Have Your Say on Bike & Pedestrian Infrastructure in Kitsilano

If you've ever biked or walked south off the Burrard Bridge or along Point Grey Road a little west of there, you'll know that the area is kind of awful unless you're in a car. The City of Vancouver is planning to do something about it & they're looking for your input. The survey goes over a number of options including separated bike lanes, wider sidewalks & rearranging the intersection at Cornwall & Burrard.

The survey only takes a few minutes--maybe ten?--so please, if you have any interest at all in walking or cycling to Kits Beach, off the Burrard Bridge or westward along Point Grey Road, PLEASE complete the survey & give your input! Here's the link for the survey.

If you prefer in person to online, there will also be some public open houses tomorrow & Friday this week, times & locations here.

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Word 'lite' Wednesday

When Sprout wakes up in the morning, he hops out of bed & runs straight into our bedroom. If it's really early (sadly, he wakes between 2 & 7am fairly often) he'll clamber over one of us, dig under the covers between us & go right back to sleep. The lovely nights where he sleeps right through until a reasonable time, he still runs straight in for his morning cuddles. This is also the time of the non sequitur. He says the oddest things to me just after he's woken up in the morning. Today it was, "Poop." Yesterday, "Mama is a bear."

I'm trying to enjoy these morning cuddles while I can, despite the kicks to the ribs & head butting that tends to go with them. Once I start school we'll be waking up, jumping out of bed & rushing around to get ready--no time for a half hour of cuddles in the morning.



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To blog or not to blog...

...that is the question. In October 2011, I set myself a goal to blog every single day for a year. I achieved my goal & then some. But lately I've been feeling like I haven't got quite as much to say & my discipline of having a post ready & scheduled for the next day has fsllen yo the wayside.

Maybe I should choose quality over quantity & just post when inspiration strikes? Or perhaps a compromise: daily posts but only weekdays?

For the bloggers out there: Have you ever lost your blogging oomph? What did you do about it?

The Electronic Babysitter

Went to massage & chiro today. Hips are a bit out of whack, so I am recommended to spend some time lying in bed with my heating pad. Okay! Now, if I could only convince Sprout not to jump on top of me while I'm doing said 'therapy'... Methinks there might be a bit more 'Mighty Machines' in his future.

I want to minimize his screen time & I kind of hate that it's such a 'boy' thing to watch, but he really loves it. At least it doesn't have commercials or trademarked characters for him to get attached to, then demand the coordinating trademarked clothing, snack food & toys. Since we opened his crib into a bed, it's been my fall-back plan to prevent him from playing with knives or electrical outlets while I'm in the shower.

What do you do to occupy your toddler when you really need to get something done? Got any brilliant no-fail suggestions that don't involve restraints or electronics?


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What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up

Me at work a few years ago: ESL teacher on an excursion*

It's that time again... Listicles! This week's topic is pretty awesome: ten things you thought you'd do or be back when you were a child. My ideas about what I'd be & do when I grew up changed every year. I can't really come up with ten jobs that I wanted as a kid, so I'll have to include other things too. Here's a list:

1. Artist: I started drawing as soon as I could hold a crayon & my love for making visual art eventually led me to a couple of years at Emily Carr after high school. I don't really make much art anymore, though as a stilt performer, I suppose you'd call me an artist.
2. Nurse: my mom had these books with envelopes for each school year where we'd write our height, weight & career aspirations next to our school photo. I think I wrote this one year.
3. A lawyer: I think I put this down into the book one year... or thought about it for a few months. I like arguing... but I wasn't interested in the actual job when I realized what the working environment & hours would be like.
4. Writer: this was one that sort of alternated with artist from year to year. & I'm proud to say, as of 2011, I've actually gotten paid to do it, if not made an actual living at it. Though not as a novelist, which is what I was envisioning in those ancient times before blogs & laptops.
5. Well-travelled: I've done a couple of month-long international trips to Europe. I've been to Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands & England. Also the US, on other trips, mostly with family. I'd still like to do a lot more travelling, but MAN is it expensive & Europe is REALLY far away from the west coast of Canada.
6. A fashion designer: I started really basic hand sewing when I was in kindergarten & was using my mom's Singer by age 9. Combined with my love of drawing, this was a natural fit. I still sew & I love to see a designer's couture line on the runway, but as a career? Nah.
7. A librarian: I think I wanted to be this at one point when I was small. I love reading & always have--a big thanks to my parents who are both bookworms & passed it on to us too.
8. A book illustrator. A bit more specific than artist. I'd still like to do this some day...
9. Married: When I was little, I always assumed I'd meet someone, fall in love & then get married. Though there was a brief few years where I decided marriage was backward & didn't fit with my politics, I eventually caved to societal pressure in 2003. Also, I wanted to have a big party.
10. A mother: This was step two after the fall-in-love-&-get-married bit. Also decided I wasn't ever going to have kids when I was 21ish. I pretended I didn't want to have kids for years after that so my mom wouldn't hassle me for grandchildren as much. Didn't work. She started knitting for the grandchildren YEARS before she ever actually had any.

I'm pretty sure if I looked back at that book, I wouldn't find teacher written in there. I thought it was the last thing I'd do, particularly in high school. I didn't become a high school teacher, but in my eight years as an ESL teacher I did teach my fair share of teenagers, as well as adults. Spending most of my childhood in small towns in BC, I wasn't exposed to a lot of crazy circus performers, so I didn't really envision becoming a stilt walker until I was an adult & I started to see them at festivals here in East Van. I also never could have anticipated the way the internet would become such a huge part of my life: blogger or social media manager just didn't exist in the 1980s.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you do it or were the results completely different from what you expected as a child?

