Tag Archives: mom of boys

blogger, Grief, life, love, Self-help

Be Leaning Into Pain and Moving Towards Pleasure

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I have had quite a few lessons in life where I have had to lean into pain. How about you? Any pain coursing through your body and mind these days?

As a 15 year old, I had a very close friend who decided to hangout with older friends that partied, smoked and drank. I had to literally walk away from her as we discovered we no longer had anything in common as I pursued my athletic goals and knew that health was my future. It’s painful to lose people who you have been friends with you for years.

As a 21 year old, I was injured in my third year of university volleyball. Right after I hoisted the cup as the captain of my university team declaring we were the best team in Canada, I had to make a choice. I made a very painful decision to retire from volleyball after deciding not to do a surgery with a questionable outcome.

As a 39 year old, I grieved deeply as we moved from Vernon to Kelowna. I said goodbye to my parents living ten minutes away. We lost the routine of preschool pick-up seeing friends who had known us since before we had kids and having the beautiful Vernon Music School and the “Peanut” park just down the road. No longer could we drive 25 minutes up the hill to be at both world class downhill and cross country skiing.

Now in 2023, I am watching quite a few people in pain around me right now: Dealing with deaths, or divorces or illnesses or poor choices by those around them or …. just plain and simple pain.

What I want to say friends is: LEAN IN! Lean fully into the pain. I don’t believe that ignoring it, drinking it away, binge watching netflix or not fully acknowledging pain helps us as human beings in any way. Denial and distraction don’t really help us move through the pain. These two D’s help us get stuck!

Right now, we are personally having to lean into some pain, some uncomfortableness and a lot of uncertainty. I know that leaning into these feelings will help us move towards pleasure and not make any rash decision based on pain.

Not one single decision based on the pain we have experienced have been good ones.

Lean into the pain, then seek the pleasure and run towards it.

Sit against that wall in the darkness and feel that pain going through your body and then know the sunshine of pleasure will be just around the corner.

I have experienced it.

I know it.

I choose it!

Lean into the pain.

Feel it.

Soak in it.

Feel.

Deal.

Heal.

Then you will be able to truly make a decision based out of pleasure and not pain with the added bonus that you won’t make any rash or “bad” decision based on that pain alone, like we have done in the past!

Now, go have an epic Thursday and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

Book, Boys, gymnastics, mindset, mom of boys, Parenting

Be Writing a Letter to Trampoline and Artistic Gymnastic Parents (April 16th, 2023)

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It’s been an incredibly busy season for athletes involved in trampoline and artistic gymnastics. From February til now there have been many competitions. Since February Family Day weekend there have been three major competitions for our oldest son. The highlight was two weeks ago at Provincials where he achieved his goals for this season by moving up, aka mobilizing, into the National levels in all three events: trampoline, Double-mini trampoline and tumbling. He also achieved fifth all around for both male and female athletes in British Columbia in the national level. WAHOO! This young man will now represent British Columbia at Nationals in July.

This letter is being crafted to all the parents of these hardworking athletes, including myself, who have achieved their goals in months, years or failed to reached them by a score of 0.1. Yes, this sport is won and lost on very fine margins. I am throwing out some advice from my background in Kinesiology today and topping it off with some insight from Education.

Please give your child a week or two or even a month where scores or wins/losses don’t come into account.

Read to them or have them read to themselves, if they don’t see it as a chore. You could even buy them a copy of their favourite graphic novel.

Put out some clay, play dough or slime for them to play or create with.

Do a puzzle together.

Have a kitchen dance party and play their favourite music.

Draw together. They could draw what they feel or what they see. We love the Art for Kids Hub Youtube channel as you can find almost anything you would like to draw with helpful video lessons that are geared for kids. Even I can follow these directions! It’s so fun!

Go for a hike in nature together. This is our favourite and we try to do this weekly throughout all seasons of the year.

Build something together – Do you have Lego? How about the project you have always been wanting to build together in the garage?

