Talking About Suicide

    We were in the check out line yesterday, and Grace made a comment about Amanda Todd.  Amanda Todd is the girl from British Columbia who took her own life because she could no longer deal with the bullying.  It is very difficult to not see the pictures of that young girl everywhere.  She is on the internet, magazines, newspapers, television.  Grace started to recite infomation about Amanda Todd, and her death, and about how she had left her mother a video message, and her mother was not brave enough to watch it.  Grace may as well have slapped me in the face, because I was totally unprepared to have this conversation, let alone while in line with strangers surrounding us.  

    I have had "The Sex Talk" with Grace, well at least chapter one of it (I intend to revisit that conversation regularly).  We have had the "Stranger Danger" talk, and have talked about what she should do if someone she knows makes her feel uncomfortable or touches her.  We have had chapter one in "The Drugs and Alcohol" conversation.  It has never occurred to me, until now to have a "Suicide" conversation.  Maybe if more of us had that conversation there would be less children committing suicide.  This was not a conversation I ever envisioned having with my children.

    I decided that I needed to talk to Grace about this, but Walmart was not the right setting.  I don't really know anything about suicide, I have never really been touched by it.  I have known hopelessness, but I never ever contemplated taking my own life.  I cannot imagine the kind of pain that parents of suicide victims must go through.  After Gabe's death, people said extremely stupid, insensitive things to me.  I cannot imagine what those same idiots would have to say to the parents of a suicide victim.  Every five seconds it seems someone is selling something pink for breast cancer, or doing a cancer run, or fundraiser.  You never see suicide fundraisers.  No one talks about suicide because it's well.... unthinkable.  It makes people uncomfortable, it also puts people on their high horse.

    I began to do a little research, and it was scary.  First of all the "suicide" rates are a bit stretchy because often they are not listed as suicide.  The World Health Organization has estimated that someone every 40 seconds around the world takes their own life.  In Canada 15 out of every 100, 000 deaths are from suicide.  Among 15 - 24 year olds 24% of all deaths were due to suicide.  73% of hospital admissions for attempted suicide were for people aged 15 - 44 years old.  In Canada suicide is listed as one of the top 10 causes of death.  Like I said frightening.

    I waited until the other kids were off playing and sat down with Grace.  I asked her what she knew about Amanda Todd.  She told me that Amanda had killed herself because of bullying.  This is the point that I took a deep breath, not wanting to have this conversation, but knowing that this was a good opportunity to check in with her.  I told her what I knew about the incident.  She had been a lonely girl, who made a bad decision to show herself to an unknown person on the internet.  She did not know this man, and he then posted those intimate pictures of her all over the internet.  I then asked Grace if she would ever do that.  She was horrified and said "NO".  I then told her that was why we don't allow her to give out personal information on the internet.  It's also why we have so many rules about the computer.  I told her that no matter what she did, no matter how much trouble she thought that she might get into, she should always tell us.  I then talked to her about how sometimes people feel so sad that they feel that it would be better to be dead than to live the life that they are currently in.  We talked about how if she ever felt like that, she needed to talk to us, or to someone.  I then asked her what she would do if one of her friends told her that they felt like that.  I told her that she needed to tell someone, either us or a teacher, but someone.  We ended the talk with how important it is for her to talk to us about what's going on in her life.

    Here is what is what my major problem is with the whole way the media is portraying the Amanda Todd case, it's being blamed on the bullies.  The whole media buzz basically is calling this "murder".  It makes the case more sensational I guess.  The bullies did not take her life, she did.  She was this poor little girl who made some bad decisions (kids do).  She was bullied.  Lots of us have been bullied, not many of us decide to take our lives because of it.  Yes we need to do something about bullying, but to me that is not what this is all about.  The real issue is to me about mental health, and suicide prevention.  It makes it easier to mentally deal with murder, someone having their life "taken", than it does to deal with suicide, where someone "gives" their life away.  We need to change our thinking, to save our children.  We need to take the stigma out of mental health.  We need to better recognize suicide warning signs.

suicideprevention.ca

Water-Proofing Our Basement....Finally!

