provincial champs!

This is Josh's fifth year playing lacrosse. It's a year-round sport - with field lacrosse in the fall/winter season and box lacrosse in the spring season (carries into summer for the higher levels). Some kids play either field or box. Josh plays both. I see his love/hate relationship with it. Sometimes he wants to play and sometimes he doesn't. Brian has done his fair share of nudging Josh to get him to go to practices.  At the end of the day, though, I think it's engrained in him now and if he stopped, he'd miss it.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Josh playing lacrosse.  It's a rough sport and Josh isn't a big kid.  Not even close.  But I do love watching the kids play.  Seeing their growth through the years, as a parent, I'm in awe.  Not just Josh, but his teammates too.

This past 2017/18 field lacrosse season was a particularly memorable one.  Josh has bounced between the 2 tiers in his division from year to year.  This year, he made the Tier 1 team and the kids had quite a successful season!  They were undefeated in regular season games, losing once in tournament play. They won gold in the 2 tournaments they entered.  Then, to end the season on a high note, they won their final tournament, which was the equivalent to Provincials (officially, they don't have 'Provincials' until the next division up)!

More importantly, I think the kids gelled well this season.  They also had fantastic coaches!  It was inspiring watching them come together as a team.  The team deserved their success this season and we are so proud of them!

Now, after a couple of weeks of rest and digesting their success, they have started tryouts for box lacrosse season.  Ha - no rest for the wicked!  Go Bellies Go!

do you wanna build a snowman?

It’s rare in Vancouver to have a big dump of snow and then, 24 hours later, still have snow that hasn’t been rained on and hardened. This weekend, we had one of those rare mornings! When we woke up, the sun was shining brightly and snow that had fallen in the previous 24 hours was pristine!

Josh immediately said, “I’m going outside!” and Aves wasn’t going to be left behind! Tess asked Josh if he was going to build a snowman and in typical tween form he said, “I don’t build them anymore”. Fair enough.

Brian and I took our time getting ready and by the time we got outside, the kids had already been to the park and back. They'd clearly surveyed their surroundings! We got out the shovels and Josh said, “Dad, can you wait to shovel the driveway? I’m making a snowman.” Ha! Turns out, when you have ideal snowball-rolling conditions, even the most ‘tween’ of us can find that kid inside!

We decided it was better to build the snowman at school (a mix of surface area and quality of snow!). The end product was fun! Josh had this idea to use greenery for hair, so we trimmed our cedar hedge for hair! In the end, the kids decided to name him Jefferson.

 

As we left to carry on with our day, Josh asked if he could kick down Jefferson. Of course, I said, 'Don't do that! Let's leave him up until he melts.' Apparently, my maternal 'every child is an angel' idealism got the better of me. When we drove past the school an hour later, the snowman had been kicked down. Some asshole(s) thought it'd be ok to kick down someone else's snowman!  😡  I guess I learned a valuable lesson that day: when your child asks to kick down his own snowman, let him.

creating content

I had a conversation today.  One of my co-workers said his New Year's resolution is to create more content than he consumes.  Huh.  This is a very interesting resolution.  And kicks my thought process into high gear!  I'd say it is next to impossible to create more content than one consumes.  Reading books/periodicals, watching tv/movies, social media and the internet.  It's all consuming content.  How many opportunities does one have to create content?

I look at this blog as my last 'real' attempt to create content.  Then, a couple of years ago, I started to cheat in this effort.  It was quicker and more instantly gratuitous to post in social media, so instead of taking the time to think through what I wanted to post, I'd just snap a photo and post it on Facebook. Yes, it's easy to argue that posting in Facebook is also creating content, but it's not the same.

Now, when I look back at my Facebook posts and my blog posts, I definitely get more enjoyment reading my blog posts than my Facebook posts.  Also, sharing my blog with the kids is a blast!  It tells a story.  And I realize that it's not as important to me to let others know 'what I'm up to lately'; rather it's more important that I have something that I can reflect on with my family years down the road.

So, in an effort to 'create content', I'm going to start creating content that is meaningful to me.  I know I stopped doing this because life got so busy.  But maybe, if I take time out from consuming content and I create content instead, I might just find some time.  Fingers crossed.

aves says, 'i love moms!'

We had been plodding along the past little while, adjusting to life with 2 kids in school now, no more nanny and just trying to get the daily grind sorted between work, school, kid’s activities and everything in between.  It had been the usual, busy family stuff.

