A Request From Your Child's Teacher

1. Please don't show up at the school and tell me that you are going on vacation for 2 weeks and you want homework assignments for the time you will be gone within the next 10 min. Your child won't do them anyway.

2. Please don't give your child everything they ask for. The kid with the cellphone, the ipod, the trendiest clothes, the best shoes, and a mom who still makes his bed for him is usually the brattiest kid with the worst work ethic.

3. Please observe what your child is wearing to school. Many of your daughters are becoming borderline walking pornography.

4. Please don't sit down at my desk at parent teacher and exclaim that this class is your child's lowest mark and make me feel like I am the cause of it. One of their classes has to be the lowest mark.

5. Please know that your child reveals to me a great deal more about you and your home life than you would like them to. Let's just say I know you better than you know me.

6. Please understand that your child's education is a partnership. You and I both have a role to play.

7. Please quit bad mouthing teachers as people who have "the easy life".  Get real. Most teachers put in more work hours than many other jobs. From what I hear, the road to the university is still paved. If it is so wonderful maybe you should give it a try!

8. Please know that I love your kid. I treat them as my own and hope for their success just like you do. I am on your child's team.

There....................I feel much better.

Crazy Week!!!!

I keep thinking, surely my life will slow down soon, but it just never happens. Using a swimming metaphor, I would be the kid that is about two inches too short for the shallow end and standing on my tip  toes with just my mouth surfacing the water. I definitely need some water wings or something. For now I am a great actress.



Monday- Usual psycho day at school.
                Coach volleyball after school.
                Supper, homework, school prep and family home evening.
                Hurricane in my house-----ignored.

Tuesday-  Doctor appointments all day for Coop
                 Coach Volleyball
                 Champs basketball
                 Supper, homework
                 Marking
                 House----still ignoring.

Wednesday- Pick up the damage the sub left at school.
                     Achievement Days
                     Piano Lessons
                     Supper, homework
                     Laundry
                     Scouts
                     Mow lawn
                     Work on the hurricane

Thursday-  Marking begins to reproduce on my desk
                   Investigate and nail perpetrators of pranks pulled in the boys locker room, by members of               my 7 boys volleyball team. Little turds!!!!
                   Volleyball Tournament in Magrath until 7:30pm
                   Supper, Homework
                   Prepare Presentation for PD Day

Friday-       PD Presentation
                  Laundry
                  Pick up house
                  Babysit niece
                  Work on Gospel Doctrine Lesson

Saturday-  Donate Blood with Mindy and Graham
                  Corn Maze- This was a blast!!!
                  Shop for presents for Reg and a nephew
                 Finish gospel doctrine lesson
                 House pick up
                 Get church clothes ready
                 Help Cooper get his church talk ready

Sunday-    Teach Gospel Doctrine Class while Marin helps Cooper with his talk (same time slot)
                  Dinner
                  Much needed nap
                  Home teachers
                  Family birthday party

 

Reg, Graham, Mindy, Mar, Coop, Yours truly

They had a fun petting zoo as well!

Start all over again! I'm sure when I'm sittin' in the old folks home I will be thinking that these were the good old days.
                

Cooper/Mommy Date

We had big plans to make our date and mini vacation away from school a smashing good time, but most of it was burned up in doctor's offices and waiting rooms. You know my love for hospitals ---------ugghh. I swear I could write the handbook on waiting rooms, parking lots, hospital navigation, and how to handle health care personnel.

Cooper had follow up appointments to make sure everything was cool with his noggin after that scary seizure in August. The pediatrician stuff took most of the morning. Next, a break for lunch and a quick trip to Toys R Us to purchase the latest coveted Star Wars Lego set that he has been saving for. Then, the afternoon was mostly gone with the EEG test (electroencephalogram). This test consisted up having a ton of goop on his face and hair and connecting dozen of wires to read the electrical activity of his brain. They wiped the goop off his face, but made him leave the hospital with it still in his hair. We got some pretty funny looks.

