Meet Mother Haggard - Mother Haggard

Mother Haggard

Hey there!

I’m so glad you stumbled your way to Mother Haggard.

I’m Samantha (or Ma Hag, if you want to keep it formal) and I’m a first-time mom who stays home with my daughter, Lucy, in our tiny apartment in Toronto (my husband, beabull and elderly cat live there, too).

Meet Mother Haggard

I wasn’t always Mother Haggard.

But after my first year of motherhood, I found I had changed.

The evolution happened slowly. It began with the song “Peanut Butter Sandwich” by Raffi, which repeated in my head on an endless loop, softly, but always, always there.

I noticed I had begun to narrate all of my actions aloud, especially while in public places (“Let’s go look at the bread now. Yay bread! This bread looks nice. Doesn’t this bread look nice? Let’s touch the bread. Oh, soft. Soft bread. Now the cheese!”).

I became deeply invested in my daughter’s board books and would spend my days analyzing plot structure and character motivation.

I rarely slept more than three hours in a row (…could this be the reason for the ever-present Raffi? You hear it, don’t you? Don’t you? It’s playing right now). I spent whatever free time I had researching nap schedules, puree recipes and how to get rid of the Diaper Genie stank (can’t be done).

Meanwhile, the apartment seemed to have turned into a hovel, I was consuming shameful amounts of granola bars as meals and my under-eye circles had grown so dark and puffy that my baby poked and prodded them in wonder each time she came near my face. I grew irrationally attached to my favorite pair of old sweatpants (love you, Big Greys).

When I realized that I had spent an entire morning saying nothing but the phrase, “bye bye dog dog,” I knew the transformation was complete.

I was Mother Haggard.

And you know what?

I decided to go with it.

I would embrace my new identity. I would embrace the mess, the madness, the mania, the five large overflowing bins of dirty laundry that need to be done (just kidding I still have major anxiety over those).

Because this parenthood thing is hard, man. The hours are long, there are no vacations and it often feels impossible trying to remember the old you before baby.

But is it all worth it for how your baby laughs when you say “bye bye dog dog” for the eightieth time in a row? It absolutely is.

So what do you say we skip that shower, grab our cold cup of coffee and come hang together here at Mother Haggard? Let’s go slightly mad together!

a peanut butter sandwich made with jam one for me and one for david amram a peanut butter sandwich made with jam yum yum yum yum yum