Friday Update

So I decided to do an update today!

Brettley has spent most of the last few months sick. He finally started doing better late last week. He gets sick a lot more than the other 2 ever did. He's also a very opinionated and belligerent 3 year old boy, but oh so adorable.

Ty is currently sick. He did very well on his last report card and has progressed so much since he got a new teacher at the beginning of February. He now has the teacher that Caleb had, who I adore and she is just amazing with the kids. We are starting to notice him maturing as well, which is always reassuring.

Caleb is...He's Caleb. We've been trying to deal with some pretty big mental health issues with him this year, so we're still in the middle of trying to figure out what the problem even is. We've had 2 psychologists tell us that, yes, there is a problem and cause for concern, but they're not sure what the specific problem is. When the issue isn't bothering him, though, he's doing great. He's getting a new "to him" bed from Grandma Jo in a few weeks, which is a double, so he's very excited about that.

John is as normal, busy working during the day and helping me hold down the fort during evenings and weekends. He's been great about dealing with sick kids while I've been doing my calling this past month.

I am doing well. I have officially lost the first 10 lbs in my weight loss, which feels AMAZING! I got to box up almost all of my plus size clothing the other week to take to Value Village. I have been doing great with plugging away at my Personal Progress and have already finished 2 of the values (Faith and Virtue).  I believe I'm almost halfway done all of Personal Progress... I am still loving my calling. The girls are amazing and so inspiring. I love them!

'New' Math

I realize that I'm opening myself up to a world of debate here, but I'd like to blog about the 'new' math being taught in schools in Alberta. I didn't hear about it until the last couple of months, to be honest. From the sounds of it, it was the same way for most people. However, did you know that it actually started being implemented in 2008, which was over 5.5 years ago? Why are people just starting to complain about it now? It has been fully implemented since 2012, which was over a full school year ago!

Normally I take a live and let live approach to whatever controversial topic is going on at the time. However, on this one I DO NOT! I am pro 'new' math. Here's why:

I was the kind of student who did very well in school when learning was still very much hands on. As soon as school became about teachers lecturing at the front of the classroom and/or letting textbooks do the teaching for them, I started doing poorly in school. If I didn't show my math work exactly how I was expected to think the process through, I was docked marks. Not because my answer was wrong (which it wasn't), but because my thinking process wasn't considered the acceptable one. I was an exceptional math student when I was allowed to figure things out in my own way, but the more rigid the thought process became, the worse I did. I would have excelled with this so-called 'new' math. And had this kind of teaching been applied in other subjects as well, I would have remained an honors student. However, I was taught fully on the 'traditional' system, where if you couldn't do things in a specific way then you were wrong and left behind in the dust. I firmly believe that schools and educators need to accept the fact that different people learn in different ways and that they need to support more than 1 way of learning so that more students can excel in their own way of coming to the correct answer. This math curriculum actually addresses the fact that there is more than 1 way to get there.

Furthermore, both of my children have been doing the new math program since they started school. To be honest, I didn't even notice that they were, I just remember thinking that I liked how hands-on they were with learning it. I assumed it was just their teachers finding a great way that works. Both of my boys that are in school do extremely well in math. They do these kinds of activities at home as well, and I can see how beneficial it is to them. When they, on occasion, don't get the correct answer the first time they DO self-correct and end up finding the right one in their own way. They are learning math skills that are actually applicable to the real world. Bottom line here is that I learned every single math skill that I still use in real life while I was in elementary school. I grant you that I'm not an engineer or anything like that, but I firmly believe that teaching math that is applicable to the real world is beneficial. If people are THAT adamant that their child memorize the multiplication table, then work on it at home for 15 minutes after homework or something. Be proactive in your child's education. Don't feed me lines about being a working parent. I was raised by a single working mother who still made sure to make time to help her kids with any and all school projects or homework they had. It IS possible to be a working parent and still be active in your child's education.

