So . . . I've signed them up for a week of cooking classes! I believe kids need to learn, from a young age, their way around the kitchen, how to make the basic things in life that they need, and confidence in what they create. I learned these things as a child (thank you Mom!) and thus grew into an adult who can cook for herself and feed others a variety of things. It's a basic living skill that far too many kids lack. I know, because I've met the adults who never learned this stuff. But as I can't bear to teach them myself, or better yet let them loose to explore the culinary world on their own, I chose Spring Break Chef Camp to do it for me. in the meantime I'll spend this week learning to chill out a lot more, so when they are done I can let them show me all they learned, and start sharing the meal-making responsibilities. A win-win no?
Day 1 they made pancakes with blueberry syrup, and the tastiest granola bars I've ever had. Day 2 they came home with these sugary concoctions:
Monkey Bread (think cinnamon bun doughnut holes) and Chocolate Espresso Ice cream cone cupcakes. Yikes.
Day 3 brought forth gross-looking (but very tasty) filled burrito things (think salsa+cream cheese= pink goo), mint chocolate chip ice cream and fruit kabobs.
Day 4 ended with banana chocolate chip cookies and pizza.
Leif couldn't resist getting a few afternoons of soccer camp in this week. he was full of energy from all that baking!
The weather turned gorgeous for part of this week and we spent hours outside on our street. Throwing handfuls of cherry blossom petals into the air to make snow, riding bikes and rollerblading. Leif found my (never-in-use-anymore) rollerblades in the garage and with 4 pairs of socks, sort of made them fit. Now I am a wobbly blader at best, but Leif took to it with no problems, and then Hannah followed suit. I impressed upon them the importance of learning to stop FIRST, but it mainly fell on deaf ears. As for the kids, there was only one fall, and Hannah recovered just fine. We're going to scope out the used sporting goods store next week for a couple pairs for the offspring.
When Leif wasn't baking. rollerblading or playing soccer, he managed to squeeze some Scrabble games with me into the remaining hours of the week.
Hannah has been rocking out with the newly-discovered recording piano feature. She now either records herself, then when it plays back she accompanies herself playing extra arts of the song, or she dances to the music she's made. It's a really cool creative thing to watch. We were watching Willow last night and afterwards she jumped up and played the theme song perfectly on the first try. Leif was very impressed.
Hannah has been working away on one of her drawing books. It's called Doodle All Year by Taro Gomi, author of such family favorites as Everyone Poops and My Friends. Each page offers a bit of the picture and asks her to fill in the rest. "What vegetables are growing in this field?", "Where is this car going?". It's a great project and she's enjoying herself. In the past she would just whip through books like this, thinking the goal was to complete it, not enjoy and experience it. It's nice to see her slowing down.
As she's no longer enamored with being a pilot for the Snowbirds when she grows up, Hannah is now practicing to be a thief. She's set up a pretend house in the kitchen, using the puppet theatre as a window, and practices sneaking in. She added to the challenge by setting up booby-traps (golf tees) around the perimeter.
In the meantime, she's come up with another way to earn some coin:
Her first busking stand. Combining of course her recent drumming skills with her desire for capital growth.
The supportive audience:
In our Avonlea viewing this week we ran into the Suffragette movement. This tied in perfectly with International Women's Day. I found a book at the library called You Forgot Your Skirt Amelia Bloomer which addresses an issue I've talked to them about many times before. Being a slave to societal norms when you do not agree with them is not worth it. Amelia Bloomer hated the heavy, tight dresses she was expected to wear, that limited her movement and ability to enjoy play and work. Her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton hated that women had no rights, especially the right to vote. In their own ways, each of them changed women's lives forever. Nowadays women subject themselves to such lunacy as high heels that hurt and will potentially mess up your feet and back as you age, never mind greatly limit your movement and abilities while you're young. They spend money on make-up and hair-dye and the *latest fashions* just to look like everybody else. And men get stuck in it too, trying to keep up with what the covers of men's magazines and music videos tell them men should look like. Leif and Hannah run into this often when children argue with them about what a boy or girl looks like. These children actually argue about their gender, disbelieving my kids when they patiently explain that in fact girls *can* have short hair, and boys *can* have long hair. It's such insanity that at this young age stereotypes are already firmly enmeshed in the minds of many. The kids enjoyed this book, finding the logic appealing and the drawings humourous.
