Tag Archive | kids

A tickle is worth a thousand words

My brother suggested that I have a look at this app, Mulberry FingerPlays for iPhone, so I gave it a try and figured, naturally, that I would blog a review!

Mulberry Fingerplays Logo
Credit: Mulberry Media Interactive Inc.

Fingerplays are simple rhythmic songs or rhymes with accompanying hand actions, sometimes actions that your child imitates and sometimes actions that you perform on your child by tickling them or wiggling their fingers or toes. They are a fun way to interact with your young children and actually promote intellectual, social-emotional development, and physical development as your children learn rhyme, rhythm, cadence, melody, and actions and are encouraged to maintain eye contact and mimic your facial expressions and emotional reactions – Who knew that a simple song could do so much?

You probably already know lots of them by heart – “The Eensy Weensy Spider,” “Round and Round the Garden Like a Teddy Bear,” “This Little Piggy,” but I bet there are lots more that you will recognize but can’t for the life of you remember all the way through, like “Where is Thumbkin?” or “Five Little Pumpkins.” There were lots of times when Ben first started at nursery school and came home singing a rhyme that I recognized but couldn’t remember well enough to sing along with him, and at 2 years old he wasn’t much help!

This super-simple app by Mulberry Media Interactive is a collection of HD videos of a calm, soothing-voiced woman who looks just like your kindergarten teacher in 1983 reciting and demonstrating each fingerplay slowly enough that you can easily learn it. My children (5 1/2 and 2 1/2) also quite enjoy watching her themselves.

Screenshot from Mulberry FingerPlays iPhone app
Credit: Mulberry Media Interactive Inc.

You can tap the info icon to bring up a short description of the fingerplay followed by lyrics (but beware, I had trouble taping the tiny iPhone icon accurately with my pudgy fingers and kept restarting the video instead.

Screenshot from Mulberry FingerPlays iPhone app
Credit: Mulberry Media Interactive Inc.

The first time you open the app on a device, you view video introduction by Canadian author Paulette Bourgeois, creator of the Franklin the Turtle books, who finishes by demonstrating a really neat Franklin fingerplay. Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to make that video replay, which is too bad because it would have been very appealing to my Franklin-loving kids but was too long to learn in one viewing.

The first time you view each video it takes a few seconds to download but this only happens once for each video. There is no discernible difference in video quality between the iPhone/iPod sized screen and the iPad. The free version of the app is actually just a demo and gives you access to five videos. You can then choose to purchase 20 more videos for $0.99, which I thought was quite reasonable for the amount and quality of the content. You can also sign up for a newsletter that will let you know when new videos are added to the library; I don’t know however if these will be included in the original purchase price or if you will have to pay for them in addition.

All in all, I thought this was a really neat, simple little app and excellent value for the price. It would be an excellent resource for any parents, daycare providers, ECE specialists and students, Sunday school teachers, babysitters, grandparents, aunts, uncles…really, anyone with contact with young children and a few minutes to kill! My only complaint is the inability to replay the Franklin fingerplay video, which I would love to have included in the library.

Well done Mulberry Interactive – keep ’em coming!

~ karyn

I’m calling it a knight!

Sep19

I come from a ~~long~~ ~~short~~ well, a line, anyway, of fabulous Hallowe’en costume-makers, ie. my mom, who as well as being a fantastic doctor and a very smart lady is also an excellent seamstress. (Seriously. How can I live up to that?)

Every Hallowe’en my brothers and I would each decide what we would like to be, and mom would make it happen. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? Sure! Here’s your giant puffy brown felt shell that fits on like a backpack! Batman and Batgirl? No problem! Have an intricately sewn bat-logo and handcrafted button-up utility belt with loops and pouches for your tools and weapons. (Worn over a leotard and tights worn over a snowsuit. I did vow that I would never make my kids wear a snowsuit under their costumes unless it was ACTUALLY SNOWING). Devil? Okay, one red pantsuit, caplet, tail, and hood with puffy horns coming up!

Hands down, her crowning achievment though was the creation of adult-sized Teletubby costumes using toddler-sized patterns for a sailing regatta costume contest (We won. And immortalized the line, “La-la wants a BEER!”).