*APOLOGIES for the quality of this photo. It was taken on my first camera phone: a 0.3 megapixel Nokia something-or-other.

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What I've been reading lately

Books! Actual books! I feel like nearly everything I've read in the past year was either a blog or an online article, or a book for review. But recently I've gotten through a few old-fashioned paper & cardboard tomes. Okay, tomes is probably exaggerating, I doubt any of them were more than a couple hundred pages each, but still. Here's one I've really enjoyed:


Why Have Kids? A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness by Jessica Valenti. This was recommended by feminist parenting blogger Andie at Blue Milk, who's quoted in it a few times. I read it in just a couple of days & found it fascinating. Why Have Kids? is a very honest & well-researched analysis of many of the myths around parenting: 'natural parenting', the 'good mother', the 'bad mother', the fallacy of maternal instinct & more.

My favourite chapter was 'Death of the Nuclear Family', all about how family structure has changed in recent decades, as has the public's attitudes about gender roles & what makes an ideal family. As we know, the straight married couple with biological children isn't the only way families are made. The best bit was the section entitled, 'If you want happy kids, give them lesbian parents', mentioning the results from National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, which found 0% physical & sexual abuse among children of lesbian parents. (this is compared to 26% & 8.3% in the general population)

Aside from being a quick read, it's engaging & Valenti keeps the narrative flowing without getting bogged down with too much dry theory. Recommended.



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Chocolate Smoothie 'Recipe'

Earlier today I decided that I wanted to try a smoothie 'recipe' I'd seen in my friend Jen's Instagram feed. She used oatmeal, flax seed, banana, spinach, almond butter, almond milk & ice. Since it's not baking & amounts or ingredients can be altered easily, I put my own spin on it. It was pretty much the best smoothie ever. Here's my version, just in case you want to try:

All quantities are approximate, by the way. Put 3 Tbsp of oatmeal, 1 Tbsp chia seed, 2Tbsp hemp hearts in blender & whiz up until it's a bit like coarse flour. Add about a cup of soy milk (or any other kind of milk) & blend again. Toss in three kale leaves--I don't even bother cutting off the stems--blend well. Next add about 2 Tbsp of peanut butter & blend, adding a bit more milk at any point if too thick. Toss in a banana in chunks & a cut up apple (this is a great way to use up bruised fruit). I don't even peel the apple--more fibre & vitamins, right? Last, but definitely not least: blend in COCOA powder! Maybe 2 Tbsp?

This made about 750 mL of smoothie, which is just perfect for me & Sprout. The banana & apple have enough natural sweetness that I didn't add any honey or sugar. The oatmeal, chia & peanut butter give this smoothie a milkshake-like consistency--which you can 'water down' with more soy milk or ice or water. Another fab option, especially for summer, is to use frozen bananas.

Using cocoa powder completely hides the greenish tinge from the kale, by the way. You can't taste it either. So if you have a child who's suspicious of greens, this is a brilliant way to sneak them in.


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Valentine's Day Gift Idea: Blurb Photo Books (20% Off Coupon Code!)

Valentine's Day is right around the corner... will you be getting a gift for somebody special? Here's a unique idea: why not create a Blurb photo book filled with your favorite moments together? Instagram books and Facebook books are quick and easy to create and make the perfect little gift for the one you love. For more ideas and inspiration go to Blurb.com. And remember that from now through February 14th you can save 20% on your entire book order with code MYBOOKLOVE.


Disclaimer: As a Blurb Affiliate, I get a small commission from the sale of a book if you head over there from my above links, make one & then order it.

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Wordless-ish Wednesday

I always wish I remembered to take more photos when we're out riding. Here's a recent one, from a non-rainy day.

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Toilet Training Update

I'm sure you were all dying to know the state of Sprout's bathroom habits. If not, please stop reading here. DISCLAIMER: There will be mention of poo.

Side-by-side setup...with appropriate reading material. Also a box of toy eggs.

Okay, disclaimer out of the way. It's been two weeks now & Sprout's still nowhere near what I'd call trained. He's initiated going two or three times in two weeks. Every other time has been me suggesting, asking, cajoling or bribing him to sit down on the potty or toilet. The major achievement so far seems to be that he'll pee on command. But he still has trouble getting his pants & underwear down or up on his own. I've found the best outfit for him is baby leggings with underpants so there's only one thing to get off. We seem to have more accidents when he wears pants. He seems to have little idea when he's going to poo until it's too late. Often it just happens when I've sat him down already, so we've had only a few disasters. Or I see That Look on his face & rush him to the loo in time.

Goal! Yes, this is our living room. No, we don't have a TV for that remote.

There's no way I could go out with him in regular underpants. & before you say just stay home, I tried that for most of a week & nearly went crazy. I need to get out & do stuff. I don't want to be That Mom whose kids just peed on the floor of a cafe or store, so I bought a pack of generic disposable training pants. I thought I'd only need the one pack: if I'm using one a day, I'd have a whole month to get it sorted out right? Well, we're halfway there & I think I'll need to get more. I'm not really into the idea of disposables though after two & a half years of cloth diapers. I may experiment with the somewhat absorbent but waterproof outside type of training pants when we go out. Anyone have any experience with those? Advice?

Sigh. I was hoping that he'd be ready & this would work a bit better than it is, but I am now afraid I have months ahead of me where I have to be sitting him on the potty every hour or every 15 minutes after having a drink. I want to ask everyone how long it took their kids to potty train, but I know it's all irrelevant because every kid is different. He'll take how long it takes. At least he's not too resistant to the whole idea. In fact, he thinks his potties (yes, we have three) are so fun that he regularly puts them on his head or stacks them like Lego or carts them around the house.


