Oldest daughter on the prairies trying her best. Pro-choice, pro-evidence based policy making, pro-curiosity, pro-civility in discourse. She/her. Views my own.
Family paint night.
My 7 year old is so disappointed in hers (bottom left) but we all think it’s fantastic. If you want to throw some compliments her way, I’ll happily read them to her to encourage her and remind her that she’s a pretty awesome artist 😊
I have a car, this doesn’t mean I’m an expert in automotive engineering.
I have a body, this doesn’t mean I’m an expert in medicine.
I use bridges, this doesn’t mean I’m an expert in civil engineering.
I have kids, this doesn’t mean I’m an expert in child development and psych
Remember in 2020 when kids had birthday parties cancelled, activities cease, schools shut down, playgrounds were closed, and they couldn’t see their friends?
All to protect ICU capacity for adults?
I sure as hell do.
The literal least we as adults can do is put on a mask.
Today I had lunch with a bunch of friends and one of them referred to their child as they/them so then…we all immediately referred to their child as they/them.
One time I slipped and used a gendered pronoun then immediately said “I’m sorry, they.”
None of this was hard for us
Remember when our summers weren’t spent grieving losses of towns and ecological destruction, spending time indoors to avoid heat stroke and damage to our lungs from wildfire smoke, and planning travel, vacations etc around wildfires?
Time for:
Another 🙌🏻 to the moms who have offered to take my kid’s gr 3 classmates home for lunch all week; and
An unfriendly reminder that our communities are functioning b/c the non-contractually required labour of teachers is being replaced with the volunteer labour of women
Pleased to report my 9 and 11 year old daughters just survived the trauma of their paper straws at Taco Time becoming too soft to work well.
They used to the shockingly innovative solution of removing the lids from their cups and drinking directly from the cup.
Things that are actual real risks to my children right now: covid and influenza.
Something that is not an actual risk to my children: wearing a mask in the classroom.
It’s strange how covid is over and yet one of my friends is currently very ill with covid.
When will boosters be available to everyone in Saskatchewan? I’d like mine asap- ideally before my kids return to school.
Am I correct in assuming pavloxid is still not readily available?
Of all the people to be scared of, or to even have contempt for, teachers - educated professionals who have chosen to devote their careers to educating and supporting children for modest pay and a ton of required unpaid volunteer time - should be at the bottom of the list.
Some moms in my 8 year old’s classroom WhatsApp chat are all offering to take other kids home for lunch on Thursday when the school closes over the lunch hour.
Which is awesome.
And also an excellent reminder at how much unpaid labour Moms do to keep their communities running
I consider myself privileged to be able to walk alongside my daughters as they grow.
I don’t own them; they belong to themselves. They have opinions, they have rights.
I’m here to nurture, support, encourage, and guide them as they gradually increase their independence from me.
“Abortion is health care” is not a political statement.
It is a statement of a fact and no different from “mammograms are health care” or “tonsillectomies are health care.”
I received 6 emails/edsby messages from school today (3 from admin, 3 from teachers) letting me know what’s going on in the school and in my daughters’ classrooms this week.
Thank you educators and staff for allowing me to be extremely well informed about my girls’ education 🙌🏻
How many other jobs exist where employees are required to spend their own money and time buying supplies for not only themselves but 30 other people? And where they are then responsible for moving all these supplies when their employer decides to transfer you to a new worksite?
Why did I hire movers to help me get my teaching resources to my new school?
1. I don’t have a car.
2. My new room is on the 3rd floor.
3. I had 28 boxes of stuff to move.
Here’s short 🧵 of pics of the shelves in my Gr. 1 classroom after I’d packed up my materials.
#OntEd
In the midst of figuring out plans for the school in the midst of sanctions, our daughters’ principal called today to check in on us, let us know they are watching the girls, offer counseling supports, and ask where we like to eat so the staff could purchase a gift certificate.
Feels like a good time for a reminder that the correct terms for those opposed to a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body are forced-birth and anti-choice.
Call it what it is (and it isn’t pro-life).
Me to my 7 year old: “Most of this airport is half outside, you can give yourself a mask break now.”
7 year old: “well, wearing a mask for a bit longer than I have to is better than getting sick so I’m good.”
She’s smarter than 90% of people.
Trying to imagine the conversation that transpired in which not a single person present thought to say “hey, maybe a tourism campaign asking people to “show us their Regina”” is not only ridiculously juvenile and embarrassing, but also disgusting and a terrible idea.