Another Avonlea episode dealt with inventions. There is a character played as the eccentric, bumbling recluse who makes 'crazy things' that are often flops. He invents a ringing tea kettle, a plane (that does not fly) and raises bats to learn how they 'see' with their poor eyesight in the dark. He hypothesises that they use echo-location and talks about how useful such a tool could be for planes and boats. Leif did not understand how they could not know about these things back then. I explained how we form a world view based on what we know, and often necessity is the impulse to learn more and to ask questions. It is because we can imagine something that we need or could use that sparks our impulse to make that something, or that a commonly held belief that doesn't sit well with what we think can lead to finding different answers (Darwin). Just as evolution was discounted by so many people in those times (and still today), things that exist today that are commonplace for him did not exist even when I was a kid, let alone in the time of Avonlea. (While I can recall my first CD, my grandfather remembered when ice was delivered on a buggy. Who knows what will be the norm in these kid's adulthood.)
Did you notice what happened at the tail-end of this week? Spring arrived!!!
We took a trip to Vancouver and visited Van Dusen Gardens for some much-needed plant appreciation and family times. It was a blast.
Our first stop was a visit to Nana's bench. Kit's grandmother was the master gardener of the family (a title his own mother is in charge of now) and when she passed away the family dedicated a bench to her in Van Dusen Gardens. Beside the pond, under a tree tree, perfectly shaded to watch the fish and turtles.
Then we set out for the hedge maze.
Somewhere in there my children cavort and yell.
I could not get enough of the bits of spring poking through the skeletons of last year. This tree was covered in dry cones, and one branch held these wee beauties:
Hannah tried to carry all the things she found home with her, which made her walk with a limp due to the huge branch she carried, along with cones, leaves and dried flowers. I told her we'd take pictures instead. These fairy-wing-like leaves were everywhere.
While in Vancouver Leif and Al took in a Vancouver Giants hockey game. Leif came home FULL of and-then-this-happened stories. It was great.
On the ferry home Leif and Hannah tried a bit of photography.
Taken by Hannah:
I guess our plans to give the kids the crappy point-and-shoot and save the very expensive fancy camera for ourselves didn't hold. We never stick to these rules we aim to impose. At least we slack off together.
Taken by Leif:
On our return from Vancouver I had a very special parcel in my bag. before we left my mom handed me a box I hadn't seen in decades, that I had completely forgotten about until I saw it. And then the memories came flooding back. Life is so funny like that isn't it?
When I was a kid my mom and I decorated a branch together for Easter. I remember looking forward to it, and en joying playing with what went where, and it becoming 'my' thing to set up. I am so happy to see all these lovely old decorations again. Thanks Mama.
So I sent Hannah out to fetch a branch (she came back with really odd ones) and we got to work setting up our tree for Spring.
Then I got out the crafts the kids have made over the years for Spring, all in time to welcome in the Equinox late on Saturday night. They've blown eggs and then coloured them, felted onto them and crocheted holders for them.
I also have hens they have knit or sewn. They are such wonderful creations. What shall we make this year?
In recent discussions the kids and talked again about how Easter is a Christian/religious celebration, tying in the the pagan symbols for spring and life with their own beleifs about Jesus' life and death. We don't practice cHristianity and we do celebrate the seasons, so why not celebrate the arrival of spring with the much-anticipated egg hunt? So we did.
Kit and I have been working away at the front yard, moving plants and debating what should go where. We are leaning towards evergreens and I have seen many a Japanese-style pine or juniper that I really like. How we'll incorporate it all is yet to be decided, but pics are coming soon.
I've found a horrible, terrible, damned addictive crafting site, and I spend any free minutes scrolling through it, bookmarking ideas for things I'd like to make once our basement room is finished (my crafting studio is getting a decent chunk of the real-estate down there). In the meantime I've been working on things I can make with sweaters that I shrink in the wash. These are my latest, wrist warmers for all us folks who hate the 3/4 length sleeve found on far too many women's shorts and sweaters.
There you have us, full of chocolate and sunshine.
C
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