This is the time of year you go through the list, figure out what you’re going to spoil your child on, make your pilgrimage through the hoards of people to grab that last gift on the shelf that will make your princesses Christmas morning a bright ray of sunshine. Well, something like that.

As is usual in our household Christmas tends to start around November 3rd when the ads come on the television, links shows up on iPad apps and websites, and our daughter begins to append every item she sees on her our shopping list. This year was especially nice as she started to ask for things like a remote controlled car and a pirate ship. Awesome. My 5 year old daughter wants to sail the seven seas with her imagination and who am I to fail on this request.

Off we trudged to one of the larger malls in the province and making our way to Toy’R'Us. It’s early December but the stores are not as crammed as we thought they would be. As we go through the isles merrily tossing all kinds of gifts into the shopping cart (and my mental tally of the grand total slowly giving me a mental breakdown) we pass by a full wall of Jake and the Neverland Pirates paraphernalia. V had mentioned this show a few times and has watched it whenever she gets a chance. It’s the new breed of Disney shows that’s all the rage. And there on the shelf, lo and behold, a gianormous pirate ship! Success. Or is it?

We check out the box and realize it comes with the Jake character and a parrot. Okay. Looking around the shelf there it is. The Ultimate Pirate Pack with all the characters. Again, perfection. Or is it?

Where’s Izzy? Izzy is the only girl pirate from the show and from the Wikipedia entry, is Jake’s second-in-command.

Not so ultimate pirate pack

How is it they could have missed her. She’s the second-in-command for pirates sake! If Jake bites it are they going to turn to Cubby or Skully or even the parrot? No. The captain of the ship job will go to Izzy. How could they omit her out of the Ultimate Pirate Pack? Jake is there. Captain Hook and his cohorts are all there. Absently missing is Izzy. The second-in-command!

There must be some mistake. Izzy is key here. It’s like Laurel without Hardy. Batman without Robin. Scanning the entire wall of toys not a single mention of Izzy. No figures or even a picture of her on any of the boxes. It’s as if Izzy’s existence has been erased from the Fisher-Price world of Jake and the Pirates.

Since I can’t contact Disney directly about this we have to wonder why she’s not there. Maybe she’s not a popular character? After all, popular sells and it’s all about selling. Checking the episode list, she’s in more episodes than Jake himself (36 to 29, not sure how this is possible but let’s roll with it). So it can’t be a question of popularity or else they would have drowned her ass back in Season 1. How about success with the kids? Checking the website she’s actually hosted two shows without Jake (which might contribute to the numbers above) and many of the episodes revolve around Izzy. Izzy is just as popular from what I can tell on all the Disney sites about the show. So that’s not it.

Where does that leave us parents that want to get our girls into things they like and can relate to but without the merchandise to support it. What kind of message does this say to our kids when a primary character who’s second-in-command of a pirate ship is nowhere to be found in our toy stores alongside all the “boy toys”. I did manage to find that Fisher-Price does make a figure set with just Jake, Izzy, and Cubby but I didn’t see that at the store. I find it a little insulting that they excluded the only girl character from the show in something like their Ultimate Pirate Pack. Obviously the second-in-command doesn’t deserve to be included. It makes you wonder. If Izzy was a boy would he have been included in the pack? Or the ship?

It is for this reason we turned down the isle, put the pirate ship back, and moved on. No Fisher-Price and Disney. You will not be getting our money this year.

I’m not alone in this thinking as Melissa Wardy wrote on August 30th of the year with Disney, Where is Izzy?

So here were in full tilt of the Christmas season and Izzy is still AWOL from the store shelves. I wonder how much more merchandise has been absent from the shelves simply because the toy is a girl in a boys world.

And I’ve had nothing to say.

Nothing I COULD say.

Because the grief is not mine.

The grief belongs to those parents who lost children, to the siblings left behind.  The grief is for those families who lost a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a niece or a nephew.

I cannot claim that grief.

As a parent I ache for the parents and families who grieve the loss of those children and women.

As a member of a close knit community I hurt for the the community grieving the loss of so many innocent lives.

As a member of society I rail against what has happened.

And as a special needs parent, I watch with concern as autism is linked with the words ‘violence’ in the media.

But in the end, I am but a bystander.

I refuse to make this about how I feel.  I refuse to make this about the killer – he who shall never be named on my blog.

This is about the victims.

This is about supporting the survivors.

