Category Archives: Community

Ignite the Spark for a Child in Need this Mother’s Day

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I love good fundraising campaigns.  I especially love when those campaigns match your donation dollar for dollar.  That’s one powerful incentive to give.

In honour of Mother’s Day, The Children’s Aid Foundation and the Ignite the Spark are fundraising for a campaign to bring extracurricular activities to children in need.  The wonderful thing about this programme is that they commit to a minimum three-year enrolment so that the children have a good, solid chunk of time in which to explore their chosen activities.  It is a guarantee of continuity in lives that often lack that most basic ingredient.  If you make a donation before May 12, your dollars will be matched.  Have a good weekend, all.

Freedom To Read Week

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FTRW2013_squareIt’s that time of year again: time to raise awareness about the freedom to access books and to celebrate the books that others folks love to hate.  Canada’s Freedom to Read Week.

Check out this great video on the Freedom to Read site.  It was made by students at Calgary Science School.  There are messages hidden in students’ desks that point out how impoverished our lives become if we limit our and others’ access to a wide variety of books:

a world without choices, never coming face-to-face with real problems, nowhere to escape to, no imaginary worlds….

The 49th Shelf has a great list of books that have been banned, a list I liked because it highlights the variety of groups and grounds on which they want to ban certain books.

And here is a list of books that have been banned around the world, from the Prince Rupert Library web site.

The best way to beat censorship is to read the banned books, so pick one for your loved ones and snuggle up and READ.

Neighbours and Nationalism

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We had a magnificent snowfall over the weekend.  The photographs in this post were taken on Friday, but so much more continued to fall, that we were utterly blanketed in white on Saturday.  I think snow is especially in the city, where the beautified natural surroundings is simply dramatic.

My husband went to work with my six year old on Saturday morning, but I got the younger boys dressed and we went outside to shovel the walk.  The sun was high and shining, and even with all the snow, it was a mild day.  If our oldest had been with me, he would have called the snow “glitter”.

Many of our neighbours were out shoveling their walks.  Most of the houses on our street have parking in the alleys behind the houses, so shoveling in the front yard just means a walkway or two.  It’s not a big job, so no one uses a snow blower.  It was all quiet, just the scraping of shovels hitting the pavement, everyone using their hands to clear a path.

I met a kindly neighbour who I haven’t seen for awhile.  ”How are you?” I called.

“I’m old,” he replied.  ”This is the fourth time I’ve shoveled.”

“There’s so much.  This is my first time out,”  I said.

He just shook his head at the white around us.

Then I offered, “Isn’t it beautiful though?”

Almost with resignation, he said, “Yeah… it’s lovely.  Makes you want to sing ‘O Canada’”.

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I Did It!!!

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Rack-a-thonI did it!  Yesterday I completed the three hour Rack-A-Thon fitness challenge benefitting Rethink Breast Cancer.  Track Fitness hosted the event and each participant blasted their way through a 1 hour treadmill/weight circuit, 1 hour intense spinning session and 1 hour power yoga.

The instructors are top notch and pushed and pushed and pushed me to do my absolute best!  My legs are screaming at me this morning and all I want to do is watch a movie on the couch but my two-year old is making sure that I don’t sit for more than 30 seconds.

Toward the end of the spin, the instructor blasted the Melissa Etheridge song I Run For Life and asked us to think about who were dedicating our challenge to.

There wasn’t a time during the three hour session that I didn’t think about my very good friend, recently diagnosed with cancer, who has shown more courage and optimism and strength in the past year than anyone I know.  She has always been an inspiration and will always be someone that I greatly admire.

Thanksgiving Weekend

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Canadian Thanksgiving is this weekend and it always serves as a reminder that poverty and hunger are not just a third world problem.  Food Banks Canada reports that 900,000 people use food banks each month and 38% of those are children and youth.  In stark contrast to the stereotype, many of these families are not unemployed but their salary is not enough to cover all basic necessities and food.

What I find most concerning is that food banks are facing a real shortage and according to Hunger Count 35% of food banks run out of food and 55% have to limit the amount of food each household receives.

It is important to note that food bank organizations offer other programs to help fight hunger too like community gardens, snack programs and soup kitchens.

How can you help?  It doesn’t take much to ensure that families in your city are getting enough to eat.

-       Consider making a high-need food bank items staples on your grocery list.  Many grocers have collection bins for non-perishable donations and so do many neighbourhood fire halls.

-       Make a cash donation.  For every $1 donated a food bank is able to generate $8 worth of food.  I am no financial whiz but those returns sound pretty good to me!

-       When you host your next dinner party, ask your guests to bring non-perishable donations instead of a dessert or a hostess gift.  My sister-in-law did this for a party and generated a van-load of food for the local bank.

-       Organize a community food drive with your neighbours.  Most people say that they want to help out but unless things are made convenient (like say, dropping off some food on your neighbours porch) excuses are easy to come by.

My family participates in The Good Food Box program.  For 5 boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables that are purchased an inner-city family receives an equivalent box at no cost.

