Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: parenting Page 12 of 14

Heart Strings And Daisies

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On November 14, 2013

In Life Stories, Motherhood

This morning has been no better or worse than others. In fact, slightly worse because an overnight rain soaked my shoes, which I had forgotten on the porch, yet again. First world problems as I call them.

The boys are cheery and gabby and we manage to leave the house on time with no altercations and no delays that make us run and jump over sidewalks like a group of sun-scared bats on the way to the first deep dark cave (no negative reference to school or maybe just a small one?…)

So we walk. There’s chatter and silliness and loud “No, no, I’ll say it. Mom, listen to this…” and some of last night’s toilet jokes on replay. Some are that good, according to 11-year-olds and under.

Hold hands, small hugging palms hiding in mine and if I hold stronger than I should is because I know the jumpy nature of such holds. They go poof before you realize it. So hold on while they last.

A sparrow hops from between some cigarette butts on one side of a chicken-wire fence to wet sand on the other. She’s round and fluffy and the hopping is exquisite. Elegant and light and we’re spellbound.

Toilet jokes are forgotten. We stare. She stares back. Hops. Stares. A hand squeeze but this time it is not me. It’s the small hand making me heed the bird and its exquisite tiny feet. “Mom, isn’t she cute?”

I am struck again by how we attach ourselves to memories of no particular day or place. Muck, sand, a brownish bird and five more minutes until school starts. All wrapped up in a forgetfulness-proof mental package that will never be stamped with the awkward “when was that again?”

The day rolls into a big fat cinnamon-tinted cocoon of a sunset with a glued-on ghost-white moon and when night comes I know of the one thing I learned about today. “No special day” memories, or no-planning-to-acquire-memories-but-did-it-anyway kind of day.

Heart stringsAnd I know of two things that will never leave my prized possessions box (not that I have one, but I will think of one) and those are: a string of no particular glamour that Sasha has loved and played with since the dollopy days of toddlerhood and he still holds dear, and a pressed little daisy which Tony gave me one day at a park that has long disappeared off the Vancouver map. It was drizzly and cold and ten years ago and a late daisy made it from his tiny fingers into my heart and journal. Just like today, we were half-way into winter, which is why heart strings feel warmer than ever.

DaisyToday I learned that heart strings are not negotiable. They just are. They appear out of nowhere and they will stick forever. It takes one to learn to spot one when it happens.

Heart strings are never planned for, so don’t start trying. That’s the magic of it all. They happen with no warning and often you realize what happened way after they’re gone. But they’ll be there when you least expect it. Magic.

The Aftermath: Keeping Halloween Fun For Kids

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On November 5, 2013

In Kamloops

Picture this: a dummy resembling a person fallen to the ground is placed in front of a garage door to look as if the head has been crushed by the door — blood on the door and suggestive puddles on the pavement included. It looks as real as you can imagine. Anything more would be the real thing.

A neighbour calls 911 and a discussion ensues.

It happened in more than one place. Comments abounded. The majority were a reverberation of, “Come on, it’s Halloween!” and praised the creativity of the displays. A matter of opinion.

Others argued that we shouldn’t allow for something that creates fear or unease.

One such commenter was told to look the other way if she couldn’t take it, while another who suggested we should return to what Halloween used to be (goblins, ghosts, black cats) was deemed a witch and told, “What did they do with witches back then? Burn, witches, burn!”

Feeling uncomfortable yet? Intolerance of a different opinions punctuated with implied violence is never a good thing.

Halloween is one spooky day, everyone agrees, but suggested violence — to the extreme, in this case — can stir negative emotions that are not conducive to good fun. Most commenters suggested that children would be the first ones to find the display funny because they know what Halloween is about.

I disagree. Creepy and horrifying is not funny. Normalizing violence is not acceptable. Halloween or not, some boundaries should not be crossed.

Our 92-year-old neighbour reminisces about Halloweens that were not about zombies and severed crawling hands. “Halloween is for kids,” she said. Jack-o-lanterns and decorations, trick-or-treat if they wished, but horror was never part of it.

Children nowadays are exposed to myriad stimuli that may or may not be appropriate for their level of understanding. They seem to know more, but knowing is not the same as understanding.

Children’s brains need time to grow and rushing serves no one. They need time to learn to make the distinction between fake and real.

Present-day Halloween décor is different from what it used to be. Children, young and old, get a big dose of gore, dismembered bodies and zombie action, on top of the old-fashioned ghosts and skeletons, which seem tame by comparison. Save for the last items, I am not sure children can take the above-mentioned in the expected stride. Some will, some won’t.

