Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 15

EDITOR: SHELLEY BINDON, 780-429-5356; familyedmontonjournal.com EDMONTON JOURNAL SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2010 A15 LIFE AFTER BIRTH My pre-mama clothes are taunting me Premature test of old jeans threatens self-esteem 1 j. 'j Li i 4 1 i if 4: Sv It can't hurt to try, right? Oh yes it can. My ego is still licking its wounds. Picture it: an ordinary weekday afternoon in Edmonton. A new mother (that'd be me) has just finished feeding her five-week-old son, Oscar.

While he snoozes, she creeps into the basement and opens the closet where she has stashed all her prepregnancy clothes. You can guess where this is headed. The new mother unzips one of the suitcases. Its contents emit a golden glow akin to the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction Memories wash over her. The denim skirt from France! The pink polka-dot pyjamas! The red satin bra she bought to seduce her husband last Christmas! (for the record, Oscar was not the result.) She rummages through the clothing, fondling the fabrics with her eyes shut, reminiscing in a sweet, pathetic sort of way, like someone with a broken heart might when poring over photographs of happier times.

JASON FRANSON, THE JOURNAL Jack Michaels, the Edmonton Oilers' new play-by-play announcer, shares a snack with daughter Callie, 6, wife Emily and son Tyler, 3, at their home in Sherwood Park. The family lived in Anchorage for eight years before coming to Edmonton. Alaska-Edmonton move takes some adjustment Family of Oilers new play-by-play man adapting to Canada Then, she decides to go for it. She slips off her black sweatpants. 6 6 A new mom got to keep her (double) chin up.

99 put out the recycling, and when to roll the compost bins to the curb. "There's so much recycling here, which I love. There wasn't much in Alaska, and you couldn't recycle glass at all because it cost so much to ship it out," she says. "If the little things that are tricky (about moving to a new country)," she continued. "Figuring out the health-care system, for instance, and getting a credit card when you move to a new country you don't have any credit But, really, they're all easy things to deal with.

And everyone has been so friendly and so welcoming." She admits she knew little about Edmonton, just that it was much bigger than Anchorage, population 300,000, and that it had "a really big mall." When she found out they were moving, she immediately downloaded an Edmonton travel guide onto her Kindle, an electronic book reader, to learn what she could. "We actually ran into a couple from Edmonton at the airport in Anchorage and I started spouting off all these facts I had memorized," said Emily, a former school teacher. "They were surprised at how much I knew." Since Emily and the kids arrived in mid-September to join Michaels he's been here since mid-July the family has spent every spare moment exploring their new aty and marvelling at the beautiful weather. "It actually snowed in Alaska the week after we left, says Emily. "Meanwhile, we're sending pictures back to friends of us wearing shorts and tank tops.

They can't believe it; they're all saying: 'I thought you were moving to Edmonton, not jhalledmontonjournal.com JAMIE HALL Journal Staff Writer EDMONTON Six-year-old Callie Michaels was thrilled to know people sang "the Canada song" at Edmonton Oilers games, too, not just at her elementary school in Sherwood Park. When fans rose for the national anthem at a recent game at Rexall Place, she stood, too, and sang every word loud and proudly, but not before coaching her mom. "She said to me: 'OK, Mom, it's time for the Canada song. Just fake it; I'll sing it for recalls Emily Michaels, laughing. It was only when Callie began chanting Go, Canada, Go! a few minutes into the game that she gave herself away; the pre-season tilt was against the Calgary Flames.

The Grade 1 student gets an A for effort, though. After all, she's only been Canadian for a little more than a month. Callie's dad is Jack Michaels, the Oilers' new play-by-play announcer. An American born and raised in Pennsylvania, Michaels and his family the couple also has a three-year-old son, Tyler recently moved here from Anchorage, Alaska, where for eight years he called games for the Alaska Aces of the East Coast Hockey League. He liked to think he knew a thing or two about his newly adopted country even before he got here; Victoria has a team in the ECHL, so Michaels was accustomed to "popping over" every now and again during the hockey season.

He knew, for instance, that Boxing Day had nothing to do with Canadian heavyweight George Chuvalo. He knew that Thanksgiving in Canada a a. edmontonjournal.com Visit Elizabeth Withey's columnist page on our website to read archived Life After Birth columns. much work to be done. And with a newborn in tow, exercise presents a whole new set of challenges.

