October 2018 Editor’s Fix

This September, our eldest daughter started kindergarten and our youngest pre-school. We were all so excited, and ready. Or so we thought…

Life with a toddler is truly unpredictable. One minute, you think you have it all under control and are about to pat yourself on the back when that vision is suddenly shattered as they retaliate against something you didn’t even realise you did. Leading up to this September, everything was great. It’s was summer. Time was flexible, we could stay up late and sleep in. We went with the flow, we had adventures, we let our kids make a lot of their own choices…

With school comes pretty strict schedules. Time is broken into segments, filled with all the tasks that need to be accomplished in order to make the bus, the bell ringing, the pickup. Add to this a couple of after-school activities, and your own ‘to do’ list and suddenly your once calm, flow-y life feels like pure chaos with you at the eye of the storm, deflecting the turbulence around you, trying to remain centred. Trying not to react.

At the end of the second week, we missed the bus and she was distraught. ‘Okay,’ I thought. ‘We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again. She really likes the bus!’ So, Monday morning we are organised. Clothes are out, and we have outlined how the morning will go in order to make said bus. WRONG! I am not sure about your five-year-old, but when you tell mine it’s time to get dressed, here is what you’re wearing, then you’re going to eat, go to the washroom, and we’ll head out, that’s not what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a child, eating breakfast naked, singing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, playing dolls in the basement. When you finally feel as though you’ve got it pulled together to walk to the bus stop, she decides she doesn’t want to ride the bus. But you keep pushing, trying to stick to the plan… can you see where this is going? Major. Meltdown.

Let me just say, this ended in a terrible day. I felt guilty, questioning everything I did. I felt disconnected from my daughter. I felt sad. Then I realised, my daughter also had a terrible day. She felt confused. She felt sad. She felt out of control…

The next day, we did it differently. We gave her choices. She decided what she wanted for breakfast, what she would wear, when she would go to the washroom, and that she would take the bus. Of course, in there she decided to colour a picture for the bus driver. But her having these choices meant she happily moved from one task to the next, and because I went through these tasks with her, we both started our day feeling connected. Feeling loved. And feeling as though we were both part of the end result.

When you think about it, it’s what we all desire, and there are many who may never have this opportunity - the opportunity of choice! This October, we can decide to work together to make a change and to be a part of what happens in our community. And if we don’t stand up for what we want and believe in, we might feel like that five-year-old toddler… like life is happening to us, instead of creating the life we want.

See you at the polls!