http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2008/05/08/burmese-family.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r3:c0.107069

Burmese immigrant waits for news of family after cyclone

Last Updated: Thursday, May 8, 2008 | 1:38 PM AT CBC News

A man from Burma who immigrated to P.E.I. in 1999 is still waiting to hear if his family has survived the devastating cyclone that hit his home country last weekend.

So far, the official death toll released by the Burmese government is 22,500, with more than 41,000 people missing. With officials still unable to reach some of the hardest hit areas, there are fears up to 100,000 people have died in the disaster.

Aung Lowt, with his wife and three children, are among the longest-term Burmese residents of the Island.

“I couldn’t sleep for two days now, and I’m still trying to get in touch with my family,” Lowt told CBC News Wednesday.

“I don’t know what situation they are facing now. Are they alive or are they dead? I don’t know.”

Lowt is also frustrated by the actions of the military junta, which has ruled the country, also known as Myanmar, since 1962. He said the government officials are fearful of people from other countries and that is slowing the ability of aid agencies to provide help.

Aid groups and governments around the world are begging the military to allow humanitarian help into the flood-ravaged areas.

The Lowt family are an adopted family for us.  My mom looked after their oldest when they first arrived in Canada.  She and Hannah love to get together.   The kids have adopted my mom as “Nana”.   This is a family that is completely devoted to making a wonderful life for their kids.  When they bought their first house, we discovered it was one we had lived in about 15 years previously.  We’re thinking of them and their family and praying for them.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and for the past few days I have been trying to brace myself.  Ideally, the day would be all about Mom right? 

 My first Mother’s Day kind of set the tone for me.  Dh bought me a set of muffin top muffin pans and 2 blank vhs tapes.  I’m not sure why.  I still haven’t figured out how to use the VCR and he said the muffin pans were so I could make muffins for Hannah.  She was 2 months at the time.

In the years that followed,  whatever happened on Mother’s Day seemed to fluctuate with whatever was going on in the home and I really don’t remeber many of them.  I do not like breakfast in bed and nothing would be better than sleeping in but for us it’s a hectic morning, getting out the door to church.

The most Memorable Mother’s Day ever,  and by far my favourite was four years ago.  Dh was working in another province and I was on my own with the kids for 4 months.  I was feeling most competant because I was able to handle everything on my own and I came to the realization that if anything happened to dh, I would make it.  He had been home the weekend before for a visit and left a willowtree angel for the kids to give me.  Something I had just started to collect.  The best part though was the breakfast in bed.  I know I said I don’t like breakfast in bed but this one was special.   Hannah was 7 and Parker was 4.  They made breakfast all by themselves.  A can of Coke, a granola bar and an apple, all served on a pizza pan.  Absolutely perfect.

So I am off to bed and no idea what Mother’s Day will be like tomorrow.  I brace myself for the unknown.  Kids could be cranky, getting out the door on time could be disasterous…who knows.  I used to take it personally as an assault on my job as a mother.  I’m past that now though.

And in the end, what goes around comes around.  There’s a reason that Mother’s Day comes before Father’s Day. 

Some important things will be happening this week in our battle with the Department of education.  I’ll write more after they take place.  I borrowed this from an email from a friend.

Why we need to continue the fight.
 
            This fight is winnable however we need more participation. These changes are going to affect the vast majority of students. 
 
The English core students will starting in Sept/08 have NO French language instruction until Grade 5.
The Early French immersion students will have to suffer with a lot less resources. Not all programs within the EFI program have been grandfathered. District 18 have already announced the axing of their summer remedial reading program for French language even though there are still students enrolled in the EFI program. We can expect to hear of more such cuts.
The Early and Late immersion programs will have staffing problems over the next number of years as immersion teachers switch over to the francophone system and the teachers in the lower grades with more seniority began bumping the teachers in the higher grades as each year is fazed out.
Schools are finding it hard now to get French substitute teachers for Immersion students it will become more difficult as fewer new immersion teachers will be coming in the system.
The intensive French model that is being brought forward by Minister Lamrock is not being used as it was designed or is it the same as what was piloted within the school system. The creators of the intensive French model have come out against this decision.
The late French immersion program is now a watered down version of what is currently in place. There will be less instructional time in French as math and science will now be taught in English. With less instructional time in French we can expect lower proficiency scores as a result.
The intensive French program will be very similar to the LFI program as they will include French language arts plus one other subj. (social studies) be taught in French and will be mandatory until grade 12
If you want your child to graduate high school bilingual it will not happen under this new system. The goal of both programs is to attain an intermediate or at best an intermediate plus level. All of the experts in 2nd language instruction that we have talked to concur this goal is overly optimistic. Intermediate plus is considered a threshold level at which “bilingualism” is attainable.
With the changes made to Policy 309 there will be no firm obligation on the districts/schools to maintain any level of French instructional time within the classroom so even the “grandfathered” EFI is not SAFE as it may be watered down as they take teachers away from the immersion programs to teach intensive French

