November, 2009

Pork Soup, originally uploaded by ? shhexycorin ?.

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First there was the debate inside my head:

Can she go to daycare today or should she stay home with me?

And the questions:

How bad is that cough?
Where did she get this?
Is this from the H1N1?
Was she ever better?

Then it was Saturday and the cough got worse.

Is that a fever?
How high is too high?
Is her cough getting worse?
Should we take her to a clinic?
Will a good nap at home make it seem less serious?

How bad is that cough?
Where did she get this?
Is this from the H1N1?
Was she ever better?

Then we came home from the clinic
(because the nap didn’t make it less serious at all – nice try, Mom).

Was that doctor correct? Is it really “just a little congestion”?
Am I crazy?
Why is she breathing that way?
Should I google this? Noooo! Yes! Nooo! Yes!

How bad is that cough?
Where did she get this?
Is this from the H1N1?
Was she ever better?

Then Sunday came and went. Then Monday…

Is she getting better even a little bit?
Should we bring out the humidifier? Hot? Cold?
Why is she not getting better?
Is she tugging on her ear now?

How bad is that cough?
Where did she get this?
Is this from the H1N1?
Was she ever better?

Then Tuesday was the last straw.

She’s not getting better but our doctor is not in the office. Where do we go?
Can I go back to that medical clinic? With the stupid doctor?
(Just how many doctors scrape through medical school, anyway?
There should be a way to check the transcripts and residency results of doctors.)
We need a different clinic. NO ONE is going to tell me this is “a little congestion”.

I am not crazy I am not crazy I am not crazy.

The clinic results in a dash to emergency that results in a 5 hour wait and a two more diagnoses of “a little congestion” to finally an x-ray (because the doctor at the clinic insisted on one and not for any other reason…)

She has bilateral pneumonia. So pervasive that it is rarely seen in a child so young. They wanted to admit her because it looked so serious.

This took a 5 hour long ordeal of pitying looks from the emergency staff – then a flurry of activity with doctors debating and people asking all sorts of questions.

I am not crazy I am not crazy I am not crazy

To be honest, I only held on to my sanity because Franklin was with us. If he had not been there there would have been some serious “loud talking”. I realize some mothers have a tendency towards hypochondria with their children but then how does a mother get past this stereotype and explain that something is seriously wrong without getting the looks of patronizing pity? How does one talk to an egotistical doctor that the reason he may not be able to hear something through his stethoscope is because it is possibly too congested to rely on the instrument? How do you tell an self-exalted professional that he needs to note the other symptoms?

I need help.
I am really asking this question.
This pneumonia didn’t just “appear” on Tuesday evening. There were signs of trouble on Saturday. Not only that, but that evening both an emergency nurse and the emergency doctor thought it was also “just a little congestion”. I showed each of them her breathing. I took off her shirt and showed them her chest, the way she was sucking in her skin at the collarbone. I explained to them that this was not normal. I told them that her gasps were not because she was crying but because she Could. Not. Breathe.

Where did I go wrong?
How can I change this outcome if there is ever another episode?
How did I get to this point, with both of my parents in the health profession, to begin to distrust so much? I am panicking. I never want to get into an accident or need emergency help for myself or anyone I love. Is there is something wrong with our system?

School Mural: inspired by the work of Henri Matisse, originally uploaded by ladylucente.

My friend Jenn asked me about homework in the last post and I wanted to write about it a little more than my response to her in the comments but then I thought… what more would I have to say without more research? I mean, I only have one child in the school system and I only have my own experience to draw from so… maybe not.

Then a few people on facebook asked me about the level of homework Franklin gets and we began a discussion over email.

Then, to top it all off, Rex Murphy got in on the action and centered Sunday’s Cross-Country check-up around, you guessed it, “What’s the Value of Homework?“. Apparently, Calgarian Tom Milley’s two elementary school children were getting too much homework at home and it was what he considered “busy work” – cutting and pasting, colouring, filling in the blanks, or the same math homework type questions 40-50 times in a row. I’d consider that pretty questionable if it came home too – although if you were to ask Matisse, cutting and pasting is pretty useful. Regardless, this kind of work hasn’t appeared in Franklin’s day planner quite yet.