One way to honour human nature is to not desensitize children to violence. In my youngest son’s class, some kids still believe in the tooth fairy, while they also talk about watching clips from movies like Chucky and Candyman.

If violence happens out of the Halloween context, children are referred to counsellors for help. Parents have a hard time explaining it. Violent images in the news can shock children. We know that.

Movies have parental guidance warnings for a reason. Not only is the plot geared toward a mature audience, but the horror elements and sexual references are clearly not to be seen, let alone understood, by children and tweens.

I watched 20 minutes of a scary movie once. I was already an adult, yet it made me cringe.

I grew up with very little television. We played outside and read. But here’s an interesting thing: many of my favourite books included sword fighting (Alexandre Dumas) and gunfights (Karl May’s books describing the Wild West). I was never uneasy or scared. The violence wasn’t gratuitous, though.

I am trying to raise my boys the same way. We have always been outside a lot, around our yard, town and on road trips. We read books depicting times past and present and the heroes within — real or fantasy. Ditto for movies.

They never feared “monsters” under their beds — until this year, that is. My youngest now struggles when night approaches.

He was told about a bad guy who comes and kills you in your sleep. Some kids at school talked about it. The name is Candyman. Just the product of someone’s imagination, we told him. He knows, but fear has stuck for now. Having our home broken into recently doesn’t help.

As a result, he is ambivalent about Halloween. Excited about the dressing up part, troubled about the anticipated scary, possibly gory, décor and costumes he might see that day and the stories associated with them.

It shouldn’t be this way; it should be fun — kiddie-appropriate jack-o-lantern, goblin and ghost fun. After all, like our 92-year-old neighbour said, “Halloween has always been fun for kids.”

We should keep it that way.

Originally published as a column in the Kamloops Daily News on Saturday, November 2, 2013. 

I Killed The Tooth Fairy

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On November 1, 2013

In Life Stories, Motherhood

ExchangeThat’s right. I did. It happened yesterday.  I have no remorse and at the risk of sounding cold and heartless, which I am not, I must say that it feels liberating.

I did not have a good relationship with her, you see. If I had to define our relationship I would say it was a case of forced labor. I had to become a tooth fairy and not by volition but because everyone did it. I was ushered into it even though I had no desire to perpetuate a concept I did not agree with.

The reasons I did not agree are as follows:

  1. The price per tooth varies with the household, which is puzzling for little people and downright annoying for big people who believe in fairness (it is almost ironic that the root of fairy and fairness is, well, fair, and the work of the said entity is anything but)
  2. If you, the designated fairy, happen to forget to operate before you go to bed, and on top of it happen to sleep in and hence do not manage to replace the fallen teeth with money by the time the child wakes up, well, you’ve got some explaining to do or you have to do the kind of sneaking you haven’t done since the days of high school…It is not pretty, or comfortable.
  3. A big one: why would a child get money for a tooth that falls out? There is no work involved, not the child’s anyway, and if anything, children may be driven face to face with a chilling concept (I will leave it to you to name it due to its potentially offensive nature.) I may be wrong, but somewhere out there a child must have wondered at some point “If my baby tooth is worth X dollars, then what is —- (fill in with random body part) worth?” Just sayin’…
  4. According to children, the tooth fairy does the following: she walks through the house in the middle of the night, reaches under the child’s pillow, takes the tooth (care to know what her house looks like?) and replaces it with money. Creepy by most people’s standards, you’d agree. After having our home broken into just a couple of weeks ago, the concept of strangers walking through the house is challenging. My boys are perceptive enough to ask point blank: How does she get in, mom? Then what? Asking the questions was only a matter of time.

So you see, for all the above reasons and more, I had to kill her.

The straw that broke the camel’s back (or the fairy’s spell in this case) was Sasha’s “fresh-from-school” question.

“Mom, is it true that the tooth fairy does not give money if the tooth has been pulled out by the dentist?”

That was it. I had no decent answer to it and the cheekiness of an imaginary creature can only go so far. It was me or her.

One had to go and it wasn’t going to be me. Without an ounce of hesitation I blurted out “There is something I have to tell you.”

Pitter-patter, wait for me hurried steps brought a wide-eyed Tony from the bedroom to the living room, which was now becoming the sacrificial tooth fairy arena. With a gaze that meant “I knew it” he gave me his vote of confidence in handling the situation. Talk about feeling like a grownup. Occasionally I act like one too.

