Two weeks ago, I won a subscription to Tweenland! I have never been so popular; never knew 58 texts could arrive in five minutes. That’s 5.17 texts a second.  Emojis, photos, videos, shorthand, it was a potpourri of communication for all learning styles.  “Uhhh, Miss C, why do I suddenly have a million texts?”  She innocently picked her head off the couch. “Oh, I gave my friends your phone number.”              “58 messages.” I held up my phone. “I have 58 messages.”          ..read more

This Hallowe’en I decided to establish our home as the neighbourhood’s full-sized can of pop house. Yes, that’s right Kids, tell all your friends. This house gives out cans of soda that take up precious cargo space in designer buckets, give a great arm workout as you haul it from door-to-door and, potentially explode if you forget the secret tap before opening. Trick or treat. Welcome to the in-between: the space linking the golden age of childhood to young adulthood, where our world is both non-stop, and becoming quiet, allowing my brain to concoct such follies.  A survey of wh ..read more

When I was in grade eight, my best friend and I went to Steel Magnolias. Turns out the crescendo of adult emotion was completely lost to my teenaged brain, and I was the only one in the theatre not weeping at the end. Fast forward thirty years: I’m in a dark theatre, discreetly and not so discreetly jabbing at the water leaking from my eyeballs whilst my children: two teens and a tween, sit oblivious to the crescendo of adult emotions around them.  Promise me you’ll watch this movie again in thirty years, I implore my cherubs as we walk outside.  Were we watching a story ab ..read more

If you want to witness the best of humanity, watch a high school band concert. Sure, the elementary schoolers steal our hearts with earnest faces, and wide eyes that are either locked on their music teacher or scanning the sea of phones until they connect with their people. And the middle schoolers might not wave from the risers anymore, but as their eyes bore into their music stands, their echo locaters are keenly in tune with our wherabouts. But it’s the high schoolers, yes, the ones who forget to pick up paperwork about the concert and say they don’t care if you come or not, who are the tru ..read more

My life flashes before my eyes. Snap. I’m sixteen and sitting in my mum’s red four-door Honda Civic, at the university parking lot, timidly pressing my foot down on the clutch. Snap. I’m forty-five and my sixteen-year-old’s timidly pressing her foot down on the gas pedal of our grey Toyota Sienna in the same university parking lot. Snap. I have a sixteen-year-old? Snap. We have a minivan? Snap. I hope Miss Q will see the minivan as an upgrade from the 8-seater maroon and silver Dodge Ram van: the other vehicle I learned to drive on. Buuuut we both probably wish we had learned (were) learning o ..read more

This year our pumpkins were not carved. There I said it. They sat on our porch until mid-November, untarnished globes, hoping to be gutted. But I’m not gutted. Not when this year’s pumpkin weekend arrived with a band fundraiser, a yeti birthday party, first in-law visit in two years, a window being installed into Miss Q’s lair, costumes still being fleshed out, and a writing contest deadline. Don’t worry, I managed to buy three boxes of candy with ample weeks to spare. Hashtag priorities. This year we had a Victorian ghost (Miss S), a woodland elf (Miss C), two window installers (my husband an ..read more

When I made the decision to stay part-time, to stop my upward momentum, flip turn off the glass ceiling and dive back down to my family, I wasn’t doing it to be on trend with former CEOs discovering sourdough starters or have a riches to rags story to monetized. Although… No. I did it for love. For my family, because someone’s got to be there for the children, even though they’re 15, 13 and 10, and may never understand the depth of my husband’s and my commitment to their well being. I’ll pause while you find the martyr music. Did I like the work I was doing? Yes. I liked being in charge. I lea ..read more

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