When Life Gives You Lemons

I have worked in my current career for the past 23 years. In those 23 years I have moved across the country because of it, worked for 3 different companies, survived mergers, buyouts, renaming, rebranding and pretty much every other hurdle that the business world has to offer.

Until now.

For the first time in my career I was let go due to downsizing and restructuring. Suddenly one Tuesday afternoon I found myself unemployed. I have been working since I was 14 (other than that unfortunate period in my early 20’s, but we don’t talk about the ‘90s anymore), so this is very unfamiliar territory.

Once I got over the initial shock, I was able to sit back and assess the situation. Taking stock things didn’t look so bad. I have great marketable skills. I’m very good at what I do. I have a wonderful family and we are all healthy and happy. We have a house, a car and some savings. We could manage this unexpected curve ball.

I took a week to let myself feel all the emotions and think all the thoughts. I looked at what jobs were currently available in the city. I started networking with friends, putting out feelers to everyone I could. And then I started exploring other ideas.

What if I changed careers?

At 47, with my family dependent on me, this was a pretty far-out there idea. But the idea started to grow. What else could I do? Did I want to keep doing what I’ve been doing for the next 20 some odd years? Could we even entertain the idea of starting over in something new?

Having a loving and supportive partner makes all the difference in the world. I would not have gotten through this past week without Hilary. She’s my rock, my sounding board, my shoulder to cry on, my support in all things. We talked through all the possibilities and ideas, coming back to some frequently, dismissing some immediately, shelving some for future consideration. We talked about every aspect that we could think off; financial risks, what the time away from family various ideas would mean, what our day to day life would look like, and any impact to Liam.

And together we have come up with a plan.

I am going back to school and embarking on a new career path.

The new career path is not so far off from what I’ve done in the past that I can’t take all of my skills and experience with me. 23 years of experience is not something you just toss away. But it is new and different. I will be doing things I’ve never done before, alongside things that are familiar to me.

The course I will be taking is 14 months long. I haven’t been in school since 1989. That was a very long time ago. It is a very scary prospect to walk into a classroom at this stage of my life, but it is the means to an end, and I will give it my all.

This was never something that I would have dreamt of doing on my own. But when life gives you lemons, make the best, sweetest lemonade that you can!

Much Ado About Nothing

Every year the grade 7s at Liam's school study a Shakespeare comedy and then put on a stage production a a local theatre.  This year was Liam's turn to star as Conrade in Much Ado About Nothing.

The kids all worked on making the sets, but they had proper theatre costumes.  Liam was not impressed that he had to wear tights, but he managed.  Unfortunately because of his injured toe, he couldn't wear his boots.

All the kids did an amazing job, delivering their lines on time and with a lot of humour.

Liam isn't planning a career in acting, but he had a wonderful time last night!

Goodbye Elementary

We had a very busy and exciting day.  Fair, school picnic, a concert and Grade 6 graduation!  

This was Liam's last school fair.  Twice a year, for the past 9 years, we have attended a school fair where we got to see what Liam has been studying.  This semester they studied biomes. Liam's areas of study was mountains, with focus on Mount Everest and Snow Leopards.  He wrote a story about the two and Fair culminated in a book signing!

This year at the end of school picnic they had the grades 6-9 bands play for the crowds.  I had missed Liam's concert in February, so this was he first time I got to see him in action with the band.

After the concert, they gathered the graduating grade 6s all together and handed out their certificate.  Each kid then when through the line of their teachers and got a hug from each of them.

And with that, Liam has finished elementary school.  The adventures of Middle School will start in September.

The last art card

This is Liam's last year in elementary school, so this is the last year that he will make an art card.

It was hard to fit all 9 into a single shot so I ended up having to stitch them together.  His art card this year is titled 'The Lively Triangles" and was inspired by his study of microbes under a microscope.

Microbiology

Today we attended Liam's second to last elementary school fair.  Twice a year, at the end of each semester, from pre-school to grade 6, the parents are invited in so that the children can share with us what they have studied.