So there you have it. With all of the crap going around dissing on the 'new' math program, here was my side of the argument. For the record, I have read up on the new curriculum and how the teaching works before I wrote this. But this is Alberta. Even when we hate something, we're still unwilling to change it because it would appear that we hate changing it up even more. Don't get me wrong, I love living in Alberta and it would take a miracle to make me leave. But as a province we tend to be extremely resistant to change...That's just 1 mother's opinion, though.

So Many Blessings

Last week was kind of a huge week for me in a lot of ways. I received a lot of tender mercies from the Lord. John was home with me every day except for Thursday. Instead, my dad was with me that day to take care of my kids for me. My dad also stayed with the kids both times John and I had to go to the ER. At the beginning of the week I had no clue what was even wrong with me. I was in so much pain and had no clue how I'd injured myself. It turns out, I didn't. Thanks to someone leaving a comment on my blog, I realized that I actually had an abscess. I went in to the ER days sooner than I would have if it hadn't been suggested to me. I had amazing people helping me while I was in the ER. On Thursday evening, as our bishop sat in our living room for a visit, he was inspired then and there to give me a new calling. I will be honest, I cried tears of happiness and relief. Within a minute of him extended the calling to me, I physically felt myself coming back to life. It was that pronounced. John saw it in me too. I got the opportunity to watch almost all of the 4 gold medal games I'd wanted to watch (I missed the last few ends of men's curling when I was back in the ER on Friday for my follow up). I also got to watch the amazing hockey game when our Canadian boys beat the US on Friday with one of my friends. On Friday I was very nervous about them taking the packing out of my wound and if they'd need to repack it. I had heard it can all be extremely painful. I was so grateful that I only had a moment of pain while the packing was taken out and was grateful again when the doctor told me it was small enough and healing well enough that it didn't need to be packed again. What a huge blessing! And yesterday I started the day with Caleb. We woke up at 4:30 am to watch the men's hockey team win gold. What an amazing memory it is for me to have shared that with him. I will remember it for years to come. And then in the afternoon, during ward conference, I was sustained as the Mia Maids adviser. I had all of those girls in activity days as well as when I was serving over Beehives. I have served one of the girls in Mia Maids in 6 different callings in the (not quite) 8 years I've been in this ward. I am so grateful for all of the good things that happened to me during the past week, and also that I was willing to see and focus on them rather than just the negative things that were occurring. My testimony grew leaps and bounds during the week. I truly am blessed!

Huge Thank You!

I'd like to send a huge thank you to the person who made an anonymous comment on my last post. I looked into what you suggested, and you were exactly right. I went in to the ER yesterday morning, they confirmed it and sedated me to drain the abscess. I have been pretty drugged up for the past 36 hours and been in a fair bit of pain, but I'm starting to feel a LOT better. I am so grateful for that anonymous comment, it probably saved me days more of being in really bad pain.

How Did That Even Happen?

Somehow last week I managed to bruise my tailbone. I have NO idea how it happened. I don't do any kind of sport, I didn't fall. Absolutely nothing sticks out to me about what could have caused it. At any rate, I've been in a lot of really bad pain most of the time. It hurts the least when I'm laying on my stomach, but even then it's still not totally gone. I have found 2 things so far that have made a dent in the pain. The first is Tiger Balm. I can't say enough good things about that stuff. It's the only thing that helps with my upper back pain and it's the only pain reliever I've tried that's even made a dent in the pain in my tailbone. John also went out and got me a seat cushion this morning with a U cut out of the back so that my tailbone isn't sitting on anything when I'm sitting down. Apparently a bruised tailbone takes 4 weeks to recover from. Here's hoping for a quick 4 weeks...