Tweeted yesterday about wanting a covid vaccine asap because two of my friends have recently been very sick with covid…which means it’s time to retweet this for all of the men in my mentions calling me an idiot:
Imagine what a self absorbed Mom you’d have to be to be upset about your child not bringing home a Mother’s Day craft from school because her teacher has recognized that not all kids have moms in their lives and have decided to not make a Mother’s Day project with their class.
I think the funniest thing I heard yesterday was that high rates of absenteeism in schools are actually a good thing because that means sick children are staying home which implies that schools are full of only perfectly healthy children.
@BradRedekopp
@thinktankSK
@TheStarPhoenix
Hi Brad, my Dad was killed in 2019 by an individual (with a relatively minimal criminal record) who was suffering from a drug addiction and wanted to rob my Dad to obtain things to sell to purchase more meth. In my view, he needed treatment, safe housing, support and benefits /1
10 year old told me yesterday that more people in her class are starting to take a mask after their teacher asks if anyone wants a mask each day (she’s been doing this all year 🙌🏻).
Turns out 10 year olds are smarter than many adults and fed up with being sick all the time.
Random woman I was stuck in a convo with last night: “I went for a massage and they asked me for my sex and gender and pronouns!”
Me: “Isn’t it nice the therapist makes sure she speaks to her patients how they want to be spoken to?”
How is this so hard for people to figure out.
It’s bivalent booster day 💉!
As far as I’m aware I still haven’t had covid - hoping to keep this streak going with a 5th dose (4 months to the day since my 4th dose) 🤞
Monday, the House of Commons Health committee will launch a study on "Women's health".
I admittedly couldn't help but notice the composition of the committee.
Friendly reminder that if you’re an adult and see a picture of what happened at Hardy last week, you have a fully developed pre frontal cortex and empathy that you can rely on in helping you decide whether it’s appropriate and kind to the child victim to reshare that picture.
Day 1 of my new world without my Grandad in it.
He passed last night with his daughter in law rubbing his feet, and my little sister and I holding his hands and telling him he was the very best Grandad, that we loved him so much, and that Amma will be ok.
I miss him so much.
Bought my husband a new rain gauge for Father’s Day and he just went out in the pouring rain so he could see how much we’ve gotten so far to be able to text his Dad the current total before bed.
This is how farm kids tell their farmer Dads how much they ❤️ them on Fathers Day.
@BradRedekopp
@thinktankSK
@TheStarPhoenix
All of these are within provincial jurisdiction.
Can you please advise which specific federal laws or programs you think should have been changed or implemented differently to have prevented his death?
What I do have is a healthy amount of humility and knowledge which gives me the ability to recognize and respect expertise and not be threatened by it.
I turn 41 today and I’m feeling immensely grateful to have started my day with breakfast in bed prepared by my 10 and 7 year olds and a 7:30 am birthday email from my Grandad, who turns 92 tomorrow, is currently in the hospital waiting for surgery, and thought of me first thing.
Challenge to women: experiment with refusing to move out of the way and count how many collisions and surprised/stunned/angry looks your receive as a result. Fun times.
Yesterday I said that I miss the days of not hiding from smoke for a good portion of the summer and lamented that my children won’t remember those days. I then commented that 2015 felt like a turning point.
For all of the men in my mentions challenging both of those statements:
I’m sick of people trying to gaslight everyone by telling them “we’ve always had fires in Alberta.” Of course, we’ve always had fires. But the last few years are off the charts. I grew up here. The average used to be 12 HOURS of smoke cover in a summer. Now it’s days and weeks.
Ohhhh no. A mom at cheer sitting in front of me just told another mom “to do her own research” regarding the HPV vaccine.
Saving my sanity (and preserving parent harmony) by yelling “you’re not trained or equipped to do your own research on this” on twitter instead of out loud.
My oldest daughter got her babysitting certificate this spring. She’s now watching her little sister after school sometimes and we will pay her for this work to show her that caregiving is work and that being the eldest daughter doesn’t mean everyone’s entitled to her free labour
Listening to a mom from BC on CBC talk about her 9 year olds 10th heart surgery being delayed repeatedly to make room for children being admitted with respiratory illnesses…I can’t imagine the fear and rage she is experiencing right now, watching much of society not really care.
A visual reminder of how important keeping doors closed is as a fire protection measure. The other side of this door looks fine.
Closing the door before leaving the house contained the fire to the basement and saved our home.
