Wild, Reading!

Harassing the chickens with dirt clods while dressed half in pajamas and half in backwards pants... and reading Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car while Malachi naps. The latter is more peaceful and requires less clean-up and discipline but I'm trying to convince myself that both types of activities are important!

Some of Toby's favorite books lately have been:

• Happy Birthday Moon (this was the first "real" book that he read almost entirely by himself without having it read to him first)
• Today I Will Fly
• A Carousel Tale
• All the McDuff books by Rosemary Wells

Malachi loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar and any book with animals in it.

Toddler Wearing Straightjacket Wrangling

Tobias, 8 days old

Malachi, 3 weeks old

Babywearing. Someone (Martha Sears, actually) thought up this word to describe what people have been doing for a long time: giving themselves a free hand while keeping their baby close with some sort of carrier. The word "baby" is in babywearing, and many articles focus on the benefits to tiny ones such as increased milk supply, bonding, and how newborns are calmed by the familiar sounds, smells,  and motions of mom's body.

All well and good, and soon that tiny one is running around (in fact, babywearing may help babies' sense of balance develop) and weighs three times what they did when they were born. Can a good carrier still be useful, comfortable, practical, and helpful to the relationship when the baby is now a toddler? Yes! If I had to choose, I would probably go without the high chair than without the ring sling (my favorite all-purpose carrier). Malachi is 15 months old and I probably use it 3-5 times a day.

Checking the chickens, letting him watch while I stir something in the kitchen, running to the mailbox down the block, or walking through the grocery store...sometimes it is better to have your toddler right where you can keep an eye on them. It's also great for clingy phases or sick kids.

I asked a few friends what their thing about "wearing" a toddler is, and their responses ranged from practical to humorous to sweet:

• "I don't step on him while making dinner"
• good for hiking
• more secure or safer than the grocery cart seat
• a calm place where he/she can nurse or sleep when out and about
• the toddler gets to interact with adults in a different way because they are at eye level
• able to get things done around the house without the toddler undoing them
• "It's comforting for both of us"

Ready to go grab some eggs outside

Swung around to my back so he can't grab!

Eczema Experiments

Right around Christmas Malachi's inner knees turned bright pink. Maybe the extra layers of clothing or leggings triggered it, or eating more variety of solid foods, we don't know. Soon it was also showing up on his forehead, elbows, and under his earlobes. 

February 14: the scratches on his face are from a dishwasher incident unrelated to eczema

"Eczema," diagnosed the other moms at church, and sure enough he soon began to scratch at it.
Our first attempt to soothe it was to rub with coconut oil, since that is antibacterial, antifungal, and moisturizing. We melted in a few drops of lavender essential oil too since that is good for healing skin. This mixture seemed to take some of the dryness and roughness away. We still put this on 2-4 times a day.

The next thing we added (around February 12 I think) was a hazelwood necklace, which is supposed to help various problems in the body (eczema and reflux/heartburn are the most common uses I've heard) by absorbing acid and therefore correcting the pH of the body. Depending on the person's body chemistry, they last for around 6 months. Not all eczema is connected with a pH imbalance, but supposedly 70% of people see some improvement with the necklaces. I wanted to make sure that any improvements I noticed were not just wishful thinking, so I took pictures of his knees when I put the necklace on.

February 19

February 25

The necklace has been on for almost two weeks and I think there has been a definite improvement, although it is definitely still itching. The spots under his earlobes that were bleeding and cracking are completely gone, the dryness around the corners of his eyes is also gone (haven't been putting any oil there since it's so close to his eyes), and his knees look somewhat better too.

I hope that we can figure out what is triggering this, or that he outgrows it.

Citrus Cake in the Bread Machine

Perhaps your oven is in use with another project, your house is too hot to use the oven, or you simply feel the need to justify your $12 thrift store purchase of a bread machine. All these would be perfect opportunities to use your bread machine to whip up a tasty citrus cake (a copycat of the Starbucks Lemon Loaf). My recipe is based on this one, which might be a better option to try if you're just going to do it in the regular oven.

