I want to write something about We Day, which was last Wednesday.

I went, and I feel kind of cheap about it because I weaseled myself a press pass, even though I wasn’t sure I was going to write anything about it, because I don’t feel like I have that kind of blog. I get lots of pitches on a daily basis and I turn away 99.99% of them because my blog is a space for me to think things out and work on my writing and I never want it to feel like a job, even if the offer is a weekend at a spa (SOB) or totally awesome movie passes (SOB SOB).

But I was very curious about We Day, and I really really wanted to go, and more than that, I wanted to take my older two kids in the hopes that they’d learn something and get excited about something, so not only did I take the press pass under (potentially) false pretenses, I also weaseled “helper” passes for my oldest two kids, which, GAH. But there you have it.

So, off we went to National We Day. What’s We Day? It’s a day of celebration (there are actually a few across the country, but the one in Ottawa is the biggest one). You can’t buy a ticket. Instead, you have to register on their website to do one local act of charity, and one global act of charity. It’s usually youth groups or school classes that register, and work as a group on their projects. You can do anything from growing a garden full of food for the local food bank, to putting on a talent show to raise money to buy goats in Kenya, to tutoring to improve literacy in your school, to sending a few students to Indonesia to build a school. Just about anything counts, as long as you do SOMETHING.

The idea is the brainchild of Craig and Marc Kielburger, brothers from Toronto. They run their own charity full time – it’s called Free the Children — and We Day and the We Act program fall under that charity. On We Day, kids who registered for the program and completed their activism commitments head over to the Canadian Tire Centre – 18 000 teens were there – for a day of inspiring speeches, videos, and music. It’s a kind of reward for having done their jobs and motivation to keep going.

So, what did we think?

First, the good stuff. Craig Kielburger, who I got to meet in a small press group first thing in the morning, is the real deal. He’s a passionate believer in the idea that everyone, even young people, can change the world, and that the smallest of changes can make a huge difference. He’s a compelling speaker and what I like most about him is that he’s very down to earth – he doesn’t talk just about Big Ideas but also has real, concrete ideas for how YOU, personally, can make a difference. Sometimes the world seems like a really big place with really big problems but listening to Craig makes you believe that we can do SOMETHING. He’s very inspiring. I particularly loved his story about how his mother had a very present and constant belief in charity work and had a huge impact on her sons. It really makes you think about the example you’re setting, as a parent, and how the small differences you make can snowball through generations into something a lot bigger.

Some of the other speakers were great, too. Marlee Matlin was there (she’s on the teen-appeal show Switched At Birth) and she was AWESOME, hilarious and inspiring and just so cool. HIV positive teen Caitlin Tolley was amazing, and local teen activist Jonathan Pitre brought tears to my eyes with his amazing attitude – I wish my kids were as well-spoken and clear-eyed and positive as those two. I also loved rocket scientist Natalie Panek, who talked about women in tech, and there were very brief appearances by Free The Children regular speaker Spencer West, who I wish had talked more because I could listen to that guy all day long (short version: he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro – on his HANDS, because he has no legs. YEAH.). My kids were excited to see the Governor General because they are nerds like that.

For the kids in the audience, although there was general cheering and a very loud, positive mood, it was clearly the musical acts that appealed – they rushed the stage and sang along to musicians I am far too old to have heard of. For instance, this guy “JRDN” sang this song and it got crazy in there:

But it wasn’t all stardust and glory. Gal Smiley is 10, and she had a good time overall, enjoying the music and, although she doesn’t seem motivated to activism, she’s at least thinking about things and curious. We happened to run into a class of kids from her own school who were there – older kids, from grade 8 – and that was actually the most influential moment, getting her thinking about things she might do herself when she gets to that age.

For the Captain though, who is 12 – he noticed something else going on. Midway through the day I asked him what he thought about We Day, and he said this:

“I feel like I am being marketed to.”

YES.

