Category: Kids
Tuesday, Mar 23, 2010 | Kids, Yoga |
Around the same age, all the children had imaginary friends, or made-up words for which we couldn’t discover definitions. Albus had Bappy and Bumberknock. AppleApple had Amy and Damey. Fooey had a mysterious word that she used with alarming frequency (considering we had no idea what it meant): Teacock. She also called all animals “didi.” (Oddly, CJ did the same thing for a brief time). And, now, CJ has Dindl and Pindl, sometimes pronounced Dinder and Pinder. Dindl and Pindl are constantly up to unknown but dramatic activities that call for a lot of arm-waving and expression. Albus just told me his theory that Dindl and Pindl are CJ’s swear words. This actually sounds plausible.
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I used the fast-forward method today, on advice from a friend, and plied CJ with massive amounts of sweet sweet nectar (apple juice, which he never gets to drink) … and therefore sped up the whole potty training process. The only difficulty was turning it off at the far end of the experiment when it was time to go OUT to the kids’ music class. Our big accomplishment of the day was establishing that underwear is different than a diaper: it’s meant to stay dry. We went through about five pairs during the establishment phase, and now he’s been in the same pair since 2pm. Pretty remarkable. A good day’s work.
And now with supper still on the table, lunches to be made, Fooey tormenting Albus, potty trainer on the loose, AppleApple practicing piano loudly, a huge full-house tidy required this evening … I’m escaping to do 90 minutes of yoga in a steaming hot room. Any wonder such an event feels like a holiday? Sadly, this means Kev is left to swim through the disaster … I have no advice to offer him.
Sunday, Mar 14, 2010 | Birthdays, Friends, Kids, Mothering |
Had a long conversation yesterday morning with Albus. He wanted to talk about two things: one, when can we get a Wii and why don’t we have one when everyone else does? and two, why can’t he have a friend birthday party with presents?
Well.
On one, at least there are still a few friends in the neighbourhood whom I could point to as being similarly Wii-less. But that’s not really the point. The point is that we don’t choose to do things just because our friends are doing it too. And the reason we haven’t gotten a Wii yet (though we may, eventually) is because Kevin and I prefer to encourage creative, active, cooperative play–and we see our children playing in these ways when they are given the freedom and time to do so. The best moments in my life, right now, are watching my children playing together–all four of them. In this play, they learn how to solve problems, how to compromise, and how to find ways to include everyone. It doesn’t always run smoothly, and there are plenty of moments which cannot be romanticized. I don’t think a Wii would ruin this. But I also don’t think it would enhance it. What I explained to Albus was that if/when we decide as a family to get a Wii, it will only be after we’ve come to an agreement about how often it should be played, and when, and under what circumstances (ie. special rules for holidays? after school? once a week? weekends only?). It would become like the television is for us, and the DVD player: something we have, but choose not to use without considering others activities first.
Did Albus hear what I was saying? Debatable. “So I can get one for my birthday?” “No, I don’t think so.” “So I can get one for Christmas?” “I don’t know.” “When can I get one? Could I get a DS instead?”
Onto question two … Albus is already planning his birthday party (which won’t be till May, on his birthday). “Could my friends bring presents this time?” “No, we don’t do friend parties with presents.” “But why? I would get so many toys!”
Since we started hosting friend parties for the kids’ birthdays (around age six), we chose to request no gifts. Cards welcome. We got a few phone calls from baffled parents who really really really wanted to bring a gift, but everyone has so far respected the request; the way I see it, the gift is the presence of friends. We also don’t hand out giant loot bags afterward, but like to send every kid home with something they’ve made at the party, or a related but inexpensive prop used at the party: ie. one year I found pretty little china tea cups and saucers at a thrift shop for a tea party; another year, Kevin designed and made personalized t-shirts that all the kids wore to a “bike rally.” Nothing fancy. The birthday child gets to the choose the party theme, what to eat, who to invite, what the cake should look like, etc. It’s a fair bit of work for us, and held in the child’s honour, and adding ten gifts into the mix never made sense to Kevin and me. Like over-salting the soup. We also always host a family party for the birthday child, to which aunts and uncles and grandparents are invited–and gifts are brought. They don’t need to mine their friends for extra treasure. There are already gifts in abundance.
Does this sound like an odd, puritanical rule? I appreciate that giving gifts is something that many people want to do.
But we’re trying to live a less wasteful life, less packaging, less of what we don’t really need.
And we live in a country that is enormously privileged and we sometimes forget that and want more and more and more, without recognizing how much we already have. (I’ve observed this phenomenon at other moments with the kids: If I put out a big buffet of a snack, everyone goes greedy, grabbing and hoarding, even though there’s more than enough. If I put out a small and simple snack, the greed disappears.)
By the end of the conversation (which wasn’t the lecture that appears above; sorry to be so dull today), Albus seemed reconciled to the basic principles of doing with a bit less. Somewhat reconciled might be more accurate.
