momcast

Making Hash

2012-01-25T19:21:00.001-05:00

I've been going through a thing this last year: I've been really fatigued by having to cook everyday and come up with food that is nutritious, tasty and won't bore my brains out. I think I just found a new thing: hash.

A hash is a pan fried version of the one-pot meal. Basically, you chuck everything in a pan with some fat, season it and cook till done. It's perfect for leftovers, especially those leftovers that accumulate in the freezer in small quantities like half a cup of gravy, a cup of pan drippings, one chicken quarter, etc.

Tonight I was looking for something to make with three sausages for me and the boys - Sean is at a concert in Toronto tonight. I found this in my blog reader: Hash: A Great Stretchy Meal. Major inspiration!

I put three about a 1/4 C of bacon fat from this morning's breakfast into my big iron pan.
I sliced three Yukon Gold potatoes and let them cook on med-low until the potatoes start to get a bit soft.
I add half an onion, chopped into medium- large pieces and let those cook for a minute.
I added half a carrot, sliced in thin half medallions.
The last veggie I added to this mix was chopped cabbage.
To the mix I added sea salt and pepper, some garlic powder, a shake of Montreal Steak Spice and a tsp of Old Bay Spice. Yum!
I cooked the whole thing till the potatoes looked evenly fried and the carrots and cabbage were soft.
I then slapped that stuff beside some German sausages.

You're welcome!

Do you make something similar? What's your favourite combo?

February Clutter Fighter Challenge 2012

2012-01-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

It's almost the end of January and I have yet to get started on any of the New Year's resolutions I told myself I was going to do. Sound familiar? So, this is the moment when I get off my butt and actually do something. Who's with me?

I'm challenging myself to purge a minimum of one bag of trash or donations every day in February. That 29 bags of stuff I don't want and don't need in my home. After 29 bags of stuff leave this house, it's going to be a lot cleaner around here.

Like most families - especially those with kids - we have a lot of stuff. We do our best at finding places for things and putting everything in it's place, but we're not perfect. Stuff is piling up. We have more stuff than we need and nowhere to put it.

Spencer, my youngest, was born at home. My bedroom was perfectly clean on that day. I had three midwives, one doula, a mother, a child and my husband in that room and they all could move around easily. But, the challenge of raising two children quickly overwhelmed my ability to keep clutter and cleaning under control. Our bedroom has a laundry pile that's been in steady state for two years. There is a permanent collection of stuff that doesn't have a home stacked at one end and because of it's clutterific state, there are bits and bobs all over the place - Lego, stray dryer sheets that escaped the clean laundry baskets, abandoned hangers... you get the picture. This is a hoard waiting to happen.

The kitchen has a similar problem. There are a few boxes and stacks of assorted paperwork and homeless stuff stacked neatly around the edges of the room.

I often explain the problem away by pointing out that there is one closet for a 4 person home (we live in a duplex). That's really just an excuse. We've really just got more stuff than we need.
Some stuff I have a hard time relinquishing due to the fact that I feel I'm being thrifty. Who knows when I'll want a dozen toilet paper tubes to make owl crafts?!

Sometimes I feel guilty throwing things away that I've spent money on. Living on a small income means that any purchase I make that ends up going in the garbage is wasted money. It doesn't matter that many of the things I'm holding onto may have lived through their usefulness; they were once valuable and served a purpose but they are no longer needed as our family's needs change.

Well, it's time to white knuckle it and face the problem before it completely overwhelms us all. I can understand those families on Hoarders who are living with piles of stuff and boxes and cobwebs: after a while, when things are messy and cluttered for so long, keeping it all tidy and clean seems pointless and the grime starts to build up.

It sounds ridiculous, but it's more motivating to maintain the cleanliness of an already clean home.

So, as I stand on the tipping point, I am ready to let go and purge the clutter.

Want to join me?

Here are the rules:

Clear out 1 bag of clutter a day.
The bag can be all trash, all donations, or a combo of both (in which case you should really separate the stuff into two separate bags.
The term bag could mean a grocery sack, a black garbage back, a box, a pail, a laundry basket or even a larger single item or more (for example: a bag could be equivalent to two old broken kitchen chairs or a computer monitor).
You can dispose of your unwanted items by adding them to your weekly garbage and recycling, donating them to a thrift store, donating them to needful individuals, reselling them or having a third party pick them up (like an e-recycling firm that can pick up old cell phones and dead laptops).
You must dispose of your items within one week. I don't expect you to run to the thrift store every day, but if your items sit around for long, they may never leave!
You don't have to do this one, but I'd love it if you left a comment here on your progress. Blog about your progress, if you have a blog, and share your links!

The challenge starts on February 1, 2012. I'll be posting about my daily progress here as well as offering some tips. Want to join me?

Christmas Traditions and a Recipe

2011-11-15T21:45:00.001-05:00

Like most of us, I grew up with certain Christmas traditions. Most of them involved food.

There were the traditions that we all share of foods eaten on specific days, at specific times, in specific houses. On Christmas Eve I ate frankfurters and kartofellsalat (weiners and potato salad) at my Oma's around 7pm. Around 10 or 11pm I ate lasagna at my Granny's. The next day we would have turkey, ham, brussel sprouts, corn, mashed potatoes and mushy peas for supper and "Sand" (a strawberry trifle) and "5 Cup" (5 cup salad with marshmallows, fruit and sour cream).

A holiday meal really isn't complete for me unless it has some ham, some "Sand" (so named because, my father declared on first eating it, the juice of the berries made the jelly roll go "sandy". It's been called "Sand" for 40 years) and some "5 Cup". I can negotiate on everything else, though I crave mushy peas like crazy! (Bigga Peas that come from the British Isles in a box and must be soaked.)

There are other food related traditions that I'm reminded of in late November and December. Like Magic Bars!

The rest of the world calls them Hello Dolly's but we call them Magic Bars because that's what the recipe on the back of the Magic brand sweetened condensed milk called them. And I know the recipe from heart because my mom and I made them every year since I began existing. You melt butter into graham crackers and press into a square pan, spread a layer of chocolate chips, a layer of walnuts and a layer of coconut and drizzle a can of sweetened condensed milk evenly over everything. Bake till it all goes melty and the top starts to brown.

This was pretty much the extent of my mother's "Christmas Baking".

My Mom, lover of Advocaat.

The squares, usually 2 batches at a time, would go into the fridge to set and my mother would give a strict warning that the treats weren't to be touched. They were for guests. Of which we had few if any. (My father didn't cultivate many friends and abhorred entertaining people, preferring to drink beer in front of the hockey game alone.) I think my mother really meant that they were for her.

The warnings succeeded only in slowing down the pace at which we devoured the squares. Every day when we came home, we'd sneak into the kitchen and cut off slivers of squares, attempting to make the devouring as unnoticeable as possible. After a week or so my mother would notice the missing squares, however, and hit the roof.

The other pre-Christmas Christmas food tradition we had also involved something that just my mother would enjoy: egg liqueur.

Called Advocaat, it was a creamy egg liqueur that my grandmother made every year. My mother would request a bottle and be given a small soda bottle full of the creamy stuff that was always covered in a bit of plastic wrap held in place with an elastic band. Since it was alcoholic, I never touched it, not even to experiment. It lived at the very back of the fridge like a scary science experiment.

My mother indulged in a weekly teaspoonful of it, making the precious stuff last months and months until it was almost time to request another bottle.

I made some when I was in my 20s, from my Granny's recipe. It was delicious! I can see now why my mother hoarded it. Though, of course, I also wonder why she didn't just make some for herself whenever she wanted it since it's remarkably easy to make. Though, I suppose, my generation don't really get the concept of delayed gratification and making things a special treat in this age of instant gratification.

I suppose that little bottle of Advocaat prepared by her mother wouldn't have been special if she'd made it herself every month and drank a dram every day.

I hadn't thought of the egg liqueur in a long time until my Granny told me she'd made some because my mother had asked for it. But, Granny told me, she'd lost her recipe and made it from memory and was sure she'd gotten it wrong because it was more like custard than a cream liqueur. I tried it and reveled in its thick, creamy deliciousness, not unlike a boozy custard. I wondered at where she'd gone wrong with the recreation of the recipe and then realised that I actually had the recipe at home.

My Granny, with Kieran and Spencer.

My Granny was relieved to hear it and I promised to bring it to her so that she could make a second batch in time for the holidays.

My Granny is 86 years old. She won't long be around to make Advocaat for my mum. Thinking about that makes me realise that I need to get off my butt and archive a number of my Granny's recipes and remember all the wonderful traditions she created for me and my mother.

Egg Liqueur - Advocaat

6 Egg Yolks
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Alcohol (vodka, unless you can find plain, tasteless spirits)
1 1/2 Cups Heavy Cream (35%)

Soak the sugar in the alcohol while you beat the egg yolks for 15 minutes.
Blend the alcohol into the eggs.
Add the cream to the mixture and beat for 5 minutes.
Store in the fridge in a clean bottle, covered.

The Best Pork Chop Recipe Ever!

2011-10-04T20:33:00.002-04:00

I'm not kidding, I'm going to share with you the most delicious pork chop recipe I've ever come across. It will make tender, flavourful chops with lots of sauce. You will thank me.

As part of a meat package we bought from our favourite butcher, we received 10 lbs of thick cut pork chops. When I was a kid, pork chops were sprinkled with garlic salt, chuck into the oven and cooked until ready. When I tried that as an adult, I found the chops to be pretty dry and therefore a bit tough. I fried them in a pan, but they were once again dry and tough. And, frankly, bland.

We are getting to the last few packages of that meat order and I've been putting off cooking the chops. So, I turned to the collective culinary wisdom of the internet and performed some Google Fu. "How to cook moist pork chops" yielded a number of results, including a positively ancient thread on Chowhound where someone asked the very same question.

If you are in need of food ideas and tips, Chowhound is definitely the place to seek them out.

A few early responses pointed to the need to sear the sides of the chop to lock in the juices. Other people spoke of starting the chops off in a pan and finishing them in the oven. Many people pointed out the necessity of brining the meat first for a truly moist, soft chop. One person brined in milk and salt instead of water and salt.

My attention was caught by a person who brined, seared and then cooked the chops with a couple of sliced up onions.

The real gem, however, came shortly after. A gentleman described a method of cooking the chops and building a sauce in the same pan. And that's what I made tonight.

I just want to apologise for not having a photo, but we all gobbled the food up so quick a photo wasn't possible.

This dish was absolutely amazing tasting. The chops were tender and moist and the sauce was endlessly flavourful. Though this is a hands-on kind of dish, it's not so labour intensive as to be hard to make on a weeknight. You can prep your veggies between steps, set your table, enjoy a glass of wine, wash a couple of the breakfast dishes and even read a few snatches of a good book.

The Best Pork Chop Recipe Ever!

4-6 chops (size up or down the portions as fits your needs)
Olive Oil
Butter
2 Onions
1/2 C White Wine
1 C Chicken or Veggie Stock (I used a TBSP of homemade boullion and a cup of water)
1/2 Heavy Cream (if you only have Half and Half, add in a TBSP of corn starch at the end)
1 TBSP Mustard (not yellow hot dog mustard. Get your self some decent mustard!) or 1tsp Dry Mustard
Sea Salt and Pepper to taste

Brine pork chops for an hour (1 or 2 TBSP sea salt and water in a bowl or zip bag), drain and dry.
Heat a pan to very hot and with some oil sear both sides of all the chops for 2 mins/side.
Remove chops and reduce heat to medium-low, add 2 TBSPs butter, 2 onions halved and sliced, 2-4 cloves of garlic minced.
When soft, add 1/2 C white wine and reduce for 2-5 minutes, then add 1 C chicken or veggie stock and reduce for another 2-5 minutes.
Add chops back in, cover and cook on low heat for 20 minutes - less if your chops are thinner.
Remove chops and add in 1/2 C cream.
Simmer a few minutes and add mustard and salt and pepper.
You are done! Eat that stuff up!

I had a bunch of the sauce left over, so I'm going to add it to browned hamburger tomorrow and serve over potatoes. It's going to be amazing!

The Writing On The Wall

2011-09-29T23:08:00.001-04:00

The last time I wrote, I discussed the differences between my two sons: my wild child Kieran who is spirited and curious and my adorable Spencer who embodies that time worn phrase joie de vivre.

This summer, tho, Kieran hasn't merely been spirited, he's been troubled. The depth of the developing problems shook me to the core. And, looking back, I realise that I've always known that there was something Kieran needed special help fixing. I just refused to look at the writing on the wall.

We've read so many parenting books, took classes, tried for years to parent Kieran with love and kindness and practiced positive discipline while warring with our frustrations, the pressure of people who didn't understand, like we did, that Kieran was special and was just physically and mentally unable to restrain himself.

It broke our hearts in two to watch Kieran in pain but at the same time resent him for being so damned difficult, defiant, aggressive, mercurial, unfocused, disrespectful... He never got invited to birthday parties, never was able to build and keep friendships and gained a reputation as a problem kid for his outbursts and those wretched and horrifying lapses in patience when he bit or punched or pushed a student or his cousin or the child of a friend.

For my part, I've learned to shy away from other parents. I am a lone wolf on the playground, seeing the unhappy looks of other parents and putting my headphones on or opening my book to hide away from accusations and the sheer fatigue of dealing the Kieran-stuff. I've spent years explaining and making excuses to family and teachers and administrators and strangers and parents and babysitters... In the first year he was at school, I often walked home from the school crying and ashamed at hearing the latest incident.

And, despite all my readings and classes and research, nothing seemed to work. We role played and made charts and had heart-to-hearts. We yelled and gave time-outs and a couple times completely lost our tempers and swatted at behinds. We implemented strategies that the books and blogs recommended: family meetings, structure, participation in the decision-making process, dietary changes, emotional connection before correction, kind firmness...

Finally after a combination of some truly frightening new symptoms showed up and it became quickly apparent that many of Kieran's problems were directly impacting his ability to learn, we realised that a new approach was needed.

This morning, Kieran took his first tablet of Ritalin.

When he came home, he put his lunchbag away and started his homework reading - without being asked. Then he worked on a very hard math page with me and didn't once freak out, yell, say "I'm stupid" or refuse to continue or do the writing.

He actually wrote! By himself! And didn't once ask for me to do it for him because writing with a pen was "too hard".

He made mistakes! A lot of them! He made false starts and wrote numbers backwards and had to scribble out mistakes and not once did he shout "I'm so stupid!"

I pushed him, hard, to learn new math concepts, to redo the work he made mistakes on. I cringed in anticipation of his defiance and refusal and he did neither. Not even an "Oh, come on! I'm not doing that!"

From the time he first practiced writing at age 3, from the very first homework project sent home in Junior Kindergarten, he has always protested and refused the effort. And, for the first time in 5 years, working with him was joyful! I feel like I shouldn't admit this, but he was like a normal kid.

He said, "this is hard, but fun!" And I almost started crying.

Last week he told me he really wanted to get an A this year on his report card. "Just, like, an A minus would be good." He's never gotten one of those before. I think he'll probably meet and exceed that goal if his reaction to the medication continues like today.

Brothers, Sons

2011-07-30T22:01:00.001-04:00

It's a marvel to see how very different Kieran and Spencer are.

The difference was brought home to me the other night when, out for a bite to eat, Spencer abandoned the table, hotdog in hand, and approached a boy about the same age who was waiting in line.

The two boys seemed to just meet in the middle, began laughing and dancing around. There wasn't one speck of awkwardness, not one moment of hesitation, no aggression.

Kieran doesn't have this easy way of making friends. He is shy and hesitant, even when he boldly attempts introductions. There is a reserve to him. And when he finally makes a connection, he stumbles through the early conversations, the getting to know you.

I never really worry about Spencer in social situations. With Kieran, however, I'm always hovering nearby, holding my breath with my stomach in knots, waiting to intervene should he unwittingly insult someone or get hurt and lash out or sense rejection and start feigning an indifferent bravado I know he doesn't really feel.

I try not to label them, but it's true: Spencer is somehow "easier" than Kieran. Kieran is more "complex".

Of course, it's not like Spencer is some little angel. He throws temper tantrums all the time. He screams and screeches when he doesn't get his way. He rages. Kieran isn't immune to frustration, but he's never been like Spencer. We often find ourselves indulging Spencer just to avoid these rages. Even Kieran finds it easier to give in than face the fury!

Kieran used to love buses and trains and firetrucks and dinosaurs. Spencer isn't interested in those things. Spencer likes to sing and dance.

Kieran is a spirited child. Spencer isn't (though he doesn't lack in vivacity!). I don't really worry about Spencer. I have this feeling that Kieran is going to need a decade to finally feel comfortable in his own skin and I'm constantly struggling with how to help that along and managing my reactions to his spirted-ness.

I love both my boys differently and I finally know what that means for a parent. I don't love either less, but they are different relationships.

Kieran's love is tinged with shadows and fire. Spencer's is bright and full of sun. Together, they fill my heart up so much, some days I feel it might burst.

Broccoli Chicken Soup

2011-06-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

What do you do when you have chicken, broth and a couple heads of broccoli? Make soup! And it's paleo/primal/archevore, too!

We cook with whole foods. That includes chicken. It comes whole. We don't buy a dozen legs or a couple of breasts. We cook a chicken and then we divide up meat and other parts into different meals.

I get large chickens from a butcher at our farmer's market and they usually cover us for about three meals. I love to do the chicken in a crock pot. It's easiest to do this if you have one of those folding racks that you can then lift the chicken out of the crock with because 9 times out of 10, any attempt to remove the chicken from the crock results in the entire bird falling into a million pieces. That's not so bad, though.

I use a slotted spoon and a fork and pick out as much meat as I can. 1/3 of the meat is used at dinner, 1/3 is used for soup the next day and the last third is used in another dish.

After I take out the meat, I leave everything in the crock, add a few cups of water and turn the temp to high and let the last of the nutrients boil out of the bones. Get rid of the solids and keep the liquid to make soup the next day.

Broccoli Chicken Soup

Ingredients:
4C chicken stock
4C water
2 TBSP vegetable bouillon
1 onion (diced)
2 potatoes (diced)
2C broccoli (chopped, divided equally, including chopped stem in the first cup)
1TBSP preferred fat (tallow, lard, bacon drippings, butter, duck fat, olive oil...)
2C chicken (chopped)
seasoning (I used salt, pepper and a little Old Bay Spice)

Equipment:
large pot
immersion blender

Instructions:

Saute diced onion in fat until the onion is translucent.
Add diced potatoes, chopped broccoli, stock and water.
Cook until broccoli and potatoes are tender.
With an immersion blender, blend until smooth.
Add seasonings to taste, remaining chopped broccoli and chopped chicken
Cook until broccoli is tender.
Serve.
Swoon!

Convenience Foods & Overeating

2011-06-09T09:45:00.001-04:00

My grandmother used to say about a man we knew, "he's the kind of drinker who opens a bottle of whiskey and throws away the cap." The man wasn't always or even often drunk, but when he did drink, he couldn't stop. Convenience foods are like that for me.

