There are so few years…..

Leave a comment December 26, 2016 drworobec

There are so few years where the magic of Christmas is real. I mean really real. I mean complete buy-in, no-questions-asked, not-a-doubt-in-their-minds kind of real. My kids are both inside that sweet spot now. Ages seven and four, they’re both old enough to remember Christmas memories from years gone past and yet still young enough to fully believe in Santa and elves and flying reindeer.

We’re currently in rural Alberta, visiting my parents and spending Christmas in the home I grew up in. The magic surrounds us. On Christmas morning, the kids bounded up the stairs to find their gifts from Santa waiting by the tree. “Look Mom, he ate the cookies,” they cried, “he drank the milk!”

“I saw some footprints across the lawn,” my dad told them, “I think it might be from the reindeer.”

“Really, Grandpa?” They asked. “Where, show us!” They looked out the front window and bought into his story without an ounce of doubt. Pyjama-clad kids, touting bedhead and sleepy eyes, peered into the darkness for a tiny glimpse at the aftermath of St. Nick’s busy Christmas Eve. Of course I know that the true meaning of Christmas is not about Santa Claus, but I also know that nothing compares to the big guy’s fascination.

I don’t think we have many more Christmases left where both kids are fully committed to the magic. In fact, I wondered if my eldest would be asking some questions this year, and I’m thankful that we seem to have come through this Christmas without suspicion. I want to soak up this innocence, this naïveté, this complete trust in something so full of wonder.

And when the time comes, and the Santa myth is discovered, I plan to follow some advice I recently read online, and teach my children “that they are a part of a larger community, that they can be magic and bring magic into someone else’s life.”

Magic. ‘Tis the season for magic.

Little Girls and Big Cities

Leave a comment November 29, 2016 drworobec

I am finding that raising a little girl is different than raising a little boy. I am finding that raising kids in a city is different than raising kids in a small town. And I am discovering both of these things fast and furiously as I venture into the realm of two school-aged children.

Let’s talk about the gender factor first. My four-year-old daughter is now coming home from Junior Kindergarten using phrases like “best friend,” “she said she didn’t want to play with me,” and “hurt my feelings.” These are all phrases that her brother, three years older, has never spoken. She feels things deeply, she notices friendship nuances, she’s finding her way amongst her peers.

And the big-city versus small-town element, well, this is something that I’ve written about before. I’m a small town girl, and I was raised in a town of 250 people until I was ten years old and we moved to a town of 2000 people. Everyone knew everyone, for the good or the bad, so it seems unnatural to me to send my children into a classroom, knowing few other families, and having them talk about kids that I’ve never met.

Now, to be fair, we moved into this neighbourhood less than two years ago; we’re still finding our way and meeting people as we go. But I suspect that this not-knowing-everyone is simply a side effect of city living, even though my kids attend a school of just 300 students, small by city standards. So, while there are more and more familiar faces at pick-up and drop-off, and more and more hellos at the playground gate, the fact remains that I want to know my children’s friends and their families.

I was chatting about these things with a friend; this friend lives in a different neighbourhood and has children that are older than mine. She’s been down this road before, and like the good friend she is, she sent her parenting wisdom down the motherhood pipeline: she suggested that I host a friend party for my daughter. Now, why oh why, I hadn’t come up with this simple solution on my own accord is one of the reasons I often preach that “The World Needs More Girlfriends.” Girlfriends help and support, and help and support she did.

A friend party it would be.

We printed off eleven invitations, one for each girl in her class, and asked her teacher to put them into the children’s backpacks. “We’d like to get to know you,” the invites said, “please join us on Sunday afternoon.” So, this past weekend I had six little girls running around my basement, laughing and playing and building their friendships. And I had six families in my kitchen, meeting and talking and building their community.

This friend party was for her, but as it turned out, it was also for me. You see, she’s nurturing relationships with girls that she’ll go to school with for the next decade and beyond (girls like this and this), and I’m nurturing relationships to build my small town within my big city.

Breakfast is our Dinner

Leave a comment November 1, 2016 drworobec

My work hours are set up so that I work until 7:30pm on Mondays and 6:30pm on Fridays. These are my two “late days” and, as such, I miss out on dinner with my family two nights per week. But, breakfast is our dinner.

A lot is said about family meal times, and the benefits of eating together; and, most often, the focus on family meals centers around dinnertime. But we’ve managed to find a solution that works for us, and I can absolutely say that 7:00am-8:00am is my favourite hour of the day. This is the hour that all four of us are together, consistently. Every. Single. Day. We all eat breakfast together and talk about the day ahead, and it sets a remarkable tone for Team Worobec.

It hasn’t always been this way. Before our move last year, we missed out on my husband joining us two or three mornings per week. On those days, he would head to the gym for 6am, shower onsite, and drive straight to work. We lived too far from his workplace to make it happen any other way, and the kids and I would often chat with him on the phone as we ate our cereal and eggs. So while we still had our beloved dinner-at-breakfast a couple of times a week, we didn’t have it every day, and when we did, it was far shorter. This subtle change in morning routine has been an unexpected and profound benefit of our decision to move neighborhoods.

Why post this? Because I have lots of patients who are parents, namely moms. And lots of patients who share parenting-guilt stories with me, namely moms. My treatment room conversations often turn into bare-your-soul discussions. People seem to have very defined ideas of what family time, especially dinnertime, should look like.