Another homeschooling meeting…
Last night I debated on going to the pool or going to the homeschool meeting… I finally decided to do both and just be late at the meeting…
I am really glad I did that because for one, I really wanted to go swimming… and it felt great… and two… I missed the part of the meeting that was them talking about the conference they went to last weekend… when I came in they were just near the end and talking about concentration and how to get kids to concentrate on their work by using a physical stop sign and then having punishments if they need to use the stop sign 3 times…
omg… I was Crawling out of my skin!! and the worse part was that not only was the girl talking about it but she actually made the stop sign and bought the chart that charts the punishment and rewards… She gave the example of giving an assignment and that after doing half or more they ask to do something else so she has been using the stop sign to make them stop and concentrate on doing the rest…
so… I asked… but what if they want to move on after doing half or more because they got the concept and want to go on to the next thing…
she didn’t seem to think that it was a valid reason…
It really annoys me going to these meetings… I like the interaction with a few of the moms, especially 2 of them.. but the other 3 I just have so much trouble getting… they are always in search of the perfect curriculum, working so hard and struggling to get their kids to cooperate and concentrate… while 3 of us are often talking about whatever comes to mind, they are talking about curriculum…
Another thing that came up about the conference was about a writing club and the way they described it it was really cool and is really in line with an unschooling philosophy… letting kids write because they want to, letting them write what they want, not hovering and correcting etc… I said that it sounded really cool and that is what I plan on doing… but then of course the guns went up… it had to be said that it was only a writing club it is just for fun… but in real life learning kids can’t do that all of the time…
umm…. WHY NOT ??!!!
I just don’t get it… I don’t get them…
Why must the love of learning need to squashed by stop signs, punishments, rewards and overbearing parents?
we didn’t schedule another meeting for now… I am glad about it… I am not sure I want to go back….
Filed under My Rants, Unschooling | Comments (4)and here we go again…
no I am not pregnant 
but today… just a few days shy of Khéna being 17 months I got my first PPAF… (Post-partum “Aunt-Flo” for those that are not familiar with the lingo)
With the firt two boys I got my PPAF at about 9 months… when they started to walk and nurse less in the day and started eating solids… With Khéna though, he did not slow in nursing at all when he started milestones… he didn’t have those normal periods where he was more wakeful at night either…
But slowly, he has been nursing less and when I got really crampy and irritable at the begining of the week, I knew that it would not be long…
the bloating could also be a reason that the scale showed so much of a difference as today I am now 5 lbs less then I was when I weighed myself on Wednesday…
Though I do and did enjoy the time that I don’t have to go through the monthly rituals… I do have to say that being able to start charting again and knowing what my body is doing makes things a bit easier for me…
Maybe one day I would like to have another child but I don’t think it is the right time at the moment… I want the boys to grow a bit before…
Filed under Breastfeeding, My Life, weight | Comment (0)What colour are white marshmallows?
Wanting to make some homemade snack bars that the boys love… (made with cereal, granola, nuts, seeds, dried fruit and a few chocolate chips and held together with marshmallow) I picked up some marshmallows at the grocery store over the weekend…
Xavier has been asking me to make them since then…
So this morning I get out a few things and just as I was about to open the bag of marshmallows I noticed the ingredient list…
“colouring”
Why I didn’t check while at the grocery store? I don’t know…
If you have been reading here for a while, or have read the archives a bit we have been avoiding food colouring for the boys for about a year and half… Colin has physical reactions and Xavier has behavioural…
Dr Feingold and the diet he promotes has been telling families with hyperactive children to avoid food colourings (along with other foods and additives) for a long time believing that they are linked to behaviour problems…. and these diets have helped many families dealing with ADHD and an array of other problems… and though I have never read any of the books and don’t follow the diet I do think that there is a lot of truth in his ways of thinking…
however… for many the link between a cracker or a yogourt and behavioural problems is something that is hard to grasp and the fact that food colouring is in so many foods makes it really hard to avoid even when you eat mostly whole foods…
I hadn’t seen but last year there was finally a study…
Though Feingold was proved to be right that food colouring can aggravate the symptoms of ADHD… and that avoiding them can have great effects… the link had never been made officially between “normal” kids and behavioural problems linked directly to food colouring and additives.. until now…
Background
We undertook a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to test whether intake of artificial food colour and additives (AFCA) affected childhood behaviour.Methods
153 3-year-old and 144 8/9-year-old children were included in the study. The challenge drink contained sodium benzoate and one of two AFCA mixes (A or B) or a placebo mix. The main outcome measure was a global hyperactivity aggregate (GHA), based on aggregated z-scores of observed behaviours and ratings by teachers and parents, plus, for 8/9-year-old children, a computerised test of attention. This clinical trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials (registration number ISRCTN74481308). Analysis was per protocol.Findings
16 3-year-old children and 14 8/9-year-old children did not complete the study, for reasons unrelated to childhood behaviour. Mix A had a significantly adverse effect compared with placebo in GHA for all 3-year-old children but not mix B versus placebo. This result persisted when analysis was restricted to 3-year-old children who consumed more than 85% of juice and had no missing data . 8/9-year-old children showed a significantly adverse eff ect when given mix A or mix B when analysis was restricted to those children consuming at least 85% of drinks with no missing data.