“There is no tooth fairy, my love.”

Sasha’s eyes, wide and trustful, built a question mark right there and I could see it trying to stand on wobbly feet and I knew it did not mean “Really?” but rather “Now what?”

So he asked. “Then who is the tooth fairy? You?”

I nodded. Yep. Was he disappointed? Yes, no? A few seconds of no words and deep long gazes waded like fat ducks towards a lake that was to cover the pit of newly disclosed life truths. Not murky, but clear water. You see the bottom if you care to look. Kids do, because they appreciate the full depth of such truth. Mine do.

“I knew it!”

“I knew it too!” Tony peeped in.

Smiles. No disappointment. My explanation: I thought she was unfair. Some kids get paid five or ten dollars per tooth, others don’t have that much worth of food over the course of a day, or week. Here in Kamloops, and everywhere.

Bottom line: I couldn’t stand her ways. She had to go.

A few good pounds lighter, my whole being has been celebrating the event since it happened yesterday.

And if there’s a shadow of unpleasantness associated with this whole story, because there is one, it is this: I almost had my hands on Santa too, but I let him get away.

“Are you Santa too?”

Pause. “No.”

OK, don’t ask. And please don’t say “Oh, but you had it, right there!” It’s true, I did. But I am weak. Or just more attached to him than I was to the tooth fairy; sentimental value is hard to argue with. I need to think and assess. It’s not an easy job. Being a parent, I mean.

Thoughts to share? Please don’t be shy. I just showed you mine.

Disclaimer: I did not ask for the portrait. It was Sasha’s gift. And his way of making peace with it all. 

The Need To Rethink Our Children’s Heroes (And Our Own)

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On October 23, 2013

In Motherhood

In the days before the Terry Fox Run the boys did with their school, our walk-from-school time was filled with questions and discussions about Fox.

How did he know he had cancer? How did he come to set on a monumental task like the one he did? How did he manage to run with all the pain and heaviness caused by the disease and medication? The topic is far from over in our house.

Terry Fox is alive in more than our hearts. He is with us many times when there are tough tasks to accomplish, or determination, as a life skill, to understand and learn.

But it goes far beyond that.

It’s about understanding the greater good and why it matters to think of more than yourself along the way.

Terry Fox touched people’s lives. He saved people. No cape, no mask or impenetrable costume; no machines and, unfortunately, no well-designed pause in the scenario at a time when his life was in danger so he could be saved in time.

But he saved people.

Many have gotten stronger in their fight against cancer because of him.

What he did was making people — like my sons and me — realize that superheroes are the most human-like creatures. Vulnerable and strong at the same time. Awe-inspiring.

He is not the only one.

A couple of weeks ago, we stood in a long lineup at TRU for a chance to see and listen to Commander Chris Hadfield.

It was spellbinding. He talked about being nine and dreaming of being an astronaut. He talked about following a dream and making it a reality.

If you have encountered many people like that as a kid, and learned from them, good for you; you are fortunate.

Not to imply for a second that dreaming as a child and accomplishing as an adult forms a beeline, punctuated solely by accomplishments and joy. There are trials, there are many failures along the way, but if the dream stands and becomes reality, chances are there were some more factors involved, such as determination and motivation.

Hadfield and Fox are two of the people who have made many of our dinners and walks alive with questions.

There are many more.

We have our own heroes and role models. We have reasons why for choosing them.

Talking about people who accomplish things we admire is something necessary. Children learn about values because we acknowledge real values and our words have weight.

Children also need to know that regular people do outstanding things.

In a world dominated by superheroes who make accomplishments look so easy and quick, children need to be reminded that achieving anything worthwhile takes time, determination and ability to give ourselves to a dream or cause. It is never an overnight thing.

In a world abounding with “awesomeness” and everything is “awesome” from shoes to movies, to just about everything that our children encounter on a daily basis, we need to redefine the word awesome for them. To rediscover it ourselves.

Awesome is, according to the dictionary, “inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear; causing or inducing awe.”

If we are truly inspired, amazed, or awe-struck by what we see in remarkable people around us, in people we hear, read about or meet, we should see it as it is: awesome.

If we keep at it, there’s a chance our children will be learning the true meaning of awesome and applying it to their lives.

(Originally published as a column under the same title in the Kamloops Daily News on Saturday October 18, 2013)

Stop, Drop, Roll. Repeat.