    11 years ago we had love at first sight.  We had looked at at least half a dozen houses, and as soon as we walked in the front door of this house, we knew we were home.  The house had lived a long time being loved, but not cared for.  The curtains would blow when the windows were shut.  During wind storms the yard would be be littered with shingles.  The upstairs bathroom was rotting away.  To top all of that off when it rained our basement became a swimming pool and then a mold farm.  We had to prioritize which repairs would come first.  We did the roof, windows, doors, furnace, upstairs bathroom (which had a rotted out sub-floor that needed replaced), and then finally the biggest expense, we had to water-poof the basement.

Our pre Wet-Tek basement.

    For the last few years the basement and it's mold and mildews have been making me really sick.  I have asthma and my biggest allergy is mold.  I spent winter with an inhaler nearly permantently attached to my mouth.  Our basement contributed to a few trips to the emergency room for me to receive breathing treatments.  It was time to invest "a lot of money", and finally fix the problem.

    I called Wet-Tek for an estimate.  We had spoken to a couple of waterproofing companies, but I liked their process better.  Lance (the owner) came to the house and looked around the basement, and gave me a quote.  What he had to say made a lot of sense to me.  Their system made sense.  I was impressed with Lance, and his system.  We decided to go ahead with Wet-Tek, and make our basement healthy and useable.  I booked a date.

    We spent the week clearing all of our garbage from the basement (it wasn't really "we", I made Christopher do it).  It turns out that over the last 11 years our basement had become a hold all for anything we did not know where to put. We have no garage, or shed for storage, the basement became it.  We had to find spaces for everything.  Come Sunday night Christopher was a little frantic wondering where to put everything... let me just say that our 19 year marriage nearly came to an end because of it (as did his life).

The air cleaner, it worked wonders.

    I was filled with dread thinking about the noise, the dust and strange men in my house.  I hate having people work in the house.  I always feel so uncomfortable.  I don't want to go to far in case they need something, but at the same time I feel really uncomfortable.  I was especially dreading this time because I would be all by myself in the house with strange men.  I was looking forward to the house being done, but I was so not looking forward to the upcoming week.

    Monday morning, the dreaded morning came.  In came these two really nice, clean, polite guys.  They were so nice and friendly that I really did not think about them being "strange men", they were just Shawn and Jeff.  It was not as noisy as I thought it was going to be, and it was not as dusty as I thought it would be.

Fergus (our pup) would sit on the top step, and as Jeff and Shawn came up the stairs carrying really heavy buckets full of debris from the basement, they would stop to pat Fergus at the top of the stairs and tell him he was a good boy.  If I was coming in from a walk with the dog and they were out at their truck taking a break, Jeff would play with Fergus, and I would chat with the pair of them.  It was actually a pleasure to have them in my home.

    Each night after the guys were done, I would go downstairs and take a picture to record the progress.  It was pretty neat to watch it coming along.  I was so impressed how they plasticed off our fridge, and other few items.  They also kept this giant air cleaner going, and it greatly reduced the dust.  

Shawn putting the finishing touches on the cement.

    Thursday late afternoon they were done.  They had jack hammered my entire basement floor, layed down essentially inside weeping tile, which they then tied in to a new sump pump.  They hooked up a new battery powered pump in case of power outage.  In other words, we were prepared.  When the guys were nearly finished, Lance came to look at the job and give us our bill.  I was really impressed with this company. 

Jeff hooking up the sump pump.

