snack for school (we have been in a competition to see who’s snack our son likes better), and he steps up do some of my usual responsibilities when I can’t.

It’s not fair to think that everything is my responsibility when he has quite a bit himself, and what he doesn’t do is likely because I am the one who wants to do it! The least I can do is put myself in his shoes and treat him like the equal partner he is and consider the way he feels when I ask him to “babysit” or make plans and invite him later. I know I would be more than a little upset if he did the same to me. I know Mom’s have a lot put on their shoulders, and often it seems like it’s too much, but when I sit back and think about it most of what I have on my shoulders I may have decided to take on myself because I wanted to.

I’m always proud of being one of my sons favourite people. When he’s happy, hurt, sad, or scared I’m usually requested immediately. I have to admit, it feels really good!

What I didn’t expect were the moments when my presence wouldn’t be requested, or sometimes actually banished all together.

I tend to be the disciplinarian between my husband and I, which also means he may see me as the bad guy. My husband disciplines our son as well, but somehow it ends up falling mostly on my shoulders. I think my son is starting to see this, and he’s learning that his Dad is more fun than I am.

It makes me a bit sad that he is running to his Dad whenever I discipline him. His Dad is doing a great job of following up with everything I am teaching our son, but still it’s a little more lonely than I thought it would be being the bad guy.

Now that our son is talking more, he is expressing himself and how he feels, and sometimes that is hard to take as well! I know he is still trying to form his words so things can easily be misinterpreted, but sometimes he is clear as clear can be with how he feels.

Every day I ask him if he misses me after being at school. Nine times out of ten he says “Yes Mommy I missed you!”, but last week he said “No Mommy, I didn’t miss you”. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it kind of hurt my feelings! To be fair I set myself up for that one by asking, and even though it was harmless it hurt a little.

My son has also be very clingy with my husband lately which has been a strange scenario since he usually clings to me a bit. I have been feeling really left out! When we get home he will run to his Dad and say “Daddy let’s cuddle!”, and he drags him to the couch. I ask if I can join them and my son will say “No Mommy, just London and Daddy”. It’s not a big deal really, but it hurts my feelings a bit.

It’s been the same situation with grandparents and friends – my son seems more excited to see everyone else but me. It makes me appreciate it so much more when he does want all of my attention. I’m ready to drop everything and and do whatever he wants!

I’m really trying not to take things so personally, but it’s hard. I try to take the emotional hit, and just move on with life. I’m sure it’s all just another phase (how many phases do we need to go through before he turns 18?), and as long as he’s happy that’s all that matters. BUT if this lasts too long, I may have to resort to sabotage and bribery to gain my rightful place back as his favourite person!

All joking aside, I don’t actually know what the right thing to do is in this situation. The one thing I do know is that I need to be sure I’m not making concessions so my son favours me more, and I need to stay strong with the rules and lessons we want to teach him.

My son and I had a conversation last week that really got me thinking. He was watching a movie on TV, and when a commercial came on he said he wanted to watch the movie again. I explained it was just a commercial, and his show would be back on soon. He had no idea what a commercial was! I realized that when he did watch TV, it was normally something I had recorded with our PVR, or from Apple TV or Netflix. So basically this kid had no idea what a commercial was, but he knew he wanted it over now! I tried to explain that he had to wait for his movie to come back on, but he just didn’t understand and totally freaked out.

I was kind of shocked at how impatient he was being. But what could I really expect since I had set up this behaviour? Anytime my son wanted to watch a show, I just started it up with the click of a button. He didn’t have to wait, and I never had to think about it. The kid had made it to the age of 2.5 without even knowing what a commercial was. How crazy is that?

It made me think to a few other similar instances we have had like this. Sometimes I bake with my son, and one time we made muffins and I had to put them in the oven to bake (which I told my son), and he said “no mommy, we go to Starbucks”. He didn’t think we had to wait, we just had to head over to the Starbucks Drive-Thru where we usually pick him up a muffin on Saturday mornings.

So basically I accidentally taught my son that any show or movie he wants to watch is available at the push of a button, and if he wants a muffin he doesn’t need to wait for it to bake, we can just hit the Starbucks Drive-Thru.

I’ve noticed a lot of things in my son’s life sort of arrive instantly as well. If he wants to play a new game on the iPad, I can download one instantly. If he is hungry, I’ve already got snacks in my bag, a drink on hand, or if I’m without we can stop by Starbucks to grab a milk or an apple juice (or a muffin!).

I guess I hadn’t realized that giving him everything he wanted in an instant would be an issue. I’m really not sure what I was thinking.

Well, actually I have some idea of what I was thinking. Drive-Thru’s, the PVR, Netflix – these were all easy ways for me to get things done. Why bother making a snack or waiting until we got home when I could just head through a Drive-Thru? Meanwhile my son was taking this all in and realizing if he’s hungry that is where we go, and food is waiting for us.

The same went for what he’s been watching on TV. I’m not sure if he will ever understand rushing to get home to watch his favourite show. Or missing a big show because he was out living his life – he can just tape it!

I know he won’t really grow up in the same world that I did, but I think I do need to focus on reinforcing the idea of patience. Patiently waiting for something to bake in the oven because it will taste fresher (and hopefully better) than a store-bought muffin. Or planning on watching a show (commercials and all) that we can’t quickly get through, and instead taking snack or game breaks during commercials.

I’m always trying to take advantage of all of the great things we have the option of using now like groceries delivered to your doorstep, and an endless supply of Apps at the push of a button. These things are all great, but I also need to focus on slowing things down and showing my son that good things come to those who wait. Or at least to those who walk into Starbucks to pick out their own muffin instead of using the Drive-Thru.