Homeschooling

Bathtub Phonics

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All the sounds we’ve learned through Jolly Phonics so far.

This was a fun way to end our day. I promised Neko I would have a bath with her, but I asked her if she’d like to practice her letters in the bath. She was totally into it! We took all the sounds/letters that we’ve learned so far through Jolly Phonics off the fridge – each magnetic letter we could find that fit the bill. I then grouped these by letter/sound and we proceeded to build short words.

Praciticing phonics, switching out one sound at a time to form different words.

We had lots of fun taking one word – say, “sat” – and then switching out one letter at a time to isolate the sounds and build new words. From “sat” we might go to “cat” then “cot” then “pot” then “pit” and so on. It’s such a simple thing – letters stuck to the side of the bathtub – but Neko really loved the combination of bath and magnetic letters to practice reading and spelling.

Bringing Colour to a Winter Day

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Although true winter was still three days off, as we know now thanks to the magic of hindsight, Thursday was a bit wintery and greyish feeling. Though it was warm and sunny, something about it felt very…. January. Maybe we could feel the cold snap that was about to roll in from the west.

The night before, I had flipped through science experiment cards from Usborne Books that my mom had given Neko for Christmas, and picked out a couple of projects for the day.

50 Science Things to Make and Do – science experiment cards from Usborne Books

I realized, as I was getting the supplies ready, that these were both going to be really nice, bright, colourful activities! This made me happy.

The first was musical bottles. We all did this as kids, and I was excited to revisit it. Neko helped me dig through our recycling for glass bottles, and we filled them to varying levels with water. I apologize for what will appear to be a bright, shiny Coca Cola ad. My husband has a habit. We added food colouring to the water so that we had a full spectrum of bottles.

As it turned out, only Mairead was really interested in this. Neko and Finn were each off doing their own things. But that’s okay. Mairead, Andie (our Australian visitor) and I spent quite a while experimenting with blowing across the mouths of the bottles, tapping them in different spots with different materials (metal, wood) and arranging the bottles by colour, size and water level.

Our rainbow of musical bottles

Mairead took to the musical aspect and decided that she would like to perform a concert for Nicole (her mom) when she came to pick her up later that day. Mairead spent a lot of time practicing so it would be just right.

Mairead practices her concert in preparation for performing for her mom later.

Still practicing.

Our next activity was planting seeds. Neko and I picked out seeds from our dry food storage the night before – we chose dry kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas, barley and peanuts. Each child got two small Mason jars, into which we stuffed colour tissue paper. The card called for napkins, but we don’t have paper napkins. I love the colours the kids chose – each of them ended up with two jars with layers of brightly coloured paper. After watering the paper down, we stuffed various seeds around the edges, between the paper and the jar.

The kids’ seed jars

The jars will live in a warm, dark cupboard until the seeds sprout, at which point we will move them to a sunny spot so the sprouts can grow. Hopefully I will post a photo once the sprouts are growing!

Edited to add photos:

Our big plants! Check it out!

And Then We Learned To Make Cheese.

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Neko and I took a cheese making class this week. It was quite neat! It had never been on my “to do” list to learn to make my own cheese, but when this opportunity came up for Neko to take a class, it seemed like it would be right up our alley. She has loved the different cooking classes we’ve taken in the past, and of course we love cheese.

The class was taught by Ella from Make Cheese here in Calgary. For $40 we got the two-hour class and the cheese-making kit with enough supplies to make cheese 30 times (minus the milk of course)!

Look how cute the little kits are! I really do love her packaging.

It was all quite easy, really. We started by having the kids dissolve some citric acid in water.

The kids mix the citric acid with water.

Meanwhile, we had heated our 4L (each) of milk on the stove. We then added the citric acid mix to the hot milk.

Neko and friends mix their citric acid into the hot milk.

We then heated the milk again, dissolved some vegetarian rennet in water and added that to the milk mixture. We had to count to thirty… we left this to the kids, and they did it very slowly and carefully. As we found out later, it may have been better to just time 30 seconds, as leaving this step too long can throw off the process a bit.

The kids count verrrrrry carefully (and slowly) to thirty.

We let our concoctions sit a while, and curds formed. These are quite gross looking. We strained out all the curds into separate bowls.

These curds would soon become mozzarella.

The process after this was: pack as much curd as you can into a slotted spoon. Lower the spoon into the heated whey for 30 seconds. Remove, and knead the curds about eight times. Reheat once more, and knead until shiny and smooth. And…..

Mozzarella ball!

Now, from four litres of milk, we only got this much cheese:

The whole of our fresh cheese.

Ella said that storebought milk is really hit or miss. She said if you’re using milk from your own dairy, you’ll get to know the qualities of it and what to adjust in order to make it work. At any rate, there are plenty of things you can do with even this small amount of fresh mozzarella.

By the way, it doesn’t taste like much. BUT…

It’s great on pizza!

We sliced it up and put it on pizza when our wonderful Australian friend Andie rolled into town. And just because I feel like bragging, the crust is made from my homemade bread dough, the sauce from my canned tomatoes, and while this one shown is asparagus with caramelized onions, the other had turkey marinated in my handmade harissa, with homemade, oil-packed, roasted red peppers. Yum!!

Solstice Celebrations

/ Lindsay / 5 Comments

Happy, happy Solstice to you all. I’ve been excited for weeks about celebrating, officially, for the first time ever this year. Justan and I share the shortest day of the year as our mutual favourite, and of course Neko’s birthday is this week as well, so this time of year always feels special to us. Last year, as we stood outside at 12:30 am to watch the lunar eclipse through our neighbour’s telescope (we had woken Neko up to see it, as it would be her only chance to see a lunar eclipse on Solstice and her birthday), I regretted not having planned more formal or extensive celebrations. I planned out this year’s Solstice celebrations over the following few days, and this year, all the planning was done for me in advance!

I had included plans for a Solstice feast, ice lanterns to be lit at sunset, and a few different craft and activity ideas which we could choose from.

Preparations started earlier this month, with grocery shopping for the feast, and the making of ice lanterns. We found the instructions at Love in the Suburbs.

Gathering materials for the ice lanterns, and Neko standing beside some partially assembled lanterns.

We also made popcorn garlands that we could give to the birds on Solstice.

Then my friend Jen invited us to a Solstice party, where we could make prayer flags to set our intentions for the new year. Her inspiration was this post from Rhythm of the Home.

I spent the week before Solstice preparing any foods I could in advance, and getting the pieces of the prayer flags ready to assemble. I baked the fruit cake, cut out triangles of fabric, chose intentions, chopped onions, and measured spices for mead.

Jen’s party began Solstice, the night of the 20th. We drank sunshine punch and snacked while we painted, cut and sewed. The kids played for hours in the dim house.

Candles, sunshine punch, and prayer flags in progress.

Jen drew, then painted, beautiful Celtic knots on hers with Gaelic words beneath. I wrote my words on in permanent marker (I’m not a perfect crafter, okay…) and sewed up the edges of the flags by hand. My fabric came from a damaged nursing tank; fabric bags from prefold diapers; a clothing swap romper; and an old dress I had bought years ago to make beanbags as party favours for Neko’s third birthday party.

On the morning of the 21st, we lazed in bed for a bit, then Justan made us scrambled eggs (from our hens) while I had a nice, warm bath. We cleaned up around the house a bit, then headed out for a hike near the river to hang the popcorn garlands. It was a beautiful, sunny day (I always picture the Solstice as so dark in my head! But the daylight hours, of course, are just as bright as ever.), but the pathways were icy because we’ve had such variable temperatures recently, and there was a biting wind blowing. We hiked down into the river valley with our popcorn garlands and our warm drinks in hand (hot chocolate for Neko; homemade mocha for daddy; homemade vanilla cafe au lait for mom).

Neko shows off the popcorn garlands we’ve hung for the birds.

In the afternoon, Justan and Neko played Just Dance while I packed for Christmas. Okay, okay – video games are not my idea of something you do on Solstice. But, it was daddy and daughter time, and they had fun. There are worse things.

At sunset, we lit the ice lanterns. They were in kind of rough shape after a full week of thawing and re-freezing, so their candle-spots had largely filled in. I tried to fix this using water, containers, and our freezer, but it only partially worked. They still looked really pretty though. They were lined up right across our front porch, and I kept them lit until we went to bed, to welcome the sun back on the morning of the 22nd. As the sun set, we prepared ourselves for the longest night of the year.

I spent the rest of the afternoon putting the finished touches on the dinner. Our menu was:

I chose the menu to be as local as seasonal as I could, while including foods we don’t eat on a regular basis. I wanted to eat foods that we could have grown ourselves, and I wanted the meal to be special – not something we would have any other time. We ate by candlelight, which was really nice, and Neko loved.

After dinner, we played a co-operative game that we got from Riva’s: The Eco-Store, called Wildcraft. We felt this was appropriately hippy-ish for a Solstice celebration. There was a moment of hysterical giggling when Justan asked me a question about finishing the game and I answered him by shooting back, in a very serious tone, “No, Justan, we each need to gather two buckets of huckleberries before we go back to Grandma’s house!” Justan thought this was hilarious. It may have been the mead, though.

After Neko was in bed, our plan was to play board games, but Justan said he didn’t want to play with just me, because I always beat him. (Note to self: next year, invite friends to join us for board games.)

I finished up the prayer flags and on the 22nd, after the longest night was over, I hung them from the chicken coop in the backyard.

The intentions we set are: transcendence, security, intuition, expansiveness, prosperity, integrity and love.

I’m already taking notes for next year’s Solstice! I will change a few things about the menu – we didn’t love the barley bake, and the recipe for the Mashed Potato casserole made a ridiculously huge amount, even cut down to three portions (it would have fed ten!). I would leave the oven at 500 degree for 14 minutes for the bison before turning it off, as this roast was quite rare. And even though I think fruitcake is perfect for the occasion, maybe next year I’ll make a crisp or something. I also think we could plan more activities for the day – I didn’t, this year, because I didn’t want to pack the day and make it stressful. But next year, maybe a trip to a local pond to skate would be nice. I would like to incorporate friends more, next year.

All in all, it was really lovely to formally observe Solstice for the first time. Tomorrow will be six seconds longer than today, and after that the increase in light will accelerate daily until the summer Solstice, when we’ll be on our second annual Solstice camping trip. I hope that all of you out there are also celebrating the return of the light (or the waning of the light, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere).

A Downtown Holiday Adventure (And Dressember Day #16)

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We don’t have much time for spontaneous family days in December (it’s true!), but I’ve been taking mental note of downtown festivities as I see them pop up on Facebook and Twitter – a gingerbread replica of the beautiful Fairmont Palliser Hotel, ice sculptures on Stephen Avenue, carolers, fiddlers, and pretty lights, to name a few. I had decided it would be fun to take an afternoon and head down there to enjoy as much as we could all in one day, since I knew making it down more than once wouldn’t happen.

I looked up some of the attractions on advance and made it into kind of a scavenger hunt, so we could cross sights off the list as we went.

First was the gingerbread replica of the Palliser. Truthfully, I also wanted an excuse to go into the Palliser and see the Christmas decorations. Here is what the Palliser really looks like (today):

The real Fairmont Palliser

And here is Neko with the fully edible version:

We took to the +15 walkway system to get partway to TD Square, where we would find the fiddlers performing. On our way, we walked for a bit down Stephen Avenue, and came across the ice sculptures in front of Winners. I hear that other years, they’ve been destroyed really quickly, so we were glad to see them still standing and in perfect condition.

Unfortunately, even though the Downtown Calgary website said the fiddlers would be performing 11:45 – 1:15, and we got to the right spot at 1 pm on the dot, they were already finished and packing up their things. Too bad – I was disappointed.

Thankfully, we had Food Trucks to cheer us up. My YYC Food Trucks app told us that Alley Burger was parked down at Eau Claire, so we hoofed it down there to grab a couple. Good thing we walked so fast! After we ordered, the woman at the till told the next customer there were only four left. We were starved, and so glad to have our burgers and fries. We walked back to TD Square to sit and eat them.

YUM! Highly recommended.

A touch-up for my haircut at Ginger Group and a latte from Caffe Rosso were the perfect end to our adventure.

Tonight, we attended a Christmas party at a friend’s house, and I donned Dress #2 of the day. It’s too big – I nabbed it at a clothing swap earlier this month because I think it’s cute and I wanted another dress for Dressember.

A Day in the Life#1: Unschooling (and Dressember Day #12)

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I’ve decided that periodically, on our days that are especially great (what’s that? You don’t want a play-by-play of the days where we run errands?), I’m going to post day-in-the-life posts showing what we do on a day of unschooling. Over time, these posts will show a variety of types of days, a range of topics, and hopefully a good cross-section of what unschooling an only child can look like.

Today is the first of these! Neko and I had almost a full day at home, and I had some plans of what I could work on with her (yep… that’s not true unschooling), so I thought it would be a good time to start.

We’ve cut out our morning ritual of Neko watching a few (usually at least semi-educational without ads) TV shows and having a glass of chocolate almond milk, as her behaviour has been going downhill lately with more whining, worse sleep habits, and some back-talking and rudeness. I feel Justan and I are at fault, not setting clear enough boundaries and setting Neko up to fail with the morning dose of sugar and screen time. For the past few days, there has been no TV in the morning, and the first thing to pass through Neko’s lips has been protein, or at least whole grains.

8 am We bucked the trend a bit here this morning, and I let her watch Nim’s Island on Netflix, as it was recommended to us recently.

9:45 am Neko did a mosaic craft that my mom gave her for her birthday. Just a bunch of sticky dots that you place on a template, but my thought is that it was useful for… math. And art. And fine motor skills. Oh, and we had breakfast at this point.

11 am I did laundry. Neko finished up her mosaic, and we snacked a bit in anticipation of going tobogganing. Also, Neko put a blanket on the cat. No educational benefit to that, that I can discern, but it was silly and looked cute.

Blanket-on-cat. Cute.

11:45 am Tobogganing! About six blocks from our house, there is a pretty big hill with a nice slope, and now that the snow deep enough and a decent quality, we’ll be over there sliding down that hill often! Last year we got a big, wooden toboggan and two plastic “flying saucers,” and we just got two Crazy Carpets (from the treasure hunt for Neko’s birthday party). This was our physical education for the day. Plus it was just fun. And we got some vitamin D.

Lots of hill climbing… unencumbered glee… and it’s a good sign when you’re laughing hysterically after falling off at the bottom.

This was tiring. And thirsty-making. So we walked home for treats. It was, by the way, nearly impossible to get Neko off this hill.

1 pm Cold drinks! I blended some lemon juice, homemade strawberry preserves (simply strawberries, lemon juice and sugar, simmered) and made us strawberry lemonade. Which, of course, called for fancy glasses. Which, of course, makes it appear that I was filling my daughter with strawberry margaritas. I wasn’t, by the way.

Oh yeah. And water.

Yum!

2 pm Things got pretty boring at this point when we cleaned out Neko’s bed. It’s a loft bed, and she has tons of books up there, and extra blankets, and random toys… anyway. It was gross. And messy. So we did that. (Also, I’m watching Louis CK as I write this and I apologize if it’s affecting my tone.) Neko then chose a selection of toys that she wants to keep on her bed which are, she says, “fake Pokemons.” She basically chose regular toys and assigned them special powers. I don’t get Pokemon. These are life skills of some sort, I’m quite sure.

3 pm As I had promised Neko earlier in the day, it was time for Just Dance 3 on the Wii. This is, for the record, also my workout for the day. That game gets your heart pumping! I also secretly (not anymore) hope it will improve my moves, you know, for the next time I’m at the club.

Hawt. We had a good time.

This, of course, was part two of phys ed for today. And the required daily pop culture lesson.

4 pm Here was my one, actually educational plan for the day: to print off a 10×10 chart so Neko could fill it in with the numbers one through 100. She’s been having trouble learning to count, and I thought a visual cue, and writing the numbers herself, would probably help her make the connection. So I made a ten column by ten row table in Pages, made the cells square, and printed the page. Then I had Neko fill in the bottom ten squares, left to right, one to ten. We then went across and did the teens. Then the twenties. Up until this point I was leading Neko through it, and she wasn’t totally understanding the pattern of the whole thing. But around 28, she saw the pattern. She started filling in the cells by herself, only asking for help once or twice per line. This was so cool to watch. Each time she figured out the name for the next ten spot, she was so very proud of herself. I honestly almost cried, watching her. I told her that once she had filled in the chart, she would be able to count to 100. She said, “I can only write to a hundred, I can’t count to a hundred mommy.” I explained that using her new chart, she’ll be able to count to 100 whenever she wants. Her eyes filled with excitement and she said, “I want to fold this up and put it in my pocket and keep it with me every day!”

Definition of the term “awesomesauce.”

After that, we called my parents so she could count to 100 on the phone for them (my mom is a kindergarten teacher, so she was thrilled to listen), and Justan came home and Neko showed him her number chart, and then she went to play with the neighbours for a while.

Oh, and today was Dressember Day #12.

Dress: Majora (Value Village) // Boots: Thrift shop

Neko’s “Fake Birthday” and Dressember Day #9

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All day today, Neko told everyone it was her birthday… her “fake birthday.” In reality, today was the day of her birthday party, which I’d be willing to bet is more like her birthday to her, than is the day of the anniversary of her birth. Ah, well. We started off with a “Chickadee Party” with Outdoors In, a local organization that teaches classes about nature and animals. Judy, the instructor, offers a lot of neat classes on seasons, survival, habitats, adaptation and so on to homeschooled kids, and given that Neko is really into nature and science, we go to a lot of these. Today’s class was on birds and different animals and how some adapt, some hibernate and some migrate during winter.

“Mice” hiding under the “snow.”

A mouse emerging from the melting snow in the spring.

The idea was that this was the “Christmas party” to end off the fall sessions of Outdoors In, so we ended with cookies and hot chocolate.

Here was today’s dress:

Dress: vintage store in Vancouver (gift) // Long underwear: Hocosa // Shirt: Old Navy

The evening was Neko’s birthday party. Neko turns six later this month, but given the proximity to Christmas, we try to have her party early. This year marks her first sleepover! We started off with Make-Your-Own-Sandwiches. The girls could choose toasted or untoasted; mayo, mustard or roasted red pepper hummus; ham or chicken; spinach, sprouts, tomatoes, pickles, onions, avocado or red pepper; herbed havarti, cheddar or emmental.

My chicken/hummus/pickle/tomato/sprout/avocado/red pepper/onion/havarti sandwich was EPIC.

Next, we had Make-Your-Own-Sundaes, featuring chocolate marshmallow swirl ice cream (Neko’s choice, but sickeningly sweet) with blueberry sauce, strawberry sauce, chocolate chips, cookie dough, coconut, cinnamon, maraschino cherries, pecans and cashews.

I made a photo treasure hunt, as most of the girls in attendance are just learning to read. This went over like gangbusters.

Going to the basement to find the treasure. Yes, I know how creepy our stairs look.

The treasure was Crazy Carpets! I couldn’t have guessed how well these would go over!!

I somehow managed to not take a photo of all of them playing Just Dance 3, which was the highlight of the night, and so cute and funny to watch. This was Neko’s early birthday gift. Two of the girls went home around 9 pm, while Charlotte stayed to sleep over. While Neko and Charlotte stayed up to read/look at books until 10:30 pm, once we turned out the lights, they were asleep in minutes.

Now, Charlotte has requested I wake her at 7 am to witness the lunar eclipse. That is about two hours earlier than I’m apt to wake up/come alive, so I’m not sure how the morning will look. I’m quite sure, though, that it won’t be pretty.

Soup Day and Dressember Day #8

/ Lindsay / 1 Comment

Sometimes when I have the extra two kids, I like to do theme days. They’re fun for me to plan, because I can incorporate the meals, books, activities and crafts or experiments. Today was Soup Day! There wasn’t a lot to it, but it was fun. First, we read Stone Soup, by Ann McGovern (my copy is from the 70s or 80s and is well loved). It’s about a traveler who stops at an old woman’s house to beg for some food, only she says she has none. He says it’s fine, he has a stone that he can use to make soup. They throw it in a pot with some water and boil it, and he keeps suggesting she add more ingredients (chicken, carrots, onions, beef bones, barley) and of course they end up with delicious soup.

After we read the book, I took out three pots and put a clean, round stone and some chicken broth in each, then let each child choose veggies, legumes/beans, a grain and a meat to add to their own soup.

The three stones we used to make the soup.

Finn only had peas, corn, cauliflower and rice in his; Mairead chose peas, corn, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, rice and chicken; and Neko wanted peas, corn, carrots, cauliflower, legumes, macaroni and sausage. I tried all three, and they were tasty! I also made some fresh bread for them to dip in their soup.

After lunch, we read another favourite – a really funny book by Jackie Urbanovic called Duck Soup. It’s about a Duck named Max who loves to cook soup, but one day, when his friends come to visit, they find a big pot of soup on the stove and think he has fallen in, so they dump it out in an attempt to save him. It’s really cute.

I’m sure we could have done more for Soup Day. Does anyone out there have any ideas?

Also, today was Dressember Day #8. All this time there has been the issue of trying to stay warm… today I was too warm! I was wearing tights, with wool socks and wool/silk blend long underwear overtop, then wool leg warmers, plus my dress and for much of the day, a short sleeved, hooded cardigan. With the soup and bread cooking, I was cooking too.

Dress: Zara // Long underwear: wool/silk blend from Hocosa – LOVE // Legwarmers: Cronert Button-Up Legwarmers from Sock Dreams // Socks: Smart Wool

The Childcare Swap: Job Sharing’s Rad Sister

/ Lindsay / 4 Comments

Unjobbing – eschewing a conventional career curve to cobble together a living from your passion(s), often through creative scheduling, living simply, or generally thinking outside the box – can be a fun and exciting way to live as a student or single person. But often it becomes more difficult if/when you have children.

For some, becoming a parent can be a catalyst for the unjobbing lifestyle: in a two parent family, one parent can work a full-time job while the other works from home, runs a home business, does contract or freelance work, or works in an art or craft for extra money (or all of the above). Most often, moms fall into this category, and the jobs might include doula, home party sales rep (though there’s usually more free products than money in this line of work), house cleaning, book keeping, odd jobs, freelance writing, photography, teaching of different types, or childcare. This could also include, of course, the many industry-specific jobs a person might tailor to fit their life – taking your regular 9-5 (or whatever) and working half days, or partially from home, or consulting, or freelance, or job sharing.

The trickiest part of it all is the childcare. Unless you’re working a regular shift that is compatible with a daycare or dayhome, or you have a partner or family member whose schedule works well with yours, a lack of good childcare options can be prohibitive to being able to work at all. Even when you do have access to childcare, the cost can mean that you’re ending the month with only a few dollars of your wage remaining in your pocket.

Enter the childcare swap. I’m honestly amazed more parents don’t utilize this. It’s kind of a combination of running a dayhome (only with very few children, and with no money changing hands – like a form of barter!) and working. With luck, you can choose someone whom your own child loves, and whose child(ren) complement your own family and actually make your life easier (amusing your own kids while they’re over).

Here’s how it works (it’s really simple): the two of you decide how many days per week you would each like to work, up to 3.5. Generally 2-3 each works best, though you could alternate with one of you working two and the other three one week, and then the next week switching. While one of you works your set number of days, the other has your kids, and then on the days the second person works, you take their kids in exchange.

I’ve done this twice, successfully. The first time, there were three of us, each with one child. I had Neko, 3, Renee had Eve, 2 and Rachel had Hazel, 2. On Tuesdays, Rachel would take Neko and Eve from about 9-5. On Wednesdays I would take Eve and Hazel. And on Thursdays, Renee would take Hazel and Neko. The really nice thing was that the three girls became really close and loved the consistency; they each got the benefit of each mom’s strengths (and the dads sometimes, too); and each house had different things to do and a different playground or park nearby. We three moms did one day of childcare each per week, in exchange for two days that we could work.

I’m currently doing a swap with Nicole, who has Mairead, 4, and Finn, 2. (Neko is almost 6 now.) She has Neko all day Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoon, and I have her two all day Thursday, and Friday afternoon. This is working especially well as Nicole works at my store, so we also have the consistency there. Our kids get along great and I love sending Neko to her place, and having Mairead and Finn at my place. I also like this set-up since Neko is an only child (and homeschooled), so it’s like she has siblings half the week.

It can be tricky to find someone who lives close enough (especially important to us, only having one car), has compatible kids and parenting, and whose work schedule might work with yours. But it’s doable, and I really think it’s worth it. This arrangement gives Neko and me, as a homeschooling family (or when she was younger and not in school yet), the freedom to do the same things we would have been doing on my days off (playdates, taking in performances, going to the museum or science centre, going for walks, visiting the library), only it’s better because she also has other kids to play with. It also allows me to work and not scramble for babysitters. This is a problem for me otherwise as Justan’s work schedule is sporadic and unpredictable (he does location sound recording for TV, documentaries, commercials, etc), so we don’t always need a babysitter. And paying by the day can be pricey! I also hate being that person who is always posting desperately on Facebook asking people to look after my kid.

I have this idea for a childcare swap match-up site… but the idea would have to be a lot more popular first. Until then, putting the idea out there to friends, posting on parenting forums (I would use my local attachment parenting group), or approaching others in your line of work or on mat leave at your place of employment are all ideas that might get you some leads.

A round-up of the benefits of the childcare swap:

  • Only children get part-time “siblings;” siblings get extra siblings and some variety in their life
  • More personalized care than a daycare
  • You get to choose a person whose parenting ideals match yours – spanking or not, the cultural views they’ll teach your kids in day-to-day life, cloth diapering, discipline, babywearing, types of meals, homeschooling, amount of TV…
  • You get time to spend with your own kid(s) each week
  • You get to pursue your passions and have a break from parenting a couple times each week
  • The money, of course
  • Consistency for the kids, without monotony
  • For homeschoolers: as you’re aware, once a child reaches school-age, childcare options narrow. In my experience, my friends have taught Neko things and exposed her to things I might not have thought of, or been able to. The moms I’ve swapped with have varied backgrounds and strengths. At one house, kids might swim, ride bikes, play in the yard more; at another there might be regular dance parties, crafts and baking; while another house might be the place for science experiments, nature videos and hikes. I don’t have to worry about Neko not being enriched while I’m at work, especially since we’re unschooling.
  • Flexibility – if the schedule isn’t working, you can work together to adjust it
  • There is a bit of a social aspect to this, if you want there to be. Usually, mornings are just drop-off, and afternoons are just pick-up. But when time and circumstance allow, there can be shared family dinners or at least time for a visit and a cup of tea at the end of the day. I like seeing my friends regularly, even if there is only time for a five minute chat.
  • I get inspiration for activity planning. I find that when it’s just Neko and me, I fall into patterns (as does she), and we sometimes have a hard time thinking of things to do day-to-day. But (and maybe this is the camp counselor in me), when I know I’ll have several kids in my care, I snap into teacher mode and start planning fun activities. Ironically, I’m more apt to do a craft or experiment with three kids than with one. Right now, I have theme days and outings planned already for the whole next month, and I’m really excited about all of them!
  • I feel very strongly about building a “village” – a support system of friends and family who can help each other in times of need, be there for social interaction, share traditions, and, when kids are involved, provide an extended family where it might not exist otherwise. This is where my “social change” platform comes in. Whether you’re single, coupled, poly, with kids or without (or with them part-time), young or old, a community is important to everyone in it and even those who are just on the periphery. Small “tribes” of likeminded people can form little urban families, a lifestyle that is more well-suited to many people today, especially in an urban setting. Childcare swapping fits in extremely well in this type of scenario.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Dressember Day 1

/ Lindsay / Leave a comment

Today is Day One of Dressember, and we had a big day planned, so I had to think carefully about all eventualities while considering my outfit.

A long time ago, I committed to taking the kids (my own plus the two that I take care of twice a week – Mairead and Finn ) to an Alberta Dance Theatre production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I had assumed that it would be at the Centre for the Performing Arts, downtown, a half hour bus ride away. Well, as it turns out, it was at the University, an hour and a half bus ride away. Fine, doable (thank god for buses as there is not enough room for three carseats in my car!), but a long day that could be very cold. I needed a dress that wasn’t too short and would be relatively warm, plus double tights or tights and legwarmers, and boots, and coordinating accessories.

This is what I decided on:

Dress: BB Dakota (thrifted or clothing swap, probably the latter) // Tights: Codori Crochet Tights from sockdreams.com // Legwarmers: Dream Stockings short Super Warmers from sockdreams.com // Boots: el cheapos from a random shop in Paris (can’t remember – it was 7 years ago) // Necklace: Baltic amber, ordered online somewhere (ambershopping.com or similar) // Added a thick coat with hood, a scarf, knit mittens and a wool bag (plus of course diaper bag, cloth tote of snacks and small backpack of toys) and I looked like a stylish sherpa.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The play was pretty great. The dancers looked to range in age from about seven to their   late teens, and did a fabulous job. And this was the dress rehearsal! The kids all did really well – the older girls sat pretty quietly, and Finn was fidgety but quiet.

Bus Bingo!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Even the bus ride home went all right. We ate our lunch, then played “Bus Bingo” where they had to find certain objects and cross them off, and this actually kept them amused for 45 minutes! Amazing! (I printed the Bingo cards from this ironically named website.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    All in all, a successful day in fashion and in homeschooling. Now, more coffee.

Arriving home from our bus adventure.