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Goodbye Exercise Challenge

If you've been following my blog for very long, you might have noticed my weekly Sunday posts tallying up how much exercise I've been getting. Perhaps those were the ones you skipped? I started with a goal of meeting the Health Canada recommendation of 30 minutes a day (which I averaged out over the week) then upped the ante to 40 minutes a day. It's been nearly a year & the posts are starting to feel like a bit of a chore. The original idea was that publishing my weekly results would give me that little bit more incentive to actually do it, but I feel like that hasn't been working lately, so I think I'll stop the series. I'll still try to get the exercise, but I'll stop reporting it here to you.

Operation Retrieve Penguin: a Success!

We did get out for a bit of a ride today, which was lovely. It was cool, damp & a bit foggy but not enough to impact visibility. Sprout & I ran a few errands with a quick stop at the park on the way home. At one point earlier today I was considering using a Modo car to do these errands plus one or two more. But then I imagined trying to find parking multiple times at all the places we needed to stop & decided a bike ride would be a lot more fun. Don't get me wrong, I think Modo cars are great & they do work well for us about once or twice a month, but we just don't need to drive that much here in East Van.

Rides like this are how I get the majority of my exercise--just by going places on foot or two wheels. As long as I'm getting out of the house every day, I tend to get 10-30 minutes of exercise without really trying. I've never really been a gym rat & though I've taken a number of fitness classes over the years, I tend not to stick with them unless they're very social & I make friends there. Also--I don't like to spend a lot of money--classes can be really expensive! I've never really been into team sports, despite being quite social. So biking & walking work great for me--pretty much free & I can do them whenever I feel like.

What's your 'exercise personality'? Do you like classes or working out at the gym to the tunes of your MP3 player? Or maybe organized sports are more your thing? What motivates you to keep on keepin' on?

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10 Things in My Closet

It's Listicles time again! Before we get under weigh with this week's list, I thought I'd declare the winner for last week's quiz on movie quotes. Looks like Rob got all the movies right. Just in case you wanted to check, here are the answers from last week:

1. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" The Godfather, Part III
2. "Say hello to my little friend!" Scarface
3. "He's only mostly dead." The Princess Bride
4. "You talkin' to me?" Taxi Driver
5. "Help, help! I'm being repressed!" Monty Python's Holy Grail
6.  "...get me the machine that goes PING!" Monty Python's Meaning of Life
7. "They're heeere!" Poltergeist
8. "Bueller? ... Bueller? ... Bueller?" Ferris Bueller's Day Off
9. "Go ahead. Make my day." Dirty Harry
10. "If you build it, he will come." Field of Dreams

Thanks for playing, everybody!

This week's topic from Stasha is Ten Things in Your Closet. I actually did a Listicle a while back about my house & one of the things that drives me nuts about it is that we only have two actual closets for hanging clothes plus a tiny linen closet. No entryway closet for coats, no closets in two of the bedrooms, no pantry, no storage closet... two. Just two. So as you can imagine, they are stuffed to the gunnels. Mine & Oli's is pretty boring, to be honest, just clothing, shoes & a bit of luggage. So I thought I'd write this Listicle about ten things that are in Sprout's closet. Some you'd expect, some, maybe not so much.

1. My ice skates.
2. The side of Sprout's crib.
3. Quite a lot of baby toys & diapers that Sprout's grown out of.
4. At least a half dozen pairs of shoes, half he's grown out of & the other half will fit in the next year.
5. Three Hallowe'en costumes: a skeleton (ha ha, skeleton in the closet!), a bat & an elephant.
6. A bag of now-too-small borrowed boy clothes to be returned to my sister.
7. Playard parts that we never used. 
8. My wedding dress & one of Oliver's suits.
9. My breast pump.
10. At least ten little clothes hangers that we rarely use, as all Sprout's clothes generally get tossed into drawers & never hung up.

There are a lot more than ten things in that closet, as you can see. Despite my best attempts at organization, thanks to Ikea (we use their giant shopping bags for so many things, like clothes he's grown out of, laundry, tidying up, even luggage on car trips) this closet is a bit nuts. One of two air returns for the furnace is in the bottom of his closet & it's only accessible because we've propped the laundry basket of too-small prefold diapers up on a baby bath rest thingie.

Are all your closets this packed or are you one of those people whose closets look like something out of an Architectural Digest? (Wait, do they even show closets in that magazine?) What are the weirdest things you've got behind closed closet doors? Confess your closet sins below...

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Park Time

It was a gorgeous day at the park. We headed to one that we don't visit as often & Sprout enjoyed the change.

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Daycare Decided

We did it. We picked a daycare for Sprout. I'm relieved that the search is over, happy it didn't take too long & hopeful that we've picked somewhere that will work for all of us. He'll be with three other little kids & I think he'll really enjoy the outings planned, as well as the music & singing they do each afternoon.

Because the area where we live is full of young families, there are tons of home-based daycares to choose from. We found one we like that's close to home & will be directly on our way to work & school. Though I am still annoyed at the lack of interest our government has in funding childcare in this province & I think there should be many more spaces at group childcare centres, I'm happy with our choice of care. Sprout will start there in less than a month, about a week before I start school so we can ease him into it as gradually as necessary. He's already very comfortable at the house--the two times he's been there, he made himself right at home immediately--it's just being away from me for up to nine hours that he'll have to get used to again.

Farmer at the dentist, Johann Liss. Wikimedia Commons

I have to admit--I'm really looking forward to that week he starts--I don't have much planned except a dentist appointment. But what luxury: just going to the dentist. By myself! No stroller to wrestle through heavy doors! No squirmy small person to dress & undress for the winter weather! The other days that he'll be there for a few hours I can... say, sew something without him stealing pins out of my pincushion. Or read a book without him jumping on me. Or go shopping & look at something for more than a minute without him either running off or trying to tip the stroller over.

