From the category archives:

Ah, me boys

National We Day in Ottawa: One mother’s perspective

by DaniGirl on April 30, 2013 · 2 comments

in Ah, me boys,Life in Ottawa,Life, the Universe and Everything

I am about a quarter of a century older than the demographic that We Day seeks to motivate and inspire, but it would have been impossible to attend yesterday’s amazing national We Day event in Ottawa and not leave feeling like you can change the world. As much as the day’s events spoke to my inner 15 year old girl (who is, truth be told, never very far from the surface) I found myself considering the We Day messages and speakers through a maternal lens.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know it was a very exciting day for Tristan, Simon and me. Together with a few other blogger families, we were invited to cover the event and given media access to some of the celebrity activists and supporters thanks to TELUS. Through a partnership with Free The Children, TELUS is helping to inspire young leaders and build a community of young people dedicated to positive social change. High on my list of “best parenting moments ever” is watching Tristan pose a question to Free the Children founder Craig Kielburger himself – which I will let HIM tell you about in a separate post. But here’s a shaky shot of my boys patiently waiting their turn in the media line.

Waiting to meet Craig Kielburger at National We Day!!

If you missed my earlier post (and endless Facebook and Twitter updates yesterday) you might be wondering what exactly this We Day thing is all about.

Free The Children is the world’s largest network of children helping children, with more than one million youth in 45 countries involved in their innovative education and development programs. Through domestic programs they educate, engage and empower hundreds of thousands of youth in North America, the UK and around the world. Their international projects have brought over 650 schools and school rooms to youth and provided clean water, health care and sanitation to one million people around the world.

I’ve loosely followed Craig’s story and his Free the Children movement in the media for years. I knew they did charitable and educational work, and I knew through the We Day programs at the boys’ school that one of their primary goals was motivating young people to “Be the Change” in their world. The subtext I missed before attending the National We Day event, though, was how that empowerment works on an individual level. Yes, it’s about providing clean water for Ghana and schools for girls in Africa – but it’s also about having the courage to speak up on behalf of a classmate, about making small but meaningful choices for a better world, about having the courage to know yourself and be true to yourself. Powerful stuff for a pre-teen audience – but truly, who needs that message more than students at this complicated age? And what better way to reach them than through a rocking event with 5000 screaming peers?

#weday behind the screens. HUGE crowd! #telusforweday

I think I personally was most touched by the story of Spencer West. His legs were amputated below the pelvis when he was five years old. I keep trying to imagine what that must have been like for his family, thinking about my own five year old boy. Clearly, Spencer overcame unimaginable odds stacked against him, and in 2012 he climbed Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro - on his hands.

National We Day in Ottawa - Spencer West

We had the chance to chat with Spencer during the media scrum, and I wish I could have talked to him for about three more hours. This quote was one of my favourites of the day:

Here’s a couple more vignettes from the day.

Most of the Grade 6 class from the boys’ school earned tickets to We Day through their actions on a local and global level. Through one initiative, the school raised more than 170,000 pennies when the Mint announced the penny phase-out earlier this year. For their efforts, they earned a shout-out from Craig Kielburger during a pre-show interview on CBC Ottawa Morning and a moment in the spotlight during the show itself. I’m just glad I had my camera in my hand already! I was so proud of them. :)

National We Day in Ottawa - St Leonard shout-out

Perhaps one of the biggest celebrities present was actor and activist Martin Sheen. I have to tell you, I was pretty excited at the possibility of meeting him, having never missed an episode of the West Wing. We were standing in the corner, more or less trying to stay out of the way but still have a good sightline to where he would be answering questions, when Martin Sheen “snuck” into the room.

OMG just had a lovely chat with Martin Sheen and my boys. #weday #telusforweday

He was supposed to go to the backdrop and start answering media questions, but to everyone’s surprise – most spectacularly, my own! – he walked straight up to me with his hand out for a handshake and introduced himself. He asked me “Who are you here with?” and so of course I introduced him to Tristan and Simon. I’m not sure that’s what he meant by the question, but he seemed delighted with the answer and went on to chat with them about how wonderful the day was and whether they were enjoying themselves.

