Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Some of the best memories are made in flip-flops. [Kellie Elmore]

Hey – hope you had a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend. I am a day late for Grandparents’ Day, and it’s never been on our radar, but trust me, we had three of the best of our lives last week.

As we look back through the smoke and haze at those beautiful days, today the infernos of the US Pacific Northwest are affecting our air quality (yesterday we were at an ungodly 200 level – which is a “stay the heck inside!” stage) but not threatening our homes and lives. While we see and feel the effects on our lungs, join me today as we draw a metaphorical breath of calm and immense gratitude.

Part of the joy of living on this incredible natural wonder called Vancouver Island is in the discovery of it. Although we’ve so much more to explore, we have visited places as far north and west as the world-renowned rugged surf destination of Tofino, taken gentle hikes along lakes and around majestically massive trees, cycled roads lined with golden verdant corn fields, searched the horizon for whales in Sooke, and actually seen them while staying off the salmon-laden waters of Campbell River.

But the dream Rob and I always harboured was to share these vistas and experiences with family and friends; to see them for the first time through their eyes, and sometimes our own. Last week, the most precious member of our little pod got to share with us the beauty and fun of a place about two hours from our home called Parksville.

Celebrated for its vacation lifestyle and sandy beaches, this small city (pop. 12,000+) is dotted with ocean resorts and playgrounds for visitors of all ages. Finding a room from Labour Day to Wednesday was no small feat; staggered school starts and an island full of staycationing retirees added to the online challenge. But we were lucky and booked a spot with room for three of us. Let the adventure begin!

On the spur of the moment, we decided to wait the hour and board a ferry for the short ride from Brentwood Bay across the Saanich Inlet to start our little vacation on the water actually on the water. Colin loved the experience and some fellow travellers kindly took the shot above.

A few hours later we were unpacked and ready to go. We drove from Tigh-Na-Mara, the cabin/hotel resort where we stayed, to the nearby town and noticed a huge green field, tucking away the location until after our dinner (which was not without drama, as you read here last Thursday).

We returned to that field and brought out a dollar store kite that Colin had been dying to unwrap since getting it weeks earlier.

He and his grandude set out to harness the slight breeze and get it airborne, which they did. I don’t know who was smiling more widely that warm summer evening, the boy or his grandparents. But it was a memory I’ll always cherish.

Of course, the next day there was help from the light winds off the Strait of Georgia and he was able to get the plastic Spider-Man kite easily airborne (with Rob’s MacGyver-ing of a bit of weight onto its tail) for long stretches of time. It was, in a word, perfection.

We played in the sand and got wet to our waists in the chilly but mostly clear waters until it was time to take a break for lunch, more fun in a playground and on a basketball/tennis court and, ultimately, a long walk to play mini-golf.

Exhausted but elated, we wound down with a bubble bath, some birthday cake-flavoured ice cream and the low hum of fans keeping us cool after a 27C day. Sweet dreams, indeed.

After we’d dropped off our boy at his parents’, with a wonderful dinner and huge smiles to greet us, I found myself starting to slip into a bit of a funk. Our summer vacation – as brief and wonderful as it was – had come to an end.

But as the laundry spun quietly in a room nearby and I scrolled through pictures and video taken in my efforts to capture each idyllic summer memory, hopefully forever, I was reminded that the little trip we enjoyed didn’t end with his family getting on a plane to go home. They’re here. We’re together. All we have is time to make memories.

He’s lost a tooth since he got here. His sister has taken her first drunken, determined steps. Life is moving on in the best ways. And no matter how hazy the skies are outside our windows these days, I am seeing and remembering that fact – that immense, utterly wonderful gift – with greater clarity than I’ve ever experienced.

While we miss with even greater depth these days our daughter who brought this boy into our lives, we will never lose sight of the fact that we’ve been, almost miraculously, given the opportunity to be a part of his life with its ferries, tooth fairies, kites and other momentous firsts – like today’s start of a new school year.

Don’t let the smoke and the pains of our past mislead you: the tears in our eyes are from gratitude.

