So......... How's it going?

I just sat down and thought "Hello....I have an hour to myself"

And then I remembered the dog was outside so I let him in and made him sit up and lie down 5 consecutive times on his towel by the door.  It's not for obedience training.  Its to get the mud off his paws......very effective.

Then I poured a cup of lukewarm coffee leftover from brunch because I need that 4th cup today.....

So here I am.....with 55 minutes to myself.

I have had a challenging week. Some weeks just are.

Mine had mostly to do with the fact that I am complete wimp about single parenting.

Single parenting teenagers.  who were particularly teenage-ish this week.  and vomitty.

Single parenting the dog.

And working full time.  which this week included receiving over $10,000 in new equipment in about 800 pieces.

Among other things.

My favourite of which was, when doing a site visit at our new project "Cranberry Children's Centre" in Hamilton, I inquired of the 12 year old engineer in charge as to what they were doing about the ceiling.  "Ceiling?" he queried.  I nodded.  He looked at the other engineer who is maybe 14 years old..... he got on his phone.  A few minutes later they confidently informed me there would be a ceiling.  "Great" I said....."I figured that much out but how are you dealing with these pipes and ducts, they seem quite low.....will the sprinkler heads make it through the dropped ceiling?".  "Good question" they agreed.  Indeed.  They are "looking in to it". Awesome.

Also the single parenting thing not helped when the other parent disappears into the jungle, his phone dies and for 48 hours I assured myself every hour that he surely could not be dead or the school would have called.  Then he finally called and the phone died after 1 minute before I could ask if his hostage takers were treating him well.  Of course he is fine, tired, hot..... its been challenging in many ways and he is ready to come home.

Allan has been on several school trips before and fishing trips and other trips but this has been the hardest (except maybe the time that Lindsay got the worst case of chicken pox ever recorded in medical science the day he left for South Africa 12 years ago....that was fun).

I am not sure why exactly but the dog (bless his big brown eyes and selective hearing) is certainly part of the equation.

He is a lot of work.

When he is at school with Allan he works hard mentally and gets plenty of physical exercise and affection (aka being mobbed by Grade 8's) so despite me taking him to the dyke and back in the dark every morning and one of the kids letting him out at lunch time, he has had a bit too much crate time as evidenced by him rolling around on his back chewing on his paw for kicks.

I actually went and bought him a new toy yesterday to try and break the boredom (and save his paws)......the dog....my friends...is work...and he needs his dad home.

He may need therapy

The teenagers have also been a challenge in their own way.  Sweet most of the time but slightly more self absorbed than usual and therefore less helpful generally.  Also report cards came and the less said about those the better. Some rules are being understood as optional and resulted in a confiscated cell phone.  They are tired and ready for Spring Break and I hope they rest for next term ain't nobody gonna be restin' until the not-so-optional-homework is done every doggone day!  The Steveston Hwy Sheriff is movin' in..... or something.....

I finished teaching on Wednesday and what a lovely moment that was.  The students were so sweet and kind with lovely words and gifts.  And two assignments for me to mark.

But no marking was done.

Because when tired and stressed I do not stop, sit down and mark quietly for 6 hours.

No.

I gut the house.

I Spring Cleaned.  Everything.

I reorganised, redid, redecorated..... When Allan gets back on wifi those 3 words will leave him trembling and sweaty.  Yes. It included shopping, disposing, recycling.....

And it looks great!  Relax Honey!

Add to that some bidding wars to attend to, children to drive around in the pouring rain, the dog......., cooking, grocery shopping (at Costco. On a Sunday)....... there you have where the other 47 hours of my weekend went!

Ok, ok, I did also have a great dinner with a great friend  on Friday which was lovely indeed.
And last night I read a book of Pablo Neruda odes before going to sleep.
And I had a glass or two of wine.

I am counting down the return of my beloved (1 am airport pick up Ai Ya) on Thursday and so very much looking forward to a quick weekend getaway to Whidbey Island in Washington before I head north to Edmonton to crash at Chez Hofs for a few days and play with my P's.

Yay - I can't wait.

They don't have a dog.

Wordless Wednesday - Cape Town

 “During the many years of incarceration on Robben Island, we often looked across Table Mountain at its magnificent silhouette … To us on Robben Island, Table Mountain was a beacon of hope. It represented the mainland to which we knew we would one day return.” 