I love my son. But after two & a half years of being with him pretty much full time, I'm really looking forward to some time to myself. I probably won't even cry when I leave him a full day at daycare. Probably.







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Movement vs. 'Containment' with Babies & Toddlers

My blogger friend, Jen of Mama.Papa.Bubba, posted a video on Facebook yesterday that I found really interesting, talking about the Montessori perspective on a critical period in children's development, particularly pertaining to movement. Here's the video--it's quite interesting & only six & a half minutes long:



This video brought up some really interesting questions for me. Virginia Varga talks about avoiding constraining babies so that they can work on their motor skills. I definitely agree that we should avoid having babies in various containers too much (stroller, car seat, chair, swing) rather than being held. I also remember when Sprout was really little, I was encouraged by the public health nurse not to let him lie on his back on the floor all the time because he'd get a flat head. But he hated being on his tummy & couldn't sit up yet, so my compromise was strapping him in a baby seat/rocker thing or a swing. I wonder if that had any impact on him starting to walk at 17 months.

I'm not really second-guessing my decisions because, of course, temperament is a factor. Sprout's a physically cautious child, generally. He tends to wait until he knows how to do something, rather than just diving in & attempting it before he's ready to do it well. When he did start walking, he was quite steady on his feet--none of the toddling you tend to see with babies under a year who start walking.

The other thing I found interesting in the video is the idea of not constraining children during sleep: having a low bed near the floor so they can get up & be somewhat independent. We just took the front off Sprout's crib recently so he can do this. I see a little of the learned helplessness in him some mornings when he wakes up really early & just calls to us, rather than getting out & coming into our room. After being in a crib for two & a half years, he hasn't figured out that he can just come to us when he wakes up & needs a cuddle. He has, however realized that he can just get out when he doesn't feel like going to bed at night.

One argument for having children in a crib is so they don't get out & get into trouble in the middle of the night. Also, I'd say it's essential to have a safe place to put a baby or toddler when you're home alone with your child & you need a break or a shower or whatever. What do you do with your one-year-old when you need to take a shower or run downstairs to do the laundry if you have no safe form of containment? I was never organized enough to schedule all those things into naptime.

If you watched the video, what did you think? Do you think the decisions you made in terms of 'containing' your child made a difference in their development, or do you think temperament has more to do with it? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section... 


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Wordless Wednesday

Sprout applying 'chopstick'. He's slightly obsessed with lip balm.

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Daycare Decisions

Park stop just after visiting home daycare 2/4.

I'm planning to do a short full-time program at SFU starting in about a month & then work full-time after that. We've been searching for childcare for Sprout for a while now & I have to say, it's one of the more stressful things I've faced. He's been in two other daycares before--once part-time at the family childcare centre (FCC) of a close friend & the other Buddings on an occasional basis--but since neither of those is an option for full-time care starting in February, we have to look elsewhere. I'm fairly confident in my judgement of people & I think I can find a good place for him, but I still have moments of worry that something will go wrong somehow.

Because I didn't decide to do this program until December, there's no way we can get in to a group childcare centre, though there are lots in our area. The waiting lists are just too long. So a home-based FCC it is. There are tons in our area & many who have a spot open at the moment.

I've visited four homes & interviewed the daycare providers. They all seemed like nice people & love children, but two stood out as better for various reasons. One being convenience--because we'll be commuting via bike & transit, taking too much of a detour along our routes would add to the two hour daily commutes we'll each have.

Another factor, of course, is cost. The rates have varied from $900-$1300 a month for Monday-Friday, am-5pm care for a 2.5-year-old. I was a bit surprised to find that licenced child care centres are often in the lower range of those rates, or even cheaper.

Location & cost aren't the only things we looked at, of course. Cleanliness, the toys & environment, outdoor space, activities offered, food & experience of the provider were all important too. I was a bit surprised to hear that one of the women also works nights as well as providing care for three toddlers five or six days a week. I don't know how she has the energy to do that & I worry about the impact the sleep deprivation would have on her capability.

I'd really like to get this decided, though it'll be weeks before Sprout starts there. The stress of trying to figure this out, on top of potty training & a few other projects I have brewing is getting to me. Speaking of potty training, I need to go change Sprout's pants... Sigh.

Do you have children in care at a daycare in someone's home? How many places did you visit before you decided? Have you got any tips for me? (Please, no horror stories!)


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10 Best Movie Quotes

I'm far from a movie buff, but quotes from movies have become such a part of our culture that I use them in everyday conversations. Tell me you do too--I'm not a total dork, right? If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen some of these. So this list isn't so much the best ones but more the ones I find most useful. 

Just to make it that much more fun, I'm calling POP QUIZ! Which movie is each one from? No Googling! I'll post the answers in the comments below at the end of the week. 

1. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
2. "Say hello to my little friend!"
3. "He's only mostly dead."
4. "You talkin' to me?"
5. "Help, help! I'm being repressed!"
6.  "...get me the machine that goes PING!"
   
7. "They're heeere!"
8. "Bueller? ... Bueller? ... Bueller?"
9. "Go ahead. Make my day."
10. "If you build it, he will come."

What are your favourite movie quotes? Do you use them in conversation? Don't forget to leave your guesses about which quote comes from which movie in the comments below! 

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Exercise Challenge: Month 10, Week 1

At least one of us got some exercise.