Interpretation Artificial colours or a sodium benzoate preservative (or both) in the diet result in increased hyperactivity in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the general population.
I know that there are some that brush this off because their kids might not become more active after eating food additives or either don’t believe it or just don’t care… Think if the bad rep that sugar has gotten as parties and how it has been proven to not be the cause for the hyperactivity… what if it was the all of the food colouring and additives that have really been the culprit all along… the fact that food additives that have NO other function than to make a food look prettier and can have such an impact on behaviour is scary at best and I know for sure that I will never be able to turn a blind eye…
and the white marshmallows…. I called the number on the back of the package to ask what colouring was used… they have blue… but couldn’t say whether it was #1 or #2….
Filed under Medical Maladies, My Rants | Comments (5)Two new dresses…
There are two new dresses up on my site…
I put a lot of work and detail into these dresses….
One is a 24m/2y in green tones…
the other…
4y in pinks..
both can fit a bit larger and smaller because of the shirring and the adjustable straps…
Filed under Crafts, Shameless self-promotion | Comment (0)wanting to go back home…
Though I was born in Montreal, I was raised in BC for critical childhood years of my childhood…
Nelson, BC in the late 70’s/early 80’s was a unique place to live… it is still unique.
My mom and I found a great community there… the friends that we made quickly became our family… when we left it broke my heart and I knew that one day I would return… I want to return…
It has always been in the back of my mind but now it is right there, every day…
I want to go back home, I want to return to the family that we made there when I was young… that is still there… I want to raise my kids there…
It is scary move though and with the lack of support that we have here I am not sure how we would do it… finding a job, selling the house, moving our family of five across the country on limited funds…
I just feel that my life is at a standstill at the moment and that I need to do it…
Well see if it is meant to be…
Filed under My Life | Comments (4)Feminism and unschooling and more…
Here is an article that was shared with me recently…
Feminism is a funny thing…
For some it may mean that women need to be completely independent, need to work, not have kids and not go into any other role than the independent womyn figure that would never trust a man if her life depended on it…
For some it means juggling both worlds of kids and family and then working out of the home to be “equal” to men.
And for some… being at home, raising kids in the way that is the best ways… not the mainstream ways…. is an act of feminism… However, I think that a lot of self proclaimed feminists see this as being impossible, but it isn’t…
The way I see it is that for a while, feminism was about equality in status as human beings. The right to vote, the right to speak, the right to work with equal pay, not one more important than the other…
Equal… but… not the same…
However… sometime, somewhere, it seemed to change…
I remember when I was in university and hanging out in some feminist circles and feminism was no longer about equality, it was about men-bashing… it was about surpassing men, it was about taking over… Instead of being equal, it has become about leaving the role of woman and motherhood behind and looking at it as something to be ashamed of…
However, my choice of staying at home, raising my children, making my own choices about the way I birth is part of the way that I express who I am as a woman…
So, taking back my womanhood, taking back my body in birth by UCing, taking back my role as mother and nurturing and raising my children in the ways that feel right naturally and not because of a stigma, breastfeeding, co-sleeping and now unschooling, all in the while of being an equal partner within my relationship with my husband and partner in life is the way I express my feminism…
Men have in most part shaped the society that we live in, they in many ways formed the ways that society in general raises children…
Men were the physicians that wanted women to birth in unnatural positions so that they could “see better”, not caring at all that the birth on the back position makes it harder on women to birth and can put babies at risk…
Men were the ones that have made breasts sexual and that have put stigmas on breastfeeding and were the physicians that perpetuated the myths that formula was not dangerous and that often was better than breastfeeding even though they could not be further from the truth…
And it goes on and on… Men have made many mistakes, and it is up to us to change things, however, correcting those mistakes by taking on the same family roles as the men in the past is not the way to go and in my opinion is doing a disservice to the children…
So going back to that article and unschooling, well… I don’t agree with all of it but I think that some good points were brought up in the article and in the comments… unschooling and feminism don’t only come together in the ways that the author is describing, it is about more.
