fun in the feb blahs

I'll start with the eye update: we took Sasha to the eye doctor last wednesday (a drama to get there as transit was rerouted around the explosion on broadway!) and the prognosis is good. Dr. Kennedy's opinion was that what she has is an acquired estropia (very common between 18 months - 2 years.), which causes an eye to turn in when the effort to focus becomes difficult. If left to long it can be severe as their little brains are still flexible enough to just get used to seeing out one eye and give up on the one that requires too much effort. Though it is a condition that can lead to blindness, he patted us on the back and told us we were good parents for getting her in quickly. The fact that she is irritated by it and still trying to control it herself was proof it is not too late to put those eye muscles back to work.

This week we picked up her glasses which will hopefully help correct the problem she is having focusing her right eye in as little as 6 months. It could take longer, but ultimately he believes she will outgrow it. We may need to supplement with an eye patch or drops if she continues to favour the left eye after a few months. The glasses themselves should be enough...and with stylie pink frames she's bound to keep turning heads with her cuteness :)

This look kind of expresses her feelings on wearing them so far. teehee. not to worry. there are a few more pics below from when she actually kept them on long enough to get pics...and they tell us she will want to wear once she realizes they make it easier for her to focus.

Since Sasha started at Tina's child care a few weeks ago she has gone from a few words and many signs, to a bunch of words and constant babbling . She is also starting to sing a whole bunch too...so sweet! There is another boy at Tina's who is about 2 1/2. On Sasha's first day he asked me why she didn't talk. I said that she didn't have many friends who could talk yet (and her best friend is deaf...though little Merlin is also starting to talk lots now too!), but knowing him would encourage her to learn words because she would look up to him as the big kid there. When I saw him the other day he was all smiles when I thanked him for his help teaching Sasha new words.

Though I would prefer a mon-wed arrangement which she can't offer, we're hoping to stay with Tina for a bit as other care, close to home and affordable, is proving crazy hard to find. Perhaps if we had a car (and Mark his license) we would have more options. Sasha seems to like it at Tina's as well (the first few days she walked away from me "bye bye" and straight for the room of toys), though she had a few days last week where she got mad at me dropping her off...daddy was the hero who rescued her. I'm hoping that phase has passed. The days she gave me the cold shoulder I was also really sick with a stomach bug so didn't take it well...aren't kids supposed to be nice to their moms when they are sick? LOL

Aside from a week of sickness (Mark caught it too but didn't get hit as bad by it) things around the home have been good. We are all fans of Sasha's favorite game which is hugging people around the room. She'll go from mommy, to daddy, to brother, and around and around. And every day before bedtime we do a big family hug where she leans into each of us for her kiss...makes me all mushy.

Che has become more and more comfortable watching out for his little sis, and she loves that he will push her around in the variety of tot cars left around the passageway of our co-op. (our suite is at the end of the row of townhomes on the right...up those stairs at the end)

Sasha is very good for everyone who watches her (we are the ones she is testing, naturally). She's had no problems with my friends who have filled in, her grandparents she adores, and so with his practise helping us and Granpa, Che has earned a chance to watch her all be himself next week. He may even have to change his first diaper ;)

Since my last post we have had two family outtings. One night for Mark and I to go out with Dad & Liz, and Sasha went to play with Annty and Luis Phillipe. We had a lovely indian meal and then went to see the play "The Satchmo' Suite" at the Cultch. An amazing show!!! Really...if it comes to your town - don't miss it!!

Our other family outting was to meet up with Tom, Kristina and Keyan for the Chinese new year parade. Nice that Chinatown is one neighbourhood in walking distance for us. Sasha loved all the colour and was full of oohs and aahs. Except all the fireworks at the beginning. Though it started to rain at the end it was a great time. I only wish I had known Gordon Campbell was going to be in front of me...would have come up with something witty to ask our premier. We did get interviewed by Telus TV. He said it was because of the cute baby on my back, and asked why we were there - to celebrate one of the many cultures of our Vancouver home of course! The nice thing about city living is the opportunities you have as a parent to expose your kids to so many different cultures and new things. :)











On the education front things are still busy, though there have been a few postponements. The PEP forum that was supposed to be this weekend will be in a couple of months likely. The CPEN celebration for the 5th anniversary, will now be a series of regional forums around BC to mark the 5th year and reconnect with the communities that were a part of the original process.