Last but not least, why not embrace an old classic and play the cloud game. Sit on your backs in the grass and look for pictures in the clouds?

And that’s it folks! I hope that these amazing gymnasts that compete with such incredible intensity can steal from this list to calm their nervous systems and create a body and mind that can compete for years and years to come. What an incredible sport. We put out children in gymnastics at 18 months to build physical literacy. We never thought nor imagined that we would be fortunate to have a gymnast in the family. What a fun and exciting new sport to learn about and ponder today post-competition.

Have a marvellous Monday everyone and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

Education, Family, health & fitness, mindset, musings, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Learning Nordic Skiing before Alpine Skiing

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This is a public service announcement for anyone with children or grandchildren that haven’t yet tried alpine skiing or have children under 5 years old.

It is spring break skiing and the season where we see many young human beings flopped on the side of the mountain screaming, usually while wearing a “dog leash” (aka: ski harness). Insert gif here with child flopping like a fish in the snow while making shrieking noises.

Both Sexy Neck and I received kinesiology degrees before we got our education degrees. When the boys were young, we talked about our children’s physical literacy skills as much as their reading/writing literacy skills. We wanted them to be physically active for life. We introduced them to coached programs for swimming, cross country skiing and gymnastics. I also taught them skating shortly after they could walk.

One of the best things we did for our boys was putting them into the “Bunnies” (skinny ski) program when they were 3 years old at our local nordic ski area. It was parent participation and this program gave the children the skills to move bilaterally on skinny skis at a pace that was perfect for their growing bodies. There was no screaming, flopping, or crying from the parents or the kids. They could go at the speed that they felt most comfortable moving at and could attempt the hills when they were ready. Plus placing teddy bears along the track, kicking tennis balls in the track and gummy bears in your pocket can go along way!

Right now, we are seeing many parents strap on the big, thick alpine skis and attach the leash to their young ones. Then off they go. You can see that these young first timers are moving at a speed that they are uncomfortable with and thus the screaming, flopping and crying. It’s very tough to watch. I believe that even if the kids spend only one season (10 weeks) in a Bunnies or Jack Rabbit program, none of these experiences would need to happen for our young alpine skiers.

PLUS the added bonuses when kids start on skinny skis is that when they start alpine skiing those thick skis are easier to balance on and they even get to ride up a magic carpet or chairlift or t-bar instead of having to climb up the hills on skis. The children will really appreciate this new sport and hopefully have experiences on two types of skis that help them be active for life!

Have an epic Sunday folks and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, mindset, Wordsmith

Be Honest

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Honest

Latin word meaning honour.

Sincere.

Straightforward.

Above board.

Free of deceit.

Not concealing truth.

Open.

Honest.

This is the life that I am creating. I am choosing to surround myself with honest people. This quality is paramount. A foundation for my family, my crew of blue.

‘Cause here’s what I know from my place of learning; I haven’t always had honesty around me. I have lived my whole life until the last few years in the great unknown of where I stand with certain people and how to be in relationship with them.

It was confusing growing up.

It was tormenting as a twenty year old.

It was discouraging as a thirty year old.

It is no longer okay as a forty year old.

Until a few years ago, I haven’t had a core group of people who would tell me honestly about their experience of life and be straightforward with their words. Words and actions didn’t match up. I have always always been blessed with a smattering of honest and authentic people dotted here and there throughout my life, but never a solid, unwavering core people holding the value of honesty.

My experience with my old core group was:

People walking out of my life with no explanation.

People not explaining anything when genuinely asked something.

People saying things that are dishonest when you know the truth.

People hiding big things, in the proverbial closet.

Close people.

People that used to have a place of honour in my life.

People that had shaped and molded the old me.

People so dishonest that it became bottled up like a rocket getting ready to explode into space.

This rocket would explode through passive aggressive behaviour such as not responding, pretending everything is okay, and addictive behaviours. This was tricky for me as I didn’t understand that this type of behaviour was a form of aggression towards me and my family.