Here’s the thing: you can’t do major acts of charity without money. And you can’t get that kind of money from a bunch of teenagers (although some schools did do AMAZING feats of fundraising). To get the really big bucks, you need corporate sponsors.

And those corporate sponsors, as well intentioned as they may be, are not going to let the chance to market to a captive audience of 18 000 teens with disposable income go to waste.

And so, we sat through “inspirational” talks by the CEO of Ford. The CEO of Unilever. The CEO of Telus. The CEO of WestJet. These people tried, they really tried, to Talk Teen and bring some sort of environmental/activist slant to their talks. But there’s no getting around the fact that their central message was, if you want to do good in the world, BUY OUR STUFF. It felt kind of icky, all these older people (mostly grey-haired men) trying to be all hip-grandfather and sell on the side. The one company I thought that got it right was CAA – they had a young person deliver their message (a girl on the Canadian Women’s Hockey team). She had been a part of their safety program – they train kids to be crossing guards at schools – and their entire message was about that program. I mean, not that teenagers are the major market for CAA but at least it felt like they had a message that was FOR TEENS, and not about shopping. GAH.

Plus, Free The Children itself is a charity, but that charity needs to raise money. So they were selling stuff – jewelry and t-shirts and posters – that would raise money for Africa, which is good yes, but also heavily advertised and marketed with several videos throughout the day. They also have a new phone app, and when you download it Telus gives money to charity, so DOWNLOAD THE APP was all over every presentation, which actively started to bug the Captain.

I’m conflicted. I don’t know how to feel about that. I understand that change cannot happen without money, and that money is not going come from some anonymous billionaire out of the blue. And I want change to happen. But I also don’t want potentially unaware teens to be manipulated and marketed to, without really understanding what is happening. I want them to know that there are many ways to spend their money that will help the world, including direct donation to a charity of their choice that they feel personally passionate about, and not just by buying Unilever products. I want them to understand that when Unilever makes a charitable donation, they get an enormous tax break, and so by funneling your donation money through them you are helping them, which is maybe not bad, per se, as you got some shampoo and they got a tax break and Kenya got goats, which is win-win-win, but at least be AWARE of the chain of events, you know?

So we talked a lot on the way home about what we’d seen, and what we’d learned, and how corporations play a part in charity and are possibly a necessarily evil, or maybe even a good thing. We talked about how a charity can sometimes be a business and what that means.

And we talked about changing the world, and who we want to be, and how we want to do that. So I’m going to call We Day a success, and my press pass was worth it.

It’s been a hell of a week.

I’m usually a pretty appreciative person and that’s with good reason, because I have a pretty cushy and happy life. I mean, I have fantastic friends, who rush to tell me what a great writer I am when I lose my favourite writing gig. And a wonderful husband, who is gentle and supportive when you smash the van into the side of your neighbour’s parked car. And sweet kids, who lead you away from the sink full of dishes when they find you sobbing into the suds because you’ve pushed yourself physically too far, then make you a cup of tea and a plate of strawberries and crackers in the shape of a happy face. And kids who don’t complain one bit when they have to submit to a barrage of tests and possible new medical issues, or the daily turning of the crank inside the roof of their mouth that is widening their jaw. And extended family who tell you they love the Easter dinner, even when you forgot to put salt in the pie crust and the turkey went a little too far to the crispy side. And clients who are understanding when things just get away from you and you don’t finish their stuff on time and feel totally unprofessional and stupid.

But still – a hell of a week.

My latest column is up over at Capital Parent, on the secret life of the school age kid. Go now!

Thanks so much to everyone who left a comment on yesterday’s post, you guys are awesome. I have been making the children give me lots of extra hugs, big tight squeezes, that some have embraced and others have met with eye rolling, but that is just too bad for them. It’s what we all need, I have decided.