It is about teaching our own children, it is about letting them make their own choices for what is right for them and recognizing that they too are equals in our society, it is about recognizing that the school systems that have been set up clearly do not work for all children and there are serious flaws and that it is part of the role I choose of motherhood to give my children the best chances they have to be happy in life…
Filed under Alternative Parenting, My Rants, Unschooling | Comments (3)quiet…
It is freezing outside today and I am cuddled up on the couch and enjoying the little bit of quiet that I have at the moment.
Simon got out his old Star Wars toys from the shed yesterday and the boys stayed up late last night playing and I finished the skirt that I was making and I am now thinking of my next project. A late night for the boys meant that they also woke up later than usual and the moment that they got up they went downstairs to play only stopping for a few minutes to eat… and they are amazingly playing… not fighting and are having fun together….
Khéna just fell asleep and I layed him down in his new “big boy bed” that Simon also got out of the shed yesterday. He is so proud to have his own bed and earlier this morning I helped him climb up onto it and he spend about 30 min there just sitting up, laying down, playing with a stuffed puppy and looking at a book…
Last night I layed him down in his bed and he slept there for a few hours before waking up and spending the rest of the night cuddled in our bed…
so at the moment, I am drinking tea, incense is burning, the house is quiet with just slight noises of the boys playing together and I just feel really content at the moment…
Filed under My Life | Comment (0)The good and the bad…
What a day…
It was Khéna’s appt for the allergist today.. so Simon took the day off do that he could be with the boys while I go to the hospital. We headed into Montreal this morning and I dropped the guys off a the pool which we thought would be a fun thing for them to do together…
I headed for the hospital, found a parking space and started waiting… when we finally got into see the Allergist and going through the symptoms he had etc she said that is sounded viral and that if I didn’t want it we could just skip the allergy tests so that he didn’t have to through it all.. So I said that I agree and then she said to just start introducing a bit of everything… even peanuts can be introduced at anytime but just to watch him carefully after we do…
So, we left without testing which made us in advance to go get Simon and the boys… So I headed to Bummis for some Covers which we need and then went and waited for the guys…
Simon came out and I saw that he wasn’t too happy… turns out that he got robbed while he was in the pool… the lock on the locker was gone and they took his debit card, buss pass, some money and his work identity cards… thankfully they didn’t get his wallet and his Palm which was in his Coat… Some people really suck…. The thing that hurts us the most is the buss card.. 207$ down the drain… That really cuts into our budget…
Of course today is also the day that I bought a new wrap… I needed something more supportive than my EllaRoo’s because of Khéna’s weight… so now I have a Storchenwiege Inka! I can’t wait to try it!
Filed under Babywearing, Family Life, My Rants | Comment (0)A few Babywearing articles for sale
still waiting…
I know… I have said it before…
I MISS HAVING A CAMERA!!!!
I just really hope that I get it before Hallow’een… and to top it off… Khéna is increasingly near to walking… he took a few steps the other day… I don’t want to miss those moments….
I have been tracking it on the Canada Post site and it was at a stand still for more than a week… and then there was a bit of progress on Friday…
2007/10/27 00:28 International shipment has arrived in Canada
2007/10/26 19:29 VILLE ST-LAURENT, QC International item has arrived in Canada
2007/10/18 14:54 International item has left the origin country and is en route to Canada
2007/10/18 14:42 International shipment has left the origin country and is en route to Canada 2007/10/15 13:46 International item has been posted in origin country
I have a bit of hope still that it will get here soon… but when I do internet searches my hope seems to dwindle with all of the postal horror stories… sometimes Google should not be used…
Filed under Misc Ramblings, My Rants | Comment (0)
