I’m starting to think the new normal for me is crazy chaos. I woke up an hour past my alarm this morning. I woke with a start, bolting out of bed like a crazed woman at a red-tag sale. Catapulting myself pell-mell down the staircase and into the shower, where I had just enough time …
Last November, we had a vehicle accident that left our van totalled. Our four precious children were on board, along with my mother and father. As a result of this unfortunate event, we were in the market for a new van to replace Ole’ Bessy who ended up in the junk yard. Bless her soul. …
What do you do when your livelihood- your means of employment- is wrecking your body? I am sitting in Dr. Camphos office waiting to see him for the first time ever. He is an ENT- Ear/Nose/Throat specialist. I look around the room, and see an ad stuck up on the wall behind me for Botox. …
If you want pure, unadulterated honesty- the kind of honesty that will bring you to your knees or send you into fits of laughter, step inside a Kindergarten classroom. The concept was invented for four and five-year olds. I had a student once who shared with me what her mother wore to bed at night. …
How to teach appreciation? I am at a loss, by times… Second-Youngest Daughter came home from school today and mentioned, in an off-hand way, that she had shared her lunch with one of the boys in her Grade 3 class who had only had a bag of Cheesies stashed away inside his lunchbag. When Husband …
I like to think I am intelligent, thoughtful, curious, bright. But today, I realized that even those who think they are the smart ones have a little foolish going on. For starters. I have not yet been able to remember and sort out the right names for the seven students in my room. That’s right- …
There are moments upon moments when I feel pulled in ten different directions and the elastic band that holds my soul, snaps. And when that happens, I just have to laugh at myself. Soul exposed. Transparency at its very best. Or worst. I am making beds. At 9:15 p.m., to be precise. What is the …
Not quite sure how to feel about a twelve-year old son who now reads the Globe and Mail on his i-pod. I am thinking that I need to daily start reading the newspaper just to keep up with his brilliant mind. I don’t want it to come to the place where his mother knows less …
If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, I would have politely laughed at them. If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, and one of my students would be my charming little M.A., I would have (politely) laughed at them and then high-tailed it …
First day of school bloopers: I got called Mrs. Wood (which ran a close second to “what’s your name again???”) all day. I think it was the “smell ya later” that the infamous D.W. (our vivacious former Vice-principal) said on her way out the kindergarten door, that really stuck with them. As I was on …
I am checking e-mails when I come across one from a colleague of mine. He and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum in the areas we teach and also have very different social circles within our work environment. However, as we had collaborated ideas at the committee level over the past year, this …
The journey to peace comes by way of blessings. Counting blessings. Those little and big reminders given to us so that we can remember this: life is good. That life is more than good- it is stellar. Even in the moments we oft would erase. For those moments build character and endurance. They make us …