Loulou's views

Last Friday after work, I rushed home to see my boys and spend some time with them before going out for drinks with some friends, one of whom is an award-winning parenting author . Ahem. Whenever I go out with these girls , we always have a great time. The night was fabulous, and the laughs were plentiful. It was the beginning of a very good weekend... I fell asleep at 2 a.m., and then the phone rang. At exactly 5:30 a.m. Nothing will shake you out a hangover faster than your mom phoning at an ungodly hour to say: "It's mom! Your sister is in the hospital, her water broke! Get the kids and let's go let's go let's go!" After hanging up the phone, I rolled over and fell back asleep. Chances were very good that no baby would be making an appearance before 9 a.m. Certainly not before I had my coffee! When I woke up I went into nesting mode on behalf of my sister, and spent the morning cleaning my house from top to bottom, while at the same time playing with my c...

With BlogHer only two! weeks! away! I thought it would be an excellent time to offer some advice about how to prepare for this conference. I wrote a Top 5 Reasons To Be Stressed About BlogHer post before I arrived to BlogHer last year, because I was a bit overwhelmed. (Keeping track of the party invitations alone was a full-time job!) My fears disappeared as soon as I popped the Ativan on the airplane. I travelled with some awesome bloggers , so that helped calm down my mommy guilt, since it was my first time flying without my boys. This year, the 'party plane' as it's been dubbed, will be filled with awesome Canadian bloggers including the girls from Mom Central Canada ! In summary, BlogHer last year was an absolutely amazing experience , which is why I'm going again. Without further ado, here is my BlogHer advice to you, if you're going for the first time: If you want to meet someone, don't be shy. Run up to that famous blogger you love, professing your lo...

Half an hour into our drive to Ogunquit, Maine, my five year old asked the infamous road trip question: "Are we there yet?" Yup, travelling with young children—whether by plane or car or train—is no walk in the park. Unless your walk in the park involves children, in which case, you know exactly what I am talking about. We were prepared for this eight hour road trip, though. Thanks to my good friends at GM Canada, we got to travel in the new Acadia Denali, a huge vehicle with plenty of room for all our belongings. The best part? The built-in DVD player that my children made excellent use of. That, and the ipad. And frequent stops. And plenty of junk food. The best part about travelling in a vehicle (versus flying on an airplane) is that there is no such thing as 'over-packing'. I kept sneaking things into the truck, just in case. Like that extra pair of shoes, just in case ... Packing for the kids is challenging, but I've learned from all our past vac...

5 shirts 4 tank tops 5 dresses 2 pairs of jeans 2 pairs of lulu lemons 4 bras 8 thongs 4 bikinis 2 one-piece J.Crew bathing suits 1 pair of little beach shorts 3 pairs of flip flops 2 pairs of wedge heels 2 purses 1 beach bag 1 'books and toys' bag 2 backpacks 1 lulu lemon bag filled with 'essentials', like Advil, Gravol, flat-iron. 2 very full suitcases 1 DVD player 1 DVD player in vehicle 1 iPad 2 iPhones A cooler full of food 2 pillows 2 blankets All this... for a 7.5 hour road trip to beautiful Maine. All this... for five days! I didn't overpack, did I?