Alternative Parenting – Page 15 – a hippie with a minivan

Picnics and parks…

We have been keeping busy lately with making the most out the rest of the summer…

With most kids going back to school, the homeschooling scene comes alive again and we have been having something each week with one group or another…

Though I don’t have many pics of it, we went to the first meeting/outing of the new unschooling group here in Montreal. We still have to get together and figure out what the group will become, but it was great going to a park in Montreal and hanging out with quite a few other unschooling families… it will be definitely worth the travel! Xavier is really starting to come out of his shell and is now having so much fun with other kids when we go out instead of playing alone as he used to..

My kids are somewhere around in this pic (or on the other play structure) … but I love that it is a picture of all kids that are unschooled 🙂

Then we had another Picnic, this time with the Montérégiennes group on the south-shore of Montreal. We headed to Ile Ste-Helene /Parc Jean Drapeau where there is an amazing park for kids… I hadn’t been there in years (to the kids park) but I will definitely go back soon… Simon and the boys will be going back tomorrow to go to the amusement park and I would love to check out the Biosphere and head to the park again…

The turnout for the Picnic was pretty good and we stayed for hours while the kids played and we talked…

The climbing structure is amazing and the ground surrounding the park is all bouncy… so bouncy that the kids were having fun falling and rolling on it….

I got this candid shot of Xavier walking around with Khéna and holding hands… I just found them so cute 🙂

Next week we have another Picnic with yet another homeschooling group… This time it will be on Mont-Royal at Beaver lake with the Montreal Homelearners group for the Not-Back-to School annual picnic….

Though we have a lot of fun when we go, I wish that I was a lot closer to these groups… The Travel time and the gas to get there add up quite abit.. but the local group is just not a lot of fun and I really don’t feel like we fit in… with the others however, our differences don’t seem to matter, and we can talk, and share, and just all be part of the group…

Great post on Unschooling…

Here is a post written by an Unschooled teen who lives in Montreal. She talks about the differences between unschooling and eclectic homeschooling and why it bothers her so much when the eclectic homeschoolers refer to themselves as unschoolers. It is something that bothers me also, but hearing it from a teen that was unschooled herself, makes the reasons why it bothers me more clear.

A few thoughts about unschooling…

Unschooling is not just about schooling… it is a way of life and you just can’t seperate the two.

If you are new here, or want to know more about it, here is my definition of Unschooling

Last day…

Today is the last day of Simon’s vacation, it is raining so we are having a quiet day at home…

I am really happy with the time that was spent while he was home.. we got out often, did quite a few things but didn’t wear ourselves out… Of course it would be great if he could have a little more time off but he is keeping two of his weeks to take a bit later in the year or add to his parental leave when the new babe comes…

On Thursday night Amy left a message on the post I wrote about 6TZEN saying that she had contacted them in Montreal and that they would be meeting her for a picnic on Friday… I couldn’t pass up on the possibility of meeting the family again so on Friday morning we went to Montreal t meet up with all of them…

I am so happy that we did… the kids played, the parents talked and it was amazing to find out how much we all have in common.. In Normandy, Estelle gives workshops on Nonviolent Communication, teaches babywearing, is a homebirther and helps moms breastfeed, … though the system is set up differently there and there is less educational freedom they believe in life learning and non-coersive parenting and are in no way helicopter parents… Arnaud commented to Simon that it is amazing to things that we come from half a world away but that we have so much in common…

After a few hours of talking and get to know each other and the kids playing in the park and the water feature it was time to say good bye… It is probably the last time that we will meet but I don’t think it will be the end of communication…

Here is the family (taken in Jeanne Mance Park in Montreal)

Saying goodbye!

After we said goodbye we did a few more things in Montreal…and I loved seeing in what ways they are making the city a bit greener…

The BIXI bikes are good example… with a subscription you can grab a bike from any BIXI station to ride to your destination… then you just park it again at any BIXI station… the first 30 min are free and then there is a small fee after… not only is it a great idea but it is also widely used based on the amount of people I saw on them…

Another little thing that I saw while walking were lane ways that used to look all dingy now making people smile…sometimes it is the little things that make a difference…

Fort de Chambly

Yesterday we met up with some old friends that were on vacation here from France. We spent the day with them on Wednesday also but they are leaving tonight so we were really happy to be able to see them and their kids again.

