Tell Me a Story

Many nights when I’m tucking Cake into bed, she asks me to tell her a story either a made up one or one from she was a baby, or a story from my childhood.
I try to vary up the stories I tell her, but last night I started to tell her about when I was in grade three.

I attended Stittsville Public School, and my teacher was Mrs. Posmituk. I remember that she was very short, and had short brown hair. She was a lively teacher and I liked her a lot. Being a pretty shy and quiet kid, I think she recognized that I didn’t have any friends so it was her desk rearrangement that sat me beside my first best friend, Laurie. I used to sit in the back, on the left, and Mrs. Posmituk moved me into the middle and right beside Laurie, and we became friends. I had my first pool party, and sleepover at Laurie’s house, and she also was the first friend to hurt my feelings when she didn’t want to perform in the end of year talent show with me. Mrs. Posmituk read Charlotte’s Web to us outloud, I loved listening to her animated voice read to us all the characters and their emotional ups and downs. Charlotte’s Web was the first big book that Cake read when she was 4, I now have wonderful memories about that book both as a kid and an adult.

I remember also taking the EQAO testing while in grade 3. I remember getting bored half way through the test and just guessing at a bunch of answers so that I could finish faster. Luckily for me my laziness didn’t have me end up in the delayed class…not a smart decision on my part, haha! Happily now they break up the testing into several days for kids, so at least I don’t need to worry about Nay doing the same thing next year.

I also remember lots of tidbits from grade 3, it’s really the first year of school where I have a multitude of memories. I remember the boy, Kyle, who dyed some blonde into his hair to look like Vanilla Ice. I remember the building project and since a boy had brought in two boards from home, he was the one who got to choose the teams and he only chose the boys in the class. I think his name was Jason…though I can’t picture his face. I remember there was a boy in class who failed, and had to do grade 3 over again, I remember seeing him cry.

I remember we did a project about trees, and I really enjoyed doing that. I can still feel the sun on my face while I looked up into the branches to see what shapes the leaves were in to classify them. I liked all the different bark types and the rubbings and tracings we did. I am sure we probably only worked on that project for a couple of days, so it’s funny how nearly thirty years later I can still remember enjoying it so much.

As my kids, one is finishing grade three and the other starting there in the fall, and I wonder what of their year will stick with them the most. Will Cake have fond memories of her Emily Stowe wax museum, or her own EQAO testing? What will Nay get to do next year, and will he have memories from grade 2?

School’s Out for Summer

Cue up the KISS, because School is OUT! Today was the last day of grade 3 for Cake, and grade 2 for Nay. They both went off happily and brought home backpacks bursting with stuff. Usually on the last day we have dessert for supper, but tonight is the neighbourhood barbecue at the community centre, so we’ll be going there instead.

I spent my last day doing chores and errands, and had to treat myself to a funny little book of poems written by kittens. I sat in the car reading them while I waited for Nay to get out giggling to myself.

I’ve been feeling a little uninspired the last week, I haven’t been writing at all, or anything other than watching t.v. really. I’m not sure if there’s a way to make the feeling pass quicker, but it’s weird how I can be so full of ideas one day and then just nothing at all after that. Regardless, I’ve got the kids home with me now everyday so it’s not like I have a choice in the matter. Nay is eager to start homeschool, and Cake wants to get her blog set up and start her summer projects. They’re only as successful as they are implemented though, so I need to stay on top of everything.

This weekend we’re heading up to join Scott and Shannon at the cottage, for fun and fireworks. I haven’t packed yet…except for some pop and chips…so yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me tonight.

 

Deep Breath

Take a deep breath, that will be be some good advice for me to follow and give throughout the summer weeks I think. There’s one week left, one week of making my own schedule (sort of) before I devout myself to the kids full time. Sigh, I’m happy but also nervous.

This last weekend before school ends I’m off to go shopping with Robynn, not for anything in particular, just to have a getaway. Shawn will be on his own with the kids and needs to remember to bring Nay to a birthday party. I’m confident in his abilities to keep everyone happy and accounted for, even my Holly. HaHa!

Last Saturday Nay had his final art show at the Nepean Visual Arts Centre, which was wonderful as always. He says that next year he would like to join Cake in the pottery class, we’ll see what’s available before we commit though. Cake has big plans for next year, so who knows what our availability will be.

Other than the crazy heat this past weekend, the other big news is the fire that happened a few houses up from us. We were in bed, and I was woken up by the sirens. We live near a fire station so hearing sirens in the middle of the night isn’t all that weird, but these seemed awfully close. I roused Shawn when I started to hear the noises outside, thinking there were burglars about! Turns out it was Firemen bringing the hoses down to the hydrant! The house was vacant, thankfully, we stayed and watched the flames for a few minutes before going back into bed. In the morning when I drove by on my way to bring Nay to school the whole roof was gone! I commented that fires in our neighbourhood seemed to be a yearly event these past few years. Not a good sign for all the rentals around here, for sure!

I haven’t been writing much this week in my journal, just haven’t really felt like anything was worth recording I guess. I need to figure out what my inspiration is, and hopefully that will help with the dry spell I’ve been experiencing.