This is about finding hope and peace again.

This is about making sure the names of the victims, not the killer, are remembered.

But this is not about me and it’s not about you.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

~ Mary Elizabeth Frye

Something not working?  See if Jenn can fix it.

Having an issue with someone?  See if Jenn will deal with it.

Life falling down around you in tiny itty-bitty pieces?  Bring it to Jenn to put back together.

And I don’t mind, for the most part.

I like being able to help.  I am a problem solver by nature.

But sometimes it can be an isolating experience.

People go off and leave you holding everything and a roll of duct tape because they assume that you’ve got this.

Or people are suffocating with their attention when they need something.  But as soon as they are back on track they disappear into the ether.

And while I’m happy that they’re happy… I does make me wonder why I was the one they turned to.  Was it because they knew I’d listen?  Offer advice?  Do what I could to help?

Or was it because they consider me a friend who has their back.

But if I’m such a great friend… when do these same people start asking how I’m doing?

Because that’s the interesting thing… they never do.

The people who do take the time to ask (and care about the answers) are never the people who expect me to drop everything and fix their lives.

Maybe it’s because those people who want their lives fixed for them are too self absorbed to look beyond what they are experiencing in the moment.  I don’t honestly know.

All I know is, if you vanish into thin air,when you finally reappear, don’t expect me to still be standing in the same place.

As I get older, though, I find that word much more precious and use it more selectively.

Friends are those people who take the time to understand who I am.  This isn’t something that happens in one conversation, or even 10.  There are people who have known me for years, and yet really don’t know a thing about me.

Oh sure, lots of people think they know me.  But those are the people who scratch the surface of who I am and are content to leave it at that.

And I can’t say I fault them for that.

I am an intense personality.

I live my life with purpose.

I am passionate about the things I believe in and the people I care about.

I am direct in my thoughts, words, deeds.

All that can be a lot for people to take in.  Intimidating, even.

So, for them, there is ‘JennLite’.  The happy-go-lucky, no cares, no worries, superficial version of me.

But is that me?  No.

And if that’s the me you know?

Then you don’t know me at all.

But lately I find myself turning inward more and broadcasting less.

Everything is put aside so I can focus on Vista and what she needs to get better.

This past week has been a perfect example of that.

V’s been sick again.  Starting with a bad case of croup, and then spiraling down into an asthma flares and other complications.

We’ve been logging the hours at the ER and Children’s hospital (where they wanted to admit her, but there weren’t any beds available. -1 for free healthcare).

And through all that, I’ve been much quieter than normal.  Except for a few of my closest friends (who I had to cancel plans with) and a couple clients (who I had to explain why I wasn’t getting any work done), no one has really known the extent of V’s condition, this go round.

I couldn’t really say why.  There was no concious thought to not let everyone know how she’s doing.

It was more just the need to spend the time taking care of her, mixed with a healthy dose of exhaustion.

Thankfully she seems to have turned a corner and maybe now that I know that she’s on the upswing I feel better about putting out updates.

We still don’t fully know what’s going on with her.  But we’re working on trial-and-error meds to see if anything will help and if not we’ll get a referral to a pulmonary specialist.

Mommy instinct (which never fails me) tells me that there’s something more going on and we’ll need that referral.  But we’ll play the game, and try the meds, and then I’ll gear myself up for another battle for my daughter’s health.

Vista: “NO!”

Me: “Let me rephrase that.  Vista, go put your pyjamas on.”

Vista: “NO!  I’m going to stay nudie FOREVER!”

Me: “You can do that when you turn 18 and move to a nudist colony.  While you live under this roof, you will have to wear clothes.”

Vista: “I don’t care.  I want to be nudie!”

Me: “It’s not summer anymore.  It’s cold at night. Go put your pyjamas on…. NOW.”

Vista: “Well this sucks!”

a) I can’t believe I have to have these conversations with my five year old.
b) I’m starting to sound more and more like my parents.  Kill me now.
c) Clothes are highly over-rated, but I’ll never tell her that.

Me:  ”Dammit Spyro!  Go lay down”

Dog:  Makes as if to go lay down then turns back to the kitchen when he thinks I’m not looking

Me: “Go lay down or I’m going to stab you with this fork!”

Vista: “Nooooo Mommy!  Don’t stab him with a fork!!