If I open a bag of chips or popcorn, no matter how large, I have an incredibly hard time eating just one serving. I have small bowls we use to put our servings in, but I'll just refill it compulsively till the bag is empty.

What other foods are like that? Beef jerky, French fries, nuts, various snack mixes, pizza...

It's not just snack foods, though. Most foods that come pre-packed and take minimal preparation or are just delivered straight to our doors or car windows are generally eaten in huge volumes.

People eat more than they need routinely. We seem to always be challenging just how much volume our stomachs can handle (the stomach can go from holding 45ml to nearly 3L when fully distended), with little regard to (indeed, sometimes in spite of) how uncomfortable it is to be so filled with food.

I don't subscribe to the theory that says the amount of energy ingested must be equal to the energy the body expends or the surplus will be stored as fat, often referred to as calories in/calories out. Our bodies are far, far more complicated than that. However, if you add a couple litres of food into your body and an insulin reaction causes that food to be stored as fat, more food available will mean more fat stored.

There is a nice, neat way to side step this problem.

My first batch of beef jerky, still warm!

Make your own food.

When you make your own food, you are making an investment in your health. You are learning the value of the rewards of hard work. If you must sour your own dough, knead it by hand and let it rise for hours before baking it in your own oven, the chances of you eating half a loaf of it at a sitting are much diminished. Because when it's gone, it takes souring the dough, kneading by hand and hours of proofing before baking in your own oven before you can have more.

If you buy your bread, you could buy two or three loaves at a time. When they are gone, it only takes a few minutes to get to a store to acquire more.

The same with pizza. When you lovingly make the dough, spread the dough and dress the pizza, you are far more likely to eat fewer slices than if someone arrives at the door with it.

What about cake? I can't be the only one to notice that when I buy a birthday cake, I serve gigantic pieces but when I spend a day making and decorating a cake, everyone gets only a sliver!

Other things I've noticed this with: homemade jams, beef jerky and dried fruit. If I marinate that beef and then slice it just so before drying it for eight hours, I am not going to eat half of the batch at a single sitting, like I would with commercially purchased jerky. If I spend an hour slicing pineapples and apples before drying them, I won't sit in front of a movie mindlessly putting them in my mouth. I will savour them in very small servings, making the deliciousness last as long as I can.

Similarly, the cost of food inhibits overeating. If I buy a $2/lb roast from WalMart, I'm likely to eat two or three times as much meat at dinner than if I go to a local butcher and pay $4/lb. My butchered roasts last me two or more meals easily. And they taste better, too!

So, if you are trying to lose weight, the first and smartest thing you can do is to start cooking real food. Buy your own fresh meats and vegetables and fruit and cook them on your own stove. Live the principle that we value things most the harder it is to get them.

Are you trying to get away from convenience foods? Have you noticed you eat less of something if you make it yourself?

I'm a recovering addict

2011-05-27T20:52:00.006-04:00

But I don't smoke crack or drink alcohol (much) or snort coke or even smoke cigarettes. My drug of choice is sugar.

I love sugar and I'm helpless in the face of it. I can't eat a dish of ice cream; I have to eat a pint. I can't eat one chocolate bar; I must have two. If you are watching me, I'll only eat one cookie. Well, maybe just two or three. But if noone is watching, you can bet the entire plate will be gone by bedtime. And I might lie about eating them.

I used to think I was weak. I used to think I was deviant. But, I know that's not true, now.

In the last week, I've stopped buying processed sugar sweets. No desserts, no treats, no sugary drinks, no snacks, no chocolate, no ice cream, no cookies, no cakes, not even any sugar in my tea. And a curious thing happened.

At first I was bitchy. But I stuck to my guns. I tried to get Sean to buy me chocolate one night. But he forgot and I was secretly thankful. I made my unsweetened tea and drank more water. I told myself, "the sweet taste of that chocolate bar is not worth it."

And the more I abstained, the easier it got.

In fact, it got so easy that I went to the store tonight - a night when I am on my own while my children are at my mother's and my husband is out of the country, a night when I'm relaxing and treating myself out of view of anyone who might steal away my treat or remind me that I shouldn't be eating it - and I walked out of the store empty-handed.

I could hardly believe it.

Only a few weeks ago, I would have bought a pint of Caramel Cone Explosion Haagen Daas and a Snicker's bar - because I have to eat chocolate and nuts and I love the creamy sweetness of ice cream. But tonight, I walked out with nothing.

After 5 days with no sugar or sugary processed foods, I don't feel like I need it! I don't have the rush of anticipation that the possibility of eating sugar fills me with.

I had a slice of birthday cake last week at a grand-nephew's birthday party. And I had to give 1/2 of it to Sean. The first 1/4 tasted OK. The second 1/4 I ate out of a Catholic sense of duty. But I couldn't stomach it. It was so sickly sweet it wasn't enjoyable. (Make no mistake, I was honoured to be a part of the celebration and I'm thankful I was there.) And not liking the cake made me really excited.

At first, last week, my tea tasted bitter. It tasted bitter and vaguely like watery dirt. With a hint of white peach, of course, because I got a nice fruity oolong tea. But, by the third day, the tea started to taste fine. And now, I don't need sugar in my tea at all.

I could go on because there are more than enough oppourtunities for me to eat sweet, sugary foods, but I will stop.

I'm so happy to realise this sugar apathy because I've been putting on a crazy amount of weight in the last couple of years and it's almost entirely because of sugar intake. Abstaining from sugar this week - and not even the entire week, because I had a couple of Iced Mochaccinos on the weekend and that piece of cake and there may have been something the day before that - has resulted in 3lbs of weight loss. THREE POUNDS! In less than a week! Just from not eating sugar.

I'm doing a lot of reading about food, searching for the best types of things to eat and nourish my family with and I discovered a number of things that shocked me. One of those things is the fact that sugar is toxic.

Toxic. Not just no good. Not just bad: toxic.

And I'm starting to think people like Lustig and Taubes are on to something. Because, when I eat sugar I want more of it. And when I have more, I want a LOT more of it. I want sugar on my sugar! Nothing is sweet enough.

And when I stop eating sugar, the things I'm offered that have sugar in them are suddenly too sweet. They are so sweet I feel sick. But not the nauseous type of sick. More like heartsick and sad. Processed sugar, when you stop regularly eating it, tastes like sadness and desperation and emptiness. It's one-dimensional.

I'm not saying I'm never eating it again. In fact, after having a long think about what would be a great treat for my night alone, I chose two pastel de nata. They'll be sweet, to be sure, but I chose them because I know the woman who bakes them and I've decided that when I get a treat, I want to know who made my food. Because those people tend to put less sugar in their food. And they use whole food ingredients, like the eggs in my custard.

For some interesting information about sugar and what it does to the body, check out Gary Taubes article in the New York Times called Is Sugar Toxic? And check out Dr. Robert Lustig's talk about sugar below. More than 1.3 million people have watched it.

Anybody else ever given up sugar? Did it last? What were your experiences?

Goal: Hike Every Week

2011-05-22T19:08:00.000-04:00

I have goals for getting healthy. Some of them are short term and have specific numbers attached: lose 3lbs of body weight per week (hey, reach for the stars, right?). Other goals are "rest of my life" goals. Like this one.

Be More Active is ridiculously vague. I'd never make a change with such a limp wristed goal. So I've broken this over-arching goal down into specific directives. The first of which is to get out for a hike every week with the family.

This goal is about more than just being active. It supports one of our family values: being a good steward to the earth.

I have always worked to make my boys aware of the beauty of their environment, to understand our place within nature and to know that it is a complexity of delicate systems at risk and yet enduring and flexible. Admiring trees and bugs and birds and rocks are all things I do with the boys. They can often tell you which birdsong belongs to a cardinal and which to a robin. They appreciate the cycle of life the runs from birth to death and back around through various recycling methods.

Now that Spencer is almost 4, totally independently mobile and a fairly reliable listener, we can go out hiking. And we are spoiled for choice here in Hamilton, ON. We have an escarpment, part of the Golden Horseshoe, running through the middle of town, as well as a bay, a lake, forests, valleys, the Bruce Trail and more waterfalls than nearly anywhere else on Earth. With this wealth of natural beauty, there's little reason to venture very far for eco-entertainment!

Today we explored Tiffany's Falls.

So this is what 40 is like!

2011-05-19T23:41:00.000-04:00

I used to say that I felt like a nervous 18 year old. Even in my 30s, I felt like the me I was in my head didn't quite match the me I was trying to be in the world.Even when I became a mother, responsible for the life of another person, marked by time and my rite of passage birthing was for me, I wasn't quite the me I was trying to be.

Apparently, that feeling that you are somehow a fake, that you are only pretending to be responsible at your work, it has a name. It's called "Imposter Phenomenon". Most people feel that a little, I think.

I'm not special, but I always felt like someone was going to find out that I really sucked at being a doula, at being kind, at being a business owner, at being a mother, at being alive. It's one thing to feel young at heart, but quite another to walk through life feeling like an underqualified teenager.

Throughout my 30s, I spent a great deal of time repairing from previous relationships: with family, exes and old friends. Poor Sean had to put up with a lot of my dysfunction as I groped through our life together learning how to really trust someone.

Now, at 40, I am pretty sure I'm on the other side of that. For one, I no longer feel like a teenager about to be found out. What a bloody relief!

What I feel now is raring to go. I feel like I've wasted a LOT of time. I wasted a lot of my husband's time and I wasted a the formative years of my son's lives. I wasted them being depressed and angry and paranoid. And unhealthy. Unfocused. Unhappy. Impatient.

Things are turning around, though.

What was it that helped begin this transformation?

Food.

In January, Sean and I started making big changes in our diet. We began the process of cutting out processed foods, grains, sugar and vegetable oils. And we've seen some big changes.

We saw some big problems, though, too, when we got lax.

To get back on track, I've joined a 9 week challenge: Eat For You Challenge. In order to help myself track progress and maintain my goals, I'm going to posting here more often (well, once every six months seems to qualify as "more" around here!). In fact, I may be posting every day!

I'll be talking about my goals, about the food I'm making, about my challenges, about my results - or lack thereof - and about some of the ideas behind why I'm doing what I'm doing, both personally and from a scientific standpoint. There will be photos, too.

Come back and follow along. Maybe you need to make changes, too? Goodness knows I'll need the support from kind readers.

What's In The Pile On My Headboard

2010-12-13T11:41:00.002-05:00

That's where I keep my books. I don't get much of a change to read during the day with two little guys so my reading time tends to be immediately before sleep. There are nights when I read for three hours - and I pay the next morning - and nights when it's all I can do to make it through a couple paragraphs when I start falling asleep with the book open on my chest.

I love to read. There are days when I rail against the fact that livings must be earned, children minded, homes kept, mouths fed and personal hygiene to be tended to because I honestly just want to read books all day and all night, every day, forever. I resent the imposition that life makes on my ability to zip through a great book.

One definite solution to this is audiobooks. I am far too voracious a reader and far too poor to be able to buy them all, so I'm thankful that my library offers a digital library. It's got a handful or two of really great books and a few more that I'm sure are great but aren't really in my interest area or preferred genre.

It's just not possible to sit on your ass and do nothing while you listen to audiobooks, though I do sometimes just sit and knit and listen, so I have found myself doing a lot more housework than I usually do. Given a steady flow of audiobooks, I may just whip our apartment into shape one of these days soon. And by soon, I mean next week. The housewife productivity level I can achieve with a good audiobook going is mind boggling.

They even have kids books, which is awesome since we are considering getting Kieran an mp3 player for Christmas. He wants and iTouch and we were thinking maybe a $20 Coby.

This week I stepped out of my comfort zone and listened to the first Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel Guilty Pleasure by Laurell K Hamilton.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I was afraid it would be hardcore cheeze with a romance plot and too much "eroticism". What I heard was am interesting and strong heroine who I found myself identifying with - hates panty hose and things "foundation" makeup is stupid! A gal after my own heart! While there was a little sexuality in there, it wasn't in the form of actual sex scenes, which are notoriously badly written, but merely part of the landscape of what adults do in life. The narration was good and I'm looking forward to downloading the next one.

If I enjoyed the Hamilton book, I LOVED the next library digital download: World War Z by Max Brooks.

This book blew me away! While I suspect I would have gotten a closer reading from actually reading Hamilton's book, World War Z's award winning audiobook version is not just a good book, it's exciting! The book is presented as a series of interviews that piece together the overarching story, much like a filmed documentary would. My initial reaction to reading that "series of interviews" description was not promising. But I'm glad I forced myself out of my comfort zone, again.

What really makes this books so fantastic is the cast who act the parts. Did you catch that? I said cast. As in multiple voices. Normally you get one narrator and if you're really lucky, it's someone like Stephen Fry or Michael Pollen.

World War Z goes beyond simple narration and presents and unbelievable cast that includes Carl and Rob Reiner, John Torturro, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Becky Ann Baker and many more. It was such a pleasure to listen to, so compelling, that I'm going to listen to it all over again this week. And, it's a zombie book! I love it.

There were two actual books I read over the last couple of weeks, too. The first was Lev Grossmans's The Magicians.

George R R Martin says it "is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea." And it was! It's about a college bound New Yorker who discovers he's a magician and that his favourite children's fantasy world is real. I was skeptical, but fell in love with the flawed characters who live real lives that includes the normal indulgences of youth: sex, booze, drugs and self-loathing. It went places I didn't think it would go and it's always good when a book surprises you.

The other book, one which I'll be buying this week and making my bible is Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.

If you have a child with so much energy and passion you find yourself apologising constantly for their dramatics, distractability and "hands-on" methods of social interaction (gosh, was that a diplomatic way of saying "your kid sometimes beats up other kids when they get wound up" or what?!)? Do you have a kid who is extra sensitive, extra loud, extra everything? You probably have a spirited child.

When I started reading this book, I felt a rush of relief so overwhelming I had to cry to let it out. My son, my beautiful crazy son was not a discipline problem. He wasn't wired wrong. He wasn't in need of medication. He wasn't a bully in the making. He was spirited! And as such, there are ways of helping him manage his extra-ness so that he can manage his own behaviour and get along in the world better!

I have found some wonderful books in the past couple of years that have helped me become a better parent, but Raising Your Spirited Child is definitely the book about children and parenting that will be the most profoundly useful to me.

Those are the things I've been reading lately. How about you?

Winning Tastes Good!

2010-11-23T14:31:00.003-05:00

The doorbell doesn't usually ring during the day, and when it does, it's usually a package of books or CDs or records for my handsome husband.(*see note at end of post!) So, when the package is for me it's a really good day.

Purolator was just here to deliver a bin full of holiday entertaining goodies from Loblaws, the folks behind the delicious President's Choice line of foods.

It arrived here due to a contest on fellow Canadian family blogger Dani of Postcards from the Mothership. I shared my lazy chili recipe with a twist (**see the other note at the end of the post!) and the universe aligned just so when Dani pushed the magic button at Random.org.

First observation: the box is bloody huge! That's my very tall very potty-training 3 year old Spencer pushing the giant box up the hall.

Spencer is so excited to open the box! Wowzers! It's like a birthday, or Christmas or something!

It's so big! And there are chips! And Spencer insisted on being a part of the picture. He's a total ham for the camera. I'd better take advantage of that because the time will come soon, probably, if he's anything like his brother, when he will hate having the camera pointing at him.

Isn't that a pretty package?

Here are all the goodies laid out for sampling!

And the stuff we couldn't keep our hands off of were super yummy! The chocolates: Fruit Fancies, Belgian and covered almonds were all delicious. The cracker assortment will be particularly handy since both boys like to have what I call "nibbly" meals: cubes of cheese and kielbassa with crackers that they can snack on at leisure.

Usually I'm a great baker and I make everything from bread to squares from scratch, but sometimes I can't be arsed. The mixes for cinnamon rolls, brownies and butter tart squares will be the perfect remedy. In fact, Sean was just asking the other day about those halcyon days when I used to make trays of brownies. I seem to recall that was in the days before I had children and before I started cooking from scratch.

Thank you Dani and Loblaws! I'm really thankful to have a fully stocked snack cupboard as the holiday season ramps up. The $10 gift card will be great for trying something out of the Holiday Insider Report. That Red Velvet Cheesecake has been calling to me.

Note #1
My awesome husband Sean Palmerston won Publicist of the Year for the third year in a row at the Hamilton Music Awards. And, as if that isn't enough, our heavy metal webzine Hellbound.ca won online publication of the year! He and the amazing staff of writers we work with consistently create the best writing about metal music around. Our photographers rock, too!

Note #2
Momcast's Lazy Ass Chili w/ a Twist

1 lb ground beef (lean if conventional, regular if from the farm)
1 large onion
2-4 cloves of minced garlic (Ontario!)
1 green or red pepper (or both, if you have ‘em)
1 can of diced tomatoes (No Name/yellow label – the big fat tins)
2 cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup (don’t do No Name or Heinz – you can taste the difference!)
2 cans red kidney beans, don’t rinse (No Name!)
1 can mixed beans (No Name!)
2-4 TBSP chili powder
1-2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce (No Name – can you figure out where we shop for our packaged foods?)
1 TBSP sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
*optional – other seasonings – give it a shake of this or that if you want to bump up the flavour
*optional 1 cup of frozen corn (add near end of cooking)

Secret Nutritional Meat Extender (I buy chicken hearts and livers at the farmer’s market, they are nutritional powerhouses, but ridiculously cheap, usually $1-$2 per 2 lb bag, grind them in the food processor, freeze portions in my metal muffin tin – which is only used for meat, incidentally, as I make individual meatloafs affectionately known as meat muffins – remove to a zip bag and add one to two into every pound of ground beef you prep for casseroles, stews, loafs…

Brown up the meat with the veg, add in your canned stuff, mix in your seasonings, let cook at a light, simmering boil for 20 or 30 mins and serve.

We serve with corn bread or buttered toast (LOTS of buttered toast!) on warm nights and it rocks and usually results in at least one extra meal for the freezer. To further extend for bigger families, add another tin of diced tomatoes.

I'm so boring I stopped talking, or writing. You get the idea.

2010-11-13T00:17:00.001-05:00

It's almost embarrassing how long I've gone since posting. I guess I don't have a lot to discuss. Though, really, there is stuff to discuss. I'll have to return soon. But, the archives are full of interesting stuff: my home birth story, with pics, me bitching, me bragging, me blathering...

A Few Pretty Things

2010-04-24T15:23:00.000-04:00

I recently rewarded myself with a few dollars in Paypal and the freedom to spend it guilt-free. Wanna see all the pretty things I've been buying?

A Honey Pot!

Since we switched from refined white sugar to honey, I've been craving a useful container. The jars we get at the market get all sugary and I hate dipping my spoon into the honey, even though I know honey has wonderful antibacterial qualities. So, I went looking for the perfect honey pot and found it here:

Anne Maries's Pottery

A Wee Pretty Platter!