Over the years he has studied Humming Birds (his first fair when he was 4), bio-luminescent sea creatures when he was 6, the human body at 7 and the mysteries of Oak Island at 11

This year, at the ripe old age of 12 he studied microbiology.  I learned more in their 30 minute presentation then I did from a whole year of Grade 11 Biology class.  We learned about atoms and cell parts, what a macrophage was, the difference between bacteria and a viruses and the history of the microscope and how they work.

For one of their experiments they created an environment for penicillin to grow in and wrote up their findings.

Luckily they used really strong bags because Liam had left his experiment in his tray of work that Hilary and I went through on parent-teach night, 2 weeks after the experiment had ended.

Liam explained drug resistant bacteria to everyone.

I can't wait to see what he learns next!

9 Stripy sweaters

Slightly by coincidence, and slightly by design, Liam wore striped sweaters for his first 3 years of school pictures.  You can check out how little and cute he was here!

After 3 years in a row, it became a tradition that even a 12 year old boy who has no interest in clothes wants to participate in now.

The proofs came home today for this year's pictures and we have a slight smile and a non smile to choose between.

Which one do you prefer?

Ignore the bad colour - we don't have a scanner, so I took pictures with my phone.

Once we get our order back and we have this year's art card, I will have to update my Facebook header.  It will be a sad day as this is the last year that he will make art cards at school.  But then again, I'm going to need a taller chair just to be able to fit one more into the montage!

Oh No, It's a Muffalo

Liam's school play is next Thursday and he is playing one of the "Muffalo's" children.  He looks pretty scar to me with his big bad claws!

Art Cards

Every year Liam's school undertakes the huge project of having each child produce a piece of art that is then scanned and printed onto blank note cards that we then sell as a fundraiser. Today I was looking back over the 8 cards that Liam has made so far.

This is by far my favorite fundraiser (even being on the committee who spends hours producing the final product). Liam only has one more year of elementary school so I will only have one more card to add to my collection.  I think I will need a taller chair next year to stand on if I want to fit them all into one picture.

He's wearing glasses!

We've struggled over the years with the photographer that the Liam's school uses for their photos.  He doesn't seem to be able to photograph someone wearing glasses without huge amounts of glare.  His solution last year was to have Liam take his glasses off.  To us, it didn't really look like Liam, since he has worn glasses since he was 5 years old.

We were intrigued to see what would happen this year.  Liam came home with 2 proofs today.  One, of course, has a glare in it.  The other one doesn't!

Of course, I like the look on his face better on the one with the glare, but I'm still happy with the other proof.

A young Elder

Liam headed off to school this morning to start grade 5 - or be a young Elder as his school refers to them.  Being 11 and "all that" he was not too keen to have his picture taken!  But this camera totting Mama always gets her shot!

He agreed to the first shot, as long as that was all.  I tried to sneak in the rest, with mixed results!

I hope he has a fabulous year!

3-Day Trip

Every year the grades 3-6 students at Liam's school go on a three day trip (not all together... the 3-4s  go to one place and the 5-6s go to another).  Last year there was no way that Liam was even going to entertain the idea of going unless one parent went with him.  That's how I ended up spending the day walking around the rain in a full length dress and bonnet.

And it was a good thing that I went last year as he ended up abandoning his bunk mates and coming to stay in the adult cabin with me for the second night.   But maybe that was just because the option was there, and if I hadn't been around he would have been just fine.

This year he spent Sept - Jan proclaiming that he wasn't going unless one of us came along.  And then POOF something changed and he decided that he wanted to go on his own.  BONUS!  Spending 3 days and 2 nights with 40 8-10 year olds is not my idea of a great way of using up my vacation time from work.  Of course this year there are no period costumes involved.  They don't even need sleeping bags since they are staying at a Inn!