Anyway, when it comes to Hallowe’en costumes I have big shoes to fill. This year Molly chose a princess costume at the store and Ben decided that in keeping with the theme Molly had set, he would be a brave knight. (Molly has since changed her mind and decided to be Santa, but that’s a whole other story).

Ben and I looked online for costumes but I was unhappy with the shipping charges. A trip to the dollar store looking for a sword inspired me and I decided that I could make the costume myself, so I stocked up on materials and went for it.

Brave Knight Costume

Materials needed: 1 reflective car windshield sunshade, felt (2 colours), black hockey tape, and scissors.

©PicklesINK 2012

Step 1: Fold sunshade in half width-wise and cut into approximately t-shirt shape, curving down from the shoulders and widening slightly at the bottom. NB – All of these pictures show the costume folded over – the top of the shoulders is NOT cut and it looks the same on the other side.

©PicklesINK 2012

Step 2: Cut pointed strips from waist down with small spaces between them to form “skirt” of armour. Repeat on the other side.

©PicklesINK 2012

Step 3: Edge the entire costume with black hockey tape.

©PicklesINK 2012

Step 4: Make a 2-colour design out of felt to be your brave knight’s symbol. I went for simplicity and made a shield, but other options include cross, lion, dragon, or anything ~~your brave knight can think of~~ of which your brave knight can think. (That’s for my brothers.) I edged and attached it with hockey tape as well but glue would also work.

Ta-da! ©PicklesINK 2012

Add a black belt and weapons and your brave knight is ready to do battle!

I know I hit it out of the park this time when Ben came to inspect my progress as I was half-way through the hockey tape border. His jaw dropped and eyes widened and he gasped and said, “I LOVE it!” Now he has another project for me – he said yesterday, “Mommy, now you have a big job to do – make a dragon costume for daddy.”

MO-O-O-O-OMMM…HELP??

~ karyn

Salmon Wellington FTW!!

Sep12

I don’t know what happened last night…I’m still kind of in shock! I think I entered the Twilight Zone for a little while.

“For God’s sake, Bella, it’s just an apple.”
“I don’t care, Edward! Why do you always give me things I don’t like? You know I hate apples! They have skins! And they’re cold! Why can’t you just give me things I like?”
Photo from: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/twilight-series/images/720496/title/movie-posters-fanart

At some point last night, at the dinner table (it’s all still kind of a haze) I heard the words, “Can I have some more broccoli?” and “Can I please have some more salmon?” and if I hadn’t seen my kids’ lips moving I would have assumed that I had invited some cruciferous vegetable and Atlantic fish-loving hobo in to eat and promptly forgotten about it.

I’ve already talked about Ben’s picky eating at length. It has been a lot better since he turned 5, and he did really well in Germany, but “a lot better” is relative and means that instead of a screaming, flailing meltdown EVERY dinnertime, we just have a whining, complaining argument 9 out of 10 times. And the 10th dinner is pizza.

The biggest problem now is not so much Ben (in the end, he does eat it), but Molly, who actually loves to eat ANYTHING, but loves to imitate what her beloved big brother does even more. So almost every mealtime now goes, “Ben, eat your dinner please.” “But I don’t like this!” “Just eat it, please.” “Ohhhhhhhh…” *grudgingly eats a bite* “Molly, please eat your dinner.” “But I don’t YIKE this!” *flings it on the floor*

Ian is away for the week, which means that I can eat and feed the kids all the seafood I like (he’s not a fan). Yesterday I thought, what the heck, I feel like eating the frozen President’s Choice Salmon Wellington that’s been in the freezer for ages, and I’ll deal with the consequences when my dinner-shunning kids sit down at the table.

Photo from: http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=details&catIds=119&productId=12709

I had fairly low expectations of success, giving Ben’s meltdown this morning over being told that I had put macaroni and cheese in his lunch instead of his usual bagel with cream cheese.

The only thing that I can think of that made tonight different was that instead of telling Ben what was for dinner, I let him figure it out for himself when he saw it on the table:

Ben: “What’s dinner?”