From the same shop I also got this beautiful little platter on four lefs. It's really small, but so pretty that I couldn't resist.

The artist was really wonderful to deal with and the shipping was lightening fast. I'm thinking of getting a berry bowl next.

For The Love Of My Life!

I had attempted to get one of these made many years ago as a present to Sean but it never quite worked out. Luckily, someone on Etsy had one for sale. It's about the size of a quarter, perhaps smaller, and Sean loves it. I took him to the jeweler to pick a chain for it. So, my manly man will be sporting some silver around his neck next week.

Silver 999 also sells rings!

A New Pendant For Me!

I get a LOT of compliments on the pendant I currently wear. It's a simple narrow block of clear plastic with blue beads set into it. I haven't taken it off in years and the plastic is wearing away and the beads are becoming exposed. It was time to get a new pendant.

I've been thinking about placentas a lot and that lead me to the image of a tree (the veins and arteries that feed the placenta look like branches in a tree). So, I chose this. I'm still waiting patiently for it's arrival.

Check out the other work: Charming Ladies

Because I Want The Man Outta My Panties!

The pretty, pretty things are from Primmnproper and Randumosity.

I also bought a pelvis and some shors, but I don't think you need to know that.

Go buy something nice for yourself a great day!

The Inadvertant Comedian

2010-04-15T16:06:00.000-04:00

I love just listening in our my kids' conversations. They don't realise it, but they are incredibly funny. Listen in with me...

Kieran: Next year for my birthday, I'd like to invite Luke, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.
Me: Ugh, if you invite Vader and Palpatine, I'll have to really clean up a lot.
Kieran: Well, I want to invite them because they're really sociable and they like meeting people.
Me: *snork*!

The Omnivore’s Hundred

2010-04-11T19:58:00.000-04:00

Are you an omnivore? A vegetarian? A vegan? What won't you eat? What have you eaten? Check out this fun little meme for foodies.

I came across this blog ( www.verygoodtaste.co.uk) a while ago, the writer created a list of 100 things that he thought every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I thought we could do do:

1) Copy this list into your fb notes (or blog!), including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
(there are instructions on how to bold/cross out... down at the right hand corner of your notes page)
4) Tag your friends... so we can see how adventurous each of us really are! (Or just do this on your blog and leave me a comment with the link!)

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1.Venison
2.Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4.Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (alligator?)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10.Baba ghanoush
11.Calamari
12. Pho
13 PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18.Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27.Dulce de leche
28.Oysters
29.Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32.Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Lassi
34.Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36.Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49.Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54.Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58.Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60.Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67.Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69.Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71.Gazpacho
72.Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78.Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82.Eggs Benedict
83.Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87.Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98.Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

My Baby Is Anything But

2010-04-08T13:26:00.000-04:00

Today I am the mother of a seven year old

From the sleepy little chicken who arrived early, he has turned into a funny, fun, creative, passionate young boy. He changed my life so profoundly and continues to teach me about who I am and who I can become.

I love him to bits and I'm so thankful that he's mine.

He is obsessed with Lego of any stripe but particularly Star Wars Lego and Indiana Jones. He loves to watch both of those series, too.

He loves Harry Potter as well and is always on the lookout for a fallen branch that will make the perfect wand.

He can read English and French.

He loves anything to do with space and archeology.

He wears his heart on his sleeve which makes him a very loving and generous person but at the same time, it leaves him open to heartbreak. He's very sensitive to rejection and can be a little vengeful when he feels he's been wronged.

He draws comic books and fills up sketch books with images of droids and fantastic vehicles, crazy aliens and pictures of his family, usually rendered as Star Wars characters (I'm Leia!).

After seven years, I'm more in love with him than ever.

Growth Spurt

2010-04-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the growth spurts happen in the legs. Kieran puts on a pair of pants and suddenly they are 2 inches too short for him. Sometimes they happen in the brain. Sometimes he grows right before my eyes and I just have to step out of the way and let it happen.

This morning, Kieran ran out the front door, just as he does every morning, just ahead of his dad, to walk over to the park where his schoolbus picks up in the morning. From inside I could hear Kieran shout out a greeting to the group of 4 brothers and cousins who all live in the big apartment at the end of our block. They take the bus, too.

Sean was running a little late and was tripping out the door with shoes in hand when Kieran had a growth spurt. Kieran had joined the group of boys, boys ranging in age from 7 to 10, turned to his dad and waved. "Bye Dad!" And then he set off to the park.

Sean rang the doorbell to get my attention and when I went out onto the porch, he explained while Kieran waited patiently at the corner to cross a moderately busy street buzzing with morning rush hour traffic. He looked back once to wave at us, slack jawed, back at home, and then turned his attention back to the traffic where he and the boys were looking for the right moment to cross.

A tiny piece of my chest clutched up into a little nut of panic, but mostly I felt a strangely giddy feeling of pride and excitement run through me.

From the beginning of this school year we've been talking about safe places, safe people and what to do if I'm late to the park at the end of the day. We have visited a couple of businesses in the neighbourhood and asked them to be safe places for Kieran in the event he is ever alone and feeling unsafe. We have role played and discussed and tested.

This week we started talking very specifically about traffic awareness and how to cross a street.

Two times now, he has walked to the home of a school friend. They both get off at the park together and this older boy walks them both back to his house. I've talked to the boy and his parents and I trust them all. And, I trust Kieran with him.

In the last couple of days, we got Kieran's bike out of the basement and I've let him ride back and forth on the sidewalk, going from one end of the block to the other. At first I sat on the porch and watched, but now I just leave the front door open and let him ride.

He loves it. He loves the freedom.

I guess I just didn't realise how close to the boundary edge he'd come. I was surprised at his decision this morning, but in those split seconds where we parents analyse a situation and make decisions, I knew that Kieran had all the skills to take on more responsibility. And, it didn't hurt that he was walking with a group of four other boys who've been making the walk unsupervised for the whole year already.

So, off he went. I gave up control so that he could grow.

My little boy isn't so little anymore.

Could You Put That Back Please, Son?

2010-03-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

No, that's not hand gel.

I don't know why your hands are getting hot. Maybe, uh, stop rubbing them and go wash them, please.

And, uh, I'll take that, please. Now, stop touching mommy's stuff!

Chores and Rewards

2010-03-15T14:19:00.000-04:00

You aren't supposed to use rewards to motivate children. You are supposed to help your child develop self-motivation so that want to do things like keep their environment tidy, help their parents and honour their families. I'm just not that good at parenting.

I've tried threats: real and implied. (Don't worry, they weren't threats of violence, merely threatened unpleasant consequences like toys going into time-out, loss of desserts, etc) I've tried raising my voice. I've tried asking pleasantly. I've tried asking once. Many times I've asked dozens of times. Time-outs, chore charts, pleading, bribing, cash - none of the have worked in the slightest.

I went to my favourite parenting resources and got some ideas, none of which worked. The standard response to requests was the furiously frustrating, "No!"

I was at a complete loss until this morning when the perfect solution struck me: give him what he wants and in order for him to get what he wants, get him to give me what I want. Both of us will be happy, both of us will get our desires fulfilled.

I made a calendar of the next two weeks. Underneath that, I drew a number of boxes with various chores I want Kieran to do. Some of them are things I ask him to do all the time, like make his bed and pick up his toys. Other things, however, are chores I'd like him to take on but that he's never done before. And, for each task, there is a point value according to the chore's level of difficulty.

For every 10 toys picked up and put away, Kieran earns 1 point. For every back or armful of recycling taken out to the blue bins Kieran can earn 5 points. Making beds is worth 3 points, a load of dishes is worth 10 points and a half load of laundry (putting a load on to wash, or on to dry or taking a dry load out) is worth 10 points. Finally, if Sean or I ask Kieran to do any small chores, he gets 2 points.

All of these points add up over the days until they hit one of three levels: 100, 200 and 500. These correspond with the ability to purchase a set of Lego at the $25, $50 or $100 level. And that is the key. Kieran LOVES lego. He plays with it constantly and dreams about all of the different types he could get. I knew if I made it clear how to attain new Lego, he'd go for it.

And, go for it he did!

No sooner were the words out of my mouth when I explained the scheme to him than he ran to his room and proceeded to put away 102 items. 10 points!

Then he took out the week's recycling; six bags and boxes of things into the blue bin netted him 30 points.

After that, he happily clambered up on his bed and made it, then made his brother's bed, finally running to my room to check that the sheets were tidy. 6 points.

After taking a break to watch some Harry Potter, he is planning on tackling some dishes and laundry. Now, I certainly didn't mean to encourage domestic slavery in my six year old son. But, he's so excited to be able to earn a new set of Lego, he's challenging himself to earn 100 points in one day.

The score currently stands at 51.

In Case You Are Curious, Or You Just Think I'm Crazy

2010-03-10T14:34:00.000-05:00

After reading some of the commentary on the Glove and Mail, I thought it would be helpful to offer some info and links for people who may be curious about why this is sort of a big deal (for me) or just think I'm crazy to eat things cooked in lard. I know, lard!

The core of the Real Food/Traditional Food movement is the Weston A Price Foundation and the work begun by early 20th C dentist Weston A Price. Essentially, while examining, first hand, different cultures around the world, he found those who ate a diet of whole foods that had little or no modern processed foods, had little or no tooth decay, sickness or growth problems.

Price began a movement to return people to their culinary heritage and hence better health. If you want to learn more about the foundation and check out the local chapter which has semi-monthly meetings and potlucks, go to WAPF and Nourishing Hamilton.

Why would I eat lard?! I mean, the government spends a crazy amount of our tax dollars to tell us to eat low fat sources of food and lard is, well: fat.

It turns out that the scientists got the whole saturated fat thing wrong. It turns out that saturated fats do not cause heart disease and can actually play an important role in keeping your body operating at it's peak which includes keeping you thin. I couldn't say it better than other people have, so please look into the Lipid Theory, which originally hypothesized that fat makes you fat and prepare to see it totally debunked as mounting scientific evidence points to important role saturated fats play in your health and the horrible effect of various seed oils like canola and corn.

7 Reasons To Eat More Saturated Fats
Confused About Fats?

Why I don't like highly processed (non)foods. Simply, because they are no longer food. Essentially, the food you find in packages particularly anything that requires any kind of reconstitution is like a chemistry experiment. Food shows up at one factory and is pulled apart into its separate parts. Those parts are sent off to another factory where compounds are created and then finally, the compounds are sent to yet another factory where the compounds are assembled with a small amount of chemically treated, highly processed versions of whole foods to create a frozen lasagna, frozen bean and cheese burritos, rising crust pizzas, ice cream, no fat yogurt, chips, tinned soups, etc, etc, etc.

I call that mutant food. By the time you eat it, the food's been cooked about three times! There just aren't any nutrients left in food like that. And, like an Italian friend who once pointed out that when buying canned tomatoes, only ever get whole ones because the worst quality is used in sauces, with the best used for whole preservation: I'm suspicious of the quality of meats and veggies that have been prepped in teeny tiny chunks.

A whole food is a food that has all the parts it normally comes with in tact. Fats and nutrients are part of that, not just calories.

I have the luxury of working from my home, so I can choose to use my non-working home time to prep some food. But, if you actually know the real me, you'll know I'm a classic slacker. I really prefer minimal prep in my foods. Aside from bread, which is my workout! So, when I make my own sauerkraut the cabbage goes through the food processor, I pound it a little, stuff it in a jar and abandon it for a week. But, for that 20 minutes I spend throwing together a single jar of sauerkraut means healthy probiotic rich food to garnish dozens of meals. Spend an afternoon canning a few fruits and veggies and then spend a few weeks or months slacking off just opening up jars to have delicious, healthy food.

But if I worked a day job outside the house, how would I be able to do it? Well, I'd go back to my roots: make a big fat roast or bird on Sunday with lots of veggies and taters and a salad (and don't forget to throw some fermented veggies on that salad!) and eat the meal on Sunday.

Throw all the leftover veggies, some of the meat and the gravy in a casserole dish. Top it with mashed potatoes or biscuit or pastry right away or the next night and you have a big pot pie to enjoy.

Immediately throw any bones and veggies scraps (save those in a zip lock bag in the freezer all week long) and a splash of vinegar in a soup pot, bring it to the boil, and let it simmer overnight. In the morning, put the pot in the fridge.

The next night, while you warm up your pot pie in the oven, take your broth and package it up 4 cup portions and/or ice cube sized portions in the freezer.

The following night, chuck a bunch of fresh veggies and some more left over meat into a soup pot with some bone broth. A few herbs and spices will make it a nourishing soup. Serve that with more salad, a hunk of good bread, raw milk cheese, fruits, crudite, whatever you have on hand.

Still got any meat left? Make a sandwich? Fry up some potatoes and veggies in bacon grease or butter and top it with the leftover meat. You'll almost certainly have leftover pot pie and soup.

If you get a great cut of meat and use it wisely, you can split a good-sized roast or bird into as many as five meals without having to rely on heavily processed foods, without having to compromise your nutrition, without over-eating a single type of food and without having to spend an arm and a leg. And, the best part, aside from the length of time it takes to roast something on a Sunday, a process which doesn't require any babysitting so that you can enjoy your life and spend your day with your family and friends, each day's meal only takes 20 minutes to an hour from fridge to table. And, you'd be doing that with a boxed frozen lasagna, right?

So, with a little thinking, some habit changing and a bit of preparation and planning, eating a real food, whole food, traditional diet is totally doable for most people who want to do it.

Check out these great books for ideas and guidance and just a plain good read:

Why Yes, That IS Me In The Globe

2010-03-10T11:51:00.002-05:00

After completing the 28-Day Challenge over at Nourished Kitchen, Kieran and I get 15 minutes of fame in the biggest national paper in Canada! Though I could have stood a more flattering photo.

You can read the story here: Ditching Processed Foods Isn't So Easy.

The title is a tad misleading. Sure, it was a tiny bit hard to throw out food that was still potentially useful (just like, on the day I quit smoking 5 years ago my last cigarette was the last one of the last pack) - though it's continued value in our lives was now questionable - but transitioning to a more complete Real Food/Traditional Food diet wasn't all that hard. But, I know how to cook whole foods.

I grew up cooking whole foods, making strawberry jam in early summer, making cakes and cookies from scratch and sitting down to eat the same thing everyone else at the table was eating as a family every single night of my life. We even made our own liqueur every holiday season!

With this kind of background, making roasts of chicken and beast, cooking up vegetables that were seasonal and local, eating raw fruits and planning for meals that require a little bit more effort and/or time was something I had the skills to do. So, while it may have been a little inconvenient at times and took a little bit more effort than looking into the cupboard to see what box to open up today, it wasn't what I would call difficult.

Preserving foods, soaking oats for a morning meal, scrambling eggs at 7am, crockpotting a 7lb chicken, kneading my own loaves of bread, fermenting drinks - it's all easy compared to living with heart disease and diabetes and obesity. And, as you can see, I have to work on that obesity thing. Low fat mutant foods, denatured whole foods and chemistry lesson meals have done nothing at all for my health. But, eating real foods for a short time has meant a marked improvement in gut and Candida issues. I'm looking forward to the day when my pants get loose.

So, it's pretty strange to read registered Vancouver dietitian Gloria Tsang comments that "she is uncertain whether people’s diets were actually more nutritious before the mass industrialization of agriculture." I can guarantee that heart disease, diabetes and obesity were not the epidemics 50 and 100 years ago that they are now.

Heck, the fact that people don't even know how to prepare meat and veg dinners and would wonder about how the heck they would feed themselves without the crutch of heavily processed foods is sad and shocking to me. It's shocking in the same way that many of today's youth can't read or write cursive handwriting!

We aren't perfect. I'm not going to say we eat 100% real foods. Last night I bought pizza and wings for myself and the kids though I could have heated up some delicious local sourced homemade sausage, kale and white bean soup made with my own bone broth. We like to indulge in the occasional junk food and I'm making peace with giving up my beloved cracklike addiction to Diet Pepsi.

We don't yet buy fully pastured meats, eggs and dairy. But, we don't buy those things at the supermarket anymore. We buy from smaller farmers, from butchers whose names we know and we buy things that were raised or grown in and around Hamilton, Ontario where we live. Fully pastured is the next step, but for now this is healthier than the factory farmed foods we used to eat and in an entirely different league than anything you can get in a box, can or bag at the supermarket.

So, did you do the challenge? What did you think of the article? Do you eat "real food"?

The Dough Is Sour

2010-02-16T23:26:00.000-05:00

I love sourdough bread. It has so much flavour, it's sort of pre-digested due to the fermentation, the phytic acid (bad crap) is gone and it's like an ongoing science project. It's magical - using naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria like tiny faeries in the air doing their mystical job - and it is forgiving - it'll still be good, perhaps even better, if you forget to stir or feed it for a few days or even weeks and it'll be patient with me if I force feed it a little.

I've experimented with a few different recipes: all sourdough, half sourdough/half dry active yeast, long proofs and short proofs, hard and soft wheats, seeds and fruits and flavouring agents. I always aim for one sandwich loaf for lunches and one "fun" loaf where I experiment a little.

Today's experiment (half and half loaf with yeast, half soft all purpose wheat and half hard wheat mix of hard whole wheat and red fife wheat flours and gluten) involved cinnamon raisins and mixed candied peel. Yum! It turned out nice and subtle. Next time I try this, and I'm definitely going to try this again, I'm going to put more cinnamon in and maybe some brown sugar, too.

While I was doing the knead before the first rise, a knead that takes about 30 minutes or more, Spencer was at my side. You have to knead dough for a long time initially to activate the gluten and create a nice even, slightly chewy crumb that holds together well and has lots of fine holes. If you don't do this knead or don't do it long enough, the bread will be incredibly dense. It would be good with pate or creamy cheese, but it's not good for making sandwiches.

So, there I am, sweat trickling down my neck, my hair getting wet, my shoulders starting to ache and my heart rate up and Spencer reaches up to pat the dough.

Sweet, eh?

I thought so, too. It's so important to get kids involved in making food and knowing where their food comes from and how it is prepared, having my two year old want to help knead the dough that would become his bread gave me a little thrill! But, not so fast!

The patting hand started to contract, fingers digging into dough, trying to tear off a fist-sized hunk.

My excitement turned to panic, "No! Stop it! It's not ready! You can't eat that, we have to turn it into bread first!"

My fiery little redhead did not like being denied this snack. "No, Mama! Bread gone! Bread gone, Mama!" He was seething at me, crying and shouting. He sure doesn't like being thwarted!

He's so funny when he gets mad. It really blows me away to watch him. And how weird that he would throw a tantrum over some dough! Well, he loves the finished product, of course.

I can't wait to toast the fruit bread in the morning for breakfast. It'll be glorious!

But, that dough. I suppose it's not bad for him: fermented wheat, honey, yeasts, salt... My instinct it to stop him, though. Should I stop him or let him take a little hunk?

