After an extraordinarily eventful summer, which we are still recovering from, and which I will provide details of in another post some time in the future, I’m back with some more family and homeschool musings!
So, being a hippie in yuppie disguise, I was thrilled when Fuss got his first pair of Birkenstocks! Not only that - Bug was devastated when she couldn’t have a pair of her own. Her feet are too wee, but she wandered around the store with the smallest pair they have. Then, when we got home, she wore her brothers for days! That is, when he didn’t have them on.
He looks so cute in them.
What luck for me - he actually NEEDS to wear them. Really! Apparently he has a very high arch. I’ve been wondering why we can never get his foot into a snow boot. My mother was in a store that does not sell Birks. For some reason, she was telling the owner of the store about Fuss’ feet. The owner said that the only option for him really are Birks.
In the city in which I live we have a small store that only sells Birks. Pretty cool. They were the first in North America. They also rebuild, repair, all that stuff. Surprisingly, it was very, very busy. The owner told us that on the weekends, it’s standing room only and sometimes out the door (it’s very small).
So, Fuss has his first pair of really cool shoes and I couldn’t be more excited. I also got myself a new pair……
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
September 3rd, 2008
I have been using Kitchenmuse menus for several months now and I just love them. They are so easy and my family agrees that they like the meals.
In the menu, I get 6 dinners, some side dishes and a couple of desserts. It works perfectly. On the 7th night of the week (the missing one), we either order in (very rarely), or I make something from the cooking magazines I’m addicted to.
The Kitchenmuse stresses the importance of using whole foods and cooking from scratch. This I love. It makes planning meals so easy for me. In addition, she includes some raw food recipes, particularly desserts. Yum. The meals are all based on seasonal ingredients, which I love and makes it easy to get the foods needed to prepare the meals. No searching in exotic, expensive stores to find what I need. Who has time for that?
The meal plan comes to my inbox each Wednesday, in time for me to plan my meals for ordering my organic fruit & vegetable box, which I pick up on Fridays - grocery day. I look forward to receiving the innovative recipes each week. Additionally, Kitchenmuse herself is a nutritionist with an interest in organic and whole foods.
Kitchenmuse also runs a Waldorf-inspired daycare in her home, so that really makes it easy for me to support her business! She has teamed up with Little Acorn this year to provide a seasonal lunch/breakfast menu. It is based on Steiner’s colour/grain of the day. I’m so excited about this. I’ve been struggling with lunches for our homeschool, and this may very well be the answer! I have yet to see the autumn (the first) set, but plan to next week. I’ll be sure to let everyone know how that is!
Enjoying the nutritionally complete journey, Amanda
August 22nd, 2008
So, the great toy purge of 08 is finally done. Finally. Colin ended up doing most of the work because I was a bit overwhelmed by the task. He did an awesome job, but he was exhausted. And….we filled 20 large moving boxes! 20! Amazing that we had that much stuff in this little house.
And that leads me to the most amazing part of this whole thing. We live in a very small house and I always long for more space. Once we got rid of all the toys, suddenly I had all sorts of room. I have my kitchen back. We were able to put a proper table in and we can all eat together in a civilized manner. It’s awesome.
The surprising part is that the kids don’t miss the toys at all. Not even a tiny bit. I was shocked. We did, of course, leave them some blocks, some waldorf toys, a few puzzles and Family Pasttimes Games. Now they really get into the games, they sit and look at their books longer, and when they do play with blocks and toys, there is no throwing or aggressiveness. I had thought that was just part of being kids, but seeing that it no longer happens, I’m glad we made the switch. In addition, because they can really get into things, they are not running around the house screaming their heads off because (I see now) they are so overwhelmed. Right now they are sitting across from me at the kitchen table (yay!) putting game tokens in and out of a bag getting ready to play. So cute - and look at the time getting rid of the toys has afforded me. They are totally absorbed and I can sit and write on my blog. They just get along so much better, too.
This has been such a positive change for our family. I’m certainly not saying it will work for everyone, but I would say it’s worth a try!
Enjoying the clutter-free journey, Amanda
April 29th, 2008
I just spent Friday night and all day Saturday at the Gateway Conference at our local Waldorf school. It was fabulous. Such an energizing and inspiring weekend.
The keynote speaker was a man by the name of Kim John Payne, an Australian now living in New York. He’s been working on research with two other people, looking into stress as the leading factor in add, adhd and all the ‘d’ disorders as he calls them.
At the start of his career, he worked with youth in Jakarta as well as street gang kids in Australia and found that they all suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Once he became a Waldorf therapist, he found that many of the children brought to him for counselling were coming to him as a last resort. They were typically severe behaviour problems and had been labelled with one of the ‘d’s. What Mr. Payne found was that these children were suffering the same symptoms as the children in severely stressful situations.
What Mr. Payne found was the by simplifying the environment, many of the children improved dramatically.
I urge anyone who has the opportunity to hear Mr. Payne speak on Simplicity Parenting to do so. Alternatively, he has his speech on cd available on his website. Although I found it very inspiring, it’s not anything that those in the Waldorf community don’t already know. He presents it in first a shocking way, and then inspires parents to action. He, talks about ’soul fever’ and likens it to a real fever which was an amazing visual for me.