Me: “Dinner is the meal that comes after lunch and before bedtime.” (HAHAHAHAHA!!! That line never gets old!!)

Ben (actually laughing this time – we’re off to a good start!): “No, what’s FOR dinner?’

Me: “What do you think it looks like?”

Ben: “I can see that it’s broccoli, but what’s the other thing? Croissants?”

Me: “That’s a good guess – it’s kind of like croissants. It’s fish stick, but instead of cereal for the breading it has croissant. It’s called Salmon Wellington.”

Ben: “Oh. Okay.”

“Oh. Okay”??? That’s when I knew something was up. I never get, “Oh, Okay.” It’s usually more like, “Ohhhhhh….but why? I don’t like that! Why do you always give me what I don’t like???” “But you like fish sticks, and you like croissants.” “But I don’t like them together!! Ohhhhh!!!!”

Maybe psychologically there’s something going on there – If I tell him what’s for dinner, and it doesn’t match the idea that he has in his head of what he wants, cue freak-out…but if I ask him to look at something unfamiliar and figure it out for himself, his brain has time to adjust to what he is seeing while trying to apply a name to it, and by the time he has figured out how to fit it into a familiar box, he has come to terms with it and maybe is even intrigued. Who knows? I don’t know if this was the key or not, but I’m definitely going to try it again.

Anyway, from there on it went swimmingly (heheheh). Ben decided to get himself a knife so he could cut his dinner up with a knife and fork like me, and Molly followed suit. Molly decided that salmon is her favourite because it’s pink (note to self: serve more pink foods). Ben STOLE a piece of salmon off Molly’s plate and ate it. Let me repeat that please, for my own benefit – he ACTUALLY FREAKING STOLE A PIECE OF SALMON OFF MOLLY’S PLATE AND ATE IT. Molly devoured her broccoli without stopping to draw breath. Ben squeezed his salmon out of the puff pastry and cut it up and ate it, then ate all his broccoli.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.
©PicklesINK 2012

I stared in mute shock at their empty plates and then offered them dessert. They accepted and happily ate their chocolate stars. And then came the kicker:

Molly: “Tan I pease have some more broccoyi?”

Ben: “And can I have some more salmon? But not the breading this time. I didn’t really like that. Just the fish?”

Molly: “Yeah tan I have some more salmon too?”

Me: *jaw hits the floor*

~ karyn

Toddlers and Tiaras and Toys

Sep11

This.

©PicklesINK

This really, really irritates me. More than irritates me – This really makes me mad. In case you can’t zoom in enough to see, on the left we have the “Fun to Fix Gift Set” and on the right the “Little Glamour Gift Set.”

Let’s break it down: As with most baby toys, you have two options, 1. Unisex; or 2. GIRLY GIRL WITH HEARTS AND SPARKLES.

The “Fun to Fix Gift Set” comes in bright, “unisex” primary colours and is demonstrated by a unisex model baby dressed in pale green waving the toy actively.

The “Little Glamour Gift Set” makes no pretenses about being unisex: demonstrated by a baby girl in a hairband passively smiling at her “diamond” bracelet, the toys are pink and purple with a splash of turquoise and of course a GIANT SPARKLY DIAMOND. The description at www.toysrus.ca reads, “3 glam accessories for that oh-so sweet little one! Give a little glam and – just to be practical – teethable, easy-to-grasp features. Set includes Baby’s First Purse, a Diamond Ring Rattle and two teethers where fashion style meets teething comfort!” (emphases mine). There’s no need to be “practical” of course when it comes to sweet little girls, but hey, they threw that in there as a bonus; “glam” on the other hand is clearly a necessity.

I hate the idea that someone buying a gift for a baby shower walks up to an eye level display that tells them that an appropriate toy for an infant “Aged 3-18 months” is a “diamond ring rattle” and “baby’s first purse!” It’s with only a little hyperbole that I say it’s a hop, skip and a jump, followed by a slow twirl and a flash of whitened teeth in a make-up caked face at the judges, to the pageant world of our favourite train wreck of a TLC show, Toddlers and Tiaras.

http://www.totallifecounseling.com/2012/04/toddlers-tiaras-healthy-or-harmful-are-moms-living-vicariously-through-their-daughters/

The show is considered by those who watch in amused disgust to be so ridiculous that there is even an app on the website where you can “Toddlerize” yourself:

Go for the Supreme Glitz Makeover!