Today I dropped the kids at school – Sir Monkeypants usually does this – and I was surprised at how normal everything seemed. Kids with backpacks, kids dashing across the road to join up with friends, one kid even riding his bike. It felt strange but also hopeful. The world ticks onward and spring might actually arrive soon and those are good things.

In the spirit of returning to business as usual I’d just like to hijack the blog for a moment to promote an event I run annually, called Blog Out Loud. It’s an open mic night for bloggers where you can read your favourite post of the year in front of a live audience, at the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival where some pretty big headliners have appeared as well. If you’d like to read a post, you have to submit (up to two posts) by emailing me a link at lynnturtlehead@gmail.com. There’s a panel that picks out a great combination of posts to be read that night, and the deadline for submissions is this coming Sunday, March 29. It’s a very cool thing to read your words out loud, but if you aren’t selected, I hope you’ll still come out to hear the selections – it’s on Tuesday, April 28.

And now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

A cousin of mine passed away yesterday. She was a few years younger than I, in her late 30s, with a loving husband and three small children – two tweenage boys and a girl, just turned six.

It was pancreatic cancer, which is a pretty evil thing. No known risk factors, can strike at any age. Very few symptoms, the kind that can just be brushed aside, until it moves into other organs. The vast majority of patients aren’t diagnosed until it’s already stage 4 – giving them less than a year to live. My cousin got just six months out of the deal.

I live pretty far away and so it was easy to pretend that nothing was wrong. She was cheerful about it, and had a strong faith in God that meant that her Facebook posts were upbeat, showing her feeling like everything would work out according to the world’s intended plan. She never complained, only cherished those around her; she didn’t look sick because she didn’t undergo any major treatments – there wasn’t any point.

So it’s been a bit of a shock. I am sad. I am angry. It doesn’t seem right to be eating or sleeping or reading a book when there is such a wrong that has been done.

When the kids were still a twinkle in our eyes, I used to think the worst possible thing would be losing a child. And don’t get me wrong – that’s still completely unthinkable. But after they were born I gained a new top fear: the fear of something happening to me. The fear that I wouldn’t be there to hold their hands, wipe their noses, help them figure out this crazy thing called life. The fear that they’d be sad, or lonely, or sick, and they’d call out for me, only I wouldn’t be there to make it all go away. It made me be extra careful every time I walked down the stairs or crossed the road. I started eating more vegetables.

It seems like some sort of hubris to think that I’m irreplaceable. That no one could ever make them a cheese sandwich in exactly the right way, that no one else could ever keep the names of all their stuffed animals straight, that no one else will remember what brand of underwear is the only acceptable brand (different for each kid, of course). It even seems conceited to think that no one could ever love them like I do.

And yet, I do think that. Recently Gal Smiley told me that when I die, she plans to take my brain and put it in a robot version of myself so I can be with her always. That’s just about the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard. I want that too, honey.

I want that for my cousin as well. She has a strong church community and loving relatives and I know her family is going to be okay. But they’re never going to be the same.

Stories like this are the kind of thing that make you feel like you should be spending every moment, every day, cherishing the time you have with your kids. You should be thankful for the chance to be together, grateful for this life. But you just can’t be like that every single second, just like you can’t not complain about the food because people are starving in the world, or not feel frustrated at traffic because some people don’t have a car. Kids are frustrating sometimes, and sometimes you have a bad day, and sometimes these things collide to mean you’re not quite as thankful and grateful as you should be. That’s okay. But today, for just today, I will value them. I will feel joy that I am their mother and wife, that I am here and they are here and we are all healthy.

People sometimes ask a fun party question – what would you do if you found out you only had a few months left to live? I know my answer. I would write. Write through the sadness and the anger until my hands were too sore to continue. I’d try to pour everything I am and everything I think and everything I value onto the paper. I’d try to give my children a lifetime of my advice and caring and love in page after page of words. Words they could come back to time and again, words that kept me alive in a little way, a small way. Words that showed them that I didn’t want to leave them; words that would help them tell their own children about who I was.