Sunday I wasn't feeling that great so didn't go out.
Monday I got in 15 minutes of walking to & from buses en route to my chiro & massage appointments downtown. I did take Sprout out for a ride, but that hardly counts as exercise--he rides so slowly & stops so much that I'm moving at a snail's pace the majority of the time.
Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday I stayed home, asking Sprout if he needed to pee constantly. Ah, potty training.
Friday I did 30 minutes of walking to pick up stickers (potty training rewards) & a few assorted things.
Saturday saw 45 minutes of walking between daycare viewing, park visiting, brunch having & shopping.

Weekly Total:  90 minutes of walking. No cycling at all. Pretty terrible on the exercise front, I have to admit. At least the potty training is going better now, after a rocky day two & three. I should try to get in some cycling on my stationary bike inside, at least, but I've become blind to it & don't even notice the thing anymore. Heh.

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What I've Been Reading Lately

Here are a few things I've read lately on the ol' Interwebz that I felt worth sharing:

• PhD in Parenting on McDonald's happy meals including books in them. What do you think? 
• A great Rabble article on Idle No More: long, but good.
• Green Lane Project on slowing traffic for commercial gain which debunks the myth that bike lanes are somehow an expensive frivolity & can, in fact, be an advantage to businesses.
• Blue Milk's confession that yes, she gets bored of parenting sometimes. Please tell me you do too...
• Frances Bula on the outrage about the Waldorf closing & Mayor Robertson's response so far

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Seriously late post, I know...

Jason Good, pic hijacked off G+, heh

I've been having one of those days. Well, kind of one of those weeks, really. This is my excuse for not posting anything today until now. The perfect storm has hit me: trying to find childcare for Sprout, toilet training & feeling under the weather. Today's toilet training actually has gone rather well, until Sprout decided to turn into a complete & utter hysterical puddle for no reason that makes sense to an adult.

This post by Jason Good on his blog, 46 Reasons My Three-Year-Old Might Be Freaking Out, pretty much sums it up. You should also read everything he's ever written. He's really funny.

Hope you've had a better week than I have. If not, let's commiserate in the comments section, shall we?


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Linnaeus 2.5

Maybe he'll get the hang of it in another year or four?

I like to try to keep the tone positive on The Sprog, but I have to admit, this past month has been a challenging one with illnesses, injuries & hitting (or trying to hit) some major milestones.

First off, Sprout injured the inside of his cheek when he stumbled & fell into the handle of his rocking moose. Though he bled a lot when it happened, it healed very quickly without bothering him much. He kept on eating mandarin oranges & other acidic foods despite the big bite inside his cheek. Though there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, I still felt like parent of the year going out with a two-year-old sporting a bruise beside his mouth. Sigh.

Next up, Sprout got sick with a cold. My immune system valiantly fought it, but then I think I ended up with Norovirus--it was fairly brief, though really awful while it lasted. While my immune system was dealing with that, I managed to pick up Sprout's cold. Yay, Merry Christmas to me!

Also around this time, I decided that Sprout is ready to wean. A few nights he went to bed without nursing--I offered as the usual part of our nighttime routine & he declined. So I started reconciling myself with him being fully weaned. I actually thought he was finished with breastfeeding by Christmas Day--with two days & no noms--then he got upset when going to bed. Can't blame him--he'd fallen asleep in my lap at the dinner table & we woke him up with a diaper change & getting pjs on. Getting quite worked up, he asked for noms which calmed him down quickly & got him back to sleep.

Since then he's been nursing about once every day or two, generally in the mornings if at all. I'm not out & out refusing him, but I am not offering. I think once he gets to the point where it's only every two days, there won't be any milk left so he'll probably just stop altogether.

Sometime before Christmas I thought it would be a good idea to start toilet training in January. I collected underpants & potties & read a few articles on it to try to prepare myself. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what method would work best for Sprout.

Probably should have waited on this one...

We also decided to take the front off Sprout's crib, theoretically to make it easier for him to get out of bed at night if he had to pee. Sadly, I think this was kind of a mistake, as the last two nights have been a struggle to get him to stay in. He just won't stay in there until he's totally exhausted. & it's too early to expect him to get up to pee anyway, I've realized. Sigh.

Another feature of the past month has been an incredible lot of whining. Sprout seems to think that saying nearly everything with a super whiny tone is the way to go & by mid-afternoon most days, I am very close to going crazy. The whining is likely connected with the fact that he's not napping anymore. His sleep schedule has been all over the place too, shifting later & later again. Since I've been sick (I'm on virus #3 at the moment, I think) I just sleep as long as I can in the morning. Sprout also sleeps in most days, but then doesn't want to go to bed less than twelve hours after waking which means midnight, at the moment. Argh.

So, yeah, not a banner month, other than the brief fun bits of Christmas. We're two days into toilet training: day one seemed great, day two was a nightmare of puddles & cleaning. I'm worried he's not ready for it, but I don't want to give up yet. I'm also dreading being trapped in my house for the forseeable future because I'm afraid he'll pee all over the floor of any other place we go. I feel like if I use diapers when we go out, it'll undo the training. I wish I could just hire someone to do this for me, honestly. I'm going to be chanting in my sleep, "Do you need to pee? Do you want to sit on the potty?"

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Today I'm thinking of my grandfather on what would have been his 94th birthday. It's been over a year that he's been gone & I miss him.

October 1, 2010. 91-year-old Grampy holding 7-week-old Sprout.

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It's ON!

Sorry for the rather late post today. I have a good excuse though: we started toilet training today. Or I should probably say 'potty training', as Sprout now seems more interested in using the potty. Which is good, as we've got three of them (Thank you Wendy!) now stationed in various parts of the house.