Go from drab to fab with big wigs, sparkly hair-wear,

faux diamonds and more! Mix and match until you’ve

created the ultimate glam-over!

There’s that “glam” again – in this case, high-lighting the over-the-top-ness of “glamming” up your toddler to compete for “Ultimate Grand Supreme” or even better, “Living Doll,” (seriously. click on the link. it’s a real thing.) with its prize of “crowns and mon-nay,” but not so funny after all when you look back at the mainstream toy encouraging you not once but twice to give a little “glam” to your 3-18 month-old.

We have tried really, really hard not to raise a Disney Princess. Ben and Molly play together with their trains, blocks, dollhouse, Playmobil, toy kitchen, dolls, and dress-up chest filled with astronaut, pirate, doctor, chef, firefighter, and fairy costumes. But you can’t necessarily fight nature, and like it or not I have one of the girliest little girls who every reigned as Princess of Girlytown – at 2 Molly insists on choosing her own clothes and 9 times out of 10 her outfit will be monochomatic bubblegum pink. (That 10th time is when all of the pink clothes are in the laundry and I won’t let her wear PJs).

But while I’m happy for her (and Ben, but that’s a whole other post) to wear as much pink and sparkles as she likes (including pink sparkly skull and crossbones nails from the Sally Hansen Salon Effects Avril Lavigne collection. Just awesome), and I don’t think there is anything inherently damaging in sparkly dress-up and accessories in and of themselves…

©PicklesINK

…I still want to make sure she knows that looks and “glam” and diamond rattles aren’t the only important thing. And I’m happy that for the most part that we’ve “come a long way, baby”…

Photo from: http://www.smokernewsworld.com/tobacco-advertising-research-assignment/

…and moved beyond a time when girls concentrated on looking pretty and waiting passively to “make a good match” or packed their bags and went proudly (and prettily) off to university to earn an M.R.S.

But products like the “Little Glamour Gift Set” remind me that we still place a heck of a lot of emphasis on how our little girls look and dress, which teaches them that that is where their true value lies, and it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon or a sociologist to tell you that that is damaging.

So I will take this as a reminder to make sure to balance my “Aww, you look so pretty!“s with a healthy dose of, “You worked so hard on that!“s, “That was such kind sharing!,”s and “Wow, what smart problem-solving, Monkey!“s.

~ karyn

Ben’s review of the German playgrounds

Sep2

I have invited a guest blogger to contribute to this post, and I will let him introduce himself:

My name is Benjamin. I am 5 years old. We went to Germany this August to see Grandma and Grandad and some of my uncles and aunts and cousins. We did some fun things there. We played in lots of parks and I’m going to tell you about the parks.

* Molly, 2 1/2, also contributed some thoughts.

The first park we went to was close to the river. This is a picture of the climber. All the parks in Germany were made of logs and ropes and chains and tires. I thought that was really cool.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of me on the log stairs. You had to climb and hold onto the rope to balance.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is the rope bridge. We needed to use a rope on this bridge too. After we went on the rope bridge we got to the shaky bridge which I call the “Shake-shake bridge.”

©PicklesINK 2012

After you went across the Shake-shake bridge you got to the climber! This is a picture of Molly at the top of the slide.

©PicklesINK 2012

There was a swing made out of rope and it looked like a spider web. You could put 3 kids in that swing!

©PicklesINK 2012

You could pull the bucket in the sandpit up with the chain. It felt light! If you let go of the chain the bucket would fall down fast!

©PicklesINK 2012

There was a stump in the sandpit with little holes you could put sand through.

©PicklesINK 2012

Everyone had fun at the park, even my daddy Ian!

©PicklesINK 2012

One day we went to a Rodelbahn. We went up a mountain on a chairlift and then we came down on a big slide. At the bottom there was a playground with a ride-on clam-digger. We had to put money into the slot to turn the motor on and then when we pulled the levers it would work. The scoop picked up stones and moved them around and dumped them.