In fact, the only kind of work that has come home is what Dr. Paul Cappon mentioned as the “good kind of homework” in that,

Still, homework in Grade Two? Well, it’s not required homework. In fact, it is pretty evident that the majority of it (the homework that isn’t assigned from missing days) is totally optional. They practice the spelling in class, they do the math in class, and they work on printing in class. Anything that comes home, anything that Franklin may need to work on, is not expected back. In other words, it’s not marked. As a result, I don’t really call this homework.

I guess after all of this discussion and listening to the cbc, I’m satisfied with Franklin’s school. The biggest reason we chose the school he is currently going to is because a large majority of his peers from the University’s Kindergarten were going there and because the public elementary, middle school and high school path led most of it’s graduates onward to post secondary school. As well, he’s a two minute sprint from my work. This isn’t just disaster planning though, this means he is a 10 minute walk to see him at lunch, attend his assemblies, visit his craft fairs, etc.

There is a long overdue email from a friend asking for my feedback on French Immersion. Like Franklin, her son has been assessed as leaning toward high linguistic achievement. So French Immersion was a no brainer, right? We thought so when he was 3 years old. Many people call French Immersion the “poor man’s private school” because of the parental involvement. Don’t listen to that, by the way, as it’s not true. Looking back now, it seems like such an odd thing to say.
The more research I did, the more I found that early French Immersion wasn’t what we wanted at all*. Late Immersion is a choice for us, and we will look into it when we come to it, but right now Japanese lessons are filling our time nicely. The most important lesson Franklin can learn from school at his age is confidence in his achievements. So far, so good.

There are so many choices I’ve made as parent that have made me wonder if we made the right decision but this one, the school he’s attending and the English stream he’s in, I do not regret.

* Compulsory disclaimer: Please believe me that this is not a reflection on what I think of your parenting and your choices with your own French Immersion child.

Witty’s Lagoon, originally uploaded by TT_MAC.

The other day I was fortunate enough to tag along on a field trip with Franklin’s class to Witty’s Lagoon. This is an amazingly gorgeous place to be. The last time I was there was with Dickson and we came across a nude beach section of the coast and decided to set up our blanket.

I mean, how many times does one get to hang out in such a beautiful place, naked no less!?!
Well, on the West Coast, probably as many times as you like but we don’t really find the time to frequent the nude beaches all that much these days – especially since the one we know about the most and is the most accessible is apparently populated with Black Widow spiders.

Poisonous arachnids do not mix with toddlers.

The class didn’t get to see any wrinkly naked bottoms though. We stayed on the nature path and learned all about bears. The differences between Grizzlies and Black bears, all the ingredients a bear needs to survive (water, food, shelter and a whole lotta space) and we even found a fresh pile of scat filled with apple chunks. I had no idea bears were that common there. In fact, I also learned that black bears don’t hibernate on Vancouver Island. It is too mild. Now, apparently, these bears are also known as the “chickens of the forest” but I’m still not taking any chances. Next time we visit this place, and any other wooded area, I’m bringing my bear bell and tying it to Eliza’s foot. They will hear us a mile away.

Speaking of hibernation… Franklin’s spelling list this week (one of the words is “hibernate”) caused me an undue amount of stress. This is the part where I grudgingly admit to thinking that my son has limitless potential. I like to talk the talk of being all laid back and cavalier about his academics at this age and generally, I manage to walk the walk – but lately… something in me has changed.

Last week, he came home with a spelling pre-test and had spelled one word wrong. It devastated him. His best friend in the class had got them all correct and Dix and I think this may be what actually bothered him the most. The actual spelling test on the Friday was more satisfactory in that he got everything correct but the weekend that followed was filled with little conversations here and there about how it’s much more important to try your best, not whether you get everything right or not. This was intermixed with a few conversations about how good it is to learn how to work towards something – how this will help him later on when he comes across a dinosaur hunter in the desert with Paul Sorino and will need to persevere in order to uncover the entire skeleton and then to correctly date and identify it. Things don’t always comes easy in life and we need to know how to handle those situations.

- and on and on the parenting story went

So when he comes home this week with his pre-test score and has 3 words wrong, with printing that makes it hard to understand what he’s written, I get upset. He doesn’t know that I’m upset. He thinks everything is fine. There are no tears and he has almost no objection to practicing the words again that evening. But in my head I’m thinking…. was this because he now thinks it doesn’t matter? Was he careless because he has no expectations of getting everything right? Have we gone too far the other way? Where is the balance between wanting to be perfect and understanding that nothing is ever so? Is that even possible to explain at this age?