Me: “Fine.  How about a spoon”

Vista: Thinks about it for a minute. “Yeah, OK.  Use a spoon…. He’d like that!”  Skips off smiling

Me to Bil:  ”Something tells me she really didn’t understand that conversation.”

I don’t think I’ll be letting her watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves any time soon…

Why a Spoon, Cousin?

I decided to take the summer off to just enjoy the sun, hanging with V, and take time to recharge.  It was something I needed.  Time to reflect and just….be.

But lots has happened since June.

So here’s a 3mth update:

In June we were worried about V getting for an aide for school this fall.  She was doing really well and if she scored too high on her assessments she wouldn’t qualify for that assistance, even though we still knew she needed it to some degree. Turns out we didn’t need to worry.  She only scored 5th percentile or below in all her testing.  Her fine motor scored less than 1st percentile because of severe behaviour issues during the testing.

Those test results were a bit of a sucker punch.  We had watched her improve so much through the year.  But we didn’t take into account the growth and improvement that is natural and expected of a kid her age.  So, when you factor that in, she’s still sitting about a year behind in her skill set.

Except for reading and computer skills.  Those are off the chart.  The school has asked for permission to test her reading again when school starts to get a gauge of them.  Last fall at the age of 4 she was reading at a solid grade 2 level.  They think her level now that she’s 5 is closer to a high grade 3/4 level.   Which scares the hell out of me.  I was an early reader too, but she’s way beyond where I was at her age.

At least we don’t have any worries about her alphabet skills going into kindergarten.  ;-)

July was project month.  Which including building this behemoth in the backyard.

We started off trying to build it ourselves, with the help of some friends.

Then we got real and called in the experts (aka: My dad and a couple of his buddies).

Without them, I can safely say that swing set would still be a work in progress.

We’re very glad we bought this though.  It has an angled ladder with a handle, which allow’s V to climb up on her own. (she can’t manage the more vertical ladders that are on many slides at playgrounds).  And having swings in our backyard has really allowed her to work on her core strength and balance.  Yay for play that acts as therapy!

We also got her a new wooden playhouse because her old plastic one was too small for her (can we say major growth spurt?).  Bil and I built that one ourselves.  I won’t show you pictures, though, because it’s a wee bit crooked.  I blame warped boards for that.  It has nothing to do with our complete and utter lack of building skills.

August was an awesome month.  We paid off all our debt (except for the mortgage)!!  YAY!!!!

That was an amazing feeling…. for the whole week it lasted.

Because then we went out and bought this:

But we’re super happy to have bought this.  We got an awesome end-of-summer deal on it and we’ll have it paid off by the spring.

It means we can actually take camping TRIPS with V, rather than short excursions close to home.  This allows us the flexibility of making her meds while we’re on the road and also give us the security of having a power source in case we need to use her nebulizer.

We’re already saving up for a camping trip out to Vancouver Island next summer.  Can’t wait to show V the ocean!

And that brings us to September!

School starts tomorrow!!  (Me, excited?  Naaaaaah)

V has her aide from last year back again, which we’re thrilled about.  And now we just wait and see how she handles the first day back!

Hope you all had a fabulous summer too!

I made a conscious decision not to skip the first few aisles where the so called/labeled “boys” toys were.  I wanted to see what toy Vista would pick when allowed to choose for herself.

She ignored the barbies.  She walked right past the dolls.  She didn’t even look at the shelves upon shelves of princess and Suzy homemaker stuff.

Instead she pulled a Matchbox Cliffhanger Fire Station off the shelf and put that in the cart.

I will admit I was a little surprised.  But instead of asking if she was sure that was what she wanted (and thus making her question her choice), I instead asked her if she wanted to look at anything else or if she was done.

She told me she didn’t want to look anymore and was ready to go.

So we headed home, put together her new toy, and she proceeded to play with it for the next two hours.

It’s always interesting what toys kids will choose when left to be kids rather than assigning the toys genders.  Many parents when faced with the same situation would have told their daughter’s “No, sweetie. That’s a ‘boy’ toy,” and dragged their girls to the aisles of pink.

Vista does love pink, and loves to dress up as a princess, but she also loves to play with toy cars and trains.  I’m OK with that.

This year for her birthday, we bought her a butterfly net and a kit for catching and examining bugs.  She was thrilled and immediately had to go outside and get some ants to look at under the magnifying glass.

I don’t want to limit her scope of play just because she’s female.