How I Would Write Birth In A Movie

2010-02-12T10:23:00.000-05:00

Crunchy Domestic Goddess wrote about media portrayals of birth and it got me thinking:

I bet I could write a great birth scene for a movie from a normal labouring mother's perspective. So, Go and check out my post on Hamilton Doula. It's what birth ought to look like, at least sometimes, in movies and television.

A Food Revolution

2010-02-08T12:48:00.000-05:00

I've been developing an interest in healthy nutrition for a few years now. And, since I am building a business, that nutrition must also be cost-effective. It would be easy to shop at a fancy health foods store all the time, but the idea of pre-packaged foods has been starting to make me feel uncomfortable. Then I watched the movie Food Inc and, suddenly, a lot of things made sense, or didn't, but I understood now!

I grew up eating basic, normal food for your average Germanic-Anglo-Celt: hunks of meat, something starchy and a vegetable. For dessert we ate stewed fruit, usually out of a can. Hey, it was the 70's.

The boom of convenience foods left me fat and undernourished. I developed dental problems, systematic yeast infections, skin problems and then there were the mental issues: depression, wild emotional swings, hormonal sensitivity and problems with focus. I was poor and lazy and boxed foods that cost less than a dollar seemed to produce larger volumes of food, which then, of course, had to be eaten, than nutrient dense foods.

It took a while to realise that first, the low-fat, sugar-free revolution was making me sicker than I used to be before our scientists figured out how to re-engineer foods from chemicals. That the chemicals came from actual food that was reduced to its elements and then put back together again, missing certain parts that were out of vogue (carbs, fats...) began to look incredibly perverse.

As a doula who believes in physiologically normal birth practices, I often talked to people about how birth interventions are like sticking things into an engine and taking pieces of that engine out; eventually the engine will not function as it is supposed to and will put the driver in danger. So, it is strange it took me so long to apply this organic system to food.

My personal food revolution is due in part to many of the great websites I found when looking for ways to cook real, basic, foods: Kelly The Kitchen Cop, The Nourished Kitchen, Nourishing Days, The Nourishing Gourmet, The Nourishing Cook (there are a lot of nourishing blogs!) and more.

I've been following along with the 28 Day Real Food Challenge on Nourished Kitchen. It's designed to introduce newbies to the whole Real Foods/Traditional Foods movement and methods. Sign up if you are interested in improving your health or just learning about increasing the actual food in your diet and reducing or eliminating the food-like substances sold on supermarket shelves.

I'll be posting about my journey from time to time. Mostly because it's one of the biggest things taking up my focus these days.

Here are some books for you if you are interested in learning about Real Food, Traditional Foods and why you might not want to buy your food from the supermarket.

Taking The 28-Day Real Food Challenge

2010-02-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

I've just signed up to take the 28 Day Real Food Challenge at The Nourishing Gourmet. Want to join me?

With a new challenge every day, slowly change your eating habits and learn all about Real Food at a pace that's easy to incorporate into your life. Be healthier, happier, and, just maybe, lose some weight, too!

Go sign up at Nourishing Traditions. Let me know in the comments if you are participating and I'll add you to my blogroll so everyone can read your journey!

Three Things: Day 3

2010-01-31T21:46:00.000-05:00

During the days, I find myself thinking: Am I proud of this? What do I want to accomplish today? What do I want to do tomorrow? I can't say that I'm completing my three tasks each day, but I am doing more things.

3 Things I Liked Today:

Kieran asked to turn off the TV and the stereo and just hang out in the quiet for a few hours. Lovely!
Hung up some laundry on my indoor line and it dried in a couple hours.
Spiced Plum Tea with Honey!

3 Things I Accomplished Today:

Mopped the floors with the new mop: hallway, bathroom and kitchen.
Created two ads, one print, one web, for a friend's business. They look great!
Made breakfast for the men.

3 Things To Do Tomorrow:

Clean the bathroom.
Make sauerkraut.
Finish certification exams.

And, a bonus 3 Things, 3 Books I'm Reading Right Now:

So, what are your 3 things?

Three Things - Day 2

2010-01-26T01:08:00.000-05:00

OK. I'm back. And the Three Things Meme is back. So, what am I happy about, proud of, what did I do today and what do I want to accomplish tomorrow?

3 Things I Liked Today

I played with Spencer. Properly. Got out puzzles and everything. It was nice.
I read some books to the boys, independent of our Harry Potter bedtime reading.
I leant a sweatshirt to a neighbour who was out in a tank top while just about every emergency vehicle in the west end trooped through her building.

3 Things I Accomplished Today

I cleaned the shower stall for the first time in, well, don't ask. That's why I'm proud of the accomplishment.
When Kieran persisted in being rude while I read Harry Potter at bedtime, I stopped reading and stuck to my guns about not finishing the chapter tonight because I didn't like the rudeness and the lack of respect. I told Kieran, kindly, that I'd finish it tomorrow night but followed through despite his tears.
I spent a few minutes in Kieran's room putting toys away.

3 Things I Want To Accomplish Tomorrow

Sweep and hand wash the bathroom floor
Write an essay for my certification
D/L gimpshop to new computer

So, what Three Things are you happy about? What Three Things did you accomplish today? What Three Things will you accomplish tomorrow?

Breakfast

2010-01-24T10:39:00.002-05:00

Dietary changes are best made slowly. A diet shouldn't be a diet but a new way of eating for life. And, girl oh girl, WAPF has got delicious, satisfying, healthy foods sewn up!

First changes: breakfast!

I usually make a single serving of oatmeal in the morning for my breakfast. I've been using rolled oats, not steel cut. WAPF recommends that steel cut oats are soaked in whey over night to make them more digestible. I'll have to make that change soon, but in the meantime, I've got a kg of rolled oats to get through.

In a bowl, I start with a tsp/TBSP of coconut oil.

Coconut oil is a medium chain fatty acid and is unique among fats in that it gets immediately converted to usable energy and not stored in the body for future use. So, coconut oil is not going to end up as fat on my ass. As a neat little side effect of this, coconut oil improves metabolism. Lowering your body's fat set point and making your body want to get rid of excess stored fat!

I add 1/3 C of rolled oats.

Like I said, all I have right now is rolled oats. I don't presently soak the oats. But soaking has a very important benefit: it breaks down the phytic acid in the oats. Why is this important? Well, it's phytic acid that prevents absorption of important vitamins and minerals such as magnesium, iron, calcium and more through the intestines. I need these! Especially since I haven't been sleeping well.

To the oil and oats I add a 1/4 cup of raisins.

This is the sweetness. And, raisins!

Over the whole thing I pour 2/3 C of milk.

Oatmeal is traditionally prepared with water and salt. Occasionally butter is also added as is cream. I don't like salty oatmeal and I like to cut out a step so I just add milk to my oats. Ideally, the milk should be raw and whole fat. We still drink 2% commercial milks, so that is what I presently use. The effect is very creamy, however, and an ideal way for me to get some calcium into my system, since I can't stand actually drinking milk.

The bowl goes in the microwave for 3 minutes and 30 seconds on high. I like to let it set for 10 minutes or so after its finished to complete the absorption of liquids and make sure the raisins are nice and plump.

You could top this off with a dusting of cinnamon.

When it's ready, this tastes almost too decadent to be good for me! But it is. By adding the coconut, I'm giving myself a chance to make it through the morning with no cravings and enough energy to get a great start on the day. That fat makes me feel very satisfied and the very delicate taste of creamy coconut gives this usually practical morning meal a dessert-like quality.

I also take a TBSP of fish oil before breakfast.

WAPF recommends that cod liver oil, especially of the fermented variety, is the preferred fish oil, but again, this is what I have, so I'll use it up and then get the preferred version. The large dose of vitamins A and D improve body and immune system function.

I'd like to add a boiled egg to this for an extra big protein boost.

What do you have for breakfast in the mornings? Do you feel it's healthy? Have you chosen a meal that gives you the right fuel or are you just looking for calories alone to start your engine?

Middle Age Crisis

2010-01-20T22:06:00.002-05:00

I feel like I'm at a very interesting and scary place in my life. For the first time in my life I feel happy and joyful. I feel like I am moving forward. I feel like I am in exactly the right place, doing the right things and on the right path. But I don't yet have all the answers.

And, before I go any further, I know I promised to start this whole new meme-y gratitude and goals thing but something weird has happened to me in the last two weeks and I literally have not been able to remain awake in the mornings after getting my men off to school and work. I haven't forgotten, but I have to put it on the backburner while I get a couple things sorted.

A few months ago I asked my therapist what this feeling like maybe I'd wasted a lot of time, energy and resources to get somewhere I didn't necessarily want to be. She said it was a middle age crisis. So, I'm having this existential crisis that I effed up the first half of my life and it's only now when 40 is a couple years away, that I'm finally feeling like I know what I should be doing and that scares and angers me.

The good news, I finally know what my passions are. I have a wonderful husband. I love him. I love my wonderful children. I love what I do. But, there is a part of my life that I'm not satisfied with.

My body.

I'm not happy with it's shape. I'm not happy with it's various aches and pains. I'm not happy with it's inability to do the things I want it to do. And I'm really not fucking happy that I have such limited clothing options.

So, the final piece of becoming who I am supposed to be, supposed to be in a existential sort of way, is externalizing who I am on the inside. And you can bet that isn't a fat middle-aged woman with a sore back and achy feet and clicky knees. I don't want to cringe at my double chin every time I look at a picture. I want to look and dress and be the woman I see in my head when I think of me.

I need to do a few things. I need to start exercising, likely running. I need to change my eating habits permanently. I need to start working on myself and believing I can do it, just like I tell my clients when they feel like they can't survive one single more contraction, I need to empower me to embrace the work and continue on for the longer term benefits and not just seek comfort for right this moment.

Calling In Help

2010-01-12T08:52:00.002-05:00

This summer I began to see a therapist and psychiatrist to deal with what turns out to be unresolved postpartum depression that is related to the waxing and waning of my hormones and a lifetime of depression. Part of the therapy is talking and part is medicinal. All I can say is "Thank you , Prozac!"

Before Prozac, I was a horrible parent. Well, not horrible, per se.

I've always deeply loved and cherished my children, parenting them with techniques it turns out were AP style, though, to me, just felt normal, natural and loving. My big problem, however, was discipline.

Having grown up in a family where discipline was an afterthought (discipline = punishment and control) , where the rod ruled (or the icing spatula, or the wooden spoon, or the paternal hand) and where the parent's relationship with the child was based on constant tension, well, I had no idea how to discipline my children. I just knew that I didn't want to terrorize my boys like my sisters and I were terrorized. I didn't want to hit my children like my sisters and I were hit. I didn't want to suffer my children, their messes, their noise, their normal limitation; I wanted to guide my children, love them, encourage them and help them realise their potential.

Never being exposed to that meant I couldn't offer it to my children. So, in the end, I ended up becoming a horrible mixture of overly permissive with bouts of frustrated anger that gave me a desire to control my kids. I was a cool mom, one who baked with her kids, took them on nature walks, did crafts with them, cuddled them, but then let them stay up far too late, screamed at them when asking didn't work, and, yes, I will admit it, swatted their behinds when the pressure built up so much I became enraged at my own incompetence as a parent.

It was ugly and I can clearly see how my older son was negatively affected by my shortcomings.

It's a whole different story now AP (After Prozac). BP (Before Prozac) was a time of constant building tension and frustration. But, AP has resulted in a parent with far more patience and the ability to not become emotionally involved in discipline issues. And, I'm disciplining instead of punishing.

But, I'm still not very good at it. And my sons are used to a completely dysfunctional way of discipline so they push back rather hard.

It was time to go to the experts.

I went to two parenting books for which I've developed a real affinity: Dr. Jane Nelson's Positive Discipline and Dr.Kevin Lehman's Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child's Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days.

I think the books are a really good fit for each other. What one lacks, the other provides. When Positive Discipline offers in-depth perspective on why kids do what they do, Have a New Kid by Friday cuts to the chase and provides a simple, clear, step-by-step plan of action. And, where Lehman is rather too irreverent and disingenuous when charactarizing kids, essentially calling them names throughout the book (though he does not advocat vocalizing those shaming and condescending phrases to the children), Nelson focuses on providing a far more respectful way of dealing with children than I was ever exposed to by my own parents.

I love that Nelson promotes helping children realise their potential and points out that doing this means encouraging (not praising) and allowing independence (kids need to excel or fail on their own). I need to give up my urge to control certain things the kids do and stop doing things for them and instead expect them to do things for themselves. Only by trying, failing, trying again and succeeding will they understand the value of hard work and develop ambition to strive toward excellence.

In Lehman's book I love how incredibly simple and effective his core advice is: Say it once, turn and walk away, follow through. Lehman points out how repeating requests is essentially badgering kids. They eventually stop listening altogether. If your child is better behaved with a teacher or other caregiver, this is probably what one of your stumbling blocks is.

Repeating instructions in a "did you hear me? I asked you to pick up your coat. Now, go pick it up, please!" kind of way is really telling kids, "I don't trust you and think you're dumb so I'm going to keep repeating my requests till it gets through that thick skull!" Instead, by saying a thing once we are conveying a trust to the child that we know our kids are capable of handling one task or another. This all helps to build a solid foundation of self worth which will promote responsible bahaviour.

I recommend Positive Discipline to my doula clients and childbirth education students when we talk about preparing to be a parent. I'm going to recommend Dr. Lehman's "Have a New Kid by Friday" as well.

My parenting resolution this year is to ask for help from the experts and put that advice into practice.

Are there parenting books you are inspired by?

This post was written in response to the Carnival of Natural Parenting. Check out all of the wonderful and thoughtful posts listed there and let the world know what your parenting resolutions for 2010 are.

Three Things - Day 1

2010-01-11T00:36:00.004-05:00

It looks like I need some help getting back in the habit of writing here. So, I'm going to try something new. I'm going to write everyday. I'm going to answer three questions:

What were 3 things I liked today?
What were 3 things I accomplished today?
What are my 3 goals for tomorrow?

I'm going to answer each question every day and in a year I'm hoping to see a difference in my habits. I'm hoping I'll transform myself into someone who regularly accomplishes there goals: big and small.

3 Things I Like Today

My husband and I and the boys took time to do some cleaning.
It's Sunday and I can just exist without too many responsibilities.
Started reading Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone to the boys, one chapter a night, before bed tonight.

3 Things I Accomplished Today

I finally installed the retractable clothesline in the hallway. Our old gull-wing clothes dryer broke a few months ago and Sean doesn't spin dry his concert tees, so we needed an indoor drying solution. With our very long hallway, a retractable line was perfect. And, unlike the old way, the clothes dry very quickly! The perfect solution to the horrible dryness mid-winter and a use for the heating which is always a tiny bit high for our taste.
Cleared up the floor sweepings. I usually sweep everything in the kitchen over into one corner. And leave it there. Yes, I am spectacularly lazy in some ways. The pile accumulates over the week (or more if we aren't home much) until I get so sick of it, I have Kieran pick out all the toys and I pick out any stray usable item and then sweep up the rest into the dustbin. I've been procrastinating doing it, so I'm proud I did it today.
I folded and put away three loads of laundry today. Some of it was washed last week. Again, I admit: lazy. But, it's like I get started on a task and abandon it half way through. I can wash the laundry but I can't bring it upstairs to put away. I can fold it, but then I let it sit in a basket for a week. In item 2, the floor sweepings, it's the same: I sweep, so yay me! But, I don't get rid of the sweepings. Perhaps I need to discuss motivation with my therapist. Prozac has made me happy, and I WANT to be a good homemaker, I just can't seem to do it.

3 Goals For Tomorrow

After my interview, pick up print paper from Mixed Media and other supplies from Dollarama.
Do Tree Of Life prints.
Process and begin drying J's placenta. Hey, guess what? I process placentas now! I do art and make medicine with them. It's very cool and not at all icky like you are thinking it is right now. I'm so fascinated by the placenta and it's role in a new mother's health. I'm weird, eh?

Why am I doing this? Why do you care about my lists?

Well, I don't actually expect you to care. I hope you do, but you may not want to read my self-validation lists. Haha! I mean, I'm patting myself on the back for folding some laundry. But, here's the thing: we all get into places where we can't function well. We all have lists of things we want to do, little things we did do that made us feel motivated and things we are grateful for.

For me, this is therapy. There are things I want to do but I've been stuck for a damned long time. It's time to get unstuck. This is the way I'm going to do it. There are a hundred other things on my master to do list, but by picking three particular things, I hope to focus just narrow enough that I can get them done.

Want to play along? Leave a comment with a link to your blog where you posted your Three Things list. Link back to this post and maybe we'll build a little community of life changers, just three little things at a time.

Meditations on Bread

2009-12-09T15:08:00.002-05:00

I made my own bread last night. I made the kind of bread that requires four separate sessions of making and baking. It took the better part of the day to go from recipe to eating. But it was worth it. This isn't the kind of bread you can get at the supermarket. Heck, even a good bakery doesn't make bread quite like this. This bread requires time and care and hard work - something our society on the whole no longer values in its food.

Our society values, from its food is cheapness: short on time, short on cost, short on effort. The only problem is that all of these translate into short on quality. Inexpensive, time-saving, prepared foods are bad for our health, band for our environment and just plain old taste bad when compared to the from-scratch originals they are trying to mimic.

The average size of the North American woman is 14 and it shouldn't be. It should be lower. There was a time when plus size didn't really exist because we were, on the whole, thinner and healthier.

I am well above a size 14. I used to prize the delicious creaminess of a pint of ice cream, the mindless ease of a tin of soup and the cheapness of discounted meats. No matter how much of it I ate, I was always hungry for more.

But this was about bread, wasn't it? Then, to bread we shall return.

I love toast. I love it! It can stand in for breakfast, be a part of lunch, serve as snack or compliment dinner. I often make a bit of toast with butter or peanut butter or butter and jam when I settle in to read a book. Toast, tea and a good book sounds like heaven to me.

This isn't such an awful thing, really, except that I want to eat more than a couple slices. Two slices leave me more famished than I began and I find myself craving half a loaf. Gluttonous, isn't it? I disgust myself sometimes.

Eating the thick slice of my own bread I think I had a revelation. My bread was chewy. It had substance. It lasted longer because it took longer to eat it.

The commercially prepared loaves we pick up at the store are not like this. They are like cake, but lighter. Lighter than sponge. Lighter than angel food cake. They are light and crumby and fall apart easily. They tear if the butter is anything but room temperature. They compress down under the weight of jam. Even toasted they can hardly stay together as I spread peanut butter or cream cheese on them. They are insubstantial and after eating a slice, I need another and another to even begin to feel like I've eaten anything. They hardly require any chewing at all; it's as if they are pre-digested.

So, if I ate my own bread everyday - my own bread with its 30 minutes of kneading and three different rises, with ingredients I can choose and adjust, with its scent that fills the house, it's subtle savoury flavour - I'd eat less of it than commercial bread. My satisfaction level would be higher and the nutrition I take in would also be higher. I'd probably weigh less and be happier, too.