– Former President Nelson Mandela

“This is a pretty and singular town; it lies at the foot of an enormous wall (the Table Mountain), which reaches into the clouds, and makes a most imposing barrier. Cape Town is a great inn, on the great highway to the east.” – Charles Darwin in a letter to his sister, Catherine, 1836

The art of conversation

Hi. How are you?

      Good. Great thanks.  And you?

Great thanks. How are things?

      Good. Busy. You?

Yeah.  Life is crazy right?

      Yeah. 

Sooooooo

      Nice to see the sun again hey?

Yeah. About time.

      Yeah.
----------------

It may surprise you but I am not an extrovert.  I do not relish going into a group of people I don't know or to a meeting of new people.

But my job demands it. Travelling demands it. Being a communicative human being demands it.

There is little more irritating to me than children, teens, adults who mumble monosyllabic answers while avoiding eye contact.

I get it is not comfortable for everyone to chat away but except for those few individuals with crippling social anxiety the rest of us have a choice.

You can stand awkwardly inspecting your cocktail glass or meeting agenda as if it contained the meaning of life or you can look up and smile and start talking.

It's not rocket science and it can be learned.

I often coach my children (and sometimes Allan too) on a couple of conversation topics or sentences they can start with if they are headed into a new situation with a new group of people. Sometimes on the way to an event I give background on who will be there and some points of contact we might have and that helps too.

I am an avid researcher.  I find out who I am meeting as much as I can. Especially in the work context. Social media was made for social researchers like me.

There are many tricks you can arm yourself with that will make conversation flow more smoothly so that you can actually get past the superficial and the fluff or the mundane relatively quickly.  You come across as informed and intelligent instead of brain dead or tongue tied.

Once relationships are established and conversation flows more easily I find people often stick to the same repertoire of topics.  In Canada we have a curious obsession with the weather. And hockey. Unsatisfying and short lived conversations (except for those delightful persons who can speak on the topic of hockey for 3 trillion hours without taking breath).

While you may not start with the relatively sensitive subjects of politics and religion, I dispute that they are "verboten" subjects. Iron sharpens iron and if we can't discuss and debate these things at the right time and place then how do we refine and sharpen our own thinking?  Having to defend a point of view is an important life skill and being flexible in our thinking vital to our growth and development.

A respectful debate can be invigorating!

I find so often in a group people just agree with one another - it's a particularly Canadian trait I think..... Even if people don't agree they seldom openly dissent.  They just keep quiet.  I know I sometimes choose this path so as not to rock the boat ( I know - some of you think that is my forte!) but I think we do ourselves a disservice when we let matters go just because its easier.  It's easy to offer an opposing or different view in a quiet, confident, non-aggressive manner.  We teach our children that "silence is acceptance"  so let's not model it in conversations they participate in.

I thought this was going to be a short post with a few links but it looks like I had more to say than I thought..... shocking!

Some links HERE and HERE I found both amusing and informative.....

Strike

British Columbia teachers have voted in favour of taking job action (read more HERE )

This means teachers are about to be slammed in the media. Again.

Public sentiment is surprisingly seldom on the side of Educators.

The mood in our house will be somber.  Our bank manager a little twitchy.


A possible strike looms.

I obviously cannot speak for other teachers but I know the teacher in our house does not want to strike. But he is also done bending over backwards to compensate for a system that is in crisis.

He wants to work in a safe work environment where he can inspire and educate rather than run around trying to keep children from cutting off their fingers in machines.  And btw those machines....they need replacing.

As do the text books in my kids classrooms.

We will hear from the public about how easy teachers have it, how they only work half the day and half the year......

I may be especially sensitive to this at the moment as my husband, the teacher, worked all weekend and every night this week because he is off at 4am tomorrow on a school trip to Costa Rica.

Ahhh.... I hear you say.... "I bet he didn't pay for that trip".

"Must be nice jetting off to a tropical destination".

I won't deny he will get to see a new place, have a great experience with colleagues and teens.

But I also know this:

It cost us $1000 out of our own pocket (twinrix vaccination, prescriptions, tropical meds, donations to the project, spending money, gear, wine for me)

It cost him hours and hours of family time (meetings with parents and student and colleagues for several months, writing blogs to keep everyone informed, prepping for his substitute for all his classes, missing the cup game for the soccer team he coaches and our son plays on and missing 6 days of Spring Break with us)

It is stressful to take 32 teenagers into a jungle to build a house.  To be in charge of their safety and well being in a place that is less than predictable. To know that decisions you have to make will be challenging and could be life saving....or not.

