30 days hath Movember

...and we're all pretty thankful for that. :)

Notes from the battlefield

Monday night was ringette night, and we threw Mallory back into the ring. She had known this day was coming and was prepped the night before. So it was no surprise when I got to the school to pick her up Monday night and she saw me, ran down the hall toward me as she usually does, leapt into my arms, gave me a big hug, then stepped back and stomped her foot and said, “I DON’T want to go to ringette!” Well, tough luck, kiddo. I told her it was non-negotiable and reminded her that a Happy Meal awaited her if she did well on the ice. Yup, I have stooped to bribery. (I can see my sister, who is on the cusp of having a brand new baby of her own, shaking her head in dismay as she reads this, much the same way I used to do before I had kids; and all I can say is, wait 4 years and see how many things you do that you swore you would never do!) Then I reminded her that she would have a friend on the ice that night, Evelyn, a friend who has been playing ringette for 7 years and volunteered her time and effort to help initiate Mallory into the ringette cult. Except that when we got to the arena, the program leader was giving Evelyn a hard time, saying she shouldn’t be on the ice. It was frustrating to say the least (and if I felt that way then I can only imagine how Evelyn felt.) There seemed to be little harm in letting a long standing member of the league, in full protective equipment, help a new member of the league who has years of membership ahead of her if only we can spark some interest in her. Finally the program leader acquiesced and they took to the ice. I can’t say Mallory looked particularly happy during the practice. It’s hard to tell with the mouth guard in place, but I think I had some looks of death shot my way as she dutifully skated by. A few times during the hour she appeared to be needing a lot of encouragement. But, she stuck it out for the full hour, which is a bigger success than we’ve seen all month. When the practice ended, Evelyn took Mallory into the change room and presented her with a ringette pin, explaining that she had received it for being a great ringette player and now that Mallory had also done a great job, she was passing the pin along to her. Mallory was trying to be sly about the pin but I think Evelyn really pushed her buttons when she gave it to her. The whole drive home was spent chattering about where she was going to put this special pin, in a box, but first she needed a special box, do you have any special boxes in the office Mom? Then I’m going to write ‘Ringette’ on the box, no, I’m going to write ‘Ringette Pin’, will you help me spell ‘Ringette Pin’?I told Mallory that the only way she could keep her special ringette pin was by being a special ringette player, and that meant playing once a week until the winter is over. Did she think she could handle that? She sighed heavily, like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, before nodding yes. So… we’ll see. There is a practice tomorrow that we will skip because frankly, at this point, going once a week without any tears would make Mallory a rock star to me. Twice a week is pushing it.So Evelyn deserves a world of thanks for getting Mallory back on the ice and helping her to see that a 50-minute ringette practice is not pure torture. After Mallory’s practice was Evelyn’s practice, and we stayed for a few minutes to watch the team. The girls are amazingly fast, can skate backwards with ease and stop or turn on a dime. We admired their agility for a while as I prayed that Mallory would come to appreciate that… or at least learn to not hate it so much, from now until April. And then we were off to McDonald’s to pick up her Happy Meal. For one night at least, she earned it.Here's Liam, hanging out in the penalty box. He's figured out where the buzzer is and liked giving me heart attacks by pretending to go for it. There's always fun to be had at the arena.)

That one

Liam's school interview, on the other hand, went pretty much as we expected it would. He brought home a pretty strong report card, which we were pleased with because we hear that his teacher is a toughie. Still, it seems that he is quite advanced in reading, strong in math, and that he is REALLY good at gym.

This kind of makes me laugh because he is still not the most competitive kid in the world when it comes to hockey... though (a) he has improved a lot even just in the last few weeks (must be because he is actually making it to both the game and the practice - for so many weeks when we were all sick, that just wasn't happening) and (b) whether or not he's good at it, HE LOVES IT. Oh man, does he love it. This kid eats, sleeps, and breathes hockey. It's kind of taken on a life of its own. He watches hockey games, he watches hockey game reruns on the Leafs channel, he checks Sports Center every morning for the scores of games that finished after he went to bed the night before, he maintains both his hockey sticker book and Mallory's hockey sticker book, and I am starting to find hockey doodles left lying around the house again - team names, game scores, lists of players, and so on.

Liam is going to his first NHL game in a couple of weeks, and couldn't be more excited. It's sort of a guys night out and I have to say that I am sorry I am going to miss it.
Liam also chose a hockey ornament for the Christmas tree this year, one we weren't able to find locally and finally bought off eBay today. More on that when it actually gets here.
So I guess this digressed from a school update to a hockey update, but whatevs. Back to school - Liam is doing really well and the only thing we have been given for him to work on is helping him to open up to his teachers, to help him prove to them that he knows as much as he does. And if that's the only thing that needs improving, well, we can't ask for much more than that.

This one

On Monday night this week, we had probably our worst ringette experience to date. Another night where Mallory stepped on the ice and then refused to move a muscle. One of the teenage girls assisting with the program spent a good 30-40 minutes talking to her, trying to coax her into action, before we finally pulled her off the ice. During this 30-40 minutes we had plenty of time to discuss our options and we basically came to the conclusion that it was time to quit ringette.