But, apart from me and a few weirdos I call friends, who the heck really wants to make their own bread? It's just cheaper to buy it. It's cheaper in terms of one's time and effort. And people praise cheapness above everything. You can tell people white bread is evil and they'll start buying the very same brand's brown bread. They imagine they'll save themselves from diabetes if they just grab the plastic baggie that say's "7 Whole Grains".

But, it's not the grains so much as the entire experience of eating food. And that's about more than just the eating. Eating food includes sourcing it, preparing it, savouring it and ingesting it.

And what is with the poor quality of the bread available? When did bread stop being bread? And why aren't more people as ticked off about it as I am? I can't be the only person to be sitting around thinking, "why does this stuff taste like cardboard?" Why doesn't it even smell like yeast? Why do we not take this stuff that we transform into our very flesh and bones more seriously? Is it any wonder I'm all lumpy if I've been eating magnesium chloride, calcium sulphate, potassium sorbate and sulphites? Can you tell me, without the aid of Google, what those are, where they come from and why we use them?

So, I think I will make more bread. Sure, it takes time. What's more important than creating good food, which in turn creates good bodies and minds, for me and mine?

Want To Win Free Food?

2009-12-03T17:05:00.000-05:00

My fellow Canadian blogger Danigirl of Postcards from the Mothership is hosting a giveaway. If you are Canadian and you like President's Choice products and actually read the Insider's Report, you'll want to go over there and enter the contest for a set of PC holiday themed products in a green bin. PS, I promise I'll be posting something substantial imminently.

Awakenings

2009-11-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling like I may have more to say. I can hardly believe it's been more than a year since I wrote here last. That is such a strange feeling to me. This blog has been around for a long time and though I may not be able to post often and regularly, I still want to say things here I hope you'll find them interesting.

3 Most Recent Things Found In Son's Diaper

2008-11-18T15:37:00.002-05:00

We moms are notorious for examining the contents of diapers.

It starts almost immediately after birth when nurses, midwives and pediatricians ask us, every single time they see us, "has he been wetting his diaper? How many times? Has the urine been concentrated? Any brick dust? Any blood? How have the poops been? How many bowel movements a day? Is it still black? Is it yellow? Green? Brown? Seedy? Frothy? Solid? Watery? Mucusy? How does it smell? Foul? Yeasty? Sweet? Mild?"

It's no wonder we quickly get in the habit of assessing health by assessing the contents of diapers. And, when children become mobile, develop small motor control and begin eating things other than mother's milk or formula, we again develop an intense interest in what's in the diaper.

We know when they're starting to teethe (and not just being cranky to spite us and test the limits of our prescription meds) when the semi solid waste gets watery, foul smelling and a bit green. We marvel at how even after they get most of their teeth in, the raisins still aren't getting chewed and end up in the diaper looking like they've been soaked in rum. We can tell when dad let them eat pickles and when we've given them way to much milk, cheese and bananas on a single day when their diapers are full of rabbit pellets.

Dads just don't get this fascination with the state of child's fecal matter, unless of course the output is prodigious and solid. There is something about man-sized turds in tiny pants that makes men laugh.

But, by far, the weirdest thing about examining diapers is looking for stuff. Actual stuff. Like small possessions you once owned but don't need now that they've been through someone's digestive system.

Here are the three most recent things found in Spencer's diaper:

Dr. Who themed Connect 4 game piece.
Iridescent blue flat marble.
Yellow knee-high Polly Pocket boot.

So, what has your child shat out?

Sean Palmerston - 2008 Publicist of The Year - Hamilton Music Awards

2008-11-16T12:20:00.004-05:00

He won!

I'm so proud! After more than 12 years as a publicist in the music industry, Sean was recognized last night as being one of the best. It's long overdue, in my opinion.

Congratulations!

Here he is accepting his award, and here is a transcript of his acceptance speech:

"I usually prefer to work behind the scenes, so this is a little hard for me, but, I'd like to thank the City of Hamilton. They've given me a job, a wife, two beautiful children and got me the fuck out of Toronto!"

When he got to the "wife and two beautiful children" part, he got choked up. And, that's so Sean. After nearly 15 years of working in music, he is still sincere and completely without pretension.

My Cool Husband

2008-11-14T13:32:00.004-05:00

Right now, my husband is moderating a panel at the Hamilton Music Awards called "Breaking Your Music".

Tomorrow night we'll be going to the industry awards night because Sean has been nominated for Publicist of The Year (scroll down to #14) and is favoured to win.

I'm super excited for Sean. Unfortunately, I haven't got anything to wear :( and no money for new clothes. No matter though. I'll have a beautiful smile for my handsome man.

I Needed A New Hat

2008-11-11T12:30:00.002-05:00

So I knit myself one.

Pattern: Hawkeye
Yarn: Garavogue Tweed (from my stash, a gift from my friend Sarah many moons ago)
Notes: This is a fast knit that I think I'll do again a few times in different yarns. I may add a velvet or satin ribbon to the inside edge; the tweed is a tad itchy. The hat is lovely and warm. Just right for late fall.

Voting Is Important

2008-11-02T09:54:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I took the kids and voted in the Canadian federal election. I voted to re-elect David Christopherson - NDP Hamilton Centre, the same man I've been helping elect for 20 years.

It was voting in this election that I decided that it was important to start teaching my kids about participating in the electoral process. Even though he's only 5yo, Kieran is ready to start learning about what government is and how we choose the people we want to represent our interests.

I'm really proud to to tell you that my story of voting with Kieran has been published in the fantastic online magazine Root & Sprout. Go to this page and scroll down to the third story.

The Hero Of The Rebel Alliance Wants Your Candy

2008-10-31T12:50:00.005-04:00

Kieran decided a few months ago he wanted to be Luke Skywalker for Halloween.

I really couldn't have been prouder. This was the very first time in his life he told me what he wanted to be. And, it wasn't in response to a question. This was something he'd been thinking about.

So, we leveraged a number of things already in his wardrobe and bought a light saber (often referred to as a Light Saver: Me: No, honey, it's "light saBER". K: I can call it what I want!) and a costume was born.

Isn't he handsome!

You'd better hand over your candy or he'll Jedi your ass!

Check out Sweetney's daughter today. Honestly, with the dental stuff (which I will have to post about, but life has been a little fucked up here so I'm having trouble getting the motivation to post about everything. I'm just thankful no one has died this month.) and now the Star Wars costumes, I think Sweets and I are psychically linked! So, she really ought to follow my twitter feed, dontcha think! And, so should you!

Did You Need Some Cute?

2008-10-14T12:50:00.001-04:00

Today is the day Kieran is having dental surgery. I'm nervous. Naturally, gazing at cute toddlers helps.

We Have Lost Something

2008-10-06T01:33:00.003-04:00

This afternoon, Kieran lost his first tooth.

At 5 years old, it's a tad early, but then, the losing of this tooth was not really due to natural causes.

Last week, when picking Kieran up from school, his teacher pulled me aside. She informed me that Kieran had knocked a tooth loose. And, by loose, she meant REALLY loose. Upon examination, the tooth wiggled freely forward and back.

Apparently, Kieran had used his teeth to pry apart a jumble of Legos. It was this stupid misuse of dentition that caused the loosening.

Kieran was excited that he got to ice his mouth a little, though freaked out by the wiggliness of the tooth. He worried it constantly with his tongue or his finger. The receptionist at the dentist's office said that if he wasn't in pain and he wasn't bleeding, he'd be fine; if the tooth came out early, no problem, the new one would grow in soon enough.

And, today, it finally came out. It popped right out of Kieran's mouth late this afternoon when he was using his teeth to pop the lid off an empty M&Ms tube. These boys never learn!

There was a little blood and a good cry, but eventually Kieran marveled at the tiny little thing that had once been in his mouth. Merely three hours later, after examining his tiny empty socket, I was amazed to discover it was already well healed.

We are all for silly kid fantasies, so we chatted up The Tooth Fairy and shamelessly used her to get Kieran to submit to his nightly parent-lead thorough tooth brushing and to a quick bedtime.

I encouraged him to make a special envelope first; something he could use to leave his tooth in for the magical little tooth stealer.

Sean and I printed off a very funny letter from The Tooth Fairy and swapped it for the wee tooth, plus a twoonie ($2 coin). I can't wait to see Kieran with his letter in the morning. Funny stuff! Go to toothfairydoll.com now and check out the link to the letter.

He really is starting to grow up so very fast now. I don't know what I'll do when my little boy starts turning into a man.

Things Are a Little Crazy

2008-10-03T15:18:00.002-04:00

So, it turns out that I've not been very good at ensuring my son learns good dental habits. In fact, I've been so bad at it, Kieran is now awaiting to have 6 fillings and 2 extractions. They'll all be done in 11 days. Under general anesthesia. I'm such a crappy mom!

But, I'm getting better, because I'm actually taking care of the problem.

It is going to cost us dearly. Not being credit people, we have to liberate a significant amount of money from our retirement savings in order to get the surgery done.

And, since we are raiding our future to make today better, we're taking out a little extra and getting our car fixed (dead since January), buying that laptop I've been moaning about (seriously, if you are going to upgrade to one of those fancy MacBooks being released on Oct 14, let me know, I'll totally buy your old working MacBook), squaring away our monthly bills and getting a few things we've been skimping on lately (or flat out not buying because we are, you know, like, poor) such as shoes, underwear, socks, a hangy thing for in the shower that holds your shampoo and soap...

In the meantime, I have to put full strength Anbesol on Kieran's one tooth in order for him to eat meals (unless they are mushy). And I keep him on a light dose of children's Ibuprofen so that he can sleep without getting pain induced nightmares.

What isn't a little crazy is me.

It's been two weeks, and a bit, since I swallowed that first magical oval pill and I'm rather thrilled to discover that I'm feeling pretty good. In fact, I'm feeling so good, at times, my husband is a little freaked out. This Leanne hasn't been living with him in a long damned time and I'm not sure he is ready to hang our with her again.

This is the woman who liked to drink lots of vodka and flash Robert Pollard her sparkley boobs. This is the woman who loved to listen to music and hang out talking and maybe dancing around. This is the woman who was so obviously full of life and love and silliness and spontaneity.

I'm sure he'll feel more comfortable as this Leanne takes up permanent residence in the house. I know I'm sure glad she's here.

I'm A Winner!

2008-09-25T12:01:00.003-04:00

No, not the lottery.

I won an Arte Y Pico from HomeSlice!

I'm so chuffed! It's my first award ever. Well, aside from that first play poetry award in Grade 5 when the principal asked me if I'd made up Gar in order to finish a rhyme and I informed him, via references to the closest dictionary, that a gar was in fact a type of fish.

But, as an adult, this is my first win.

First off, I'd like to thank my readers. Without you dear people I would not exist as a writer and there would be no point to this blog. Your comments raise me up when I am feeling low, surprise and delight me and make me a smarter person. I have made some really wonderful friends through this blog and I'd like to thank all of you for my success!

I'd like to thank my husband and my children also, without whom I'd have very little to ~~bitch~~ write about.

I'd also like to thank Blogspot/Blogger/Google who provide this platform for free to me so that I may exercise my right to free speech and my innate right to bore others into a coma with incredibly cute photos of my children and ook them out with discussion of their and my various bodily functions.

Third Week Of September

2008-09-20T11:27:00.002-04:00

Legal Drugs:

On Tuesday I went to the doctor and got a scrip for anti-depressants. While they haven't fully taken effect yet, I'm just starting to feel the lows are less low. A few days I spent vaguely nauseous and headache-y but not too bad. Not as bad as Paxil certainly.

Momcast in the news:

Postpartum Progress linked back to my post What Ghandi Has To Say To Me As A Parent.

Vegetarian Moms:

OK, so it was last week, but over on Vegetarian Moms I posted one of my seitan spice mixes. If you are interested in making a low fat, high protein, vitamin B12 rich meat alternative, you really should give this very easy baked seitan a try. It's super easy and it's fantastic in wraps, on its own, as a pizza topping or another situation that might call for a protein source.

The Clever Mom:

At The Clever Mom, I've been working hard getting more regular posts up. This week was an absolute banner week with us making chocolate mug cakes (I think we may be the last people on the earth to try this recipe out!) and creating a snail habitat.

Diva Cup:

If you don't use one, why?! After about six months, I really feel in the swing of things. It's so easy to use. I can't even imagine going back to pads or tampons. What a hassle that would be! And expensive. I didn't realise there were so many types of cups available, either. I might research a few others and check them out, but I just wanted to let you know that if you ever read my previous posts about switching to the cup, that it's all working out very well.

Comments:

I love comments. The comments here on Momcast have really helped pull me through some tough times. I cherish them very much. But, if you are also reading stories over at The Clever Mom and Vegetarian Moms, leave a comment there, too. Even if it's just to say, "snails?! Yuck!" It just feels a little lonely over there. So, please, if you read, spread some love!

Mommy's Got A Brand New Drug!

2008-09-17T15:01:00.002-04:00

It's called Cipralex (aka Lexapro, I believe) and the doctor says she and I are going to develop a really wonderful friendship in a couple of weeks.

I picked up the scrip right after leaving the doctor's office, where I sat crying, and squeaking out answers to the questions she'd posed. I was pretty composed (but kinda spacey, admittedly) all the way up until after tell her I feel like I've lost my mechanism to handle stress so that I go from irritated to mad as all hell in 10 seconds flat.

She asked if I ever yelled or hit the kids and I started bawling. I could hardly speak. I was so ashamed and so heartbroken.

I stressed that I wasn't beating my kids and that "hitting" in our house meant a smack on the bottom or the back of the head, and that it usually happened after Kieran took out his frustration by hurting Spencer (love that little feedback system, eh: Mom's unhappy, yells at kid, kid's unhappy, hits baby, mom's mad, hits kid, kid's vengeful, bites baby... and on and on and on.

I also pointed out that I have stopped screaming and hitting completely. It's been over a week now. I'm keeping my hands to myself and my tongue civil.

As soon as the appointment was over, I went to the pharmacy on the ground floor, get the scrip filled and popped the top of the bottle before I could even put my change away.

Anyone else ever use this stuff? The doctor gave it to me as my memory of taking Paxil was that it wasn't very effective; it seems to get rid of the dark valleys, but never really made mountains out of the happy hills, if you get my meaning. In other words, I remembered feeling less bad but not also more good. So, anyway, the Cipralex may be more effective for me.

Because The World IS Just Awesome

2008-09-11T10:46:00.002-04:00

The best commercials ever.

The little bit with Stephen Hawking at the end there made me choke up.

The Canadian Version

What Ghandi Has To Say To Me As A Parent

2008-09-10T13:20:00.004-04:00

This post came across my feed reader today and when I skimmed through the various points, I felt something inside me loosen. It was Ghandi's 5 teachings and as I read it, I was filled with shame and hope at the same time.

Now, these were originally written with an eye to creating world peace, but I was struck by how applicable they were to parenting, how they spoke directly to me and my parenting.

Teaching # 1: Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. — Mahatma Gandhi

I've always felt this in my soul: effective parenting will never be the result of top down application of power. Forcing kids to do anything may get the thing done in the short term, but it will never teach the child how to behave in the way you want him to. So, if Kieran only wants to eat one bite of dinner, what of it? Do I really have to badger him for a half hour, working myself into a (clearly unhealthy) lather cajoling, bargaining, pleading and threatening him just to get a few more grams into his gut? Is threatening time outs or a smack on the bottom really going to make sure that he cleans up his room? Is it going to make sure he is the kind of kid who keeps his room generally clean and doesn't mind tidying up when reminded?

Teaching # 2: What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

Parents who spank (as a "discipline" strategy) often say they do it because they love their children, because they have an overwhelming desire to help their children be better kids. But, when they get hit, do they really discern the philosophy behind the violence or do they just feel the pain of being hit? When I lose control of myself and my hand flicks out to smack Kieran on the back of the head when he is caught hurting his brother, does he stop to think "wow, Mom must be really mad, and she has that depression thing, so it's not personal, I guess"? Of course he doesn't. He just cries because it hurts, it's humiliating and his mom apparently doesn't love him anymore.

Teaching # 3: There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no cause that I am prepared to kill for. — Mahatma Gandhi

I hear this from more experienced parents in another form: pick your battles. Is splashing water all over the bathroom floor really something I want to fight about? Is that the hill I'm ready to fight to the death for? Ultimately, does spilled water warrant my rage?

Teaching # 4: An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind — Mahatma Gandhi

Lashing out in anger at your children doesn't just make them sad now, it fucks them up for the rest of their lives. I should know. My parents constantly vented their anger on me and my sisters with physical and verbal violence. When I was younger I used to rationalize it all and minimize it, telling myself that it wasn't actual, real child abuse, but it was. And I can see my parent's behaviours creeping in at the edges of my parenting. No more revenge. No more venting. No more letting anger fester and bloom like a poisonous plant, infecting everyone around me.

Teaching #5: We must become the change we want to see in the world. — Mahatma Gandhi

If I expect my son to keep his hands to himself at school, to be respectful to his peers and teachers, I must keep my hands to myself at home. I must show him how to be respectful, caring, nurturing and a team player by being those things with him and his brother and his father.

I always said that I would never lie on this blog, but there have been things I haven't been truthful about. I finally admitted in a previous post that I have postpartum depression.

When I wrote about that, I wasn't very upfront about how badly my depression was hurting my family.

I realise that none of us is perfect and we've all lost our tempers with our kids and smacked a hand or butt or yelled like a crazy person. But, even given that, I have not been a great mom lately.

I've been yelling a lot, and a lot more loudly. And a few times a week my stress levels creep up so high, so quickly that my right hand has perfected a kind of whip-like motion: it flicks out catching Kieran's behind or the back of his head. There is no excuse for this.

It's bad. It's more than bad and I'm deeply ashamed of my behaviour. In the last few weeks I've been working hard on using my (nice) words instead of my hands. Ever since I made an appointment to see my GP about my PPD (next Tuesday!), things have gotten better. It's like I've can see the light at the end of this miserable tunnel and just that sliver of brightness has motivated me to breathe deeply, assess the situation and talk to my children and my husband instead of react to them.

These teachings of Ghandi's really crystallized for me how parenting without violence, without anger, without force is not a "type" of discipline, it's the only way to raise children. It's the only way the world's children deserve to be raised.

And if we raised them all like this, wouldn't world peace just naturally follow?

My House Phone Is Haunted

2008-09-04T21:04:00.001-04:00

While I was making lunch, my house phone, which had been sitting on the fridge in its charger, started beeping in a pattern. It lasted about 20 minutes.

Totally freaked me out.

