Flashback faves: Snack Trauma

One of the joys of having more than two thousand (!) posts in my archive is the delight of stumbling on to an old post and re-reading it again. I’m pretty sure only my mother has read all of them, and if I’ve forgotten the content I’m pretty sure that most of you probably have as well – even those of you who’ve been here since the beginning. Also, recycling is chic, retro is in fashion, and everything old is new again. With all that in mind, I will shamelessly occasionally post some of the old gems from the archives: my flashback faves.

This was originally posted in September 2007. If you enjoy it, be sure to click back to the original post to read the comments – they’re often better than the post that inspired them!

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Although Simon’s new preschool isn’t a co-operative, the parents are asked to contribute a snack on a rotating basis. Given that there are 16 kids, and the kids go three days a week, our turn in the rotation comes up every five weeks or so.

Now, I should confess here that I already suffer snack trauma from dealing with just Tristan’s snack. At this time last year, I was happily packing him simple snacks like a baggie with some ritz cracker sandwiches and juice or a little dish of grapes and some water. I was always cognizant of the choices I was making, thinking myself quite the good mother for not simply throwing in a Twix bar and a can of pop.

One day near Christmas, I volunteered for a day in Tristan’s JK class and was gobsmacked to see what some of the other children hauled out of their backpacks for snacktime. We’re talking multi-course snacks here, with various containers and utensils. These kids were eating better for snack than what I usually managed to scrape together for a family meal.

Not that I managed to improve the quality, nor even the quantity, of Tristan’s packed snack after that. I just felt like a bad mother every time I sent him off to school and tried not to make eye contact with the other parents on the playground, knowing they were whispering behind the portable and pointing out me, “that mother, the one who thinks sending an apple – whole, and uncut, even! – constitutes packing a snack” with snickered derision.

And now, it’s not bad enough that I have to come up with a snack for 16 preschoolers, but we happen to be first in the rotation due to the fact that I was stubborn five and a half years ago and insisted on hypenating the boys with my “D” surname, instead of just being content to accept Beloved’s perfectly good “R” surname and a later turn in the rotation. Hmph. I figured that might come back to bite me in the ass some day, but neither so soon nor so viciously.

So anyway, I spent many days hours minutes perusing the Interwebs and considering everything from elaborate fruit-block renditions of the pyramids to mini-muffins baked into the shape of famous Canadian authors. I pictured myself standing in my kitchen, wrapped in a pristine white apron, humming church hymns while lovingly preparing a snack that met all four food groups, boosted brain power and would teach them the alphabet in French. Then I remembered I don’t own any aprons, let alone a pristine white one, and that was the end of that fantasy.

In the end, the pressure was too much for me. I capitulated to the dark side. For a few dark moments, I considered simply sending along the 6 lbs bag of Reese Pieces we got from our excursion to the Hershey Factory last weekend, but finally settled for a tray of pre-cut mixed fruit that I snagged from the deli counter at Loblaws, and a box of animal crackers. Well, they were organic animal crackers, at least. You know, to show how much I care.

This week in pictures: Thankful

It was Thanksgiving this week, and I could fill pages and hard drives of all the things I have to be thankful for. First and foremost, I am thankful to my brother and his family for making the drive up for an unexpected visit for the weekend:

Kids at the mill

I’m thankful to live in a gorgeous city ringed by amazing wild spaces where kids can interact with nature. Lucas was so frustrated at how easily the chickadees landed on the big kids’ fingers and it was only at the end of our hike that he finally got one to land on his hand. I am also thankful for the wonder and delight of a child:

Lime Kiln Trail 2012

Here’s one more, not an official photo of the day but the intersection of family and childlike wonder with nature:

Lime Kiln Trail 2012 (7 of 15)

I’m thankful for cool, brilliant fall days and their breathtaking colour — even if I know they’re just a precursor to months of frosty monochrome. This is the Long Island Locks on the Rideau River near Manotick.

Long Island Locks in autumn

Did I mention I’m thankful for fall colour? I kinda have to double up, because it just won’t be here in a couple of weeks…

Fenced Friday for Fall

I’m thankful to live in a community that cares about its residents and offers fantastic free activities for families. This is the free pumpkin painting at the Manotick Harvest Festival this weekend:

Pumpkin painter

I am extremely thankful for all of the wonderful people who have trusted me with their family portraits over the last couple of year, and I’m grateful for sweet kids who put up with my antics and reward me with beautiful smiles like this:

Peekaboo kids

I’m grateful for my wide-angle lens that makes interesting shots like this, my French class that sees me walking down Elgin Street on a sunny morning to capture a shot like this, and my homeland that makes me proud to share a photo like this.