Just a thought… Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little things when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them it has always been big stuff. [Catherine M. Wallace]

We’ve had a glorious little getaway with our grandson this week, taking him on a short ferry ride from the Saanich Peninsula over to Mill Bay and up the Trans-Canada another two hours’ drive to get to a beach resort in a sweet little town called Parksville, BC.

Once I’ve gone through some pictures with his parents and sorted out the entire wonderful adventure in my head and heart, I’ll share some indelible moments with you on Monday; for now, let me just say I talked to the brilliant blue skies to say “thanks” plenty of times during those three days that ended yesterday.

Something happened on our first night a little bit “up island” (as we here call a trip north) that really opened my eyes to how very careful we as adults have to be with words, filtering experiences through the eyes and ears of our children in these tumultuous times.

In the car en route to our destination, I talked with Colin at length about just about everything you could imagine. Of course, the conversation turned to COVID, about which he knows plenty from nearly memorizing the TV ads from the government about health and safety and from discussions with his parents.

I asked how he’d feel if they asked him to wear a mask at school this fall; he said that they never did before, so he didn’t think that was going to happen. I explained to this boy, who will be going on a familiarization visit for 90 minutes today at his new school, that no one wore masks back in March because COVID was just beginning. But now, we all do when we go out, so it’s different from the last time he was in class. Of course, that is something he had never considered; why should a five-year-old have to? (We’ll see what the school recommends and he’ll do what they say.)

After we’d unpacked and settled into our hotel, we went to the nearby town and found a Smitty’s family restaurant in which to have dinner. We were surprised – and not in a bad way – at how amazingly they handled safety measures: a rolling cart was put across the end of our booth table, on which our cutlery, condiments and menus were placed. Once we were seated, we picked our items off the trolley; later, our food was put there as well. It was a hands-off way of ensuring that everything we touched had been sanitized and we thought it was brilliant. Kudos to Smitty’s.

Like his Grandad (or “Grandude” as Colin has been calling him since he moved here – something we laughingly suggested to him once after hearing that Paul McCartney’s kids’ offspring call him that) Colin is a leisurely diner. And so as not to surprise him, while he was eating his dinner, I looked at the time and noted that the restaurant was closing in 25 minutes at 7 pm so the staff could go home to spend the evening with their families, and suggested he’d better eat up.

Now, what I said was that the place was closing. What Colin heard was something entirely different.

His lip started to tremble, his eyes filled with tears and he quietly said, “I want to go back to our hotel to eat.” It wasn’t that he felt rushed; sitting across from him, I could clearly see on his face that this wasn’t a child acting up, he was genuinely afraid. When we asked what was wrong he responded, “I don’t want the granola virus!” (Okay, that part was cute.)

This was new. Of course, children are being exposed to different rules and strange circumstances, but Colin dons his masks like a superhero and never argues or resists; he knows he’s keeping himself and others safe from COVID. So what, exactly, was this?

I told Rob that Colin and I needed to take a walk and we put on our masks and got up and left. As we sat out on a curb in the late day sun, I held his hand and we talked about the virus. I told him we were all keeping safe together and that the restaurant was being extra careful so that we wouldn’t catch the virus.

I thought perhaps the trolley had spooked him a little. But there was a piece to the puzzle that was missing, and I didn’t find it until Rob had gotten our food to go, paid the bill and met us outside. The three of us talked some more and here’s how we think it went down:

When Colin heard me say that the restaurant was closing, he put two and two together and came up with it being shut down due to the virus: clearly it was coming to this place and we had to leave! That’s what he inferred from what we’d told him.

As I lay in bed Monday night thinking about it, I recalled doing an impromptu interview with him a few weeks earlier when he was pretending to be on TV doing “Colin’s News” from inside a cut-out Amazon delivery box. He told me, the interviewer, that COVID meant that places were closed and you had to stay outside when someone went in. This had happened countless times with his mommy and daddy; only one went into the store at a time, a request that is still made by many grocery stores, for what they term the family’s “designated shopper.”