Someone Else's Crazy

2008-09-03T16:02:00.002-04:00

Kieran spends a lot of time building machines/spaceships/robots out of a huge assortment of Lego and Lego-like building pieces. He can sit, sometimes for hours, giving these things voices and narrating their battles and adventures. Sometimes it's a pain to be sitting near him during these times. He has a tendency to voice arguments that sound like this:

K1: "I said just do it."
K2: "No, I don't want to."
K1: "Yes!"
K2: "No!"
K1: "I said yes!"
K2: "Well, I don't care!"
K1: "Do it or I will kill you!"
K2: "If you try to kill me I will blast you out of the sky!"
K1: "You can't blast me. I will laser you."
K2: "I will punch you first."
ad nauseum

It can go on for ages like that until I shout something like this at him:

Me: "For the love of mike, will you please cut it out before I go insane! Could you please teach your robots to solve their problems by discussing them!"

And then there are times when it's a real hoot to be sitting near him as he says things he doesn't even realise are funny. He's so unselfconscious about what he says that if I laugh and he realises I've heard him, he gets incredibly embarrassed.

Sometimes I hear things randomly that sound really funny out of context, like this, overheard just moments ago:

K1: "Don't bite the pipe!"
K2: "Hey, you're an alien."

He often sings while he is playing. This is good and bad. The bad part is that he doesn't sing actual songs. He never would. He wasn't a 'sing songs' kind of kid. The good part is that in making up all these songs, he's exercising his creative muscles. That's always good. And, again, with the bad: his songs often consist of phrases repeated over and over and over until I yell something similar to what I've written above.

I overheard this a little while ago:

K: "Some kids are weird. Some kids are weird. The kids that are weird are the kind that we like."

I couldn't have said it better myself, kid.

My Crazy

2008-09-02T17:18:00.003-04:00

Last week I write this guest post at my friend's website. In the post I talk about coming to accept that I may indeed have a depressive disorder and that it needs to be treated.

I am extremely reluctant to discuss my mental health on this site. I wasn't going to mention the post here. The issue is too important to remain silent, though.

Writing that post on Spin Me I Pulsate was extremely liberating for me. I felt that just admitting and accepting that I should do something gave me a huge sense of relief.

As a result of writing that post, I walked into my FPs office and made an appointment. I assured them I could wait two weeks to get treatment, that I absolutely knew what to do and where to call if I should actually feeling like harming myself or anyone else. I assured them that I'm not THAT crazy.

I'm just my crazy. Which is crazy enough. And soon I'll have some really nice pills and someone to talk to about my crazy.

Thanks Thoradora. Thanks readers. Thanks commenters over at Spin Me I Pulsate.

A Snack Recipe May Win You A Basket Of Food

2008-08-28T19:23:00.002-04:00

I'm having a contest to win a reusable grocery bin filled with a selection of food items over at The Clever Mom.

Loblaws donated the prize basket. They want to spread the word that they've reduced the prices of many of their grocery items. With the cost of shipping driving up the costs of food, this is smart marketing.

They've also begun a program called "Grown Close To Home" that is bringing local produce into their supermarkets. It's about time the big stores started adding local produce. This is a win-win for everyone, in my opinion.

I've always been a fan of Loblaws for their President's Choice premium house brand and their good quality yellow label brand - though I've started noticing the yellow label receding a little, I still think the products are pretty decent quality and good value. We go to Food Basics, but the Loblaws company also covers Zehrs, Fortinos, Real Canadian Superstore, and anything with the name "Loblaws" in it.

So, if you want a chance to win the basket (I'm more excited about that basket, frankly, than the food inside!) go over to The Clever Mom now and post a comment listing your favourite nut-free kid snack (with recipe, s'il vous plait). The contest closes 9pm Friday, September 5.

And, while you're at it, consider adding The Clever Mom RSS feed to your favourite feed reader to keep up with all the posts over there.

Some Of The Animals In Our Zoo Are Alive

2008-08-25T15:57:00.002-04:00

This little guy is currently hanging from the lintel over the back door in the rear foyer. Despite keeping the doors open, he hasn't budged all afternoon. Even when I walked up to him to marvel at his weirdness and take pictures of him, he did no more than tremble.

Parenting 101: Traumatizing Your Children, the script

2008-08-25T00:16:00.003-04:00

Scene: night, child's bedroom. A few toys are strewn around the room. A mother is picking some up in one part of the room. A five year old boy is picking up toys in another part of the room. A one year old is climbing up onto the double bed.

Mom: Wow, something really smells bad in here.

5yo boy: Maybe it's my brother's diaper. Maybe he pooped!

Mom: No. That's not it. It doesn't smell like poop. You know what it smells like?

5yo Boy: No, what?

Mom: It smells like a dead mouse.

5yo Boy: I think you should check my brother's diaper.

The 1yo Boy has climbed up onto the double bed and is alternately walking around checking out his environs and stopping and checking out his brother and mother.

Mom: And I think you should get the toys out from under your bed. There are tinker toys and other stuff under your bed. Get them out and put them in the bin.

5yo Boy: But I can't see under there. I don't have my flashlight.

Mom: Oh, you don't need it. Just sweep your arm under the bed and pull out the toys. They're right near the edge.

5yo Boy: OK, Mom.

5yo Boy gets down on the ground and starts scooping a half dozen small toys out from under the bed.

5yo Boy: Hey, what's that? What is that?! Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! I touched it!!!!!!!!!!! I touched it!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S ON MY HAND!!!!!!!!!!! GAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

A small, dead mouse is amongst the items retrieved from under the bed. The 5yo boy is screaming and jumping around, holding his hand out, afraid of what is, or was, on it.

Mom: (very calmly) It's a mouse. It's OK. It's OK. Calm down and go wash your hands. It's OK, sweetheart. Stop screaming and wash your hands. Wash them really well. Go right now and do that.

As Mom turns back to the mouse and the 5yo Boy runs from the room, the 1yo Boy steps backward off the side of the bed, falling flat on his back, banging his head very hard on the carpeted floor. His left foot hits the dead mouse. He begins screaming in pain and alarm.

Mom scoops 1yo Boy off the floor, soothing him as she runs to the bathroom to oversee the handwashing of 5yo Boy.

Mom: Now, put lots of soap on your hands and rub it in really well. You need to wash your hands really, really well.

Realising she can still smell the mouse, Mom looks at the hysterical 1yo Boy's foot and sees a one inch square piece of mouse flesh stuck to the foot. She immediately puts it under the running water, which turns out to be ice cold, and 1yo Boy screams even harder. As soon as he is clean, she leaves the 5yo Boy to finish up, takes the 1yo Boy to the living room for a cuddle and as soon as there is a break in his crying, plunks him on the sofa and runs back the the bedroom, stopping in the bathroom for a wad of toilet paper, and plucks up the dead mouse, double bags it and disposes of it in the kitchen garbage.

Mom: New rule: whenever we check for toys under the bed, we always use a flashlight. Deal?

5yo Boy: Oh yeah, Mom. Good rule.

Two hours later, the 5yo Boy is in bed and Mom is playing with the 1yo Boy. She is tickling his tummy as he lays on his back in front of her. She leans down, grabbing his feet and kisses first the right, then the left. The smell of dead mouse is still on the left foot.

New Haircut

2008-08-19T16:40:00.004-04:00

Two weeks ago, at my niece's wedding, showing off the arms that would feed a small village for a month - the old haircut.

Today, in the bathroom, the new haircut.

Hmmm, kinda dark, but sooo pretty! It's a bob, angled with my sturdy jaw. A teensy bit short at the back, but not short enough. I'll get that remedied at the next cut.

I'm so happy to have a bob again!

Summer

2008-08-18T13:40:00.001-04:00

Hurry! Win A Book!

2008-08-01T20:54:00.002-04:00

*yeah, I know, nothing for three months and then three posts in 36 hours. Whatever! I'm allowed to change my mind!

Simple Mom is having a contest for a copy of Amanda Soule's book "The Creative Family".

Go check the post out before midnight Friday, August 1 for a chance to win it.

And she has a great interview with Amanda, too.

Meme: Would You, Could You?

2008-08-01T09:22:00.003-04:00

Bold the ones that apply and add one to the end.
Link back when you've posted.

Bought everyone in the pub a drink
Swam with wild dolphins.
Climbed a mountain.
Taken a Ferrari for a test drive.
Been inside the Great Pyramid.
Held a tarantula.
Taken a candlelit bath with someone.
Said "I love you" and meant it.
Hugged a tree.
Done a striptease.
Bungee jumped.
Visited Paris
Watched a lightning storm at sea.
Stayed up all night long, and watched the sun rise.
Seen the Northern Lights.
Gone to a huge sports game. (for certain definitions of huge)
Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
Grown and eaten your own vegetables.
Touched an iceberg.
Slept under the stars.
Changed a baby's diaper.
Taken a trip in a hot air balloon.
Watched a meteor shower.
Gotten drunk on champagne.
Given more than you can afford to charity.
Looked up at the night sky through a telescope.
Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment.
Had a food fight.
Bet on a winning horse/dog.
Taken a sick day when you're not ill.
Asked out a stranger.
Had a snowball fight.
Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier.
Screamed as loudly as you possibly can.
Held a lamb. (well, actually, it was a goat)
Enacted a favourite fantasy.
Taken a midnight skinny dip.
Taken an ice cold bath.
Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar.
Seen a total eclipse.
Ridden a roller coaster.
Hit a home run.
Fit three weeks miraculously into three days.
Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking.
Adopted an accent for an entire day.
Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.
Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment.
Had two hard drives for your computer.
Visited all 50 states.
Loved your job for all accounts.
Taken care of someone who was shit faced.
Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
Had amazing friends.
Danced with a stranger in a foreign country.
Watched wild whales.
Stolen a sign.
Backpacked in Europe.
Taken a road-trip.
Rock climbing.
Lied to foreign government's official in that country to avoid notice.
Midnight walk on the beach.
Sky diving.
Visited Ireland.
Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love.
In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them.
Visited Japan.
Bench pressed your own weight.
Milked a cow.
Alphabetized your albums.
Pretended to be a superhero.
Sung karaoke.
Lounged around in bed all day.
Posed nude in front of strangers.
Scuba diving.
Got it on to "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye.
Kissed in the rain.
Played in the mud.
Played in the rain.
Gone to a drive-in movie theatre.
Done something you should regret, but don't regret it.
Visited the Great Wall of China.
Discovered that someone who's not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog.
Dropped Windows in favour of something better.
Started a business.
Fallen in love and not had your heart broken.
Toured ancient sites.
Taken a martial arts class.
Sword fought for the honour of a woman.
Played D&D or another RPG for more than 6 hours straight.
Gotten married.
Been in a movie.
Crashed a party.
Loved someone you shouldn't have.
Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy.
Gotten divorced.
Had sex at the office.
Gone without food for 5 days.
Made cookies from scratch.
Won first prize in a costume contest.
Ridden a gondola in Venice.
Gotten a tattoo.
Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on.
Rafted the Snake River.
Been on television news programs as an "expert".
Got flowers for no reason.
Masturbated in a public place.
Got so drunk you don't remember anything.
Been addicted to some form of illegal drug.
Performed on stage.
Been to Las Vegas.
Recorded music.
Eaten shark.
Had a one-night stand.
Gone to Thailand.
Seen Siouxsie live.
Bought a house.
Been in a combat zone.
Buried one/both of your parents.
Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off.
Been on a cruise ship.
Spoken more than one language fluently.
Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone.
Bounced a check
Performed in Rocky Horror.
Read - and understood - your credit report.
Raised children.
Recently bought and played with a favourite childhood toy.
Followed your favourite band/singer on tour.
Created and named your own constellation of stars.
Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country.
Found out something significant that your ancestors did.
Called or written to your MP/Congressperson.
Picked up and moved to another city to just start over. (unwillingly)
...more than once?
Walked the Golden Gate Bridge.
Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking.
Had an abortion or your female partner did.
Had plastic surgery.
Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived.
Wrote articles for a large publication.
Lost over 100 pounds.
Held someone while they were having a flashback.
Piloted an airplane.
Petted a stingray.
Broken someone's heart.
Helped an animal give birth.
Been fired or laid off from a job.
Won money on a TV game show.
Broken a bone.
Killed a human being.
Gone on an African photo safari.
Ridden a motorcycle.
Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph.
Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced.
Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol.
Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild.
Ridden a horse.
Had major surgery.
Had sex on a moving train.
Had a snake as a pet.
Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing.
Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours.
Visited more foreign countries than US states.
Visited all 7 continents.
Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days.
Eaten kangaroo meat.
Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground.
Been a sperm or egg donor.
Eaten sushi.
Had your picture in the newspaper.
Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime.
Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about.
Gotten someone fired for their actions.
Gone back to school.
Parasailed.
Changed your name.
Petted a cockroach.
Eaten fried green tomatoes.
Read The Iliad.
Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read.
Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them.
...and gotten barred from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you.
Taught yourself art from scratch.
Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt.
Skipped all your school reunions.
Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language.
Been elected to public office.
Written your own computer language.
Thought to yourself that you're living your dream.
Had to put someone you love into hospice care.
Built your own PC from parts.
Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you.
Had a booth at a street fair.
Dyed your hair.
Been a DJ.
Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal.
Written your own role playing game.
Given a tramp a sponge-bath
masturbated a caged laboratory animal
pretented you liked kevin-smith movies when you secretly didn't
deliberately, personally, and purposefully insult someone to their face to cause as much harm as possible
sold any part of your body, or any product from it, for money?
had a secret published in post-secret?
sent food or wine back in a restaurant?
and regretted it?
Seen a bioluminescent tide.
Robbed a grave?
Taken a microgravity airplane (or spacecraft!) ride?
Inspired a painter.
Had a three-way conversation, speaking 3 different languages (sometimes all 3 in one sentence) and everyone understood.
Held a raptor in your hand.
Been excommunicated from a major religion.
Breastfed during a rock concert.

meme source: Gisele's Total Waste of Bandwidth

Where The %$*! Is Momcast?!

2008-07-29T12:04:00.002-04:00

Well, it's been awhile, hasn't it?

A lot has happened since I last posted. Even before my lat couple of posts, I was starting to feel a little burnt out on publishing Momcast. I was starting to wonder if anyone was out there reading? Was I still relevant? Did I still have anything to add? Did I even have the time to post anymore?

Since Spencer started getting really mobile - oh, yeah, and he's walking now! - my ability to sit down at the computer for extended periods has been compromised. I had put a lot of projects on my plate in the hopes of building my writing and doula career a little. There just didn't seem to be any more time left to post anything of substance on this old blog.

And, I had a bunch of shiny new blogs to write at!

I re-branded my business website. My doula business is now called Hamilton Doula and along with the name change came a complete overhaul of the website. I think it's really gorgeous now. There are some images from my home birth photography portfolio available, and, along with the articles I spent the last two years crafting, a revamped set of information about me, about doulas and about my services for couples and educators.

I started the blog Vegetarian Moms. Since we cut out meat from our at home diet, I wanted to talk specifically with other moms who cooked vegetarian and vegan food. I put recipes up there and write about what it's like changing the eating habits of a family with small kids. We still eat meat at restaurants when I review them and at other people's houses making our diet 90% meat free, but I'm proud that we have found so many interesting alternatives to meat.

I also started yet another new blog: The Clever Mom. I'm really proud of this one. I wish I could post more often on it (I do accept submissions, though, so get writing all you creative parents!) but I find it very satisfying right now. I was inspired to start this site when Kieran's JK teacher kept telling me I should be a teacher after each time I told her about a project Kieran and I did together.

He's a voracious learner, so I'm constantly looking for ways to make a science project out of things. Walks to karate might involve examinations of snails or mosses, discussions about pollination or fossilization as we see fossils embedded in garden rocks. It sure makes the time go faster for me and Kieran gets inspired by learning, without realising he's learning. Then there are all the crafts we do together, the cooking and baking we do and the discipline projects we've created. I figured that maybe other parents might be interested in ideas for fun and learning activities to do with their kids.

If you haven't visited the Clever Mom yet, please go check it out. Put it in your feed reader. Take a moment to leave a comment. I'd really love for more parents to comment if they've tried one of our projects or if they have ideas to add.

If you are on Facebook, you add my blogs to your blog network here: The Clever Mom, Momcast and Vegetarian Moms.

I'm also developing an extensive set of childbirth education workshops with a colleague of mine. The workshops are different than anything available in this area; they are one off sessions instead of a series, and you can either take a single session or mix and match the session to create a series that focuses on the information you need the most. Each session focuses on a specific topic. So, instead of getting perhaps 15 minutes of a 12 hour course devoted to information about epidurals, we'll be offering 2 hours of information on epidurals so you can make an informed decision about choosing this type of pain medication as well as feel as prepared as possible for a better epidural birth.

But, that's just one of about a dozen different classes we'll be offering. Some of the other topics will be transitioning into parenthood, with a focus on how a couple can best survive the transition, breastfeeding basics, parenting from a breastfeeding perspective, with a focus on how to optimize your parenting techniques to take advantage of close nurturing whether you will be breastfeeding or not, pregnancy nutrition, 101 comfort measures for labour and childbirth and newborn education for dads.

We're also going to be adapting some of the classes for birth professionals and offering them as advanced doula workshops.

I'm really excited about taking the business in this direction. It should translate into a better ROI and a steadier income for me and my colleague.

So, that's pretty much what I've been up to lately. Come back soon and I'll update you on how the family has been!

Video: Little Brother Amp Dancer

2008-05-01T16:28:00.001-04:00

Not to be outdone, Spencer danced along to the twee at the amp stacks, er, speaker.

Video: He Will Be The Front Man

2008-04-30T13:59:00.002-04:00

More video of my future indie hipster who is demonstrating, overtly, his air guitar skills. I'm sure it's pretty obvious, however, that he's really showing us that he will be the frontman of any band he's in.

Video: Future Indie Hipster Practice

2008-04-29T10:21:00.002-04:00

While listening to Belle and Sebastian's record (yes, on vinyl, how uber cool of me, eh? the CD player for the stereo died and I can't afford another) The Boy With The Arab Strap (there are links to song excerpts for users who have Windows Media Player), Kieran asked me to capture him dancing. Totally unprompted, he spontaneously began dancing and I realised he would not look out of place at The Horseshoe or Lee's Palace.

Warning: The Cuteness Contained Within May Cause Seizures

2008-04-26T10:31:00.003-04:00

(of Giggles and Joy!)

Spencer recently learned how to blow kisses. My heart has suddenly been racing and palpating at the pure adorableness of it all.

PS. Yes, that is Kieran making a gawd-awful racket in the background!

How We Celebrated Earth Day

2008-04-22T15:40:00.003-04:00

We walked around the block and picked up garbage!

My Son Is 5

2008-04-08T10:19:00.003-04:00

Five years ago today I was sitting in a hospital bed, wired from the chemical high of natural childbirth, with a small, placid, slightly yellow baby between my legs, swaddled within an inch of his life in a white blanket. When I left the hospital three days later, I had the blanket tucked into my backpack and the boy, wrapped in his own blanket, in my arms.

Five years ago today my oldest son was born, and so was I.