Then, toward the end of January, we had the proverbial perfect storm of events that sort of churned up our lives.  And now, 3.5 months later, I think the clouds are slowly parting, and as I start to see the sky again, I notice that the storm has shifted things in our world a bit.

In January, my work situation left me in a position where Brian and I started talking about whether it was time for me to leave my job.  The work situation coupled with the kids recently transitioning from having a nanny to going to out-of-school care and then dealing with stuff with Josh, led me to believe that it might be time to slow down the pace for awhile and focus on the kids.

I have never been in the position where I was unemployed and not fully looking for work (except for maternity leave, which was, mentally, a different kind of unemployed).  It was a scary idea for me to contemplate that I would be unemployed with my first priority as the kids, and not finding another job.  But Brian and I decided we could manage it financially, so we decided to go for it.

At the beginning of February, I left my job.  It was strangely cathartic.  The day after, I felt mildly exuberant.  I was so relieved to not have to worry about work stresses, but I knew there was a long, unknown road ahead.  It was strange to admit, but I had just made the choice to be a stay-at-home mom for the next little while!  

Here’s the thing though: I’m good at my job.  I’m good at work.  And I like work interactions.  I have previously come to the realization that for me, work is easy.  The things I do at work are intuitive and come natural to me.  For me, it’s the parenting part that’s hard.  I have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to raising my kids.  Not only do I have no clue, but I also can’t hear my intuition when it comes to parenting.  So, I had just given up the thing I know, that comes natural to me and replaced it full time with the thing that daily makes me feel like I’m incompetent and not worthy.  Ha.

For the first month and a bit, all I did was decompress.  It took me this long to get myself to believe that now that I was not juggling my career job with my mom job, I was still just as ‘important’.  I found myself continuing to network, getting in touch with past colleagues and tried to keep my finger on my career pulse.  At the same time, I was figuring out how to deal with Josh’s stuff as well as trying to reconnect with family life (our nanny had just left us at the beginning of January, so reconnecting with family life was on-going).

It was very strange for me.  I felt a bit lost in understanding what I ‘needed’ to be doing.  Remember: even though I was technically a stay-at-home mom, there were 2 distinguishing factors:

1.  The kids were still in out-of-school care.  We didn’t want to lose our spots and we didn’t want there to be too much change to the kid’s routine.  So, I was a stay-at-home mom with child care.  Can you say ‘Real Housewives of New Westminster’?!  Ha.

2. I still had looking for a job hanging over my head.  How could I be unemployed and not be looking for another job?!  I was having trouble accepting this.

I don’t think I ever fully accepted that it was ok for me to be at home and not doing some sort of job search.  I guess the responsibility is so engrained in me.  But I think that one thing that I was able to finally accept, was that there was a place for me as an unemployed person who was spending more time with her family.   And in accepting this, I was able to reaffirm some of the truths I already knew about myself.  Like, I hate house cleaning and even if I have all day to do it, I still won’t.  And I need the different kind of mental stimulation that my work brings.  I need the work challenges that I can solve intuitively and feel confident about my decisions.  And, as selfish as it sounds, I can never get enough “me time”.

So, after the dust settled and I accepted the truths about myself, this is where the real learning began.  This is when I got to see the side of parenting that I never saw before.  The part where I suddenly had some time to enjoy it.  To really get a chance to sit down and look at the gobs of artwork and paper that my kids generate.  To get to see them off to class every morning and watch them interact with their friends.  To volunteer for activities in and around school.  To bring order to our household in a way that allowed my kids to thrive.  To get to go to all their different activities prepared and with purpose, as opposed to feeling like we’re just rushing them from one activity to the next.  I feel like I’m an active participant in my kid’s lives, not just an overseer of it.  I feel closer to my kids than I’ve ever felt before.

Here we are now on Mother’s Day and, ironically, on the eve of me starting a new job (because I just couldn’t stop looking!).  When I go back to work, I will have had almost 4 months to sort out what I’ve needed to with my family.  That person, in February, who had trouble letting go of her career self, is now terrified of what she might be letting go to bring her career self back in.  I don’t honestly know if I’m ready to go back to work.  I don’t know that I’ve accomplished all I set out to accomplish at home when we decided I should leave my job.  And I don’t know if I can keep that connection with the kids when I’m balancing a full time job again.  I found a new level of presence and patience with the kids that I don’t know if I can maintain when I add the burden of work stress.  I know when I go back to work, it will be easy for me to fall back into ‘work’ mode.  And I’m not sure I know how to have that connection to my work and maintain the connection I’ve made with my family life.  It’s making me feel very torn.