With many many thanks to those of you who took the time to vote for my proposal, I received the 100 votes I needed to create an actual fundraising project at givemeaning.com. Now I just need the Public Education Research Foundation (PERF) to agree to be the charitiable organization attached to it...fun of fundraising.

Tanya and I are going ahead with filming this weekend. Our first day of 'folks on the street' interviews. It will feel good to actually have something on film, and to begin work on the trailer we will use in our pitch to other funders.

I'm constantly trying to find blocks of decent writing time. My ability to manage the time I have has improved greatly, but to really tap into the creative juices it takes a big chunk of time. This is very hard to juggle around needs of family, work and having a mental break once in a while. I am a bit behind...but for the most part we are doing well with the overall film schedule. My friend Allan is contributing his time as our production manager for a while, which is a super big help for Tanya and I in getting organized. Once I get the proposal for the CBC done I will feel much better...

Next week is another crazy busy one. On Thursday, Che will look after Sasha while I host a CPEN meeting here at home. Then Tanya and I, along with my CPEN cohorts are off to the CCPA fundraising dinner. An annual event I always look forward to for the great food (Fraserview Hall is consistently good with their indian buffet), thought-provoking guest speaker and hugs from friends and colleagues. :)

Friday night, my friend Andrea is hosting a wine & cheese event for us to pick the minds of teachers, parents and potential municipal candidates on what success might look like in public education. We may do some filming at the wine & cheese, but overall it will be a good night for promoting our work and narrowing the focus on local positive and negative issues for our district.

I'll finish off with a few more pics of Sasha in her styley glasses. I especially like the one of her and Mark all smiles. :)

lazy and crazy

Just over a month into the new year and as always there's plenty to write about. After a big unpack at the start of the year, we kinda lost our mojo and have just been enjoying our new home...though those little things left to-do are starting to make me itch to get them done already. teehee.

here is Sasha enjoying our patio space. lots of dirt to dig in and rocks to pile all over the place. simple good times :)

we are not thrilled at the easy access to our patio though, having the case for our canopy go missing from our patio table one night. our initital thought was that someone had taken it just to be a jerk. afterall...who needs a carry case for a canopy without the canopy? Susan's insight was that it was likely someone who is homeless and needed it to protect their stuff. I was grateful for the new way of looking at it as I can let go of anger over it thinking that it will help someone who needs it. it will be a pain for us to transport the canopy for camping etc...but we also aren't on the streets in the cold wet of vancouver winter. And we'll put up a latice soon to block entry to our patio in the future.

so the cute picture of Sasha is above before you see the worst one yet. Over the past week or so she has developed a lazy eye. as you can see the look we're trying to adjust to is this one - cross-eyed!

I took her to the doctor on thursday to get a referral to a pediatric optomitrist. (a hellish experience because we were kept waiting waaaaaaaaaaay too long, so once again her patience was maxed before we saw the doctor. that, and I think she's now afraid of the doctor giving her needles. grrrr. a very fustrating morning!) She tells me the wait can be long but she'll try to get us bumped up the priority list. If it is simply some muscles going lazy in her right eye, one relatively effective and easy treatment, if caught soon enough, will be to use a patch to cover/ drops to blur the good eye to put the lazy one back to work. She could potentially be a bit far-sighted as it seems she is going cross-eyed when trying to focus on things long range. I'll update on this as soon as I am able.

Other things to update about in these crazy times include some fun experiences. Our evening out with Penny was a night of interesting new things for her. We had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant just a few blocks away. Yum yum yum. The performance was not what we expected, but it was a good show. We thought the two orchestras would be doing some combined work, but overall enjoyable for our first exposure to modern orchestra music. Much gratitude to our hero Susan for babysitting that night!