A few weeks ago, Kitchen Counter Chronicles wrote about the initiative No Kid Hungry and how she started a discussion with her children that morphed into action.  Her story is inspiring and I plan to take a wish-list written on orange paper with me the next time I do the groceries.

To all of our fellow Canadians living here and abroad, we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving this weekend and ask that instead of just being thankful for the food on your table, consider sharing your bounty with others in need.

Caine’s Arcade, The Sequel

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Have you all seen the original film of Caine’s Arcade that went viral last year?

Well, last month, I saw an update on facebook.  There is now a movement underway to designate October 6th–this Saturday– a global day of play, a day of the Cardboard Challenge, when kids get their creativity revved up.  Check it out.  This kid is an inspiration.  I fell in love with this story last year, falling as it does into that wonderful category of lessons to be learned from slow living.  Leave kids alone with some simple tools, step back and let their creativity and interests take over.  This is very hard for me to do, being the meddling and perfectionist sort myself.

All summer, my middle son has been asking to build a big project from cardboard boxes, so this is it.  No more putting it off.  Now I am getting my thinking cap on to figure our how to organize a cardboard free for all in our ‘hood this weekend so that we can turn this long-put-off project into a friends event.

The School of Friendship: Guest Post by Kelly Quinn

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In today’s guest post, Kelly Quinn, who lives in Ottawa with her husband and two daughters, writes as an emissary from Girl Land.

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This post is a missive from the Land of Girls, a country I know is foreign to the four mothers of 4 Mothers. I didn’t have a preference for boys or girls when I was pregnant (other than that, having had one girl, I had a slight pragmatic preference for more of the same next-time round, for ease of hand-me-downs). And I have to admit that much of my sense of the differences between boys and girls is based on stereotype and first-hand experience of a very small sample group of boys. (Chiefly: one very energetic nephew and last year, after-school babysitting of one very energetic neighbourhood boy. 4Mothers:  do all of them really move that much??)

Six years and two girls in, we have somehow managed to avoid more than a taste of princess culture, hurrah. There is rather a lot of unavoidable pink around, but either I’ve become acclimatized or it’s still within reasonable bounds, because it doesn’t bother me. But on day 5 of grade 1, my daughter came home and told me that at recess, she asked her two “best friends” to play, and they told her that they were playing a game that was for two people only. She followed them around for a little bit hoping they would include her, and finally she gave up and sat down by herself waiting for recess to be over.

I’m sure this kind of thing happens with boys too. But it’s one of those things that many people associate particularly with elementary-school girls, and one of the things that always lurked at the back of my mind as a “con” to girls—having to confront the insidious schoolyard politics of young girls. I remember very keenly my own triangular “best friend” relationship of the early grades: brief honeymoons of playing all together were inevitably interrupted by the exclusion of one or another of us. Seeing my daughter’s sad little face recounting her first experience of this was heart-breaking (all the more so because the transition to grade 1 has been intensely difficult for her—et tu, Brute?, I addressed her little friends in my head).

Because she is only 6, and because she is having such a rough time altogether, and because I am good friends with the mothers of her little friends, it did not take me long to decide to helicopter in. I know eventually she’s going to have to learn how to navigate this territory on her own, but I told myself a bit of hovering was justified when everything else about grade 1 was causing her so much angst. I talked to the moms; they talked to their daughters, and recess, at least, has improved. But when my daughter asks why I can’t keep her home and teach her myself, one of the things I tell her is that school is important not just for the academics, but for learning about relationships with other people. I knew this was coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier to witness.

Parenting and Obscenity: Learning New Words Is Not For Kids Alone

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“Mum,” my seven-year-old son said to me one day as we were walking home from school.  “I know what the s-word is.”

 “What is it?”

 “Stupid.”

 I let that stand.

 A little later that year, he said, “Mum, I know what the f-word is.”

 “What is it?”

 “I don’t want to say it out loud.”

 “It’s ok, honey.  You won’t get in trouble.  We’re just talking about it.”

After a lot of hesitation, he spat it out.  “Fucker.”  To my eternal shame, I burst out laughing.  He was just so earnest, bless him, and the incongruity of my little boy’s face and that word….  Well, this was not the response he was expecting, but he certainly didn’t like it.  I apologized and went into recovery mode.  Ever the grammarian, and patting myself on the back for being prepared to set things straight, I told him, “Actually, the f-word is ‘fuck.’  It’s an expletive.  People use it when they’re angry.  ‘Fucker’ is a noun.  It’s the word you use if you call someone a bad name.  You shouldn’t use it, though, otherwise you’ll end up in the principal’s office.”

The discovery of new obscenities is not for kids alone.  When I was pregnant, I used the phrase “yummy mummy” in a conversation with a friend, and she was shocked.  “I thought that was a pornographic term.”  In my defense, it isn’t exclusively pornographic.  It is a phrase used to describe the pregnant woman or mother who embraces her sexuality instead of dressing in moo-moos.  However, it turns out that there is a whole world of internet porn that has to do with picking up bored mothers and filming sex with them.  Who knew?  MILF is the acronym for the less mellifluous term for “yummy mummy.”  I will not be sharing that bit of information with my son.

