a hippie with a minivan

Progression of a strawberry mark…

I have been thinking about showing the progression of Khéna’s haemangioma for a while now and after a conversation with Annie the other day, I thought it would be a good time… ( I know that I would have liked to see something simular when I saw that he had one)

First… what is it? (you might not imagine how many times I have had to answer this out in public)

Infantile haemangioma (American spelling ‘hemangioma’) describes a benign (non-cancerous) condition affecting cutaneous blood vessels. It is also known as proliferative haemangioma because it is due to proliferating endothelial cells; these are the cells that line blood vessels.

Infantile haemangiomas are proliferative lesions that usually develop shortly after birth. They are distinct from vascular malformations, which are usually present at birth and are less common.

Over 80% of infantile haemangiomas occur on the head and neck area. They grow to 80% of maximum size in the first three months and most stop growing at about 5 months. However, they may keep growing for up to 18 months.

After that, they undergo regression or involution. This can take as long as 3-10 years. Nearly all flat infantile haemangiomas eventually involute and disappear without treatment. However, regression of bulky haemangiomas tends to be incomplete, and they may leave an irregular atrophic (thin) scar or anetoderma (a dented scar) in at least 50% of cases.

From here…

though you don’t see it, he had an even bigger one under his hair but it grew quicker and faded completely by 18 months…

(you can see all of his pics here)

3 days old (no sign of it)

2 weeks old (you start seeing it)

1 month

2 months

3 months

from 5 months to about 14 months it was at it’s most intense… it was really thick and looked like it could burst….

(this is at about a year… it was more raised than this for a few months)

From 13 months to 18 months it pinked up…

14 months

15 months

At 18 months the middle became flesh coloured and it was no longer as raised and squishy…

second birthday… you can see it is fading more…

2 years 3 months….

3 1/2 years (he now also has a scar right next to his mark after falling)

4 years old

4 1/2 (he is showing the bump he got on the playground)

5 years old

7 3/4 years

unschooling… doing nothing?

When I wrote the definition of unschooling a few weeks ago I handed it out at the local homeschooling meeting in hope that the philosophy around it would be a bit more understood… I found out yesterday though that it really wasn’t…

I agree that to the outsider, unschooling doesn’t look like the parent is doing much… you are not technically sitting and teaching a few hours a day… you might not have as many ways to “show” what your kids are learning because there is no curriculum, no workbooks or tests…but unschooling is not about “doing nothing”… you are always answering questions and researching things… you need to be attentive to their interests and provide them with experiences…

I felt really felt disillusioned yesterday at the homeschooling meeting when I realized that my efforts to explain unschooling in the attempt to create a connection regardless of our differences had caused maybe even more confusion… some parents were talking and saying that they agree with unschooling because they do it also when they are not doing school work… (like in the afternoons.. on weekends or in the summer on school break) basically saying that when they are done “teaching” the kids what they “need” to know… then they are free to “unschool” (with limits of course)…and in the context and way they said it, it was like unschooling is what happens when the parent is doing nothing to actively teach their kids… they also made clear that most kids cannot be unschooled because they just “wouldn’t do anything’ and would never be able to learn without being taught…

The thing is… Unschooling is not just about not doing schoolwork…. it is about looking, and seeing, learning and education, in a different way… it is about having confidence that all kids start with the love of learning and if nurtured, they will always learn what they need to learn when they are ready and interested to do so…

When you see that, you no longer see the need to actively teach math and grammar because you know that they will learn it when they see the necessity in learning within everyday life experiences… you don’t teach the alphabet or colours or make sure that they know where their nose is… you can even see that doing so can be detrimental and destroy the love of learning…

Free time after sitting and being taught for a few hours is not “unschooling’… and neither is summer vacation… just because you decide on stopping school work for the day… or even a month or two and the kids keep on being interested in things it doesn’t mean that you are unschooling… it just means that kids are being kids… but it could be unschooling if you continue letting them do that all of the time and gave them encouragement follow their natural interests of what they want when they need to…

To be honest, the rest of night I was much quieter than usual and was wondering what I was doing there… the experience left me feeling really withdrawn and indifferent… I feel that each time I have made an effort I have felt pushed away.

homeschooling on the radio…

Yesterday there was a great talk about homeschooling on CJAD…the talk-radio station that I listen to on a daily basis…

A homeschooling mom of 4 was invited to talk about homeschooling and the opinionated host turns out to be quite pro-homeschooling… which made the show and interview really positive.