If your machine has a dough setting and a bake setting, you can basically override the the machine's preprogrammed routines and use it somewhat like an easy-bake oven. I have used a similar method to make cornbread in the bread machine. Some bread machines also have a specific cake setting. I have a Breadman TR875.

Cake:

1 c flour

1/2 c. oatmeal flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

3 eggs

1 c. sugar

2 T. butter, melted

1 t. vanilla

1/3 c. lemon juice

1/2 c. coconut oil, melted

zest of one orange or lemon

Glaze:

1 c. powdered sugar

2 T lemon juice

Put all ingredients in bread machine and put on "dough" cycle. Use a small rubber spatula to help scrape the flour out of the corners and bottoms while it mixes. When thoroughly mixed, cancel the dough cycle, reach in and pull out the mixing paddle, and turn on the "bake" option for approximately 1 hour or until the middle is done. Remove, cool, and pour the glaze over the top.

M: 14 months

While the men were off in Portland, Malachi and I had a fun day. He set foot in the library for the first time (I'm pretty sure I've always held him or had him in the ring sling before) and enjoyed checking out his own books at the self-checkout machine just like Toby always does. He is pretty insistent about doing things a certain way: getting his own hymnal from the pile at church, eating his own food with utensils just like everyone else, and having a bedtime book just like Toby. His favorite bedtime book is the farm book, because it has pictures of blueberries, chickens and puppies. He recently added "woof woof" to his vocabulary and enjoys feeding Toby's stuffed dog.

Book Review: Last Child in the Woods

When we bought our house, we were aware that for as long as we live here, out kids will grow up in a different outdoor environment than we did. No "Basil's bushes", no "swamp", no cornfields nearby. We have taken countermeasures...chickens, garden, camping, traveling. And I hope they will grow up having many opportunities to be amazed at God's creation as children and adults.

Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder was an interesting read on the results of having a generation of kids growing up disconnected from the natural world they live in, and what some of the solutions might be. It's not just TV and gadgets keeping kids away from nature, it's also the busy society we live in, fear of lawsuits and kidnapping (we feel like we can't let kids play in vacant lots or back woods anymore; many of the risky activities my Dad enjoyed as a child would simply not happen today), organized sports that take kids outdoors but don't give them an opportunity to connect with the natural world, and even environmentalists who work to forbid things like kite-flying, bug collecting, fishing and tree houses in order to "protect" nature. 

The result is children (and eventually adults, because kids grow up, right?) who know a lot of politically correct factoids about recycling and endangered species, but couldn't name most local plants or animals or care about protecting them. Elaine Brooks is quoted in the book saying "people are unlikely to value what they cannot name" (page 41) . I found this interesting in light of man's first task of naming the animals. 

Other societal problems linked with nature deficit are obesity, mental health problems (including skyrocketing depression in preschoolers and young children), lack of creativity, poorer motor skills in children, and a poor foundation for understanding things like the laws of physics. Unstructured outdoor play time (think building forts and mixing mud soup) is the ultimate open-ended toy and helps kids develop skills like setting goals, experimenting, and calculated risk-taking. ADD/ADHD is also an increasingly common diagnosis in today's kids. There are different theories about why this is, but it is noted that increased TV time increases the possibility of kids being diagnosed. Time in nature may not be able to fully prevent attention problems, but there is interesting research showing that when people experience "directed attention fatigue", they become agitated, impulsive, and unable to concentrate. Nature tends to hold our involuntary attention (fascination, the opposite of directed attention) and gives our directed attention a break. We are better able to concentrate after time spent outdoors in nature. 

Chapter 12 asks "Where Will Future Stewards of Nature Come From?"; I liked the wording of this question since I believe humans were given a role of stewardship by God. Many kids today are either scared of nature (because of the fictional or dramatized accounts they see in the media), or bored and let down by nature (because it isn't as exciting as the fictional accounts in the media). Boredom in general, the book contends, is a relatively new concept, culturally. In Medieval times, the state of boredom and listlessness was called Acedia, and it was considered a precursor to sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Acedia was thought to devalue the world and it's creator. 

