Neophyte, what?

This book has been my life for the past few weeks or so.  This book is the "bible" of Group Therapy. 

In this book I am addressed as the Neophyte Therapist (Essentially saying, Grasshopper you have so much to learn!)   

This group is full of words like pariah, coquettish, proclivity, nonentity, obsequious, ubiquitous, repudiate, quiescent, pedagogical, nascent, salubrious, armamentarium, deleterious proffer, inchoate, solipsistically, usurping and efflorescence.  (I actually have a list of 74 words like this!)

At first I thought it was kind of neat that I would be learning by googling all these words as I went along, but then page, after page ,after page went by where I was stopping to attempt to figure out how the heck to say it and what the heck did it mean?  

Sadly, as I've typed this out, none of them came out as needing to be spell checked.  That only proves that my laptop is certainly smarter than me!  ; )  

Anyway, I have just pressed send on the last revisions to a 27 page group paper on the topic of developing a group therapy design and actual group.  This was miraculously completed by myself and two others in different parts of Canada all by communication over the internet and by phone.  Who knew it was possible?

Notice my order of priorities on my bookmark bar?  SCHOOL, then a quick look at fb, then longer look at Blogger if I have time. ;  )

I haven't slept much more than 5 hours a night in nearly a week, I am exhausted, my back and eyes hurt and I am so OVER being a student right now - at least for the next couple days while I take a breather and then I am back at it.  Four more weeks of this course!  ; )

Because of the long haul and stress in completing this daunting assignment, I have not been able to enjoy my social media contact. I have missed nearly a whole month of writing our stories for this space.

Oh, little blog space, how I have missed you!
Unlike my textbook, your chapters are short and sweet, full of simple concepts in life, you have pictures and you read so very easily to me!  

I have so much to catch up on over here!

My Little Gymnast!

It was a year ago that Kamille took some steps that were a little big bigger and a little bit further away from me.  She was enrolled into ballet class, something she had been talking about for months leading up to it.  She was the cutest little thing in her pink, pink and more pink get up.  I loved waving goodbye to her as scurried across the floor in her ballet slippers to sit amongst the other little girls in pink.  She was gonna be a dancer and I was soooooooo excited for her.  Yep, I wanted her to dance all through her life.......It was important to me (as I once wrote about a long time ago here). 

She attended weekly ballet classes from October to May, right up until the grand recital at the beginning of June.  She wowed Kevin and I to tears during that recital.  She just beamed up there, full of energy and excitement.  She was awesome.  

And when the recital was over she said that she was done with ballet and didn't want to go to ballet until she was a big girl.  I. was. crushed.  Because I really want her to dance.  (I am half joking here!).  

When the opportunity to attend Yoga came up, Kamille attended classes through August and LOVED it.  She would show me all the poses that she learned, handstands against the wall being her favourite.  One day after class she said to me, "Mom, what's an assistant?" and when I defined "assistant" for her and asked why she asked, she told me that she go to be the assistant in her Yoga class. She was so excited.  

On day h

er instructor had asked me if Kamille did a lot of gymnastics, assuming that she had, maybe based on her movement in yoga?  I'm not sure, but it sparked some thinking and discussion about actually doing gymnastics.  

Gus and her favourite cousin Rachel had taken "gin-nac-stix" before she she was familiar with the activity.  When I asked her if she wanted to do gymnastics she showed me a wide-eyed smile and jumped up and down saying ya, ya ya in her deep toned excited voice!  

Besides, how could she resist a new "outfit" for a new activity! (a hand-me-down from her friend Julia).  

And off to gymnastics class she went, full of excitement!  

Although her one hour gymnastics class on Thursday afternoons gives me a bit of freedom to hook up with Stacey for tea or to go grocery shopping with our little ones, it is also nice to be able to hang out and watch her participate (unlike in her ballet class where snooping is positively forbidden).

She's my little girl, doing big girls things.

And having fun like a little girl should...

Oh, and her boyfriend Gus and bestest girlfriend Xanadu are in her class too so that makes it even more enjoyable!

i love how leeeeettle her body looks!  

Maybe she will become a super strong gymnast......

But for now, I am just so happy to see her having fun, trying out new activities.

I just love this girl.  She is so full of good stuff.

Bieber Fever

I am home with my sweet Karis today.  She had a fever last night and is a bit lethargic today but I am sure she'll be up to her usual self shortly.  

****  

Earlier this year, Kamille's friend received the Justin Bieber CD for her birthday and one thing lead to another and my girl became a fan singing "Baby, baby, baby ohhhhhhhh,  nothing foot if you be mine" over and over and over again because that's what she thought the words were.  So many time I had to tell her I had heard enough.   It wasn't long after that Karis chimed in with her version "Bay-ba, bay-ba, ohhhhhh."  Most recently both girls serenaded the people in the grocery store, belting out their favourite Justin song as we cruised the aisles in the green rocket ship cart.  Awesome!   The girls always want me to play Justin songs on Youtube so they could dance to him.  How could I resist a good dance session?  It is ridiculous but so funny and cute.  And crazy how they took to him.   

This month, Netflix added the Justin Bieber movie, Never Say Never to its movies.  I thought it might be fun to put it on one rainy afternoon while we were doing puzzles.  After all, I was totally curious about Justin's story.  He's Canadian and from Stratford, Ontario, just outside of my hometown.  I was curious to know more about how this small town boy created a strand of Bieber Fever that swept the Nation so quickly!   

Really, its such a great story and makes for an entertaining movie.  Some parts even have me a bit teary.  No joke.  I think I've watched it a total of 5 times so far.  And yes, I have my favourite parts!  Kevin even got sucked into watching it with the girls one day too.  I think he was impressed as well.   