"Potty! (:" vs. "Puddle ):"

I read a number of articles about toilet training & thought about it a lot, but I think I'm just going to wing it, mostly. We'll stay home most of the week--I've cleared the calendar of most things (okay, we had virtually nothing scheduled anyway). If I do get out, I'll try to do an outing or two at places conducive to this process. I'm thinking the swimming pool & maybe the family centre, possibly a park outing or two, though with the rain & the cold, I'm not sure we'd get all the outerwear off in time. :P

In terms of what I'm doing around the house, the rugs are up off the floor & I've turned up the heat. Sprout is running around in a warm shirt & undies--no pants--to make using the potty a bit easier. So far, we've had two 'successes' & one puddle. I decided to keep track (more for my benefit than his) with a sticker chart on his easel, as you can see in the photo. I haven't got any shape stickers around, so I decided to use letters. We'll see how far along in the alphabet we get by bedtime!

I'm hopeful that we'll see some real progress within a week so we can get back to our routine of going out & doing things. I really loved the idea of the weekend potty training method, but I'm not convinced Sprout is going to learn that fast. Of course, now I'll have to worry about bringing more extra clothes & reminding him to pee a lot more often. Not looking forward to that. However, I will not be nostalgic about the diaper laundry or diaper changes/wrestling matches. So, onwards & upwards!

Wish us luck!

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What To Do with Old Bicycle Tubes? DIY Elastics

A few months ago I slow leak in my bike tire that I put off changing for ages. I'd just pump it up every other time that I went out. Then finally, it was time to change the tube, so I reluctantly popped the rear wheel off & brought it into my kitchen to change. It took less time than I expected (it'd been ages--I never seem to get flats these days, knock on wood) to put in a new tube. I would have patched it, but the leak was a gash at the edge of the valve stem. So what to do with the otherwise in perfect condition but unpatchable tube?

I realized, after it had been sitting in our kitchen junk drawer for a month or two, that cutting a thin section crosswise through the tube made a great hair elastic. The rubber is grippy but doesn't pull my hair out when I remove the elastic. Though very strong--I haven't had one break yet, which I can't say for any of the hair elastics I've ever paid for in stores--the rubber is easy to cut with any household scissors. I found if I cut it one millimetre wider, the elastic didn't stretch as much as I liked & it was hard to wrap twice around my ponytail. (about 3 millimetres wide is my preference.)

Here's the tutorial in a sentence: get an old bike tube, cut across with scissors & try different widths until you find the stretchiness you like. 

If you don't have long hair, you might still have a need for small elastics--they could be useful for bundling stuff up, packing away your Christmas decorations, attaching plants to stakes when gardening, connecting cabinet knobs to keep toddlers or pets out of lower cabinets... I'm sure you'll think of something.


What do you do with your old bike tubes? Got any brilliant ideas or know of any awesome tutorials online? Share them in the comments below!


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10 Things I Have No Intention of Changing in 2013

Comfy cotton dress for a work Christmas party

This week's Listicles topic, from Stasha of Northwest Mommy, is Ten Things I Have No Intention of Changing in 2013. After reading post after post about resolutions--tis the season, right?--I love this topic. Definitely a good antidote to all this self-improvement hoo-hah.

So, without further ado, here is my list:

1. Eating pretty much whatever I want. Oh, sure, I'll try to cram in my daily fruit & veggie quota, plus whole grains as I've been doing for years, but I have no intention of dieting this year. I'm still going to eat that cheesecake. & the poutine. Probably the chocolate too. 
2. Using social media every day. I will keep posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, Pinterest & sometimes even Google Plus. & I'll be doing it while I'm at the playground with my son or having lunch out with a friend. So ppphhhthhllt!
3. Staying in my pyjamas & bathrobe well into the afternoon on lazy days. I don't do this every day--I wear normal clothes when I go out. But when it's chilly & raining (sadly this is from October through June in Vancouver) & I have nowhere I need to be, you'll be likely to find me in my jammies at lunch time.
4. I'm going to keep trying to exercise an average of 40 minutes a day. Not more. I hate going to the gym & I'd much rather get my exercise with the occasional class (but it has to be social with people I know or I won't stick to it) but mainly just from walking & biking where I have to go. I've got no fitness or weight loss goals for this year. Just status quo in terms of my activity.
5. My hair colour. It's been years since I've dyed my hair--nearly five, I think. I stopped out of concern for what the chemicals in the dyes might do to my health. As I get more grey hairs, I revisit this decision, but I'm still resolved to stick with my natural colour.
6. Eating out.  I know we probably spend a lot of money each year at cafes, restaurants & for the occasional takeout meal. But I like going to restaurants. There is such a huge variety in my neighbourhood & so many of those places make things that I can't easily do well at home, like sushi, artisanal bread & poutine. We only eat a few meals a week out, including lunches & I don't see that changing anytime soon.
7. Wearing whatever I feel like. Even when I dress up for events, I still wear things that are comfy (see above photo). As soon as the weather warms up a bit--usually in April or May--my Birkenstocks come out & don't go back into storage until at October. I like to look good, but what I wear has to be comfy. I'm no slave to fashion & I have no resolutions based on looking more stylish this year.
8. Watching crappy reality TV. I consider nearly all reality TV to be crappy, but that won't stop me from watching a four-episode-straight run of HGTV home improvement/real estate shows on their website or my other guilty pleasure: Bones. Yes, it's soooo predictable. Yes, it's completely unrealistic forensics. But I don't care.
9. Having a fairly disorganized house. I grew up in a home that was pretty neat & orderly, but I guess that trait isn't genetic, because my house is nothing like that. I have some intentions of divesting myself of a lot of old, unneeded clothing, kitchen stuff, games & other assorted crap. However, I don't plan to start any kind of campaign to turn our bungalow into a showpiece of orderliness. (See above photo background for evidence)
10. Writing Listicles! I'm not going to make any promises that I'll do it every single week--been there, done that already--but I'll definitely write my fair share of them in 2013!