This is just the beginning, right? Of my children testing our family’s principles and choices against what their friends are doing? I recently wrote a review of Craig and Marc Keilburger’s The World Needs Your Kid, and highlighted from the book ten suggestions for encouraging compassion in one’s children. Number two was to know and identify your own beliefs, as parents. It felt in the conversation with Albus that I did know, and I was grateful. But I also want to remain open and flexible to their changing needs, so that kids don’t feel like their living in a totalitarian regime, but in a living and growing ecosystem.
Which is why we might get the Wii, eventually. Maybe this Christmas. Maybe. We’re still thinking about it.
Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010 | Kids |
Fooey: “But I don’t want to be the grandma!”
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J (ie. not Fooey’s brother): “Here, open this. This is a present for you because I want to marry you!”
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Fooey: “Sheesh, I wish someone would get me a bear.”
Monday, Feb 22, 2010 | Cooking, Kids, Recipes |
Here’s a new twist: Kevin cooking with the kids. Today, it was Fooey’s turn and I needed a break. So the two of them thought up the menu and made: wonton soup, and shrimp crepes with mint, lettuce and bean sprouts (from Vietnam in the global food cookbook). For dessert, which we’re eating right now: bananas fried in butter and brown sugar with mango sorbet. Good, good, and good!
Next week’s menu is already being discussed. It will be Albus’s turn. Kevin is pleased to participate in the cooking, and I am happy to pass the torch.
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With my spare cooking time this weekend, I made a chicken stock to freeze (and to use as a base for the wonton soup). I’ve been doing this regularly, every few weekends, making enough to freeze for adding to soups and other recipes during the week. Here’s my extremely basic recipe for chicken stock: I use the bones, skin, and gizzardy bits leftover from roasting a scrumptious Nina chicken, adding whole onions, garlic, carrots, celery, sometimes a potato or turnip, salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaves, and a few tbsp of apple cider vinegar; and of course litres of water, often coming close to filling my gigantic stock pot. After simmering for an hour or two, I let it cool, then strain everything out. The taste of this stock cannot be beat; except perhaps by the smell while it’s cooking. Which is why I keep making it.
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I also made whole wheat waffles, doubling the batch, and making enough to store several breakfasts’ worth for later in the week. Weekend waffle-making has become an excellent habit this winter.
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My final recipe success today: Chocolate Sunflower Granola Bars. This is adapted from Simply In Season’s Oatmeal Fruit Cookies, and was inspired by two different friends describing how they make cookie baking faster: by spreading the dough onto a sheet and cutting it into squares after baking. I had about 45 minutes in which to make these bars if we were going to make it to the planned afternoon family yoga outing. Plenty of time! Here’s my recipe:
Chocolate Sunflower Granola Bars
Cream together 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup oil, 1 cup sugar, and 2 tbsp honey. Scrape the bowl and beat till light and fluffy. Beat in 1 egg and 2 tsp vanilla.
In a separate bowl, combine 3 and 1/2 cups of oats, 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 and 1/2 cups chocolate chips, 1 cup sunflower seeds, and 1 teaspoon baking soda.
Add the dry to the wet, stirring just till mixed. You can add another sprinkling of flour if the mixture seems wet.
Spread the dough on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.
Cut into squares while the giant cookie is still hot.
(I left the cut, hot squares untouched in the cookie sheet and resting on the cooling rack for a couple of hours while Albus and Fooey and I went on a family yoga outing together, and the squares were lovely and cool and transferred nicely to the cookie container upon return. Not even crumbly!).
Sunday, Jan 31, 2010 | Kevin, Kids, Photos |
Just occurred to me that today is the last day of the month. Whoosh. There it goes. Here are some of my favourite unpublished photos from this month … AppleApple in her Hogwarts hat taking photos with my old camera (which I still use to take movies, and sometimes grab for point-and-shoot situations). Fooey eating the largest chicken drumstick you’ve ever seen in your life. That was from our meal last Sunday, which we made together. She requested gravy and mashed potatoes, and I added a roast chicken. We had meat enough for a second meal later in the week (chicken curry in the crockpot), and still have enough for cocka-leekie soup next weekend, for our Burns’ supper (which will double as a birthday party for Kevin). Who turned forty yesterday. He declared his birthday “just about perfect,” as we drove home last night from a dinner out (thanks for my brother Cliff and his fiancee Keely for babysitting–and bringing along a pottery craft for entertainment). Pause. “Just about?” I said. I hope to get a chance to blog about the birthday day. If not, at least more photos to come.
Last weekend I spent several days parenting alone, and the photo where all four kids were sitting at the breakfast bar, and Albus was using his cream horn as a megaphone, was taken on our second evening together. We were also watching the telethon for Haiti at the same time. Which brings me around to our penny jars, and our newly instituted family meetings. Kevin has devised a complicated (to everyone but him) mathematical formula for filling the (somewhat mislabelled) “movie” jar. We’ve decided that we will be saving up for family fun nights–when we reach our goal (refer to Kevin’s complicated mathematical formula), we will choose a fun activity to do together. So far, ideas include family swim night, and everyone play Lego with Albus night. Pizza night is in there somewhere too. To make the family meeting just that much more appealing, we’ve added the element of ICE CREAM. Who can resist.