He equated closure with COVID. Not the end of a work day, but the virus coming, which meant he wasn’t safe.

After we buckled him into the car, we sat there and talked about what the 7:00 closure actually meant. We apologized for not explaining that more clearly, even though it’s something that even an overthinker like me couldn’t have seen coming. Fortunately, Colin seemed to understand and forgot all about his upset in the five minutes it took us to find a big open park where he and Rob could fly a kite together.

The whole episode at that booth shook us. It reminded me that we often just sort of take for granted what children understand and how they process the tsunami of information – and misinformation – that surrounds them daily, oftentimes bits and pieces that we don’t even realize are getting past their chatter about LEGO superheroes and ice cream flavours.

The aftermath of these past six months, not to mention whatever lies ahead, is something that these children will likely be processing for years to come. I got an email after Tuesday’s letter from K. in which a woman said a friend who’s a teacher in Florida said her kids are adapting and that we all need to “chill.” Children are resilient. Yes, they are (as we well know), but moving on doesn’t mean sweeping half a year’s experiences – the fears, the disruptions, the uncertainly – under the rug.

As for Rob and me, we’ll be more diligent with our words and freer with our explanations from here on in with our sweet boy. As he prepares to start a new year with new lessons, we were reminded that we had some to learn as well.

Thank you for coming by this week and I’ll have a new journal for you on Monday.

Just a thought… I must lose myself in action lest I wither in despair. [Alfred Lord Tennyson]

For The Teachers.

I posted a “breathe” meme on Facebook on the weekend and got an intriguing response from a teacher, whom I asked to write to me about her experience. This brutally honest letter from K. is Globe and Mail-worthy and I urge you to read what teachers are going through this week. It’s heartbreaking.

I am a 58 year old Designated Early Childhood Educator in a kindergarten classroom in Southern Ontario. My role, in a nutshell, is to provide developmentally age appropriate programming along side of my teaching partner, who is a certified teacher in Ontario. 

My partners and I have always worked together to create a rich learning environment for the children in our classrooms. This year, it’s more challenging due to the restrictions caused by the global pandemic. 

Your post resonated with me on many levels. I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for ten years now. I was introduced to it when my son was in Afghanistan… another stressful time in my life. And, for the last month, I’ve found myself reminding myself to breathe. I often hear myself saying it out loud… often out of the blue.  You see, for the last month or so, I’ve been hearing rumours about what my kindergarten class is going to look like. In my mind it was unfathomable. Cubbies and shelves in classrooms were being wrapped in plastic. (This has since been deemed a fire hazard by the fire department… I’m not sure if that’s a local department or by the Ontario Fire Marshall.) After hearing all this last month, I decided to send the principal at my school a text message. I copied and pasted a post I saw on Facebook. And I said “please tell me it’s not going to be this bad”. He told me it was best to wait to hear from him, but to expect the Early Learning Kindergarten Program to look very different this year. He also said he didn’t want to share too much because information was changing all the time. 

I spent last week in my classroom with my partner. Still hearing so many things on Facebook, we tried to use our common sense to set up our room. 

I purchased bins with lids so that the children would have a spot to keep their pencils, crayons, scissors and some items that we will regularly use for math and literacy. I cut out some foam squares, each child will have two dice, a ten frame, a rekenrek (tool for counting), their own individual package of Play doh, a dry erase marker and a white board. We planned to add to it over time. The rekenrek will not be allowed as we need to use string and card board to make them. (In my true fashion, I just realized I might be able to use plastic mesh canvas and gimp to make these.)

We set up our shelves with big bins of items which we were going to split up into smaller bins so that more than one child would have access to these items (toys like LEGO, etc). 

Thursday afternoon someone from “the board” came through each classroom and told us to remove things. I wasn’t in my room at the time that he came by, but my partner was. Basically he said if it wasn’t board purchased, it had to go. 

Well, I’m in a brand new kindergarten class that was created because our community is growing. Items purchased to furnish my classroom were a sand table (not allowed) and cubbies (not allowed) and these two large items are being  stored in another room. Board supplied… we have Plasticine (which along with the Play doh I doubt that we’ll be able to use). A doll and three trucks. 