By

On October 18, 2013

In Life Stories

Sun splashedWe’re walking home from school. A day of “Mom, you know what happened today?” and everything is so important. They both want to talk. Simultaneously. Their words bubble like cute little mud volcanoes.
“Hey I was talking!”

“Mine is shorter to say! Mom, you know…”

Who was first? The forever conundrum.

Interrupted, again, little guy puffs and walks ahead. Whatever. You can’t win all of them. Big brother is excited. A new program at school involving babies. To elicit empathy… “but Mom, it seemed like we were observing an animal, that’s not right. It’s not good for the baby.”

Empathy springs from other existential corners, we both agree. My boys are learning life. Are they learning the right things? I teach them to question things, to think for themselves, how else will they know how to choose the right path? But right and wrong are not set in stone, I tell them. Think, don’t betray common sense,

BiteCommon sense. “We have that, Mom, don’t we?” Yes, heaps of it, sweet boys, except for the times when you’re so wild and chopping down all the wisdom, patience trees I’ve been planting since you came into my world. But those times, they are my trials, my getting lost as a mom and finding myself again. Better? Who knows. Willing, always. Yours truly.

I remember my boys as babies. Peeking at the world from their slings, infinite cuddles, nursing like koala bears and holding onto my shirts with tiny pudgy hands. Loving the night snuggles, quiet breathing and twitching of eyelids. The mystery of baby dreams… what do they see? 

The afternoon light is made of caramel and fine dust, and I coax them outside. They need no coaxing.

“Wanna play cowboys?” Tony’s favorite game these days.

Rolled...Leather holster, vests, cap guns that puff smoke and make clackety noises, hats that tilt backwards… “Mom can we get the Chilly hats?” It’s Tilley, I want to say, but I know better than to correct Sasha. He still speaks words that seem to have come from his baby dreams, a world that’s sweet and round like the fists that were holding on to the my shirt,

They drop, roll, yelp, climb and I succumb to being there.

Piled dishes can wait, wilted flowers can wilt no more until they are taken out, crumbs from breakfast that stick to socks, they can wait… this time will never come back.

Today this, tomorrow that, from one day to the next, we celebrate growth; I push them out of the nest gently “Come on, you can…” but then I pull them back in. Stay, wings need to grow.

I want to be with them when October afternoon sun bends over them in soft caramel arches, I want to see their sweaty faces and worry about them dropping too hard to the ground… “We’re boys, Mom…” Smile, laugh, I stand to catch bits of it and just like dandelion fluff, laughter scatters everywhere… To grow further, to become. Bright, golden. Stay, grow. Nothing stays the same.

“Mom, I want the holster now!”

“No! I didn’t have it enough. No!”

“Moom! He is not sharing!”

Wait, what? I lost track. Who has what? Does it matter? Sweetness whimpers, departs like a wounded animal. No, come back. It does. This time. Every time I fear that it won’t. It always does. What drama queen.

'Lion headIt’s true. Motherhood makes you dramatic, you have to know colors, be fair and remember how to catch smiles; you have to be there, soul done or undone but who cares. You have to teach little people how to take turns, to share… But you yourself never want to share them, the (dande)lion heads. You want the crowns, the fluff, the escaping fluff and the air around them. Shhh, don’t say it out loud. How wicked and childish, people will say. How aware of preciousness and its infuriating fleeting nature, you say. You know.

“That was a good game, Mom. Can you bake cookies tonight?”

Find A Child To Read To

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On September 22, 2013

In Kamloops

We finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the way to Vancouver — the last three chapters or so. We had started reading it the day before in the midst of unfinished chores, but what better time to read than when the child says, “Let’s read!”

There’s never been a better excuse for shifting priorities.

A few days before, we had picked up The Wizard of Oz from the library and dedicated two overcast afternoons on the front porch and a sunny one to reading about Dorothy’s happenings. I had only read an abridged version as a kid, so we savoured each chapter together. You can call a book remarkable when a scarecrow inspires you. Read it and you’ll see for yourself.

I mostly read to my youngest these days but my oldest joins in sometimes. He reads on his own and I choose to credit at least part of his voracious appetite for reading to the fact that we had countless mornings and afternoons of reading.

The first book my oldest son and I picked up from the library when he was one and a half or so was called Anna and the Rain.

I must have read it 20 times only that first day. They usually let you borrow them for three weeks. I was new to the concept of reading a book until your tongue becomes numb. For veteran readers, Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks is always a good book to see where you stand in regard to tongue numbness.