For their allowance, which we’ve never given them before now, we have decided to split it into thirds: one third for saving at the bank, one third for giving, and one third for spending as they choose. We give out the allowance at the family meeting. I should add that I got some of these ideas for family meetings from a book called Honey, I Wrecked the Kids, recommended by a friend.
So. In summing up this month, I’d say that we are in a good rhythm. It’s busy, but the days and weeks have some order to them, with enough room for flexibility. Though I still struggle to find time for my own activities (even this blog), it is worth it to keep trying. I’m appreciative of moments like right now. Alone in the kitchen, four loaves of bread baking in the oven, typing out a few words.
Friday, Jan 8, 2010 | Kids, Sick, Spirit, Work, Yoga |
This is the kid who’s off to preschool. This is the kid who’s home sick. This is the mother (not pictured; possibly wearing frowny face) who is not using her “work” morning to do much more than make peppermint tea with honey for said sick kid while fielding innumerable bored comments as he sits beside me and reads the words I’m typing.
I forgot to bring my camera to the preschool drop-off. Will have to stage the moment next Friday. It was the first time I’ve felt like a commuting, all-working, no-one-staying-at-home family; though in fact the feeling was pretend, because here I am, working from home. But anyway. We all ate breakfast, got packed up, headed out the door together, and drove to the preschool, where we said goodbye to Kevin and CJ, and then I drove the girls to school (Albus stayed in the vehicle and “spied” on people). On a Friday when no one is ill, this schedule will mean that I’ll return home to utter quiet. Today, not so much. Albus is all about the sound effects.
But even that possibility reminds me that once upon a time, Life was very quiet. I frequently returned home to an empty apartment. And while there is much pleasure to be found in quiet contemplation (or the potential thereof), I’m grateful for the noise and chaos and activity that these four extra personalities bring into the house and into my life.
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Last night, despite a raging and persistent head cold, I went to hot yoga. This is my winter replacement for school. I’d gotten in the habit of leaving the house on Thursday evenings, as had everyone else, so I figured I’d better keep that habit up. Hot yoga it is. I walk into the room, lie down on the mat, and it’s like being on vacation in the tropics. Yoga is most effective when the mind turns off and empties out. I love it. By the end of class, I feel spiritually renewed. Each time is a little bit different. One time, I was moved to tears, though I couldn’t say why. There is something about emptying oneself out that makes room for more, for change.
However, I did not get to meet with Nina afterward, which was our plan, to discuss our words of the year. I’m looking forward to it. I think my word will be EXPERIENCE. I like the duality of the word, how it both honours the repetition of my mothering life and days, and points toward the new and challenging as well. Experience can only come from practice, and from putting in the time. It requires patience and commitment. But to have an experience can be quite a different undertaking altogether: it requires a leap of faith, openness, willingness, recognition, courage. Experiences drop out of the sky; sometimes you simply find yourself within them, and sometimes you have to look for them and seek them out. (I’m thinking of “experiences” as adventures, of a sort, but more mundane than that, too. Experiences can include anything: finding yourself in conversation with someone you don’t usually talk to, or sitting down to play the piano and finding you want to write a new song, or picking up a book and being unexpectedly touched and moved by a random sentence. ie. my definition is pretty wide open).
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And now. I need to get to work. I’ve just pointed my sick son toward the television. I’m going to let him watch YTV, which is usually off-limits due to the wretched advertising. Does my child need to be inundated with the latest and greatest in toys, cereals and movies? No, my child does not. But an hour or two can’t hurt.
In about an hour from now, Kevin will arrive home with our youngest.
“He won’t be able to tell us about his day!” AppleApple pointed out, as we drove away from the preschool. Unfortunately, that’s true. Or mostly true. He likes to mention details about his experiences, but unless we already know and can make the connections, these are hard to piece together into a full picture. For example: Boat! Shoe! Shoe? Shoe! Daddy coming! etc.
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In happy self-promotional news, I’ve learned that my story “Rat” has been nominated by The New Quarterly magazine for the National Magazine Awards, and the Journey Prize. These affirmations do the heart good. They really do.
Around the same age, all the children had imaginary friends, or made-up words for which we couldn’t discover definitions. Albus had Bappy and Bumberknock. AppleApple had Amy and Damey. Fooey had a mysterious word that she used with alarming frequency (considering we had no idea what it meant): Teacock. She also called all animals “didi.” (Oddly, CJ did the same thing for a brief time). And, now, CJ has Dindl and Pindl, sometimes pronounced Dinder and Pinder. Dindl and Pindl are constantly up to unknown but dramatic activities that call for a lot of arm-waving and expression. Albus just told me his theory that Dindl and Pindl are CJ’s swear words. This actually sounds plausible.