Where, exactly, do I lie on this parenting scale?
Am I hyper-parenting or am I more of a slow, free-range parent?

I found this an easy question to answer when he was in Kindergarten. School seems different to me now that he’s in public school – with testing and expectations and achievement levels. Kindergarten was full of discovery. Grade Two is also about discovery but it is also starting on the road to recorded retention and interpretation. Prove that you understand, show me your ideas, explain yourself. Communicate.

I want him to like school but I also want him to understand that perfection is a good thing, not the be all end all but… well, “Mom and Dad don’t have a basement so we’re counting on you to succeed in life, son”.

Holy Fuck.

Like so many of my posts, this one is free thinking. I’ve let my ideas just flow from my fingers and this is where I land?

Perfection.
Success.
Mom and Dad are gonna die, so buck up and provide.

He’s in GRADE TWO!

I went to his school on my lunch hour to check out the book fair and I got a chance to peek at his spelling test result from the morning: 100%. This makes me feel good. And it’s not because of what you might think – really! He’s taking school seriously enough to want to achieve but he has also stopped crying when things don’t go perfectly. We practiced the spelling and he cared enough to do well.

And truthfully? That’s really all I hope for – that he has the drive to want to do well and the perspective to know it’s okay when he doesn’t.

Yeah… that’s all.
Lord, help my children.

It’s November. There are 37 days left until December 24th.

37 days until you cry “Uncle!” and start getting all minimalist and sanctimonious about how no one needs presents at Christmas. They should appreciate their health and the love of family, right?

Because that present you were hoping for? I ordered it! I really really did! It’s just that I ordered it on December 18th and who knew that handmade needle felted animals took that long to make and ship… from Florida.

Don’t be that person.

I have this thing with you tube. I love it. There is crap on television I would never watch, even if we had the bloody channel, that I will seek out on you tube. Vimeo is great and all but I find most of my time is spent scouring you tube for everything and anything.

Documentary on Evil Masterminds?
You got it!

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Addictive Video Songs – especially by Pamplamousse.
A little MJ, anyone?

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The best movie about Rock and Roll ever made?
Here’s the trailer!

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A 1944 dance number where the women seem to have undergone revolutionary spine removal therapy?
Creepy! And yet, fascinating!

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Water Drops! Bouncing!
Geek out with your rock out!

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What I think about when I feel too stressed to parent.
This is more valuable to me than all the books I’ve ever read.

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My word, I could go on and on and on. There are television series that I watch on here – Korean reality shows, Hoarders episodes, and old skool Law & Order. There are old movies, recent movies, and BBC miniseries galore!

Hook me up to more, people.
What do you watch?

Plastic Poppys, originally uploaded by alistair_uk.

I suppose it is normal to compare your childhood with your children’s. There is so much of my life that I remember when I was Franklin’s age. Grade 2 must have been a big year for me. I remember it was the year I learned to read – as in read for myself. That was the year I read (and barely understood) “Black Like Me” leaving a large impression on my grade school mind.

Another thing I remember was trying so hard to feel something on Remembrance Day. When I was 7 years old, Remembrance Day seemed to be more of a way to pat ourselves on the back and say, as Canadians, “We aren’t fighting any wars. We’re PeaceKeepers. We’re Peaceful. We’re totally awesome, unlike… you know… whoever else has wars – unlike us.”

I always thought this was a little strange. Everyone knew about the war in the Middle East, right? What about the Cold War? Well, Canadians aren’t apart of those wars, silly. We’re peaceful.

So Remembrance Day was for the “old people”. I watched “old people” at the ceremonies wearing their uniforms and tried to be appreciative but honestly, I think the whole PeaceKeeping thing was shoved down our throats so much that I looked at them with pity. Their’s was a time when clearly, people couldn’t keep their tempers in check.

I’m not proud.
I was 7 years old.

Now that Franklin is in Grade 2, I found it interesting to talk to him about his Remembrance Day ceremony at school. I asked them what they did, if there was a trumpet and what he liked about it (my favourite part when I was his age was the trumpet) and what he thought about during the moment of silence.

