Tag Archives: school

Uncategorized

School stuff 

Sometimes I think the best thing about getting older is the fact that it puts my junior high years further behind me. I get to relive those trying times through my kids though, and sometimes I think it’s more heart wrenching than when I was experiencing things myself. 

Jacob has settled in to his new school well and has made what seem to be a good circle of friends. But there’s one kid…. There’s always that one kid …  who seems to thrive on making his life more difficult. That kid who calls him names. 

I had a long talk with his teacher today about this teasing/bullying. We spent at least a half hour problem solving. I am so happy that he has this teacher – someone who he likes and trusts, who genuinely likes him, who knows the type of person he really is, and who has his back and wants to solve the issue. 

That was enough of a reason for my happiness moment, she finished our conversation by telling me that it was obvious from our talk what a close relationship he and I have. She reminded me that teens only  open up to people they feel safe with and trust. She said it was really nice to hear how lovingly I talked about him and how I was concerned about making sure he had a comfortable environment to learn in. She said relationships like that come only through consistent and caring work and that it showed in the type of person that he is. It made my heart glow in a beautiful happiness moment. 

Standard
Uncategorized

Let’s go riding in the car

We do a lot of driving now that we are living in the country. Most of the time I love it – I take backroads whenever I can so it’s usually stress free driving. This has opened up for us is a lot of time spent together without any other distractions (besides saying ohhhhh look at the sunrise, or look at all the deer, or are those cows out on the road?) and a great opportunity to really talk to each other.

My happiness moment today was driving home with my boy. It’s a bittersweet happiness moment as he was unloading on me all the stress and worries he has about being a 14 year old boy. Sad because I hate to see him struggling with anything, I still wish I could jump in and put a bandaid on everything to make it better. But, it was my happiness moment because it was a beautiful reminder of the bond we share, of the trust he has in me that he will tell me everything that is going on at school. Life at 14 can be difficult, confusing, fun, scary, happy, upsetting, and hormonal – often all at the same time. I feel so honoured that he is taking me on his journey into adolescence and grateful that he’s secure and feels safe enough in our relationship to share things with me.

Love that kid

Standard
Uncategorized

Security and confidence

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out my emotions on safety and security, and how that has affected who I am today. I have spent a lot of time feeling unsafe, or like there was a real lack of security in my life. It’s been something I’ve craved and sought after, but I often felt like I was chasing rainbows – hopeful, but uncertain that I would ever reach my desire.

With a lot of work, and a lot of help, I’m finally beginning to realize in my body and soul that I’m safe and that I can be secure. The fact that we are back home and surrounded with love and support of our people has played a huge role in that. Also though, I have been working like a madwoman to release all the old fears and misconceptions and grief I’ve carried along with me for too long.

All of our house pets have been adopted from shelters. They all have had some kind of abuse or neglect before they came to live with us, so they all arrived in the house with a lot of fear and a lack of security.



Over the years I have watched Dottie settle into (kind of) a more normal and calmer version of herself. She’s very attached to me – I am her security blanket if you will – but she’s more trusting and calmer than she was 8 years ago when she first came to live with us. Ella too has calmed into a more secure and loving cat. She’s gone from her strict rule of being “close but no touching”,  to sitting on my keyboard, purring, while I’m trying to type this blog.

Abu and Aladdin were the last members of our little tribe to join us. They both were pretty insecure and fearful when they arrived. They had good reason to feel that way too as their young lives had involved a lot of turmoil. 2 months later I’m seeing that they’re getting more secure and trusting with us.

Having faith and trust in the people (or animals) you live with with is so important. If we can’t feel safe and secure, we don’t have the confidence to spread our wings and fly, we can’t let our guard down and open our hearts to those around us. Feeling safe is, I believe, one of the most important things in life.

Today I was at Jenna’s teacher conferences. One of her goals is to be more confident in school and speak up for herself. I’ve watched how the kids are relaxing into life here and thriving with the sense of security that comes with having a strong support system in our lives. She’s so much more confident and brave than she gives herself credit for, but I was proud of her that that was one of her goals. Making sure we all feel safe and loved is what it’s all about.

My happiness moment today was hearing about what a great job she’s doing at school – how she’s part of the leadership group, how she’s making friends, how she’s starting to feel like she belongs there. My wish for my kids (and me too) is that they spend the rest of their lives feeling safe and secure and loved.

Standard
Uncategorized

It’s in the smiles…

One way that I know that I’m happier now than I have been in a long time is the fact that I interact with more and more people who are smiling and happy. For the past few years it seems as though the majority of the people I encountered were stressed out, overwhelmed and unhappy and it had the effect of making me the same, which I radiated back and created more unpleasantness. As I’m getting happier and happier, I’m in the company of people who are the same.