And despite the fact that when I think and talk about that day I get very serious and sentimental, neither my son nor I is very serious at all.

**His head looks like that because we dyed his pair purple (with semi-permanent mousse dye) for Crazy Hair Day at school.

Birth In Six Words

2008-04-05T16:42:00.002-04:00

Strollerderby has a story called Your Birth Story in 6 Words. Here is my entry:

Kieran, April 2003: Spring blizzard blankets pain with joy.

Spencer, June 2007: So quiet, so simple, at home.

What is your 6 word birth story?

It's Almost Time

2008-03-29T19:26:00.000-04:00

Are you going dim for Earth Hour?

After A Shower

2008-03-22T10:44:00.003-04:00

Here we are after having cleaned ourselves up a little. Still no makeup, no fancy hair products or special clothes. Well, except Spencer. I wanted to gussy him up a little before he outgrew these super cute clothes.

Morning Truthiness

2008-03-19T12:49:00.003-04:00

Sweetney challenged women to show their unedited selves in photographs, more specifically, letting readers see what they look like when they wake up. She has even started a flickr group to organize the images.

Here is my entry, with a bonus.

My Son Loves Trains

2008-03-17T14:53:00.003-04:00

The most exciting thing we did this past March Break was take a train. We took the GO commuter train from Burlington to Toronto and Kieran was thrilled. If he had his way, we would take the train to and from Toronto every day. He wouldn't ever have to do anything, just arrive in Union Station and re-board.

My Other Websites

2008-03-14T23:08:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted much this week due to March Break sucking all of my energy out of me. But, you should go and visit my food website Vegetarian Moms. I have been publishing some of my recipes and talking about food and vegetarian related issues.

And, when you've finished poking around over there, check out the changes I've made to my doula site Hamilton Birth Revolution. I'm in the middle of some re-branding that has begun with my website. Check out the new site and leave me a comment with your thoughts. Please!

Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit

2008-03-13T00:09:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine pointed out that I hadn't written about my knitting in quite a while. And I haven't. Because I've been hanging out on Ravelry!

If you are on Ravelry and aren't a friend of mine (on Ravelry) yet, hook a girl up!

Here is what I'm up to:

This is the Flower Basket Shawl from Interweave Knits. I have started it two times due to the fact that I completely forgot what row I was on. It's my first big lace project and I have a tendency to get a bit lost on the chart. But, with every project I knit, I learn more about how the knitting behaves so that I'm getting better all the time at reading stitches.

The pattern isn't hard, but when you come off the initial chart and get to the pattern chart (which is just a specific section of the shawl that you then have to repeat a certain number of times depending on how many rows you've knit) I tend to get a little lost. I'm using some 50/50 wool-mohair blend sock yarn I picked up at this past year's Fiber Fest.

This is a sock for Kieran. This Regia Crazy Colors was a Mother's Day present from my guys. The colours are far more suited to Kieran's wacky personality than my palette.

Another Mother's Day gift of Regia is being made into 4x2 ribbed socks for me. I just ahve to finish the gusset and do the heel and it's straight up the leg for sock number 2.
Another skein of Lindenhof Mills' Sock Special 50-50 blend was broken into to make this Calorimetry. It ended up too loose and the yarn I chose was not robust enough for this particular headband. I'm going to frog it eventually and use the yarn for something I'll really love.

This is an almost finished elephant called. I'm knitting it in a slubby thick/thin coarse wool that was gifted to me out of an older lady's stash. It will be my first knitted toy for Spencer, when I finish it.

I call this one My Wonky Heart. I have knit it about 20 times and I was never able to get the pattern to work. The designer emailed me and tried to help me but for some reason, me and this pattern don't work. I don't even have the heart (get it?!) to frog the stupid thing. I'm just going to throw it on a pyre and shout incantations at the devil so that I never, ever have to look at this pattern ever again.
This is the Toasty Topper, with mods. I add stitches and rows to make a larger hat, as this one was originally intended for toddlers. I then knit the neck closed instead of as scarf ties. Kieran loves it, but it is a little bit big on him and tends to slips around on his head, always ending up exposing one ear.

These beauties are called Stulpen and I love them! They are my first cable pattern and I was so thrilled to watch the first one come into being with my little sticks and string. The yarn is Toasty Toes (but not the Interlacements Toasty Toes) in sport weight. I picked it up on my birthday so that I could make this pattern. I am 1/3 of the way up the chart for the second wrist warmer by now and should be completely finished in a couple of days. Just in time for wearing on my long walks to school!

And, by the time you read this, I'll be at Canada Blooms! Will you be checking it out?

Cheap Fun For March Break, Part 2

2008-03-11T23:00:00.000-04:00

Mark an Art Pocket!

This one is good for 3-5 year olds. It teaches fine motor skills and is easy, practical fun!

What I've discovered now that Kieran has started school is that there is a near endless creation of art. I love it and I'm so proud of it all that I have a hard time selectively reducing the art. But, whether you only want to keep a precious few examples of your little one's growing skills or you want to keep every brilliant little thing they make, an art pocket is a fantastic way to store the stuff.

I plan to make one every year and put all of Kieran's stuff into them and then store them all. The art and schoolwork that he brings home used to be scattered around in piles, but it's so easy to store it now, neat and tidy. We put a couple of the latest and greatest up on the fridge and rotate them into the pocket as they are replaced.

What you need:

poster board
hole punch
yarn
stickers, markers, glitter, crayons, paint...

How to do it:

Fold the poster board in half and punch holes up two sides, 1cm in from the edge and 1 cm apart from each other (about a 1/2 inch).
Tie a length of yarn through the bottom hole to secure it.
Show your little one how to thread the yarn through the holes. You can either be a little controlling about doing a neat running stitch, do a whip stitch, a blanket stitch for older kids or let them do what they like. Personally, I think learning to do a neat stitch properly is worth it, not just for neatness sake, but for the pride of mastering a skill.
Draw your child's name on the pocket or have them draw it on.
Have your child decorate the pocket in any way they like!
Fill the pocket with art, schoolwork and anything else you or they want to keep for posterity.
Bonus ideas:

At the end of the year, slip their report cards and a school picture into the folder before you store it.
Store the pocket, at the end of the year, in a giant ziplock bag to protect it from excess moisture and vermin.

Cheap Fun For March Break, Part 1

2008-03-10T23:36:00.003-04:00

Build a giant track for your trains!

Would You Know What They Were Sick With?

2008-03-08T20:15:00.002-05:00

We had a weird week.

The baby had a fever for two days. When he was whiny, clingy and wouldn't eat, I thought he must surely be teething again. The fact that I cried in the afternoon, exhausted from his inability to calm down and either eat or sleep, seemed to confirm it.

Then, when I realised that he hadn't pooped in two days, as long as he the fever, I thought he may have eaten some bad food, something maybe he couldn't handle, being only eight months old, but that the rest of us could deal with having much older, tougher, guts.

Our theory about the guts seemed to play out when Spencer's fever broke and not long after he had a gigantic poop. A few hours later there was more poop.

The next morning, when Spencer had a small rash on his belly, I didn't think much of it. Contact Dermatitis? From diaper wipes or the donation of baby clothes washed in unfamiliar detergents from his aunt?

But the rash got bigger until his whole body was covered. That's when I realised that it was probably one of a handful of common childhood illnesses. Considering we'd been having a lot of playdates this week, I needed to get a professional opinion on what it was and whether it was contagious.

With back to back snow storms in the process of dumping about two feet of snow on us, I called Telehealth. The nurse said it sounded like Roseola (Sixth Disease). Since we were a good two days into the rash, it was all pretty much over. No treatments and no contagiousness.

Dr. Sears has a great page on rashes. And, About.com has a nifty rash symptom checker tool that can help you determine what's going on with your child's rashes. These will give you a sense of what is up with any rashes you come across and help you determine the urgency of your child's condition. Don't forget, it's always really important to make contact with a health care professional to get a real diagnosis. It is so easy to look at a rash and think it's a simple irritation and end up with something potentially deadly like Fifth Disease (which can and does cause death for babies in the third trimester, which is something that actually happened in my extended family).

Another thing that might be easily misdiagnosed at home is Whooping Cough (Pertussis). It can cause Bacterial Pneumonia, but worse, babies with Pertussis can start to bleed behind their eyes and in their brains from the intense pressure of all that coughing. Listen to what Whooping Cough sounds like so you'll know when your child has it.

As all this teething and illness subsides, here's hoping Spencer starts sleeping through the night again soon.

Plans For Our First March Break

2008-03-07T23:27:00.003-05:00

Next week will be our first March Break. Kieran is young enough that the prospect of not going to school upsets him. He's going to miss his teacher, the first woman, besides his mother, who he has a crush on.

We don't have a lot of money for luxuries so we won't be taking any vacations to warm ecountries and we won't be doing any kids camps. In fact, we only have one activity planned: the Canada Blooms festival.

It is happening (Wed) March 12-16 at the Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto Ontario.

We are going in part because I wanted to take my mum to the festival. She has gotten into gardening in the last few years and I thought she'd really enjoy it. At first I was going to leave Kieran at home with Papa Gerry, but Canada Blooms is going to have kid focused activities.

There will be a Green Playground (sponsored by the Ontario Toyota Dealers) that kids can play in. I'm interested in that one, too. And, I'm sure Kieran will enjoy looking at all the different plants and garden accessories.

By far the favourite part for him will be taking the train into the big city.

My favourite part will be the fact that kids 12 and under get into the Canada Blooms festival for free!

What will you be doing for March Break?

Be A Part Of My Radio Show!

2008-03-05T10:36:00.002-05:00

Send your questions in now for the Birth Junkie Radio Show tonight!

Whether you are planning to get pregnant, are pregnant, are a new mom or dad or work in the world of moms and babies, send us your questions and we'll answer them.

Post your question on the Facebook group discussion board or email them to birthjunkieradio@gmail.com.

Catch us at 6PM on Wednesday on 93.3 FM CFMU locally, or find us at http://cfmu.wwworks-inc.com:8000/ which you can listen to through Winamp or iTunes Radio.

And don't forget: It's fundaraising week! Support community radio; call in with a pledge. Every little bit helps!

I Keep Him Close To My Heart

2008-03-03T17:14:00.003-05:00

Like my new carrier? I bought it on eBay and I love it! It is sooooo comfy! Check out the other slings at AnnaCarrieBaby.

He looks so sweet there,doesn't he? Well, it didn't last long. Yesterday he was sporting a fever, unexplained prolonged crying and a slightly runny nose. And he won't let me go near his mouth. Poor kid. Poor mommy and daddy.

I have to go wake him. We are going to Kieran's class for an observation this morning. It should be fun.

Days 58, 57 & 56 Progress Reports

2008-03-03T17:03:00.002-05:00

Day 58

I'm and angel who does not drink soda pop.
And I don't eat chocolate bars.
What routines? You mean, I have to clean this house? Everyday?!
I hate doing taxes, which is why I never do taxes.

Day 57

After a particularly bad fight with Sean and apologies and hugs all around, Sean buys me a small bottle of Diet Pepsi. Since he forgot that I was giving it up, I'll drink it.
He also buys me two chocolate bars, one of which I eat.
Aside from a little tidying, I do no routines.
I don't even look at the taxes.

Day 56

My granny gives me two cans of Pepsi. I am powerless to resist.
I eat the second of two chocolate bars Sean bought me yesterday.
No routines - no time! Restaurant review meal, followed by granny visit, followed by hockey game, followed by cooking, followed by solo parenting, followed by writing a restaurant review.
See number 3.

60 Day Challenge, With Progress Reports

2008-02-29T15:19:00.003-05:00

Ask Moxie has implemented what she call the "Take Yourself Seriously 60-Day Challenge" and I'm taking her up on it.

You can update your progress on her site each day, and I might do that, but I thought y'all would be my watchdogs. And, if anyone wants to join in, you can post in the comments what your particular progress is.

So, here are my goals for the next 60 days.

No soda, including diet soda (because it looks like even diet soda makes you a fat cow.)
No chocolate bars (my personal weakness - the new Reese's Peanut Butter Crunchy bars are golden!)
Do FlyLady routines (because I am a shite housekeeper who wants to change her slovenly ways)
File mine and Sean's taxes (I am too ashamed to tell you how many returns I have to file, but darnnit, they are all getting file this tax period!)

Day 60 Report

I chose green tea iced tea, with red apple! I'm so cool, but not necessarily reducing my soft drink intake.
The last one ! I swear, no more!
I didn't do any routines, but I cleaned like a mad mama. Mostly because my mom was coming over the next day and I needed to retain a tiny shred of pride.
I looked at the tax papers. They were in a pile in the kitchen.

Day 59 Report

Sean brought home a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper. Fucking saboteur! How am I supposed to resist that?!
No chocolate. I rock!
Again, no routines, but I did clean all morning in prep for my mom to come over. She still ended up doing the dishes.
I touched the tax papers. I had to move them so I could get to my business files.

Et vous? ("And, you?" for the French impaired.)

A Little Valentine's Follow-Up

2008-02-27T08:23:00.002-05:00

This is the Valentine's that Kieran and I, but mostly I, made for the kids in his class. The central heart is melted crayon inside waxed paper.

This is my present for Valentine's. Kieran made it with the help of his teacher. It is a book of all the people Kieran loves.

"I Love My Mom" That's me. I look like an embryonic alien squid person. With a devilish grin!
"I Love My Grandma and Papa" This is my mum and stepdad, who Kieran adores. They don't get bodies and Papa has waaaay more hair in Kieran's imagination!

"I Love My Dad" Isn't that the cutuest Frankenstein chin ever! What is really awesome is the sweet, kind smile that Sean is giving, which is Sean all over.

"I love my brother." Spencer has two heads! And one of them even has red hair! Unfortunately, his doppelganger only has one eye.
"I love Optimus Prime." Kieran's true feelings finally come out.

Letter To My 15 Year Old Self

2008-02-25T17:12:00.002-05:00

Dear Leanne,

I am you in 22 years and I just wanted to tell you some things. I know you think all of us old people are stupid, but what I am about to tell you will enrich your life and save you some heartache.

Don't start smoking next year. Just don't. It smells gross, tastes gross and it isn't actually cool. If you start you will be burning thousands of dollars that could have bought you a house or paid for university. One day the grandmother of your children will die of lung cancer. So, stop before you even start.

Sex doesn't equal love and boyfriends don't equal happiness. Boys just aren't worth getting depressed over. And the sex is usually not even close to worth it. Focus on making friends. One day you will finally meet the man who will be your best friend in the whole world and it would be a real treat for him if you weren't quite so emotionally damaged. John was cool, but don't mourn him too hard or long. Say please more often to Shane. And don't let Ian buy you a beer at the Corktown. Just don't.

And, for the love of all that is dear, please use condoms when you do decide to have sex. Birth control pills aren't enough.

Start studying a little bit. And sign up for some science classes. If you have to, look into getting some tutoring for math, because for some reason, even though you are really smart in humanities, you suck at numbers. And, studying will raise your marks enough so that you would probably qualify for scholarships.

And, about university: get a degree in nursing, with a minor in the humanities. Read about natural childbirth and as soon as McMaster offers it, apply to the midwifery programme.

Learn to drive. Get Dad to pay for a driver's ed class. I know that's a little like asking for blood from a stone, but keep at it.

In three years Mom and Dad will get a divorce and you will move out on your own with Diane, Mark's girlfriend, who, believe it or not, will be going out with Rob by then. Be kind to Vanessa, because she will get screwed over very, very badly by the divorce and the emotional damage it will do to Mom and Dad. She will need way more love and patience than either of them can give her.

Save money. Really, start now. Save and save and save and the second you can put a down payment on a house, do it. Trust me!

Do some exercise. It won't kill you and it will make you slimmer. In fact, find some vegetarians and learn how to be a vegetarian, or even a vegan! Soooooo much healthier!

Go to more gigs. Figure out who all the indie bands are and go see them. And try to make friends at the shows.

And, when you finally meet Sean, don't be scared.

I wish you luck and love.

You, Only Older

P.S. You are strong and smart and beautiful and you deserve the greatest happiness. L.

You'd Think I'd Know By Now

2008-02-20T23:44:00.003-05:00

This is my second child. But, you'd think it was my first from the amount of inexperience I exhibit.

For instance, if I end up crying in the afternoon, you can bet the baby has cut another tooth.

I only know that now because I wound up having a little cry this afternoon due to my inability to continue coping with Spencer's tired-baby-who-won't-eat-or-sleep-and-will-only-whinge-and-cry-for-hours-on-end routine. Then, when returning home from my radio show (and a couple extra hours of production volunteering), Sean looked at me with those thank-fucking-gawd-you-are-home-I-was-just-about-to-make-you-a-widow eyes that I'm pretty sure I greet him with every day at 6pm. After another difficult hour I thoughtto stuff my finger into Spencer's mouth and discovered a fifth tooth.

So, I'm going to try and burn this into my memory: when the baby acts like a little monster he is teething. Gawd help me if he acts like that for less obvious reasons.

It is a damned good job he is cuter than, well, cuter than anything I can conceive of that isn't him.

The Diva Cup Is To Your Period What The Automatic Slicer Is To Bread

2008-02-19T15:39:00.003-05:00

After an iffy first day using this Diva Cup, I was surprised at the little silicone cup's performance on the subsequent days of my period. It was perfect.

It was as commenters had said: insert it in the morning and forget about it till bed, rinse and repeat.

I was pretty overjoyed at the fact that over a 4-5 day period, there were no leaks (except on that very first day,which probably should not be considered typical of the cup's performance as it was a learning day). Not one single leak!

The cup is so comfortable, you really do forget you are wearing it. There was a small exception to this, I could sometimes feel the little stem. Most women remedy this by cutting the stem, but I found that the level of irritation was low, rare and random. I'd rather the stem was intact.

When I was doing some online research to see what other bloggers had written about using the cup, I came across one writer's slightly incredulous post. Having never used the cup, she commented on the testimonials on the Diva Cup website. She thought they were pretty over the top, snarking about one woman claiming she felt liberated by using the cup.

After a couple of days using the cup I knew what that testimonial was talking about. I got it and no one is going to get it until they use the Diva Cup and use it successfully.

I DO feel liberated! I will never have to buy tampons again! Nor pads! In a few months the cup will have paid for itself and I will not be held hostage by pharmaceutical companies and this culture's addiction to disposable consumables. And I change that cup out twice a day! And, if I'm late doing it there is no worry of a huge mess.

Partway through my period I felt like I wanted to shout it from the rooftops! Oprah should be doing a show on the Diva Cup! Why aren't more people using this?

Is it the mess factor? Because I didn't find that to be a big deal. Yes, you do have to become a little more intimate with your vagina and your menses. Yes, you will get blood on your hand. In fact, I suggest you have a nail brush next to the sink and keep it as part of your Diva Cup kit, because you will tend to get blood under your thumbnail.

