Emma, I can hardly believe that I’m writing this, but you are nine years old today.
This photo says it all. You are tall and confident. Friendly and generous. You have your own sense of the world and I love that about you.
– you are a wonderful caregiver. I’m already singing your praises to potential babysitting customers. I’m not sure if you know this, but you’ve always had great leadership skills. Even when you were in preschool, at two years old, you’d be the one showing the new kids around or comforting someone if they were sad. You’re a natural shepherd, and anyone younger is naturally in your flock (whether they like it or not, unfortunately.)
– you are turning out to be a great swimmer. You love to read. You love being outdoors. All of these things are shadowy reflections of my own self. And that amazes me. How much of you is you, and how much of you is me? I’m still wondering how it all works.
– you have a can-do attitude and are so confident about conquering certain things, like swimming, and stilt-walking, and reading. Math? Not so much.
What does it feel like to be nine? I tried asking you about it last night but wasn’t able to get a straight answer.
I’ll tell you. You are changing, and finding out more about yourself and about the world around you. You’re still very much a little girl, but there’s a bigger girl inside of you who is eager to get on with it already. I don’t want to rush it. I love you very much the way you are, but I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Love,
Mumma
The kind folks at Knock on Wood Communications have given me the green light to give away a pair of tickets to the opening night production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It’s coming to the NAC between May 27 and June 1. (Read up on it here.)
Sound good to you? Leave your name in the comments below and I will do a random draw for the winner.Â
Easy huh?
The rules (because there has to be a few):
– The draw is for two tickets for opening night on May 27.
– Please, only one comment per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted.
– I’ll do a random draw at noon on Monday May 19th, 2008.
– I’ll post the name of the winner and contact them by email.Â
– I will give the winner contact info for the promoter
– It’s up to the winner to coordinate pick up of the tickets.
That’s it! Good luck. It looks like a good show!
Â
This appeared in my inbox recently. Anyone out there interested in helping out? (Send me an email if you are.)
I’m working on an article about kids and cheating for Parents Canada magazine. Here’s the scoop:When the whole Ryerson Facebook controversy came up, we talked about whether or not kids these days view cheating the same way their parents do. We’d need some studies that examine if cheating is more prevalent now than when we were kids, some interviews with kids who share their views on cheating, and if parental ‘help’ is cheating. What we think is that too many parents are over-helping, they see athletes taking drugs, musicians getting away with bad behaviour and reality TV showing how to ‘win the game’ by devious methods.
I’m looking for parents and kids to interview for this story about the above. Anyone game? Anybody willing to sacrifice their kids to the cause (or your kids’ friends)?
Personally, I find the concept of parents “over-helping” their kids really interesting. My kids have been doing big projects for school for a few years now. The level of, shall we say, parental involvement some children receive is really really clear when you see all the projects displayed side by side. Is parental “help” cheating?