And so: this blog. May this little diary keep me alive long past my assigned years. May these words tell my family, over and over again: I love you.

Lately I have been watching Jeopardy faithfully, because I am on a trivia team and it’s research, and totally not one step closer to embracing my future life in a nursing home.

Here’s something that bugs you when you watch Jeopardy all the time: people who say “please” every single time they ask for a category. “Civil War Battles for $400 please,” “Role In Common for $1600 please,” “European Bodies of Water for $1000 please.”

I realize this sounds curmudgeonly (one MORE step towards embracing the nursing home), but when you watch it all the time, it gets so annoying. You have the RIGHT to choose a category, players. TAKE IT.

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Also bothering me lately: recipes that say “salt to taste.” I am a science cooker. I cook a lot, and not by choice, not because I enjoy it or because I have some sixth sense about flavour or want express my creativity in the kitchen while salting-tasting-salting-tasting happily over a steaming pot for an hour. No, I want to follow the directions as quickly as possible and get that food on the table.

Would it be so hard to give me a general guideline to follow, say “1 tsp salt, or to taste” or “dash of salt, or to taste” or “1 Tbsp salt, or to taste.” I think we can all agree that these three salt amounts are very different, and I am not looking for guesswork. JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH SALT TO PUT IN. Thank you.

Today is the Captain’s 12th birthday. I rarely post on the girls’ birthdays, but the Captain’s birthday usually brings about a good wallow on the theme of They’re Not My Babies Anymore, eventually coming around to the personal growth moment of Perhaps That Is A Good Thing. This year: lather, rinse, repeat.

Working in my favour this year: no real signs of puberty yet, as he’s still safely below my shoulder in height and weighs less than most people’s pet dogs. I keep having to buy him bigger socks, and yet his shoes and boots seem to still fit, so possibly his feet are growing, but possibly not. Puberty! It’s such a mystery.

(Puberty, by the way, is his most hated word in the English language, giving him the willies like the word “moist” does to some people, and the word “lover” does to me, except when used ironically in a “Hello, lover” kind of way to refer to chocolate cake.)

Twelve seems like kind of a big number, though. By the time I was 13 I had a paying job. By the time I was 15, I was working all summer, and by the time I was 18 I had moved out to go to university. I feel like our lazy Summers of Awesome are limited, and that makes me sad.

Counteraction: make family memories! Now! As much as possible! CRAM IN THE MEMORIES.

So this year we are planning a Big Family Trip, something we have been saving for since we went to PEI. Our trip to PEI was awesome, we all had a fantastic time and were very sad to leave, but rather than go back we decided there was so much more of the world to see, and that we better get On It. We spent a lot of time out east talking about geography and oceans and tides and the different environments you’d see right here in Canada, and that led to a lot of talk about the Rocky Mountains, and THAT led to a lot of talk about how Sir Monkeypants has always wanted to go out west, so…

Calgary, Banff, and Jasper – Summer 2015. IT’S HAPPENING.

Happy birthday, Captain!

The other day we were riding in the car and the Little Miss asked me:

“Mommy, you know the things in our Easter basket? Do you leave them, or does the Easter Bunny?”

So I sighed – my last baby! – and I admitted that I do the leaving of treats.

Then she said, “Great. Can I have a stuffie then?”

Not fazed at all. Just happy to have a direct line to the supplier.

She appears to still totally believe that the Bunny brings the hidden eggs, though. I’ll be happy when all the “magical nighttime vistors” have been outed but it’s kind of sad, too, you know?

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A few days later, we heard an ad featuring Stephen Harper on the radio in the car, and that sparked this with the Little Miss – A Child’s First Talk About Politics.

Little Miss: Who is Stephen Harper?

Me: He’s the current Prime Minister of our country.

Her: I knew he was someone. Why is he on the radio?

Me: There is an election coming up, and he is telling us why we should vote for him.