It's not just about whether Fm in the mood, or whether I have the energy. It's about child care. Ew. Since the old-jeans disturbance, I've been on the scale. Not catastrophic enough to trigger postpartum depression, but nonetheless demoralizing.

I mean, come on, Fm not hauling around 10 pounds of breast milk. "I like your tum my," my husband says to me one night, thoughtfully trying to boost my self-confidence. It's the kind of compliment you don't really want to receive. Our bodies do not define us, I know. But now that the baby is out, and now that I've got my physical vessel all to myself again, the standards, the vanity, the body image insecurities come bubbling up.

No more is there that perfect excuse Fm pregnant to make sense of the softness and fluid retention. Nursing helps lighten the load, it's true. A woman who breastfeeds without supplementing with formula burns hundreds more calories each day. But that sets a gal up for counterproductive snacking habits. Of course I can have another row off the chocolate bar.

Yes please to that extra wedge of flatbread pizza. And why not eat another spoonful of jam. I'm breastfeeding! I need nourishment! Try as I might, it is difficult to be forgiving. To be patient with my body, allow it to recover, find its old rhythm and set point. I realize it has just done an amazing thing reproduce but I want my old self back.

Now. All week I've been telling myself to keep things in perspective. To be tharikful, as the recent holiday suggests we do, for the things that matter: family, good health and so on. I remind myself of others with bigger problems than a bit of baby flab, Mke the Hungarian red sludge victims and those Chilean miners, even now that they've been rescued. A new mom's got to keep her (double) chin up.

But I don't plan to get rid of my old jeans. Try, try again, right? They can damn well wait in that basement suitcase until my waist is ready for them. motivated to work hard on the next project," Cimpian says. "Effective praise should also be focused on the process," he says, "so it's good to ask about how your child approached the project and which parts of the project were enjoyable or challenging." Putting emphasis on the steps your child took toward the final product shows you value the effort he made, not the final mark. Modelling is also important Dweck advises that parents and teachers should avoid using fixed statements about themselves, such as, "I'm not a math person," and instead emphasize how working to better understand a topic is the real goal.

Not all experts agree there's something wrong with "person praise" such as "Good girl!" or "Good job!" "Parents often underestimate the power of their approval," says child psychologist Maggie Mamen, "but there's nothing wrong with telling a child 'Good when (she has) done a good job." She believes one of the most important things parents can do is be specific about their expectations, and points out that "Clean your room" is very different from "Make your bed, pick up your clothes, and put your books back on the shelf." That way, says the author of The Pampered Child Syndrome, when you say, "Good job" at the end, your child knows what behaviour, specifically, is being praised. Postmedia News was celebrated in October and wasn't quite the big deal it is in the U.S. He'd heard that television sports coverage was 90 per cent hockey here, 90 per cent football in the U.S. What he didn't know much about was the metric system. He received an education almost as soon as he got here, though, when he peered in his rear-view mirror and saw the flashing lights of a police cruiser.

"I got pulled over the first day here. The officer looked at my Alaska li- 66 1 had no idea what the speed limit was. Our cars are American-made so the speedometers are in miles. 99 Jack Michaels, on his introduction to Canada's metric svstem cence plate and said: 'You must be the new guy with the He was very understanding. I had no idea what the speed limit was.

Our cars are American-made so the speedometers are in miles; the kilometre part is little. I never noticed it before." He does now, even though he has to squint to see the numbers. Emily, meanwhile, had her own metric issues. She resorted to hand signals to try to explain how much luncheon meat she wanted when she went to the deli counter, having no idea what 100 grams looked like. A metric conversion chart given to her by their neighbour Gretta has become one of her most valued possessions.

Neighbours have also helped her decipher Strathcona County's waste system the family is renting a house in Sherwood Park for the time being advising her when to turn (him or her) from being focused on what (he or she is) doing to being focused on appearing smart," explains Carol Dweck, the author of Mindset and a professor of psychology at Stanford University. "This makes (him or her) less motivated, less resilient in the face of setbacks, and less willing to take on new challenges." She explains that fixed statements such as, "Good job!" or "Good girl!" or "Good boy!" don't give kids information they can use for future challenges, whereas helping them understand where their efforts are paying off will. Praise can even encourage children to be dishonest. In one study, Dweck found that students who had been given "person praise" before being told they performed poorly on a task were more likely to lie about their scores. Dweck believes that the mistaken idea that doling out frequent, blanket and undeserved praise to kids began to take root during the self-esteem movement in the 1970s.