When your 11 year old daughter is heading off across the country with her cheer team for a competition and you realize that this is the first time she needs to very clearly understand how potentially vulnerable she is 😢
3 days ago our house almost burned down. Today I had to figure out how to keep this bow in place and get this cheerleader out the door by 9:15 am for a cheer competition.
Mom life amirite? 🫠
Earlier this week, my family and I went to a funeral for my 8 year old daughter’s friend’s mom. It was absolutely devastating.
Her friend was so loved and supported, including by her current and past teachers and her principal because this is what educators do.
Care for kids.
My daughter has an outdoor track meet today and the air quality index isn’t great due to all the smoke, so I’m packing a bunch of hand sanitizer in her backpack to help keep her safe.
Hey
@cityofsaskatoon
something needs to be done to address the parking needs of students at Nutana - students are constantly getting ticketed for parking around the school and this is creating a serious barrier to their learning and imposes a significant financial hardship.
Just got 2 emails from school inviting me to sign up for parent teacher conferences next week - yet another great opportunity to engage with the school and my kids’ teachers.
Thank you teachers and staff for taking time out of your own lives to do some of these in the evening.
Gr 6 vaccines coming up for my daughter this year and I’m so grateful she will be receiving the HPV vaccine.
Can’t imagine how furious she would be with me if I didn’t and she later develops cervical cancer and learns I could have reduced the chance of her getting it by 88%.
HPV related cancers include cervical, throat, anal, vulvar and penile cancers.
The vaccine was shown to reduce cervical cancer incidence by 88% in those who were vaccinated prior to age 17, by 53% in those who were vaccinated after age 17.
It’s immunization day for my grade 6 kiddo who’s scared of needles.
Having a good conversation this morning about meningitis, hepatitis, and cervical cancer and how immensely lucky she is to live in a place where these safe and effective vaccines are easily accessible and free.
Elsie update - she’s settling in nicely and she’s so sweet.
Slept all night on night 2, up just once last night, loves the treats she gets for peeing in her spot and is doing that most of the time, and has only 2 accidents in the house so far.
We’re so glad she joined the fam.
Was having a hard time figuring out what to do with the doll house we made for our girls. Tonight I finally decided to put it on FB on yxe freecycle and a mom messaged me within seconds offering to leave me some farm eggs and jelly in exchange for it (unnecessary but awesome) and
A Facebook group I would love to see is a local dads group equivalent to the local moms group where dads would ask questions about their child’s development, for advice on parenting, and to beat themselves up for failing to get pumpkins in time or order the correct bday cake.
I spent the 1st day of my 41st year making end of life decisions for my Grandad and holding his hand as he died, and the last day of my 41st year making end of life decisions for our family dog, and I feel like I’m reaching the limits of my ability to make heartbreaking decisions
Excuse me for a quick second while I go cry in the corner at my 8 year old’s birthday party.
I’m proud of my girls for so many things, but their kindness and ability to make friends so readily is my most favourite thing about both of them.
It’s almost as if our society couldn’t function properly if we didn’t rely on the unpaid work of women (and men who work in professions still viewed as “women’s work).
One of the best decisions my mom ever made was to divorce my dad.
I was 5, my sister was 2. She left, moved home and went back to uni while raising us.
Were there some hard times? Yes.
Did my sister and I grow into healthy, educated, and extremely competent women? Yes.
Shaming divorced parents is no doubt aimed at coercing women to stay & be martyrs to men considering women are often the primary care providers. When the attempts at shaming women for being single fail, pretend to care about children to hit divorced mothers in the heart.
Had to take my youngest into Stollery ER tonight due to some concerns about her breathing and I cannot overemphasize how freaking reassuring it is that every single person in here is wearing a mask.
There are not many jobs I would want to do less right now than be a grade one teacher in these last 3 weeks of June, trying to teach a group of 6 year olds during a compressed school day.
Every parent of an elementary schooler needs to double, or triple, their end of year gift.
There are many things I appreciate about being married to a farm kid but one of the things I appreciate most today is that he woke up this morning, found his work gloves, headed straight outside and put our winter tires on both vehicles before 8:30 am.
Another one of my friends is just barely over another terrible bout of covid - a healthy woman in her 40s and she said she’s never been so sick.
What are we even doing.
When are we getting fall vaccines…and will anyone actually be eligible for them if we all get covid now? 🙇♀️
In light of how hard influenza is affecting kids this year, I feel like whether or not someone who spends any time around children (or the elderly) has gotten their flu shot at this point is a pretty good screening mechanism for whether or not someone is a halfway decent person.