Part V of the book (Chapters 16 and 17) talk about how schools and camps can better encourage kids to benefit and learn from nature and natural play. Whether that be lessons, field trips, gardens, or differently designed playgrounds, there are many things schools can do. There is solid research along with anecdotal evidence described in the book. This section of the book was perhaps my favorite, as education is a field I can have an impact on, unlike things discussed in later chapters like city planning and plant genetic research. I would recommend that educators skim through these chapters even if you don't have time to read the whole book. The last book I read (not counting kids' books) was about the educational methods of Charlotte Mason, a British Christian educator who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Among other distinctive ideas, she emphasized spending time outdoors and nature study as a subject. As a Christian, I admire her perspective and how her goal was to keep the love of learning alive. Reading these two books consecutively gave a unique perspective.

I didn't take as many notes on the end of the book...it was late, my pencil was lost, excuses excuses. The section on urban planning offered interesting (if a bit "ecotopian") scenarios of how future development in our country could be designed to allow people, especially children, to benefit from and connect with the physical world of nature. There were also some good examples of existing small and large communities that have done this without turning into hippie communes. Sioux Falls, South Dakota even got a mention as a growing diverse city that some people are moving to, or moving back to, in order to get away from the commotion of the big cities. America has historically valued keeping pockets of open green space within big cities too (for example, New York's Central Park) and planners of new areas can imitate and expand on those traditions.

The last section of the book: "To Be Amazed", discussed the spiritual implications of the disconnect from God's creation. Being as the book is not written from a specifically Christian perspective and quotes a wide variety of people, I found plenty to disagree with. No, I do not think it would be good news if Sunday School started to sound a lot like Ecology 101. I believe that God reveals himself most powerfully in his Word and in his Son; experiences in the beauty and order of God's creation can draw us to praise him, and we are designed to interact with the rest of God's creation, but "nice spiritual experiences" in nature are of no use without Christ. Some of the people quoted in the book elevated nature too much, but I enjoyed the comments from Suzanne Thompson, a "religiously conservative Christian" who is suspicious of the "environmental agenda" and bioegalitarianism, yet realized something had to be done to change her neighborhood. She felt the area was sterile and unsafe for children, so she ripped up her front yard and built a natural-feeling courtyard with Adirondack chairs where neighborhood kids and adults were free to socialize together. Whatcom County, WA (Lynden area), "steeped in Dutch religious traditions" is mentioned on page 300 for it's citizens striving to live out their faith and care for the land they are entrusted with.

This doesn't fit chronologically into my review, but I enjoyed the biographical tidbits about famous people and their experiences with nature as children: Ansel Adams, Beatrix Potter, Ben Franklin, and others that you might not expect were shaped by their early exploration "in the woods".

We'll always be a technology family and I hope my kids are not just proficient, but downright brilliant with a computer. But there will continue to be limits on screen time in our house. After reading this book I would be less likely to choose a computer-based school or curriculum for the kids, and I will be conscious of taking them to natural areas to play, not just structured playgrounds, as well as encouraging creative outdoor play in our own yard space.

What about you? What were your favorite "wild places" as a child and what did you learn there? What are you doing to give the children in your life that same opportunity?

Toby and Grandpa H. at Bateman Island this fall shortly after getting his cast off.

Rotating Meal Plan

Every New Year's Resolution is about food, right? I didn't make any hard and fast actual resolutions, but I do have a few food inspirations that I would like to try...things that sound healthy, fun, or just interesting. Sprouts, mozzarella, bottling a batch of pop, kefir!

But it doesn't help to burn yourself out on an über-healthy meal or project, and then the next day have no meal ideas, does it. I have that problem sometimes. I bet you do too.

I have tried, with varying success: making a meal list (ideas that I have the ingredients for on hand) and crossing things off it as I go, using saymmm.com to plan out a week at a time, freezer cooking for a month, and the old "just wing it" method. For January, February, and March I am going to try a 2-week rotating base meal plan. I can always substitute something "more interesting", but at least I have a default idea to fall back on.

