I AM - BECAUSE YOU ARE

An unexpected email, with 2 very simple questions: What’s been your biggest win of the back-to-school season? What’s your biggest struggle? Let’s start with the first since it’s an easy one. She loves school! She loves taking the bus to school. She loves going to daycare after school. She loves the Breakfast Club. She loves the hot lunches. She loves her teacher. She loved her first Ped Day. Honestly, there isn’t one thing about the whole school experience that I would say she doesn’t love, except that she never gets homework so she sometimes gives some to herself – but that will wear off quickly once she hits Grade 1 I’m sure! SO, all in all, it’s a huge win! However, as the parent, I do see an emerging struggle that she is blissfully unaware of for the time being. And so, advocating for my child has taken precedence once again. There is no such thing as a “bad kid” - just angry, hurt, tired, scared, confused, impulsive ones expressing their feelings & needs the only way they know...

 A few people have been asking me how the end of daycare and start of school went, and while I had the best of intentions to write this bit by bit over the last week and post on the weekend, my brain had other plans for us and that just didn’t happen! So, here is a synopsis of everything.  Last day of daycare While the Friday before was a whirlwind of unexplained (and possibly misplaced) emotions, the last minutes of her last day with her teacher went surprisingly well! When I got to the door, I rang the bell, but no one came so I thought maybe it hadn’t rung inside. I pressed it again and this time I heard it clearly. Still, no one. As I went to press it a 3rd time, around the corner came my smiling LO with a gift bag in her hands followed by a sobbing teacher! They shared a few more hugs before and she was finally handed over to me after I promised we would come back to visit. Barely at the car, she remembered that I came to pick her up specifically when her te...

We have had an eventful few days, and even more for the week to come. Last Friday the LO had an emotional goodbye with one of the girls who works at daycare. It seems like they had bonded in a short amount of time, and after hearing that this girl would be leaving for school herself, our LO was overcome with emotions. She internalizes first, while processing, and either resolves it on her own or bursts. This time she burst, and she kept repeating that the girl "really likes her" and asking "why is she leaving for school" over and over again. The thing is, while she has bonded with her over the last couple of months, it's nothing in comparison to the attachment she has with her teacher. They met when she was only 3 months old, she's spent time with her on and off throughout her years at daycare, but has actually been in her class for the last 2 years! While her emotions were genuine, I don't feel as though they were truly attached to that particular girl ...

Happy Birthday to me! 42 laps around the sun; some waaaaayyyy longer than others, and a few of them far too short for sure. But I made it alive and mostly in 1 piece; minus 100lbs in the last 18 months – woohoo! But now that I’m here, is this really it? "The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42" The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , Douglas Adams I’m pretty sure the quote above has become more famous than the novel itself. I mean, how many people have heard the quote but never even read the book? And while geeks around the world have wasted years of their lives trying to put some deep, symbolic, mathematical meaning to the number, the author himself states that there is, in fact, no meaning to it at all. “It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ‘42 will ...