This is not to say that there are not bumps and stresses in everyone’s lives. It has been a very difficult year for me in many ways, and yet I’m a happier person than I was a year ago. It’s a wonderful feeling now when I meet people to know that we will greet each other with a smile instead of a stressed out, angry snarl. Not only is being unhappy exhausting, but when I know that many of my relationship encounters are going to be unhappy and stressful I become even more overwhelmed. I don’t have to be tense and upset in anticipation of an unpleasant encounter because generally there are none.

Now I find that I gain positive energy from the majority of the people I interact with which bounces positive energy off of me and back into the Universe.

My happiness moment today was spending the school day at the zoo with Jacob and his grade. I was one of the parent volunteers who accompanied the teachers and kids for the day (reproduction habits in animals – that was fun with a bunch of hormonal teenagers hahahaha). The teachers were all so kind and happy. Every time anything happened instead of furrowing brows and being cross, they smiled and worked through the situation. I was really impressed with how genuinely kind they all seemed to be, they certainly were welcoming to me the newcomer, and the fact that the kids were all so well behaved speaks volumes for how well this positive attitude works.


It goes without saying that the mere fact that my 14 year old actually asked me to join them on the field trip and thereby be seen in public with him was a bonus happiness moment.

As an extra special bonus happiness burst, while we were at the zoo, Jenna was home on an extra long weekend day off from school. They are weaning cattle on the ranch right now and my cousin very kindly took her riding and let her help out. For a city-turned-country kid who loves the country and loves horses this was a most magical day. Just the fact that things like this are available to us brings me gratitude and happiness.

Standard
Uncategorized

Those extra moments

I have to admit, I was a little concerned how we would fill all the extra time we have this year before and after school. Jacob’s school starts and ends an hour after Jenna’s school; not enough time to come home in between, too much time to just sit there and do nothing.

In the mornings Jacob and I usually go to Tim Horton’s, buy the cheapest drink we can, soak up their free wifi, and visit with each other. It’s been interesting how this has evolved into a special time that we both look forward to. We have got hooked on the iPhone version of connect4 and challenge each other to tournaments. This usually involves a lot of cheering and happy dancing on the part of the person who wins.

My happiness moment today was sitting by the fireplace at our local Tim Horton’s, sipping on a tea, playing connect4 with my teenager. These extra moments are more and more precious the older he gets. I’m grateful he wants to spend time with me and that we have this quiet time to visit and catch up on each other’s lives.

Standard
Uncategorized

Terry Fox Run

Today Jenna did the Terry Fox Run at school. When I picked her up she was wearing her name tag that said she ran the run in memory of John Ramsay. Which of course made me burst into tears in front of the school. This public crying thing……

I was so proud of her for thinking to honor her grandpa in this way. Even though I write and talk about his death all the time I still spend an inordinate amount of time believing he’s still alive. So it always catches me off guard when someone does something  in memory of him. 

When I was Jacob’s age I was in grade 10 and going to a boarding school. We also had to do a Terry Fox run. Except ours went like this:

We were put in groups according to our dorm. My group took a turn off the road and hid in the woods where a bunch of kids took out their cigarettes and everyone sat around talking (and smoking – it was the 80s and apparently trying to tell a bunch of teenagers smoking caused what we were running to raise awareness of was pointless) for a while. After that we headed out to the road, walked a ways and then decided the fastest way to get back to school was to hitch a ride. Fortunately no one picked us up. 

Obviously these things are better supervised these days. It is a funny story to tell now, but if Jacob did this I would lose my mind. You would not believe the things that innocent and wide eyed me learned at this school. 

My happiness moment today was Jenna proudly running in memory of her grandpa. With a bonus giggle memory of being young and stupid. 

Standard
Uncategorized

The middle of the road 

Jacob has been home sick the past couple of days. Welcome to back to school time- suddenly we are around a lot more people, add in some personal stress on his part about starting a new school – and voila! Cold virus enters our house. I knew he was really sick today because he had to miss 3 blocks of phys ed, making it his absolute favourite day of the week.

Towards the end of the afternoon he seemed to perk up a bit and wanted to watch a movie with me. I pulled out one that I’d PVR’d a while ago just hoping someone would want to watch with me. An old classic (in my mind), Canadian Bacon. As someone who has lived in both the States and Canada I love the stereotypes in this movie. Add in John Candy, Alan Alda, and Dan Aykroyd, as the Canadian cast actors and it is just that much sweeter. I miss John Candy – he made me laugh. They all make me laugh.