A few months later, the library put Anna and the Rain up for sale. It was a bit worn, they said, and no wonder; loved books often turn raggedy. A mere 25 cents later, the book was ours. To us, it was priceless; it still is.

When my youngest came along, he picked his preferred book on a rainy Vancouver morning at the neighbourhood library: The Gunniwolf.

By then, I was well versed in reading a book many times in a row, voices and all — and the anticipatory giggles only a child that young could come up with were precious fuel; eyes wide and curious every time, as if we were reading it for the first time. The book never grew old with either of us.

When you read to a child, you open a door that lets them see farther than you can imagine — taunting them to learn about the world and calling to them in a way that only books can.

I never read to them because I wanted them to do well in school or to keep up with any recommended amount of reading. We read because it makes sense, because we need to do that or else my world, or theirs, would not have all the colours in it.

From the simplest rhyme books that are never simplistic, to more complex stories that go on for many chapters, reading with my sons has been a privilege. I never shied away from reading big books from early on either. I grew up with big books, and long and intricate fairy tales being read to me. I always thought that children could understand a lot more than we think. Now I know they do.

I can recall many days that have wrestled me into a state of mind that was anything but peaceful and to many of them, there is a jolly tag attached by my kids when they asked “Can we read?” No matter how tough the day, reading a book that’s smurfing good will make you smile. Smurf’s honour!

Reading is not a “follow the rules” affair, either, that is bound to squish some of the fun out of it. Pick books that abound with silliness, pick books with your eyes closed if you have to, and tiptoe back to your childhood for the books that you loved. Read book backwards, if your child asks for it. Mine did. It made no sense, the book I mean, but then it did.

Reading to a child, yours or not, is an adventure like no other.

Closeness that is exclusive to that time together also comes with secret keys to a magic world you both step into. It’s the gift that will grow with every word and the only side effect I can think of is that every book in your child’s library will have a memory attached to it so that giving them away might become problematic.

When people refer to books as being alive, they may refer to the world inside the covers, but to me the books that are alive are the ones that have memories attached to them. Every time you read with your child, a piece of your soul stays behind in that book.

I cannot think of a better way to stop time but by building a fort of whispers, silly giggles, cuddles and words. Words to live by.

Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on September 21, 2013 under the same title.

Of Trains and Such

By

On July 31, 2013

In Life Stories

Train station, cloudy“Can we walk to the train station today?”

Yes, we can. We did. The boys are fascinated with the trains here. The station is empty, barely a handful of people walking by and a stray dog begging silently for food. We feed him some savory bun and then go check for the next train to arrive. The boys want a shot of it as it comes in.

A few minutes later a train arrives. Green with two cars. The boys take photos but…

“Will there be more?” A blue one perhaps, the boys ask. Not for another two hours, the schedule says. We walk to the end of the platform, talk about trains and how fascinating they are. Romania used to have a lot more but now there’s more cars on the road and more bus services between cities.

“Too bad,” the boys sigh.

Indeed. Trains are charming. I don’t mean the fast trains with all the modern fixtures but the older, simple and slower ones that take you places, actual destinations and memory-locked too… The infrastructure is all there too, but it gets old and derelict as time passes. Too bad…

On the way home we buy ice cream.

We take a shortcut through an old cemetery and the boys keep reading the tombstones. One man got to be 103 years, a girl died when she was 17 days old. How could that be? The little girl, they say, she must’ve been very small. And her parents must’ve been very sad. Life is not always kind. We have today…

I remember walking through the neighboring cemetery as a kid and reading tombstones, wondering about the people, feeling sorry for the young ones and always wondering whether the older people who died got to go through the Second World War.

We get to the top of the hill, overwhelmed by heat and happy to be home soon. We cross the field on the way to my sister’s house and wildflowers line the side of the dirt path. The grass is almost all straw, heat really can be merciless, and somewhere in a nest of long tired straws I notice a poppy.

PoppyGently unglamorous, small and shy, the poppy turns beautiful in the photograph I take. I am grateful for it, it is one of those shots that tickles you pink, it’s that good.

My fascination with these ephemeral flowers that are ever so unassuming and yet stunning, is satisfied for now.

The boys run ahead and as I get to the gate, Sasha greets me with a mysterious smile spread all over his face. “Look mom, an orange butterfly! For you.” No longer alive, the butterfly will find its way into a painting soon, along with wildflowers that I press for that reason. A drop of sweetness from the summer we spend here…

Thank you. Orange is perfect.

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