Ontario, Canada

I’m pretty much thankful for everything right about now. It’s not a bad place to be, on Thanksgiving weekend and always. 🙂

It’s a week late (or a month early for my American friends) to ask the question, but what are you thankful for?

There’s an app for that

Way back in the day, I used to blog religiously every.single.day and while there was always fresh content on the blog, you’d get high quality content like, “I have nothing to say today. Come back tomorrow.” Now I’m much more of a capricious blogger, posting only when I’ve got something to say or the ten minutes required to say it (or ideally, the intersection of the two!) and the posts seem to come in energetic binges with droughts in between. I’ll let you make up your own mind on the quality issue.

I’ve been trying to think of a blog post all week that isn’t about family travel but with our trip pending and all the final details falling in to place (or not, which will also make a great post one of these days!) travel is just about all I can think about.

Packing for air travel and a cruise is a totally different beast than packing for our usual road trips. I’m very good at the latter and completely freaked out by the former. Not only do we have to be very economical with our packing (and we’re flying out on Delta, which makes you pay for every single checked bag) but we have to pack smart because we can’t just pop in to the local Shoppers Drug Mart and pick up what we’ve forgotten. Oh sure, there will be places to buy stuff on our mega-ship, but I’d rather spend my $20 on entertainment than a tube of tooth paste.

So in addition to the sunscreen and the sandals and the shorts and the toothbrushes, I’ve been trying to figure out which electronic devices to bring. (And oy, what camera gear to bring, which may also merit a post of its own!) There’s about five hours of air travel altogether, and I’m thinking handheld games will come in pretty handy during the flights, let alone as distractions in the airport. While we will have, I am sure, no shortage of fun activities during the cruise, I do think it would be good to have the devices available for down time i.e. mommy needs to sit quietly on the balcony and look at the sea while drinking her morning coffee and you guys need to do something other than bicker with each other.

Bloggers in paradise

(Yeesh, not only do I not blog regularly anymore, but it takes me forever to get to the point!)

So here is what I am asking – can you suggest some fun iPod/iPhone/iPad apps that don’t require wifi to play? We have (and love) Angry Birds, but most of the kdis’ favourite games need an Internet connection. Got any others to recommend?

Fun tips for family travel

Now that Thankgiving and an awesome surprise visit from my brother’s family is out of the way, I have officially started the obsessing planning phase of our pending family trip. While we have done endless kilometers of road tripping, a family vacation that includes air travel is something new and somewhat intimidating. And the idea of changing planes in LaGuardia after almost missing not one but both connections on my trip to Mexico in August gives me a bit of a belly ache, so I’m trying to be as prepared as possible.

Trying to see the adventure from the perspective of the kids has helped me remember that this is supposed to be a fun adventure and not something to stress over. We’ve been having fun talking about the places we’ll visit, the sights we might see, and of course the amenities on the cruise ship. I’m delighted that they’re old enough to enjoy and remember all of this, and their natural enthusiasm and wonder makes me less stressed about the details and more in touch with the sheer joy of travel.

You won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve been googling for tips about travel with kids. In all the reading I’ve done, I haven’t come across tips as unique as the ones I got in Mexico this summer from Fisher Price’s play expert Dr Kathleen Alfano. She gave us some excellent ideas for engaging kids with travel and making the experience even more memorable for them. (Is the graphic big enough for you to read them clearly? You can click on it to see a larger version.)

I particularly like the idea of sharing the planning process with the kids and letting them have a bit of say in the decision making, even if it’s as simple as “should we sit here or there” or “should we go to the beach first and then the museum” or “what would you like to make sure we do today”. I find the boys are a lot more receptive to mom’s crazy plans if they feel invested in the process. 😉 This goes hand-in-hand with tip 9 when getting kids to buy into your plans — they will feel a much greater sense of control if they have an idea of what to expect over the course of the whole vacation but also on each day if you lay out some of the highlights in advance.