And the worst behaviour that I found on this dishonesty train was people giving ambiguous, tv commercial words to sell their position, putting on a smiling face to pretend that all was well.

Ouch!

Rejection at its finest.

A place that stings and burns.

Tender deep spots.

And this created an opening for honest people to come into your life.

Boom shakalaka.

The gift of grief and letting go at its finest.

A huge hole existed where honesty could step in, actually jump right in.

And now honesty is on overdrive and I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

Every day people are showing up in my life with with authenticity and messages like these (my words are in blue):

⭐️ Message 1 ⭐️

⭐️ Message 2 ⭐️

People showing up exactly as they are.

Exactly where they are.

Nothing to hide.

Nothings to be ashamed of.

It’s a beautiful thing, honesty.

It’s free.

Honest.

Honouring.

Sincere.

Straightforward.

Above board.

Free of deceit.

Not concealing truth.

Open.

Honest.

Have an epic Sunday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, Boys, Communication, Parenting

Be Talking about Anger/Sadness (A Letter to My Boys)

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Hi boys,

Do you remember Thanksgiving 2023 when you boys were in grades 10, 8 and 6? Do you remember the Friday night when I drove away to give myself a few hours “timeout”? I am sure you do as I know that this was an upsetting moment for you as you could sense my sadness and could feel that I was angry.

Before I throw a piece of paper in the garage that I hastily wrote on, with stick people drawings, once I came back home, I wanted to enshrine it here:

What do you do when people feel sadness or anger?

  1. Be annoyed and get angry back?
  2. Try to make them happy?
  3. Allow them to feel. Show empathy?
  4. Any other options?

After I shared my little diagram, I love that all of you were able to to allow me to feel what I felt and even show me empathy. Oxford Languages says that empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Before my timeout, all three of you tried one of these different strategies above when you saw my sadness and anger. One of you started getting angry with me, another tried to tell a joke and lighten the mood and one of you was looking at me with sadness in their own eyes.

After I shared this diagram and we talked, you were all solidly in the empathy category with what I was experiencing in that moment and it was such a gift!

Allow people to feel.

Hold space for them.

Allow people to heal.

Be empathetic for them.

Allow people to deal.

Give time for them.

To be.

To rest.

To process.

Thank you boys for walking that weekend with me and for being open to learning about empathy.

Enjoy your day. Love what you do.

xoxo MAMA

Boys, career, radical sabbatical, Teaching, Wordsmith

Be Changing Your Career in an Exorbitant Way

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Hi Mom’s and Dad’s that have chosen to give up or change their careers because a wee one came into your life, I am sitting with you as I write this. Grab a cup of tea and strap yourselves in… I have a major wondering today.

Do you ever have a sense that your career changed in an exorbitant way because of your wee ones arrival on earth?

I have been thinking about my time on earth and my career a lot lately as I continue working through the gift of grief that my mom gave me in 2013. Yup, almost 10 years since that fateful day that our Super Nana died and I began my personal journey experiencing the finality of death.

With incredible clarity, I took leave from my career when our oldest came into the world almost sixteen years ago. I was a teacher, coach, volunteer and an advocate of campus education, but when that blonde haired boy with that straight edge part and blue eyes came into the world, my life pivoted and my career path changed forever. I never stepped back into a campus classroom full time and I have never wanted to. I am proud of the fact that I could help keep things simple in our family’s life by being the person “on the home front”. I never wanted someone else to raise my children or see their “firsts” or major milestones. I wanted to be the person to spend the most amount of time each day with them. We are only give twenty-four hours in each day. Those first few years on one income as we added wee one #2 and #3 were years of focus and frugalness, but our family never did without. We went down to one car, bought a home with a suite, took in international students, cut cable and reduced our expenses, by as much as possible, through figuring out what our needs versus wants were.