Hardly enough to teach a kindergarten class! My partner and I had filled the shelves with things we’ve been collecting for years. She told him there would be nothing left.

Even the china I planned on using to teach health had to go. Erin, I came from the early years centre which is also mandated by the Ministry of Education. The Early Years Programs have been advised for many years to use real dishes as opposed to plastic toy dishes. China is perfect for this. When it breaks, it breaks into big chunks. There are some small pieces, but not shards like glass. The children learn how to play carefully, and with purpose when they use real items. Every year a piece or two breaks. It’s no big deal and other than a very tiny cut, no one has ever been hurt. I cannot tell you how special the children feel, knowing I trust them with real dishes. The china has to go, not because of the fear of it spreading Covid 19, but because of liability. Remember, this is the same Ministry who told me to use real dishes when I worked with two and three year olds. 

So, this person ended up cherry picking items that had to go then. Clip boards, gone, paper, gone (does this mean no classes can use paper?), wood, gone, stones, gone, anything porous, gone. Kindergarten programs rely on using “found materials” to teach children.  

Thursday I went home in tears… plus, as the day unfolded I could barely talk without crying. 

The principal at my school phoned me yesterday to touch base, check in and make sure I was OK. I’m pretty lucky to have that support. Not that he can change anything, but knowing that he cares and understands means a lot. 

As I sit here today I realize my tears are for mourning the loss of what we’ve worked for, that took so long to build. An amazing kindergarten program that is responsive to the needs of the children. I totally understand the reasons behind this are for safety. I get it! 

What I don’t get is this… why were we not given more guidance BEFORE we got into our classrooms? They had since March to prepare something to give us so we could go in prepared. Instead they let us set up and THEN they came in to tell us to take it out.  

Our tables are spaced apart, two children per table. Tables are roughly a metre long at the long side (they are trapezoids) but less at the short end. But once the children turn and face each other at the table they will be roughly 2.5 feet apart. But… the children in the aisles won’t even be two feet apart. This is okay apparently, but it’s not anywhere else. I fear for the safety of the children and my own. 

The children at my school (I hear this changes from board to board) are not allowed to play together with one toy without it being disinfected between use. Sooo, here’s my thought. We are all in a cramped space. Some will wear masks and some don’t, as my board hasn’t mandated masks for grade three and under. They will be breathing in the same air, they will be close, is sharing a toy, and allowing them to play together going to really increase their risk of getting Covid 19 considering the proximity? They aren’t allowed to sing or chant, indoors or out. 

They won’t see our faces. All day long I’ll be telling my kids that I’m smiling. They won’t see my lips moving. How will my English Language Learners learn how to speak English?  

I envision a classroom much like what I see on TV when I see a classroom from China. So, I have confidence that although education will look very different, for the time being this can work. But I don’t know how to deliver that program and no one is telling me how I can do this. They are all just telling me what I can’t do. Even when we teach children, we don’t tell them what we don’t want them to do, we tell them what we want them to do. Just like I did with my 18 month old grandson who was climbing on the table. Mom says, “don’t climb on the table”. I said, “we sit on the chair” and I helped him sit. Worked like a charm.  

Without my tools, I don’t know how I’m going to teach. I know I will teach my children how to breathe. I do that every year. I teach them how to sit in the moment, what their body feels like when it’s relaxed. But right now, I don’t know how I’ll teach them without singing, without paper, or sticks or craft materials. In an art experience we learn language, math, science problem solving, social skills, and so much more. 

For the last month (or longer) I’ve sat, not knowing the answers, looking for the wisdom to show me “how I can make it work”. Last week I found out much of my wisdom is no match to deal with Covid 19. 

Today, many educators are still waiting to hear if they have a job, or if they’ll be teaching on line, or if they’ll be teaching a different grade… after they’ve set up a classroom. So this week, teachers and educators such as myself, will be moving out of rooms and moving into new rooms, researching another grade’s curriculum. There will be lots of breathing but I don’t imagine it’ll be the breathing your meme depicts. 