I’ve learned by this point that when you want to ask a child about their day, your don’t ask “yes” or “no” questions. You ask questions that require a sentence answer and if you’re lucky it doesn’t consist of a mere “I don’t know”. For Franklin, when it comes to Remembrance Day, there was very little shrugging and don’t know-ing. We were sitting in a coffee shop this morning and he told me all about how Remembrance Day isn’t about the First World War or the Second World War anymore. It’s also about Afghanistan.

It is?
Wait a minute! It is!

He went on to tell me about how someone’s Mom at his school is in Afghanistan right now, “telling the soldiers where to set up camp”. He also described a slide show they watched and assured me that although there were soldiers, “they weren’t shooting guns in the pictures”. He said there were a lot Canadians and other people who are dying in wars everywhere around the world and that when the assembly was quiet, he thought about how there was no wars in Victoria but there were wars in other places where kids were going to school and how that would be scary.

I was impressed. I also fancy my son’s amazing ability to tell a good story as the woman doing the crossword puzzle next to us had put it down to hear him speak – with all his “totally” and “whoa” and “so awesome” vocabulary.

This year was the first time France and Germany remembered together in Paris since World War I ended. Why now? Because earlier this year, the last French veteran from that war died. I used to think, like many people, that once the veterans from the two World Wars died, Remembrance Day would stop being the large ceremony that it is now. I believe that there was a time when the numbers were starting to dwindle and fewer and fewer people were attending the marches. I don’t think that’s happening now.

I’m sad that wars are continuing to add more people to the list to be remembered but I’m also happy that those “old people” that my 7 year old self saw while standing in the rain, wearing my freshly ironed Brownie uniform and wondering when the canons would finally stop, will not be forgotten.

Red umbrella day, originally uploaded by torontofotobug.

The way our routine works in the mornings has been documented here already. The process of waking up the kids, getting them breakfast, making sure all the necessary material is inside the other necessary material, getting everyone appropriately dressed for the weather… it’s all something I thought we had down to a well timed dance.

However, it is now officially winter around these here parts. Winter in Victoria means rain and wind – many times these two things occur together and it is the early morning that seems to be the worst.

And what do we do in the early morning?
We walk to school.

Last winter it was different. Dickson rode the bus to work as he was employed downtown and had no where to park a car affordably. As well, I was the dropper-off and the picker-up. I was at home. I had the time.
It was an easier time, a golden time, a time where Dickson and I didn’t have to synchronize our watches and check each other’s facebook status to make sure the kids made it home at the end of the day.

Now it’s either walking, walking, walking or… well, I suppose we could call a cab and pretend we live in Manhattan…. but no. It’s all walking.

Poor Franklin.
This morning was absolute torture. The rain was coming in sideways and he was determined to ride his scooter. This means a helmet and you’d think he’d have enough hair to insulate his head but he got a drastic haircut this weekend and now he’s uber vulnerable to the elements. We were both quite jealous of Eliza’s stroller bubble – shielded from the elements from all sides, including a breathable rain cover for this morning’s sideways hell. I just have to remember to let up the zipper now and again or it gets a little foggy in that hamster cage.
Baby needs to breathe.

Franklin got to school dry due to his rain pants, rain jacket and fleece lined mittens. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly soaked. There was no Jane Austin read on the trek to the office. I just followed other people with free hands for umbrellas and a coffee mug. Obviously, I need better rain gear for this kind of thing. You’d think I would be all fitted out, seeing as how we’ve lived here for so long.

Not so.
Kinda how I completed an entire bachelor’s degree at the University of Alberta, Edmonton (aka The Land of Snow for 8 months of the year) with little more than a thin stable jacket and Teva sandals.

Bring on the rain gear!
Maybe I can get something in a leopard print?
A “Hello Kitty” theme?

Peter Iredale, 30 seconds, originally uploaded by Zeb Andrews.

Sometimes you want to do something really badly. You want to do it perfectly. You are so scared of not doing it perfectly that you avoid it – knowing that every day that it remains undone is another way you are not doing it (perfectly).

So now it’s to a point that it is beyond about doing it perfectly. Now it’s at a point that it is a mess. Now you are letting people down and messing around with future lives.

Now you can safely say that you have failed.

I am sorry.

We are doing quite well over here in the isolation chamber. Franklin, Eliza and I are holed up, occasionally coughing and therefore making sure this cough only lands on our property – and the cat. Of course, today I find out that even the cat isn’t safe from this Sickness that Shall Not be Named. Poor pussy.

