You are not entitled to everything you want

Today we talk about entitlement. 

Specifically that there seems to be a huge sense of it with some youth these days. They expect way too much and have no sense of gratitude for what they do have.

It isn't all kids, I want to state that up front, there are some truly good kids and twenty somethings that have their head on straight and realize that good jobs don't grow on trees and all 8 year olds do not need the latest iPhone.

And, I hope that we can raise Miss K to be one of these kids. I have a good full time job and so does Big C, we make more than most as far as annual income goes. I won't deny that we have more means to do stuff or buy whatever than many, but that does not mean that I won't instil a sense of hard work and integrity in my kid. Life is not going to be handed to you on silver platter and you are not going to win at everything.

We have a young lad at work, lets call him John for sake of giving him a name. He is doing very well in the job that he is in. I don't work directly with him, but deal with him or have contact with him on a daily basis. He grasped the concepts of the job and has added some responsibilities not usually associated with the position. He's pleasant to deal with and is generally well liked.

All good right? Not so much. John pisses us off because he does do a good job, but has an awful work ethic. He shows up late, takes tons of vacation or unpaid time off, calls in sick on a regular basis, so much so that he cannot be counted on to be present for an entire week at a time.

John doesn't seem to care either. He wants to get a place of his own but feels he needs to make more money to do so. Not equating anywhere in there that you need to work a full week and show that you do a good job and can be reliable to making more moolah.

It's sad, because he's going to lose his job and not have any clue that he did anything wrong. He feels he's entitled to more because it's what he wants, not necessarily a fact of life, but if he wants it he's entitled to it.

I won't discourage positive thought, but its like wanting to win a million dollars and not buying a ticket. You can win unless you play. You are not going to get further ahead in your job, if you don't show up everyday and show you are able to take on the responsibility of working a full week without buggering off to do something with your friends.

And don't even get me started on kids who have iPhones and tablets and other things coming out the wazoo because they will "just die" if they don't have one. Cut the crap jack, you're not going to die. 

You will die if you don't have food, water, a decent roof over your head, clothing etc…life is not going to end if you can't tweet/text/instagram your friends or whatever the cool thing is to do these days.

So many kids get gifts for their birthdays and can't even bother with a thank you. They just take the cash or gift for granted and move on. 

I'm pretty old fashioned when it comes to that stuff. You are not entitled to a gift for your birthday, if someone chooses to bring one or send one, then you should be grateful for the action, and say so.

I was very encouraged by Miss K this past birthday, or should I say after her birthday. My aunt had taken a fair number of pictures of Miss K at her party. She printed them and assembled them in an album and mailed it to us. Miss K was thrilled at getting mail and said shortly after opening that we must call and say thanks.

Good for you kiddo, I would have done so anyway for myself as I enjoyed the pictures too, but I was encouraged that maybe she's got some sense of gratitude not found in most 5 year olds.

We called straight away, we could only leave a message, but Miss K did the majority of the talking herself and that was enough for me. Too many times people do things that my aunt did and it seems like it falls on deaf ears. You never know if the gift was received or if the person liked it or anything.

I still send thank you notes from time to time. I may soon resort to thank you emails as the cost of a postage stamp has gotten beyond stupid, but I digress. It's the effort to say thanks, its the effort to work for what you have, it's not thinking that you are entitled to everything just because you think it should be so.

I hope that I can teach all that to my kid. Yes, we have the means to buy her most things that she could want, but wanting and necessity are two different animals. Yes, you should feel that you can achieve or do anything, but you must realize that you are not going to get a trophy every time you play a game or do a good deed. 

Hard work is just that, hard. If you don't work hard at anything you never get to see what the rewards are. Be grateful and show that gratitude, and parents make sure your kids actually say thanks for a gift or help or whatever. Show them that stuff they want doesn't just show up in their room because they say they want it.

Guide your youngsters to be self sufficient, to realize that they may have it better than most, the value of integrity and doing a good job and maybe we'll escape the cycle of entitled youngsters that feel the world owes them something instead of the other way around.