When I was in Junior High the girls had to take home-ec and the boys took shop. That was just the way it was and no one questioned it.

I was disgusted.  I wanted to take shop!  That sounded like a heck of a lot more fun than baking a cake.

I got together a few other girls and we campaigned to be allowed to opt into the shop class instead.  We pointed out that it was just as important for us to be able to use tools as it was for boys to be able to cook a meal and sew on a button.

We were lucky.  Our administration listened and changed the classes so that both girls and boys each took half a semester of shop and half a semester of home-ec.

That was over 20 years ago.

And still, here we are assigning gender roles to everything.

I would even go so far as to say that we’ve taken several steps backwards in this area (if the PINK Easy-Bake Oven that Vista has is any indication.  When I had an Easy Bake it just looked like something you would see in the kitchen.  It didn’t need to be pink.)

I will continue to encourage my daughter to play with toys that she enjoys and that encourage her to explore and question her world, because, the last time I checked, toys don’t have genders.

So many people we know have been in, or are still stuck in, that money pit.  Drowning in debt with no idea how on earth to get out of it.

That is the last thing we want for our kids.

We’ve started already trying to teach Vista about money.

One of the most simple things we’ve done is given V a piggy bank.  But when we give her spare change and her first question is always ‘well what can I buy with this’.   The answer?  ’Nothing….unless you put it in your piggy bank with your other coins and then you can save up to buy something that you would really like to have.’

So into the piggy bank goes the coins.

But that wasn’t enough.  How else could we teach her about earning money?  She really doesn’t have the interest in doing chores for reward yet…that’s just not a motivator for her.  Then before Christmas when we were sorting through her toys we came across an answer.

Many of her toys were in great condition.  So we gave her the option as we went through every toy:  Keep, Sell, or Donate.  She could keep it and continue to play with it.  She could donate it.  Or we could try and sell it through facebook/kijiji/craigslist and she could keep any money that was made.

This turned out to be a great incentive for her to get rid of toys she no longer used without a fight.  Bonus.

So she has been steadily socking away her money in her piggy bank for the past year.  Last month we finally got around to rolling all the coins.  When we started rolling we told her she could put half in the bank to save and take half and go to the toy store and buy whatever she wanted.

Well, turns out my kid has been hoarding money.  She started pulling out coins from all sorts of containers she had tucked away in her room.  Once we hit $200 in coins we nixed the spending half idea and told her she could have $25.   And from now on she can buy her own treat from the ice cream truck in the summer.

The trip to the toy store was a money lesson itself.  She would pick out something and we would talk about if she had enough money for that item or if it would allow her to have money left over for something else.

But I’ve still been looking for other ideas for how to teach her money management.

Melissa shared with me that one thing they do with her daughter is allow her to work towards earning Webkins stuffed animals.  The Webkins have an online app where kids can input a number off the tag of their stuffed animal that allows them to play with and buy things for a virtual animal.  But if they want to buy something and don’t have the money they have to do things in the virtual world to earn it.

I thought this was a great way to teach our little geeks.

Another one we found is the iPad app ‘Learning Money with Leo’ (available on iTunes).  It’s a Canadian money app put out by Royal Bank that teaches money concepts through games.  Kids go through the games (like coin matching, spot the difference, mazes, sorting) and earn reward coins which can then be used to buy stickers from a ‘sticker store’ to create a picture in a virtual sticker book.  Want more stickers… earn more coins.

I love that it’s a Canadian app too, so the money pictures and denominations are all Canadian currency.

I wasn’t sure what V would think of this sort of app for learning money, but she actually quite enjoyed it.  And this morning when I was buying groceries she was even able to identify the bills I was using, so that impressed me.

So here’s your opportunity to teach your kids about money by winning a $50 RBC VISA gift card from the kind folks at Royal Bank.

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me how you teach your kids about using money responsibly and/or what are you lessons are you going to pass onto your kids to keep them from falling into the money pit .

The fine print:

• Contest is only open to Canadians (sorry US friends)
• This contest is also running on other blogs.  You can enter on multiple blogs, but you can only win one gift card. 
• Contest will close on April 18th at 8pm MST.

Good luck!

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Disclosure – I am participating in the RBC Learning Money With Leo program by Mom Central Canada on behalf of RBC Royal Bank. I received compensation as a thank you for participating and for sharing my honest opinion. The opinions on this blog are my own.