Promises, part two

So, my Dad and Step-Mom came to visit?!

I am honestly surprised. After last summer, I thought we might be in for another blow up... but he came out without a fight and stayed three nights, leaving this morning.

We had a nice time and I think he enjoyed spending time with the boys... they enjoyed spending time with him.

He also brought a big box of my school work and photos from when I was younger. I have been wanting these things so much... I cried when I looked at some of it.

It turned out to be a nice visit.

The other thing that is going on is that we have a leak somewhere and it is leaking through the kitchen ceiling. It happens at odd times. the cut holes in the ceiling this morning and pulled down a bunch of drywall and there was mold growing on it. Then they clean up (poorly) tell me they fixed the leak and leave. I call the onsite manager and he comes over and turns on the water...it still leaks.

I start to cry.

The last time they opened the ceiling, Parker get very sick and was diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease. They don't what causes Kawasaki Disease but believe it is caused by a microbe. I am petrified of him becoming sick again...:(

Busy few weeks.

So, it has been awhile since I posted. You know what summer is like... a blur of weekend trips, BBQ's and family visits.

Alan had 11 days off and we purged our little home, reorganised and streamlined the organisation...it is much better. We had a little impromptu visit with my Mum and Doug up at their home on Pigeon Lake, followed by a full day at the new (ish) Castaway Bay Kid's water park area at West Edmonton Mall Waterpark. It was LOVELY! It is perfect for kids aged 3+. The boys, always attended, did not even need to wear lifejackets! Liam ran up to the top and came down the waterslides all on his own and Parker went down most of the adult waterslides...with a few exceptions.

Saturday we drove out to Drumheller and spend several hours at the Dinosaur museum...the boys LOVED everythng...it is really an interesting educational experience. We spent most of the evening hanging out with some c-moms friends at their annual campout. We did not stay the night, but we did enjoy the visit and introduced some nice people from Austraila and New Zealand to the wonders of smores, Jones style.

Yesterday saw us prepping the soil and laying sod in 1/2 of our yard. It is a 10x10 foot patch of grass that we don't use much because the grass had been poorly maintained for decades. Now it is lush and green, perfect for bare feet and picnics!

The opposite side of our lawn is approximately 13x11 feet and will be done in the next few weeks when the grass is ready to be enjoyed. The entire yard will only cost us $100 worth of sod and fertilizer (with a whole lot of elbow grease).

Alan is back to work today and the boys and I spent the day with friends at Arbour Lake. We dug in the sand, enjoyed some sun and paddled around the lake in a paddle boat.

It has been a busy but lovely summer so far!

Feeling groovy...

So, I am feeling better.

We ran around the science centre for a few hours, watched a presentation on Galileo and had a slurpie.

Then we went to Edworthy park for a couple of hours and the boys met some new friends and played under the big spruce trees while I read a book.

When we left, after 4pm, they were FILTHY, but happy and I was much more relaxed.

We ended the day with a trip to Dairy Queen where Parker ate an entire banana-split, getting strawberries all over the front of his shirt.

Normally, this would send me over the edge, but I just turned his shirt around backwards and pretended it never happened...:D

I tossed them in the shower and they rinsed away the dirt, ice cream, pine needles and other lovely things they had stuck in their hair.

We are home, clean and tired.

It was a good day!

Promises, Promises...

My Dad is not a "my word is my bond" kind of guy.

My entire life he has made me promises... from promising to teach me to drive (he didn't, he said it was because I was a girl), to promising to show up for parent teacher interviews(he didn't... something at work came up and my teacher had to drive me home) to promising to come visit us out here in Calgary(a multitude of things have come up to prevent this). When I mention it to him he becomes angry and defensive and demanding.

For the past two summers he has been promising to come out and spend time with us out here. Inevitably "plans change" and he calls asking us to come out there instead. We suggest meeting in the middle (it is a 9 hour drive) and he makes a million excuses as to why that will not work for him. Last year they drove all over the West Coast in a motorhome and drove home through Red Deer and didn't bother to stop and see us.

I feel like I am digging in my heels, but I am so tired of his false promises and of being the person who is the peace-maker and tries to make everyone happy. I sent him a message telling him that we already had plans for next week and, if all else fails and he doesn't manage to visit us here this summer, like he has been promising, we will see him in September at my cousin's wedding.

I am feeling so angry right now...I think I need to go wreck my journal.

Food, health, weight....blah, blah, blah.

So, it is now week 5 of my concerted effort to be healthier and to let go of the junk in my trunk.

So far I am down 13 lbs!

I am actually quite surprised as I am stuffing my face with summer fruit every chance I get. Apparently what they say about not eating too much fruit because of the sugar doesn't apply here... and thank goodness, because I LOVE CHERRIES! I LOVE WATERMELON! I LOVE STRAWBERRIES!...