Eventually, they got him to where he was supposed to be answering questions (after he stopped to chat with a few more people on the way) and he said the other quote that resonated deeply with me for the day:

National We Day in Ottawa - Martin Sheen

One of my favourite moments of the day was watching his “handlers” try to get him out of the media room and back to where he was supposed to be getting ready to deliver his address to the crowd. Despite their best intentions to move him along, he kept shaking them off and stopping to chat with anyone who looked like they were under the age of 25 about why they were there and what they were doing. It was truly delightful and more than a little bit funny. Hey, when you’ve been POTUS I guess you prefer to decide when and where you are going.

I was also please to find out that I’m not as much of a dinosaur as I might have thought. While I only recongized one or two of the musical acts by name, I was delighted to find out that I did in fact know the songs, if not the bands. In fact, the boys and I agreed that we’ll have to add a little Shawn Desman and Kardinal Offishall’s Turn it Up to our iTunes collections. This was Kardinal Offishall Turning it UP for the big finale at We Day:

National We Day in Ottawa - Turn it UP!

There was so much more – environmental messages in Rob Stewart’s Revolution (click through and watch the trailer!), organ transplant messages from Ottawa’s own Hélène Campbell, a voice from Canada’s northern people and a reminder that Canada is taller than it is wide from Inuit speaker Terry Aulda, anti-bullying messages from visually-impaired teen Molly Burke, RBC’s ONE DROP initiative – the single resonating theme of the day was that there are a myriad ways in which a single person can make a difference, and that a seemingly small action can have enormous and occasionally unexpected effects.

The definition of “changing the world” has changed for this generation, for the children we are raising today. When I was a child, it meant that you grew up to be an activist or someone in a position of power, or you were one of those extraordinary young people like Craig Kielburger himself, who drew global attention to a cause he was passionate about. What I’m realizing is what our kids seem to know intuitively, and what We Day is promoting: you don’t need a megaphone to make a difference, and you don’t need to be famous or powerful or have a lot of resources behind you. Social justice isn’t about petitioning on Parliament Hill and letter-writing campaigns, it’s about the choices you make and the way you live your life every single day.

Choose organic and local produce. Choose to hold a door for someone rather than let it slam. Choose to donate a bag of used toys to charity rather than dump them in the trash. Choose to spend 20 minutes of your time promoting a cause rather than playing a video game. Choose to turn off the tap while you brush your teeth and turn off the lights when you leave the room. Choose to speak up to defend someone rather than stand mutely by and watch bullying happen. Like the pennies collected by the boys’ school, each small act on it’s own may seem so insignificant as to be worthless. However, when you start stacking them by the thousands and hundreds of thousands, they have unmistakable, undeniable worth and value.

Also? It was a really fun day.

National We Day in Ottawa - meeting Craig Kielburger!

A hell of a day, in fact, don’t you think? But wait, there’s more! Stand by, the boys want to tell you about We Day from their perspective next. :)


{ 2 comments }

What do you do when school rules and your rules don’t agree?

by DaniGirl on April 9, 2013 · 14 comments

in Ah, me boys,Mothering without a licence

So here’s a question for you: what do you do when you disagree with the unofficial policies of your child’s school?

Today’s question is inspired in part by a note that came home yesterday insisting all students must wear splash or wind pants in the school yard or be kept inside at recess. This is the first I’ve heard of this requirement, and I have neither the resources nor, frankly, the inclination to try to find splash pants for all three of them. Midweek, no less. And spending $20 plus, multiplied by three, for something they’ll wear for a week or two does not appeal to me either. I sent a note back to the school to that effect, and each boy packed a pair of dry pants as a concilliatory gesture and “just in case” measure – but I trust them enough to believe that when they promise to stay out of the mud and puddles, they will do so.

To me, this gets into the grey area between school rules and parenting. I sympathize with the school’s desire to keep the muck and mud outside, but if they’re going to make splash pants mandatory, I’d like more than a day’s notice. An example that slips even further outside the zone of school responsibility, IMHO, was the time last fall when one boy had a piece of candy taken away the day after Halloween. A note came home saying the teachers did not feel that amount of sugar was appropriate for a morning snack. (In my defense, I had ALSO packed a piece of fruit. And I didn’t realize that Beloved had also slipped a piece of candy into each child’s lunch box, in addition to the treat I’d permitted. Regardless, I truly believe that unless I am packing varsol-filled thermoses and asbestos sandwiches, the school has no right to judge or interfere with what I put in their lunch boxes.)

