CDF

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Last year we talked about coming up with a family motto. We actually came up with some good ideas – but it was so hard to remember everything. So this year, we decided to try again and keep it really simple. Rob suggested using our initials: CDF family(we have 3 last names going in our family.) We sat down with the kids and brainstormed words. We tried to come up with words that are all encompassing. Here’s what we came up with:

CHARITY
DETERMINATION
FAIRNESS
FAMILY

We reviewed what each word meant to us, what they represented, and what they made us think of and all decided that it was easy enough to remember. So, we used it and continue to use it. Perfect – in my rose coloured lense world!

However, not long ago, I was informed by Joshua (when I was trying to drill into him what our motto meant) that the kids had decided it could mean something different:

CRAPPY
DUMB
FAILURE

Their new motto. They think it is quite funny. Hmmm – at least they are talking about it….

Silence

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They say the biggest revenge on a child is for them to grow up and be a parent and to have a child just like THEM. Well, I was a pretty good kid (if I do say so myself) so I expected to have some great kids (and I think I am pretty blessed because I do…). However, I did have one small problem that followed me through school – and pretty much life. I was a talker. I talked a lot. I talked all the time. One year, the teacher placed a very shy girl beside me in hopes that her quiet, shy ways would help reform me. Unfortunately, much to my teacher’s dismay, I reformed her. She started getting in trouble for talking too! I place the blame fully on my father. He was a talker. I must have been his parent’s revenge. So, suffice it to say, I was not too surprised when this year, like every other year, I had a request to meet the teacher the first week of school, for one of my kids (I won’t mention any names).

She asked me, “Does he ever stop talking”? I decided to not pretend that I didn’t know what she was talking about, and just responded “No”. I didn’t add at that moment though that not only does he not stop talking, but he back talks, challenges absolutely everything you say and asks a million and one questions. She could figure it out for herself. I also knew, like the teachers before her, she would come to realize that this kid had a heart of gold, was passioanate about what he believed in, thrived on fairness and retained a surprisingly large amount of information considering how little he appeared to listen!

I figured I was home free with my other biological offspring. We got through first term this year, then I got “the call”. The teacher told me she was just so amazed at how much this little guy talked! Again, not to mention names…

The teacher decided to put him on a “performance” review program – where every day he would get a happy face or sad face depending on the kind of “non talking” day he had. I think all this does is make him talk about whether he got a happy or sad face! I think he talks so much, he doesn’t even realize he talks, so every day it is a surprise to him whether he gets a happy or sad face! Again, at least he was a loveable guy, and I have to say, the words that come out of this guy’s mouth are some of the funniest I’ve ever heard. To show my love and support for him, I told the teacher that his biggest obstacle right now (his talking) might one day be his biggest asset. I don’t think the teacher cared – she’s not going to be around for that – she just wants him quiet NOW.

It did get me thinking about talking – and silence. “Silence is golden” they say. But is all silence golden? Yes, there are certain times, locations, situations where silence is golden. We need silence. We need to hear ourselves think and feel – and often, we need silence for that. But can silence be bad? We tend to give people an easier time when they are quiet – as often it is easier to deal with. Often – it is better! Silence can represent respect. It can represent “easy going”. It can represent humility. But can silence also represent indifference, passivity, apathy, complacency, pride (“I don’t need to dignify that with a response”)?

I found my quote of the week about this:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” – Martin Luther King

I think I’ll quote that the next time I get hauled in to talk about my chatty kids. For now, I’ll focus on teaching my kids about making the important distinction of “good silence” and “bad silence”. Not all silence is created equal. (I also still stick to the idea that my children’s biggest challenges in their young years may become their biggest assets in their older years. I don’t want to completely squash their chatty natures. It did me good ! I built my whole career on communicating!

I’m also going to revel in sweet revenge when my children have children just like them.

Weekend Away

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Every May for the past couple of years we have gone away for the May long weekend. This year, we don’t have all the kids so we decided on a spur of the moment trip this weekend. We usually head to Montreal to see friends, or we have gone to Kingston a couple of times (visited Fort Henry where Rob worked in University). This year we decided to head to Upper New York State – Palmyra – which has a bunch of historic sites for us to visit about our Church.

