Deployment Dinner Update: Our Member of Provincial Parliament

posted on : January 25, 2015 posted by : reccewife 0 Comment

Here in my house, pity parties are not allowed to last the night.

Sure,
it’s okay sometimes to sit with your glass of wine and your bag ‘o
chocolate and moan because you’re doing it on your own again, or because
you’re little family won’t be complete at Christmas, or because not one
child will have dad home for their birthday this year…..

but then you pick your bloated, wine filled ass off that couch and you pull yourself together.

Life
moves on. And sometimes pulling yourself together just involves enough
energy for yoga pants and wiping the grime from the toilet before
someone thinks there’s a frat house using your bathroom.

But it’s still progress.

In my house, we move forward because experience has taught me nothing gets better if you’re waiting for the ideal moment to try.

So last fall when Dh left I decided we wouldn’t be sitting on our butt waiting for
community to magically appear and make this 4th deployment easier.

We were going to make community.

Inspired by Sarah Smiley and her book, we started our Invitations Deployment Project.

Each Sunday, we invite someone new for dinner.

Each Sunday, we have a new chance to expand our community.

Letting politics in the mix was never on the cards for this dinner, but I wanted to be sure that we tried to include leadership, too. That meant I extended invites to our local representatives, and they accepted! First up was our provincial rep: Sophie Kiwala and her partner.

They were a little hard to nail down for a visit but once they did, it was so amazing to have them! They swept in with awesome gifts from local places, each one with a story to tell the children. They with utmost tact explained the role of MPP to the children without making it needlessly partisan, and answered 1000 questions about not only her job but a city she was clearly passionate about!

When dinner was done, we made valentines that we packaged up to send to those deployed with Dh. I mean, who doesn’t love paste and glitter?!?

What an amazing way for my kids to not only learn a bit about provincial politics, but to see public servants being just that.

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