(and lets not forget I have to single parent two teenagers and the dog..... drive his robotics teams to their competition and the robot, be the soccer parent .... did I mention the dog?)

You get the point.

Can you please do me a favour?

Before you believe everything you hear about teachers and their demands in the media - talk to an actual teacher

Before you listen to or participate in "teacher bashing" - remember these are working folks like you and me with families and lives and mortgages

Before you believe the teachers demands will bankrupt the Province and drive taxes up - do the research

Before you believe that it is OK for a government to ignore the Supreme Court - ask yourself what that means for our democracy?

There are slacker, uninspiring, obnoxious teachers out there.....I know....I have encountered them.   Don't let those very few stand for all teachers.

Most teachers I have encountered have been professional, caring, hard working, intelligent and dedicated far beyond their paid hours.  They have inspired my children, mentored them, nurtured and fostered their potential, held them accountable, opened their eyes, pushed their limits, expanded their minds, challenged their thinking, watched them closely.

These are not unimportant things.

Let's not let this current situation divide us....let's say that teachers and our children are important in our community and we stand united in seeing them well resourced, safe and fairly compensated.

PS. Call me if you want to walk the dog or deliver wine.

Wordless Wednesday - Wildlife

You have seen the penguins and the elephants - here is a round up of the other other wildlife we saw in South Africa.... some wilder than others......

The Badlands

Have you ever seen the "Badlands"?

Those mysterious and unique formations that make up vast areas of the landscape.  

Desolate and stark and barren and yet beautiful and captivating.

Uninviting and yet intriguing.

This is how I have come to see parenting teenagers.

This is the "badlands" of parenting.  

Let me clarify immediately that I am NOT saying the teens are bad....no not at all....but navigating this particular landscape requires some navigational skill.

A regular GPS won't cut it.

You have to choose to see the beauty and uniqueness as it sometimes is less obvious, less accessible ... sometimes you just have to trust its there somewhere and keep looking.

Sometimes you have to get right up close and just sit quietly to see the intricacies of what is right in front of you.

What you cannot do is just wander off....into the badlands.....its so easy to become disoriented and lost, very quickly it all looks the same and its hard to see where to go, a way out.

My parenting journey to this point has been relatively easy... the map was fairly accurate, the view pretty lovely, the straight parts uneventful, the odd corners exhilarating if exhausting, a detour or two to keep me on my toes, a sinkhole or two narrowly missed.

Somehow though as my teens hit the mid teens I feel a bit of a shift.  Not a big flashing hazard sign, just a gentle "curve ahead" sign.....but I am paying attention as we navigate the "badlands" together..

Somehow young adults have moved into my children's rooms.  The chaotic clutter of text books and clothes and sports gear (mainly on the floor) a reflection of their busy and somewhat complicated lives.

At one of the road stops recently we picked up a boyfriend.....and more complexity in relationships generally.

We have also had the unwelcome fellow travellers of academic apathy (as compared to world travel..), sibling irritation (to put it mildly), technology dependence, the desire for autonomy without responsibility.

My hope is that the sure sense of direction we have instilled in them keeps them on a path that is safe, that fulfills them, that balances independence with responsibility... If these lands are hard for me to navigate with all my adult tools and perspective, how much harder for them?  I have seen the whole picture, the vista from the top while they toil in the rocks.....its hard to look up sometimes, to see the big view, to have any sense of time or urgency.

I don't want to be that tour guide with the yellow flag herding them along yelling loudly when to turn, when to stop, what to look at...there is no satisfaction in that for any of us.

I want to be there....in the badlands.... watching, occasionally calling out when I see hazards ahead, waiting in the quiet when they seek me out, going back over covered paths when we need to regroup, maybe find a new path.  To help them see the dead end canyon before they go down it or to wait until they find their way back out.

Some days I think I want to choose a different landscape to be walking but I have come to know that every stage of parenting brings both joy and pain, high points and low points, obstacles and opportunities... so I choose to embrace these badlands.....to be captivated and intrigued and curious as I watch adults emerge....slowly, day by day..... still relishing those odd moments when the child plops down on the end of the bed for a chat, or cuddles up to me on the couch or sends me a love text message. 

The storms that created the badlands will come and go and we will weather them.

And soon, all too soon, we will be out the other side either exhausted or exhilarated and excited (or most likely a healthy combination of all those).

In a new landscape....