    Waterproofing our basement was not a cheap proposition, but it will be nice to have a dry basement.  Last night it poured rain.  Normally when it pours, we have to keep checking the basement and make sure that the sump pump is on, and working.  Christopher went down to check the basement last night, and came up with a big grin "dry as a bone".  Wet-Tek guarantees their product for the life of your home.  We now have peace of mind.  I would highly recommend Wet-Tek to anyone who needed their basement waterproofed.  If their product is even nearly as good as their workers, then it is a marvelous product! wettek.com

    We have to wait three weeks for the cement to cure, and then we can begin to create a livable space for our family.  We can make full use of our house.  Our tiny house just got a little bigger.  This house is not just a structure to me, it is the biggest part of our family, the part that keeps us safe, warm and dry.  This house is not our starter house, it's our forever home.  

Holy Wednesday Batman!

    WOW, Wednesday (yesterday) was crazy!  It's not just the one day, either, it will be like that every Wednesday until the end of December.  All four kids have something going on Wednesdays after school.  It has taken some major scheduling, but I think we've got this one figured out.

    So here is the run down of my Wednesday.... I took Rowan and Elly out of school early.  We came home, had a snack, changed and headed to Madoc.  Rowan started Power Skating yesterday.  For ages we would ask him if he wanted to play hockey, his answer NO.  He did not want to do anything after school, music lessons, a sport, art lessons, anything?  We let it ride, thinking eventually he would find an interest, he didn't (other than soccer because his Dad coaches him).  We told him this September that either he chooses an activity, or we will choose for him.  He chose tumbling.  A flyer came in through the school for power skating lessons in Madoc.  We signed him up, and hoped that he would be agreeable.  Thankfully he was really excited about taking skating lessons.  He was so excited for his first lesson.  I was praying the whole time that it lived up to his expectations.  He got on the ice timidly.  Luckily he pretty much has private lessons, and his teacher seems really nice.  He really enjoyed his first lesson... Thank goodness.  While he skated, Elly and I watched him, and then after a second she got bored, but I had brought books for her to look at for the hour.      

    After power skating was finished we headed over to Tim Hortons.  A nice double double for me and timbits for the kids.  Although the arena was warmer than I thought that it would be, it was still cold and the coffee helped to warm me up.  After our trip to Tim's we headed over for Elly's ballet.  Madoc is the closest place that we could get her ballet lessons.  We've had little girls at the Madoc School of Dance for the last eight years.  I get a kick out of the two and three and four year olds in their little pink outfits, with their tiny little ballet shoes.  The tiny ballerinas dance and jump and skip as they wait for their class.  While we waited the half hour for Elly's class, Rowan read a magazine (mental note, bring his DS next week).  Elly emerged from her class with a huge grin on her face.. "Linda gived me a gummy spider."  Apparently ballet is all about the treat at the end.

    After ballet was finished we jumped back into the van and headed back home.  I dropped Rowan and Elly at home to grab their dinner and headed over to our library.  Wednesday nights our library has jewelry making classes taught by our favourite bead girl Cindy Crowson (beadgirlonline.com).  Riley LOVES the jewelry making class.  Cindy was teaching the kids (and some of the moms and grandmas) how to make their own beads.  They then made either a bracelet or necklace.  I arrived to a filled to capacity room.  Apparently 16 kids had signed up for the class, but over 30 arrived.  Poor Cindy, she was still so nice, but harassed.  My Mom and Dad had picked Riley up after school, gave her a snack and then taken her to jewelry making class.  Mom then stayed with Riley for the first half of the class, and I came in for the second half.

    So during all of this craziness, Gracie is at the after school club sponsored by the Gateway Community Health Centre.  She loves the after school program.  So just before the end of the jewelry making, my Dad picked Gracie up from the Gateway, and then dropped her at the library.  So while Riley and her friend were finishing up their bracelets, Gracie was wandering around the library looking for books.

    The two big girls and I arrived home at 7, and thankfully Christopher had our dinner ready for us.  Holy Cow Batman, what a Wednesday!  I will say, it was a way crazy day, but not as crazy as I thought it would be.  It has also given me some really good ideas to make next Wednesday even less stressful.  Wish me luck, I have to do this all over again next week.