Nor will I share my new-found definition of Superman.  Every year on our street there is a party.  The neighbourhood kids—by which I mean elementary school kids—are out there until 11, dancing the night away.  Our first year in the neighbourhood, and I got schooled about the music kids like.  Two of my sons have birthdays around the same time as the street party, and I make playlists for the kids’ parties.  Raffi meets Talking Heads.  The kids dancing away on our street knew the lyrics and dance moves to club music.  I loved seeing them bouncing around, catching the glow sticks that the DJ was tossing out, laughing and in a musical world of their own.  Clearly I needed to update things.  I sheepishly asked the DJ for some of the song titles to put on the next playlist.  One particularly popular song was called “Crank Dat,” and you can go on-line and listen to a 30-second excerpt.  It’s quite catchy.  It’s also pornographic.

I did not learn the meaning to the lyrics of the song until I played it a week later at my three-year-old son’s birthday party.  I very proudly played my cooler than ever birthday playlist.  I very smugly observed my sons and my nieces and nephews as they danced around to my latest creation.  Then their 24-year-old uncle pulled me aside.

“Nathalie, you can’t put that song on a kids’ c.d.  It’s really vulgar.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Steve, you can’t tell me you can’t tell me.  You have to tell me.”

Silence.

“Please, Steve.  I need to know.  You can’t tell me my babies are dancing to something awful and then clam up.  What are we listening to?”

Again, in my defense, I did my research and looked up the lyrics on-line before putting the tune on the playlist.  There are many versions of the song, and I read several different sets of lyrics, but to be honest, I didn’t have the first clue what I was reading.  I thought “crank” was a dance move.  It had “hoe” in it, but the line is “Crank dat, Soljaboy. Superman dat hoe.”  Now, I know the meaning of “hoe,” and it’s offensive enough, but because I couldn’t make sense of the grammar of the sentence, I dismissed it.  I honestly thought that in that context it could mean “Ho!”  As in Snow White’s dwarves’ “Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It’s off to work we go.”  Nope.

Superman is not just a proper noun.  Superman is a transitive verb that means to ejaculate on a woman’s back, flip her over onto the bedsheet so that when she stands up the sheet sticks to her and she has a cape.  Nice.  The kids were singing and dancing to this tune, putting their arms in the air like a crowd of mini-supermen, and somewhere the grown-up hip-hop gods were laughing.  I was horrified.  Apparently an advanced degree in literature does not entitle you to simply dismiss as harmless a song whose lyrics you don’t understand.

Recently, another mother approached me and told me that she had a funny story to tell me.  My now eight-year-old son had taught her son the f-word.  He, in turn, had told another boy at school, who then told the teacher.  The power of the f-word was such that this boy was so embarrassed and so frightened of getting into trouble that he refused to go back to school after lunch.  He hid out at home for the rest of the day.  My son had not only taught him the f-word, he had caused the poor child traumatic embarrassment.

I know how you feel, kiddo.  I know just how you feel.

Learning new words is not something that happens to kids alone.  Now I know what superman means, I studiously avoid thinking about the misogyny that is behind it, but I’m glad to know what I did not know before.

I pretty much feel the same way about my kids learning new and unpleasant words: I want them to know what it means, I just don’t want to hear them use it.

The Unofficial Start of Summer

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This weekend was the 26th annual street party on our street, and though we’ve only been here four years, it has become a family favourite.  From noon until midnight, the city street is closed off to cars, and the kids pile into the street with basketballs and hockey sticks, bikes and trikes; they bounce on the bouncy castle and climb up into the visiting fire truck; they have epic water gun battles while the grown ups sit on the sidewalk with burgers and beer.  Dinner is barbeque and salad, and bake sale goodies, all made and cooked by our neighbours.  Everyone pitches in and works together, and then the east and the west sides of the street battle it out in a massive tug of war.  A DJ provides the soundtrack for the whole day and night, and my little ones sing along with friends and neighbours to the sounds of summer.

For our kids, this party has become the unofficial start to summer with all its bacchanalian revelry and the rare, rare treat of being allowed out so late and sometimes even alone.  Though one was sick, my boys still had a blast and played on their street, made it theirs for a day and a night.  For a day, the car was not king, and the street was home to the simple fun of learning to ride a bike, of wearing a new face, of sinking shot after shot after shot.

Let the long days of summer begin.

Funny Girls & Dynamic Divas

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Toronto’s women’s advocacy agency, Sistering is having its annual fundraiser on June 14, 2012, and these evenings always guarantee a good laugh for a great cause.

Sistering is a women’s agency serving homeless, marginalized and low-income women in Toronto. Their programs and services help women gain greater control over their life circumstances. Their advocacy focuses on changing the social conditions that put women at risk. And their service philosophy is to ensure that women’s dignity is not eroded by poverty and homelessness.

All proceeds from the show go directly back to Sistering and supporting the community of homeless, underhoused and socially isolated women who attend the drop-in programs and use the Sistering services each day.

This year’s headliners include the wildly popular and talented:  Sandra Shamas, Elvira Kurt, Liberty Silver, Jane Bunnett and many more!