Mary S-N

A couple dads at school pickup (in BC) today were talking about trying to go to see the blue jays play in Seattle if we won tonight. As an extremely fair weather Mariners fan (and honestly, all sports) does this mean I have to (get to?) talk about sports with the other parents? How does one…do that?

In the BC version, the goose and picker run opposite ways around the circle, *racing* each other to the open spot, but there’s no tagging.

Okay, so: in the version that both kiddo and I learned in western WA, 30+ years apart, when the goose is picked the goose chases the picker around the circle and tries to catch them before the picker gets back to the open spot.

There were a lot of things miss 6 and I discussed about how Girl Guides would be different than Girl Scouts, but I cannot stress enough how little either of us anticipated that the biggest surprise would be how Duck, Duck, Goose is different here.

It seems like there’s a cohort of older kids who take pride in propelling the thing, and sometimes a lot of allowance for littler ones who want on or off. I expect there are also cohorts of leaders with less grace for the littles, but it’s nice to see these ones work.

It’s also, like, eerily gorgeous here in the mornings, with fog lifting and wildfires making the sun pink.

Four days into grade one and my six year old is “not scared anymore” and knows at least one other kid’s name. Meanwhile, Mama is observing the elementary social rules around the merry-go-round. (How do the kids decide who gets out to push? How much do you have to push before you can sit down again?)

Update: and our first day up here, we secured a full time spot starting in September at a daycare center for the toddler!

Actually, I didn’t even think to expect it, but I got my work laptop replaced today, too, all of a sudden!

Next up: that package that’s supposed to come Thursday 😅

Like, my usually-takes-a-week Rx refill came through in like 4 hours yesterday, the 4-6wks to get copies of our updated car titles was 3 weeks, and the “probably still waiting a month or so” PR application next step came this morning. So…we’re doing okay.

I’m not one for magical thinking usually, but the way some parts of the international move process have been coming together right under the wire these last couple days is making me feel like it’s kinda a good sign for the biggest part.

Every time someone uses the lacrymosa as background sounds on TikTok I just keep singing it for like five minutes.

I keep learning things like this and then realizing that, despite being a lefty for writing and eating, I’m pretty ambidextrous with tasks that seem to need left-handed tools.

Last in-person day at the office before my international move means that I have a passenger this morning! Hopefully my beloved (home) office plant will be well-loved in the shared group practice office 🥹

No advice, only solidarity. It feels immoral to not do the “right thing” with books I’m letting go of, too.

Nice pairing with the r/therapists post about “I’m actively having psychosis and my supervisor said I have to keep seeing clients” (which has since been edited to be less explicit about the situation)

The age of consent part is the first one I always think about, since I work with some teens and our law is unusual there. But all the anti-trans laws are awful and alarming.

It also makes insurance paneling complicated. Like, I’m paneled with BCBS, but are they paying me Idaho rates for Seattle clients, or Seattle rates for Idaho clients? (This issue exists already for Telehealth across state lines)

But what is going to out me as the newly arrived from the US parent at the elementary school? “My daughter is in first grade/a first grader”. My brain keeps stumbling over “grade one”

I’ve been closely associated with Canadians since 2009, so you’d think I’d be well set up to blend in when we move to BC. I know about spelling differences, zed and pencil crayons, kilometers and many of the “which measurements are metric and which are imperial” answers.

Because the person I’d usually text this to is a colleague who is on vacation: it is so very lovely to find out that my kid isn’t going to be the only kid in her day camp with same gender parents. Her kinder class was affirming as all get out, but it’s not a replacement for not being the only one.

Chilliwack! Basically the last city east from Vancouver before the mountains. It’s far, but not beyond Hope.

Stay tuned for silly little acculturation reflections like me learning how to say "zed" and "pencil crayons" and spelling things properly north of the border. And bigger stuff, like the experience of the immigration process juxtaposed with the experience of my immigrant neighbors in the US

My wife is Canadian, and she and our kids are all dual citizens, so we've always had a vague plan to head north so the girls can really grow up with a Canadian identity. And my PR application is processing, we're gonna be super close to grandparents and cousins, and figuring out work transitions.

Social media is weird, to the extent that news of my engagement 14 years ago was posted on twitter before I'd told all my friends. So I've been hesitant to post my family's big news publicly before making sure most close friends and family know.
So! We're moving to Canada later this summer!

Oh man, this one is worse than the other one about 2x/wk recently, which was more “I don’t think there’s medical necessity to meet more often”

So, like…sometimes autopilot forgets what the plan is. Whoops.

Said toddler is very sad we aren’t there in person.

Two nights of not quite enough sleep combined with being away last weekend and potty training the toddler meant that I fully forgot what time church started today so we are attending on zoom 👀