What you can do
Letters to the editor are very affective. They are read by the politicians and considered by political types as a good gauge of public sentiment. Letters must include your Name address telephone number and no more than 250 words in length and can be sent to ‘tjletters@telegraphjournal.com’
Letters to your MLA and other party officials especially riding associations. All this info can be found at http://www.nbliberal.ca ask questions that they have to answer in your letters. Ask for a confirmation of receipt
Contact the district  office ask questions on the new programs. Express your displeasure with the changes. There is not much they can do to change a ministerial decision but your displeasure will be sent up the line.
Try and get in for a face to face meeting with your MLA Mondays are constituency days. MLAS are in their local offices every Monday.  
Educate yourself know the facts. Do not just take my word and do not just take what the minister says for fact. Read the Croll Lee report www.gnb.ca/0000/publications/comm/FSL%20Report.pdf Read the analysis of and rebuttal of the Croll Lee report published by the CPF http://www.cpfnb.com/reports/BeyondHysteria.pdf
 

There are many other issues and publications in regard to these changes which would be far too many for me to list here. If you want more info there are a couple of good websites set up with plenty of links to reports etc… the local Saint John site is www.educationnb.org

Our next door neighbor is a bit of an eccentric guy. He’s lived in the same house for all but three years of his life. We moved here about 3.5 yrs ago (seems like a lot longer). When we bought our house, we assumed the house next door was vacant. The lawn was overgrown to say the least. Over the years, we’ve come to know our neighbor. In the summer he always stops on his way home from work to talk to Lydia and her friends, whether we are inside or out. They like to watch the window for him. He comes for holiday dinners as we usually opt to stay home. Each summer, Jeff has mowed a bit more of his yard. First it was the piece between our driveways, then it was his front lawn. The backyard, at full height is between 4 and 5 ft high. We’ve often discussed what it would take to tackle it. What would be the best way to go about it? We didn’t want to be insulting. Jeff volunteers with a youth group and thought he could recruit one of the boys to help….until he younger brothers found out. We got the neighbors OK to do it today while he was at work. So this afternoon we had three extra boys. “J”, helped Jeff with the big stuff, “N” seemed to pair up with Hannah, raking and filling bags. “I” and Parker kept Lydia occupied. When we borrowed some gardening tools from another neighbor, he ended up helping for a while. Jeff and I are in agony after pulling out trees, pruning wild rose bushes, raking and mowing. Oh to be kids again. We filled 14 large paper yard waste bags, two compost cans and three garbage cans. There’s still some tidying up to do but we ran out of room for branches. Now we’ll help keep up the yard next door, a mom had an afternoon off and the kids got to learn about community service.

All worth the aches and pains. And the six pizzas that the kids devoured.

Make a Smilebox postcard

pour a beer.  A NB pub starts serving beer on the water in the midst of flooding.

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/285393

Lydia is quickly becoming the most independant little girl.  She potty trained within a couple of days.  She’ll use the bathroom anywhere.  She’s figured out doorknobs, can get the fridge door open, dumps her potty herself, opens the van doors, washes the floor while pouring her own water from a 4 L jug…..

Anyway today was a PD day….again.  Jeff left for work at 7:15 and the kids were all watching tv.  No one had had breakfast.  At 7:40, Lydia climbs up on the bed insisting that I get up.  She’s got what looks like yogurt on her face.  Usually when she’s finished eating, she puts her dishes in the dishwasher, gets a facecloth and washes her face.  She wants to cuddle and give me kisses.    So I get up to wash her face first.  I ask the kids who got breakfast for her.  No one.  IM Jeff at work.  He didn’t.  Lydia has at her little table, a plate (she can’t reach the cupboard so it proabably came from the dishwasher) with a hamburger bun, coated with  strawberry cream cheese.  She left the cream cheese out but did put her dirty knife in the sink.  I know she’d start cooking if I’d let her.

