Education | Lessons from my daughter

November 6th 2013

National “Take our kids to work day”

All grade 9 students are given the opportunity to spend a day at work with a parent, a relative or a family friend.

Emily decided a while back that she was going to spend the day with me.

Before going any further, I seriously need to thank my employer for allowing Emily the opportunity to take part in this day.

Most parents and kids would assume its just normal to take part in this activity. When it comes to Emily, nothing is normal, she is not a typical 9th grader. To spend the day with me, meant that I would be entertaining Emily. It didn’t mean that she would sit and observe, it meant that my day would be a partial write-off.

Last night, Emily was so excited. She kept talking and asking questions about today. It was really cute!

Today, was a comfy clothes day at work! We could get our free flu shot. It’s a yearly event we have for all of our colleagues. Every time we walked by the nurse, I asked Emily if she was getting her shot… every single time, she said no. Every single time, everybody within earshot laughed at how “final” her answer was.

I told Emily about the jeans/comfy clothes day.

I explained to her that today would be a chance to make a great first impression on some key players. We decided to dress for success! I am really proud of my daughter’s decision.

Once ready to go, I confirmed to Emily that before going to work, we had to get some coffee.

Once we had the coffee, we were ready to work!

I took Emily around the building. Introduced her to multiple people and made sure she had little chit chat here and there.

Most people I work with have met Emily in the past. Many are reading my blog. Others just suffer my never ending chats about my amazing kid :).

She was one of 8 kids at work today.

She got a welcome letter and some mementos from our properties in Africa.

As we started our day, Emily grab some of her math homework and worked on them.

I work in accounting, I figured math homework was the best way to show Emily what I do.

Look at how attentive she was. She started by using the calculator on her phone than quickly switch to my big calculator instead!

I had her spend time with 2 of my teams. She listened well, asked questions. Told some stories :).

When meeting with the people in the picture above, she sent me to get her coffee as everybody there carry their coffee around! That got us a lot of laughter from the whole team.

We, all the kids and their parents, enjoyed pizza for lunch! It was enjoyed and appreciated by all.

After lunch? I showed Emily where I keep my sweet tooth special treats…

After a fed her the sugar, I had her take our yearly WHMIS training.

She did awesome.

She studied the hazardous symbols last year and will review WHMIS and MSDS info this year.

I was happy to help her read the information and help her navigate the knowledge check part of the training.

By 3pm we took a group picture than we packed-up.

Emily had to be at Sylvan at 4pm to work with a tutor on her….math… LOL. That’s a lot of math in a day.

I had to go to the hospital to get my head scan.

Today, was a great day all around! I am a lucky girl! I have a great kid, a great boss and amazing colleagues that allowed me to pull this off today.

Today, Emily felt like the other 7 kids that took part of the “Bring our kid to work day”.

For that, I am thankful!

I am trying to write once again! I miss it terribly but can’t force my brain to heal faster than is required.

I am also hoping to be able to do a full week of work soon, I miss being on top of my game.

I miss my healthy brain!

Enough about me!

Emily has had a desire to be a cheerleader for years. We have gym mats on the floor in her playroom. In her world, she is a cheerleader!

She has the high school musical cheerleader outfit. She has many pom poms.

Even her American Girl Dolls are cheerleaders.

We tried to put her in a team last summer. They wanted to accommodate her but had no idea how to do it. It didn’t work out. Emily was overwhelmed and the solution proposed was to put a 14 year old 5’5″ tall with the younger kids… Like that wouldn’t make her the center of attention.

We refused that option, Emily was disappointed but got over it. We all did.

This past summer, another cheerleading club took a couple of kids with special needs and practiced the basics of cheer. It went well!

My bestie’s daughter and Emily’s best friend was one of the coach. I got updates here and there about how it was going.

When they decided to open it up to more kids this fall, we decided to give it a try.

Currently, there is only 3 kids registered and 4 or 5 coaches…. That’s great. More kids would be more fun but right now, Emily is getting the attention she needs to learn basics and build self-confdence.

I have promised Emily a trip to Lululemon in Halifax if she keeps going! I know I am bribing her but this is some serious exercise for her! After 40 minutes, she wants to call it quit and after the hour, she is sweaty…. 🙂

As Emily is struggling with some basic things like jumping while holding her arms up in the air or basic summersaults… I am thinking about adding yoga to our life… yoga for kids, Emily and I could do it and daddy would help with Emily’s balance… slowly, it should help stretch Emily’s legs and build more balance!

If you can suggest any program, please let me know. Wii or Kinect games are not necessarily good because they ask the person playing to perform up to a certain standard otherwise you are “not good enough” which is really upsetting for Emily. Programs on DVD would be better!

More to come on this project and how Emily is doing!

But before I go, please enjoy this 5 seconds accomplishment from my amazing daughter!