The questions that came in where the normal ones… what about friends? are they socialized? are they being sheltered? how does it work? how do you get time for yourself? what about highschool? Is it Legal?

All the questions where answered with great answers that I hope will get the idea out more and I have to say that I learned a few things also… Though I knew that homeschooled students can go straight to University and bypass CEGEP I didn’t know that the easiest way to get in is to pass the american SAT’s.. something that isn’t availible to the public/private school system here…

I really do wish that we lived somewhere else… or closer to the west end of Montreal at least so that we could be more involved with homeschooling groups and the activities that were mentioned…

I did start a facebook group yesterday though for Unschoolers in Quebec… hopefully I will be able to get a few members and meet some more families with simular philosophies about learning…

Sunday morning…

We got to sleep in this morning… the boys were up a bit before us but Simon and I got to stay in bed and sleep for a little while longer… though I would like another little one one day I am really enjoying that they are growing up and are able to take care of themselves a bit more… even if it just gives us an hour more of sleep….

The last few days have been busy…

Thursday was Simon’s birthday… so I cleaned… made Burrito’s and baked a cake and helped the boys make cards etc…

On friday, Simon took the day off and I decided to go do some shopping in Montreal and to make things easier for Simon and have a little one on one time I brought Xavier with me…

First stop was to find a tripod, then we walked around a bit and I bought some PJ’s and a new sweater… then we headed to a little comic book/figurine store and Xavier picked something out for himself and I picked somthing out for Colin…

I was so mad when I got back to the car and I had gotten a parking ticket… I will be contesting it because I was really not at fault… I was parked in space 351, I had paid for space 351 and I still had an hour left… and I got a ticket for space 350… ( I had my camera on me so I took pics and I have the receipt)… It seems that the city of Montreal is really looking for money…

After, we got in the car and headed out for lunch.. I couldn’t find a space near the restaurant I wanted to go to so we headed to Shwartz’s for the best smoked meat you could ever eat… Xavier had having a blast…

After that we went to a little deli next store and picked up some sausages, cheeses and some hot sauce for Simon… and then headed to my friend Gen’s house to see her and the babes and bring some Leftover vegetable korma that I had…The babies are getting so big and Gen is looking great!

After that we headed back off Island and I headed to Ares Kitchen supplies… I hadn’t known that there was one right near the mall I usually go to but saw it when I visited their site… OMG… it is like the Toys R Us of kitchen supplies… I found exactly what I needed and saw many more things I wanted… that place is going to be dangerous!

It was late, so we picked up a bagel and headed home…

Then yesterday we woke up to Khéna vomiting… then we cleaned the house a bit then I went out for groceries and Simon’s mom, sister and a friend came over for the afternoon… we ordered Pizza and talked and played the Wii… it turned out to be a better visit then I would have thought..

Khéna is still sick though… throwing up and now diarrhoea…

Anyway… today we are all relaxing, the housework is pretty much done and we are just crossing our fingers that it doesn’t spread…

Black Magic…

What an amazing cake!!

Simon loves chocolate… ok… the whole family loves chocolate but it was Simon’s birthday on Thursday so I had to make this…

This recipe comes from Hershey’s and it is rich, dense but light at the same time…

I think that this is going to be my cake recipe from here on in… it is just perfect…

and the frosting… another perfection… a really simple Chocolate Buttercream frosting…

For the cake…

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup Cocoa

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk or sour milk (2 tbsp of vinegar with added milk to equal 1 cup)

1 cup strong black coffee OR 2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee plus 1 cup boiling water (I used 2 tsp of Cocoa in instead of instant coffee)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans or one 13x9x2-inch baking pan. (I used 2 8-inch square pans)

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes (batter will be thin). Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans, 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost as desired. Yields 10 to 12 servings.

For the Frosting…

1/2 cup butter
2 2/3 cups icing sugar, sifted with
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 – 1/2 cup cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

cream the butter… sift together sugar and cocoa… add to the butter with the cream and vanilla… start with 1/3 cup of cream but you might need more… beat with mixer for at least 2 min…