Finding Their Guardian Angels - The Magic of Little Girls

 
    The two big girls came home so excited to show me this "cool" thing that they learned at school yesterday.    Apparently they had both learned it at recess.  The funny thing is that they both go to different schools.
"Oh it's so cool."  They squealed.  "Can we show you?"  Like I had any choice?  So they fought for a few minutes to decide to show me who would help who (lately all my kids do is fight, maybe there's something in the air).
    I sat there, watching the two of them with a combined effort to keep the puzzled look off of my face, and to stop from bursting out with giggles.  So they stand face to face, and one announces (don't quote me on this one) "We want to see if you have your guardian angel with you."  She then says to count to 20 with your eyes closed and then stomp your foot.  She then took her sister's hands and did this weird flapping thing in front of her, and then it was count to 10 and stomp your foot.  When all of the little tasks were done the Guardian Angel was then implored to show herself by lifting the other's arms.
    I admit I got a kick out of the whole thing.  At no point did I expect either of their arms to magically float up, but I enjoyed the sheer "girlishness" of it.  It is such a typically little girl game to play.  I loved watching them interact with each other.  I loved the hint of magic that they both felt, you could see the excitement of it on their faces.  It feels like magic to me just seeing them look for magic in their world.  That is the beauty of childhood, that exploring their world, but looking for the fantastic as well as the ordinary.  Maybe we should all try, even just sometimes allow ourselves to be carried away by the possibilities of  "What if".

Home Made Pumpkin Juice

    Our family are BIG Harry Potter fans.  When we went to Florida on vacation we decided that we needed to go to Universal Studios Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  The park was stinking busy.  I honestly have no idea if I liked the park or not, because it was so packed that I could barely see.  It was horrible.  We were there about 10 minutes, when I wanted to leave.  I could not take the crowds.  We waited 20 minutes in line to purchase a bottle of pumpkin juice.  It was something like 8 or 9 dollars, but was it worth the expense and ridiculous wait time?  Well the at least the kids liked the cold juice.

    Since we have come home the kids have been bugging me to make them pumpkin juice.  It's not really just so easy as deciding to make "pumpkin juice".  I had to create a recipe.  The first thing I did was go online for inspiration.  Most of the online recipes called for pineapple juice.  The ingredients on the bottle from Universal  are .... water, apple juice, pumpkin puree, apricot puree, sugar, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid, acesulfame potassium, sodium benzoate.  So it would seem I was on my own.

    I put 1 cup of pumpkin puree, 1 jar of apricot baby food, 1 1 litre container of apple juice, 1 tsp of all spice, 1 tsp of cinnamon, and 1 tbsp of sugar in my blender.  I then blended the whole thing up.  It was a mixed success.  Half of my crew loved it, half of my crew were not fans.  It was thicker than the stuff we had at Universal.  Over all it was a success, and now they can start to bug me about something else.   

How Did 4 Years Pass So Quickly?

    I'm not sure how this has happened, but my little precious baby has turned 4.  I wish that I could bundle up time, and make it stop.  I wish that I could have kept her that tiny little baby that loved to lie in my arms.  That tiny little baby was safe in my arms,  I could hold her close to me, tightly, and she liked it.  Now that same little baby wants her independence, she wants to explore her world.  I know it's normal, and that's what she's supposed to do, but I'm not ready to let her.

    Elly is my last baby.  She is the youngest of 5.  If Gabe was here, she would not exist.  She is our precious gift.  I know how very precious she is, with the bigger kids I forgot.  I knew that they were precious, but I did not realize just how fragile life is.  I did not know how much you need to make of every moment, because they pass so quickly and all that you are left with at the end of the day are memories and pictures.

    It's kind of neat to watch her grow, and yet I hate it.  She is her very own person, they all are.  I am watching this baby become a big girl.  Everyday she mastering a new talent, a new skill.  She is growing up, even if I think she's doing it too quickly!