Disclaimer: this list is by no means a criticism of those of you who are resolving to change any of the above in 2013. Go for it! Good luck! More power to ya! I just won't be joining you. ;)




What are you NOT planning to change this year? Got any bad habits you just feel like keeping around? Share them with us in the comments!


Click the button over there to the left & head on over to North West Mommy's Listicle Linky if you'd like to read more lists like the one above. You can even join in the fun & link up your own list too!









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Exercise Challenge: Month 9, Week 5

Hinge Park waterfront, on Southeast False Creek

Sunday I walked to Broadway & back to catch the bus to Brentwood to meet my sister for a rare kid-free get-together. Later on we walked up to Prince Edward Park with Sprout. About 45 minutes walking in total for the day.
Monday we had a lovely walk in the dark through the bumpy roads of foresty Bowen Island, stargazing without the light pollution that normally hinders all but the brightest stars. It amounted to about 20 minutes of exercise, I think.

Tuesday we spent the day hanging out with friends & got rides everywhere, so there really wasn't any exercise to be had.

Wednesday I spent the afternoon writing & didn't get out.

Thursday we walked down to False Creek & back--about 75 minutes.

Friday I got out of the house for lunch, but it wasn't enough walking to count as exercise.
Saturday I came down with another cold virus & spent much of the day sleeping or lounging on the couch.



Weekly Total: 140 minutes. About half of my goal. :S

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Last Call for the Penny

Here's where we're at--not quite filled yet!

UPDATE: The deadline is fast approaching (January 11!) to get our pennies in for the We Create Change campaign. I've had a couple donations of penny jars (Thanks CaroLyn & Patty!) but we haven't quite filled our first bag & I'd love to fill another one. Below are the details of the campaign from my previous post.

Have you got a penny jar in your house? Maybe you've been meaning to cash them in at some point before they go out of production forever. But they're heavy, you don't have time to roll them & go to the bank, the change counter machines take a cut anyway... You've got lots of excuses not to cash them in. Here's a great reason to give the old penny a great send-off: donate it to Free the Children's We Create Change campaign to develop clean sources of drinking water for people in developing nations.

I'm sure you know that clean water saves lives through avoiding disease (80 percent of illnesses in developing countries are linked to poor water & sanitation), but did you know that women in many rural African villages spend hours a day walking to clean water sources? Did you know many girls do it as well & it's a major barrier to their attending school? Every day, women around the world spend a cumulative total of 200 million hours collecting water for their families.

So... what can we do about it? Well, I'm participating in Free the Children's blogger challenge this winter. I'm trying to collect as many pennies as I can for the We Create Change project. 2500 pennies = $25 which is enough money to provide clean water for one person for a lifetime. After going around the house & collecting odd pennies here & there, then finding our penny jar, this is the result. A good start on filling our first bag!

Then I mentioned it to my fellow Mount Pleasant Family Centre Board Members & the lovely Patty dropped off a bag of pennies the next day. Check out the stash now:

For the next step, I need your help! If you're in the Vancouver area, can you help us fill this first bag? & the next one? I have a lot of them... Have you got a penny jar in your house full of these soon-to-be-obsolete copper discs? Please email me at lisa.corriveau AT gmail.com if you're interested in donating some of your hoarded pennies, or leave a comment below with contact info & we'll connect. Thanks!

Resolutions 2012: The Score

I just remembered today that I'd made a list of resolutions last year, so I thought I'd check to see what I actually accomplished from my list. Here's the results:

1. include more political/social commentary into this blog. I didn't really do this a whole lot, though I did write about Shanti Uganda, We Day, the Hope in Shadows project & a few posts about my neighbourhood that might be construed as social commentary...
2. continue blogging daily. DONE!
3. earn more money than last year with writing, stilting & making. Definitely. However, more than last year was a pretty easy task, honestly.
4. sew more. Kind of a vague resolution that I think I probably didn't accomplish.
5. eat more whole foods & less unpronounceable stuff. Again, not easy to measure. Pretty sure I failed at this in the last month of the year, anyway.
6. continue minimalizing: sewing room, garage, Oli's office, improving while downsizing my wardrobe. I'll give myself a partial on this one. My sewing room looks worse than ever, as do the garage & Oli's room. I have gotten rid of several garbage bags of clothing, at least.
7. restart renovating/decorating work on our part of the house. Hm. We replaced the bathroom sink & that's about it. I give us a C- on renovating.
8. get more active again, specifically: hike & cycle more. I definitely cycled a lot more than 2011. No real hiking at all though, which is a bit depressing. We've spent far too much time in the city this past year.
9. take Sprout out more to kid stuff like gym, the park & swimming. We didn't go to a lot of kid gyms once the weather got better, but we did spend a fair bit of time at the parks, water parks & pool, as well as the Mount Pleasant Family Centre drop in so I'd say we accomplished this one.
10. travel more, including camping. Nope. We hardly went anywhere in the last year.
11. be more mindful. Hmm... no idea. Too vague to measure in any way.

So, I got through about half my resolutions. This year I want to do many of the same things. I don't feel like writing an official list, partly because I know I'm going to be busy with a few major things this coming year (more on that later). I'll keep trying to eat better, exercise 40 minutes a day on average & work on getting Sprout playing outdoors daily. Mainly I want to have more fun this year: more travelling, even just short trips to the various islands around Vancouver; more hiking & getting out into nature; more date nights--I think we've had two since Sprout was born, gah.

Have you made official resolutions for this coming year? What are yours?

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Toilet Training & Weaning, Together at Last (?)