©PicklesINK 2012

There was also a helicopter. On the helicopter you also had to put money in the slot and then it would go up. The helicopter’s lever didn’t move but you could push the screw on the top of the lever and it would make sounds.

©PicklesINK 2012

There were also trampolines and we had fun jumping on them.

©PicklesINK 2012

There was also a slide and a sandbox but we don’t have any pictures of them.

One day, we took a walk in the woods and we found a playground! There were stairs to come down to look at the stream. This is a picture of us playing in the stream. Molly added, “That park we went to. I liked it. We went to see a river and grandad come with us and grandma come with us too.”

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of the shaky bridge, which I call the “Shake-shake bridge” too. This shake-shake bridge goes over the river. I called the river that the shake-shake bridge went over “the Logging Pond.” The bridge was really shaky and really high.

©PicklesINK 2012

There was a wooden train. You could only sit on it because it was made of wood and it didn’t make steam because it had a wood funnel but you could pretend you were driving it. Molly says, “And I went on that choo-choo train.”

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of me (Ben) on the climbing tree. I think it was made out of a tree with the leaves taken off and parts of the branches sawed off.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of grandma swinging. I think she is having fun!

We all had a lot of fun playing at that park.

On another day we went on another walk in the woods. There was a xylophone made of wood. I didn’t play a song, I just played it, but Molly played, “It’s a Hard-Knock Life,” and sang.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of me on the see-saw. There was also a jungle gym and a sandbox. To get to the stream you had to go to the other side of the grass. You have to go down the bank to get to the water but you can still see it from the top. You didn’t have to climb down the bank because there were stairs.

©PicklesINK 2012

We went wading in the stream. It was cold! We didn’t see any fish. There weren’t fish in any of the streams but there were fish in the lake.

©PicklesINK 2012

I think this is a picture Molly and Uncle Martin. I think Uncle Martin was going to lift Molly into the swing. This is the swing set and the climber. The slide is really slippery, especially when you’re wet!

©PicklesINK 2012

The last park we went to was on top of a mountain! We took a cable car up the mountain to get to it. When the cable car got to us, so many people got out that I said, “Is this a cable car or a party?”

©PicklesINK 2012

We went so high that we went in the cloud so it was misty at the park because we were inside a cloud. This is a picture of the high tower. It was the highest climber that I have ever seen!

©PicklesINK 2012

There was a shaky bridge which I called a “Shake-shake bridge” too. It was made out of logs hanging with chains.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of Ian on the zip line. There was a green circle that you had to sit and then you pushed off and went really, really fast, as fast as me!! You would go all the way to the end and then come back.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is a picture of Molly and her doll Charlie on the swing. I think the swing was a chair from a chairlift like one at the Rodelbahn. Two people can fit in this swing together.

©PicklesINK 2012

This is the rope climber. It also had those green circles like on the zip line but this time they were for swinging. We could climb all the way up to the top.

©PicklesINK 2012

We were so high up and this is a picture of our view from when we looked down from the cable car on the way down.

©PicklesINK 2012

I thought that the parks in Germany were a lot different then the ones back in Canada. They were a lot of fun. I loved the clam-digger and I love all the Shake-shake bridges. I really want to back and play on them again one day!

~ Ben

(dictated to mommy)

Let’s Go To The Ex – In a Torrential Downpour!

Aug28

We had been planning yesterday’s trip to The CNE for a week – my mom was on vacation and wanted to come, the kids were raring to go and Ben would never have forgiven me if we missed out this year (on the CNE of course, but more importantly on the GO Train ride to the CNE). On Monday morning the sky looked a touch threatening, but the good people at The Weather Network assured me that everything was fine – if anything we would see 5 mm of precipitation in Toronto, and really, does that even qualify as “rain”?

Call that “rain”? Pshaw!
© PicklesINK

But being the never-prepared mom that I am, I packed up snacks and raincoats (even for me!). On the way to the train station, it was a little drizzly, but I thought, “That’s okay – the weather forecast for TORONTO says only 1 mm of rain in the morning.” When I stopped for Starbucks I quipped to the girl at the drive-through that we were on our way to the Ex on this beautiful sunny day, and she laughed nervously, obviously knowing something I didn’t. By the time we got to the train station, it was raining pretty steadily, so I bundled the kids into their raincoats and we made a run for the platform, still optimistic. (“My friends at The Weather Network say close to 5 mm! That’s not even actually 5 mm! And when have they ever been wrong before?”) So we got our tickets, boarded the train, and rattled on towards our destination.

