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!