On the drive home, over dinner and into the evening we talked about ringette not being the be-all end-all. That perhaps we’d give Mallory a break from skating until after Christmas, and then get her back into CanSkate lessons for ½ hour a week. Or maybe we wouldn’t try to keep pushing the skating; maybe we’d look for a dance class or even get Mallory started on piano lessons, since she seems to show an affinity for music.

Later that night I got online to check out the league’s cancellation policy, though, and I discovered that the deadline for pulling out and getting even a partial refund had long since passed. So we can quit ringette, but we are still on the hook for $400 worth of ice time and a bunch of equipment. Then and there, I vowed that it’s not over until it’s over: Mallory is going back to ringette. It may not be every week, it may take some bribery, but she is going back. I am not going to kiss that $400 good-bye just yet.

It was with this fresh in mind that we went into parent-teacher interviews this week, and perhaps that’s why I was braced for the worst. Well, not the worst, exactly. I mean, I know Mallory is a pretty bright little thing and that socially, she is one to be reckoned with. I was a bit apprehensive, though, that we might hear back that she lacks focus, is bossy and stubborn, or tries too hard to be the class clown. Instead, we got a glowing report on her that indicates that in addition to actually being a very friendly, responsible and caring kid, she’s at the top of her class academically, reading and writing and doing math at a level beyond what’s normally taught in JK. So she has pretty much shattered my perception that Liam was going to be our intellectual kid who’s less of a socialite, and that Mallory was going to be social as all get out but potentially lack the academic strengths that Liam has.

Then I remember the ringette thing, and I’m glad that she can focus and do well at school and give us something to praise her about, because boy howdy has she been close to being tossed out the window after some of her escapades at the rink.

Operation Christmas Child

I've been meaning to get involved with an organization called Samaritan's Purse and their Operation Christmas Child program for a while now... and finally made it happen this year for the first time. (Barely.) In a nutshell, the program has you pack a Christmas shoebox for a child in a developing country. You choose the gender and age bracket of the child you want to sponsor, pack the box, make a small financial contribution to cover the cost of shipping the box, and the rest is history. This seemed like a really good, tangible charity to get the kids involved in. There are lots of collection boxes at work for various programs at this time of year, and porch light campaigns and Salvation Army bellringers and the like, but the idea of having the kids do something for other kids just like them felt like it would drive home just how lucky they are. I worried a little about navigating the Santa issue (i.e. why does Santa give us such nice toys and not these kids?), but they didn't question that as much as they could have. Phew.

Since collection week in Canada is from November 21-27, and we weren't busy on Saturday morning, it was the perfect time for a shopping trip. We went to a department store and read over the list of recommended items a few times to provide some direction (no war toys, no food except for hard candy, hygiene and school supply items encouraged along with toys) and then each of the kids got a basket and free reign to pick out things for a child their own age. Well... ALMOST free reign. Liam did pretty well on his own but Mallory had to be coaxed into not turning her shoebox into Princess-palooza. All in all, they did very well.

We got the goods home and set about packing the boxes... and I have to say that we did a good job of estimating how much 'stuff' will fit into a shoebox, because they are both chock-full but the lids still fit on. We included a note to our recipients, taped a label to the top to identify the target child demographic, added some rubber bands to keep the lid secure, and I'll slip out on my lunch hour one day this week to drop the boxes at the local collection center.

Kids being kids, once the boxes were packed and the notes going inside composed, both Liam and Mallory wandered off and started a new activity, and I don't know how much more thought they will give to these boxes. But hopefully doing this once will evolve into a yearly event, and as the kids grow up and they understand more, I hope they will spend more time considering how much different their situations could be if they lived elsewhere in the world.

The holidays are officially underway

You know, it's hard for me to write that, because I really think the holidays are officially underway as of American Thanksgiving; but this year our town's Santa Claus Parade moved up one weekend, putting it before Thanksgiving, so whoomp - here it is.

On the pro side, it was a lot warmer for the parade this year than it was last year (not that that stopped us from stocking up on hot chocolate and Timbits to help weather the show!) On the con side, the parade was WAY long and there was way too much filler... long periods of time between interesting entries... and it's not like I am THAT picky about what we're watching. I just like for there to be some lights, some music, SOMETHING worth watching. I digress.

I was starting to worry that my camera was dying during the parade because I couldn't for the life of me get it to focus, but today it's back to working fine, so I'm going to blame it on the low light and hope there's nothing more to it than that. I got all of three pictures that turned out, so here they are - in no particular order:

Liam enjoying his hot chocolate.
Friends of ours on a float.
The big man himself - on a very much scaled-down float, compared to past years. When the grand finale of the parade gets cut, what does that mean for the rest of it? Wondering a little whether there will be a parade at all next year.

The kids' bathroom counter

Pretty indicative of how things in our house are right now! Mallory made it through a full school day on Wednesday but started feeling unwell during gymnastics, and that's one activity she simply adores - I can't imagine she'd fake it to get out of that one! She came home, slept on the couch for three hours, then went to bed without eating any dinner. And so it continues.