Rain, rain, go away!
© PicklesINK

The highlight of the train ride for Ben was borrowing my camera to take a picture of the tracks.

A pretty good shot for a 5 year-old!
©PicklesINK 2012

Lo and behold my optimism paid off because it was barely raining at all when we got to Exhibition Station and met Nana and our 13 year-old family friend Erdene. The dry spell lasted just long enough for us to buy our tickets and enter the grounds before the heavens opened and let us know what they thought about The Weather Network and their scientifically-based meteorological “predictions.” But we had come this far and we were darn well going to make the best of it!

We made our way, wetly, towards KIDS’ WORLD, detouring along the way into the Arts and Crafts Building, where we visited an amazingly talented designer friend, Naomi, of Designs by Naomi. Always super-generous, she gave each of the kids a cool crocheted hat in their favourite colour.

Ben’s, naturally, green, and Molly’s, of course, pink.
Angelina Ballerina didn’t get one.
©PicklesINK 2012

We continued on to KIDS’ WORLD where we hit up some rides and games. Erdene and I got drenched on the sopping wet Tornado (those foam seats sure hold a lot of water!).

Tornado Ride
Photo credit: http://www.westcoastamusements.com/tornado/

Molly caught a frog in a net to win her new favourite pink stuffed monkey (who she named, aptly enough, “Pinky”) and Ben played a fishing game and won a stuffed fish and crocodile, and then they practiced their foul weather aeronautical skills flying helicopters in the rain.

Coming in for a landing.
© PicklesINK

Then we moved on to our main goal – the KIDS’ WORLD Stage, where Splash ‘N Boots, my Ben and Molly’s favourite kids entertainers were playing at 12:30. We were a bit early for the show, but it was sheltered and we weren’t about to look a gift awning in the mouth! Nana went and got some popcorn and we settled in to snack and watch the roadies set up. Angelina Ballerina came out for a visit and Ben and Molly enjoyed hugging and dancing with her. Ben did lean over to me and whisper, “Mommy, I don’t think that’s really Angelina. I think it’s a person in a costume,” but he was kind enough not to share his observation with Molly.

Much less creepy than
most of the mascots.
©PicklesINK 2012

And then, finally, the main event! Splash ‘N Boots came out and chatted with Ben and Molly for a bit because they’re awesome that way (Yes, ~~I am a~~ Ben and Molly are groupie(s)!). Splash was the first to see the big reveal of Ben’s new semi-permanent hair colour – as it turns out, the dye in his new green hat was not colour-fast.

Perfect for back-to-school!
©PicklesINK 2012

Splash ‘N Boots put on an awesome semi-private show for Ben and Molly and about 5 other families who had sought shelter from the rain. Ben finally got to say his favourite animal (“Kitten!”) into Boots’ microphone (he had chased her around the audience every show before this in vain and even singing the chorus of “KooKooKaMachoo” at the last show was cold comfort). Molly had her turn too, and leaned into the microphone and said very clearly, “My favourite animal is a…” and then wandered off, leaving Ben to fill in, “Monkey!” for her. They also got to hold up their favourite vegetables for “Rockin’ Vegetables,”

©PicklesINK 2012

although Splash ‘N Boots may need to rethink that plan after Molly tried to load hers into the stroller and make her escape.

If I do it very quietly, I’m sure
no-one will catch on…
© PicklesINK

When the show ended we stuck around and monopolized the stars for a little while

and then went back to use up the rest of our ride tickets in what we assumed would be another very brief dry spell! There are a lot of great things about visiting amusement parks/midways in the rain (as a teenager, I always tried to plan my Wonderland visits for rainy days!) – no lines, bored and generally friendly ride operators who give extra-long rides, and the only rides that usually get shut down are the roller coasters that I don’t really like anyway. Really, the only downside was being soaked, and a little rain never hurt anyone. (Okay, almost never.)

