march madness

brace yourselves...another very full month of life to recap. it's so hard to remember a month once its over. ;)

What's new with Sasha? she's had another bit of a growth spurt and last we measured a few weeks ago she was over 39 inches tall! So now we've moved up to the next level of car seat and she is no longer constrained in the toddler seat. a month 'til her 3rd bday and she is as tall as most of the 4 and 5 year olds in her daycare.

Speaking of daycare, her teachers have told us recently that she has really started to come out of her shell now and is making friends, socializing well and having a lot of fun. yay! She was pretty shy the first while but now she likes it so much she often gives Mark a hard time about going home at the end of the day when he picks her up, hehe.

At home she continues to love playing daycare and naptime, and the one role play game she seems to be favouring more lately is doctor. every time someone she knows gets sick or hurts themselves, she will be nursing us and all her dollies for the same ailments. recently Grandma Penny hurt her back and then all Sasha wanted to do was fix our backs "is your back a little bit sore? here. let me help your back, come see me at my doctors office." even if you say "no thanks, I feel great" she'll reply with "no, I think your back hurts and you need to see the doctor. come on" LOL. runny noses, flu bugs, bandaids for cuts and bruises...she has either spent too much time at doctors appointments, or she is going to follow in her Aunty Karli's footsteps as a healer. :)

Though she has been exposed to the computer on a rare occasion, this was the month that she finally realized just how much fun she can have with online games at cbc and pbs all by herself. Now she asks for computer time every day!! I usually indulge her most days for a 1/2 hour and play with her while marveling at all the things she can do on her own! Most of the games involve letters, words and other skills while providing fun, so the preschool stuff I'm not too worried about. It just set in the reality that she will likely be like all other kids and want more games, etc from now on...a baby no longer. Fortunately she seems ok with getting off the computer (though sometimes we need to ask a few times) and will close the windows and get down when asked.

She has always been a pretty good questioner of all things, but she has finally hit the big "why?" stage...why? why? why? It's really hard not to get to the point where you just respond "because, that's why" when I run out of answers. Determined to nurture her inquiring mind though, I love her curiosity! ...even when patience runs thin from constant third degrees to my knowledge base, hehe

Early in March we had a great time at Keyan's carnival birthday party. My fave pic is Sasha's expression in defending her sundae. this girl likes her chocolate and ice cream. she says who needs a spoon? lol


This year was our turn to have Che for march break, though he spent the first few days at his grandparents cabin up the sunshine coast. Nice treat to have him show up with a big bag of prawns caught that morning before he came home! mmmmm, fresh prawns from the straight!

Overall the weather wasn't so great so we kinda hibernated for the rest of the week. We enjoyed another family swim at Brit, and when the sun finally shone over the weekend we got good and dirty and cleaned up a large portion of all our tiers, tilling the soil and getting ready to do some planting. I have a regular at Brit pool that has been so generous in sharing seeds from her own garden and I can't wait to watch some food grow on our patio again! Mark and Che also got distracted throwing a plane back and forth over the fence while I made lunch. I love our kitchen window overlooking our patio!


here's a cute random shot of Sasha and her friends hogging our bed. once in a while she comes up early in the a.m. and joins us for some snuggle and extra sleep time. but, it doesn't leave much room for us when she spreads out as you can see.

After the break, Che and his band "the Cheese" (as they play cheesy music, hehe) performed at his schools talent show. Unfortunately we didn't find out about it 'til the night before (still working on those communication gaps...) so I wasn't able to go, but Granma came and picked up Che and Mark and the reviews were that his band is awesome. And thankfully his mom recorded it so we can all enjoy the show! He's a natural on stage, and his ukelele skills have come a long way...i'm looking forward to my chance to check them out live! Too bad they only got to play one song (a long line up for the evening, 26 acts, 21 of which were hip hop or some other dance routine. next year hope they'll aim for some more balance in the line up)

Sasha and I had a moment of performance this month too. I ended up doing an interview for the CBC for their coverage on a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on BC's Growing Gap. The report is not only about the income inequality gap that exists today, but also covers information on how our generation earns less than our parents generation. Factor in inflation and the majority of us have less spending power then folks back in the 70's had. The video segment that made it to the 6 o'clock news included 30 sec of footage of me and Sasha playing on the playground across the street from her daycare, and a 10 sec soundbite from me "I was under the impression that things are supposed to improve from one generation to the next, and when I see what things are like for my generation it makes me worry for what Sasha's generation will be dealing with". Read the summary, full report and find other resources on BC's Growing Gap: Family Income Inequality, 1976-2006. And I have a copy of the news clip if you'd like to see it sometime (the CBC doesn't archive vid clips on their site very long so too late to see it now online)

My brother-in-law arrived in town for his first visit with us just a couple of hours before the interview at the park with Tanya Beja, so he got to watch the whole thing. Sasha is crazy about her Uncle Fraser, and now that he is working with a trucking company based out of Surrey he will be a regular visitor. Wonderful to have him stay with us while he's in town, and look forward to a time when Manda comes across country with him for a visit too! Here's Sasha in his truck, showing him all her bath toys and getting him to read a story to her and all her stuffies. (A cute little vid clip of Sasha revealing all her treats in her bag to be seen at the end of this post) :)


One thing I've been up to since the fall that I haven't written about is Team Green Brit. Last summer when it was a quiet time in the Info Centre at Britannia, I got bored and needed a project. Brenda let me take over a bulletin board for a space where Brit staff could share resources on all things "green" and sustainable. My idea was simply to provide a space where we could see what all of our small individual efforts looked like collectively.