I love the excitement that music and incredible stories can bring to teenage girls and I suppose 4 and 2 year olds too.  I was a die hard New Kids On The Block fan in my early teen years (eh hehm, I may have attended 3 concerts back in the day).  I remember the feeling of infatuation and although its not infatuation for my girls (Kamille wants Justin to be her brother!), it is cute to see them happy when they show Justin singing and dancing on stage.  

So today Karis and I sit snuggling on the couch together.  In an effort to get some paperwork done I tried to mesmerize her with Max and Ruby, Berenstain Bears or even her favourite Elmo on Sesame Street, but its not what the girl wants.  

We're watching Justin.  She's mesmerized, she's happy.  

Yep, she's got Bieber Fever.   

And as the movie came to an end, she was up and giving her best Justin Bieber "heart" as she danced to "Baby."  (The heart is made using your thumbs and index fingers.  Go ahead, try it.)

I think she'll be just fine.

But geez, I think I am starting to feel a bit (heart)achey.  ; )  

And just for laughs.....

Jill just sent us this link.  Not sure the girls will go for it, but it does seem a bit more age appropriate, eh!?

Thankful, Grateful, Appreciative

I love love love fall for so many reasons.  The change in colours all around, cooling temperatures, the smell of a thinning forest, the tradition of rich comforting foods....

But as much as I love fall, I also find myself feeling unusually blah.  My head space has not been well lately.  I admit that from a place of being honest with myself.  Honest thinking in my head drives me towards improvement, towards making change.  I spend time being curious about the origin of my blah feelings, undergoing a process of self-reflection.  This takes up a lot of my energy and my day to day thoughts though.  

But I know that this will pass.  I have 27 years worth of Dear Diary journal entries that prove to me that honest self-reflection does help this state of insecurity in my well-being.

Such is the ebb and flow of life, is it not?

Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone.  In the days leading up to this holiday I took notice of mentions of gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation, love, and sadly my head space would not allow me to be fully open to such beautiful thoughts and expressions in my own life.

In my mind, I attempted to combat this with thoughts of being close to family.   Family, because in their company I feel strengthened.  That is where I most feel gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation and love.  Surely, I could kick this negativity bug out of me with a good dose of family, right?

If only a great family event could come together that easily living four Provinces away.

So I plunged myself into my own family - feeling grateful that Kevin chose to stay closer to home one week and finding activities that encourage more interaction with my girls on our days off together.  My hope being that time spent with my family would pull me out of my rut. 

I also found my connection to family in hosting Rory, Stacey, Gus and Henry for a Thanksgiving dinner.  I felt grounded in satisfaction while I made the most delicious apple and pumpkin pies.

mouth-watering goodness! 

If worse came to worse, I could have eaten my way out of feeling shitty.  ; )

And the company of friends that know us best is just about as close to family as it comes for us.  Our night together did me good.  xo

At a time when I was finding it difficult to think about being thankful and being appreciative I challenged myself to do just this. 

I am a big believer in looking for change, in doing to create change and in making that effort from day to day.  And with a little help Pinterest, my vision came together and I began to create.

Its a Thankful Tree, a Gratitude Tree, An Appreciation Tree - its a sign that there are things to be thankful for, grateful for and appreciate in life.   I asked my family and Stacey's to contribute to it when they were over for dinner and my idea is that each day I will make sure that I continue to fill that tree up with intentional thoughts of thanks, appreciation and gratefulness.

 

Each day this week I have added a couple more "leaves" to remind myself of the things that are going well in life.

It creates a visual reminder for me.
It will be a full tree. 
I know my heart will feel warm again soon.
My heart has warmed up in just the past few days in writing this post and in being with my family.  

New Shoes!

Do you remember the first pair of shoes that you loved?  I do.

Today we had a much needed family fun day in the city (which I will write more about later).  While we were out and about we popped into a shoe store because we knew that Kamille was well overdue for a pair of new shoes.  Sadly, I hate to admit it but she was 3 sizes overdue.  She's been wearing size 8 and she measured at almost size 11.  Yikes.  (Sometimes I really suck).

Anyway, I had Kamille try on a bunch of very practical and supportive shoes that I felt would be great for her very narrow and flat feet, however no pair of shoes made her eyes light up like this pair of Keds that were the last of them all.  

Now they aren't the most supportive shoes but I know that she will wear them.  (And its not like those size 8's were doing her any better, right?)  

With one more run test for slipping ankles and Kevin's thumbs-up approval, we packed them back into the box and they were paid for.  It was raining today so she wasn't able to have the instant gratification of wearing her new shoes out of the store as rain boots were in order, however when she came home they went back onto her feet.  

Tonight,  when I came to tuck her into bed I smiled when I saw this.....

The love affair with her new shoes was going to last though the night with them tucked up nice and close to her.

The best thing about this is that I totally did the same thing when I was a girl.
I can recall getting my very first pair of velco do-ups from the Kiddie Cobbler store in White Oaks Mall back when I was in about grade two or so.
I can't recall the brand name but they were royal blue with a bit of white and they had two strips of velco on each shoe.  
So very 80s!

Velcro meant that I was cool.  I was in love with my new shoes!
I love moments like these - when my own child can instantly bring me back to those same feelings of my childhood.  Shared experiences.  I told Kamille about the pair of shoes that I loved and put next to my bed at night.  She smiled.

I understand this excitement for her.
I love it.

I look forward to watching her proudly strut around in her new shoes tomorrow.
xo