And what trip to the fair would be complete without a trip up the Ferris Wheel?!

Finally, we finished the day with a nice, healthy late lunch in the Food Building. I actually managed to resist the Eclair Hot Dog and opted for some Jamaican jerk chicken instead. Ben and Molly had pizza followed, naturally, by Tiny Tom’s Donuts.

Then, having completely exhausted ~~Nana~~ our options, we headed back to the station to catch our train home, and entertained the other riders with conversations like, “Would you like some snack, bud?” “But mommy, you said we weren’t allowed to eat on the train!” “Well, bud, to be honest, that’s just something I said because I didn’t want to get the snack out right then.”

It was an awesome day out and despite the rain (Darn you, Weather Network!) we wouldn’t have missed it!

~ karyn

Giving some old shoes the boot

Aug25

About a year ago I was detoured on my way home because of an accident and drove past a very odd sight: a large tree by the side of the road festooned with hundreds of pairs of shoes.

I had never seen anything like it before and went home and consulted my friend Google, who also had no idea. Since then, the good people of Wikipedia have been hard at work and there is now an entry that would have answered some of my questions, but at the time I had to muddle on in ignorance.

It has since suffered some damage as we’ve had some pretty severe storms in the last year but the most of the shoes seemed to have come through pretty well…at least you wooden know weather or not they were the worse for the wear.

A little while ago I showed it to Ben and Molly and ever since Ben has been eager to add a pair of his shoes to it, so we decided that today was the day. We gathered up a hammer and some nails and two pairs of worn out shoes (Ben’s favourite, worn right through the soles, Thomas sneakers, and Molly’s out-grown and well-scuffed “pretty pretty pink shoes”) and drove out to the tree, where Ian handily nailed found some space and nailed them on.

Ian managed to find room for Ben’s on the trunk

but for Molly’s he had to go out on a limb.

You might think we’re barking mad, and perhaps that is the root of the issue… (okay, I think I’m done now. At least I guess it’s time I leaf it alone. Heheheheheh…) Anyway, now Ben and Molly’s shoes have a place in local history along with other footwear both large and small (Hey, if the shoe fits…).

And Ben and Molly have a fun memory of a family outing to illegally vandalize a natural landmark purely for the sake of entertainment!

But seriously, it was a lot of fun!

~ karyn

Have you seen a shoe tree? Do you know anything more about them?

Out of the mouths of babes

Aug21

This morning I asked Ben the Today’s Parent kid question, “What’s the weirdest thing that your parents do?” He thought about it for a minute and and then answered, “Well, other kids’ parents play with them, but you don’t.” Talk about your kick in the gut…

A lot of other truly excellent and extraordinarily brave mommy bloggers have written lately about depression, like @JDhonestmom from Honest Mom in two particularly stand-out posts, one about how normal people have this and another about hitting a crisis point and then pushing back, and @jessicaesquire from Don’t Mind the Mess guest-blogging at Honest Mom about depression, pregnancy, and nursing.

Now I guess it’s my turn, although Honest Mom’s first post pretty much sums it up for me, so I can basically say “Ditto!” and then move onto the dry, impersonal statistics that I prefer to focus on in situations like this:

According to Statistics Canada, 13.4% or 1 in 7 adults experienced symptoms that met the criteria for a mood disorder at some point in their lifetime with 5:3% reporting those symptoms in the last year (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2006), and studies consistently document higher rates of depression among women than men at a ratio of about 2:1 (Canadian Psychiatric Association, 2001).

Postpartum depression is the most common side-effect of child-bearing and affects an average of 13% of women (O’Hara & Swain, 1996).

My main symptoms seem to be sleep disruptions (I guess it runs in the family!) and anhedonia, which is a fancy word meaning an inability to derive enjoyment from activities that one would normally find enjoyable, like (nail on the head, there, Ben), playing with your kids.

Being depressed sucks, for you and for the people around you (~~possibly~~ ~~probably~~ definitely even more so), and there are a whole host of resources out there, so don’t hesitate to seek them out and use them. The system isn’t perfect, but the faster you go looking for them the sooner you can start feeling better.

