Handbook on Dealing with Crap – Practicing Gratitude

First off, when I had hit “Publish” on the last article “Hiatus from Life, and Return”, I thought to myself, “Yea, no one’s gonna read that”.

Not only did I genuinely believe that, but the thought also made it easier to put the truth bombs I was dropping out into the world. Y’all clearly proved me wrong, I was not expecting the outpouring of genuine support and love I have received in the last week. It has made my heart warmer and my writing hand stronger 😊. Thank you for your kindness, for saying my words resonated with you, and encouraging me to continue.

Hiatus from Life, and the Return

The last two years have been heavy for a lot of people, in a lot of different ways. They have taught us about patience, loss, grief, gratitude and everything in between. The past year has done the same for me, but for very different reasons.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Source credit

What’s your favourite childhood memory?

Is it a routine thing you did with a parent? Is it an annual family tradition? Or a specific moment in time? Is it the noise of the first pretend concert you did for your parents in the living room? Or the quiet of being in your mom’s arms on a sick day? Is it the day you first met your sibling in a hospital room? Or is it weekly dinners at grandma’s house? It is a big moment, a celebration, a vacation? Or is it a small, tiny, inconsequential one?

Latest CBC Article!

So I have not been sharing all the articles I’ve been doing for CBC, but I think this one’s a good one for parents to read!

“How We Plan on Raising a Money-Smart Child”

http://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/how-we-plan-on-raising-a-money-smart-child

A Pen is Mightier Than a Sword

Source credit

Four years ago, I decided that while I was great and perfectly sufficient as the focal point of my own existence, I needed something more. I needed to have a footprint bigger than the one I had at the time, to make an impact or contribute to an effort that was bigger than my journey, to be awakened by something more than just my daily 7 am alarm.

The Horsepower of a Dad

Source credit

For this Father’s day, to get the story straight from the horse’s mouth, I asked the spouse how becoming a father had changed his identity, his personality, his view of the world. How has fatherhood changed his purpose in life?

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Meh.”

The man is a prolific poet with his words.

The Little Shadows That Walk With Us

Source credit

As far as the parenting world is concerned, the only struggle greater than that of raising a child is to lose one. It’s a struggle of loss, of grief, of identity, of recovery, of hope.

And it is one that is often kept silent. It’s a topic seldom openly discussed, and consequently one that most people are inept at dealing with. Here, I wish to do my part to normalize this conversation, to show the inside workings of the mind of a parent who loses a child and how they manage to keep on going.

Mother’s Day Special: Supermarket Flowers

Mother’s Day is coming up and hopefully your spouse and kids have been emotionally blackmailed enough by TV commercials (or you) to buy you supermarket flowers. Or a diamond or two.

It’s a happy day for mommies by and large. It is the one day we are recognized for the aches and pains of bringing human life into the world and then hauling it around. Our kids make us burnt toast for breakfast and we gleam like the sad saps we are.