Ok, honestly, I just love food.

So, the jist of what I am doing is to eat more, more often, with more joy.

I am keeping track (because I am a list-maker) and looking back, there have been days where I eat more 100 calorie snack bags than I care mention (er...was that a snack or a meal?) and then there was my birthday (weekend)...but most days are good.

A few things I've done that seem to be helping;

I cut out the artificial sweetners. We no longer use any of them in our home...no, not even splenda. What I am using is a natural sweetner called Stevia and it is amazing! No headaches or terrible fatigue when I am using this over artificially-sweeteed beverages.

I am also drinking more water. Well, water with lime juice, a few frozen strawberries popped in and some stevia. The best, most refreshing calorie-free beverage ever! Koolaid without the sugar, dye, artificial flovour and preservatives.

Greens+. My Acupunturist turned me on to this stuff and it's amazing! I mix it into a smoothie in the morning and I have energy all day. It is available all over the place and is worth it's weight in gold. Last month I did greens+ and all-greens, this month I am trying the greens+multi. Will let you know what I think.

I WAS wearing a pedometer to record how many steps I take per day. 10000 steps per day is roughly equivalent to 30 minutes of physical activity. I was ranging between 6 and 16 thousand steps per day, depending on the day (weekends were less because Alan is home to help). I pledge to start wearing it again tomorrow and writing down the results.

Other than that, laying in the hammock, wrecking my journal (pictures to come, Sara), watching "wipeout" because it makes me laugh like a crazy person and trying to keep the boys busy (there should be an exercise catagory for this).

Unschooling, schedules...rAmBlinGs.

So, if you think homeschooling/unschooling is stupid, prepare yourself.

This post isn't up for criticisim. It is here because we have gone through some changes over the past few months and I want to blog about it....

In May we made the big decision to homeschool. This idea has been in my heart for a long time. I knew it was right for Parker, but I had no idea how to go about it.

My logical self went out and bought curriculum and workbooks, schedulling 15-20 minutes of "school" time after meals each day. Parker balked.

After a month of misery and me seriously questioning my homeschooling chops I posted on a homeschooling group I belong to, for ideas and inspiration.

The replies I got were frank; WHY was I forcing him to learn these things? Was I really so worried about him learning to write at 6? Who cares about counting by twos and fives?

I decided that a period of "de-schooling" was in order... honestly, more for me than for Parker. It was me that needed to let go of my conventional ideas about schooling.

So I stopped. We played, slept in, played some more.

One day P came into the diningroom and asked for a paper and pencil. He sat down and wrote a story about a little girl with sausages for fingers. Some of the words were spelled phonetically, but I understood every word and it was the loveliest of stories... brought tears to my eyes.

I had been pushing something so mundane on him. He was bored.

The more I thought about the schedule of school and the conventionality of it, the more I realised that it is just another way to train a child to conform to a traditional 9-5 work week, often in a job that isn't interesting, or challenging.

While I feel that there is nothing wrong with a 9-5 work week, the boy's Dad works in a conventional (albeit family-friendly) job, I don't want the boys pre-conditioned to that life.

I want them to choose what they want to do, be, the hours they want to work. I know people who are so ingrained with the idea that they have to work long hours to be respected that they cannot take time off at Christmas to spend time with their family.

While it is important for kids to understand convention and conformity, I rather think that 6 is far too young to live these things. How can he become who he IS when there are so many things he wants to understand and I am teaching him that counting by twos is more important?

Since then we've dropped the homeschooling idea. We are unschoolers. It works for us.

We sleep us much as we want, not feeling the need to get up early and rushing around to conform to someone's school schedule.

We eat popcorn and a tiny bit of chocolate in the mornings.

We swing in the hammock and read a book.

We fill our pockets with rocks and feathers.

We squish coins on train tracks and guess which will be flattest.

We water plants and pull weeds.

We wash the floor, pick up toys, bake bread and tidy the livingroom together.

We count all the money in our piggybanks.

We visit the Science Center, Zoo, Museum, grocery store, world - together.

We are happy.


Here is my promise as the loving Mama of my two little people...I will let them BE.

Organisation

Yesterday saw us reorganising our kitchen/dining-room. We have a TINY, poorly laid out pantry (closet) in the kitchen and never know what is in there.

We purchased a new "pantry" and decided to move all our pantry food items into there. All our pots, pans and small appliances will move into the old pantry and hopefully this will result in a new, streamlined kitchen.

Alan also installed our air conditioner last night. We'd assumed it wouldn't fit into our new windown, but we pulled it out yesterday and got the loveliest of surprises...it fits perfectly!

Since the house did not go through, we have decided to stay here, for the time being, while we search for another, more suitable house. I insisted that we had to make things more comfortable and Alan seemed to have no objections to that.

Now to renovate the library (read: stairwell)...;)