Elly's Peanut Free Classroom

    Monday is Elly's 4th birthday.  I can't believe that my little baby is 4,  where does the time go?  I want to make her birthday a special one.  I had this fantasy that I would go into her classroom at the first recess and lay out a table cloth and deck out the fancy table with a tray full of cheese and crackers and meat.  I also wanted to send fancy cupcakes for her to share with her friends.  In my head I could see her little face, so excited when she came back in from recess.  I sent a note into her teacher on Friday to ask permission.

    There is a little one is Elly's class who has a peanut allergy.  The kids have been asked not to bring in peanuts or peanut butter.  Elly's classroom is a peanut free classroom.  I know the drill.  This child must have a very serious, like life threatening peanut allergy, because Elly's teacher seems really worried.  She sent back word that she is really sorry, but they have decided to only have packaged "peanut free" labeled treats for the year.  She may as well have just shouted in my face "you're not going to be the most awesome mom in our class this year....SORRY."  O.k. maybe that's a little over the top.  I am just used to being the mom that the other moms hate.  I bring in fancy, show stopping cakes for the kids class.  The kids enjoy celebratey status, and enjoy being "that mom".  I do not get to have that opportunity in Elly's class.

    Today I went to Walmart to look for "peanut free" labeled products. Each isle I looked for "peanut free", there was barely anything.  The longer I looked, the more irritated I became, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.  In my head I was thinking how ridiculous this amount of trouble this was for one child!  I could feel my temperature rising as I looked and looked and was finding such a small selection.  How was I going to get fun treats for Elly?   It was shortly after this that I had a horrible realization, if I was having this much trouble, and I was this irritated, what must it be like if that was my child.  Oh my God, how must it feel to have a child who could die if he/ she came into contact with a peanut?  How could you protect your child?  I cannot imagine how difficult that must be.  From that second forward I changed my bad attitude.  I walked those isles with respect and sympathy for those children and their parents.

    I discovered something very surprising to me on my journey.  I discovered that "Great Value", the Walmart brand had the best selection.  Not only did the Walmart brand have the best selection, they were the best prices, and the honestly the best value.

    My fantasy has been shattered, but my degree of thankfullness has, however been ten fold improved.  I am so thankful to have healthy, happy children.  I am so thankful that I can send my children to school and not worry if another child brings peanuts near my child.  I am thankful that I do not have to worry sending my children to school.  I am sure that Elly will have a fun birthday, she just will have a fun birthday that is safe for everyone in her class.  It's not really about "me" at all.

Memorializing Christopher Thurston, and Grace doing her small part.

    Last night Grace was asked to sing O'Canada for a big presentation at our hockey arena.  She was both excited and nervous.  She was extra nervous because she had a cold and was afraid that her voice would crack.  I expected to go to the arena and be cold and feel pride in my daughter, I did not expect it to bring up feelings that I work hard daily to repress.

    There was a presentation of a new score clock in memory of Christopher Thurston.  Christopher was a  local boy who died May 28, 2011 in a car accident on Marlbank Road (the same stretch that we had our accident that took Gabe).  He was only 21 years old.  His family had fundraised to purchase the clock in his memory, and to remember his love of hockey.  After Grace sang the national anthem, Christopher's parents, Robert and Lisa,  spoke to the crowd.  They spoke about how the community had supported them during their grief, and how that support had helped them.  They spoke of their son and his love of hockey.  They also spoke about the immense support that they had received from Donna and David Palmateer.  Donna and David, lost their son Christopher, October 19, 2003.  He was only 11, and had fought a difficult battle with cancer.  

    As Robert and Lisa spoke, I could hear that agony in their voice, that familiar pain and longing.  I remembered being at that place in grief.  For us we were terrified that the world would forget our Gabe.  We spent hundreds of hours trying to think of things that we could do to memorialize Gabe, things that we could do that would force people to remember Gabe.  Our Gabe was only 9 years old, he had not been able to make his mark in the world, we had to do it for him.  For us it was almost a panic feeling.  The grief was almost unbearable, doing things to memorialize Gabe, gave us something other than pain to think about.  As I listened to them, I could almost go back to that point in grief, to that 

all-encompassing panic/ pain/ that feeling like the pain will never ever go away.

