The little things are sweet.
The boys were so excited to decorate the front of the house. We pulled out the orange Halloween box and the boys were off!
We only got one scowl from a neighbour, but she was also the one that told us when she met us, “I was hoping you would have girls!” Haha. Sorry lady.
Enjoy our fun morning of activity:
Today was Parent-Teacher Interviews/Orientation at JC’s elementary school.
We loved it! It was not the usual whip in, whip out for a ten minute conference with the teacher.
Today was a leisurely hour where the teacher made a presentation to a group of parents. Then JC got to guide us through different areas of the class: his desk, reading bin, artwork, dictee word stations etc. Lastly, each parent talked with the teacher about their child’s goals.
JC’s were:
1. Ignore his teacher. He has his antennae tuned to her.
2. Work more slowly and he could be exceeding expectations. Oh, JC lives being first.
Here are a few samples of his work: yes, he is taking French Immersion.
This self-evaluation JC did with his teacher was brilliantly insightful. A self-evaluation where the student coloured in yellow highlighter and the teacher was in blue. Anytime the student and teacher were in agreement the highlighter turned green. Brilliant!
My personal favourite. I cried!
I stand.
On my own.
I wait.
For someone to say something.
For someone to smile, to notice, to see this shattered human among them.
I stand.
In the unknown.
I wait.
For someone to tell me something.
For someone to tell me it will be okay, mom will be healed and I will have my best friend back.
I stand.
Not knowing.
I wait.
For someone to show me something.
For someone to show me why I am living here in isolation with my boys, away from my parents, from my support, from the place I am ‘known’.
I stand.
I understand.
I wait for no one.
No human can answer my questions.
No one can be enough, no one can help me comprehend or bring me moment-by-moment comfort.
I stand.
I am not alone.
I wait.
God is my strength.
My Someone.
My everlasting peace and joy.
My understanding.
My known.
He is more than enough in my isolation from family and friends.
Thank you Jesus.
Mom has officially turned a corner. No more pain/nausea. She is getting out and about. She came for a short visit today. She is eating and drinking. It truly is the little things in life! October 31st is mom’s surgery date.
Oh ya, I also have something to share. When you ‘turn the corner’ into our dining room/kitchen, look at this great hat rack we put up from Ikea:
I love this simple rack! It holds all the boys knapsacks. There are cubbies for them to put their home reading/crafts in. We have even been using the top to keep our precious Lego creations safe.
I just love turning a corner!
Sidenote:
I am not sure if anyone feels schizophrenic about this post or not, but it definitely shed some light for me. I was writing about my mom turning a corner which led me to thinking about our new rack around the corner.
Every day, I live in the reality of my mom’s journey through cancer. Every day I struggle to ‘feel’ anything but sadness and loss. It is the little things like this silly backpack rack that keep my chin up and my feet moving forward.
Everything else (mom’s cancer, this move, some relationships, new neighbours) I can’t put into an “organized box”!
Thank God for God. I’m holding tightly my Lord!
My counsellor has been working with me to let go of the Western ideal that we move from point A to point B never to return to ‘old stuff’.
When I continue to go over this old ground in my mind, I feel like a failure, I feel shame and I feel mad.
My inner dialogue goes something like this:
“What this again? Seriously Joanna. Are you really going to have this same conversation again? Are we really going down this path? How could this happen again?”
Thanks to my counsellor, I have shifted this A to B mentally to be more of a deepening spiral. Like a tornado funnel.
Oh I like this analogy because sometimes I have me some wind blowing around me!
Yes, I am going to go over the same road again but I am going to be in a different place on my path, a deeper place. (I am almost 40 you know!).
Last night, was a huge mental shift downward into my deepening spiral.
For weeks I have looked for a once per week hockey program that we could do in Ktown. Do you think I could find one? Nope! Minor hockey, that wants to devour families lives with their three times per week practices/games, is the show in this town.
Sooo….
We decided to take JC out of Grade One forty-five minutes early and drive the boys sixty kilometres back to the town we just moved from so that the boys could play hockey.
They are back at the rink they know.
CC has the same coach he had last year.
Papa was on the ice with CC.
JC got to move up a level.
He gets his own jersey this year.
I get to see old friends each week.
AND THE VERY BEST PART, NANA CAME TO WATCH. Can you see me up and jumping around?
It was amazing night of going backwards. JC’s teacher was supportive of our idea, dad laced up his skates and even went for a morning skate to get ready, lastly mom looked me square in the eyes and said, “I am really glad that you are coming here for hockey!”
Anything for you Mama! Now if only I could meet your request for a new body!
JC waiting to give his brother a high five before his turn on the ice.
Papa and CC working together.
OC watching the action.
Nana is on the right in the toque.
Sometimes you need to go backwards to move forward. Lesson learned. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Deeper. Deeper. Deeper.
Our ‘Angel A’ friend drove over ten hours last week to help out during mom’s post chemo recovery.
‘A’ soared through a rushed trip to the hospital, moment-by-moment decisions and tearful prayer times. We are grateful that she could spend time away from her family to help our family.
One of the best moments she had with our wee boys was during an impromptu craft session using the newspaper sitting on the table, glue, foil and a piece of paper.
The big one on the left is JC, bottom right is CC and top right is OC.
Can anyone tell we have been doing a lot of snorkelling in the pool?
#bestcraftever
Sunday afternoon, JC and I went to do a few errands for Nana and Papa here in the big city.
I find these one-on-one times with the boys are incredibly insightful and lead me down paths that sometimes I don’t understand.
Here is our story from Sunday:
JC and I were walking through a store looking at the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations. We were talking about thanksgiving, then being thankful, next was school then we moved on to his teacher. We finished the conversation by trying to think of some way we could show his teacher we are thankful.
JC emphatically answered, “Shoes! Mom, we need to get her some shoes!”
In my mind I started rolling through the options – does she talk a lot about shoes, does she wear different shoes everyday (my high school VP wore a different tie every day), does she wear ‘funny’ shoes or ? I was confused.
He insisted we buy his teacher shoes, but we started talking about how much we wanted to spend or was there something we could do instead. We settled on a sweet treat and a note where I told his teacher the story of the shoes.
I just received an email from his teacher and here was her response:
I may know why Jackson wanted to buy me shoes!! I have several single shoes at school for an up-coming lesson on selecting ‘good fit’ books. The idea of the lesson is that choosing a book is like choosing shoes to buy: they need to be the right size AND they need to fit your purpose. For example, you wouldn’t wear heels to go hiking. This is just like not choosing a story book about frogs if you want to learn about frogs. All this to say that I have many single shoes at school, and I have not yet explained why. Might he have thought that my shoes don’t have mates? Or is he insinuating that my gym runners are out of style!?!
This is hilarious! My poor organized , empathetic first born noticed all these single shoes and wanted to correct the ‘problem’ for his teacher.
Hahahaha. This made my whole month. I love creative teachers.
"Be" ENOUGH 