The kids seem to like “road trips” – which is good, as we are planning on a big one to the Outer Banks, NC this summer which will be about 15 hours! This one was a little bit shorter – under 4 hours. The weather wasn’t the best, but we had a great time. The kids loved the variety of walking through forests and up hills, to watching movies and videos, to seeing orignal homes and printing shops. We also went to the factory outlets for a bit of shopping, enjoyed the hotel hot tub, went to the town pizzeria for dinner and crashed and watched some movies. Perfect kind of weekend.

Our kids are exposed to many different view points, attitudes and religions. I have my own beliefs, which of course, I want to teach my kids. But they also have other parents who have their own viewpoints and teach them other things too – some hand in hand with what I think and teach – some completely opposite. I only hope that my kids will grow up to have an understanding of many things and find that they are able to make their own decisions in their life about what they want to believe, based on their own experiences. It’s funny because it is often criticized that teaching religion to kids is sort of a “brainwashing”. I find it so ironic that often the brainwashing I’ve seen is to convince them that religion is “bad”.

I got to try out my new camera on this weekend trip too. Got some nice pictures, although I need to figure out how everything really works! Here are some of my favorite shots of the weekend:

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Dogs and Schedules

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My phone was hijacked the other day. The culprit – wasn’t too hard to figure out – was Zach. We don’t lock our phones around here (both of us have had previously bad experiences with secrecy, phone locks, and computer passwords. In our experience, if you lock it, there’s something to hide. Some may think it’s a jaded view but you can never be too honest)…. At any rate, maybe we should re-think the whole unlocked policy because this is what I found:

This was my new screen saver. I did laugh. The kids – or specifically Zach and Zandra and maybe a little bit Josh, are desperate for a dog. We had to put Carrot (our cat) down in February after 16 years. It was pretty sad. The kids were sad, but soon started asking about a dog. Actually, as Carrot was getting sick, they were asking if they could get a dog when Carrot died (full of empathy and compassion my children). At any rate, my answer is a devastating no. They are so sad. I have almost caved on a couple of occasions given I know I would love a dog, they would love a dog, it would become part of our family. Rob grew up with a dog, he loves dogs too. So there are many reasons to get one. But, there are many reasons not to get one – and the kids don’t get that. They just want a dog!

Our life is busy enough I try to explain to them. Most importantly, we are not always around. Our schedule is crazy: Zach and Josh are with us every day except they go to their Dad’s on Wednesday night, Friday night and all day Saturday, and every second Tuesday night. They usually come here after school and before school which is nice as I get to see them every single day. May not seem like a big deal, but when divorce is thrust upon you and you potentially lose out on seeing your kids 50% of the time, you appreciate small things like being able to spend an hour or so with them every day even when it is not “your day”.

Rob’s schedule is a bit more crazy (and outright ridiculous – but it wasn’t designed by him. Again, when divorce is thrust upon you, you sometimes just have to take what you can get to avoid even more unnecessary conflict and cost). Gabe, Zandra and Sam are with us from Monday 7:30am to Wednesday 7:30am. Their Mom then comes and picks them up at 7:30 and drives them around the corner to a home day care where they wait to go to the same school where Rob and I drop Zach and Josh off at. Hmmmm…does that sound strange? We get them up out of bed at 7am so they can leave at 7:30, drive around a corner to get dropped off at a sitter’s to wait for school? Why, you might be asking, would we just not keep them and drop them off at school and not have this crazy rush? Beats me. Their Mom’s choice. Interferes with her autonomy or something like that. Anyhow, the kids stay with her until Friday at 7:30 am. They then alternate every second Friday, Saturday and Sunday between homes. It is exhausting for them, but they are troopers and have learend to roll with it, as have we. “Sometimes the only choice we have is our attitude”.