She also believes this approach doesn't do children any favours. For one thing, she says, when kids who are used to being praised for easy successes have to confront real challenges and deal with setbacks, they tend to "crash and burn." Process praise (also called "growth mindset is the kind of praise that really motivates children, because it reinforces the fact that learning and growing are a part of Sucks it in with all her motherly might. Crosses her fingers for some sort of miracle. And tries on a pair of her old jeans. Silly, silly, silly.

If you've just had a baby, or if you're about to, I implore you, in the interest of self-preservation: do not try this at home. Learn from the error of my ways and do not dig up your pre-mama clothing too soon. The bun may be out of the oven, but there's still dough all over the kitchen, if you catch my drift. After a few moments of gasping and writhing and swearing, I take the jeans off. The ankles fit.

The knees fit. Even the thighs fit. But the zip will not go up. My old jeans taunt me. "Yeah right," they snort with a size-eight smugness.

"Did you actually think you'd get these on? Do you actually think you'll ever get them on again? Good luck with that, Porky!" I fold the jeans neatly and place them back in the suitcase. And for a few moments I stand there in my granny undies my horridly sensible, beige undies and give those old jeans the stink eye. I give them the stinkiest eye I can muster. It takes every ounce of self-control not to stomp up the stairs, pull out a pair of scissors, cut the stupid jeans into stupid pieces of stupid denim and flush every stupid shred down the stupid toilet. Packing away my regular dothing during pregnancy was a healthy thing to do.

Out of sight, out of mind. I recommend it. It pained me, as my pregnant body expanded, to see all my favourite outfits collecting dust because they didn't fit. Revisiting that abandoned wardrobe prematurely? Not so healthy. It only reminds me that, while I lost an instant 25 pounds when Oscar was born in September, there is still So what's the best way to praise your child? "Effective praise is specific," says Andrei Cimpian, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, who both studies the topic and uses it in his classes.

If your child brings a project home to show you, for example, Cimpian advises you to ask detailed questions, such as why your child chose a particular colour, theme or approach. "Anything that shows you're taking an interest in your child's hard work, rather than placing a judgment on the final product, is going to go a long way toward keeping your child How praising a child can lead to failure Commending a child for intelligence instead of hard work can make her less motivated, even dishonest, experts say i. ARAINA BOND Ottawa Citizen When my son was seven, he suddenly took to drawing with an intense and focused concentration. I come from an artistic family, so I was thrilled that he was finally taking an interest in something more creative than bug-catching and bike riding. "You're such an amazing artist," I gushed, and ran out to buy him scads of the finest pencil crayons and paper.

When I presented the special art supplies to him with a flourish, he thanked me with a puzzled look, then stopped drawing pictures of any sort for the next few years. At first, I couldn't figure out where Fd gone wrong. I was sure that praising my son was a positive thing. And then, by chance, I came across a study by psychologist Mark Lepper that showed that when kids who loved colouring were rewarded for doing drawings, they were much less motivated to keep colouring than children who were drawing for the fun of it. In fact, new research shows there's not only a time and a place to praise a child, but a better way to do it.

At home and in school, children are told they're smart, beautiful or talented, a style of praising that experts call "person praise." (It can also be called fixed-mindset praise or outcome praise.) 1 "Research consistently shows that praising a child in a general way, for example, saying You're can WAYNE CUDDINGTON, OTTAWA CITIZEN, POSTMEDIA NEWS Writer Araina Bond may have temporarily stifled her son Cal Borsten's interest in drawing by calling him an "amazing artist." the process rather than a measure of fixed intelligence. "If kids learn that the brain is like a muscle, which can grow and become stronger, they are much more likely to persevere," she says, adding that many schools inadvertently teach fixed views through all the testing they do to measure long-term intelligence. "We should be explaining that tests just measure your skills right now, and skills can always be built on in the future," she says, adding that parents and teachers should value learning and improving, over grades. i.