When the seasons change I can either make a new 2-week rotation, or ditch this method and do something else. My goals were to aim for not too much dairy, use a moderate (for us) amount of meat, and try to use things like frozen applesauce that tend to get forgotten about in the freezer. There are a variety of recipes and variations that can be used for some of the things like soup, pizza, and stir fry. It may need some tweaking or juggling around yet, but hopefully it is a good start!

Winter Meal Plan Week A
Monday: make a snack, stir fry and rice for supper
Tuesday: make yogurt, burritos or quesadillas for supper
Wednesday: BBQ chicken or pork sandwiches + applesauce
Thursday: Goulash
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: Breakfast for supper (French Toast, Pancakes, Waffles, etc.)
Sunday: Baked Chicken (raspberry, BBQ, basil, or other flavoring) and apple crisp for Sunday dinner


Winter Meal Plan Week B
Monday: make a snack, Soup and bread/biscuits for supper
Tuesday: make yogurt, noodles with chicken or tuna for supper
Wednesday: egg casserole or breakfast burritos
Thursday: Fish + squash or sweet potato
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: lentil taverns or shepherd's pie
Sunday: lasagna

Hij blijft trouw aan alle generaties

My grandma says she started playing organ in church around age 14. She is certainly talented and I sneaked a little video of her playing the piano a few days ago on her 82nd birthday that I will post later.

My dad took this "Koraal" (Chorale) of Psalm 100 from Grandma's falling-apart psalm book and framed it with music notes made from piano hammers. It will have a special place in my music room.

What Child is This?

The reading: many possibilities where those genes came from. But the dancing...is a mystery.

Pretzel Rods

There is nothing new under the sun, or on Pinterest: others have already done a good job of listing and photographing all the picturesque and tasty things one can do with pretzel rods. My 3 tips to emphasize are:

1. Make sure you don't have too much chocolate on the pretzel or the toppings will drip off.
2. It helps to work as a team: one person rotates the pretzel over a dish while the other sprinkles.
3. For the white drizzled over chocolate (or vice versa) it was easiest to spoon up some melted chocolate, and pour it out in the thin stream from the spoon while passing the pretzel underneath. Move the pretzel, not the spoon.

We used toffee bits, crushed peppermints, various sprinkles, coconut flakes, and the ones with a lumpy "spiral" around them have a stretched-out caramel (think play-dough snake) wrapped around them before dipping. The styrofoam tray was our cooling rack. We barely snooped at all, so I'm going to have to make a few for myself at home with the leftover ingredients.

Happy Birthday, Little Turkey!

Happy Birthday to our upwardly mobile (that means "climbs on the table"), goofy, curly-haired determined little helper. We are all thankful to God for Malachi's first year!

• Plays the kazoo happily, or unhappily: it's kind of funny to hear him cry into a kazoo. Sometimes accompanies himself with a rattle.
• Loves guacamole, pickles, peas, squash, popcorn. Whatever everyone else is eating. 
• Says Ma (mom) Da (Dad),  dih (this, or what's this), dat (that, or what's that) and num-num-num.
• Enjoys animals, both real and in books.
• 7 teeth in front and 1 molar trying to come through, ouch!
• In his spare time he cooks imaginary soups, plays the foot pedals on the organ (or the keyboards if he gets a chance), and researches topics such as "Sheep in a Jeep" in his personal library.

Harvest Season

Sprout Snap Diaper Cover Tutorial

Although there are plenty of diapers around our house now to last from one wash until the next, I've been sewing a few new covers and donating or selling the old ones that didn't fit as well or were becoming a bit worn. It's kind of satisfying to accomplish something concrete, and besides the snap pliers is a lot of fun! Tobias picked out the monster fabric for this particular one.

I like diaper covers with flaps on the top and bottom to hold the absorbent insert in place. Helps a little when trying to dress a wiggler.