If you follow the calendar and map it all out, you will see that we have a “kid free” Wednesday night every week. That is our date night! Although, sometimes it is our catch up on laundry, work and sleep night, we are usually able to go out for a bite to eat for our date! We also get the treat of having every second Friday night and Saturday completely to ourselves! Throughout the week, we get to have some nights with all 5 kids (consistently that is Monday night which is perfect for our family night, and every second Saturday night and Sunday) and sometimes just 2 kids (every Thursday night and every second Saturday night and Sunday) and sometimes just 3 kids (every second Tuesday night, Friday night, and Saturday).

One day Josh was telling me one of his friends was asking when he was home to play. Josh responded “It’s too confusing to explain it to him Mom”. I felt for him. It is confusing. He followed up with the fact that HE is used to it and gets it but it’s too hard to explain. So his buddy comes to the door every day, sometimes a few times a day and asks for him, never knowing what the answer will be. Maybe I should put a sign on our front door saying who is home….

Now when I tell many about our free time “sans kids” on a consistent basis, I get people looking at me with envy. How they would LOVE to have that free time! Like everything else, grass is always greener. Would you like to not see your kids 1/2 the time? (As I said, I am lucky – but for Rob’s kids – they fall in a black hole when they are gone – except for the fact that we see them at school sometimes). Would you like to give up birthdays and holidays or at the very least – have to split them? Would you like to miss half their summer?

That’s the the scheduling side of things….never mind the nightmare of all the other stuff that can go along with divorce. But, also, the schedule existed even before I lived in my rose coloured world – when I was alone and sad. Coming home to an empty house, or weekends alone really sucked. You have to get through the pain before getting some of the good stuff – and that took a few years!

But we choose to focus on all the perks: alone time, family time, and individual time with each child! Another huge perk however, is that whenever we want to go away, there are built in babysitters:) All we have to do is say we are going, and the kids are taken care of! THAT in itself is great. You always know that your kids are well taken care of, and they don’t mind too much that you are going (although they wish they could come with you!) because they do get to be with their other parent. And I LOVE to travel. I live to travel – so it is a big perk to me and I try to remind myself it makes up for a lot of the crappy stuff! (I won’t mention the down side of when you do want to go away with the kids you have to barter and negotiate, and sometimes the answer is still no).

Which brings me full circle to a dog. If we get a dog – gone are the perks we have with the travel piece! Gone are the spontaneous – “hey we have no kids let’s just go” moments. Gone are the trips – with or without the kids (Don’t feel too badly for us leaving the kids to travel by oursleves, we do plenty of trips with them too, despite the pain of bartering and negotiating, as I LOVE to travel with my kids as well). Gone are the free date nights (got to go home to walk the dog first). So as sad as it makes me, and as sad as it makes my kids. I have to say, for now, “No. We can’t get a dog”. Keeping trying Zach. Maybe one day:)

Emotional Bank Accounts

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Over the past few weeks we had a couple of incidents with various kids – ok – ALL of the kids at one point and thought we’d explain the idea of “Emotional Bank Accounts”.

I had read years ago Stephen Covey’s writing on this and it resonated well. So we sat down with the kids and explained how with every relationship you open up an “emotional bank account”. You need to make regular deposits so your account can grow, you need to make sure you know what currency the other person accepts (sometimes a deposit is not a deposit to that person), and you need to check the account regularly. The more deposits in an account, the more security you have. The more you can enjoy the bank account/relationship too. Obviously, withdrawals will be made – but you need to keep them in check so that you don’t make too many without any deposits, and that you don’t make any major ones and cause the account to go into overdraft.

This discussion seemed to go well, and the kids seemed to understand the idea. The concept that was hard for them – and really for us all – is what do you do when you make a withdrawal – and a big one?