Til next time…pay it forward and give thanks

Dog days of summer and patriotic pride

I think the dog days of summer are here. Or in our case the sick dog days of summer are here.

Not sure what is wrong with the pup these days. He upchucked Sunday around lunch, which isn't unusual for a dog, but then refused supper that night and appeared to be what I can only describe as nauseous.

Yesterday he was good, kept all his food down, we had reduced the amount just due to the actions of the day before. He seemed a bit more perky this morning and quite hungry, but then proceeded to upchuck all his breakfast. Not cool. The fact that he didn't do it outside but instead on the carpet in the living room sucked even more.

He's not himself that's for sure. The heat isn't helping either, we're in the heat of summer and that cannot feel good when you are wearing a big furry black coat.

Gonna get some pumpkin and mix it with rice tonight for his supper and see where that gets us. He's really hungry and drinking lots so I'm not suspecting any sort of weird wormy thing, but here's hoping we don't have to go to the vet!

I like the hot days, anytime I don't have to wear socks is a good day in my books. Big C just shook his head the other night when I put my feet on the back of his legs in bed and they were like icicles compared to him.

I have to remember that when I'm comfortable in the summer, that other people are probably sweating their you know whats off. And when I'm feeling hot, they're probably in the air conditioning somewhere.

MIss K and I are kind of at a loss without the Pan-Am games being on TV. They were held just down the road from us and it was nice to see athletes competing at places you were sort of familiar with.

Miss K was so excited that bowling was in the Pan-Am games, its one of her favourite things to do, and thought it super cool that you could win a medal doing it. Not much for TV coverage on bowling though, but she still enjoyed all the other sports.

And I was impressed with the eloquence of our athletes when they were interviewed. Most were gracious and humble and genuinely happy to be competing at home in front of Canadian fans. In fact even athletes from other countries were similarly grateful to be competing and spoke as if they had more than just a limited vocabulary of "gave 110%", "did my best", "trained hard" responses too.

I love that Canada won 217 medals, not as much as the USA, but then again they have 10 times the population that we do, so overall, I think we kicked some pretty serious ass.

I'm proud to be Canadian, very proud, we have a respected country, great rights and freedoms and generally good standard of living. The climate may not be ideal in some locations, hence why our population isn't that of the USA despite being bigger in land mass, but I will take it.

We come from a pretty awesome nation, and while there are 100's of places I would like to visit in the world, I very much always want to come back and call Canada my home.

Til next time…show some patriotism, no matter where you live.

Living with your kids, or without them

I had a conversation with Miss K last night before bed that made me a little bit sad.

We were talking about how tall she was getting. It seems with the summer sun that she grows about a millimetre per day. I know she doesn't, but I nearly dread going through the pants we have for fall, as I'm sure at least half will not be long enough. And as a mom who is nearly 6 feet tall, I will not have a kid who wears floods just because she's tall for her age.

We struggle a bit with packing on the pounds, but she's not going to complain about that in 10 years for sure. She's bound and determined that by the end of summer that she will weight the requisite 40lbs to have just a regular booster seat in the car instead of the 5 pt. harness type seat she has now.

After we determined that she was at least as tall as Queen Elsa was at her age, she stuck her lip out and started to pout.

Here's the conversation that followed.

What's wrong?

I'm sad.

How come?

If I get bigger and bigger and when I'm older I won't be able to see you and dad.

Well, why is that?

Well, when kids get big they have to move out of the house and I won't get to see you guys everyday and that makes me sad.

I began to tread carefully here, as I do not want to say that some kids live with their parents long after they're adults, but don't want to crush her either… Draw the fine line between independence and being close to your family if you know what I mean.

You would still get to see us kiddo.

No I wouldn't, I would leave and live somewhere else and not see you.

We see grandma quite a bit right?

Mm-hmm.

And we just went to see Poppa right?

Yes.

And grandpa Doug comes by sometimes to visit?

Uh-huh.

Well, that's what would happen probably. I get to see my mom and dad still, and so does Dad, we could do the same.

You mean I could come and visit?

Absolutely!

So I could go and be with my friends but I could still come stay here? Or you could visit me?