Tip number 7 is a part of our regular daily routine. We often take turns describing our favourite part of a day out and sometimes it’s a bit of a surprise to hear which part of an exciting day out made the biggest impression on them. And how much do I love tip number 6, asking your children to describe how they feel or what they see in one word and then keeping track of what they say? Wouldn’t that make an awesome book, to have a photo and the one-word caption to go with it? I was already planning on letting the boys document the trip from their perspective with our Kid Tough Digital Camera . But how fun would it be to make a photo book at the end of the trip with a mixture of their photos and mine, all captioned with the one-word they used at the time to describe what they were thinking or feeling? Hmm, I wonder if I’m organized enough to actually DO this?

Speaking of travel memories, here’s another great graphic from Dr Alfano with some fun ideas for keeping those vacation memories alive:

Anyway, all that to say we are pretty darn excited right about now. Some time this week we should be getting a detailed itinerary and information about our accommodations on the Allure of the Seas. We’ve already had the globe out, tracing the path of the ship from Florida to Haiti to Jamaica to Mexico and back to Florida. I’ve got a to-do list as long as my arm and our flight information saved to several electronic devices. (Speaking of flights, on our New York to Florida leg, we couldn’t pre-book our seats so we’re hoping that the airline takes mercy on us and is able to seat at least one of us grown-ups with Lucas. I was sick with anxiety about this until a more seasoned travelling friend mentioned that it’s also in the airline’s best interest to have children seated with their parents.) Aside from those details and the actual packing, I think we’re ready to go!

Care to share any sanity-saving family travel tips? Better yet, give me something new to obsess over and tell me your WORST family travel story!

This week in pictures: In which she utterly fails to take a week of black and white photos

I had an idea setting out this week, that I would take nothing but black and white photos for a week, thus teaching myself to better see the type of images that best work in black and white. Ha! Perhaps I should not have chosen the MOST COLOURFUL week of the year to do that? Not only did I not take a week of black and white photos, I failed to take a single black and white image. Oh well, there’s always the deep dark heart of winter for that, right?

Because damn, it was a colourful week! Is it just me or are the fall colours both earlier and more vivid than usual? I was wondering if the drought this summer wouldn’t somehow lead to a lesser fall display but it seems to be just the opposite. See?

Autumn colours

I took that one with my new favourite iPhone app, Pro HDR. I’ve tried to take a few actual HDR photos and I never like how they turn out. (HDR stands for high dynamic range, and the proper technique is to take several shots of the same scene and then blend them together so you can get the detail of the shadow parts of the image while preserving the colour in the brightest part of the photo. It’s frequently done badly and makes your images have weird glows and odd colours if you overcook them.) I like the results with the Pro HDR app, though, which takes two images and blends them together for you. I find the results quite natural looking.

The blending of the two images can have unintended results. I was trying to take a picture of a lovely sunset the other day with the Pro HDR app from the side of the road when a car inconveniently drove through just as the second shutter click was going off. I was a little annoyed until I saw the final result — the car was actually perfectly placed in the double exposure to give it this cool ghost-car effect. Happy fluke!

Ghost car

The Byward Market is pretty colourful right about now, too! (I know, I know, I take at a couple of sets like this every year. I can’t help myself. The colours are as delicious as the veggies!!)

harvest collage

I am fascinated by rural mailboxes and I find myself always on the lookout for interesting ones. I loved the fall vine climbing up this one!

Autumn mailbox

Remember this summer when I rented a wide-angle lens for a week? I loved the results and have been coveting one of my own ever since. Through another happy fluke, one became available to me for a very affordable price this week, and since I’m going to need a wide angle lens to properly take in the world’s! largest! cruiseship! in a few weeks, it seemed like the Universe wanted me to have it. Expect to see a lot more ultra-wide angle shots in the next little while.

Two roads diverged

My late-blooming sunflower continues to thrive. I figure if she has the tenacity to bloom in October, the least I can do is make pretty pictures of her!

Sunflower

And last but definitely not least… this week we also managed a quick trip to a new (for us) apple orchard, Osgoode’s Log Cabin Orchard. It was late on Saturday afternoon before we got organized enough to go, and the light was a little flat for pictures. (Yes, a trip to the orchard is 60% about the photos and 40% about the apples for me.) The boys had dressed themselves and were not in what I’d consider photo friendly outfits. I’d pretty much decided this trip would be pretty much all about the apples and the adventure. And yet, the pictures were lovely. Different than previous apple picking adventures, but really lovely in their own way. See?

apple picking 2012

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, and I’m wishing the same bounty of love and beautiful colours for your family’s Thanksgiving weekend!