    There is web of connection between all of our families, ourselves, the Palmateers and the Thurstons.  Robert Thurston was Gabe's first soccer coach.  He coached Gabe through that embarrassing stage where he lay on the grass, just picking grass, and throwing it up in the air like it was green snow.  I remember asking Robert if there was anything I could do, he just gave me a patient reassuring smile and reminded me that this was about fun.  I was young, I was new to this parenting thing, and was a single mother, and was bent on Gabe being the perfect child.  Robert was patient and kind with Gabe, and all of the other kids, including his own son Cody, Gabe's teammate (who didn't lie in the grass and throw chunks of it in the air).  I remember seeing a little Christopher Thurston at the games cheering on his little brother on the sidelines.

    Robert spoke last night of the emotional support that they had received from Donna and David Palmateer.    When Gabe died, the Palmateers sent us flowers.  A few days later, Donna came over with book, and words of comfort.  The book was wonderful.  It was book that someone had given her, that had helped her, and she wanted to pay it forward.  Over time Donna would call and check in with us.  There are no words to adequately express how much that meant.  There were all too many people around us who had stupid words, stupid advice, people who had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.  There is great comfort in speaking to someone who has known your Hell.  Donna knew what we were going through, she knew our pain, she had survived.  No one knows the pain of losing a child, unless they have.  When we did public things to memorialize Gabe, Donna and David were there to support us.  They are such kind and good people.  I also discovered through them that there is comfort in reaching out to other parents who have lost their child.  We have words of wisdom, we have things that we did that helped us to survive.  We form a club, that one wants to be a member of.

    Last night I watched my daughter sing the national anthem.  I had tears of pride.  Those tears of  pride, became replaced with tears of sympathy.  They were also tinged with tears of my own pain.  It took me back to a terrible time.  It also reminded me how far Christopher and I have come.  There are times that are worse for remembering and longing for Gabe, Christmas time and his birthday.  There are also times where grief just appears, drowning me unexpectedly.  It might be a smell, a face, a boy wearing a jacket that looks like Gabe from the back.  There are times where that grief chokes me, but it is no where near as bad as that initial painful grief that we felt almost 8 years ago.  The grief does not go away, but it makes itself known less often, and with much less pain.  It seems fitting that Grace sang the national anthem for their big event.

   

This is Grace's rendition of O'Canada.  We did not know that she would be directly below us, and that there would be no way to capture her on film, so I did the best that I could.

Samplicious - Getting To Try New Products

    A few months ago I received an email from Kraft.  The email offered me the opportunity to pay $20.00 to cover shipping and handling, and they would send me over $50.00 worth of new products to try.  I had my credit card out faster than you can say "Bob's Your Uncle".  I LOVE to be the first to try new products.  It makes me feel special.  I feel very elite, you know like I'm in some secret cool kid club.  The frugal mom in me likes that I can try new things, and if the kids don't like them, it's no great trouble to the ever present budget.  

    I was so excited.  It was like waiting for Christmas.  Everyday I would go to the mail box, eagerly anticipating that little card in the mail box telling me I have a package.  I really am basically a big kid.  Finally that day came.  The kids were so excited that they wanted to tear open the box in the car.  I made them wait until we got home (even though I wanted to tear it open in the car, but felt like I needed to set a good example).  We put the box on the floor, and everyone sat around it.  Slowly, carefully I opened the box.  It was filled with boxes of cookies, and boxes of fun new flavours of crackers.  There were coupons for free refrigerate-able products.  Oh I was so excited.  We then opened every single box, and tried everything.  It was really a lot of fun.  We all compared which were our favourites, which ones we would buy again, which ones were fun to try, but would not need to purchase again.