As the kids grew older, I took forays into selling Hawaiian Green tea directly to customers, ventured into Referral Marketing of health products, worked as an online teacher at a Vancouver-based school and even worked in my dream job as a part time Physical Education Teacher at an elementary school. This is what I wanted to share about today and is the reason I decided to write this blog post . This P.E. teaching job was absolutely perfect for me. I worked a half day Monday and full days Tuesday and Wednesday. I had the gym doors open every single day at lunch for the students. I felt that I could be creative in the physical literacies that I taught and truly impact the school as a whole in terms of health and wellness. I had personal time to train for and race small triathlons on the weekends. PLUS, I could be there for my own blue crew on the four days I wasn’t working as well as not work momentously long days doing prep for my teaching job. BUT, the boys didn’t enjoy getting themselves to and from their own campus school in grades 1, 3 and 5. They began fighting a lot and being unkind to each other on a level that reminded me of growing up when my mom went back to teaching when I was in grade 1. My dream job was no longer my dream job as I left to work with upset kids at 7:45am or came home to chaos at 4:00pm. Due to my family of origin and sibling experience, I have a very low tolerance for my boys treating each other like a-holes just because they are related. The dream career came to a clear closure.

I changed my career in an exorbitant manner yet again. I said no to a returning contract as a Physical Education teacher and came back home full time for the next few years. During 2020, I was drawn back to work as an online teacher again at a new K-city based private school, which I love, but isn’t without some friction within my family.

During this winter season, I have often wondered, what would I be doing if I hadn’t changed my career in such drastic ways. What would my days look like? Where would we be living? Who would I be surrounded by? I am not sure if any other mom’s or dad’s can relate, but I sometimes wonder if I have given up too much. This life I lead working from home is often lonely, isolated and takes a lot of personal motivation/momentum as I don’t walk the halls or share daily energy with any colleagues anymore. I have always had big dreams, an ever growing thought life and a vision of making a major, positive impact on the world around me. By keeping my vision narrow and focused on my family, perhaps I have lost the bigger picture of my life.

Career change

On top of more career change.

With three children.

Narrow focus.

Big picture.

Exorbitant.

Or not?

I am not sure.

Have an epic Sunday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, Christianity, Education, encouragement, Family, Flexibility, Goals, God, homeschooling, mom of boys, positivity, school, Wordsmith, writing

Be Saying Goodbye to Home Visit + Report Card Writing Season (2023)

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When I worked in the classroom in the campus setting as a teacher, I always felt this sense of angst that I wasn’t spending time or even had enough time to get to know all students equally. I felt like I was NEVER enough.

In the campus system, almost 95% of my time was often spent with 5% of the students.

Sad, but true.

BUT, I came up with a system to at least waylay my own personal angst. For each day of the week, I would focus on 6 of my students and genuinely asking them questions and talk with them. The chat would have been a few minutes to 5 minutes with each of these six students, but I felt closer to my goal of truly “knowing” my students. 5 days per week times 6 students = 30 students in my class. BUT, I was only spending about 5 minutes consistently, authentically communicating with each student each week.

Sad, but true.

As an online teacher with the school that I have a contract with, I am asked to do 3 home visits throughout the year. I also will Zoom with families a few times, on top of these home visits, to stay connected and in tune with any “successes to build on” or “struggles to shift through”.

As of Tuesday, I completed writing report cards after meeting with my eighteen families (39 students in total) between Kamloops and Oliver, British Columbia, plus many towns and cities in between. The total distance between Kamloops to Oliver is around 275 kilometres (170 miles). In the last few months, I spent about forty hours in my car plus over forty-five hours then writing report cards.

Not ideal, but worth every second.

At these home visits, students will read with me, show me work they are proud of and we will talk about math. I will go over their personal goals that we set for the year in September. (This is ALL on top of the weekly/biweekly learning samples they share throughout the year via the sharing platform, Seesaw.) I meet puppies, listen to piano, play basketball, have tea parties with homemade cakes, play Lego/blocks, cook, make crafts and I even paint with some students at their homes.