And now, because my allergies have kicked in, I’m going to call the health unit to schedule my first Covid test… which by the way, I don’t know why it isn’t a requirement for everyone associated with the education sector to complete before schools open on Thursday. I would have thought they’d learned that from the fiasco we had with the migrant farm workers. 

This journal helped me to put down my thoughts in a more or less clear fashion. Oh, and I’m usually the most easy going, go with the flow, able to switch gears in an instant kind of person. The fact that I’m not that person right now bothers me.(?)

Thanks for inviting me to share my thoughts.

Thank YOU, K. for taking the time to put your feelings, your heartbreak, your anger and despair into words. I can speak for all who read this today – we’re sending you a huge virtual hug of support and gratitude.

I’ll be back here on Thursday with you. Be well.

Just a thought.. What we have once enjoyed we can never lose; all that we love deeply becomes a part of us. [Helen Keller]

We knew the day was coming. Call it the pragmatism that is born of knowing the immensity of loss, but we knew. It should have made it easier, but of course….

From the moment we saw in a PJ’s Pet Centre the Lhasa Apso-Japanese Chin cross who would soon be named Molly, with that little teddy bear face, we fell for her – instantly and hard. We didn’t go in there with the intention of buying a dog (back when people did that – and I know it was wrong) but we always knew that we would outlive her. And Rob and I did.

When we said goodbye to Pepper in 2015, it was just three months after going through the hardest thing any parent could endure. Yes, we mourned his death, but not as hard as we would have a year earlier; we had the cruel, clear perspective that comes with losing a child. He was never meant to outlive her, and yet he did. Pepper was Lauren’s dog. And now they were together.

On Tuesday afternoon, under a sunny sky and buffeted by a cool, light breeze, we said tearful good-byes to our beloved and suitably spoiled Molly. Peacefully, at home on our deck, with the gentle assistance of the kind vet who came to help us when we needed it most as a family. We couldn’t bear to wait the three days for an appointment to take her into our family vet’s office; our shared suffering made it impossible.

Two days later, our hearts are heavy but filled with gratitude for her limitless love, the nightly warmth in the crooks of our backs or in that tight triangle formed by our bent knees, the mornings we’d awaken and she’d found a spot on one of our pillows, her sweet-and-sour breath in our faces, dozing peacefully. She was entitled, but she earned it. Every square inch of the house belonged to her, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

We will always cherish (and smile at) the memories not only of our early years as a complete family but the more recent ones too: of her running with puppy-like abandon and a mobility and demeanor often defying her age and her illness, even as she approached a ripe 16 years.

Thank you to the friends and family who took care of our girl when we were in need over our years of travels. All she wanted was a soft people bed and a warm leg to snuggle up against. We’re grateful to each and every one of you gentle and generous extended family members…like Mike Cooper who visited us in California at Christmas and revelled in her cuddles.

Even during the many hours I’ve been huddled writing at my laptop, she still managed to find a way to burrow in next to me.

With her laid back air, I’d like to think she was equally easy to care for: gentle and patient, what she may have lacked in natural smarts she made up for in charm! Her trademark happy dance – standing on her back feet, waving her front paws – made more strangers laugh than we could ever count.

At a not-so-threatening 14 pounds, the “big dog” energy and aggression she brandished around other dogs was replaced by overt affection as she aged. We went from warning people that she might be a little snarky with their leashed pets to apologizing if she was a little too familiar. Boundaries and rules were for other dogs. Molly wielded her off-kilter cuteness like a superpower.

Look, I know that I’ve shared so much grief with you over these past five years, so I would ask you please not to feel sad for us. We knew from the moment we met her that this day would come; who would have imagined it would be a gracious and sweet 16 years down the road? She had a great life and enriched ours every day she was with us.

Dear, sweet Molly, though old, familiar cracks have reopened in our hearts, we’re at peace, knowing that your appetite is back, you’re in perfect health again and are running in circles and barking, looking for someone to take the bait and come play, inside or out. I have no doubt you’ve found your girl and your brother, Pep. Your tail is up again and you are happy.