 
I had to dash home for volleyball practice afterwards so that ended the day. I think we'd better do it again and make it a lot more fun next time. However, we did get to sing as loud as we wanted in in the car to all the songs on the radio without Reggie there to have a freak ; )

Really, I'm too old/young for this!

Do you know what is really unfair? Having wrinkles and pimples at the same time. This is one of Mother's Nature's cruelest tricks. Don't you think that when you graduate to wrinkles you should be able to say a forever good bye to zits. I certainly think so, but my skin certainly doesn't. Doesn't any one else have this problem, or am I the only cursed 30+ year old out there? SO ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marathon of Hope

 While most people were bedding down for the night, the Junior High X-Country team was just getting started. In connection with the Terry Fox Run, the school hosted an all night Marathon of Hope to raise money for cancer research in Canada. From 8pm to 8am kids, teens, parents, friends, brothers, and sisters, ran a continuous relay throughout the night. Tents were set up on the school grounds to sleep in between running shifts.

It is funny how sometimes we can discover, suddenly, things about our own kids that we never knew previously. To my delight, I found out that my Reggie is a running fool. After setting up his tent, he took the glow stick baton from a team mate and began to run a stretch that would last for 12km. I kept telling him to save some kms for later in the night, but he had heard that the record for a continuous km stretch was 10kms and he was determined to break it. When he was done he crashed in his tent while I watched the Terry Fox movie with my other kids and about two dozen others projected on the back of the school.

Unfortunately Reggie got sick in the night and had to come home : ( .   He was pretty mad. I think he over did it and his GI tract paid the price. He seemed ok by the morning and we headed out to the Community Terry Fox Run, which I am the organizer of. The cross-country team finished their last kilometer of the night joining with the community run. It was amazing. They ran over 700km as a team and raised over $2000 in a single night. One kid ran a full marathon (40km) during the night. Rachelle Sugden and Nathan Smith did an amazing job of planning and putting on the event.

 
I was so grateful for all my family and close friends that supported me for the community run. Ironically, Cam and I took over the organizing of the run about a year before he was diagnosed. With cancer, there is not much you can do to help someone fight it, but this run is one thing that can be done. It was a great day! Special thanks to Mom, Dad, Erica, Shannon, Mindy and Graham for all your help with the set up, registration, and food. Love you guys!

And That's How I Feel Today

I was listening to my Wicked soundtrack today while I was working on my 100 item to do list before bedtime. The song 'I'm Not that Girl' came on, and for some reason really hit me hard.

Especially this line:

"Every so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel when reality sets back in."

Yep, and thats how I feel today.

What I've Been Up To...........

The last week or so has been crazy. I've forgotten what the start of school does to my life. The most mind blowing part of the last couple of weeks is the realization that I have a JUNIOR HIGH STUDENT!

It really hit me hard when I was doing supervision in the hallway between classes and I felt a tap on the shoulder and a voice that said, "Hi Mom." That made it all too real. So very fun though. He is in my language class and I also get to coach his volleyball team. I have been waiting my whole life to coach my own kid in a school sport.

Above are our first day of school picts.


After that abbreviated start up week, it was time to relish the long weekend. I have been looking forward to this Sept. long for a while. We have started a tradition of doing Cam's favorite hike on this weekend, the Carthew-Alderson. It is rated as one of the toughest hikes in Waterton, but also the most beautiful. We couldn't have ordered up a more perfect day. Not a breath of wind, no clouds in the sky, and great company.

 

I can't really remember a day when I felt so alive. The crisp mountain air, the taste of fresh thimble berries, dipping my toes in a cascading waterfall, the tug of a rainbow trout on the end of my line---it all added up to an amazing day that I hated to see come to a close.

From start to finish it took 8hrs. It is an 17km hike which we probably could have done in 6 hrs, but we took off time to fish. I caught 5 and Reg caught 6. Wish I would have got a picture of mine. Thankfully Sunday was the next day, so we could take time to recover. On Monday we did the bike trail from the town site to the gate, which was 16 km. Loved every minute of it! It all ended with a well deserved large Rocky Road Big Scoop ice cream.

Reluctantly, we packed up the trailer and said good bye to the summer life style of the last few weeks. Great memories!