We explained that some withdrawals are very difficult to overcome – especially when trust is shattered. But most withdrawals can be corrected if dealt with immediately. We talked about forgiveness and the role that has. All of us have different challenges along the path of forgiveness. We know this about our kids: some freely say sorry, but do the same thing over and over; some say sorry but really don’t mean it; some ignore the whole situation. We reviewed with them the “forgiveness steps”: Acknowledging and then apologizing, asking for forgiveness (may not be accepted at this stage), correcting the wrongdoing or doing things to make up for it, asking for forgiveness again, and then not repeating the offence. Another important consideration is how quickly you try to right the wrong. Waiting too long causes interest to build on the withdrawal.

It is not an easy thing to forgive someone, or an easy thing to ask for forgiveness. “Forgive and Forget” doesn’t mean if you forget to apologize then all is forgiven. It is too often forgotten how important the forgiveness steps are. You can’t just ignore situations and figure that time heals everything. It doesn’t. Sometimes it can just make things worse.

So often pride comes in the way of asking for forgiveness – and giving it. This week there were so many examples I saw of pride taking over and wrongs not being corrected. I want to teach my kids that being humble enough to ask for forgiveness is not only an attractive quality, it is necessary for any relationship to be healthy. We need to be on top of our emotional bank accounts with the people with whom we have the most important relationships. Daily deposits are necessary and withdrawals need to be limited. When a withdrawal is made, we need to take the necessary steps to rebuild our balance.

Making Connections

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Today was a really good day. It was a good, inspiring day.

A few months ago I was thinking how I wished I could connect some of my clients together so they can share their stories and make connections and know they are not alone. I am a Speech Language Pathologist and I work in private practice with people who have sustained injuries in accidents – usually car accidents. Most people think it is such a rewarding career – and it certainly is in many ways. But it is also exhausting emotionally and often quite sad. Really sad. People have great lives – like you and me – and in a split second, their life is forever altered – often at no fault of their own. People then begin the long journey of recovery and re-building their life. I try to help them with that. But it is a lonely journey and I often wish they could talk with other people going through the same thing. I of course know many other people, but privacy, logistics and time make it hard for me to link them all together. But a few months ago, I suggested to Michelle (she is the owner of the private practice I work with – and I love and adore this amazing, intelligent, kind woman) that we should create a “conference” of sorts for our clients to come together, meet, and inspire each other with their stories. Being the amazing woman that she is, Michelle jumped on the idea and hosted a day for all her practice and some of their clients – over 100 people (it was like a wedding!). We decided to invite 4 key speakers, have a group activity and then lunch. It was hosted in a beautiful venue. It was an amazing success – in my opinion.

Two of my clients spoke. It was great to be able to see how far they have come. Of course, the journey is a long one, but they both told inspiring stories of their ups and downs along the way. They told their stories in creative and funny ways. My first client compared living with a brain injury to the Wizard of Oz story – brilliant. The second speaker shared his journey highlighting how his parents and sister had been his lifeline. Very touching.

The last speaker was one that I had heard before. Ironically, he was a speaker at a conference I had attended several years ago – right after I had met Rob. His presentation had struck me then. He had talked about sometimes in life needing to draw a line in the sand, stepping over it and leaving your old life behind and moving forward. It was symbolic for me as it represented leaving the pain of my divorce behind and starting to create a new life with Rob. I still have the string he handed out on that day representing that line. So it was great to hear him again today – he basically gave the same presentation. Although, today, different things struck me. Being on a constant quest for quotes – his presentation was a jackpot! My favorite one was: “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened”, Dr. Seuss. Not only is it cute – it is powerful.

Another quote that I loved came after he told a story about a man he met. He was one day listening to a man complain about the long flight he had endured across the world ( from Australia I think). The man was telling his woes about how long the 24 hour flight was and then he had a layover in Maui, which was a pain, an inconvenience. This speaker said he was struck by that and he said “Appreciate the journey. A stopover in Maui ain’t so bad”. How many times do we complain about the tiniest things that are actually embedded in the greatest blessings?

A third concept I loved – and this is really for me to learn (and now use) on a professional level. We talk so much about the “Recovery journey”. But really – there is no recovery. You can not go back to being who you were. This applies to any challenge in life – you can never be the same again after enduring pain, suffering, trauma etc. It always affects you. So you can’t reclaim a previous life, or recover per se. You have to DISCOVER who you now are. It’s not recovery – it’s discovery. You need to discover the new ways to live with the new you.

