melissa

About melissa

I am "a hippie with a minivan". A mom of four who has chosen to take the less travelled roads in parenting. We are a unschooling family and learn through life without punishments or rewards. I am a Needle Felting Artist, I love being in the Kitchen, and love to share my passion of Natural Parenting through Workshops and Mentoring. We have a big dream of living on the road and we are in the process of converting a bus!

Hives…

There are some things that throw me for a loop and one of those things are skin reactions. They seem so pressing because they are so visible and can look much more aggressive than they really are.

Just after lunch Khéna came up to me and said that he had red spots on his leg, I looked down and his whole leg from the knee down was swollen, warm to the touch and basically looked like on big hive. On his other leg there were spots and on his back there were a few also.

Of course, I took out my camera…

Leg that had one big hive… swollen and warm…

Smaller hives on his back

I then called Annie. (check out her amazing blog if you don’t know her!) Annie and I have been close, and would even say best friends, for 6 years now. We started to talk when we were both pregnant and preparing for an unassisted birth. She is the perfect type of friend to talk to when things are happening because we are on the same wave length, she won’t panic and won’t send me into a panic and she is the perfect person to brainstorm with and get ideas. Oatmeal bath? Tea with herbs that might help? what could it be from?

As I was talking to her I was watching Khéna and the hives kept spreading and he has a large welt starting on his face… I decided that Benadryl would best to stop the reaction. Of course, the unopened bottle Benadryl that I had on hand expired nearly 3 years ago.

I left the older boys at home, went to the pharmacy with the two younger ones and got a new bottle and gave the first dose to Khéna before even heading home. 3o min later the slightest signs and bit of residual itchiness were all that remained.

I still don’t know what caused them and I am not sure if I will figure that out soon but it did teach me something… coughs, fevers (except in Mina), throwing up, falling down (except for Mina jumping from the bunk bed… oh I forgot to talk about that!) are things that don’t really phase me… but when big blotches start appearing on the skin I go into a sort of panicky mode.

edit to add… the hives came back later in the evening just before bed and they are all over his body (leg, torso, arms) except for the leg that they were initially on… we’ll see what tomorrow brings…

Quick Lunch Ideas

Being a homeschooling mom of four means that on average, most weeks I have 21 meals to prepare.

21 meals… seriously.

I make a weekly meal plan for suppers and always think of the basics for breakfasts but somehow, lunches never seem to register into the meal plan and I need to think to make something with what we have. I will go a quick google search at times but it never gives my any real ideas. For one, we don’t have a microwave. We don’t make many sandwiches (often because I haven’t made bread) and we don’t buy the usual sandwich fixings and honestly don’t want to. Neither I or the kids are big on soups, so that is out, and I don’t like pasta, so that is out also. There are days that I will have leftovers so that works if there is enough. The main thing is that most days I don’t want to spend much time in the kitchen because I have already made one meal not many hours before, and have a supper ahead to prepare.

So what to do?

Here are of my go to solutions for the quick-lunch dilemma:

Snacking! Cheese, crackers, apple slices, raw veggies etc

This is Easy and I usually scrounge up something to make a really nice looking plate. The kids also love this because they can have fun with it too.

Fried Egg sandwiches

If we do have bread, or english muffins then I (or Xavier) will make this. It is a meal that takes less than 5 minutes to make and everyone here loves it.

Egg in a hole (nest)

Whatever you call it, it is another one of those meals that is quick and easy if you have bread on hand.

Leftover Omelette

OK, OK you can see a pattern here, I always have eggs in the house. Eggs are inexpensive and so versatile and in my opinion an essential item in the house for quick and filling meals, especially lunch and of course for baking. Simon doesn’t eat eggs so they are never on the supper list, but the rest of the family loves them. So, Leftover Omelette is something I do when we have a bit of leftovers but not enough for everyone. (Hamburger patties, roasted veggies, taco meat etc) I crumble things up, heat it in the pan, add a few beaten eggs and then add a bit of cheese on top and serve. It might not be the prettiest meal but it is tasty, filling and is a great way to use up small portions of leftovers.

Wraps

We often have tortillas in the house and anything can be wrapped up in them. The kids love mayo and cheese, PB and J, PB and banana or any of those classic combos.

Rice

Rice seems so simple but it is one of my kids favourite meals. Yes, just rice. I put rice and water in the rice cooker press a button and about 45 min later we have a great lunch. The fun thing with the rice is that it is such a great blank slate for many flavours. A favourite addition at the moment is butter, tamari and nutritional yeast. (I add Garlic Chili Sauce to mine also) Other times it has been salsa and cheddar or many other combinations. They like this so much that if I happen to make rice for supper they will just eat the rice and dress it up the way they want. (which leaves us more leftovers for the next day)

Make rice for lunch and let everyone dress it up the way they want….

Of course, most breakfast ideas are great for lunch too, especially if we had a quick and simple breakfast. Some things I may make for lunch that may take a bit more time:

Oatmeal (usually with chopped apples or peaches or raisins etc)
Baked Oatmeal
Scones
Pancakes
Family Apple Pancake

What are your quick and easy lunch ideas? Please share, I could always use more!