Yes we could.

Oh, well that would be ok then, but where would I live?

Look, that's a long ways off, let's worry about getting a good sleep first and we can talk more about it in the morning.

OK Mom, can I have one more last hug?

You betcha.

I was thinking later that night that I would be sad too if I didn't get to see her everyday too. The adjustment might be bigger on our end than it would hers. Big C has been away a lot for work lately and while we Skype twice daily and talk on the phone once or twice, Miss K is my companion for the most part when he's gone. Now that she's 5 the conversations are a little more grown up, but usually still revolve around school, Frozen, animals or food, but you take what you can get.

I will take the next 13 or 14 years with her and hopefully remember this conversation when she does want to move out of the house. I hope she does want to move out, but I hope she does want to come and visit us often.

All part of the process of growing up and letting them go…

Til next time, call your mom or dad or someone close to you…they'd probably be happy to hear from you

Gemini's and summer bugs

First full week of July. We just returned from a vacation to the Nord. For those of you not familiar with the Nord, we're talking off the grid, no cell phone, no TV, no radio unless you have Sirius or XM radio, that sort of thing.

I shouldn't have said no TV, because if you bring your satellite dish and place it out in the lake in about 18 inches of water, apparently you can get  reception so you can watch your "programs' in the middle of the bush. To each their own, if there is no hydro readily available, I'm not about to run a generator and drag a dish out into cold water just to watch the evening news or the latest Bachelor or whatever like folks at a neighbouring site did.

It was a peaceful week for the most part, lots of sleep, lots of boating/fishing, lots of eating, lots of relaxing, did I mention lots of sleep? Almost 11 hours straight one night…so fantastic. The bugs are not really my thing and the fact that one morning it was only 4 degrees leads me to believe that life in the "nord" will never be my thing, but it was still a great vacation.

Miss K had a wonderful time. She brought the bare minimum of toys with her, some bubbles and a soccer ball for outside stuff and had a blast. Ask her in the morning what she wanted to do and it was always go out in the boat. She didn't fish much, but she had great fun on minnow detail, and helping us reel in fish.

I grew to love her more over the week if that is possible. She is a true Gemini, twins in the same body for sure. That girl will go on and on about princesses and the movie Frozen and dress up in heels and gowns til the cows come home, or Olaf or whomever she is waiting for at her castle. Then the next day she's got her camouflage shorts on and is headed for a day in the field training the dog or playing in the mud.

She makes me so happy. She's got that feminine side but isn't afraid to get dirty. She made her dad just grin from ear to ear when she said her favourite place to shop was Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's. She requested a camouflage t-shirt as she did not have one, you can bet that it wasn't long before one of those found its way in the cart. And real camo, not the stuff with pink in it for girls.

I think she is missing her friends at school already, not even out of the classroom 2 weeks and she's talking about seeing her buddies again. Thank goodness there is quite a crew at the sitters so she can hang with some kids all week. Will have to see if we can arrange one of those play date things over the summer to get her school friend fix in.

I think I mentioned the bugs earlier, they are absolutely atrocious around our place right now. The mosquito's have multiplied to near swarm capacity. Let's put it this way, at night I still hear the high frequency "eeeeeeeeeeennnnnn" of impending mosquito attack even when safely inside the house.

The poor dog has little swollen marks all over his muzzle every day. We give him stuff to keep them off his back/body which seems to do the trick but it can't protect him from everything.

I've owned a bug jacket ever since I met Big C and there were trips to the Nord in the summer. I've used it once in about 9 years. One time. I've used it 5 times in the last week, and not one was when we were on vacation in bug country. Nope, bug country has moved south this year and I'm not liking it one bit.

I love summer. LOVE IT. But being a blood donor for multiple tiny insect strikes does not a good evening out make. It will get better, and Big C promises to break out the "fogger" on the weekend. Not sure if this will kill them or just give me time to duck and cover and make a break for the house when they're in the fog…LOL

It's still warm and I don't have to wear socks, so that makes me happy…

Til next time, swat a mosquito or two for me will ya?