I’m leery to even talk about these examples on the blog because I adore the boys’ school and the staff. I think they’re hard-working and kind and we’re lucky to be part of such a great community. But I’m curious as to how you handle these types of conflict because I am torn. For the most part, I’m happy to follow the rules even when I disagree with them and think it’s important that the kids see me respecting authority. Rules are in place for a good reason – most of the time. However, another part of me wonders if there isn’t value in teaching them to question authority when authority clearly oversteps its bounds (as I believe it has, in these two examples at least.) And finally, a part of me worries that causing trouble will somehow make the kids’ relationship with their teachers and school authorities more difficult than it should be or has to be. I don’t want them to be labled as troublemakers, even if by proxy.

125:365 Puddle jumper

(FWIW, I think the splash pants rule is maybe more acceptable for the littlest kids. I will continue to send Lucas in his ski pants, partly because he goes in the morning when it’s still cool and partly because I don’t think a four-year-old has the same ability to resist a puddle that a nine- or eleven-year-old might have.)

So what do you think? Would you let these things go or speak up? For the candy incident, I let it go. It was a well-intentioned action, even if it left me feeling judged and more than a little annoyed. For the splash pants, I simply can’t comply but I tried to offer up a reasonable compromise. Do you think there is value in talking back when you disagree with unofficial policies and rules like this, or is it better for community harmony to shrug it off and comply?

(Edited to add: in no way is this post intended to reflect poorly on the boys’ school or its administration. They have a difficult role balancing many competing priorities and I have nothing but respect and even affection for them. Even if I disagree with an occasional policy or two, I can’t say enough nice things about how lucky we are to be a part of such a great community and this post was in no way meant to be critical of them. I used these examples simply to illustrate a larger issue that I think many parents face, regardless of which school their children attend.)


{ 14 comments }

A love letter to Tristan, Age 11

by DaniGirl on March 7, 2013 · 4 comments

in Tristan

Happy Birthday, my handsome fellow. Today you are ELEVEN!!

Framed! (2 of 2)

Oh Tristan, where to start? You, my big boy, have had a very good year. You seem content and confident, and you are a joy to be around. You love movie nights and game nights with the family, caesar salad with bacon, reading, Minecraft novelty versions of pop songs, Phineas and Ferb, riding your bike, feeding the chicadees and Chinese food, among other things.

Cozumel, Mexico

You are getting SO tall – I fear this time next year you may be as tall as your old mum! You’re now at the height of my jaw, and I love how you come in to be hugged with your head tucked down so you land under my chin – but I imagine there is a day in the not too distant future when it’s me tucking my head under your chin! As long as there are still hugs, I think I will be okay with that.

Wakefield

You are still my explorer, my adventurer, the one who is always up for a walk or a climb or a bike ride. You are becoming the family’s athlete, and this year you played lunchtime football at school as well as running in the cross-country meet. You’d prefer to walk home from school than be driven, and I know if I am twitching for an adventure, you will be the first one to volunteer to come with me. (You’re also pretty patient with some of my crazier photography-related ideas!)

The red balloon session

You’ve fallen in with a good lot of mates at school, and I enjoy having your friends over to the house to play. You are less outgoing than your extroverted middle brother, but you are not shy either. You strike a pleasant middle ground, and the friends you do let in to your inner circle are fast and fierce. Your friends right now are Theodore and Owen and Carter and Ethan and Orion, and of course Sophie. Your ongoing friendship with her is perhaps the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.

Sk8rboi

I couldn’t write about you at age 11 without mentioning your current obsession with the game Minecraft. I think you eat, sleep and dream about the game! Watching your ease with the game, and the technology behind it, makes me wonder if you don’t have a future in computers. To our delight, you even built a working app in school this year. You have slightly more old-fashioned career aspirations at this point, though. To my surprise and (I must admit) delight earlier this year, you announced with some conviction that when you grow up you want to be a blacksmith.

My blogger-in-training

Last year we saw a big turnaround mid-year in your attitude toward school and your behaviour in it. This year, you have really hit your stride and your grades reflect your much-improved attitude. You have been invited to test for the gifted program next year, and I think you will enjoy that if you are accepted into the program. You are curious and creative, two skills that will take you far in life. Even though you have honed your athletic side this year, your creative side continues to flourish. You still draw regularly, if not as obsessively as you used to, and you enjoy your guitar lessons with Dave.