Five (more) ideas for Thanksgiving fun this weekend in Ottawa

Oy, the years are starting to blur together! Back in 2009 I wrote a post with five ideas for fun family activities in Ottawa on Thanksgiving weekend, and it’s been surprisingly popular the last week or so. Lots of people are looking for ideas for something to do with children during the long holiday weekend, so here’s five more ideas!

1. Visit the Canada Agriculture Museum

The Canada Agriculture Museum, fondly known as the Experimental Farm, is a terrific place for a family visit no matter what the season. For the Thanksgiving weekend, they’re putting on an exhibit called Harvesting Energy, including windmills and conservation. There’s also cider tasting! The farm is one of my go-to family activities in Ottawa.

2. The Manotick Harvest Festival

On Saturday October 6, enjoy the fall colours as you make the trip out to Manotick. At the Harvest Festival, you’ll enjoy fun family activities like horse-drawn wagon rides, pumpkin art for kids, face painting and free music and street entertainment. There will also be a harvest marketplace featuring homemade goods and handcrafted items. Don’t forget to visit Watson’s Mill and the Manotick Farmer’s Market while you’re out here. That’s a lot of fun to cram in to a single Saturday — will I see you there?


3. Go apple picking!

It seems a little late in the season, but just last Saturday we were at the Log Cabin Orchard in Osgoode and here’s how it looked:

apple picking 2012

We left plenty on the trees for you – and yum yum, are they ever delicious! They also have tractor-pulled wagon rides, apply baked goods and extra activities for the kids. It’s a lovely little orchard and I’m glad we “discovered” it this year! (More photos here!)

4. Take a walk on the boardwalk

I know of at least three conservation areas in Ottawa that have lovely wooden boardwalks through beautiful boggy swamps that will be crazy with fall colours this weekend – and you might even see a critter or two getting ready for winter. We’re fond of Stony Swamp just off Moodie Drive in the west end and have newly discovered the Mer Bleue Bog in the east end. One of the region’s best-kept secrets is the Chapman Mills conservation area just off Prince of Wales Drive near Barrhaven, that winds along the Rideau River. Gorgeous in any season, but spectacular right now!

5. Funhaven

Okay, so the first four are what my kids would call mom activities. They’re wholesome, inexpensive, energy-expending, fresh-air experiences with lots of accidental learning opportunities. And, ahem, maybe a photo op or two. But if you’ve had your fill of fresh air and you want to drop some cash while delighting your children, I’d heartily endorse Funhaven. We spent a day there at the end of the summer and all three boys had a blast. The bumper cars were easy enough for even four-year-old Lucas to drive by himself, but fun enough for all three boys to enjoy. I personally enjoyed a bit of fun on the Deal or No Deal game. And the do-it-yourself frozen yogurt bar was a hit with all of us. Not an inexpensive day out, but one the boys are still talking about two months later.

If these ideas don’t engage your imagination, I’ve got a whole category of posts dedicated to ideas for family fun in and around Ottawa. What mischief will you be up to this holiday weekend?

A rambly repeat of our IVF story

It’s Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, and I have so many things in my life to be thankful for that I don’t even know where to start. My brother and his family are on the way for a visit, and the blessings in my life are truly too many to count.

As I mentioned last month, I’ve agreed to write some posts to support the work of Conceivable Dreams, a grass roots patient advocacy organization advocating for better funding for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) from government and private employers. They suggested a post around the theme of thanks, and while I can’t say that I’m exactly thankful for our dark drive through the badlands of infertility, gratitude is a theme that’s easy to weave into our IVF experience: I’m grateful that the technology existed to help us, I’m grateful that we only had to endure the experience once and that it was successful, and it goes without saying that I’m grateful for our success. Sometimes, when it’s dark and quiet, I wonder what our lives would have been like if this first IVF treatment had not worked… but, down that road lies heartache, and I try not to dwell on it too much.

With the theme of gratitude and thanksgiving in mind, I thought I’d re-post my original IVF story. This is actually the second of two posts. I wrote the backstory of our unexpected and devastating infertility journey here. Because I wanted this to be about giving thanks and happy endings, here’s the rest of the story as I wrote it back in 2005:
Continue reading “A rambly repeat of our IVF story”