I found this tutorial that is very similar to what I did, but my snap placement and leg binding was different, so I thought I would post a mini-tutorial explaining how I sewed them.

• I printed the Sprout Snap pattern and marked where I wanted the inner flaps to come down to (see the little notches outside the thick black line?).

• I cut out the pattern from the monster PUL fabric, and the inner flaps from plain white PUL (it's cheaper). In between the marked notches, I added about 1/3 inch beyond the seam allowance; the extra fabric is to fold over and create the casing for the leg elastic.

• Right sides together, I sewed the white flaps to the top and bottom of the main monster piece.

• Put in back elastic and casing.

• Applied snaps to wings and front (there is a reinforcing layer of scrap PUL so that each snap is placed through 2 layers of fabric).

• Tacked in leg elastic, then folded over the "extra" allowance and sewed it into a casing. The elastic must be stretched quite tightly or the legs will gap open.

• Finished off by topstitching around the front and back. 

Sneaky Swap

Heather's One Month of Less posts motivated me to take on a few projects to simplify and organize our sometimes-cluttered house.

One idea that was successful was a puzzle trade. I chose 2 less-favorite puzzles, posted them on a local baby buy/sell/swap board (like Craigslist) with the message that I wanted to trade them for puzzles of similar quality and age level. Someone took me up on it, we sent pictures of the puzzles to each other, then met in the Winco parking lot to exchange, and I hid the "new" puzzles away for birthday or Christmas. Something new, without making our pile of puzzles too big for its' home on top of the organ.

Shhhh...don't tell Malachi, he will probably be opening these for a gift in the next few months!

Parkity Park

The cast has been off for over a month now, Toby is walking (even running and sometimes climbing), and the weather is still park-able. Indoors, we're enjoying the usual: Duplos, music, books, and snacks.

John 15:5
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Animal Crackers

Today we had a friend here for the first "Letter of the Week" day.
We chose a theme of animals and animal crackers. I rolled out the dough ahead of time and the boys liked cutting out the animals.

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.
What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love most! 

M: 10.75 months

He's not quite 11 months yet; 11 months sounds so old. I'm going to post while he's still 10 months old...I'm trying to enjoy what little baby-ness is left in him.

• 7 teeth, loves popcorn and peas
• Doesn't use his arms to balance anymore when walking around. Rarely crawls.
• Climbed up a chair and onto the kitchen table for the first time this morning
• Picks up on a lot: Last night he was in the ring sling and watching me form bread into rolls. Right before I started to slap the first one into shape he excitedly started slapping my arm. First I thought he was imitating me, until I realized I hadn't started slapping yet.
• Missed Dad while he was in Portland on a trip: was excited to see him on video chat but then progressively got more upset that he wasn't "real".
• Occasionally signs more, food, water, please. Gets his messages across pretty well.
• Sad to leave mom during ECHO or lessons at home

B-B-Butterflies

If you search Pinterest for "pretzel butterfly", you'll find lots of cute colorful ways to make winged creatures out of crispy twisties. Ours turned out looking a lot more like moths: brown and fat. Oh well, they'll for sure all be gone before they turn fuzzy!

Easy Peasy Frozen Yogurt

But no peas involved. Unless you want them!

• 1 quart (4 cups) yogurt. We used peach!
• 1 3/4 cups milk. We used vanilla coconut milk, which already has a little sweetness and flavor. Whole milk was recommended by the original recipe I based this on.
• Optional mix-ins. We added frozen apricot chunks. You could add vanilla if your milk isn't already flavored

Mix first two ingredients and process with a 2 quart ice cream maker for 25 minutes or what the ice cream machine recommends. Throw in the fruit at the end. I think this recipe would be really good with blueberries and blueberry yogurt!

Brothers at Play. Or work.

For the 8 weeks of cast, Toby and Malachi's play together was limited to "wrestling" on the floor.

Here is some video from today and yesterday...4 to 5 days after getting the cast off. After walking to the mailbox they didn't want to come inside because they were having too much fun pushing each other around on the tractor. Now that's what I've been waiting to see!