But I do know this: for 4 months, I had the opportunity to experience a different way of being in my family.  I got to step outside my normal self and see how else I could be, not just as a mother, but as a person too.  And as torn as I am about going back to work, I wouldn’t have traded this experience for anything.  In fact, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

So, as I sit here on Mother’s Day, eating breakfast in bed and contemplate how life-changing it’s been being a mother, I have to thank Brian for all his support as I navigated my version of stay-at-home-mom-dom.  I couldn’t have done it without you and I love you.  And I have to thank all my parental family and friends for their advice and non-judgment.  I think, in the end, its the fear of judgment that can kill us.

But mostly, I have to thank my kids.  Josh and Aves, thank you for showing me pure joy, honesty, unconditional love and resilience that I never knew existed.  You are the most amazing human beings I know.  You make me want to be the best mother I can be each and every day.  I love, love, love you guys like nothing else.

And to all the moms I know, who get to have the best job in the world, Happy Mother’s Day.  

oftenly versing

Yes, I'm a bit of a self-proclaimed word-nazi (for lack of a better word!).  But in my defense, I know much stricter (and more knowledgeable!) word-nazi's than myself.

I try to gently correct Josh and Aves when they say things incorrectly (e.g. writed), but I quite enjoy the learning process that comes with discovering new words and explaining why words are pronounced the way they are.

Recently, I noticed that my strictness is somewhat selective.  A good example is the word versus.  Josh has turned it into a verb and uses it to say things like 'Today, the red team was versing the blue team.'.  I corrected him once, but then I realized that I smiled each time he said it because it is an interesting derivation from the word versus.  I find that I don't correct him anymore when he says it.

The other day, I heard him say the word oftenly.  ("I do it oftenly because...blah, blah, blah.")  Again, I found that I didn't want to correct him.  I liked the word!  Ha.

So, even though I will continue to cringe when I hear the word 'orientated' instead of 'oriented' (yes, I know it's acceptable!) and 'real' instead of 'really' and 'I says' instead of 'I said', apparently, I'm ok if I hear 'versing' and 'oftenly'.  Now, if he is 18 and still saying either, I wonder if I will be still be ok with it...

tu parles français!

Knight? Bishop? Heaven forbid a pawn!

I remember a few years back when we were trying to make the decision to put Josh in EFI (early french immersion).  Much like deciding to hold him back a year, it was a very 'heavy' decision to make.  Man, it feels like decision-making goes to a whole new stress level when you are doing it for this little person who can't make the decision themselves and you have to decide what's best for them!  You try to weigh all the pros and cons but mostly, you're just crossing your fingers and praying.

I've seen many outcomes from these decisions.  Mostly good, but some have caused doubt.  Last week, though, we had our most rewarding experience for deciding to commit our kids to EFI.  I'm not sure what has caused Josh to fully embrace french immersion this year, but I'm constantly feeling like I need to hug Mme. D, Josh's Grade 2 teacher.  I can't say enough good things about how amazing a teacher she is!

Between that and having 2 years of french immersion under his belt, Josh's french is flourishing.  So, last week, the kids were having some quiet play time after dinner.  Josh had re-introduced himself to his Star Wars Lego after a brief hiatus.  He had all sorts of ships and mini figs strewn across the floor.  I was sitting at the dinner table nearby, sorting mail or something.  I slowed down momentarily to focus on Josh's play.  When I listened closely to what he had his mini figs saying to each other, that's when I noticed it.  Josh was playing en français.  Wow.  I was floored.  It took everything I had not to reach down and hug him.

Bravo, mon petit!  C'est formidable!

"babysitting"

Playing on the beach, Deception Pass, June 2014

It's amazing how conversations like this will still catch me off guard:

A: Mommy, what does a babysitter do?

Y: (huh?!) Well, when moms and dads have to go out and the kids can't come, they will get a baby sitter to come and do the things with the kids that Mom & Dad would do.

A: Like feeding them and getting them ready for bed?

Y: Yes :-)

A: Can kids go when people get married? (...and then getting to the point before I can answer...) Did Josh have a babysitter when you and daddy got married so you could have me?

Y: (bwahahaha!) Sweetie, Mom & Dad only got married once and it was before we had you and Josh. You don't get married each time you have a baby, you get married before you have all your babies (yes, I'm giving her the uncomplicated leave-it-to-beaver version!).

A: (not sure why I didn't see this coming) Well then how do you make babies?!

Sigh.  Mom had no answer but to say "I'll explain when you're older"!