Finally – the last point that struck me: when things feel overwhelming, and cause stress and anxiety, reduce things to their simplest form: Ask yourself “What do I know for sure” and then go from there. What you know for sure is really the important stuff and if you take care of that, start from that point and move up – you will be ok. Don’t get overwhelmed with the “What if’s”, the “Maybe’s” – stick to the sure things to start with.

What I do know for sure is how grateful I am for my life – and everything in it. I am grateful that I have found my greatest fortune in some of my greatest misfortunes. I am blessed to be reminded on a daily basis in my work about how precious life it. I am blessed to be surrounded by survivors and heros, by people who want to better themselves, people who inspire me. I am blessed to have a job that not only pays the bills, but feeds my soul (even though it can also leave me starving sometimes:). I am grateful to come home and kiss my perfect, healthy, cheeky children. This morning when wondering what to wear for this conference, I turned to my 10 year old fashion consultants (Zach and Zandra) who helped me pick my outfit (and made me change several times). When I got home, I was walking up the path and the door opened and Zach immediately asked me “How was the conference”? I told him it was great, to which he responded, “It’s because you had a great outfit”. How cute is that? How blessed I am to have my son greet me like that! How blessed I am to have a husband tell me I always look amazing, to send me a text before the conference wishing me luck and telling me he knew it would be great and that he loved me, and then to come home to his interested and listening ears (and hugs and kisses). How blessed I am to have an eternal perspective to try to rely on when things go array. It’s not easy – but it is there to help pull me through.

So tonight, I won’t cry because the conference is over, but I will certainly smile because it happened and appreciate how much I learned and how much I have been given in my life.

Quote of the week

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Every Sunday/Monday we get a new quote of the week that gets written up and posted on the bulletin board in our kitchen. During Family night (every Monday night) we discuss the meaning of the quote. On the back of the card with the quote, I usually explain what it means in simple terms in case the kids forget and want to read it (ha). I have been doing this for few months now, and I am really enjoying it. I don’t specifically search for a “quote”, but my eyes are open to finding one in whatever I’m reading. It makes my reading a little bit more meaningful. I love a good piece of wisdom! I’ll be honest though, the kids don’t really seem to care that much – BUT I have caught them reading the back of the cards, or saying “I don’t get it” (so it at least shows they read it!). Sometimes there’s a situation that happens where I can refer to the quote – for example, I had a quote about being positive up a couple of weeks go. “Someone” was complaining (rarely happens in my rose coloured lense house but happens surprisingly frequently in my 4 walled reality house) and I reminded them of the quote of the week. I think I got an eyeroll – but did get to point out how these quotes can help them in their daily life!

This week’s quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine”. Love it!

I read once an old Chinese Proverb that says : “The one who plants the tree rarely enjoys its shade”. That resonated very well with me. I think I read another similar quote and it has become my all time favorite: “Plant the seed and don’t worry about who enjoys the shade”. It’s a quote I have really found that I want to live by especially in a blended family where our kids share their lives between two homes. It sums up WHY I do many things – and it is a bit of a mantra I say to myself when I am frustrated with planting seeds and am feeling that I could do with some shade (as well as a nap). I know the kids may not enjoy the quotes now. Or in the near future. But I can hope that a little seed of wisdom is planted and that one day that seed will bring forth some shade that either they – or someone they love can enjoy.

Mother’s Day Satisfaction Indicator

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In my experience, how satisfied you feel on Mother’s Day is a little barometer of the happiness meter in the rest of your life. At least that is how it has worked for me. I have celebrated Mother’s day for the past 10 years – ranging from being a Mom in a marriage that was on the way out the door (and then it eventually left), to being a sad depressed Single Mom (that was the year I bought myself an $800 Prada purse – Happy Mother’s Day Me ;ironically the saddest Mother’s day had the most expensive gift (although I had to pay for it)), to being an empowered “I can do this Single Mom” Mother’s Day, to being a Mom/Step Mom married to the most amazing man EVER. The past couple of years have been the best ever. I can say I feel pretty satisfied and pretty darn lucky.