It was awesome that Jacob also got a lot of the double entendres of the movie. He remembers living in Quebec and having the language police checking to make sure things were in both English and French. He knows how many people think that Toronto is the capital of Canada. Often when we are out in public I’ll turn to the kids and say “be normal… not normal for you, normal for everyone else”. He now knows that line comes from this movie. And oh my… the scenes in the RCMP detachment, I could watch them over and over.

My happiness moment today was sharing a movie that I love with him. In the 25+ years I’ve been watching it, I’ve never found anyone who would watch it with me. It was wonderful to have someone to laugh at it with. Someone who got it in many of the same ways I do.

Today as I was driving home from the morning school drop off I came across someone else who drives the same way I do on my road. This road I drive as fast as I can and right down the middle. I have to – the pot holes are so bad you have to know exactly where to drive to keep the car in one piece. I was flying in the middle going one way and a big white truck was booting it down the middle going the other way. As we moved to our own sides we waved, braked, and backed up so we were window to window. It was my cousin-in-law. We sat on the middle of the road having a morning chat, giving each other heck for being on “our road”and  in the “middle of the road”. When we were done and had each pulled away, Jacob started laughing. He was looking in the rearview mirror and said “and here you guys go again, right down the middle of the road as fast as you can”.

It’s good to be home. 

Standard
Uncategorized

Cat and mouse games. 

With the unstructured life we lived in the summer, Ella the cat and I fell out of our routine of playing fetch in the morning. She also had stopped joining me in my morning yoga stretches  

Ella being very uncooperative as I try and take her picture.    
Aladdin being posing for the camera. He didn’t want to be left out. 

 The last couple of days as the kids have finally settled into their school routines, Ella has decided it is time to revive our old game. Fortunately for her, Abu and Aladdin don’t seem to care about her precious mice at all. Although Aladdin is starting to show some interest only because Ella is so obsessed with them. 

Playing fetch with Ella became part of our morning routine pretty much right after she adopted us last year. It is something I really enjoy- a good bonding time with her as well as a quiet mind time for me. 

I realized today that being back in our routines is a good thing. Because of new school times, Jacob and I have an hour in the morning together. We go to Tim Horton’s and order the cheapest drink we can get and sit together and visit. It’s quickly becoming a favourite part of the day. A chance to have quiet one on one time with my teen. 

Because we are eating at a better time we are cooking in a more structured manner. Tonight being Friday we had our traditional pizza night. It was wonderful all of us being in the kitchen together cooking the meal. 

We are getting to bed earlier and are better rested. Again a bonus to the routine. 

Before starting to study arurveda I was not as good about followijg a routine. Now that I am so used to following my Ayurvedic routine I find our whole household is a much happier and healthier place. 

My happiness moment today was when Ella dropped her toy mouse on my yoga mat and sat and stared at me until I sat up and threw it for her. She knew it was time to pick up our old habits and structure ourselves again. Much as I like to claim to be a free spirit, our house needs a certain amount of structure in order to thrive. 

Standard
Uncategorized

Hiding in broad daylight 

Tonight  there was a welcome back BBQ at Jacob’s new school. I generally dislike having to go to functions by myself, so the Universe usually gifts with the opportunity to do this on a regular basis. Like it’s trying to pull me out of my introverted shell. 

Over the years I have kind of got used to standing off by myself or making awkward small talk with strangers. 

A good thing about being home now is that these uncomfortable social situations come around less often. I usually know at least one person when we go out somewhere in town. And at least when I don’t I have the comfort of being in my own turf. 

My happiness moment of the day was that as soon as we arrived at the BBQ both kids saw friends and took off to be with them. It was heart warming to see how comfortable Jacob was already at his new school. Comfortable enough that he was one of the people who volunteered to set up for the event. 

Jenna hanging out with me for a little while.    
I wandered off to the edge of the field part way through the party. Since having been ungrounded and on the move for so long it is so wonderful for us to be back where we belong. 

This is the view from Jacob’s school. In between the power pole and the hill (and a bit farther back) is home. So whenever Jacob feels insecure or ungrounded he only has to look out the window of his school and see where the community of his people are. Lucky us. 

  People enjoying themselves.  

Standard
Uncategorized

School time 

For the first time in forever I missed Jacob’s first day of school. I’m sitting in a hotel room on an adventure with my mom in New Mexico. It’s beautiful here. 

The happiness moment was waking up at 2am and having Jacob run out and give me a huge hug. I love that kid. He’s kept in contact with me as the day went on and I danced with joy when the news came that he had a great day and he likes his school and made friends I felt a huge happy sigh of relief.

His last first day as the new kid. No more moving. No more new schools. 

Standard