In a couple of weeks we have a night out on the town with Dad & Liz too...still looking for a sitter that night. hint hint any takers in vancouver? ;)

Another good time was had last night at the Holly Day party held for our co-op. We got to meet another handful of families, and I gotta say I'm in heaven to be surrounded by so many folks who like to hug like I do! sweet! Here is one girl we're really happy to know. Lyndsay is going to be our mother's helper now and then in a little win-win for us both. She's almost 12 and trying to increase her experience as a babysitter, and I need another couple of hours in my week to work on writing and such. Sasha loves her, and Mark & I were actually able to spend time chatting with our new neighbours a bit, including Lyndsay's parents, as she was already being a big help in keeping an eye on our roving exporer girl. Yay!

I'm two weeks into my new work schedule now that the job share has begun. It will take my body clock a while to get used to being at work 'til 9pm a couple of nights a week (as it delays bedtime etc getting home later), but the stability of a set routine should help out. whenever we finally have that set routine organized that is...

Tomorrow Sasha is starting her first day at a child care! We found a really nice woman offering licensed care out of her home. It is affordable and only 8 blocks away. Sasha loved her and her home when we went to check it out. We signed an agreement with her for mon-wed so i can work on documentary stuff on the day i don't work. my mon and tues alternate which was making finding care just around my hours really complicated. As I'm always looking for writing time and interviews etc, I figured why juggle? Tanya recommended just looking for 3 days...d'uh! why didn't I think of it sooner?

Well, today she calls and says the 2 days I had originally asked for would work better as one of her other moms has decided that she needs the 3rd day. So now I am dealing with immense frustration at having to look for affordable, close to home care all over again! arrrgh! we have a month...so hopefully the stars align and something else really awesome comes together.

On the public education front I had a great time at the conference held last weekend on Equity & Inclusion. There is a weird synergy following me on education since I put it out there that I'm making a doc on the issue. For instance, I was thinking one day that I needed a contact in China. The next day, at the CPEN board meeting, we have a new board member who is fluent in 5 languages and active in the Chinese community. And she is super keen to help me translate and promote anything around the doc. Cool. but it gets better. the day after that, I'm working at Brit, and the former ED just happens to be touring with a delegation of community education people from...that's right...CHINA! Shanghai specifically. even cooler that they are from a district in China that believes so strongly in lifelong learning that they actually commit 60% of their budget to education.

the synergy continued around the conference. Tanya and I had received correspondence from someone suggesting two names we needed to talk to...and those two gentlemen just happened to be the keynote speakers for the friday night portion of the conference I was at a few days later. Another country I was thinking I needed a contact in was Cuba...and at the conference I reconnected with one of my mentors...who just happened to be leaving for Cuba soon! shut up! crazy...but i'm not gonna question it!

oh yeah...my friend, before heading to Cuba, sent me an invite to speak at a Tri-National conference (Mexico, Canada and USA) in defence of public education in April. They want me to speak about the Charter process and how teachers and communities can work together to create positive change using the Charter as a tool. The even craziest part of this all-expenses-paid trip is that it is in L.A.!!!! say wha? that's right...going to california! insane. I'm still giddy from the honour of it all.

Can't wait for the trip though. For so many reasons, including that Tanya and I will also do some filming while we're there so it will be a multi-purpose public education extravaganza! And maybe we'll get a night on the town in with my friend Javier.

Back to the present. What else is up in february you ask? I'm hoping we'll have our 100 votes by the 11th on my proposal at educateme.givemeaning.com so that we can actually post the doc as a project that people can make donations to. Would sooooooooo appreciate if you could vote for it if you haven't already. And to those in the 80 who have voted - huge mega hugs of thanks!!!!

The Vancouver Public Education Project (PEP) is hosting a forum on the 23rd on advocacy and leadership. That is also the day that we will actually begin filming for the doc! As the forum is at the Central branch of the library we're going to begin our 'man on the street' interviews before and after, as well as getting some footage from the PEP event.

gotta spend lotsa time writing to get proposal out on schedule...but as always i'll be back when there is something worth sharing. like cute pics of Sasha sleeping with a wonderful new quilt sent from her east coast Grammy Martha in New Brunswick. check out her quilt shop "The Covered Bridge Quiltery" if you're ever in Moncton or visit her site www.thequiltery.com