Change of seasons…

Today we woke up to a light dusting of snow and it sunk in that Winter is coming.

In a few weeks, my Khéna will be 6 years old, then it will be the holidays and then Wilhelmina’s 3rd birthday. Wow… time really does fly…

It was still winter last year in February when we made the big decision to put the house up for sale and move out and head to BC where I was raised. Winter…. and now winter is returning. We showed the house a few times over the months but by not going with an agent and letting up on the advertizing, the visits died down. This summer we added another project to our plans. Not instead of our initial one, but prolonging our move by fixing up a bus and travelling until we reach our destination. But it is now November and we are still here and still not closer to moving. If things were a bit better financially now, we would buy the bus right away, fix it up and get it ready while we work on selling the house. But we are not able to do that at the moment because we just don’t have that lump sum and don’t have any family that can help. If the house sells, we will have to make the decision to either give up on the bus dream or get the bus and do our best to find a place to live while we fix it up. One is giving up on a dream that I have had since I was little and the other would mean that we would have to spend much more money to move twice, money that we would need for the time on the road.

This first snow and having the seasons start to change again is a bit like getting a slap in the face. Back in February, I would have never thought we would still be here. I would have kept our plans a bit more to ourselves because at times facing people that ask questions (not our good friends, but acquaintances) makes me feel as though we have failed, even if I know that it will all come in its own time and that things will work themselves out.

The day the leaves fell…

The morning the clocks change and you are supposed to magically have one more hour of sleep is the morning that 3 out of your 4 children will break their routine and wake up at 5:30 (4:30 standard time) and not be able to go back asleep.
Asking children to clean up their rooms will ensure that they disappear into their rooms and will play together perfectly and quietly for as long as possible.
A toy can be unplayed with and uninteresting for weeks.. until it is put away.
Someone will go out of their way to walk through the dust pile you made when sweeping.
A meal will be your child’s new favourite food until the next time you make it, then they will not even touch it.
Everyone will be perfectly content and happy until you hit the crucial part of supper making.
If you stop what you were doing to answer a child’s question, they will wander away once you start answering.
The farther you are to the bathroom, the more pressing the need to go.
At a restaurant, someone will always pick the exact time that the food is arriving to need to poo.
A child will be all smiles and wanting all of your attention, until a camera comes out.

Is it just us?

Dr. Google is not your friend.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Colin was feeling run down on Halloween and was not his usual self. He was better on Thursday but was still laying down in front of the TV most of the day. Yesterday he was again tired and then started to complain about a stomach ache. When Simon got home, Colin mentioned that he had a stomach ache and Simon got all worried which in turn made things much worse. There are times that I feel like I may be a bit cold, but I know Colin. He is so sensitive, that if we slightly overreact then he will spiral and he gets scared and of course that makes the pain worse and he gets worse.

I calmed him down and he settled on the couch and had supper. He then had a bath and when he got out of the bath the cramps came back again and he was doubled over in pain. I went into the bathroom with him and talked to him and he just started to talk about all of his fears. What if it was his Kidneys? (like Wilhemlina last year and my father this year) what if it was his liver? (like my step-dad who died when Colin was 3 months old) or his stomach (my grandmother had stomach cancer recently) and what if… what if…

The more he talked the more he scared himself and he soon started hyperventilating and was in even more pain. He asked if he had to go to the hospital. (knife insert heart here)

I told him that he would be OK and that he just needed to relax and breathe and calm down and just explained that the more he panicked, the more he would hurt. He asked me how I knew that he would be OK… and all that I could think of saying is that a mom knows. I explained to his that last year, when Wilhelmina was sick I just knew that there was something wrong even though the hospital and doctors weren’t finding anything. I just knew. And though it was so hard to see him like that last night, I also just knew that he would be OK. I brought him down stairs to his bed and talked to him and reassured him and he quickly fell asleep.

I went in the sewing room and before long I heard him wake up, again in pain and again breathing fast and getting stressed out. After about 20 min, I was able to calm him down and then help him fall asleep again and I went to the computer to do a search for maybe an idea of what it could be. Big Mistake! I am not one to worry easily and I am not a hypochondriac but looking up something on Google will make anyone start to doubt themselves and fear the worse. Google is not a way to get simple advice or reassurance. I started to panic a bit even though I still knew deep down that there was nothing wrong, but my quick search had completely put me on edge.

I posted a quick post on my Facebook fan page and had a few comments and luckily the post was seen by our friend Jody (where we had the Halloween party last week) She quickly said that it was the same thing that sent them to the hospital with their daughter in the last week and that her son, Colin’s best friend, was going through nearly the same symptoms.

After talking with her a bit and comparing stories, I felt better. He was not alone and they were experiencing similar things on the same days when they had seen each other 6 days before. I went to see Colin and he was no longer clinging his stomach and sleeping restlessly, but was on his back, totally calm and sleeping peacefully. I breathed a sigh of relief and went down to bed myself not long after.

Today, all is well and he hasn’t even complained once and is his normal jumpy self all full of energy.