Makin' Tracks

Baby and I rushed out after breakfast to play in the snow before it was all shoveled away. I love being the first ones out making tracks and I noticed we weren't the first! A big family of raccoons maybe?

Strong Start Program

I learned about the Strong Start Program offered by the Ministry of Education of BC last summer when Baby and I went to a mommy group in the park. Cindy, the early childhood educator who was facilitating the group told be that once Baby was older I could attend this program which takes place at Lord Selkirk Elementary school up the street.

According to the information on the website, the Strong Start Program is a free drop in program for children and their parents/caregivers where they can participate in activities such as reading stories and doing music and art in order to help children grow linguistically, physically, socially and emotionally. It provides an environment where children who do not attend daycare or preschool can interact with other children and receive early learning experiences. Sounds good right? So I went to check it out.

The classroom is really nice with different play stations; toys, plasticine, sand, water, paints, mini kitchen, puzzles etc... The morning is scheduled into different activities like free time, snack time, story time etc... and adults are expected to participate and guide the children in each activity. I arrived early morning during free time and Cindy introduced me to adults and the kids who were already there while Baby played with trucks on the floor: "This is so-and-so and he doesn't speak English, and this is so-and-so and she only understand English, but doesn't speak it and this is so-and-so and he doesn't speak English.... you get the picture. I couldn't remember who spoke English, who only understood and who didn't speak at all. All the adults speaking loudly in Chinese or other Asian language. Cindy seemed happy to introduce me to a young mom who arrived and spoke English sensing that I was eager to meet someone I could communicate with. This mom sat on the floor with her one year old daughter and spent the entire time on her Blackberry. Every time she stopped fiddling around with it, I tried to break the ice, but she just went back to her phone. Okay, then....

So to make a long story shorter, I left feeling conflicted. Although I can see that Baby would benefit from being around other little children and having access to lots of different activities, I'm already worried about him learning his parents' languages: French, English and Portuguese...and I'm not sure being in an environment where the majority of people speak Chinese and Malaysian is that good for my boy. It's not clear if the program was intended for non-English speakers. Oh well, maybe we'll go once in a while...It's a little disappointing. I wonder if it's just the demographics of our neighborhood and if it might be different elsewhere. Maybe I'll try somewhere else.

Lucky Duck Toy Box

We just received our Lucky Duck Toy Box delivery!!! Yay! We subscribed for the 3 toys/ month for $24 plan and chose 1 fire truck, 1 musical table and a toy radio. Baby loves all his new toys and once he gets sick of them (or I can't take the tunes anymore) we can return them and get new ones! What lucky duckies are we? There's a pretty good selection of toys which you can select online by age group.  I did notice that all the ones I wanted at first were taken already; bigger toys like play kitchens and play gardens, but what we got in the end was great. The toys were delivered to my door all cleaned up and ready to go. Definitely worth a try if you don't want to waste your time on craigslist trying to get rid of mountains of unwanted toys.

SOS Cuisine

Okay so as a mom with a 13 month old who loves to be held,  here's the type of cuisine I can manage:

1. Five ingredients or less.
2. One pot only, or slow cooker.
3. Less than 3 ingredients to chop.
4. Nothing with hard to find ingredients like lime leaves, ghee, sundried pomegranate seeds or juniper berries.

So forget fresh quince stuffed pork chops with fresh passion fruit salsa.

Toast is good. Goes well with jam. Goes well with butter. Goes well with cheese. You can smush a banana on it. Or an avocado. Toast is yummy.

I barely have time to look at recipes even when I've bookmarked them online or earmarked them in magazines. My girlfriend even traded recipe books with me and it seems like I'm still standing there at 3pm in the afternoon wondering what to make for dinner. What's with that?

Oh, some say, make a plan, write a list, go to the store on the weekend and start early by preparing most of the meals on Sunday. YAH, OKAY. Not happening. So to do most of the thinking for me, I've decided to revisit SOS Cuisine which a great site which allows you to choose according to your tastes and eating values. Every week you receive a menu plan for the week, the matching shopping list and step by step instructions on to put all together. You can collect your favorite recipes in your virtual cookbook. So here goes, let's see if I can be saved!

Daycare Adventure

I was browsing in a consignment furniture store on Main Street yesterday and overheard the owner of the shop chatting with his buddy. It was more loud talk, you know, like you get the impression that they want you to hear everything they are saying. So I can't say that I was eavesdropping or even overheard, but just plain heard them talking about their kids and how they loved daycare because they get to do fun things that they don't get to do at home like painting. This got me thinking not so much about painting, 'cause Baby is doing great in the arts department, but more about his stimulation.

Part of 13 month old babies' programing is exploration and sometimes I get the feeling like he's thinking: "Mom, I love you, but could I see someone else for a change?" or "Mom, I've played this cup toy enough already, I got bored of it 3 months ago, and you keep giving it to me." Okay, so I'm probably projecting, but still, not that I would prefer to send him to daycare full time, I would however like to find ways to stimulate him. So just to get started with the daycare thing...