Snowman fun

You get along well with both Simon and Lucas, which some days means you resist throttling them quite well. You melted my heart a few months ago when I found out that after your dad or I had finished reading to you and Simon at bedtime and tucked you in, you will often read aloud to Simon yourself. You are patient with Lucas as well, and we have even entrusted you with the care of your brothers for very (very!) brief interludes recently.

Brothers

I enjoy your company, Tristan. I love that you are developing a sense of humour which perfectly complements your dad’s and mine. I love that we can watch movies and even read the same books (like the Hunger Games) and discuss them on an almost grown-up level. I love that I can rely on you and interact with you and share with you in a more sophisticated and grown-up way.

Feeding the chickadees

Mostly, I just love you! Happy birthday to you – and to your silly cat, with whom you are delighted to share a birthday. Happiest of birthdays, my sweet Tristan! You are very much loved.


{ 4 comments }

A love letter to Lucas, Age 5

by DaniGirl on February 8, 2013 · 6 comments

in Lucas

My sweet baby Lucas, you are FIVE years old today!

Snowman fun-5

Lucas, you are growing up waaaaaay too quickly. Not only are you five years old, but you are a clever and advanced for five, so much so that sometimes we forget you’re still wee. And I know for a fact you think you’re a peer to your older brothers, age-gap be damned.

Christmas torture

Lucas, you are a sweet, loving and independent fellow who knows his own mind. Your two favourite things are drawing and jigsaw puzzles, although you like crafts, playdough and video games a lot, too. You go through reams of paper each week, drawing Sonic and puffles and creepers and Willie the cat and whatever else catches your creative fancy. You’re just learning your letters, so what was an independent act is now a joint effort as we spell and you write your captions carefully (and often backwards).

Drawing

You are half way through your first year at school and you seem to love it. You especially love your teachers, and are disconcerted when there’s a substitute in the classroom. Your mates are Cole and Logan and Rachel and Owen, but your best friend seems to be Meg from daycare. You are impatiently counting the days until full-day kindergarten next year, when you get to go to school all day long like your big brothers, but I love our Wednesday afternoons together and I will deeply miss them when you’re at school all day. You’re a great companion on our afternoon errands, and I am so grateful for the time we have been able to spend together.

Off to school

This year, you will have your first big-boy birthday party at A Gym Tale – a little bit delayed, but you’ve showed your usual patience with even that. You are very excited about the super-hero theme, and have said that for your birthday dinner today you want your favourite meal: breakfast with bacon and eggs, toast and homefries, and a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and colourful letters on it.

Boy on a bike

You love music and listening to songs on the iPod. You also love games, online and off, and hold your own playing Uno and Yahtzee and Catan Junior with the family. You don’t have much patience for being babied anymore, even though you still have one foot firmly in preschooler land. Thankfully, you still love Max and Ruby, for example, and Bubble Guppies and Toopy and Binoo, and you still play happily in with your toys in an imaginative world of your own making.

Uno on the porch

You love the library and books of all sorts. This year, we’ve enjoyed discovering the world of Mr Putter and Tabby, and Henry and Mudge, and a slew of Robert Munsch books. And to my amazement, you’ve lately started reading to ME at night, carefully sounding out the words in the first books of the BOB series of books for beginning readers.

Lime Kiln Trail 2012

Of all the boys, I think you loved our cruise this past fall the best. Six months later, you still mention it randomly and out of the blue every now and then: “I miss the boat Mommy. When can we go on another cruise?” You also very much miss our “Manotick pool” this long winter, but after October or November you at least stopped asking about it weekly. You also started swimming lessons this year, and of course you loved them.

Apple picking 2012 (11 of 11)

You are a sweet and loveable boy, Lucas. You are generous with your hugs and kisses, and you seem to be slowly overcoming your deep shyness with strangers. You battle fiercely with your brothers on occasion, especially Simon, and you are a relentless snitch! You are also loquacious and imaginative, and have a wonderful appreciation for a good knock-knock joke.

"Mom, take a picture of us cuz we're cute!"

My sweet Lucas, you bring joy and sunshine into our lives every single day. I still can’t quite believe you’re not a toddler in diapers any more – wasn’t that just yesterday? You’re growing into a fine young boy and we are very proud of you.

DSC_0537

Happy birthday, my darling Lucas!! We love you!


{ 6 comments }

A love letter to Simon, Age 9

by DaniGirl on February 1, 2013 · 11 comments

in Simon

My darling Simon, you are NINE years old today. You are my joker, my sweetheart, my comedian and my flirt. You are a natural charmer; you love people and they love you back. I have had more than one mom tell me in the last year that her little girl is head over heels with a crush on you, Mr Adorable.

Gloucester fair-2

This has been a great year for you, my Simon. You’ve shown that school comes easily for you, and you seem to do well in most of your classes. To my surprise, your best subject seems to be French. I did not see that one coming! Your teachers speak of you with affection, and I can see your classmates feel the same way. You zip through your homework quickly and without me even having to ask you, and your grades are enough to make any parent proud.

Leafy fun-4

Simon, you have a quick wit and you love to make people laugh. You are warmhearted and considerate and when you see someone is upset, you are quick to try to help with words or deeds. You like to help, to participate, and to please people. It’s easy to see why you have so many friends.

Simon

You have a surprisingly sophisticated sense of humour for a nine year old boy, and you play along with grown-up inside jokes as easily as you crack potty jokes and play fart humour. You have a teenager’s appreciation of pop culture, and if I need to know who the latest and greatest band is or who is that person everyone is talking about, I can come to you. It was YOU who introduced ME to LMFAO and Carly Rae Jepson and One Direction. I’m not sure if I feel older or younger because of it!

Cozumel, Mexico

You do love music, though. You took up piano lessons this year and to my delight you have really taken to them, whizzing through your first study book. I smile when I hear you randomly stop to pick out a tune on the keyboard, not because it’s practice time but because you simply enjoy playing. Your current favourite is Ode to Joy and you can play it from memory. I love that you have chosen to love the song that your dad and I walked down the aisle to many years ago!

Simon in the dandelions

You also continue to love video games. This year started with a Club Penguin obsession, but you have since migrated to a deep adoration of Minecraft. You also love to play Just Dance 4 on the Wii U, yet another way you drag your old mum’s muscial tastes forward from the 1990s. (Although truth be told, the Time Warp is my favourite track on that game!)

Wakefield

If you have an Achilles Heel, my sweet Simon, it’s that you can be snappish and cranky, especially with your brothers. We’ve taken to uttering the single word “Tone!” to remind you to speak with kindness whenever possible. I have marvelled aloud many times that it surprises me that one child can be so utterly charming, so kind and sweet and considerate of others, so empathetic and thoughtful – and so absolutely intolerant of his brothers in the same breath. Ah well, it is the nature of siblings, I suppose. Of course, they are clearly your best friends as well as your worst enemy, to which the many nighttime giggles emanating from your bedrooms attest.

Brothers

Your friends this year are Mason and Alexa and Dylan and Alex and Grace. This weekend, we’re having a simple party at home with a few friends, as you and your big brother were earlier given a choice: a big party and a little present, or a little party and a big gift. When you heard the gift I had in mind was your very own iPod Touch, there was no question in either of your minds which option to choose. (And then I got them for half price after the holidays and we were all delighted!)

112_1259

Simon, you are growing into a wonderful young fellow. Cheeky and wise beyond your years, sociable and outgoing, funny and attuned to those around you, it’s always a delight to have you around. Except when you’re cranky. But you’re so otherwise lovely, it’s easy to forgive you those times, too.

richmond fair-5

Happy birthday, my Simon. I’m proud to be your mom.


{ 11 comments }

Great moments in parenting – the birthday party fail edition

by DaniGirl on January 30, 2013 · 8 comments

in Lucas,Mothering without a licence,Simon

I thought I had it all under control. Clearly, I did not.

Poor Lucas, poster boy for the third child, has reached the ripe old age of five and has never had a birthday party. Knowing this, we started making plans to ensure he actually got one this year in December, even though his birthday is February 8. A good six weeks in advance, we called and booked a party room and worked out a guest list. It was a lock.

Last Friday I was supposed to get the invitations, but I forgot them on my desk at work. Annoyed with myself, I figured two weeks less two days would still be plenty of notice. That Monday afternoon I sat down and wrote out all the invitations, confirmed the guest list with Lucas and stuffed them into his backpack to be distributed the next day at school. That’s when I found the invitation FOR Lucas, from a classmate.

For the same day.

For the same place.

For the very next time slot.

Yeah. Four straight hours of birthday party might be a little much for your average four year old to bear, don’t you think?

