Parenting Without a License

Cake pop-like things

After being introduced to the beauty that is all things Bakerella this week, I decided that the cake pops were really the coolest thing since peanut butter and sliced bread (which is basically a treat itself these days anyway since every child-friendly public place in these parts has banned peanut products!). And how hard could they be. I bake. I decorate. Hah!

I decided to go with the basic smiley face pops to see if we could do them. I've never used candy melts before, let alone an edible marker. Now, in all fairness, I essentially let the kids do them. They had a total blast and it took ages to do. But I am not sure if I can blame them for the fact that they didn't exactly turn out like hers did. Here's a pictorial step by step of the, ummm, more earthy version of her pops.

First, you make a sheet cake with a cake mix. Fancy no?

  

Once it has totally cooled, break it into chunks and pull apart until crumbly. Note the two bowl technique as much arguing over whose turn it was  required this addition to the recipe.

  

Next stir in a can (yes a can, I used store bought icing!) of frosting into the crumbs. I used a whole can but I don't think we needed quite that much. The end product was a bit sticky.

  

Next, make quarter-sized balls. I think we were too lax in our ball-making. The end result was bumpy, so I think you really need to roll these suckers to make them smooth. And you need to wash hands a lot as they get sticky fast. Lay the balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

 

Melt a bit of the candy melts according to the package directions. Dip the lolipop sticks in a bit and insert them about halfway into the balls. Put in the freezer until set. 

   

Then melt the rest of the melts. I will tell you that one bag of Wilton melts only does half a batch of these pops. It was easy to melt, and I followed the directions and used a deep bowl. However after the first few the chocolate wasn't deep enough so I had to swirl and cover with a spoon. And you are supposed to tap off the excess, and either we weren't aggressive enough or we had too much chocolate on them, as we had lots of drippage (see below).  Plus our balls weren't all that round, and you could see through the chocolate. But c'est la vie. Put them in a styrofoam block to dry.

 

And finally, draw on faces. Here's where we had our last bit of trouble. I waited until they were dry, but either the Wilton pens I got were dried out, or they don't work well on the candy melts, as they were really hard to draw with. I think I'll try another type of pen, or an icing writer on any future pops.

So despite their rugged appearance, they are pretty tasty. Sweeter than you can imagine, so one is definitely enough. And it was a surprisingly kid-friendly project.

Now, do I dare try the Easter Eggs?

Teen Watching

We live close to a high school, and every day when I drive Sam to school I have to wait at a crosswalk while herds of teens make their way to class. I also then get the opportunity to watch what's new and exciting in the fashion world of the 15-18 year old set. I have to say it's quite the sport. It's just people watching of course -- but applied to one particular demographic.

I find them hilarious. Seriously -- watching them walk to school in their various getups brightens my day.

Because something seems to happen to teens, once they are past the onslaught of early puberty and they are trying to find their identity.

It seems the vast majority just get stupid.

And of course I don't mean stupid in the intellectual sense, more in the common sense. This isn't stupid as in doing drugs or stealing or other scary stuff sense. But seriously -- my seven year old would know better than to wear what these kids wear.

It's been gross -- cold and snowy for days. Today it was -8 and snowing lightly, the streets were treacherous with ice. Of the dozen or more kids that came across the crosswalk, not one had on a coat. Two girls had on flip flops!  The boys had on sneakers that weren't laced, all the better to collect snow in their socks. One guy had on shorts. Two girls had on capri leggings. All were wearing hoodies, the boys were unzipped of course, the girls were so tight I wondered how they could breathe. Most of the boys had two baseball caps on their heads. No gloves of course. Why would anyone wear gloves in -8 and snow? None of the girls had on socks.

Sam just stares at them in wonder. Aren't they cold mom? Why wouldn't they wear a coat mom?

I just hope that when my kids are that age, and are trying to look cool and instead they look dorky -- I can find my way to find it as amusing then.

Decision making when there's just too much information

I am not an overly anxious person. I live my live almost entirely by the "everything in moderation" rule. Well, almost everything. Obviously, you know, grand theft auto in moderation would not fall under that category. But I think most things -- most foods, most drinks, most activities -- are fine if you just sample a bit of everything.

On the other hand I am an information junkie. I have said before I am a born skeptic because I read so much conflicting information, and I also know how the race to get information out quickly rather than accurately is a real part of our information junkie culture.

But what I struggle with is how to make an informed decision on your actions, or your behaviours, or what you let your children be exposed to -- when you can probably find someone to support whatever your view is.

I try to use what I'd consider to be common sense. For example, common sense tells me that use of a cell phone -- moderate use -- would cause no health problems. Why would it? Logically -- how could a cell phone CAUSE cancer. And most of the nutty stuff I read about why it does is easy to blow off. But when I read stuff like this and they throw in phrases like "peer reviewed," well that starts to set off alarm bells on my "legitimate information" meter. 

I can be very blase about food safety. I am an agricultural writer. I spend most of my work day writing about food in one form or another. I know how incredibly minimal any risk, any contimation is of getting on my plate and making my family sick. I have a friend -- a smart, lovely lady, who quite literally stops eating any food once it is recalled. She stopped eating and feeding her family all red meat with the mad cow scare. Processed meats went in the garbage after the Maple Leaf Food scandal. And recently she stopped eating all peanut products because of the peanut recalls froma  U.S. facility. It doesn't matter that it was only one plant that had issues -- she wants to eliminate risk. With ever stringent food safety guidelines, I feel like sooner or later every food group will have a recall -- I mean, even organic, happy veggies have had their troubles.

