Canada Moms Blog

The surprising nature of compassion from kids

I think sometimes it's easy for us as parents - or just people in general - to underestimate the amount of compassion a child can express. Children, as a rule, are selfish creatures. I don't mean that as a judgment, I mean it as a general observation. They think of their needs, their wants, their happiness. Over time they learn more and more to think of others ("How would you feel if your friend said that to you? Sad? So how do you think she feels now that you said it to her? Exactly!") but it's a work in progress.

All I have to do is observe my oldest daughter with her younger sister and I can easily assume that there's not much in the way of compassion or empathy there. The amount of bickering over "don't touch my stuff" is unbelievable. And also headache-inducing.

Declining the mass H1N1 vaccination

Last week my daughter came home from school and announced that the following week they were all being bussed to the nearest vaccination center so everyone could get the H1N1 shot.  My reaction, if I recall correctly, was "Oh HELL no."

I immediately pulled out the form, read it through, then flipped over to the permission section and checked off the "I decline" box.  I've also decided that I'm not going to send her to school the day that they do the vaccination.  I'm sure that part is a big overreaction on my part, because it's unlikely they'd accidentally send her without our permission and even if she got on the bus, she wouldn't have her Medicare card on her when she arrived at the center so she wouldn't be able to even if she wanted it.  Still, my husband and I just feel better about keeping her at home that day and we'll do something educational with her to make up for it.

I want to be clear about something:  I am not anti-vaccination.  In fact, when my kids were babies, they had all their shots on schedule except for chicken pox, which we decided to skip.  I'm also not even anti-H1N1-vaccination.  I firmly believe that if the vaccine worries you, you shouldn't get it and if you feel like it would calm your concerns to get it, then you should.  I do not judge those who get it and I do not judge those who don't.

The reason I reacted so negatively to this campaign was not necessarily because of the shot itself.  The reason I think it's a bad idea is because of the fact that a small number of adults are going to be responsible for a high number of (potentially nervous or even terrified) elementary school students in a busy center full of other large groups.

Stepping up to help out

My daughter attends an elementary school that offers a breakfast program.  Or rather, it's supposed to offer a breakfast program, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  The school is one of many across the province of Quebec that is a part of the Quebec Breakfast Club.  Every morning schools participating in the program offer up hearty breakfasts including scrambled eggs, bagels with cream cheese, waffles, pancakes, yogurt, fresh fruit, etc.  Um, not all at once, it's not a buffet. Still, from one day to the next, they rotate a menu and fill up little bellies before the first bell rings.

Last year my daughter signed up and really enjoyed it.  For her it's not a necessity, rather it's a convenience.  She doesn't enjoy eating right away when she wakes up so it's a bit of a battle to get her to eat her breakfast before getting dressed for school.  When she was a part of the breakfast club she would actually be hungry by the time she sat down to eat and our mornings, while not exactly peaceful were at least not quite as full of nagging.

The thing is, though, there are a startling number of kids in my community who actually do need the program.  It costs $12 per term or $48 per year and if a family can't quite swing that, there are ways to get some help with the payment.  The kids then get a good, solid meal to start off their day five days a week (except for Ped days/holidays of course).  For some of these kids, it's the only way they get any breakfast at all.  If not for the program, they would start their day off hungry, with nothing in their stomach to help them focus on learning.

Home is where the heart is (so why can't I stay?)

That's what they always say, right?  That home is where the heart is.  I think that's my big problem right now (and if that's my biggest problem, then life is good, I know that).  I live in Montreal.  Right now, though, I'm on a three-week vacation in Halifax.  Granted I work as a freelance writer so I'm not truly on vacation because I have to keep working anyway but it's been working out well by getting some done first thing in the morning and finishing up the rest before supper if I don't finish it all.

And here's the truth - while my literal, physical home is back in Montreal - an apartment full of furniture, toys, clothes, everything - my heart is here.  So where is my home really?

Well over a decade ago I thought that I would really like to live in Halifax.  I blame it on the movie Message In A Bottle.  I took one look at that coast and thought, "yes.  I need the ocean."  Of course the movie took place in Maine, but that would be more complicated, so I just shifted the co-ordinates north a bit and figured that Halifax would be ideal.

Fast forward a couple of years and I meet my husband - who has some family out here and grew up spending most of his summers here.  Our first vacation ten years ago was to Halifax and that sort of sealed the deal for me.  Seeing firsthand how friendly the Maritmes are made me want to be here more than ever.

Seven years ago we returned for a wedding.  The morning after our arrival, he asked me if I would ever consider moving to Halifax.  I didn't even need half a second to think about it.  I answered yes immediately.

A fine example of stellar parenting, right here in Montreal

Except by "stellar parenting" what I really mean is "utter stupidity".

The news has been hopping here in Montreal after a Montreal father - currently known only as Sylvain, no last name - posted a video to YouTube showing his seven-year-old son driving the family car.  Dad was in the passenger seat filming (and asking the kid to turn and smile for the camera?!), while Mom and two other kids were in the back.  In the original video, which was removed within an hour of posting, the mother is heard asking the father to stop distracting the boy from watching the road and the dad also mentions the car hitting 70 km/hour at one point (44 MPH for my American friends).