Trying Something New

My books for Cake arrived, I’ve started reading them and making lists and notes to help, but it will be an ongoing project I think.
I haven’t put up the emotions thermometer yet, but as a family we sat down and came up with some family rules. Having some rules will help Cake to feel like her life is more predictable, and know what is expected of her. I’m going to make the rules into some artwork and then next week pickup a frame for it so that it can be nicely displayed somewhere.
I finished reading The Happiness Project book, and now I’m going to review my notes and come up with some resolutions for myself. I’m reading Smart but Scattered to help me with Cake, Brisigner just for entertainment, and also How to Train Your Dragon Book 1 for Nay. Nay asked me to assign him a novel study, so I chose a book he already owned and had read (though not for quite some time.) He can’t verbalize it but I think he’s really craving some brain stimulation. I found some good questions on the internet that teachers have used for his novel study, as wall as some activities to help review some of the main themes of the book.I have to admit that I’m not devastated at having to read the book myself, it’s a pretty funny story! I’m reading a book with Cake too, The Long Winter by Laura Ingals Wilder.

Aside from all the reading I’m doing, I have also decided to TRY SOMETHING. One of the big themes in all my notes from reading The Happiness Project was that you need growth, you need to try things and find happiness in failure. Well, I’m not good at trying new things, in fact if I really think about it the last time I tried something new I was becoming a mom. So…yeah, I’m overdue. So my BIG ‘try something’ idea is that I would like to try starting  a Kids Sports Photography business. I did some research, and thought while I walked with Holly around our neighbourhood. There’s an abundance of family/baby/wedding photographers out there, but there’s NOT a lot of kids sport photographers out there. This is something different, that could be pretty cool? Imagine having a badass photo of your kid hanging up instead or accompanying their school posed photo. So, after all the reading, I decided I better go out and see if I could actually TAKE some decent kids sports photos. I’m going to bring my camera to the kids soccer game tonight, but I also decided to attend the school board track meet to see how I could do.

This is just a small selection of the photos I took. I probably got about 150, and of those about 45 were good. I am so glad I did this though because I discovered I needed a bigger memory card, and I need to buy a second battery. I was worried for the last hour that my battery was going to kick it any moment and that I would miss out on something great. Next I’ll need to practice finishing the photos up and then of course trying to figure out how to get people to hire me…but I’ll worry about that part after. I’m excited and nervous to be doing a NEW THING, and if it fails then at least I’ll have the opportunity to find the happiness in failure.

Pointless Negativity and Emotional Intensity

These are the words that have been on my mind this week: Pointless Negativity, Emotional Intensity, and Overcoming Anxiety; mostly all related to Cake. She feels so strongly and sometimes it just gets so hard for me to understand what is going on in her head. I’m feeling anxious myself about what the summer is going to be like for us, with her having such a hard time controlling her emotions and manipulating her negative feelings into positive outcomes. After a very rough evening last night, after contemplating running away for a night by myself, I consulted her teacher and the internet and purchased a few books to help guide me through this, whatever this is.

I am going to make up an emotions thermometer, as suggested by a few of my favourite gifted websites. This will hopefully be a way for Cake to communicate with us about how she is feeling and what she would like to do about it.

Something I haven’t figured out is how to talk to her about following through with her responsibilities. She admitted that she doesn’t do hers because she just can’t be bothered, which isn’t healthy. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to convince her that having small responsibilities now will help her once she’s a grown up. I don’t want her to be a person who doesn’t know how to keep her own apartment clean and be the bane of existence for future room mates!!
Anyway, I’ve ordered books, hopefully Amazon will get them to me soon and I will gain some insight.

Aside from all of the emotions we’ve been dealing with, we have been having fun too. Swimming in the pool, and we rode bikes together for the first time. I got up on a bike for the first time in a very LONG time and we biked all the way from our house to a park that’s halfway to school, then after playing we biked all the way back.

Tomorrow is a pd day from school, so I’m going to take Nay to the store so that he can get a bike lock, and I’ll get a helmet. Then we can bike to school together! I’ll still have to drive home, since we need to get home for Caitlyn, but I think it’ll be a fun way to start the day for us both. WELL I’ll be three hours into my day by the time we get to school, but whatever!

There’s only two weeks of school left and I have lots to do before the kids start summer break. Lots of tidying up, lots of sorting ,and organizing, and planning. Aside from the weekly plan, I’d like to break it down even further, I think the structure will help Cake immensely. I also think I’ll reduce the daily screen time allotment to 45 minutes instead of 60. Especially now that we’re bike riding, I think we can go out a bit more. I hope…

Brownie Camp

I made it, I survived. Last week I had a pretty large to do list to prepare for Sparks Advancement, Brownie Advancement and of course my first ever Brownie Camp.

We took 20 girls, Cake included, to Baxter Conservation area near Kars from Friday evening, until noon on Sunday. I was dead tired by the time I got home on Sunday, but I’d do it again for sure because it was so much fun.
The girls had a great time too, and made some pretty amazing memories that will hopefully last them a lifetime. My favourite times were the early mornings when the girls were awake and we went down to the pond. On Saturday there was a handful of girls up at 5am, and Sunday a few were up by 6:30 so rather than wake everyone else up, we tied on our runners and went out in our pj’s to see what we could see.

See if you can spot the frogs in some of those grassy pics.

I think Cake was sick of me by Sunday and I know she was sick of everyone else. When we got home she went up to her room and stayed there only coming out to briefly eat dinner and then back in she went. She didn’t even want to go swimming even though we were in the middle of a heat wave!

Shawn and Nay had a good weekend, of which I know very little details. Which is fine, because sometimes Daddy and Nay need secrets from the girls, haha!

With the end of camp came the end of my Brownie and Sparks meetings for this session, I’m freeeee! Well, I’ve still got a Sparks end of year party this weekend, and I need to send out photos for advancement and camp but there’s no rush on those. I’m happy I did it, I’m happy I’m finished.