The problem with being relatively well is that this comes with ENERGY!!!. Loads of energy that absolutely SHOULD be expelled outside, rain, wind, sleet, or shine. However, earlier this week our leaf collection adventure led us straight into the path of homeschoolers.

Homeschoolers sure are friendly people. The kids went bounding up to Franklin and Eliza to check out their collection and the parents were so talkative! They had so many ideas! So many invitations! It was probably a good 5 minutes before I was able to tactfully interject that we were actually recovering H1N1ers (shhh, I mentioned a bad word) and perhaps we might not be the best company. I was paranoid Eliza was going to sneeze, or her snot would have been wiped by another parent (yes, they were THAT friendly). Franklin’s a pro at the arm cough but Eliza is a germ factory.

Thankfully, they laughed and ushered their children away as quickly as possible. However the next day, while on a walk to launch Franklin’s helicopter, we saw them again.

“Still Coughing?”
“Yup!”
“Hahaha, good luck!”

Sigh.
It would have been so much easier to just let them all play together.

We are now trying to stay inside as much as possible but even us home-bodies need fresh air and trying to herd Eliza to keep to the surrounding area is futile. She’s a roamer.

We’ve made play dough, we’ve built lego, we’ve played with the trains, we’ve played the piano, we’ve baked bread, we’ve made crowns, we’ve designed light sabres, we’ve read books, we’ve pretended to be camping. We’re definitely having fun but man, I miss kicking us all outside if only to walk to the fields to count the rabbits.

I’ve been asked many times over the last week, “How do you know you have H1N1?” and although the question is valid, we have no idea if we actually got the much publicized flu, I think I started to resent the insinuation that perhaps what we were going through wasn’t – valid.

Of course, on the surface, I know this isn’t what people meant but it still got to me after awhile. I was worried. The chance of anything actually going wrong, actually causing a death, was extremely small – H1N1 or not – but that chance was big enough for me. Any chance is big enough.
I’m not a big fan of regret.

My doctor was worried enough to subscribe Tamiflu for Eliza and ahead of time for Franklin. Didn’t that say something? The fact that she told us to stay isolated for 7 days after the start of symptoms say she thought it was more than the regular flu?

All this time I’m taking off work, is it being questioned?
The Tamiflu? Thought of as unnecessary?
Am I scaring people? Am I crying wolf?

Everything was so confusing on television and online that I finally just went by one person’s advice, our doctor.

When I mentioned the odd email questioning my label of H1N1 (“how dare you self-diagnosis such a thing?”) to my husband last night he calmly replied, “But we don’t know for sure. If we did, we wouldn’t be planning on getting the vaccination once they are well enough”.

And he’s right.
We don’t know for sure.
We do plan on vaccinating for the H1N1 on Friday – once everyone’s no longer contagious.

There is no harm in questioning my diagnosis. I hope I’m not adding to the hysteria by doing so, but perhaps I am. However, I’ll repeat my reply to Jessica’s comment on Monday’s post – if it smells like a fox, sounds like a fox and looks like a fox, it’s probably a fox. Pretending that we have a big, wild, long haired dog like creature doesn’t make it any less scary. It also wouldn’t have changed a thing we did – the Tamiflu or the extended time at home now. In fact I’d like to know, if I’m supposed to be cautious in case it’s H1N1 then why the hell am I not supposed to call it H1N1?

I’m sick of the debate. I’m sick of the vaccination debate and I’m sick of the H1N1 conspiracy debate. It is a pandemic. It’s not a serious pandemic in that there is a vaccination and it is not fatal for most people but why are people hoping, praying that this isn’t a big deal? Why are people willing to put more stock into conspiracy theorists than researchers and scientists?

What happens if it’s not a big deal? My thoughts are that in the long run, it’s an economic problem; which when it comes to the government’s point of view, is a big scary deal.

1. you get the flu, you suffer, and then you go back to work with a cough and a bit of a runny nose.
2. your cough-about-town sends a dozen people to bed – people you met in the grocery store, the pregnant lady at the pharmacy, and the entire staff at Starbucks goes down because you hacked on a pin pad and “Alexia” can’t afford the time off so works through the flu while at work.
3. your boss doesn’t get her Starbucks before work because the shop is closed, comes in grumpy and then fires your ass.

It’s economics, baby.
That part’s not confusing.