My youngest daughter, Sadie, had her 5th birthday last
weekend. As I held her in my lap, I told
her the story of how cool it had been that I got to hold her and rock her for
20 minutes, all alone, right after she was born 5 years ago that very day. That reminded me of a cool experience with
the birth of my first child, almost 29 years ago.
I was teaching grade 3 at DM Eagle Public School and had been
keeping the kids abreast of the upcoming birth.
I had always liked the tradition of handing out cigars on the birth of a
baby and I got the idea to hand out candy cigars to my students, but for the
life of me, I couldn't find anywhere those black licorice cigars I remembered
from my youth - and back then there were
no Costcos, no Bulk Barns, or Walmarts (it was still Woolco at that time). My dad was a truck driver in Detroit and was
known to the other drivers as the Canadian Shopping King. I asked him to put his super-sleuthing
shopping skills to the test. He
outperformed my expectation by finding baby blue "It's a Boy"
bubblegum cigars by the boxful. When I
returned to school and handed them out, my kids were thrilled. Little did I know that they, too, had come up
with a plan.
One day, a few weeks later, I came into my classroom just
before the end of recess and found the room full of kids, parents, and my wife,
along with my weeks-old son. The room
was resplendent in baby shower decorations, complete with a cake, cards and
presents. The kids (especially the 8
year old girls) were in heaven. Everyone
got to hold the baby, we opened cards and gifts, and ate cake. What a memorable surprise.
And the icing on the cake? One of the Moms was a part-time teacher at
St. Gregory school. When the
"party" was done there was still time left until the end of the day. She ushered me out the door with the order
to, "Go, relax and have a visit with your wife and son in the staff
room. I'll take your class."
Yup, quite a memorable experience.
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| Chris and Me |
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