We decided to head to the “Fort de Chambly” which is about 50 min away…

The first Fort was built in 1665 as one of the French outposts to protect New France against raids of the Iroquois. It was burned down by the Iroquois in 1703 and then reconstructed soon after. After the war against the Iroquois was over, it was ordered rebuilt in stone to protect again the English. In 1711 it was finished and though it was restored in the 1980’s this is the fort that stands today.

We walked around and watched the Rapids a bit… The fort stands on the Richelieu River which was know at the time as the Iroquois River.

The kids had fun looking for squirrels…

In the courtyard, stones in the ground show where the original buildings were from the earlier structures and wood stump outline the old walls that were made of wood…

Here you see the line in the wall that shows the old wall before the restoration.

The site has been excavated and here we see the original building and the Latrines. These latrines were actually quite luxurious as all the waste went right into the underground natural channels that led to the river. Quite a few artifacts were found in the latrines when they excavated the grounds. The theory is that when the English conquered the fort they threw many of the French items “out with the waste.”

This room was very dungeon like. It was where the gunpowder was kept.

A painting in the Museum shows Montreal in the 1700’s

We went through the museum and at the end there was a place for the kids to try on Costumes and become Soldiers… they got dressed up and played out stories and headed up to the the turret… they would have stayed there for hours if they could…

Xavier said that he was not a soldier but was a captain. He here is looking out on the courtyard…

Walking the halls…

Soldier Colin coming down from the turret…. he saved the fort from the Indians… see how proud he is 🙂

It turned out to be a beautiful day and we had a great time with friends and learning about Quebec history…

(here is the turret they played in… )

Orgasmic Birth…

It has taken me so long to write about this but I guess it is better late than never…

On the 6th it was the “Orgasmic Birth” viewing here in Montreal. It was amazing!

The people, the atmosphere and of course the film…

I left home at about 2:45 with two of the local moms whom I had invited and we went out to eat before heading to the show… after eating and getting an ice cream we did one more errand and then headed to Vanier College where the film was being presented… We got there early and found a place to sit and by the time that film started the place was full… pregnant women, mothers, a few babies, doulas, midwives, midwife students, birth activists, dads and even a few doctors… the energy in the room was amazing.
While we were waiting, a woman sat down next to me… she was an older woman and we started talking and I asked her if she was in the birthing community, she said she wasn’t but that she had done her PhD in Birth many years ago and then talked about her birthing experiences, she had wanted natural births with her first daughter nearly 50 years ago she had been put into twilight sleep.. by her third child she was able to get the birth she wanted… she had taught in Vancouver and then retired back in Montreal and has not been part of the birthing scene in many years but had seen an editorial in the Montreal Gazette and wanted to check it out… The conversation we had was one that I will not soon forget.

The movie started, a few glitches of wrong subtitles and then started again… and about 1/3 of the way through there was a scene of a vacuum extraction and a c-section and the lights went up, a woman in the audience had fainted. I have to admit, seeing it that close up, on that big on screen was pretty pretty hard….

The movie started up again and when it was done it was time for the discussion panel. On the panel was Lysiane Gregoire, the president of the Groupe MAMAN, Nicole Pino, a mom that had an orgasmic birth, Debra Pascali-Bonaro, the filmmaker, Celine Lemay, a midwife from Quebec (the one that had come here after Khéna was born and whom I had called a few weeks ago when I was bleeding) Betty Anne Davis, the co-autor of the homebirth study and midwife in Ottawa and Jack Newman, Breastfeeding Guru and pediatrician in Toronto.

the questions for the panel started out slowly but picked up soon after and the responses from the panel were amazing… Some were about the lack of midwife care in quebec, some were more technical questions or in need of opinion….

like a mom who was scheduled for a C-section for a breech baby seen on an ultrasound at 20 weeks!!! which in response one of the panelist explained that the recomendations are changing with respect to breech births because of the fact the problems that may occur in breech birth disspear by the age of two but that the rise of c-sections mean that there are more maternal deaths…. the problem now is that doctors need to change thier practices….

or a question about IV fluids in labour and how there is no standard and women are given Litres of fluid and how it effects birth weight and weight loss in babies (losing more than 10% of their weight after birth) because of excess water and then the breastfeeding relationship being threatened with supplements etc…

The questions and the discussion just kept on going until we were literally being told to leave by the campus security…

If you have the chance to get your hands on the movie, do it… it is really a great movie, well made and beautiful… and what is amazing about it is that it is being shown more and more to the birth “professionals” who have never seen a normal birth and for many it is changing their views… I ordered a copy and I can’t wait to share it also…