I woke up this morning to breakfast in bed (some yummy Brioche’s from the bakery where Rob and I had our first date) and chocolate milk (of course, my weakness) along with our big bowl filled with gifts:

– A spider plant from Zach (named “Jill” I was informed) in a beautiful hand painted flower pot and instructions to water every Monday (along with “Please don’t kill this one Mom like the last one”. I couldn’t even remember WHAT last one he was talking about )

– A card and a letter from Zandra (the card had the words love, cheery, sweet, cool, beautiful and “busy”). I chuckled. I AM busy I guess!

– A card from Josh (with a frilly flower design) – It read: ”Bonne fete des meres. I call dibs on being (y)our favourite kid(s)”. That is an inside joke. I always tell each of my kids that they are secretly my favourite child. They sort of chuckle and giggle and know I tell each of them that – but…you know who you are – my favourite child (wink wink).

– A Will and Kate special edition magazine (a frivolous gift I would never buy myself but love the indulgence!)

– A couple of travel books for our upcoming trip to Italy to celebrate Rob’s 40th ( We will have plenty of those now since I told Rob’s parents to get him books for his birthday – he doesn’t know this yet!)

– Not in my bowl, but a gift nonetheless – a video message from Gabe(as well as a nice phone call from them – my 3 skids were at their Mom’s today)

– Last but not least, the reason I am actually even now writing on this new Blog – a new camera! A Nikon CoolPix S9100. So excited. I am not a photographer at all – but love taking pictures and I make my kids each an album every year of themselves and their special moments for their Valentine’s present . However, I have been saying I want to become more of a picture crazy mom. I have written a blog for the past 2 years – but kept it private. I did this for lots of reasons – I wanted to document our lives given our newly blended status but didn’t want to go public because of unwanted onlookers. I think I’m over that now though – or at least we are through some of the more volatile times (I truly hope) – anyone with ex’s will know what I mean. I also didn’t have good pictures to put in! So it was just my writing and that is not so interesting. So, I resolved that IF I got a new camera I’d WANT to be picture crazy and then I’d start my new blog. So here I am!

That was my morning. Pretty sweet bowl of gifts! We then went to church where Rob actually gave the best Mother’s Day talk EVER!!! We came home, and then went for a long bike ride on the bike trail, played some street hockey with the kids and neighbours and am now enjoying some down time before we have my new traditional Mother’s day meal (all my favourite dishes from Giorgio’s).

So, if Mother’s Day is an indicator of the rest of my life, it is pretty darn good.

I was reading the other day things what some people say about blogs, especially blogs from mother’s about their family lives. The criticism is that they are written by “shiny happy people” or that they are unrealistic. Yet many are drawn to reading them. I admit, I like reading about what other people are doing, how their families are doing. I like borrowing some ideas to make my parenting better, to make my home more loving and fun, or to make me a better wife or overall person. At first, it depressed me as I felt like so many people do it so much better and have these perfect lives. But then I reminded myself that no one’s life is perfect. Perhaps people just write looking through different lenses. We can’t pick our circumstances, but we can pick our lenses that we look at our circumstances through.

So what will my lense be? Probably pretty rosy coloured. Not because I am that way – but because I am working on being that way. Being more positive helps me “enjoy the journey” – which is something I have been working on a lot the past couple of years. I don’t have a rosy coloured life really. I don’t think I ever will. I have dealt with a few glitches along the way including dealing with disability in a family, death, divorce, loneliness, infertility, career changes and challenges, and all the glories of raising children and step children. I’m sure many more glitches are to come that I will document along the way. But I have also been blessed with kindness, compassion, charity, security, knowledge, freedom, heath and an overabundance of love in the form of an amazing husband, two boys , 3 step kids, a great extended family and amazing friends. That’s the way I see it through my rose coloured glasses.