Luckily, I recognized the RSVP name as a mom who is also on the school council with me. I felt comfortable enough to call her and cross-check against her invitee list against mine, hoping there wouldn’t be too much duplication. The girls were no problem, he hadn’t wanted to invite any girls (Lucas takes after Simon in this regard; his bestie is a girl) but he had invited every boy in the class. Heartbroken for Lucas, I called to reschedule the party and the soonest time slot I could get was 10 days after his birthday. So much for planning.

Really, that was nothing more than circumstance and bad luck (although I can’t help castigating myself for not getting those invites out earlier!!) but I really can’t blame anyone but myself for what happened with Simon’s party.

Knowing the boys were desperate for their own handheld devices, we gave Tristan and Simon a choice this year – a big party and a little gift or a little party and an iPod Touch. Neither one hesitated to choose the iPod, of course. So we told them they could have three or four friends over in lieu of a party, and we’d have an extended sort of play date with cupcakes and birthday presents. (And then I scored the iPods at half off during a refurb sale after Christmas. Win-win!!)

So I picked up some invitations and wrote out three five (I am such a softie) and Simon sent them off to his friends last week. It was only earlier this week that I realized what I had done, or more specifically what I had NOT done. I hadn’t made a note, mental or otherwise, of what time we had put on the invitations.

“Um, Simon?”

“Yes Mommy?”

“Do you remember what time we put on the invitations for the party on Saturday?”

“Um, no?”

Rats.

I mean, it wasn’t a big deal. We would be home anyway. I was pretty sure I’d said 1:00, or maybe it was 1:30. It might have been 2:00. Probably not as late as 3:00, right? Hmmm. The only challenge would be coordinating the arrival of the grandparents, who wanted to appear in time for cupcakes but not endure two hours of a houseful of kids hepped up on birthday energy. I figured I’d just call them when kids started showing up and tell them to show up in an hour.

But, it was bugging me, so I casually approached one of the moms today at school pick-up.

“Hey, how are ya? Warm out today, eh?” I said, and we chatted briefly about the unseasonable warmth. “So, I um, have a kind of a favour to ask. Do you, um, happen to remember what time I put on the invitation for Simon’s party?” She thought it was hilarious and confirmed that it was, in fact, for 1:30.

I thought THAT was one of my finer parenting moments, until the phone rang earlier this evening.

Ring ring.

Me: “Hello?”

Child’s voice: “Um, hi. Is this Simon’s mom?”

Me: “Yep, that’s me! Did you want to talk to Simon?”

Child: “Um, actually, no. I was calling to talk to you.”

Me, mildly surprised: “Oh, okay then. What’s up?”

Child: “Well, Simon said you forgot what time the party is, and we thought that it might be important that you know, you know? So I checked the invitation, and it says 1:30. Just so, you know, you, um, know. Okay?”

Me, dying: “That is very considerate of you sir. We will look forward to seeing you on Saturday.”

One of my finer moments indeed.

Moral of the story: do not, under any circumstances, hire me as a party planner.


{ 8 comments }

Flashback faves: BOB books

29 January 2013 Books

Almost six years ago, I wrote this sponsored blog post for MotherTalk books, which eventually became Mom Central Canada. Tristan was five and a half at the time, and I still remember how he gobbled up the BOB books for beginning readers. Last week, we dusted them off for a-week-shy-of-five-years-old Lucas, and watched the same [...]

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Friday favourites

14 December 2012 Ah, me boys

It was the Friday before Christmas and all through the house, DaniGirl’s boys were even more adorable than usual. (I pop these stories up on Facebook every now and then, but I fear they’ll be lost forever if I don’t replicate them here in my digital baby book. Sorry to those of you who’ve read [...]

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Best teacher feedback ever

25 November 2012 Ah, me boys

Tap, tap, tap… testing? Is this thing on? You guys still out there? Oy, life. Sometimes I think mine is a little too full for my own good. As Martha says, though, it’s a good thing. We had parent-teacher interviews last week. The boys’ progress reports were stellar and I wasn’t particularly worried about anything, [...]

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Wordless Wednesday – Lucas’s first day of school

12 September 2012 Lucas

I thought I’d have more to say, but I don’t eve know where to start. After four and a half years of sharing my Wednesdays with Lucas, I’ve just come home to an empty house after dropping him off at his first day of school. I miss him. Is it 11:30 yet?

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