  Recently I received another email from Kraft, asking if I would like to receive another Samplicious trial package.  Do monkeys like bananas?  You bet!  I pulled out the credit card, this Samplicious package contained cheese products.  The price had gone up, to $30.00, that's o.k., the first package was worth it.  So I waited for my package, excitedly.

    A few weeks ago I received a large envelope in the mail.  It contained a "What's Cooking" magazine full of recipes, and a page full of coupons to receive "free" cheese products.  It was a little bit of a let down.  There was not the same excitement level as the first package.  I knew that they could not deliver refrigerate-able products through the mail, but it so lacked that instant gratification, it lacked the excitement.  I went to the store, and none of my local stores stocked any of the new products.  I guess I may have to wait until my next trip to Toronto to get my products.   This Samplicious was a bit of a let down.  Having said that, if I am asked to take part again, I will.  I do love to be the first to try new products.  I love that anticipation of the package coming, and getting to try new things.  Maybe I should try one of those Christmas Hampers that they always advertise on t.v..

    

I just need you to hit this two more times.

The Texting Obsession

    I was driving home with the kids yesterday afternoon and saw a mom walking across the street with her two little kids, one of which is mentally handicapped, the other is 4 or 5.  She was walking across the road with her two kids, not holding their hands, not looking up, because she was texting as she was walking them home.  Not once did she look up to see if the light had changed, not once did she look up to make sure that the cars were stopping.  The two kids just ran along beside her.  One of them could have easily wandered off, and she would have been none the wiser.   Do I think texting makes her a bad mother?  Nope, she would not be a great mother even without a handheld device distracting her attention from her kids.  I say this because I have seen her parenting in action.

    I admit I am only a recent initiate of texting.  I find that it is a great way to keep in contact with my husband throughout the day (I admit it, I send him little love texts... you think it's an accident I've been married for 19 years?), and I wonder what took me so long to jump on board.  It allows me to make quick comments to my friends, when I have a free minute (notice I said "a free minute").  It is great tool, but that is what it is... a tool.  At what point did we as a society decide that we no longer needed to commit to face to face conversations.  At what point did people deem it socially acceptable to have a face to face conversation, but to constantly be looking at their text messages from others.  I know I'm an old fart, but I still believe in social graces.

    The woman I described above is not the only one I have seen doing stupid things with her phone.  I have seen people driving their cars and texting, while they were also drinking a coffee.  I have sat disgusted in Grace's specialist's waiting room, watching parent completely ignore their children in favour of their handheld device.  Grace sees an pediatric orthopedic surgeon.  The kids in the waiting room are as young as months, as old as their teens.  These kids have casts, are in wheel chairs, most of them are scared about what will happen next.  The little ones sit strapped into their strollers, with no toys, no entertainment, while mom or dad gives their full attention to the person on the other end of their phone.  If the child makes a peep, the parent may juggle the stroller, without ever looking away from their phone, or giving that poor little child any attention.  Don't get me wrong, not all of the parents in the waiting room are ignoring their children.  Some of them like myself are using this as a way to connect with their child.  Some of them like myself have brought bags with activities and snacks.  Unfortunately it seems like it is an even split right down the middle, that is worrisome to me.

    I don't want to sit here on my high horse pretending that I am a perfect parent who has all of the answers, I am not, and I don't.  I make loads of mistakes (trust me I lay awake at night berating myself for my shortcomings).  I do not always give my kids the full attention that they want or deserve,  I too am human.  I am a parent who is trying to do my best.  I had all of children by choice, I choose motherhood.  None of them asked to be born.  I am responsible for their well being until they become adults, and possibly beyond that.  It bothers me when other people forget that they made that same choice.  It bothers me to see people choosing their toys over their children.  It bothers me to see people doing stupid things (i.e. texting and driving) that can endanger my children.  It bothers me that my children will inherit a world where no one looks anyone in the eye.  People no longer feel it necessary to devote their whole attention to the person that they are speaking to, in the same room.  Perhaps the world is changing, but it will be dragging me and my old fashioned polite ways behind it!

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