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

It was a dark and stormy Christmas night.  Outside, the wind threatened to carry the lawn décor across the island, tree branches bowed, and bursts of rain pattered at the windows. Inside, four humans stumbled to bed, satiated by the generosity and thoughtfulness of the season. Alone at last, I sank into the living room recliner, scrolling through joyful moments and reflecting on how blessed we were for everyone’s health and ability to get along. As I basked in the warmth of this slice of goodness in what can be a very dark world, my peace was interrupted by the sound of our front gate cl ..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

1Winds in the east, mist comin’ in Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ‘bout to begin. Can’t put me finger on what lies in store. But I feel what’s to happen all happened before… This is our twelfth back to school season, fourteenth if you count the two years of preschool. In a week, Miss Q will start grade eleven, Miss S grade nine (cue Barenaked Ladies) and Miss C grade seven.  You’d think after fourteen years, the winds blowing in this new school year would be a breeze, but our sails still occasionally luff as nerves of the unknown cross our bow.  Meanwhile, my wall calendar is under as ..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

Four hot tub soaks a day sounds about right, or a recipe for my capillaries to explode. This is the peril I put myself in, as we wander from there and back again to see how far it is this July. Greetings from Pender Harbor on the Sunshine Coast. On Wednesday, we took the 9am ferry out of Swartz Bay, missed a turn leaving Vancouver which allowed us to momentarily intrude on my youngest brother, and then continue to Squamish in search of the next brother. They can run but they can’t hide. Travelling with our girls who are now ten, twelve and fifteen has been a dream. Even though we’re driving a ..read more