As are we for every moment, every wispy fur tumbleweed we’ll encounter for months to come, every memory of your loving sweetness. Thank you, sweet Molly Malone.

I’ll be back with a journal on Tuesday and probably won’t be answering emails as promptly as I would like or should; I know you’ll understand. Have a gentle long weekend.

Just a thought… Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory. [Percy Shelley]

Welcome to the last day of August. Ah, September. What unfamiliar feelings the next few weeks will bring: fear and uncertainty (and not about the usual “back-to” stuff) instead of anticipation and relief.

As areas across the country decide on how to move forward with students and education, we can only try to do what’s best for our individual families while listening to the informed scientists and people who respect facts more than feelings. (Right now we’re waiting for word on Colin’s registration to find out what our area is recommending and whether he is, indeed, enrolled at the school just down the hill from us.)

I can’t say I’m counting down to him being in class every day, but for purely selfish reasons: we’re having a blast spending time with him. Friday night was his first solo sleepover with us. We had popcorn and watched Disney’s Pinocchio (we try him on a different classic every movie night, choosing films we nearly wore out on the VCR way back when) and then shared pancakes and BC blueberries for breakfast, followed by a day of play both indoors and out.

It’s pure joy and I am practically blue from pinching myself. So is Rob. There are moments when I turn to him and say, “What are you doing right now?” and he answers, “I’m sitting watching a movie with my grandson.” Or, “We’re driving in our car with our grandson.”

Our family is settling in nicely just a few minutes down the road; but I have to tell you something that happened as we left their house last week, on their first evening in their new place.

We said our near-teary good-byes, got in the car and set out for the short drive home. I put on the Beatles Channel on Sirius XM as I’m always hoping that Lauren will send us a song to let us know she’s with us and she didn’t disappoint. After enjoying the last refrains of a Ringo cover of Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away,” we heard “The Long and Winding Road.” 

Most everyone will know why the lyrics are so poignant: “Many times I’ve been alone, and many times I’ve cried…anyway you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried….” “You left me standing here a long, long time ago…” and “lead me to your door…” to quote just a few; I was left near tears (again) as the sweet strains of this Beatles classic played us home, to our door.

The next day as I reflected on the perfection of that piece, I asked Google to play it for me again and that’s when things got really interesting. “The Long and Winding Road” played and then, after the briefest of pauses, it went into another Beatles song – one that we would sing in the past, often changing the lyrics from “Here Comes the Sun” to “here comes her son.” So, okay, that was a lovely nudge too. And there was more to come.

The following tune was the same one that I edited to play with a video we posted of my first meeting with Colin in the hours after he was born in 2014. John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” is on my phone and I would often play it on my walks when he was on my mind (so, yeah, a lot). I thought that was lovely and that’s when Rob, who I didn’t know was hearing all of this, commented, “Wow.” But our divine DJ wasn’t done yet.

Next song was from the Beach Boys: the very selection that our producer Ian played as I danced with my radio partners and husband on the way out of that Casa Loma ballroom during my final CHFI show in December 2016, “God Only Knows.”

We finally turned off the music as James Taylor’s “How Sweet It Is” came on next. I didn’t want our special playlist to end, but thought that I’d taken up enough of Lauren’s time. I said a quiet “thank you” and went on with our busy Thursday.

As I sipped my coffee on the deck Saturday morning, Colin at our side eating his pancakes, I almost said under my breath to her, “Your work is done here, honey.” But I stopped myself. It never will be and I hope she’s always by our side – all of our sides – as we make our way through this life together, this long and winding road.

Have a beautiful day and if I haven’t written back to you about the Dianne Raynor chat, I’m getting to your email, I promise. As of last night the video link was still up (contrary to the 48 hour limit I’d been told about) so if you want to watch it, please do. You’ll find a link here.

Thank you for coming by and I’ll be back with you here on Thursday. Be safe, please keep wearing your mask. For all our sakes.