Although the video was indeed pulled, CBC still has the clip and posted a story about it which you can view over here on YouTube.  They go on to say that the father, who claims the clip was actually two years old, has gone on a local television station to issue an apology and that he never meant any harm by it.

Okay.  The thing is, I distinctly remember being about that age and sitting on my father's lap in the front seat, steering the car when we would go to my grandmother's house along a quiet dead-end road.  But there's a huge difference between a little bit of steering from my dad's lap and actually DRIVING the car.  My father had his feet on the pedals at all times.  He also had his hands on the steering wheel, ready to grip it at any moment if I suddenly got some crazy idea to swerve wildly.

Letting a seven year old boy sit and control the entire car at such high speeds is ridiculous and reckless.  It would be one thing if the kid had snuck out and gone for a joy ride.  It wouldn't have been right but at least you could shake your head and think, "oh boy, those poor parents..." in sympathy or empathy.  In this story all you can really do is shake your head and think, "oh boy, those poor kids..."

It may very well be that they had a momentary lapse in judgment and let their son do something that they later realized was a little bit crazy.  Haven't we all had moments where we've sat back after the fact and thought, "Good heavens, what was I thinking?!" after all?  But you know, when the father then thinks it would be utterly hilarious to upload the video to share his insanity with the world, well, you sort of have to assume that they didn't necessarily catch on to the whole "bad idea" train of thought.

Sometimes I just don't know.

(Just in case it's not clear, in the above photo, the car was parked and turned off, sitting in our driveway and I was letting my then-one-year-old entertain herself while we waited for my husband to get downstairs.  A far cry from tooling down the road at 70 km/hr!)

Original post to Canada Moms Blog.  Sherry also blogs at Chaos Theory when she's not being incredulous over things people think are okay and safe.

The amazing Canadian summer that ... wasn't, really

I know that my fellow Canadians living on the West Coast are currently drowning in massive pools of their own sweat with a wild heat wave that is sweeping B.C.  And as someone who thinks "humidity" should just be re-named "death" I really don't envy those of you who are sitting limply, trying to just find enough energy to drag yourselves to the nearest beach, pool, or bathtub to cool off.

That being said, I don't particularly care for the sub-arctic freeze that is known as winter either (no, I'm not very easy to please am I?), at least in part because winter just lasts so long here.  Because of that, I put aside my trepidation over having to consider things like the Humidex and I look forward to summer for, you know, the summery things.

Things like swimming.  Playing in the park.  Swimming.  Having BBQs with friends.  Swimming.  Drinking a glass of wine outside on someone's deck or my own balcony.  Did I mention the swimming?  I hold tight to memories of those things when it's March and Montreal is getting its 42nd dumping of snow that season.

A fear of summer

There. I'm admitting it - I'm afraid of the coming summer.

Okay, that's actually over-simplifying it. I'm not literally AFRAID of the summer. I do tend to moan and groan a lot by mid-July until somewhere in September over how disgustingly humid it is. Many people presume that Montreal is just a frozen city trapped inside a snow globe, but we're not that far north - and in the summer we're generally anything but cold. I like warm weather, I even like hot weather, but once you throw in the humidex it's game over for me and I tend to whine.

But no, I'm not afraid of that part of the season even if I'm not looking forward to feeling like I'm walking around in a hot, wet blanket.

I am afraid of the balance of school being out and having two kids - and a ton of jobs.

Note to Self: Let them go

I watched the "Desperate Housewives" finale last Sunday.  Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything major for you if it's still sitting in your Tivo or something.  However, at one point Lynette was arguing with one of her sons (I believe it was Porter) because he wanted to take time off before university so he could travel through Europe.  Meanwhile, Lynette was threatening to cut his funds off if he didn't go to school.  He said he wanted to find himself.  She said he could damn well find himself at university.

On the commercial break I turned to my husband (and out of respect for him I must inform you that he was only watching it because I had a vice grip on the remote and he was just sitting there out of a lack of other options) and said something that I'd like to repeat here because the more people who hear it, the more accountability I make for myself.

What's happening to Scholastic?

When I was a kid (a long time ago, or so it feels these days), one of my favorite things at school was when we would get the latest Scholastic books order form. I loved reading as a child and still do to this day. Let's put it this way. My OTHER favorite thing at school was "I Love to Read Week". Perhaps the only thing that got me as hyper as reading was when we got an assignment to write a creative story. Ah, if only I had been smart enough to go on to study English Lit in college, my youth was full of signs as to what my major should have been. Alas. 

Anyway, naturally I was looking forward to getting Scholastic forms when my oldest daughter started school too. We've created a reading monster, my husband and I, and she loves books as much as we do so she's always eager to order a few books. Honestly, if we let her, she'd probably order every single book they have.

All aboard Via Rail for junk food!

Bright and early on Friday morning, my husband and I were brave souls and boarded a Via Rail train so we could travel for five and a half hours from Montreal to Toronto to attend my sister-in-law's wedding.  With our two daughters.  Aged three and six.  Yikes!

I wasn't worried because I have two horribly behaved demon children; I was worried because I have two fairly typical children, children who get bored and antsy after awhile.  I was terrified of being That Family that gets the hairy eyeball the entire trip.  In the end, other than my youngest having a minor meltdown for a few minutes each way, it was all fine.  We had coloring books, crayons, notepads, pens, books, snacks, and an iPod.  The problem ended up not being the kids, but rather the train's "menu".