He's all packed and ready to go.  I'm not worried about him going on the trip and being scared or lonely.  He's been on lots of sleepovers without us and he'll be surrounded by all of his best buddies.  But sending off a boy with ADHD and Executive Functioning problems has me assuming that he will not come home with even a 1/4 of the items he is taking with him.

An example of Executive Functioning issues in Liam's world  - yesterday he was in charge of moving the wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer in order to finish the laundry.  He got that step down perfectly.  It just never occurred to him to turn the machine on.

The idea that at the end of 3 fun filled days he is going to be able to gather his 23 items, put them in his 2 bags and bring them home is kinda laughable.  All of his things are labelled with his name; we walked him through each item so that he knows which t-shirts are packed and the colour of his towel.  I've made a detailed list of all items (which is how I know there are 23) and it's pinned inside a ziplock baggie inside his knapsack.   Nothing he is taking is irreplaceable, but it's still frustrating.  We go through more splash pants and swim suits than a family of with 12 kids.

Tomorrow morning we'll attempt to feed him breakfast (don't even get me started on that one!), hand him his 2 bags and wish him off on a great trip.  I'm sure he's going to have a fabulous time and will come home full of memories.  He just won't come home with his pj's or swim suit.

The Greek Islands

I love Liam's school!  While they still have 2 weeks left, they will be doing a week of Mini Society and then his class will be away for a 3 day trip.  At the end of the academic portion of the semester, the kids present their work to friends and family.

Twice a year, parents and community members are invited into the school to visit our classrooms and enjoy a special exposition of the children’s work. At these student expos which we affectionately call "Fair," the children perform speeches, plays and songs based on their learning experiences all semester. Displays, demonstrations, written reports, poems and models make these events exciting for all involved and it is a delight to see children of all ages show pleasure and pride in public speaking. It is also a joy to watch these skills develop in such a positive and gentle way over the course of a child’s time at the school.

This semester Liam's class studied Islands, under the whole year theme of "Oceans".  The kids sang a song that mentioned more islands then I could have named:

Then we were taken on a tour of all the islands that the kids had studied.  Each one gave us a few facts about their island and showed us their diorama that they had made.  Liam told us about the Greek islands.

After, you could go around the room and visit each kid at their station and ask more questions.  Liam also took us on a tour of the room showing us all of his work.

His Greek Island poster of information.

A Haiku about islands.

As part of their studies, the class built an island by adding sand everyday to a dish of water.  Once it built up enough they were even able to grow seeds in it.

Since they cycle through the main themes every 5 years, Hilary and I are pretty sure that next year's theme will be Nova Scotia.  Can't wait to see what we learn about it this time around!

Valentine's Day Sushi

We made "sushi" tonight for Liam to take to school for his Valentine's Day lunch tomorrow.

What do these things all have in common?

• A rectangular prism
• A cone
• A triangular prism 
• A cylinder
• A sphere
• A cube

Yup, these were the manipulatives that we had to use for math homework tonight.  

I suck at grade 4 math homework.  I couldn't answer half of the questions until I Googled what vertices and edges were and I'm not sure what the answer to "I can slide, but I can't roll" is supposed to be ( Liam and I guessed a rectangular prism).  I'm clinging to the excuse/reason that I did grade 4 math in French and so I never had to learn what vertices and edges were.... just please don't ask me what they are in French!

Will the Seahorse

Hilary has done it again!  Just one year we would like Liam to have a role in the play that involves a simple costume, like boy #3.  So far he has been a gold coin, spider, fox, robot, a police officer (ok, so that one was kinda easy).  This year he is Will, a seahorse.

Costumes for the school plays are supposed to be simple.  That meant anything I found on Google or Pinterest was of little to no help.  Sure they had all sorts of fancy schmancy costumes, but nothing that was appropriate for a school play.

Luckily Hilary is always up for the challenge:

The play is Thursday night.  I just hope that Will the Seahorse is able to keep his head on during it!