Saturday morning and afternoon had breakout sessions that were of value. However, I really think that hearing Payne speak was the highlight. Although we don’t have behavioural issues here, we can make these simple changes (simple only because we are already on the path of which he speaks) and have a better rhythm and flow in the house. Colin came as well and I think it really solidified for him what I’ve been saying all along. Particularly about tv being brain poison (Payne’s term). He’s also really keen to get rid of all the toys and get down to bare bones creative toys.
So, with Payne’s humour and awesome insight, I am going to make the changes he recommends and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
April 20th, 2008
A while back I learned of a place called Rising Chefs. It is a chef school for wee ones. I was so excited! I went straight to the website to sign up for a class (or sign Fuss up for one).
Disappointingly, they are about 45minutes to an hour away, in traffic. Basically the northeast side of the city, and I live at the opposite corner.
Well, lucky for me, I took the time to investigate the site a bit more. They have a rising chef’s club where they send a parcel in the mail. Kind of like a class by post! Well, until they have a franchise closer to me, I put Fuss in for this.
The box arrived today. So cute! It was all wrapped up in green paper. The recipe for this month is carrot muffins. Yes, I know that carrot muffins are kind of trite and we certainly make them on a semi-regular basis.
However, this is all Fuss! It’s all his. All his to do. And he is excited. The parcel included a set of measuring spoons (each month will include a new tool so they can collect their own kitchen gadgets), several packets of dry ingredients, muffin cups, applesauce, and a bonus recipe of a packet of a veggie dip that he just has to stir into sour cream (or yogurt). There was a letter, the recipe written for him to follow, a word search and a carrot to colour. Carrot being the ingredient of the month.
So, we’ll be eating carrot muffins for morning snack next week. If you would like to join us, here is a recipe from Better Baby Foodby Daina kalnins & Joanne Saab:
Preheat Oven to 325. Makes 12 muffins.
2 cups all-purpose flour (or half whole wheat, half all-purpose)
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups finely shredded carrots
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, slightly beaten
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add shredded carrots, oil and eggs; beat until combined.
Pour batter into prepared cupcake tins and bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool before serving.
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
April 3rd, 2008
Since Fuss was very small, I’ve been using a ‘curriculum’ called Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready by June R. Oberlander. I don’t remember how I first found it, however it is listed as the suggested preschool curriculum in The Well Trained Mind which I read long before I had children! So, perhaps someone mentioned it and it triggered my memory. It is hard to find up here in Canada, so my mother brought a copy up from her Florida library. It looked easy enough, so I purchased a copy.
We’ve been using it, and neither Fuss nor Bug have missed a week, although it’s not always when we are supposed to be doing them. We will skip some weeks and then do a couple for a few days to catch up.
I find the book really, hmmm….I’m not sure of the word I should be using.
The book is set up so that each week the parent does a developmental activity with the child. So, it starts at year 0, week 1 and continues until the week prior to the 5th birthday.
Usually the activities are things I would have come up with on my own just through regular play. Sometimes they are things that Fuss or Bug come up with on their own during play.
Then, sometimes, the amount of work involved to set up an activity is so time-consuming - for an activity that might last 5 minutes - it’s just really not worth it. But, I persist.
For a while it was nice because it was not much of anything and I could feel as though I had accomplished something. Then, I noticed that the book on occasion expected way too much of a child at the particular age. For example, a child should be able to say ‘marble’ at 10 months. Well, not in my house. Nope. I don’t know if Bug is even able to say marble at 24 months. Fuss couldn’t and he has the largest working vocabulary of almost any four year old I know - with one notable exception….a little girl friend of his who has a remarkable command of the language and has from an exceptionally early age.
Also, there was an activity once that had Fuss walk on a line I had taped to the floor (or chalked on the ground, I can’t remember what season this was). Then he was supposed to walk one foot in front of the other. At his stage at the time there was nooooo way this was going to happen. So it didn’t. I set it up, put it to him, he looked at me and walked away. That was that. I think sometimes my lack of enthusiasm contributes to the luke warm reception on the part of my children.
However, a few months later, Fuss hopped up on a high, narrow ledge and walked the entire length of it unassisted - one foot in front of the other.
There are some lovely activities - one in particular dealing with shadows. Suggested are various ways to make them on the wall, also to do a drawing of the profile of your child using his shadow, and to do a chalk drawing of the child’s shadow outside - each hour from the same place so that it’s obvious how the body is blocking the sun, and also how the sun is moving.
Fuss loved these sorts. Plus anything to do with lacing, sewing, etc….
The fact that the hands on activities, particularly the nature-based ones, spoke to him most strongly has furthered my resolve to maintain (and enhance) our waldorf-inspired homeschool. I’m really excited to get even more into this next year.
However, to finish summing up S&S: I somehow, despite all my negativity, would recommend it to someone new to homeschooling and looking for something. I wouldn’t recommended it without being prompted, though. Again, it gave me some sense of direction while being really, really slow and non-pressure (at least the way I used it). The prep was far more time consuming than the actual activity most of the time, but at least I felt we were doing something worthwhile (or I was).