I have another good friend who has never, ever online banked. She's petrified of identity theft. And the headlines are full of stories of this. I have been banking electronically for my entire adult life, and I know I could have a problem, I could eventually be targetted. But I also feel like there are systems in place to protect me in the event of such issues.

I don't want to be scared, and I wonder sometimes how you choose what you should and should not be afraid of. I read on a blog somewhere a comment that the Canadian and American media are full of these somewhat "faux scary stories" that create a culture of fear becasue we really have nothing truly to be afraid of. Our lives are pretty safe in general, but we have to have something to keep us afraid and on our guard.

I am not sure what to think. How do you decide what information to take seriously and what to ignore? How do your reading/viewing habits affect your decision making? Would you call yourself a "trust in authority" type -- or the opposite -- or somewhere in between?

The delight of discovering words

After I write a blog where I come down hard on one of the kids, or express my frustration in their behaviour, I like to follow up with something a little more positive.

For example Tess is discovering reading. We did not teach her phonics -- we don't even have any teaching tools other than the fridge phonics. She learned them at the Montessori preschool she goes to. But she is really, really into it now.  She wants to read all of the time. We dug out the old Leap Frog videos that helped Sam figure out the sometimes crazy rules of the English language and she wants to watch them all of the time.

So I give you Tess reading. It's kind of painful in how she sounds everything out. But at the same time, her personality shines in this video. I love her giggles, her amazement that there is a character called Mom. And how when she's done she's d.o.n.e. I also like my own laughter at her silliness.

Let's see if this works. I have a hard time embedding videos - it usually takes me a few tries - so please be patient with me!

Craving Space

I remember being a young teen and venturing into the “work world” for the first time. I made my fortune (hah!) as the neighbourhood babysitter. I loved babysitting. I got to play with little kids and remember being a kid for a few hours, then I could trundle them off to bed and talk on the phone with my friends for the rest of the night. And get paid for it.

 

But if I am being completely honest, I so much preferred looking after kidlets of the female persuasion. Girls were always so much more independent. They didn’t demand, “play with me,” all the time. They were happy to come up with their own fun and games, and happy when you joined it. The boys I babysat were all so much higher maintenance.

 

When we had Sam I figured I was in for that. The thing is that Sam is a very independent kid. He loves to play with you, but he treasures time to himself. I can get stuff done when Sam is around.

 

Not so with Tess.

 

Where on earth does she fit into my carefully crafted stereotype? She cannot seem to play independently. If I try to send her off to do something on her own, the closest she will come is terrorizing her brother.

 

I am trying to figure out if this is a phase. Did she play well on her own before? Well, she was pretty little before. And this has been going on for months. As I am wont to do, I went back and read a blog entry of Sam at the same age. It was funny for two reasons. First, because I complain that he can’t play on his own all of a sudden. But also because he was a terror on a playdate and yesterday Tess was a whiny, crying, embarrassing mess on a playdate. Age thing? Who knows.

 

But I spoke to Doug yesterday and I have to do something about it for my own sanity. I have tried talking about it to her – explaining how it is important to enjoy your own company. Or how sometimes mommy has to get some stuff done and it’s difficult with her underfoot. But she just looks at me in confusion and explains right back that she is lonely when there’s nobody around and she just loves to have company with her. I am not sure how to get around it.

 

Suggestions? Doug and I talked about having her take 20 minutes in her room to play, but it feels like I am punishing her. And any time I have tried to enforce independent play she bursts into tears (another new thing, my daughter who never cries has been a weepy mess of late).

 

Is independence just born – or can it be made?

Chop Part 2

I think this will become an annual thing with Tess. Last week we chopped all of her hair off. Again. The thing that cracks me up about Tess is that she is 100% decisive about how she wants her hair to be. Halfway last summer she was emphatic about the the fact that she wanted her hair to grow all the way down her back. And because she has inherited my fast growing hair -- it was halfway there last week.

See.

  

And while it looks all lovely and shiny here -- give it ten minutes. In all of our Florida pics she looks like she escaped from Alcatraz or something. This girl has a TONNE of hair. You can see from last year how much thicker it is. And it's that soft, silky texture. So if you put it in an elastic (not a pony tail -- she's still anti-pony-tail) -- the weight of it pulls it out in now time. She's into hairbands but she looks like she's caught in a wind tunnel five minutes after you put in the band. So for the past ten days she has been begging to have it cut off. And I mean begging. Hounding me in fact. So I finally took her in and she's much happier. It's not as dark as it looks in this picture, but I am afraid it's losing much of the gold tone and is heading into "mouse" territory. Luckily it seems to lighten in the sun.

But why I really wanted to post this is to show what a drama queen Tess is. I tried to get a nice, posed picture to show her granparents her new cut. Instead this is what I got.

     

 

And for those of you who guessed Summer as my Florida friend (I guess that would be all of you) -- well you were correct. She's just as lovely as I'm sure you've imagined. Her husband and son were also charming. My kids on the other hand -- well they were not so charming at her house. They were fine once we hit the beach thank heaven. As was I once I had some wine from her Ikea beach cups. I'd post a picture, but the one picture I took of her wouldn't download. I have no idea why -- unless she's a secret vampire:)