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You are here: Home / Archives for Life / parenting

"The phone’s for you"

November 8, 2012 by Wendy S

There are some very well documented milestones. These milestones are blogged about, tweeted, and people change their facebook status to rave about these!  And they should be proud…doing #2 on the toilet is a huge deal!

But last weekend we experienced a milestone that no one told us about.  It’s not like I didn’t know it was going to happen.  It happened to me…I just don’t remember when!  There was no warning!!

I had google this to see if anyone documented anything?!?!  

“Kids receive first phone at the average age of 8” — http://bit.ly/VU2knc 
 

Yay, Rachel!  She won’t be 8 until next month.

But it was very surreal.  The phone rang….

Me: “Hello!”
Person on phone: “Hello, this is K. May I please speak with Rachel”
Me: “Just one moment”

Craig looks at me very inquisitively. “Who’s on the phone?”
Me: “Rachel’s friend, K.”

I walk to Rachel’s room, hand her the phone.  “The phone’s for you. It’s K”

Her face lit up like Christmas morning!

They chattered back and forth. Then Rachel asked if she could go to K’s place on Sunday.  We had to be at church for the Turkey Dinner so she was free to go.  I asked to speak to K’s mom.  We finalized the plans.  I hung up the phone.

Wow.  Rachel got her first phone call.  Not yet 8.

It has begun.


Filed Under: Life, munchkin, parenting Tagged With: milestones

back to school 2012

September 4, 2012 by Wendy S

Grade 3 and Senior Kindergarten 

(A huge hanks to @bigdaddykreativ for sending me the photos!)

Lauren was very excited about going back to school! So excited, that when I called this morning she talked a mile a minute and very loudly.

Rachel was excited…but a bit more reserved. She’s not a morning person (much like me).

 I can’t wait to hear all about their first day when I get home this evening.


2008 (JK) and now (Grade 3)

Filed Under: Life, munchkin, parenting, peanut Tagged With: milestones, photo, school

"there is no one alive who is you-er than you"

August 23, 2012 by Wendy S

I love Dr. Suess (obviously, I named my blog after a line from one of his books)! And to celebrate today, I’m sharing a poem.

Happy Birthday To You!

Happy Birthday To You!

by Dr. Seuss
“If we didn’t have birthdays, you wouldn’t be you.
If you’d never been born,well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full
of hard green tomatoes.”
“Or worse than all that…Why, you might be a WASN’T!
A Wasn’t has no fun at all. No, he doesn’t.
A Wasn’t just isn’t.
He just isn’t present.
But you…You ARE YOU!
And, now isn’t that pleasant!”
“Today you are you!
That is truer than true!
There is no one alive…
…who is you-er than you!Shout loud, “I am lucky to be what I am!

Thank goodness I’m not just a clam or a ham
Or a dusty old jar of sour gooseberry jam!
I am what I am!
That’s agreat thing to be!
If I say so myself,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!”  

Me - Day 1
Me 30-something year ago today!

Filed Under: Life, mapsgirl, parenting Tagged With: celebration, dr seuss, milestones

yes, I let my 7 year old go to camp, so what?

August 20, 2012 by Wendy S

Two things happened over the weekend that shows me how much Rachel is really growing up. These things also showed us how much we have grown as parents too!


“I’ll give you my email address to give to your new friends from camp.  Or maybe we could just get you your own!?!”

I said these words over breakfast on the morning that Rachel was leaving for camp.  I hadn’t really thought about it before that.  Craig and I agreed that this wasn’t a bad idea.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we left to make her her own email address, but we will.

This will give her a little independence and a lot of responsibility. We will work with her to stay safe, but have fun at the same time.


Last night a comment on Facebook (which has since been deleted), really got under my skin.  Someone posted that they felt that Rachel was too young to go to camp and that she couldn’t imagine letting her son go.  Her son is almost a year older than Rachel.  So because she is hesitant, she feels it’s okay to publicly question my parenting choices?  I explained that I had gone to camp when I was 6 and Rachel is now 7 1/2.  Her response was “would she jump off a cliff if you did?”

Give me a break!!

I would not send my kid to a place if I didn’t trust them.  I would not send my kid to camp if she didn’t want to go. There are many things that I have done in my life that I would love for my children to experience but if they don’t want to then they won’t!

Why do I have to defend my choices for my kid? I don’t!

And if Rachel wanted to jump off a cliff, and I knew it was safe, maybe I’d let her!  I recently jumped off a cliff myself.

And climbed up one (thanks to Ford Canada!) …

I can’t keep my kids in a box. They need to explore the world…with us…and without us.  I can’t shelter her forever.  By letting her go out into the world, it will show what successful parents we are, that what we have taught our daughters will help them be successful when we’re not there for every step….or jump.


Filed Under: Camping, Life, munchkin, parenting Tagged With: milestones

big kids and little kids are a lot of fun! [w/ video]

July 16, 2012 by Wendy S

What a weekend!!  We had a tonne of fun with the “big kids” from our church and ended the weekend relaxing with our “little kids” (and there’s a video below of one of our kids).


Craig and I spent the weekend with 9 “big kids” from our church’s Senior Youth Group (grades 9-12).  It was a lot of fun!  We headed to Emerald Lake campground on Friday night. After checking in, the kids got to work setting up their tents and getting organized.  We had a late dinner followed by relaxing around the campfire.Saturday was spent at the lake.  They had huge, blow up water toys!  There were trampolines, log rolling, teeter-totter and rock-climing-type thingy (not sure what it was called).  The kids spent a lot of time trying to run from the big trampoline to the smaller one across the “moonwalk” to get to the smaller trampoline on the other side.  A few kids were successful…but we all had fun trying to get across.

Wendy jumping

wendy jumpingWe also jumped off the cliff.  That was a LOT of fun!!

Dinner was late that day with an even later campfire.  A few kids stayed up chit chatting around the fire until the wee hours of the morning.

After a few hours sleep, we got up and started packing. The sprinkles of rain kept us moving because no one wanted to be stuck outside if it decided to rain harder.  After a quick stop at Timmy’s we were on our way home.


Craig had taken some of the kids back to Oakville but I head to Niagara Falls to get our “little kids” who were very happy to see me when I got there.  Once were were home, unpacked and took the trailer back to the storage stop (we can’t keep in our drive way for the summer anymore because some crazy person in our neighbourhood called by-law and they tried to slap us with some ridiculous fine.Fortunately, our friends down the street were having their Sunday night gathering so we didn’t have to cook!  The kids played in the pool and we were able to relax!

I did hop in the pool for a bit and helped Rachel learned to dive! We started on one knee and after 3 times doing that, she tried from her feet!  Way to go Rachel!!!

It was a great weekend!!

How was your weekend?? 

Filed Under: Camping, Life, munchkin, parenting Tagged With: church, milestones, photo

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mapsgirl@gmail.com

Why “mapsgirl” ?

Wendy is a cartographer! She draws maps!

When not mapping, Wendy is also a mom to two daughters. They are the inspiration of this blog. Passionate about child passenger safety, Wendy was a certified Car Seat Technician in Ontario, Canada from 2008 to 2020. [Read More …]

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