Then I decided that the copier room was not an inclusive enough as the Brit complex is huge, and the majority of the staff don't use that space...so I created a little blog to share an interactive online space for staff with the same intent as the bulletin board. A debate started up through email over whether or not we should keep our water coolers, which led to me facilitating a vote on the matter, and writing a report for the association board to review, and researching water filtration alternatives as it turned out the majority of the staff were in favour of switching away from the water bottle coolers.

Then I asked what everyone wanted to debate next, and the number one thing was recycling. Our huge complex does not have a comprehensive recycling plan, and the public have next to no options but the garbage (if they don't think to ask staff, which many people do thankfully) So I surveyed the staff again, and am working on another report for the board.

The exciting thing though is that this month we actually had our first team meeting and I am no longer the only keener on this project! Our plan is to start with identifying barriers within the complex, one area at a time. We are making desk-based recylcing kits for everyone in the Info centre, and have many other ideas for the long run. Fun and exciting, and wonderful to bring people together over something positive. :)

Since organizing and outreach, research and report writing have become something I just seem compelled to do, I enjoy the work and seem to come by the skillset naturally, I've been thinking a lot about the kind of work I want to do long term. At some point my hours I've been coasting on at Brit will dwindle to too few to sustain us, so my job search continues (and also a reason I'm extra happy the Team Green Brit initiative has grown so quickly into a group that will sustain it without me) and this month I decided to take a plunge and apply for an organizer position. I figure I might as well see what I'm capable of when it is my job to organize and I can put all of my energy into it, rather than piecing my organizing efforts in a few hours at a time as I'm able...I think I've got the passion and determination to get some good work done.

With some super support and constructive help from my awesome Daub darling friends over brunch one day, I polished my advocacy resume and tossed my hat in for the position of the Living Wage Campaign Organizer position for First Call BC's Child & Youth Advocacy Coalition. I kinda thought I'd at least make the short list, though figured my competition would be too great for me to really win the job. For me it seemed worth it to try, because now I have genuine confidence in the skillset I've been developing, and I'm more confident that I'm finally on the right path towards meeting my potential one day (though still undecided on what that will actually look like...maybe by 40 I'll have it figured out?) It also reconnected my motivation to get CPEN involved with the First call coalition too, which I can, and will, still do at some point.

Funny story on how I found out I didn't make the cut: my friend Jessie asked me to touch base with her, and when I called her she first asked if I was still on good terms with First Call. I had worked there a few years back, but being a non-profit in a funding crunch they had condensed two of us part-timers into one full time position, which I wasn't qualified for having no financial background to be a true office manager type. And at the time, after knowing my job was on the line for about 6 months it was a relief to have it end. That was not stress I liked, and I didn't end up doing the best job I could in my last few months because I was unhappy there. (and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not cut out for desk jobs long term...too much energy) But I loved working for the organization and was proud to be a part of it, and especially loved working with one my all time fave ladies of inspiration Adrienne Montani. First Call is an amazing coalition of organizations that aspire to improve things for children and youth.

Anyways, I then said I was super keen to work with First Call again and had applied for the organizer position, then Jessie says "this is awkward...I was calling to see if you'd be my reference as I have an interview for the job tomorrow" and my response was "well, I guess I didn't get short-listed then!" what a small world. And no wonder I didn't make the cut if I was up against the likes of her. I'm hoping she gets it because she will do an incredible job! Mark and I met Jessie when she was teaching a course called Globalization 101, and over the years I have come to love her and her hubby Marc for their continued inspiration to Mark and I. I could gush for quite awhile over all the things this couple have done that has provided me with positive motivation...so to find out under this circumstance, though Jessie felt awful about being the messenger of bad news, that she is the perfect person for the job really softened the blow ;)

And maybe it wasn't meant to be. After all, I am trying to produce a documentary on the privatization of our education system in my 'spare' time...perhaps my energies are supposed to be focusing on one big thing at at time, and maybe organizing a living wage campaign for the lower mainland is not a challenge I'm not meant to have right now? Well, on the producer front I received some great inspiration from the free panel discussions I attended during the Women in Film Festival early in the month. Wonderful stories from women who have made careers for themselves in an industry predominately full of male success.

I also learned a few new things to help me get through the next couple of years on my own film project. After months of hard work finalizing the story, script notes and proposal package our fate for "Educate Me!?" is once again in the hands of the production committee of the National Film Board. We have officially resubmitted our idea, and I am feeling really confident that we were able to tell the story in a way that will convince them it needs to be a film, and it needs to be an NFB production! I will hear back from one of the producers after they have reviewed, even if it is Teri letting me down while providing more constructive criticism for improvement (she was the woman who gave me all the amazing feedback after my November submission.) If it's not them, it's gonna be somebody...but I'll keep you posted regardless. Fingers crossed everyone!! ;P

April is the month our little one turns 3 years old! She is very excited about her bday party already and wants a blueberry cake...mmmmmmm. details on the her special day and our April adventures in the next post...for now, enjoy a couple of cute video clips :)

vids this month - "my blueberries" and showing some stuff to uncle Fraser