A kid and his cod

Liam studied cod fish

Liam's school does theme based studies, and this year the theme is Oceans.  In particular, his class studied fish.  At fair today we got to learn about how fish breath and swim, what parts are good to eat, their migrating practices and much more.

All of their art work this year has been fish based too, including his art card, Derp the Stingray:

I can't wait to find out what they will be ocean thing they'll study next semester.

An impossibly long list

These are the things I have to do, in no particular order, in the next 40 hours.

1. Find the Christmas stockings
2. Wash and dry 2 loads of laundry
3. Put away the 2 loads of laundry that's already clean
4. Get the suitcases out of the attic
5. Find the Christmas pickle
6. Pack clothes for 3 people
7. Pack all the Christmas gifts we are taking with us
8. Go out an buy Christmas gifts for:
• My 90 year Grandmother
• Hilary 
• Kavya
• Divya
• our tennants
9. Buy table presents for 6 people
10. Charge 3 iPods
11. Charge the tablet
12. Pack laptop and all cords
13. Download audio books onto everyone's iPods
14. Charge the camera
15. Find the cords for the camera
16. Go to Liam's Fair at school
17. Work 2 full 8 hour shifts
18. Pack everyone's meds (last count was 10+ bottles)
19. Get to the pharmacy to fill Liam's prescriptions
20. Clean the house
21. Get to the vet for heavy duty flea killing stuff
22. Bathe 5 cats and douse them with heavy duty flea killing stuff
23. Get in touch with the house/cat sitter and make sure she can still come
24. Teach the house/cat sitter how to feed the gecko live crickets
25. Make a back up plan if I can't get in touch with the house/cat sitter
26. Finish 2 batches of marshmallows
27. Empty out the fridge of compost
28. Clean the cat litters out
29. Take out the garbage
30. Remember to pack tea
31. Pay bills

Wish me luck!

Parent-Teacher Conference

The early days of Liam's diagnosis of ADHD and co-morbid learning disabilities don't seem that far away, but looking back at that post it was 2 years ago.  During that time Liam has completed grades 2 and 3 and has become an "Old Old", as his school refers to grade 4 students.  While the struggle continues and we navigate our way through medication, lack of appetite and subsequent lack of weight gain, homework, and the never ending swearing, there are whole bunches of gains and things to celebrate.

Like all of these things we heard tonight from his teachers:

• Strong reader
• Amazing social skills
• Polite and a joy to have in class
• Works well independently and with others
• Stays on task more
• Seems to be maturing
• Advanced spelling group
• Doing well in math
• Enjoys research

Of course not everything is perfect and rosy.  He still has lots of areas to work on, but what a wonderful feeling to hear how well he is doing.

I'm so very proud of my boy!

Photo Dilema

When Liam's first set of school pictures came back, we were disappointed that there was a huge glare from his glasses.

 

The photographer offered to touch it up digitally, but 2 years ago he did a lousy job doing the same thing.

So this year we decided to have a retake. Liam can't be the only kid that wears glasses, and how hard can it be to tell a kid to tuck his chin in so that his glasses are at a better angle to avoid the glare? Instead, the photographer's solution on retake was to have Liam take his glasses off.

I'm torn on this one.  To me, that doesn't look like Liam.  He has worn glasses since he was 5 years old. He puts them on before he gets out of bed and takes them off as he turns off his bedside lamp.  We rarely see him without them on.

So the question now is, do I order either of these pictures, or do I simply take my own version and print off copies for friends and family?  I'd love to hear everyone's feedback!

Le chat et la lune

Liam has never been a fan of French, so we were very surprised to find out that he has signed up for the lead role in his French play.  He plays the cat who thinks that the moon has fallen from the sky and is trapped in the pond.  I was very pleased to go over his lines with him this week to find out that he not only knew them, but could pronounce most of them and understood what he was saying!  

This is a far cry from the little boy who used to put his hand over my mouth when I spoke French to him, while he wailed "No French Mama! Engish!! Engish Mama!!"