I’m decidedly neutral on the curriculum! Will I use it for future children? I can’t say for sure. We’ll have to see. It’s harmless, for sure. But, at the same time, perhaps not worth the effort. However, I have a cupboard with all the prep work done (I saved them from when I did them for Fuss). If I had to go back to when Fuss was tiny, I think I might pick it up again. It certainly didn’t do any harm, and it left lots of time for play. It’s actually presented as play - and since they take about five to ten minutes, if one does not feel they are playing, it’s not taking too much away from play time.
I would definitely say it wont do harm if one feels like they are not doing enough with their child. Pick it up, do what speaks to you and leave the rest - no need to be as anal as I am and get every activity in!!!
So there is my long winded review of Slow and Steady!
Enjoying the journey (with or without this book), Amanda
March 31st, 2008
It was The Bugs birthday yesterday. She, of course, got tonnes of gifts - so many that she hasn’t opened the ones from her friends. She was sick last week (her party was last Saturday since her uncle was in town and he loves to put on parties for the kids.)
She opened Nana’s when we were out for the birthday dinner last night. So, it started out quite lovely. She got a cute pink cotton backpack, which I’m jealous of actually. My mother thought it would be nice for her to pack some things in this summer when we take Fuss to his swimming classes.
Then, Nana gave her a huge box of lovely, lovely clothes. Yay - really, that gift is more for me!
Finally, and here’s the trick - she gave her an enormous plastic magical flower fairy cottage. Now, I must admit that I find this item very sweet. However, we are going with a Waldorf curriculum next year (more on this later) and I try to keep a Waldorf-inspired homeschool. So, I had just resolved to go through the house with a huge garbage bag (or 10) and get rid of all the plastic toys in the house. Then, this turns up.
Now……here’s where it gets dicey. Both the kids love the fairy cottage. Part of me figures since it’s fairy themed, it’s kind of waldorfy, but really, it’s not. Hmmm…..what to do, what to do…..
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
March 30th, 2008
Well, it’s March Break at the schools here, so it’s March Break at the house. Only problem with that is that everything is packed with families. We are taking the time to just relax and it’s been nice outside the past couple of days (finally) so the kids got out which is nice.
Next week is better for homeschoolers because the attractions are not crowded and there wont be many school groups out and about. Monday we are going to the Royal Ontario Museum with a large group of homeschoolers which my kids will love (and we are going with their best friends).
I was going to take them to a Maple Syrup festival today, but again I didn’t think I would enjoy the crowds. I may take them the first week in April when things are settled down somewhat. Also - it will be warmer. Yay! I’m so tired of the snow and cold that I went out and bought both kids really bright spring raincoats. Bug wanted to wear her’s home, but we are not quite there yet. So, back on went the snow coat much to her dismay.
I started a book club with a bunch of other mums and we had our first meeting last night. It was so fun! I hostess (and will continue to do so - I’m a bit of a homebody, plus I love to cook/bake) and we chatted about the book The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson. A bit of a boring book, but the conversation was certainly not!
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
March 12th, 2008
Someone asked me recently how I came up with the nicknames “fuss” and “bug”. Well, my son was born and I promptly had a massive haemorrhage that was undetected until I lost consciousness an hour later. So, I was not well for a very long time after. In the hospital, where I was for several days, my son was horribly crabby. He would go for long periods of crying and we couldn’t figure out why. In addition, my husband and I spent several of these days deciding what his name was to be. Well, my husband was deciding. I knew and there really wasn’t an option, but fuss is his son also, so I thought I should make it feel like he was deciding as well. During that time of supposed indecision, we called him Fussy-Mussy. We still call him some derivation of that to this day. Fuss, fussy, The Muss, etc…..I’m sure he’ll go off to university with one of them!
Bug, well, she just is! I actually don’t have as concrete a story. However, my children are themed (don’t ask why) and her’s is ladybug. Fuss’ is bee, by the way. So, we call her The Bug. As lovely as she is, she often lives up to her name, much to her brother’s dismay!
I particularly love how the nicknames came about totally organically. They were never planned, I didn’t even think they would have nicknames before they arrived. Fuss’ is so endemic that his friends and his friends parents call him that! It’s just sort of his name. Poor kid.
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
February 24th, 2008
…but I think babies enter some sort of uncapturable state when they are sleeping.
I went into my room the other afternoon when Lilly was having her nap. She just looked like she was radiating positive energy and was just so peaceful. A sort of peaceful that people dream about when they are studying meditation, but just never achieve.
Now, I’ve seen her in this state before. As well as my son, when he was smaller. He still looks absolutely lovely when he’s sleeping, but not this otherworldly-ness.
Every time I see this, I run for the camera. Doesn’t every parent want those adorable photos of their sleeping children?
When these photos return from developing, they are very cute, and it’s certainly a sleeping baby, but the state I find her in is not there.
So, I think I’ve captured all the photos I need of my sleeping babe and will now just endeavour to spend time in her peaceful presence when I find her that way.
Enjoying the journey, Amanda
February 24th, 2008
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