Charity

2 Comments September 18, 2018 drworobec

I need to throw in a plug for the remarkable people that my children are becoming. Every once in a while, I turn up the sap on this blog and make some of you cry on the GO train. Today might be one of those days.

Let’s start with a little back-story…..

Since my children were very small, we’ve piggy-backed an idea from my sister-in-law in regards to their money and finances. We use a three-jar system; one jar for “savings,” one jar for “spending,” and one jar for “charity.” Any money that comes into my kid’s hands, everything from birthdays or shovelling neighbour’s snow or the quarters that Grandma and Grandpa hide around the house when they come for a visit, gets divided into three equal parts and put into their jars.

The “savings” jar gets taken into the bank a couple of times per year and they see their bank balance grow. The “spending” jar can be used for whatever their hearts desire, from Beyblades to Pokemon, video-games to candy. And although I encourage them to think long term and “save up” for a special purchase, they are young enough that the spending jar rarely gets above $15. The third jar, arguably the most important, is the “charity” jar. They know that this is the jar that we use to help others, and it’s another tool that we, as parents, are utilizing to try to grow our children into compassionate, caring adults. This weekend showed me that it’s working.

We were watching the news coverage of Hurricane Florence. I have a close friend who lives in North Carolina, so Florence has been at the top of my mind for awhile now. As we watched, I was texting with my friend, and was relieved to hear that she was safe and relatively unaffected. My kids sat there watching the devastation on TV, whispering to each other on the couch before heading upstairs conspiratorially. They came down with their charity jars in hand: “Mom, we want to give our charity money to the people affected by the Hurricane,” they said.

In years past, we’ve donated to whatever cause is closest to our hearts. My husband and I have a “charity jar” too, and a few times a year, depending on the circumstances of our world, we give it out accordingly, usually pooling the kid’s charity money in with ours. We’ve given to friends fallen on hard times, needy families at Christmas, natural disasters, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Food Bank, and most recently, to the Humboldt Broncos tragedy. We always talk about this giving with our kids, putting our money where our mouths are, and my son has taken to asking if we can bring our “charity” money whenever we go to BlueJays games so that he can pass it out to those in need along the PATH system. So when they came downstairs with their jars, my heart swelled with pride; $86 is headed down to the Hurricane Florence rescue efforts, but there’s been far more than $86 worth of lessons learned.

Good job, my babies.

Be kind. Always.

Blue.

Leave a comment July 10, 2018 drworobec

I’ve had a dog for a large part of my life. My first dog, Sugar, was a small black poodle that passed away when I was only seven years old. I have limited memories of her, but my parents tell tales of how they’d tell her to “stay” on the front porch of our small-town home, and come back at the end of the workday to find her still sitting proud and loyal. I do vividly remember her burial, in a remote, wooded area just off the Alberta-prarie golf course that she so loved. I remember my dad’s tears, something I hadn’t seen before, and a heavy feeling of loss. Our next family dog, an American spaniel named Jacob, lived a short four years before developing a fatal spinal blood clot. The trauma of that loss is still with me today, as he was my running buddy throughout high school and I held him close as he was euthanized at the emergency vet clinic.

As adults, my husband and I have had two dogs- our beloved Chocolate Lab, Tyson, who passed away in 2012, and our Chocolate Labradoodle, Oz, whom we had to re-home in May 2014 following some health concerns with my daughter. So, for the last four years, we’ve been dog-less. We’ve done lots of dog-sitting for friends and family and there’s been lots of chatter about “when we get a dog,” knowing that it was a foregone conclusion that our home would have a dog again at some point. But I hadn’t felt ready until very recently, much to the chagrin of my husband and children. My heart wasn’t prepared yet, and I didn’t feel like our family had the time or energy available to give. Sometime late last year though, my mentality shifted, and I felt some “space” in our lives open back up.

Our focus turned to rescue dogs. We searched for many months and put in applications with dozens of rescue organizations and shelters throughout Southern Ontario. We were interviewed, screened, and we even met some dogs that ultimately weren’t the right fit for our family. We began to get frustrated with the constant searching, and decided to try another approach; in early June we placed a Wanted Ad on Kijiji, hoping to find a family that needed to re-home a beloved pet for circumstances beyond their control. A few days later, we got an email from a local rescue organization who had seen our ad and had three Golden Retriever/poodle puppies surrendered by an overwhelmed breeder. The puppies were three and half months old; “would you like to come and meet them?” she asked.

Um, YES.

Three days later we were driving home from Cayuga with our newest family member, Blue.

Her name is such simply because we love many things blue; the BlueJays, the Leafs (well, at least some of us do), the lake. And to think of all of the joy that she’s brought into our home in the last month…… well, I guess I’d forgotten the power of a dog.

Meet Blue Jay Worobec:

GDMFSOB

2 Comments June 12, 2018 drworobec

Are you ready for some sap?

My little girl turned six years old earlier this Spring. But to me, perhaps because she’s my last baby, she’s still oh-so-little. When my son was six, I remember thinking he was such a big boy and was capable of so much, and yet when she, my second child, is six I have tended to underestimate her and “baby” her along the way. I’ve noticed this pattern in my parenting over the past couple of years and have really tried to change it. After all, if I’m raising a strong, confident daughter, then coddling her will do her no favours.

When she’s the first one up in our household, she’s taken to going into the living room, getting herself some cereal and turning on SportsCentre on TV. We have a no-TV-before-school rule, but c’mon, sports highlights don’t count.

Last weekend was a particularly early wakeup for her, so after her breakfast and TSN fix, she got out her paper and markers and made this creation:

It says “My family is the most important thing to me in my life!”

I sobbed when she showed it to me. And then she cried because I was crying. You can see how sensitive souls tend to raise other sensitive souls, can’t you?

Deep within my tears was a feeling of tremendous pride mixed with a touch of GDMFSOB (look it up) we are DOING THIS RIGHT.

Mic drop.