January promises to be a big month in Sproutland: I am attempting to accomplish not one, but two major goals. Complete weaning & toilet training. Before you call me crazy for doing them at once, more or less, I'm not expecting the weaning to be a big deal for Sprout. It'll probably be more profound for me, to be honest.

He's ready. He's only been breastfeeding once or twice a day for a long time now. Lately it's gotten to the point where he doesn't ask for 'noms' in the morning or the evening on most days. I offer (mainly out of habit) when putting him to bed, but he's actually started refusing sometimes. So it's to be a gentle weaning: I'm just not offering anymore, but I won't refuse if he requests 'noms'. It's been about three days since he breastfed & the two or three feedings he did have before that were pretty brief.

Breastfeeding has been a very convenient way to comfort Sprout & help get him to sleep, but over the last year he's grown out of needing it for either purpose. I rarely use breastfeeding to calm him down & the last few times I've offered in that situation, he's barely latched anyway. Though it was amazing to have a way to calm him down after he hurt himself or when he was scared or overtired, I don't feel like either of us need that anymore. Cuddling him on my lap seems to do the trick at night & in many other situations.

I'm confident that Sprout & I have benefited as much as we can from breastfeeding. I have no regrets about nursing him to sleep for years--he falls asleep by himself just fine now, thankyouverymuch. I'm proud that we made it to 29 months in spite of the major struggles we had along the way with pain, latch issues, low milk supply, thrush infections, biting & distraction.

So ready to say goodbye to these guys!

Toilet training, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. Weaning has just been a gradual process over the past two years. Getting him to go sit on a potty when he needs to pee or poo is a major shift from wearing cloth diapers nearly 24/7 since birth. I'm nervous that he's going to dig in his heels & I'm trying to figure out what method(s) are going to work best for him.

We've got two dozen tiny pairs of undies, three potties stationed around the house & I'm preparing to clear my calendar for at least a week to stay close to home & get the groundwork laid. We've had him try on underpants & practise pulling them up & down, which he's not that good at. I made a big deal about them being a 'big boy' thing, which seemed to work with other transitions we've made.

I'm just not sure what to do about nighttime since he seems to be waking up with wet diapers a lot again. For a while I found he was often waking up dry, but not lately. Whether to use diapers if we need to go out is a question too. I feel like it might be better to go 'cold turkey', but I'm really not sure. The one thing I'm sure of is that every kid is different & whatever method I choose will work better if it fits with his personality & how we do things in our family. The idea of toilet training is starting to make me anxious--I want to figure out the best way to do this so that it doesn't drag on forever or traumatize either of us.

However, I am very eager to say goodbye to diaper laundry, rashes, bubble-butt that makes clothing harder to fit, change-table wrestling matches & always having to pack an extra bag of bulky diapers around.

Your advice & experience is welcome--maybe you have an idea that might work for us? Please leave a comment!


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Wordless Wednesday

Looking out the window at our lovely hosts' home on Bowen yesterday.

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What do rashes, statistics & hard-to-pronounce German words have in common? My 2012 Wrap Up!

Happy new year! It's been a pretty stellar 365 days here on the Sprog. Daily posts for more than a year now & a growing audience--Google Analytics tells me that apparently at least some of you like what you see here & keep coming back. :) So I thought I'd do the customary round up type post for the year that's just ended.

To start off with, here are my top posts of 2012, in order of popularity:

Tide Pods Review: an Update Apr 14, 24 comments

Review: Tide Pods Mar 16

List #25: 10 things I've always wanted to do but never actually have May 14

Sprout's latest toy: Ikea Duktig Kitchen May 6, 2 comments

My car sharing story Jul 17, 4 comments

Review & Giveaway: Planet Bike Superflash Turbo Nov 30, 15 comments

Advertising Jun 5, 3 comments

Gear: Avalon Deluxe Umbrella Stroller Jan 6

List #47: Me vs. Younger Me Oct 14, 30 comments

Images by Bethany Giveaway: Win a Family Portrait Session & 8x10 Print Nov 23, 21 comments

Love it or hate it, Tide Pods is the thing that brings the most search traffic to The Sprog. Well, love it or hate it isn't really accurate: more like love it or detest it. My update post on Tide Pods detergent & how it gave us rashes continues to get comments months after I wrote it. To a one, they are all personal stories of skin reactions to this detergent, including what sound like quite serious emergency room visits.

Besides becoming a forum of sorts for the rash-inflicted, the Sprog has grown a lot this year, both in terms of what I've learned about blogging & you, my lovely readers. Average monthly visitors in January of 2012 was around 200, growing to over 1300 by the end of the year. The Sprog's monthly pageviews from January to December went from around 700 to about 3200. There are over a thousand comments here on the Sprog, not counting over 600 spam comments that I've lately been struggling to stay ahead of.

The Sprog's Twitter presence has taken off, despite the unprounouceable-in-English handle @blauelibelle, with around 500 followers at the moment. This is from a starting point below 100 a year ago--I wasn't really active for the first few months of the year on Twitter & definitely wasn't obsessing over keeping track of my stats then. The Sprog's Facebook page is also growing, though it's only a few months old, with over 100 followers currently. Besides the big two of Twitter & Facebook, I've also ventured onto Instagram & Pinterest. If you are more visually oriented, follow me there.

Lastly, but not leastly--okay, that wasn't a word, but it sounded cool, right?--I'd like to thank you for reading The Sprog & commenting here once in a while. I'm looking forward to another great year in Bloglandia. Which brings me to another bit of exciting news: The Sprog will be undergoing a metamorphosis in the near future... new name, shiny new domain, new look. But don't worry, you'll still see the same kind of posts on cycling, East Van, the occasional DIY project, living green, Sprout updates & pics, plus giveaways, of course. Stay tuned for the big reveal!

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