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War on Children – CAS funding cuts
So it seems in the wake of a massive Ehealth screwup in which it has been established that billions of provincial dollars were wasted, we have the Ontario government declaring war on children. Huh? That’s right you read that correctly. War on children. In today’s London Free Press article Children Safety At Risk Over Funding Cuts, Patrick Maloney reported that Ontario’s many Children’s Aid agencies are facing massive funding cuts. London-Middlesex Children’s Aid Society will see $1.2 million less this year from the province. Elgin County will receive an estimated $307,000 less. And the list goes on throughout the province. It has been noted by all agencies involved and well documented in…
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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – 3D review
I’d been promising my daughters a trip to the movies again, so we chose Cloudy With a Chance Of Meatballs after seeing the preview for it several months ago. The movie, based loosely on the 1978 book by Judi and Ron Barrett was an odd choice for adaptation but a charming unoffensive little flick. We’ve read this story several times in my house and I can tell you I was puzzled at first in the same way I was when I heard that there would be a movie version of The Cat in The Hat, wondering how on earth someone could create a script out of the book. There was…
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Tales from the PTA – Pizza Day
So yesterday was pizza day at my darling daughter’s school. First pizza day of the new school year and naturally to show my worth as a valuable member of daughter’s school I volunteered to help hand pizza out. As an added little side bonus while I am volunteering there I get to keep tabs on her (Hah, take that!) I drove up to the school slightly before noon and spied about six cars parked out front, which made me think they had enough volunteers. But I decided to check anyways and sure enough the pizzas had just arrived, so all hell was breaking loose in the front hall near the…
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The Parent Child Book Club – book review
I am nothing if not an avid reader. In fact, I have never needed a whole lot of encouragement that way. As a child reading was an escape and as an adult it is the way I unwind, learn and build better writing skills. My children luckily are both turning out to be book lovers, not entirely by accident though. In order to encourage budding readers I followed famed New York Times columnist and author Anna Quindlen’s advice of books in every room of the house. So in my bathroom is a drawer full of children’s books and in my living room are shelves lined with chapter books. Bedrooms and basement all have shelves…
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Jamaica with kids – starfish trelawny
Last April we ventured to Ocho Rios for the first time with our children and had a fantastic, affordable, fun, family trip. (Family of four all inclusive with flights $3600.00 )After much discussion, research and preparation, we again planned to travel as cheaply as possible at as calm a travel time as possible. Due to my daughter’s sensory processing disorder, which means everything is louder, brighter, faster and tighter in her world, we have found off season April to be most suitable for travelling. A mere four to five hour flight from Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson, Jamaica’s Starfish Trelawny resort won the day. While we initially tried to book on…
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When Love is Not Enough – Adoption Disruption in the News
It’s been a week since my last post, but I have been busily mulling over much in the world of adoption. Many of you probably read headlines about the blogger Mommy Anita Tedaldi who adopted a child and then when she felt the baby boy wasn’t bonding gave him up. It was all over the U.S. media and the Internet late last week. Tedaldi was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show. She was condemned and praised as people all over responded viscerally to her story. Last week I was called by a Montreal radio show to give comment on adoption and whether this mom did the best thing…
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Smart books
I am taking a few moment today to organize as I just got back from another excellent conference, this time in Saskatoon. One of my take home ideas from the FASD (Fetal alcohol specturm disorder) conference last week put on by the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute was this – a manual on my children essentially. A tip I’m going to call my Smart Books, for lack of a better name. So this morning I made a quick stop at Shopper’s Drug Mart and bought two new binders to start my organizing. One will be for each of my children. Up until now I have been a big fan of the All…
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Saskatoon Inn review
It’s not often that I am so pleasantly surprised by my accommodations that I race to the computer, eager to commend the venue and its staff. This week while staying in Saskatchewan at the Saskatoon Inn and conference centre, 2002 Airport Drive, I couldn’t help but do just that. From check in to check out the service here was exceptional. To begin with I arrived much earlier than check in time on a Wednesday, not intentional just the way flights worked out. A convenient airport shuttle was perhaps a five minute wait and baggage appeared without delay at Diefenbaker Airport. Despite the fact that I was a good two or…
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September musings for teachers and parents
Dear teacher: I need you to know a few things about my child. She came to our family though adoption and I know this may sound oddly confessional to you, even perhaps a little bit overly friendly. But I need you to know this because I am nothing if not by now an expert on my child. She will need more in your class than many of the other students. Oh she is bright alright and she loves school, but you see September for her is hard. So hard that she will come home and explode several nights before she eventually loses it and threatens to kill herself. This…
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Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
Anyone who knows me really well knows that I adore Jodi Picoult and am rapidly working my way through everything she’s ever published. Today I finished reading Handle With Care, a truly beautiful poignant story about a family pushed to the brink of breaking by a daughter, Willow’s disability and a lawsuit that the family initiates. Willow has osteogenesis imperfecta and the fact that I can spell that by memory now is one of the many reasons I adore this author. So this is to be a strange list hyphen book review of the many reasons why this author is inspirational to me. And by the way this book also gets…