Oh and a couple of weeks ago I asked Parker too put dishwasher detergent in the dishwasher.  He used dish soap.  After about 4 cycles, I finally got rid of the bubble.  Lydia knows which one to use though.  She fills the dispenser everytime she sees it empty.  She’ll turn it on too.

New Brunswick is flooding along the Saint John River.  The legislature is closed due to the flooding so no new news today except this picture.

That would be our esteemed Premier and Minister of Education.

My oldest child can ride her bike.  Yes she is 11.  Last weekend Hannah finally managed to get both feet on the pedals and go about the length of the driveway.  You might not think this is a huge accomplishment but it is.  Last summer, MIL bought the kids new bikes.  After a couple of attempts, they sat in the shed all year.  When Hannah was about four she took a nasty fall off her bike with training wheels.  She pretty much scalped her knee caps and it took all summer to heal.  It was a long summer of cleaning her wounds after going to the beach..  Since then she has been absolutely petrified to ride a bike.  Hannah is a very smart kid.  She’s an excellent debater, fluent in french, top marks in her class.  She loves dance, drama, yoga and golf.  But give her a physical challenge, and she’s a different kid.  She doesn’t like any sports where balls might come towards her or anything that requires a lot of balance.

So finally she has managed to balance herself on a bike, long enough to pedal.  i think maybe it was the threat of her 2 yr old sister learning to ride that spurred her on.  Or maybe that she would be allowed to ride on her own at the school next door.  By the time middle school starts in Sept, she should be sailing.

In my last post, I forgot to thank my husband for all he’s been doing in this crazy busy house.  I could have editted to add a thank you but he deserves his own post.  It wasn’t too long ago that I would have passed up all these meetings because it wouldn’t have worked for us.  But we have both said that if we don’t give this fight, everything we’ve got, then we’ve done a dissservice to our kids.

Thank You Jeff for picking up the slack.

It’s been a hectic week and a half and I really need a couple of days to catch up on life.

Last Monday I had a meeting for the Saint John Breastfeeding Alliance, yoga at suppertime and then a Home and School meeting.

Tuesday- playgroup at our Family resource Center and  Citizen’s for Educational Choice   What are we?  From our website-  http://www.educationnb.org

”

 My son also had beavers Tuesday night instead of Wed.  and since we are a one vehicle family, conflicts in scheduling require some juggling.  They were going on a field trip at a local park so that meant hubby had to take the girls as well.  I also look after two little boys on Tuesdays so it was a very hectic day.

Thursday nights dh is out.  Friday night and Saturday I went to the provincial Home and School AGM.  I sat in on some amazing sessions about community schools,parenting the net generation and learning styles.  The presenter for the learning styles session was great.  He’s from PEI and here’s a link to the course he’s doing for the PEITF http://www.peitf.com/ideas.htm  I’d love to go to a full course.  The little bit that he presented to us on learning styles, was very insightful.

Oh and there was a special guest appearance at noon. Less-than -Honourable Mr Kelly Lamrock.  I had a hard time eating with him in the room.  It made me quite nauseous and I almost choked when he said that with his new plan, gifted students will have SEP’s.  This infuriates me so much .   Can you get more elite than that?   The current wait for a psycho-educational evaluation in this province is 1-2 yrs.  That’s for struggling students who may have learning disabilities.  And we’ve got room in the system for gifted students as well??

Honestly I think the man dreams up a new plan each night while he’s sleeping.  He should be writing them down though because he’s constantly contradicting himself.  he told a well spun tale of being on the basketball team in high school and almost cutting his fingers off in shop class.  I mentioned it to someone last night and they laughed.  Basketball??  More like theatre, debate and mock parliment.  New Brunswick needs to exile Doug Willms and Kelly Lamrock to a deserted island.

Anyway.  I took Sunday off  from meetings and Monday night went to PSSC and CEC again Tuesday night.  I think I am good until Sunday when I hope to attend the AGM for CPF.  Joe Dicks and the Official languages Commisioner will be speaking.

For now, I need to catch up on laundry, do a meal plan for the next few weeks, get some cleaning done and figure out what to do with the kids this weekend.  Two days off school again.  No offence to the teachers out there, but union meetings should not take place during school hours.  We’ve missed enough classtime as it is.