Our six year old has lost his two front teeth. Everyone is very excited. Here is the photo shoot:
Sexy Neck getting involved in the toothless photo shoot.
Tag Archives: Parenting
Be A Goalie
Everyone wants to be the goalie, they even want me to be the goalie.
OC gets the soft plastic golf club so that he doesn’t whack anyone too hard!
Here I am with my goalie pads on while folding laundry:
Be Going to the Barber with Papa
What a beautiful ‘man’ ritual.
Look at all of OC’s blonde locks.
It is a beautiful time raising boys into men.
They definitely need their barbershop time with their daddy and Papa.
Be the Best Dad/Parent You Can Be
I am the ‘baby’ of the family. Three years younger than my older sister and three and four years younger than my close cousins.
My perspective on my parents changed dramatically after I left home and had to ‘fend’ for myself. I also felt like I had to make up for those teenage years where I was particularly rotten or at least that’s how the joke goes.
In my twenties, with a bit of distance from my life in the comfortable family home, I realized how much my parents had supported me, loved me, provided for me and let me be who I was.
My parents I would never describe as perfect but I think perfection in parenting is an illusion anyways. I would describe my parents as:
incredibly thoughtful,
loving,
heartfelt and
very present.
I chose these four adjectives because these are the qualities I hope to possess as a parent.
I want to introduce you to my dad:
Look at my happy OC with his favourite guy, Papa (aka, my dad)! OC only wanted Papa to push him around the pond.
My dad has had his own business, worked for others, but always put his customer’s first. We often laugh because he always did everything in person while working, never via phone or email. If you had an insurance policy to be signed, he would have said policy in front of you to sign. He still refuses to do any on-line banking, in person it is for him.
Dad was also my coach. He coached me with his other brother Darryl in ringette for eight years. My other passion before volleyball came into my life.
In his grief, my dad still takes the time to go skiing and skating with our family. He reads to the boys, sits with them and asks them questions. Often he cries and expresses his distress with “Oh Gwen!” or another word like “darn”! He is present in his grieving, conscious and kind.
Each morning, he welcomes the boys into their bed to cuddle and watch TV, just like mom did. Here are the boys this morning:
Pure Happiness!
What a man! What a dad! Imperfectly perfect, trying to do the right thing and conscious of all of us around him.
Thanks dad! Love ya!
Be Talking About Death
To go along with my post yesterday about no bad questions, the boys have started to concentrate their discussions about Nana on death.
The day before Nana died they boys wrote these wonderful letters to Nana, said goodbye and I love you through the window and gave kisses and hugs.
Note: KT was our dog that died in June 2012.
Today, I was singing in the car, “The name of The Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are safe…”
JC stops me and says, “That’s the song you were singing when we went to Vancouver and that woman died. Audrey, I think!”
Whew, a song reminding him of two Christmases ago when we went to say goodbye to Sexy Neck’s aunt Audrey. She died a couple of hours after we said goodbye.
I hope that the boys will only feel the richness of this time before and after Nana’s death. It has brought us down to ground zero in terms of what is important.
Our grief is raw but our relationships richer and our love stronger!
Be Asking Questions
There is never a bad question.
We have instilled this concept in our boys. I am not sure how this would work if you have a wee one with the gift of the gab, but for us it has worked. Almost 100% of the time we take time to answer their questions. We try to answer as honestly as we can. Sometimes we simply answer, “I don’t know!”
Friday, December 20th, sitting on Nana and Papa’s couch, we sat as a group. I shared that Nana is going to die. We said we didn’t know when, but that Hospice House is a place where people go to die peacefully.
JC (6 yrs old) wept and curled in our arms. CC (4 yrs old)started asking questions. OC (2 yrs old) stared at us with his wondrous eyes.
Daddy will Nana die?
Does she know if she’s going to die?
Will she get better?
What is cancer anyways?
Why didn’t the 4th chemotherapy work?
How do the little cells do that?
Why can’t the doctors find a cure?
Do they need more money?
Why did they cut off Terry Fox’s leg?
How do you get cancer?
What will happen to Nana’s shoes?
How will we say I love you to Nana when she dies?
Where is heaven?
What is going to happen to Nana’s shoes?
No bad questions.
No good answers.
Sitting in sadness.
Be Having Some Sick Days
Happy fourteenth day of advent. Have you found time to breathe, rest and enjoy the waiting?
We have had an ‘enforced’ rest time.
The stomach flu has ravaged our house likes a forest fire. The only tree standing is Sexy Neck. The rest of us have been flattened.
All I can muster, in this moment, is to share a few photos of life hanging around the house the last two days. (We can’t see mom and dad until we are not contagious.)
JC took a picture of his fort.
OC wanted a picture of his Lego creation.
My couch buddy! Poor CC!
I broke into the Christmas stash to have the boys work on this Lego creation.
Airing out the bedding.
Bye bye sickness.
Thanks for visiting!
Be a “KCAM” Mommy
It’s important to have some peeps no matter where you live. It is difficult to live in isolation, as I know.
I’m extremely grateful to these four women that I get to see on a regular basis at school pick-up and drop-off. I called them KCAM women because of their beginning initial and they also represent the piece in a wheel called a cam. A cam helps transforms rotary motion into linear motion.
These four kcam’s have helped me and encouraged me to keep moving forward into this new life in KCity instead of feeling like I am spinning in circles. Oh I would be spinning in circles without these four!
They have helped us find a church, a dry cleaner, a Christmas gift for the teacher, piano teacher and hockey program. They have jumped into trying Bikram yoga with me and told me about other fun things to do in the city.
Let me introduce you to this fabulous women that God has allowed me to meet:
K – mom of boys
– kind and lovely person to see at preschool and elementary school pick-up/drop-off
– incredible with her boys and the children she nannies
– helped us find a church
– encouraging and real
– track star from down south
C – incredibly thoughtful and kind
– hospitable, has already invited us over for dinner twice and we plan to make it over there soon
– mom of boys
– open and encouraging
– athletic, fit, classy
– moved into a new house this summer too
A – an “old” friend from volleyball days
– someone I was delighted to become reconnected with again
– we moved into their hood (she grew up down the street from us and now lives behind us)
– dropped off a pizza dinner when we moved in (how sweet is that!)
– took me walking to show me around
– athletic, likes to be organized
– super outgoing and friendly
M – someone Sexy Neck (my hubby) met at parent orientation night. M and her husband blew him away with their kindness.
– fellow mom of three
– is a teacher on leave too
– just ‘gets it’
– loves being a stay at home mom
– athletic, fit styling and spends time outside
GOTCHA – this is one half of the KCAM
Mommies:
Kind, lovely, encouraging, real, thoughtful, hospitable, enthusiastic, athletic, open, classy, organized, outgoing, friendly, kind, empathetic, styling, love being moms!
Yup, I would say I am pretty fortunate to be surrounded by four incredibly inspiring and well rounded women during this season of my life!
"Be" ENOUGH 