Overjoyed and true.

I spend HOURS upon HOURS with my students and their families throughout the year. I am privileged to be invited into peoples homes to see “behind the scenes” of the learning that is taking place. It is within this family unit that I am truly given a picture of what learning is like for the student: How they fit within their sibling unit, how their parents work with them and even how things are set up in the home, are all important for learning about how our children learn (in the online world and the campus education system).

Overjoyed and true.

Sometimes people wonder why I have chosen this path for my teaching career and how I can work with so many students.

First, I truly feel like I can help inspire and support my students because I have time to sit with them, listen to them and learn from them.

Second, I really get to “know” my students, which was never possible in the campus system I worked in. In the campus system, I always tried to see/meet my students outside of the unilateral learning environment of the classroom. I always volunteer coached, ran chess club, did breakfast club and spent extra time on the playground to try and get to know my students, but I never felt like I ever had enough time or ever got to know how they fit within their family.

Last, the online learning world gives me time because I oversee each students program individually, yes one-on-one, while their parents or even grandparents on the ground working directly with the students and also managing any behaviour. What a gift! My students don’t exist within a classroom setting with other students, I am working directly with them. Their learning plan is individualized and truly their own.

Sitting.

Listening.

Learning.

Knowing.

Being.

Individual.

Students.

The gift of one-on-one time!

I am NOW enough.

Overjoyed and true.

I am grateful for the time with each of my families these last months of home visits. I am blessed to write report cards, yes official documents about each of my students, detailing all the amazing things that they can do and things they will continue to grow into.

Thank you Jesus for calling me back into this world in 2020. I am eternally grateful.

Have an epic Sunday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

P.S. We also had a Ministry of Education Inspection on the day BEFORE our report cards were due. This means that everything needs to be up-to-date in our student portals including all communication notes and individualized student learning plans. It was seriously “full on”. Time to sleep and ski now!

author, blogger, Boys, Education, Family, homeschooling, mom of boys, radical sabbatical, school, teaching, Wordsmith, writing

Imagine ~ Campus Education System vs. Home Learning Education System

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Imagine a learning world where you are amongst 29 other young humans that are your age, not your learning ability, but simply your age. Next add into this scenario one or two adults, that we call “teacher”. This is the campus system.

Now, imagine a learning world where you are amongst your family, learning in your neighbourhood, community or even travelling around the world. Next add into this scenario people of all ages, that we call “teacher”. This is the online learning system.

Imagine a learning world where you must be “present” and ready to learn between 8:25am and 2:30pm every Monday through Friday. Next add into this scenario when you are able to have holidays or days off.

Now, imagine a learning world where you can listen to your body and wake-up later in the winter and earlier in the summer. Next add into this scenario that you are able to take holidays when you choose to.

Imagine a learning world where you are required to follow a certain book or program because everyone else is doing it in your group. Next add into that your individual learning style that is different from how the book or program teaches.

Now, imagine a learning world where you choose the book or program based on your learning style and what you are interested in. Next, add into the program, deletions or additions that continue to build on what you already know and don’t know.

Imagine a learning world where you are embarrassed to go to the washroom or able to eat when your stomach is growling. Next, add into the program other young people that might verbally tease you or simply comment on these two natural functions of being a human being.

Now, imagine a learning world where you have cold or hot food available to you all day and your personal washroom is just down the hall. Next, add in an environment where listening to your body and your bodily functions are encouraged and praised.

Now, imagine this woman writing this post growing up in this campus learning world and now being blessed and fortunate enough to give her children a very different learning world.

That’s what I did.

I am privileged to have discovered this second world in 2014 as teacher. And now, I have had the privilege to experience it with our own three boys the last four year. It is very humbling and it is incredibly profound. I do not take these years learning in the world with our boys for granted. I do know that this isn’t for everyone, but I am FOR everyone to have an incredible campus or home learning experience whichever system you choose.

I love you.

Have an epic Sunday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna