Kids In Victoria Blog

New Recipes for July

Dani Health — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:12:28 +0000

This month, Dani’s Recipes features 3 new burgers!

• Beef Burger with Avocado Salsa
• BBQ Chicken Breast Burger
• Portobello Mushroom Burger

To print the recipes, click on your favourite burger or go to www.danihealth.com/danis-recipes.

Enjoy!

Danielle Van Schaick, BASc, RD
Head Registered Dietitian
Dani Health & Nutrition Services
(250) 380-3847
www.danihealth.com

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“Feels like lightning running through my veins, every time I look at you. Every time I look at you”

Ma Thoughts — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:46:34 +0000

This is a line from a David Gray song. You have to hear the particular tune and timbre of his voice for your capillaries and pores to all open up and soak up how lovely that line is. Don’t watch the video, just listen.

This is the first song line that I can associate with Felix. And the only one. So far. Note I am not calling him Boeuf for this post. For this one, he be Felix, his proper name.

I took a course at university about fifteen years ago called the Anthropology of Healing. It studied and explored healing through music in different cultures, why and how music heals. Something I carry with me from that course is that when I ache to hear a specific song, to quench and capitalize on some emotion I am steeped in, that it may not be the lyrics I am hanging for, but rather my body requires a certain pitch of a certain note to resolve or satisfy that need. Nothing to do with words. I find this fascinating, as I am keen on words. But the theory does smell right.

So, with this in mind, perhaps I must revisit my “Feels Like Lightining” and just figure out what note it is, and see what note my love for Felix falls on. It would be good to know because before he was born, I did try to write a few lullabies – both on guitar and on my super styling ‘90s Casio keyboard with preset songs like ‘When the Saints Go Marching In” and Rhumba beats. But nothing. Makes sense, really. I did not know him yet. But now we are starting to get to know one another. We lock eyes and there is a knowing. And it is electric, like lightning. A pale, warm, powerful but tender force.

www.mathoughts.com

One of the best things you can do for your child is…

Penny — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:59:44 +0000

Read books. Books have always been the one constant in my life. I am a voracious reader. Over the years, books have even gotten me into trouble. I have missed deadlines because of books, I have missed trains and planes because of books, and I have even, during my college years, found myself in debt because of books.

I blame my parents. They were voracious readers, and always had several books on the go at any one time. My dad liked historical and political fiction, mixed in with some westerns and police procedurals. My mum loved sweeping family sagas, historical epics, mysteries and biographies. They both loved the classics and more recent literary fiction.

I cannot remember a time when my parents did not read. To this day their home is stuffed to the gills with books. In their retirement they now live in a smallish condo, and on last count there were 21 bookcases!

Because my parents read, my brother, sister and I read. It was as natural a part of our day as showering in the morning, or eating dinner in the evening. We read solo and as a family. Books were valued in our home – for fun, for adventure, for knowledge.

As a child, books opened up a world to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined possible. Whilst I loved series like Enid Blyton’s, The Famous Four, I also read and loved books that took me away to new places, or which taught me about times past, or which opened me up to adventure and exploration. It was books that gave me the wanderlust that took me overseas to teach in Africa, South America, Asia and Europe.

My parents weren’t big on TV, but they would occasionally let us watch a drama series such as Last of the Mohicans or Treasure Island, or Mill on the Floss – but only if we read the book first! Sometimes this was done as a read-aloud family activity; sometimes we slogged through the books on our own. The language was sometimes difficult, the vocabulary new and challenging, but the adventure, and the excitement of faraway places and times always made the work worthwhile.

During the summers, books to be read came from trips that we took. A trip to the natural history museum might lead to a story set in Egypt and the time of the pharaohs, a visit to a castle would lead to historical fiction around Henry the Eighth, or The Wars of the Roses, and one trip around Europe’s battlefields eventually led me to the novel I Am David. As a teen, after a trip to Ireland, the Across the Barricades series introduced my sister and I to the romance between Kevin and Sadie and to how such a good human experience could be threatened because of the tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. These books challenged us, but also encouraged us to not just observe the world, but to try to know it better and in some small way begin to understand it.

I am always suspicious when I enter a home with no books. I am even more suspicious of people who tell me they never read. Case in point: a relative of mine, a young mother of two, gets by happily on a diet of magazines, usually of the Hello and Us genre. It is a gulf between us, a large chasm that I have to carefully negotiate my way around every time we are together. How, I wonder, will her kids become readers? How will they develop a love of, or even an interest in reading, if it isn’t something they see modeled in the home?

Research shows quite clearly that one of the most developmentally beneficial things we can do for our kids in the early years is to read to them. But something not talked about so much is what sort influence our on-going reading habits have on our kids. Not only when they are young, but through their tweenie years and into young adulthood. I am always astonished that many of the parents I talk to don’t read. Not even magazines. Yet they fret and worry about why their children don’t read or don’t enjoy books. After over twenty years of teaching and working with children, one thing of which I am sure is that if you don’t read, your children won’t read. The biggest long-term influence we have on our children is not what we tell them to do, but what they see us do.

Great classics to read to your child:

Wind in the Willows

Watership Down

Ballet Shoes

Swallows and Amazons

Kidnapped

Treasure Island

Swiss Family Robinson

Robinson Crusoe

James and the Giant Peach (or anything by Roald Dahl)

Coral Island

Robin Hood (many excellent versions of these ballads exist)

Wickham and the Armada, (anything by Henry Treece for boys!)

Johnny Tremain

Peter Pan

Gulliver’s Travels

Huckleberry Finn

Dietitian’s Kitchen: July

Dani Health — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:57:48 +0000

Recently, I started a new monthly newsletter called ‘Dietitian’s Kitchen‘. I had A LOT of interest in this article and a few people email in questions about some of the food/products in their own kitchen!

Each month I will feature 3-5 new food products that I use myself or would recommend. And, thanks to the suggestion of a fellow KIVer, I’ve added a product that you would not find in my kitchen!

Click here to view July’s Dietitian’s Kitchen.

If you’re wondering about the nutritional value of a product in your kitchen, you are welcome to email your inquiry to me, dani@danihealth.com.

Thanks.

Danielle Van Schaick, BASc, RD
Head Registered Dietitian
Dani Health & Nutrition Services
www.danihealth.com
(250) 590-6382

Maybe It’s Just Me

Ma Thoughts — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:13:14 +0000

Sometimes I forget he is in the room.

I get caught up, thinking of this, thinking of that, and then my eyes hop atop the letters parading along in my head and then I notice him there, smiling happily right at me. Or just giving himself a wrist hickey. Or beaming at the fridge, ceiling, chair. And I admit I had totally gapped he was there.

Pre-Boeuf I was terrible for getting lost in the computer. Emailing, Facebook, especially Facebook, looking at someone’s friend’s brother’s snapshots of their prize halibut or a vacation to Fort Lauderdale. I don’t watch tv, so the computer is where I zone. Punching random words into Google just to see what happens. For hours.

I assumed when le bebe arrived I would always really be focused on him – hyper aware of his presence, I am the mother, after all. Oui? But non.

Facebook can still suck me in. I made a deal with myself to indulge when Boeuf is sleeping or busy doing something else. I have mostly stuck to that, especially after the day I did not notice that he had shat himself because I was too busy looking at pictures of him on the computer. He was right there beside me, breathing, living, drooling, grunting. And my eyes were glazed over, poring over some shot of him from, what, yesterday?

I could overthink this. I could worry that I am taking him for granted. Or that I really need to buck up on this motherhood thing. Or maybe because I grew him he just feels so much like me that I don’t always notice – like how I don’t always notice my own knee, elbow, left big toe. Or maybe I am so self-involved that not even my own baby can get through to me. Ouch. Or maybe this is just something that happens sometimes and so maybe I’ll write about to see if anyone else out there will fess up. Unless it’s just me.

Social Unskills

Ma Thoughts — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:40:24 +0000

I really liked my outfit on Thursday. Especially the fitted red v-neck wool cardigan I wore as the top. It is a really rich, blue-red.; a really good color on me. I put on the outfit in the morning and hung out with Boeuf all day, who is much curd-burpier than he used to be.

So anyhow. He pukes on me, I wipe it off. He pukes on the again, I wipe it off. He hits my left sleeve, down my front (really nice, squishy and warm between ma Gs) and down my back and I wipe it off once more with the warm cloth.

All this is fine, until I am getting ready to take the little man with me out to dinner. In this sweet top, which has spent the day doubling as a barf bag and a receiving blanket. Kid fed and bundled, keys in hand, I am wearing this top come hell or high water. Who’s gonna know, right? What a great red!

And then I open the door to my apartment, walk out the door and suddenly the wind picks up and I smell it. Vomit. Bebe bile. Yup. It’s me. I reek of Boeuf’s chunder. Hadn’t thought about that.

So, chagrined, but not grossed out like I really should have been, I changed.

I am going to choose to believe that other new parents have moments like this, where suaveness does not come quite so naturally as pre-bebe. I hand someone my child and realize a while later that I am still bouncing. I run into a girlfriend in town the other day. She is lovely, quite stylish and professional and while we were talking snot flew out of my left nostril. To somewhere. I find that I actually have to consciously activate my social skills and graces and it is a little hard sometimes. I found snot on the back of my hand earlier and I am pretty sure it was Boeuf’s. I had to choose between two social events last week and chose the one that I could wear runners to and that was done by nine.

I used to think that parents hung out with parents so that they wouldn’t bore non-parents by just prating on about their offspring. Now I enjoy hanging out with parents just so if I drool while I am speaking or wipe food off some stranger’s face, they won’t wonder.

The View From The Other Side

Our Little Pickle — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:12:14 +0000

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to be on the other side of the lens… the lens of Jon-Mark. We have been planning our yearly family photo session since April. We had originally decided on a date 3 weeks earlier but E’s ezcema flare up led us to postpone. Call me a bad parent but I didn’t want to have memories recorded of her being red, itchy and uncomfortable.

So the date was upon us. We had our outfits all picked out- we coordinated but did not match (he he). I had carefully selected a time that would produce E at her best; 2:00pm. That morning I went to the Swap and Shop with a friend (so much fun) and left E with her dad for a fun dad and daughter morning. When I arrived home at 10:00am he said that she had just gone to sleep, perfect I mused to myself- everything is going according to plan. I was just getting ready to tackle some business stuff and “waahhhhhh, wahhhhhhh, wahhhhh,” E woke up. I gave her 3 minutes to see if she would settle and go back down on her own, yeah right. So I pulled her out of bed and tried to do the “lazy mother” and nurse her to sleep; no dice there either- she was up and not going back to sleep. I started to stress. I did the calculations and yep, she would want to nap right at 2:00pm. I cursed in my mind. I have now taken to cursing in my mind as E has a vocabulary of 30 words that grows everyday… the last thing I need is for her to show up at granny and grandpa’s and drop a big fat F-Bomb.

We showed up at the agreed upon location. E had fallen asleep on the way there within 3 minutes of our arrival of course. We woke her up, she dealt with that quite well, it looked promising. We strapped her into her stroller, she was eager to stroll and take in the city sights… okay maybe we can swing this. We talk to the lovely Jon-Mark and decide on locations within our location. And now it’t time for pictures… and that’s where she decided to turn up the mean on her mug.

We tried different types of photos; the “smile for grandma” type and the more photojournalistic style. Do I even need to say that the latter were way more successful. Poor Jon-Mark, he did not appear frustrated in the least but I still felt bad for him. I can’t imagine what the session would have looked like had he not been so talented and understanding. He thought on the fly and tried to make E’s moods work for us. We began the challenge of capturing the meanest “smug mug” and all giggled about the results. E would not hold hands, she would not sit and she would not smile… well okay she smiled a few times but it was when B and I were not in the pictures and were making damn fools out of ourselves to get her to smile. The i-phone soothed her, so we will now have family photos with that important 4th family member- dad’s i-phone; I am sure that Apple would approve and if Steve Jobs read this post you would see a new i-phone commercial that featured family photos with their i-phone in the photo or at least a “family photo” i-phone app.

I appologized profusely to Jon-Mark. I said the usual, she is usually really happy or she’s tired and I’m sorry. Jon-Mark was convinced that she didn’t like him, I convinced him otherwise and said that really in that moment she didn’t like anyone! I have been Jon-Mark in this situation before. I have had the mom apologize and be embarassed and a teensy bit annoyed with their child. Oh did I say teensy bit, I really mean a lot. I was a lot annoyed. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I was still annoyed. B on the otherhand was cool as a cucumber. He was all serenity, how does he do it, how does he? Likely years of dealing with her ma (me) has taught him a thing or two about a prickly female, lol.

I am fortunate that in this situation I knew what was happening behind the lens. I knew that despite the lack of sit down and smile there were memories of my little family being created. I knew that Jon-Mark’s skill would prevail and that I would gush the same thing that the other mothers say to me, “I don’t know how you did it, these photos are amazing.” I am pretty sure what makes these shots still amazing is that they are of your family. Yes, that’s right your family. Your family is more than an image, your family is an energy and these more photojournalistic images capture that. You look at the photos and you remember what was happening, you remember the feelings that you had, the smells that were around you (mmm waffles), the feel of the sunshine peeking through the clouds, the uneven pavement under your feet and the smile you exchanged with your partner when you were proud of a new skill that your little girl demonstrated. I am pretty sure that I will prefer these shots over the smile for grandma types (as Jon-Mark called them). I wonder if other families feel the same or if it is just because I also have a love of photography and prefer these types of shots from others’ sessions as well?

So I can proudly say that like all scary situations, being on the other side of the lens taught me a few things:

- I now know what it feels like to be the mom of the child who will not cooperate. Note to self, offer support to the mom, lend an ear, a shoulder or a tissue (hmmm, maybe I should carry mom emergency chocolate?). When said child is not cooperating work with them, not against them, you will create memories for the famliy.

- Being in front of the camera is scary. Talk to people about a happy memory or exciting life event while photographing them. Jon-Mark kept the conversation alive and it helped me to relax A LOT.

- The dad hates having his photo taken more than the uncooperative child. Ohhh goodness does he ever. I have always noticed at shoots that the dad seems uncomfortable. I try to be funny and get them laughing, even if it means making fun of myself. Jon-Mark was great with us, but B still wasn’t excited about the photo session as I felt he should be. I asked him why and it comes down to this, guys typically don’t value family photos as much as we ladies do. They just don’t get our need to document every detail. They don’t get baby books and they don’t get saving curls or first teeth. I asked B how I can help dads, he said make it quick and organized so that I can get in and get out; makes sense if you think of the whole hunter gatherer thing (we like to lovingly collect, they like to strike and get the heck out). Good thing for us, he liked Jon-Mark’s speedy style

- With a talented photographer, good photos amount from even the most frustrating session. When you think that everything has failed don’t worry, all is not lost just because you don’t have the typical family photo shot. In fact you might get better than that, you might get a shot that actually captures your family as they are!

Have any of you had this family photo experience?

Strollers Push Wheelchairs to the Curb?!?

Kimberley — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:30:30 +0000

Did anyone else catch the article on the front page of the Saanich News today about how strollers and parents are selfishly taking up space on BC Transit buses thereby causing disabled people to have to wait for the next bus?

I was shocked and dismayed by the article as I think it needlessly pitted two groups of people against one another and never actually addressed the real issue which is that there is not enough availability of accessible, priority seating on popular, high volume bus routes.

I thought I would bring it to the attention of other parents out there as I feel strongly that the Saanich News and BC Transit deserve feedback regarding this article. I already blogged on my personal blog about my feelings and I intend to send an abridged version of my blog to both BC Transit and the paper.

Do you think the article fairly depicted this situation? I would love to hear your thoughts.