Anyhoo, now that I’ve word-vomited that all out there for the whole internet to see, let’s get this sucker taken care of so Ben and Molly can come up with an answer I actually can send in to Today’s Parent. Just as soon as I bring myself to hit “Publish.”

~ karyn

Tobogganing in summer…does life get any better?

Aug18

Two things that the Bavarian Alps have a-plenty are cable cars and Rodelbahns. Cable cars are pretty self-explanatory. As I Google though I am learning that technically what we have been visiting is known as a Sommerrodelbahn (sommer = summer) and an actual Rodelbahn involves snow, but for simplicity’s sake I will refer to it as the latter. Just don’t blame me if you try to Google it and get very confused.

There are of course many ways to climb the mountains – Many enterprising folks choose to walk (often with Nordic walking sticks, which I don’t begin to understand); some even more energetic types run; and we even saw (from our comfortable perch on the cable car) one person cycle up. He was practically standing still, moving up inch by excruciating (I imagine) inch, until he got to the top, turned around, and with an expression of glee let go and sailed back down.

We, however, chose the leisurely and absolutely safe method of riding up on a single-seat open cable car with a metal “safety bar” about 1 cm in diameter. Imagine a rickety lawn chair dangling from a cable 25 feet off the ground carrying you up the side of a mountain. With the kids on our laps.

From an ultra-protective North American standpoint the blasé attitude towards carrying your 2 year-old up a cable car with no more instruction than a bored teenager barking an instruction in German that essentially amounted to “Hold her forwards!” was both terrifying and refreshing. It was all fun and games until Molly tried to slide out of my lap saying, “I want to bounce on that grass!!” (No.)

But we made it up unscathed and arrived at our reward: The Rodelbahn. Essentially, this is a metal track that snakes down the side of the mountain that you rocket down on a plastic sled holding onto a joystick that controls your speed (forwards = faster, backwards = brake). At every curve there’s a sign that says “bremsen” (brake). Yeah, right!! About halfway down there is a speedometer that displays your speed for all to see; You wouldn’t have a hope of being the winner if you were braking safely like a sucker to avoid overturning on all of the corners!! The top recorded speed for us was my sister-in-law’s 38 km/hour. Ben and Molly alternated yelling, “Whee! Super-fast!!” and looking bored all the way down.

It was a great morning out and we actually went back a second time because the ~~adults~~ kids really wanted to ~~have a rematch~~ do it again. Unfortunately (for the kids, who were really interested) the speedometer was broken that time but I think deep down we all knew that I won.

~ karyn

A Kur for what ails ye

Aug13

One of Ben and Molly’s favourite discoveries in town so far is the Kurpark (essentially “spa park”). Many German towns have these and they can be more or less elaborate, incorporating gardens and multiple pools with various types of mineralized (or simply COLD) waters. The Kurpark Ben and Molly have been enjoying is on the smaller side but plenty of fun for two kids. It has been beautifully sunny so the water, which is usually painfully cold, is actually quite comfortable for wading.

There are lovely gardens (if you peer closely at the pictures, Where’s Waldo? style, you may be able to pick out Ian practicing his macrophotography on the flowers), a wading pool, and a basin.

There is a sign explaining how to properly use the Kurpark in order to get all of the health benefits.

According to Google Translate unfortunately we are doing it completely wrong, as we seldom remember that “the most important principle in using cold water is a pre-heated body active” and thus do not warm up first by “moving through brisk gymnastics or running.” We also frequently use the arm and foot baths in quick succession rather than allowing 2 hours to elapse between even though the sign cautions us that this is physiologically wrong and counteracts both uses. I can assure you however that bathing your arms in the basin and then walking through the pool with proper “stork walk” form (lifting each foot completely out of the water with each step) does, as advised, result in a “strong cold stimulus.”

The only trouble is that the Kurpark is actually intended for adults to quietly and contemplatively wade and those who come for that purpose are not always impressed to find my very active 2 and 5 year-old splashing around!

It’s a only 2 minute skip across the road from us so I’m sure we’ll be spending plenty of sunny afternoons there!

~ karyn