Her: Doesn’t he just get to keep his job if he wants?

Me: No, we can pick someone else if we want.

Her: I think we should keep the old guy, IF he is not a bad guy, because you don’t know if the other guy is going to be a bad guy or not.

Me: Very true. But, they have to tell us before the election what they will do if they get picked.

Her: Oh, so you can pick a good guy.

Me: Yes. Sometimes they lie, though, so you have to decide who you are going to trust.

Her: Here’s how you can know. If they say “ummm…” and then take a long time to answer, they are probably lying. But if they answer right away, they are probably lying because they probably thought about what they would say. So if they take like, one minute to think, then they answer, that is probably the truth.

Me: I will keep that in mind.

Her: You also have to look at their face and body and stuff.

Alert Justin Trudeau: the Little Miss is available for pre-debate vetting if required.
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In other news, I had to renew the kids’ passports last month and seeing as how the Captain is now 11 (and actually, will be 12 TOMORROW, SNIFF), he had to sign his application. He can barely write in cursive and definitely has never signed his name to anything before, so we had him practice a few times before laying down his very first John Hancock, a sweet babyish scrawl of his name in all lower case. Aw.

Now he’s totally ready to sign autographs as a famous teen rock star. They grow up so fast!

My older two had their first visit to the orthodontist this week, at the recommendation of our dentist. I thought it was a bit early – the Captain will be 12 next week, and Gal Smiley is only 10 1/2 – but both had alarming-looking sideways teeth on their recent x-rays so we went for the consultation.

Here’s the conversation I had with a nervous Gal Smiley the night before:

Her: What’s going to happen there?

Me: Nothing scary. They will be just looking at your teeth and taking some measurements. At most, they might ask for new x-rays.

Her: Will they be pulling out my teeth?

Me: Definitely not. Even if that’s what he thinks is required, he won’t do that tomorrow. He will give us all the information and we will have time to think about what we want to do.

Her: Do I have to get braces?

Me: We don’t know, but if so, likely not for a while, because you are very young still and you have lots of baby teeth left. We will consider the options, and take our time thinking it over.

So, that was the plan, anyway. Actual events: we went, there were measurements and discussion and a lot of tut-tuts, and next thing you know I’m making an appointment two weeks out for her to have an appliance put in. GAH.

Lest you think the orthodonist is some sort of money-grabbing charlatan, I actually really liked him a lot, and he was very cool about the Captain, saying he just needs time for his mouth to get bigger and there’s no rush and his bite is fine for the moment, so let’s just let him grow a bit and we’ll see.

(Except for the fact that he does need one baby tooth pulled, because the molar above it is breaking loose out the side of his gum, which is SO HORRIFYING TO ME I cannot even type it without squirming, but our dentist can do the tooth pulling in 10 minutes some morning next week, although we may have to literally drag the Nervous Nelly Captain kicking and screaming into the chair to make it happen.)

But for Gal Smiley, her upper palate is smaller than the lower, and she is compensating for the mismatch by shifting her lower jaw to one side, resulting in a noticeable shift in her face that will cause weird jaw growth that is “easy” to fix now, but hard to fix later on, so yes, now it is. She has to have this device like a metal butterfly put into her upper mouth that we will expand with the turn of a key once a day for a month, then she has to keep it in for another six months to set the bone.

I’m trying to be Super! Upbeat! about the whole thing, and not just because I don’t want to seem like the Biggest Lying Mother That Ever Lied after promising her an ortho appointment with little ongoing impact. Also, I didn’t have braces and neither did Sir Monkeypants, so as far as we know, braces are just pretty little things that make your mouth pleasantly sparkly for a year or so. It COULD be true, right?

But the more I think about it, the more I worry – WILL it hurt? Will she drool a lot? Will she talk funny with it in? Will it stop her from eating her favourite foods? Will it stop her from eating altogether? Is it worth it?

Any advice would be welcome.