Okay, so I'm probably eons away from getting Baby into daycare because I didn't put his name down on "the list" sometimes after my high school graduation and before his conception, but I thought I just try looking for fun.

I Google-mapped (yes, Google-map is a verb.) " day cares Vancouver BC" and at first glance it seems the map is littered with little red dots! Whoo-hoo! Look at that! But, no. Scroll over the little red dots and what pops up? DOGGIE DAYCARES!!!!! Stupid me. So take those away and in Cedar Cottage-Kensington, it's pretty slim pickin's especially if you minus after school care and care for kids with disabilities. I count 1 or 2 possibilities.

Okay, so googling might not be the way to go. Maybe the Westcoast Child Care Resource Center can help. I'll give them a call. More on this Daycare Adventure soon!

A Funny Thing Happened...

Yesterday morning I was thinking about the first chapter I read on Buddhist philosophy in a book my mother gave me for Valentine's Day. At the end of each chapter, the author gives you an exercise to practice new learnings: "Practice noticing nobility in others by remembering them as they might have been as a child." I remember thinking about this when I was working as a career counselor, noticing that my unemployed clients' uncertainty and fears made them react in what might be considered "annoying, rude and even sometimes, crazy" by others. It wasn't uncommon for clients to yell at others, blame themselves and everyone around them, cry, swear, and if I can say; throwing a huge tantrum. I remember sitting with these vulnerable clients and seeing how childlike they seemed; in need of care, reassurance, love, encouragement, and patience.  I was noticing their nobility.

This exercise was on my mind when I took off for my run with Baby and a big bag of library books. It was an unusually warm and sunny day and it people were out enjoying it. I noticed ahead of me an old man walking with a cane and I thought about the exercise; imagining him as a kid, running quickly, climbing and jumping. Just as I passed him, I turned to him and said hello. He smiled back and one moment later he fell back, his cane falling and his toque flying off. I think we were both surprised. I helped him to get up, putting my arms under his and holding him up as I bent down to pick up his cane. He kept smiling as I asked him if he was okay. I picked up his toque, wiped the leaves off his back and gave it back to him. I noticed that there was no way he would be able to put it back on with only one hand. I took it back from him and put it on for him, tucking his ears under to keep him warm. At that moment, I looked in his smiling face and he seemed like a child, laughing about falling, and feeling better after someone picked him up.

It occurred to me that when we do something with care and love we are honoring the nobility of people's heart. We are letting them know that they matter and they are loved, just as all babies are born to be loved and cared for. My Baby is loved unconditionally by many people. It seems that as we get older we are less able to remember our innocence and how perfectly wonderful we are. As adults, we are supposed to have it figured out and when we admit that we don't, it seems we're not as cute and as lovable anymore. The client who walked into our office screaming in anger that employers are losers, and what the hell were we going to go to help her, might have been pushed aside for being rude and abusive and sent away. But what if we imagine that same client being only 6 months old, wouldn't we all want to take her in our arms and comfort her? Tell her that everything would be okay?

A funny thing happened yesterday, an old man with a cane reminded me to practice finding nobility in others.

Little Art Project

Here's a step by step demonstration of a series of paintings I did over the month of January. I was inspired by the mountains on the North Shore.

I used:

1. a piece of maple wood which I purchased and had cut at the hardware store.
2. a package of heavy duty eyelets.
3. fun paper.
4. acrylic paints, brushes, medium for varnish and pastels.
5. a surface away from Baby. Notice his little curious hand....

First I made a stencil out of paper to create a "frame" for each of the pieces of wood and I outlined it in pencil.

Then I started painting/pastelling. I took turns with each piece and used the same colors to add continuity. There were many times I thought: "Man, this is ugly!", like at the moment I took this picture, but just kept going.

I bought some really cool paper which comes in a pad at the local art supply store and cut up shapes that I liked.







And glued them onto my mountains.

Then I used "Clear Tar Gel", which is this super gooey medium to make sure the paper bits would stay on and to give the whole piece a nice shiny finish.

Then I decided I didn't like the border pale and redid it in purple.

This one reminded me of Rio de Janeiro. I painted Copacabana beach and a slum, but no Corcovado.

This one reminded me of Vancouver. The beach, the coastal mountains and the Rockies. I made the clouds more festive than they usually are.

This one reminds me of the Gulf Islands, so I put little boats in the water....

Finally I measured the middle point and screwed in an eyelet in each piece of wood. Maple is really soft, so I didn't need a drill. Then I tied them together with string.

And ta-da! 3 mountain paintings.

Sun Run Train Week 4

Yay! Finally my lungs don't feel like they're on fire! And my legs can go a little farther without cramping! I've run around Trout Lake enough times now, so I'm starting to do the streets and backlanes of the neighborhood. I can't believe how many interesting things I see while I'm out puffing and pushing the stroller up hills! Here's a sampler: