The Dragon Bracelet

3 Comments September 17, 2019 drworobec

I’m going to tell you a story that’s going to warm your heart. Ready? Buckle up friends, this one is going to make you smile:

On Saturday morning, our neighbours had a garage sale. They were setting up as my sleepy-eyed children wandered out of their bedrooms and down the stairs. My kids know that I often say yes to garage sale bargains, and I agreed to give them $5 each to spend at the sale. My husband was away for the weekend, and as I puttered about the kitchen making breakfast, my kids happily scoured the treasures next door, decked out in pyjamas and bedhead.

They came home with a large several-trips-needed-to-carry karaoke machine and a framed picture of two zebras. Impressed by the eclectic nature of their choices and the massive neighbour discount given to them, the karaoke machine went into the basement for hours of loud, uninterrupted fun, and the zebra picture went onto my daughter’s bedroom wall. But, as with many impromptu purchases and the lessons needed to be learned about money, they began to tell me about all of the other cool stuff they’d seen.

“Mom, can we just have $5 more, and then we can get this, and this, and this!”

I explained that if they wanted anything more, they would have to buy it with their own money, and the discussion soon turned to a silver bracelet that they’d both seen. My daughter wanted it because it reminded her of a dragon tail, and my son wanted it because it reminded him of Harry Potter and wizards. The arguing began and I told them that if they wanted to purchase this special bracelet, they would first have to figure out how to share it fairly, minus the sibling squabbles.

They were mulling this idea over as we climbed into the truck and backed out of our driveway…… and as we glanced back at the garage sale, we saw the seven-year-old girl who lives on the other side of us walking up to the table to purchase, you guessed it, the coveted bracelet. My daughter cried; she had envisioned taking her 50 cents back to the sale and purchasing the dragon tail bracelet to wear forever and always. There’s a lot of absolutes when you’re seven. But here’s where the story will warm your heart:

We went to Burlington Sports & Spine Clinic for the morning (when I’m solo-parenting, my kids sometimes spend time with Netflix in the clinic’s massage room) and returned to find a gift on our front step, addressed to my daughter.

“To Casey,” the card read, “I saw you looking at this bracelet and I wanted to get it for you. I hope you like it. From, K.”

I think I’ll end the story right here. What else is there to say? Three days later, and I’m still marvelling at the kindness and thoughtfulness of that moment. I hope that it brings some joy to you too.

Saving/Spending/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.

Let’s look out for each other.

2 Comments July 23, 2017 drworobec

My faith in humanity was severely shaken on Thursday evening.

You see, my kids were in a bike accident.

But, before you get too worried as you read my words, let me assure you that they are now both completely fine. However, on Thursday night I wasn’t so sure…..

My daughter had a baseball game at a nearby ball diamond, and my husband had another commitment that evening, so the kids and I biked over to enjoy a gorgeous Summer evening outside. After the game, the three of us rode home as a convoy on the sidewalk; me in the front, my five-year-old daughter behind me, and my eight-year-old son bringing up the rear. We were three-quarters of the way home, almost finished our short five-minute ride, when I heard a crash and a scream. I was only a couple of bike lengths ahead, and as I quickly stopped and turned, I saw both kids laying on the ground, bikes twisted, backpacks scattered, both of their mouths open, howling in pain. I ran to them immediately, yanking my folding chair straps off my shoulders, throwing my gear, and scanning the scene as my emotions built and my heart raced.

My daughter was lying at the bottom of the pile, her head turned away from me, crying loudly. As I approached, my son pulled himself off of her and I yanked his bike to the side. His cries, however, were frantic and distraught, and he was writhing and gripping his abdomen. My gut instinct told me that he was more seriously hurt, so I tended to him first. “My ribs, my ribs,” he was screaming, and I knelt on the sidewalk to hold him and try to offer some comfort. I called to my daughter from my crouched position on the ground, and she got up and crawled to me, desperately hanging onto my other shoulder, sobbing.

This entire sequence had taken less than a minute, when a neighbor across the street came to offer his help. “I heard the crash and saw you running,” he said, “is there anything I can do?” By that point, my son was standing, squirming, clutching his stomach, his panicked cries not slowing down. Over the next few seconds, I was able to decipher that the “rib” he was referring to was actually his lower abdomen, and that his bike wheel had turned as he fell, causing him to land belly-first into the blunt end of his handlebar. As my mind raced with right lower quadrant anatomy, the complications of blunt force trauma, and first-aid protocols, I thanked my neighbor, and assured him I could manage. Both kids were still wailing, but we were just around the corner from our house, and my main concern was to get them back home where I could better assess and tend to them.

The neighbor walked away reluctantly, leaving me amidst a 10-metre swath of bikes, lawn chairs, backpacks, and ball gloves. Our things were strewn along the sidewalk and the roadside, and in the middle of it all, I huddled on bare knees, with one kid in each arm, calming them, cuddling them, tears streaming down all of our cheeks.

Two separate cars drove past us, slowly, down our sleepy suburban street, seeing the carnage of the crash. They didn’t stop or offer assistance. Minutes passed and my kids continued to cry. I buried my face in their hair, in their necks, breathing them in, thinking about what should be my next logical step, grateful that the accident hadn’t been worse. When I looked up, two people out for a walk were passing by. They weaved in and out of our mangled bikes, stepped over bags, and continued to walk. They did not look at me. They did not offer to help. They walked right past us.

We got ourselves home, pushing bikes instead of riding them; partly due to pain, partly due to fear, mostly due to bent derailleurs and broken pedals. I phoned my mother-in-law, a retired nurse, to get her opinion as to whether or not a hospital visit was warranted; there was no abdominal rigidity, no vomiting, no blood in his urine, so we decided it wasn’t. I tended to the kids with warm baths and ice packs and tucked them into my bed so that I could keep an eye on them both throughout the night. My husband arrived home later that evening to a shaken wife and an angry rehashing of the accident. My fear and my panic had settled, and had blended together into rage and disbelief about the people that passed us by.

I can only hope that they chose not to stop because they thought I had the situation handled. I can’t let cynicism overtake me, and believe that they chose not to stop simply because they didn’t want to. I believe that people are good, and I believe that bad situations often teach us something. This was no exception. Let’s offer help. Let’s offer kindness. Let’s look out for each other.

Friday morning revealed a scrape on my daughter’s shoulder, an ugly purple circle on my son’s belly, and many recounts about how the accident happened and what we could do differently the next time (i.e. stopping too quickly and following too closely). We talked about the nice man who came from across the street to lend a hand. And we talked about the people who didn’t.