Thoughts and Reflections

I realized this morning that over the past 12.5 months, I've actually become a lot more private of a person. Hardly anyone knows about the bigger things that have gone on in my life. I'm okay with that, some of it just doesn't belong out there. I wasn't even going to blog about the whole cancer thing, but then I realized that since I really suck at journalling, I should at least have some record of this somewhere. At any rate, here are 10 things that have happened in the past year that I'm willing to share:

1 - I was released from the Young Women presidency in our ward in a VERY VERY VERY emotional meeting with the bishopric member. Apparently they drew straws over who had to be the one to tell me. I still miss it a lot. But I am enjoying the calling I'm currently in.

2 - After spending years growing my hair out and getting it back to it's natural colour as well, I chopped it off super short. I enjoyed it being short, but have now started the process of growing it out again.

3 - Caleb lost his first tooth. He was over the moon about it and has lost a few more since then. In our house, we buy the kids a milkshake when they lose a tooth, which he loves.

4 - We found out that Brettley is allergic to something in creamy salad dressings. Since then, I have made a LOT of homemade Caesar salad dressing.

5 - I burnt my arm really badly while making Rice Krispies squares. I have a permanent scar from it. I have not made any squares since then.

6 - Caleb had his first piano recital. He did well and looked so dapper in his suit.

7 - We finally got a brand new couch and love seat. I think my mum fell out of her chair when I told her they were brown. (She is HUGE on decorating in brown, and I kind of hate it, but I'm really warming up to certain shades of brown).

8 - Brettley had his second strabismus operation. His eyes are a lot better, but not 100%. I'm trying not to make him do another surgery, since he never fully recovered from the second one.

9 - Ty started Kindergarten and my mornings got a LOT more quiet. His favourite thing to do at school is the house centre.

10 - I finally got a laptop. I got inheritance money from my grandparents and while most of it went to paying off debts, I got to buy one really frivolous thing, so I got a laptop and a wireless trackball mouse. I love em!

My Mum

Can I just say... My mum is a rock star. She is Wonder Woman. She is amazing! I think I was still in shock a bit in my last post when I talked about finding out she'd had cancer. I couldn't get across at the time how it worked in to everything else, but I'd like to do that now. In May 2012 my mum's mom went into a home due to her Alzheimer's and dementia. She wasn't herself anymore and continued to lose who she was from there on. Mum went as often as she could to visit with my grandma and was always thinking of new things she could do to make my grandma as comfortable as possible. Mum is one of the most compassionate and selfless people on the planet. That's just how she is. My mum started getting sick a lot more last year and while doing some tests in her throat area, they found something. She found out that they'd had suspicious results a couple of days before she was called to stay by her mom's side during the last few days of her life. While Mum was struggling with what these results meant for her, she doted upon my grandma and helped her dad and 4 brothers through the whole process. She took care of Grandma until her very last breath, doing everything she could to make Grandma's last days as comfortable and happy as possible. Grandma's battle was finally over, and Mum said goodbye to her mother while taking care of her dad through the process. Not even 6 weeks later Mum found out that there was indeed a mass that was probably cancer. Within days she received word that her dad had passed away. There was family drama going on left and right (horrible drama that I will never recount on here), and Mum had to come to terms with the whole cancer thing at the same time that she was essentially burying both of her parents (we buried both of their urns at the same time). She entered the Christmas season getting more and more sick every day. She had to decide whether or not to tell my brother and I about the results. The decision was to not tell us until after the surgery for very good personal reasons. So while her health was deteriorating and she was mourning her parents, my mum had only her husband for support while preparing for surgery. May I add, she continued working full time through all of this. Weeks before her surgery, at a time when she was always exhausted, barely making it through the days, she was making meals for her friend who lost her daughter at a very young age.

2013 was not kind to my mum. But she pulled through, while still doing everything that she could to continue to help others around her. My mum is one of the most inspirational people that I know of. I am so amazed by how she dealt with everything. She is truly an example of a compassionate, selfless and patient woman. I can only hope that I end up becoming half the woman that she is. I am truly blessed to call her my mum.