a hippie with a minivan

Spring…

Spring has come late this year but I think it is finally here… Fresh air is flowing through the house and cleaning is easier…

Something about having the windows open makes it easier to get into the cleaning mood and makes the house Feel cleaner at the same time…

I am getting back into the decluttering mood and at a community sale for baby/kid items we sold some things at yesterdayÂ that we got when I was pregnant with Xavier and used a few times but have proved to be completely useless or cumbersome and I would never use for another baby… a playpen and portable swing being two of the useless (and quite a bit sad baby containment devices) and a 3 in 1 high chair that just took up too much space and we didn’t even use much for Colin… a few other things also made it out the door never to return…

Decluttering feels so good and it makes it so much easier to clean up also…

As for the boys at the moment…

Xavier doesn’t like going out side too much… so he often sits at the kitchen table with construction toys… making Star Wars figures, spaceships and robots and then playing out stories with them…If we do convince him to go play outside though, he stays out for long and then wants to stay out…
Colin however loves playing outside and has been spending hours playing in little corners of the yard… It surprises me at times about how imaginative he is and he makes up tons of complex stories with cars and misc toys and of course his “Woody” and “Buzz”… the Toy Story toys… At two and a half his vocabulary is pretty much equal to Xaviers… the ideas are not always as complex but his language is there…

Another thing that has come with spring is the return of yardwork… I need to get my garden ready and as the snow and ice melted in the pool this year holes formed and the liner is beyond repair… since it was installed by the old owners and was not installed well… we are not going to make the same mistake… so new liner and installation will be one of the big ticket items this year… the other is the new fence of which the cost will be split between the neighbor and us…

Anyway… Spring is here…Â and it feels great!

Carrot Cake

this is an amazingly moist Carrot cake… I have make it both with or without cream cheese frosting and each way is perfect!

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 3/4cups sucanat (or brown sugar)
1 cup applesauce
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups shredded carrots
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 can crushed pineapple, drained

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; make a well in the centre and add sugar, applesauce, eggs and vanilla.
4. Mix with wooden spoon until smooth.
5. Stir in carrots, coconut, walnuts and pineapple.
6. Pour into 9×13 inch pan and bake for about 45 minutes.

A few more pics…

I tried to sell this rocking horse last year at a community sale and it didn’t sell and I was about to try again tomorrow but we put KhÃ©na in it for a few minutes and he loved it… so he hung out in it a few times today… maybe next year!

So here is the Proud rider…

Here is a Sun that Colin drew on the back Deck today…

and I really like how this pic turned out… (in the ellaroo)

a pirate says….

Arrrrr…..

and a few more pics…

Hawi Potta!

some mirror pics… he is infatuated by the baby in the mirror that plays patta-cake with him!

what's next?

ok… someone once asked somewhere when saying that I was a weirdo and “bad mom” because of CLW (child led weaning)… “What’s next? “child-led internet surfing” or “child-led menu planning” or “child-led potty-training” “ (btw… she has since somewhat apoligised, but I haven’t forgotten, or really forgiven… she said some other harsh things)

I think I will deal with these one at a time…

child-led internet surfing… I have to admit… I don’t understand that one… Xavier can navigate quite a few pages of the internet though and I let him… he knows how to go back a few pages, he has self-learned the symbols and colours that often mean yes and no, open and close, play, pause etc in a video… it is actually really surprising what he has learned to do by just doing it… though we are often the ones that open the pages for him (i need to work on a favourites page for him), sometimes if we leave a link on the desktop and tell him about it he can double click it and start games etc… he also now has our old computer set up in the playroom that he can play games on anytime he chooses…

child-led menu planning… umm… why wouldn’t you? We are all members of the family and we all need to eat… why shouldn’t kids have a say in the menu planning?

When I am planning meals for the week I always ask the kids what they want and yes we eat those things, along with things that Simon chooses and I choose… what do the kids ask for? Pizza, fries, soup, pasta, fish, broccoli, mac and cheese, Shepard’s pie, sushi (colin), tacos, bagels, eggs, oatmeal, pancakes and the list goes on… what ends up on the list is a mix of what all of us feel like eating… sometimes it is a meal that I like more than the others, sometimes it is a meal that Simon loves, sometimes it is a meal that the kids love… What is important is to get them used to eating in a healthy way and they will make healthy decisions, pizza is most often homemade, homemade tomato and barley soup, oven fries etc… and if it wasn’t for the kids having a say in the meal-planning we wouldn’t being eating Broccoli or rice… foods that I never liked, but because of the kids liking it and asking me to make it for them, have become important staples in our diet…..

child led potty-training…. umm… of course! what is wrong with allowing someone control over their own body, especially when it is something that they are the only ones that CAN have control over it!

First… EC is exactly that… babes at birth know their pottying needs, they communicate that they need to go, parents choose to listen and aid them in going in a potty, bowl, toilet etc… (something that is the norm in other cultures) or they choose to ignore (by choice or by cultural ignorance) and train the baby to use diapers instead, only to need to untrain and re-learn later on.

It is a bit scary that adults think that they have control over the elimination of another human being. I have seen a few examples of how children are “taught” potty-training… it can be really sad…

If a child has been trained to use a diaper, then they should be allowed to untrain and relearn when they are ready… for some, that may be later, for some it will be earlier… but they will do it when they are ready…