But, we are not talking about carnage level blood. And, after a couple of tries, it isn't hard to remove the cup without spilling.

One thing I liked is that I didn't have any smell associated with my menses. I you wear pads exclusively, you can't avoid the smell factor. Even if you are vigilant, there is some leaking with tampons giving you an odour that you may not notice, but other people might and animals absolutely will! If you use the cup there will be no odour at all.

So, from my perspective, there are no drawbacks to using the cup; there are only advantages to using a Diva Cup.

If you don't have one, check out the Google Ads to the left of this post and order one. You can also order them from Luna Pads and pick up a few cloth panty liners while you're there.

Learning To Write

2008-02-12T23:57:00.004-05:00

Kieran has the worst handwriting ever. Yes, he is only in Junior Kindergarten and yes, he still is only 4 years old, but it's awful!

Of course, he only writes one word: his name. And, since he practices tht word just about every day, you'd think that he'd be starting to get pretty good at it.

First off, even with tonnes of practice, his letters suck! Even when you show him how to write a letter, he does it his own way, which looks nothing like the letter should look.

For instance, the letter "K". I watched him write his name today, since we were trying to make Valentines for his class, and I noticed his "K" was completely wonky, so I pulled out his scrapbook and tried to teach him how to write the letter by making a long vertical stroke with a lesser than sign attached to it. I wrote the letter, verbally explaining it, and then I held Kieran's hand and we wrote the letter together, and then I had Kieran write it out. Of course, he wrote it a completely different way every time.

I found this incredibly frustrating!

On top f that, he just doesn't fully appreciate that words begin with their starting letter and then go rightways until they finish. As you can see in the bottom most heart, Kieran ran out of space to write his name and decided to put the "A" and "N" in front of the "KIER".

Then there is the writing the "E" backwards. And the fact that the "R" looks like an "A".

I've seen the penmanship of the other kids in his class and Kieran is definitely lagging way behind the curve.

With these Valentines cards, I want Kieran's classmates to know who the card came from! I don't want them to have to deduce from a process of elimination that the illegible card must have come from Kieran because they can read everyone's names on their cards and Kieran is missing from that bunch. I also don't want them explaining to their mommies that this Valentine must have come from Kieran because he can't write anything nicely at all!

With all this focus on writing his name Kieran absolutely refused to write his name on the cards. So, I tried bribery. I offered one gummy worm for every five cards he signs.

It wasn't enough.

I raised the stakes to five gummy worms. It still wasn't enough. I started to feel myself losing my cool.

I had already conceived the craft we were doing (instead of buying paper valentines with cartoon characters licensed from a mega corp), and done most of the preparation and assembly. I was not going to sign Kieran's cards for him, too!

I bargained: if he signed his name, I would write all of his friends names on the cards. No dice.

Finally I hit on something that seemed to motivate him. I asked him to sign the card for a specific and special friend whom he rides the schoolbus with every morning. He liked that idea. He eagerly sat in his seat, grabbed a marker and a heart and then nothing. He waffled. He didn't want to screw up (good job mommy from hell!) and was scared to start the "K".

And then I did something so profoundly simple but ultimately so powerful: I put six dots on the card where I wanted him to write his name and told him to write a letter on top of each dot.

And he did it! What's more: he did it neatly and all the letters fit into the space on the card and proceeded in order.

His penmanship is still horrible, but at least we will get the damned valentine's cards finished.

Images of Sunday Morning Chez Momcast

2008-02-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

Kieran's cousin Kaitlyn (the first baby I ever doula'd, incidentally), slept over. The two huddled up under Kieran's covers goofing around before they went to sleep. Walking past their room I over heard the following exchange:

Kieran: Where are you? [they were lying beside each other, probably had their arms or legs touching]
Kaitlyn: I'm right here.
Kieran: I can't see you, I want to touch your face.
Kaitlyn: OK.
Kieran: Come here so I can feel your face.
Kaitlyn: OK.

Kids are weird, aren't they?

Here they are hanging out in Kieran's room, drinking chocolate milk, lounging in their pj's, discussing whatever it is four year olds discuss.

Sean is a hardcore weekend morning lounger. He likes to watch a little Premiere League football, old episodes of Bargain Hunt and What Not To Wear (he is addicted) and heavy metal DVDs. Since I try to cram in a bunch of chores and ME time, Spencer enjoys lounging with his dad.

I thought you might need a little extra Spencer to give you the happies. Isn't he cute?!

The other day he was finally able to sit up unsupported. Then, yesterday, I turned around and he had pushed himself up to sitting from lying on his tummy. On top of that, his fourth tooth looks to be making an appearance sometime in the next day or so.

All this new skill acquisition has played havoc with Spencer's sleeping and where he had been sleeping straight through from 10pm to 7am in his bassinet, he is now up till 12am or 1am and needing a bottle in the middle of the night. With me being sick (bronchitis), it's been particularly hard for me, so Sean has been extra helpful. Which probably only contributes to his desire to lounge his weekend away.

I'll be updated the Diva adventures later. Thank you for your kind and thought provoking comments on the idea of modifying a post baby body.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes #588

2008-02-08T16:36:00.000-05:00

Kieran: Tiffany Ann is planning a wedding for her and I. I asked her if I could come to it and she said yes. I am going to be married to her for some years. And Agatha is planning a wedding for her and I.

Me: Honey, I hate to tell you, but it's illegal to be married to more than one person at a time.

Kieran: Then I guess I can't marry Sarah, too.

The Diva Adventures

2008-02-06T01:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my first day using the Diva Cup. And I wasn't all that impressed. There was leaking. All day. Not a lot of leaking, but just enough that I had to pay attention to the cup every two hours or so. Which is a far cry from the up-to-12 hours stated on their product documentation.

I got the Diva Cup for a number of reasons. The first was monetary: at about $50 CDN (retail, incl. tax) the cup had the potential to pay for itself in about 5 months (OB tampons + panty liners + pads = a shit load of money every month!) and then start saving me around $10 per month for the next 10 years (which is the recommended lifetime of the cup).

I also got the cup because I find all the other products uncomfortable. Tampons are either too absorbent (and therefore hurt going in and out) or not absorbant enough (and start to fall out on their own). Pads suck for voluptuous women: because of our chubby anatomy, all liquids get channeled to the bottom or the top almost always causing accidents, especially at night. Not to mention there is this big fat wad of stuff stuffed in your panties.

There is the mess factor to consider, too. Even after 25 years as a menstruating woman, I leak all the time! I start forget when I have to change a tampon, or get caught up in mommying, and suddenly there is another pair of panties (and sometimes jeans, sheets...) I have to scrub up in the sink).

Finally, in my job as a doula, I'm up and on my feet assisting women in a hands on way for around 12 hours. Within reason, I try to take as few bathroom breaks as I can so that I don't abandon a mother when she desperately needs support. And, when I finally do go to the bathroom, it's often located outside of the L&D ward - the bathroom in the labour room is for the mother and her partner and I only ever use it when a mother in in transition or pushing, making my leaving the room a major disruption for her. At a recent birth I left it too long bewteen bathroom breaks and ended up having a mess to deal with. I'd need a more efficient method of dealing with my period.

The Diva Cup has the potential to solve all these problems. It would be more economical, more comfortable and far more leak proof. Potentially!

After my first day I was not encouraged. There was leaking and at first I had some comfort issues. I wondered if my rectocele, saggy bladder (cystocele?) and saggy uterus (slight prolapse?) might have changed my interior shape too much for the cup to work. Some commentary online seemed to suggest that I might always have leaking, until I had some pelvic floor repair work done.

Could I live with that? Was the mess, mostly caught by the panty liner, within reason or would using tampons and pads result in less mess. I would hold off answering this question until my period was over. And perhaps until I had had two cycles to compare.

Things changed on day two. Unlike the first day, there was no leakage whatsoever! Every time I went to the bathroom I was giddy to see how clean everything was. Yes, I said giddy. It seems silly, but I was so happy and relieved that I seemed to be over the learning curve and that despite my lumpen anatomy the cup was catching all that it was supposed to be catching.

It appears that there will be a happy ending to the Diva Cup story.

Now, we will see how the cup performs overnight for the second night. There was some leaking last night, though not heavily. And when I got up in the morning the cup had slipped significantly.

Here is hoping I'm over the learning curve.

A New Body?

2008-02-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

I posted on Hamilton Birth Revolution about The Shape Of A Mother. I can't recall why I was so drawn to it recently, but I hadn't looked at it in quite some time, possibly since before I got pregnant with Spencer.

The images really moved me, sometimes in solidarity, sometimes in mild incredulity and sometimes in shock. If fact, a few times, reading the women's remarks about confronting their post baby bodies, I was moved to weeping.

I left the page of photo entires open while I made dinner and when Sean came home he silently looked that them. I talked about the site and its ability to heal women who felt their bodies had been ruined. I talked about how conflicted most of us are: we love our children and would never trade the experience of having children for a "flawless" tummy, we feel like our stretchmarks are a testament to the challenge of birth, perhaps even a trophy, but we also cringe at the extra scarred skin.

As we cleaned up after dinner he said to me, "If money weren't an issue, would you have surgery?"

"To improve my tummy?"

"Yeah. Would you get a tummy tuck if you had the money?"

"Yes," I answered without hesitation. "Yes, absolutely."

"But I thought you hated cosmetic surgery?"

"I would never get bigger boobs, but I'd get them lifted a little. I'd never get liposuction, but I'd get the excess skin cut away."

And, as I said it, I felt like I was betraying myself and my sisters (not my particular sisters but the sisters that all women are to each other) a little. It was as if after spending my whole life saying "love yourself the way you are" I was turning around and saying that imperfections are ugly.

But, yes, given the chance to get some "work" done, I'd go for it. Maybe I wouldn't get a new body, but I might tune up the old one a little.

Check Out The New Blog!

2008-02-04T09:25:00.000-05:00

As if I didn't have enough to do, I'm starting a new blog: Vegetarian Moms.

See this bean thing is really starting to take over my life and I thought, if I want to replace some of my meat, why not replace all of it? Or at least try.

And then I thought, I can't be the only mom who feeds her kids meatless meals and needs some recipes, some companionships, a place to puzzle out the issue of becoming or being a vegetarian or a vegan. So, I started Vegetarian Moms to put that out into the world.

So, whaddya think?

Plus, today is my first day using a Diva cup. I'll report back about it tomorrow.

For The Love Of Beans!

2008-01-29T16:55:00.000-05:00

You absolutely HAVE to keep the recipes coming!

Did you see Thora's recipe in the comments? I've never actually cooked with Kale before, but I'm going to give it a try and see how the family likes it.

Here is something I whipped up last night out of my head:

Black Bean & Corn Salad

1 can black beans, rinsed
1 cup of frozen corn
1 tomato diced
1 onion diced
1 TBSP chili powder
2 sachets Sazon Goya Tomato and Cilantro seasoning

Mix ingredients in a bowl and chill for a few hours or overnight. Serve as a side dish or as a filling in burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, tostadas, nachos, pita/wrap sandwiches... Sean said he'd like this salad warm.
**note: Sazon Goya seasonings have MSG, just in case you are sensitive to that kind of thing. Substitute cumin, cilantro, garlic, lemon... or whatever you have on hand that you think might go well.

Hummus Is The Perfect Food!

2008-01-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

In an effort to reduce our dependence on meat - for reasons of health and economics - I've been looking for bean recipes.

A friend and mother of one of Kieran's classmates is vegetarian, so I asked her about what her family eats normally. She mentioned, amongst other things, that her youngest likes to help make hummus.

A little bell went off in my head and I thought to myself, "why haven't I been making hummus?" Good question, especially since I buy it every week and the large container costs $5.

I made hummus last week for the first time, and though I had to buy a big jar of tahini for almost $4 (which will last me until its expiry date in 2009 I'm sure), it cost me somewhere around $1 to make a batch. And it was even more delicious than its store bought counterpart! And it was shockingly easy to make.

A few days later, I made another batch. A few days from now, I may make more.

We have it with pita for lunch, with a spoon for snacking, with my finger when I hit that bored moment in the afternoon when I am tempted to bake an entire batch of cookies to satisfy a small craving for something ridiculously delicious. The baby eats it for lunch or dinner or both.

I think I could eat my hummus every day of my life!

It's high in protein (about 5-6 g per 1/4 cup serving), iron and folate (vitamin B9, the stuff they recommend to mothers considering getting pregnant). Add in the fresh garlic and it is even healthier.

I love hummus!

Easy Peasy Hummus

1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans) drained and rinsed
3 whole cloves of garlic
2 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP tahini
2 TBSP oil (olive is preferred, but safflower or canola or whatever you prefer will also work)
1/4 cup water
salt to taste

Toss all the ingredients into a food processor and turn it on. Wait until it's all mashed up and then scrape the sides with a rubber spatula. Turn the food processor on again and mash it some more. Scrape it into a bowl and serve it up with pita, vegetables, crackers, your fingers... Can also be used as a spread for sandwiches.

Have you got any beany recipes I could try?

Ahhh, Tea

2008-01-25T17:12:00.000-05:00

I was on the phone with my mum earlier and she said, "I'm gonna let you go, my tea's ready." And when she said tea, my whole body relaxed just a tiny bit in a sad little mommy Pavlovian response.

I love tea. And I'm particular about how I like it. I don't like it steeped for very long, so I usually make it by the cup. I don't take milk in it, even in chai. And, I like it to be a bit on the sweet side. I've switched to using Splenda in my tea because I've been known drink a half dozen cups a day and that could be one big lot of cane sugar.

My favourite tea is English Breakfast, but I'll drink any good solid black tea. I like chai, too, but without the milk as previously mentioned.

My mum takes milk and sugar and she has a sweet spot for Earl Grey. My gran only has milk. My grandfather drinks dark, dark tea that has been steeped so long the tannins make your teeth fuzzy. He'll collect the tea from an entire day's worth of teapots (they use a different one depending on the time of day and how many cups will be needed from it) for an utra-strong cup late at night that often gets sweetened with a little Irish whisky.

There is something so amazingly relaxing to me about a cup of tea. I don't react to the caffeine in it very much, so I can even have a cup before bed to help ease the troubles of the day away. Far healthier than a bottle of wine, I think!

It is rare I get to enjoy my cup without someone interrupting , though. The baby whinges, Kieran narrates his games, the TV is on... Oh to be alone with a cup of hot tea! And a Jane Austin movie! Oh, that sounds fantastic, doesn't it?

How do you like your tea?

Parenting Through Simple Wizardry

2008-01-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

Ever since we made the wands, Kieran and I have been creating new spells to cast.

My Spells
Showeramus - Impels the target to go have a shower.

Kieran's Spells
Invisiabulus - Makes the target person invisible. Can be cast on self. Moms can immediately see through the effects of this spell.
Enjiggio - Impells everyone within hearing distance to begin dancing.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes #587

2008-01-21T13:30:00.000-05:00

Kieran: Where's Dad?
Me: In the bathroom. Why?
Kieran: Because I'm bored. You know, it's a tough life for a kid like me.

I kid you not, he delivered that last line with a straight face, totally unaware of how funny it was. I, however, laughed for five minutes straight, frightening the baby.

Crappy Mother Award #4,559,637, Plus An Anniversary

2008-01-16T14:20:00.000-05:00

I forgot to change the baby's diaper. I forgot to change it for 7 hours! And I only "remembered to change it when I picked the boy up and noticed the front of his pants were wet. And not just wet, soaking wet! His diaper was so full that his snappy shirt and his fleece lined jeans were both soaked through.

I suck.

In other news, Sean came home today for lunch and reminded me that 9 years ago tonight we made out in public. And we were a couple ever after.

When he told me, I got all shy and smiley. He still has that ability to turn me into a bumbling, girly, mush-head totally in love with him.

Happy Anniversary, babe!

Helping In The Kitchen

2008-01-15T13:11:00.000-05:00

It's funny how much kids ultimately want to please you and be like you. Sure, Kieran has his share of jerky kid days when he seems to get on my every nerve and never wants to "follow his instructions" as his teacher puts it. but we have more times where he just wants to be involved in what I'm involved in.

He holds my yarn while I knit, wants to sit in my lap when I surf the net and is always looking for a way to help out in the kitchen.

A few months ago I taught him how to operate the microwave in order to heat up the dinner veggies. Now, if I forget and start punching numbers into the microwave, he gets really upset. That's his job, cooking the veggies. He also is the exclusive microwave popcorn maker.

He calls himself a Junior Chef. You know, because he's just little.

He also loves to bake. His stirring technique has mellowed to the point where I can finally let him stir all of the dry ingredients together. And, he has mastered pouring liquids into the bowl slowly.I love sharing this time with him. It's another one of those teaching oppourtunites. We talk about creaming sugar and butter (or margarine, if you are poor like me), why we add vanilla, the roll of baking powder and eggs... And he listens to it all, soaking it in.

He recently helped me make these amazing Addictive Chocolate Chip Cookies. We made a giant cookie for ourselves, half dozen cookies for his Aunty Colette's birthday and we froze a roll of dough in waxed paper for making a couple cookies at a time.
After cleaning the mixing utensils with his tongue - such a great childhood memory i the making, I remember loving licking off the beater blades, in fact, I licked mix off the exact same blades as a child since I've inherited my mother's ancient but durable hand mixer - we watched a little scifi on TV and ate most of the giant cookie, saving a chunk for Daddy. The half dozen birthday cookies were packed up in a paper bag that Kieran decorated with stickers and later gave to his aunt. A few days later, a Sunday, we decided to treat ourselves by baking up the remaining cookies and watched a couple of Torchwood episodes.
I hope Kieran grows up into the kind of guy who will one day bake his girlfriend (or whomever he decides to love) cookies or teach his own kids how to bake.

Casting Crafty Spells

2008-01-14T12:30:00.000-05:00

We found this wizard wand craft just before Spencer was born. "Soon, honey, we'll make it soon," I kept promising Kieran, who desperately wanted to make one of these very cool Harry Potter style wizard wands. Well, before we could make one, I had a baby and all crafting time went right out the window.

"I want to make a wand today! Can we make a wand?" Kieran would ask, beg and plead. For more than six months I've had to tell him, "soon, honey, we'll make it as soon as your brother can sit and play by himself for a little while."

That time has finally arrived.

This very cool paper craft is easy, requires very little in the way of supplies, is simple enough for even the most novice crafter to complete (novice adult crafter - small kids will need help with most of it, kids older than six should be able to do the principle work themselves) and looks just like the real thing. It was designed by a dad for other dads to do. The instruction sheet is really well put together. And, there are a bunch of cool companion crafts (a wee book of spells, for instance).

We made ours purple due to the fact that I seemed to only have purple, gold and silver craft paint around. Kieran jazzed his wand up with a couple of little green jewels. As soon as payday rolls around, I'm buying some more craft paint and having a go at a few more wands. Then I'm going to perfect a money spell. Oh, and the Accio (summoning spell) for summoning bottles of nums in the middle of the night.