This is your Captain speaking

All it takes is a pair of ear defenders (the kids keep calling them headphones, but they're
really ear defenders like the kind for operating heavy machinery), the belly of a robot costume, and the active imagination of a five year old to create the perfect battleship scenario.
After bath time last night, the kids were in pajamas. AJ wore the ear
defenders while constructing something of out Lego. Maggie set up the
control panel of the robot costume like the control station of a
starship command deck and convinced AJ to take a break and sit behind
her.

Maggie: Get ready to launch.
AJ: OK
Maggie: I said get ready to launch!
AJ: Orange fire (Maggie presses an orange button with a yellow star)
Maggie: Fire
AJ: Blue fire (Maggie presses the blue one)
Maggie: Setting full throttle (Maggie uses a frying pan as the handle
of a shifter)
AJ: OK I'm done (he goes back to Lego; now Lincoln tries to take some shots too)

Maggie and Lincoln continue with pushing buttons and shouting random
commands. Finally she announces, "I've set the auto pilot. The ship is
flying by itself" She puts her head down on a princess pillow and
pretends to sleep.

So funny. I actually had that on tape except for the auto-pilot part! Where do they
come up with this stuff?

Eat More Meat!

The summer that AJ was born (2008) the Summer Olympics were held in Beijing, China.  The General Mills Cheerios box we bought featured an Olympic hero, Adam van Koeverden on the kayak with his arms up in a victory pose.  Anyway, he was Maggie's hero and she recognized his face and I had to keep that same box for her while refilling it with a new bag of Cheerios for months. For whatever reason, she actually thought he was saying "Eat more meat" and that was the motto we used to convince her to eat more meat. Anyway the box is long gone and I don't think she remembers about Adam anymore, but we still use that motto from time to time on little AJ too.

Sometimes I wonder if they really eat enough meat. Actually it's Maggie I'm more concerned about though I've come to realize that I can't count the calories or the proper food group servings in a 24 hour period; instead I really have to look at a three day average. She only likes fish sticks and occasionally steak. There was a time when Maggie would only eat roast duck and bacon. Then it was hot dogs, Pogo's and chicken nuggets until dad tried to ban (or limit) the processed food. But she'll eat four egg (whites) for breakfast, scrambled or hard boiled. AJ is a meat eater for sure, though there could be a day when he eats three slices of turkey bacon for breakfast, just plain pasta with Parmesan cheese for lunch, and then two mini Angus beef slider burgers for dinner and then not a speck of meat for days. Lincoln on the other hand will eat a very balanced meal from all food groups, on top of nearly 5-8 cups of milk or formula a day. Not sure if this is normal but if he can climb a two-story "rock" climbing wall on the bouncy castle and take the long slide down on his own at 21 months, I am  not worried about him!

I think the secret is to introduce food in a different presentation and at the same time just take it easy and not force them to eat. They like BBQ steak, BBQ pork (Chinese), fish sticks and AJ's favorite is "baked salmon fish".  We have to buy those at Costco. One time we were shopping at the Country Grocer and he saw lean turkey slices and asked if we could have that for dinner. I rolled them into little turkey rolls and he ate half the pack. Turkey is turkey and I think the tryptophan effect is no myth!

They love the Costco chicken but only on the first meal. If they see leftovers the next day, they refuse to eat it. Well I made those into chicken salad sandwich with mayo for my dinner; lo and behold AJ actually wanted to try it and he had it for breakfast too!

I might have to reintroduce Maggie's hero Adam to her again to remind her to eat more meat; her brothers seem to have no problem with that advice.

Help Me Do it By Myself

Up!

Months ago, it was a daily struggle to get the little guy out of bed, eat his breakfast, change his clothes, brush his teeth and get out the door. Sometimes a two hour ordeal from start to finish!  There were times when I lost my temper and probably frightened the nanny too. The problem was he wouldn't let anyone else help him. I hadn't quite learned the secret of "Teach Me to Do it By Myself"

It just seemed faster if I could just do it all for him! My alternate approach was to be super nice and super sweet talker. He's a very detail-routine driven guy, something as insignificant as not dipping the toothbrush in the cup of water before applying the toothpaste would make him freak out, and
refuse to brush the teeth, which would make me mad and it was just an ugly ordeal to force it.

And then we finally make it out of the house, and getting into the car seat was another issue. He always wanted to climb up himself and do the straps and attach the chest buckle. Sometimes it would just take too long and I would have to "help". That's another trigger point for another fit, and then we would have to start over from the ground up.  One time I even grabbed him under my armpit and shoved him into the seat with the other hand, all the while screaming something mean at the top of my lungs (yah me) while he's kicking and screaming too... all the while, kids and moms at the school bus stop were trying not to stare but somehow I remained clueless that I was supposed to be the cool and calm adult in this situation. It was not my finest moment.

A Switch on Friday the Thirteenth

I even began to question, why do I bother to do this, drag him to Montessori school every morning and make myself late for work (well it's not late if that becomes the regular time I suppose).  Months of this, I really don't have an explanation of how the transition happened, but all of a sudden it wasn't like that anymore. It made me realize, all along he probably just needed to know what would happen next and he had just figured it out!

That little 3.5 y old slowpoke just suddenly decided on his own that he wants to race me to get dressed every morning; he'll even shut the door to his room and demand that no one peeks. He's always been the one to chose his own clothes, but to put everything on all by himself made me so proud!  I had planned to make a routine picture chart, but  never got around to it, and now he's  already figured it out already, including the socks! Anyway he likes to open the door and jump to
attention and proudly show me his complete outfit. yay! I can't  remember when it was that we  stopped fighting about it after breakfast, just one day out of the blue a few weeks ago.  He'll even
brush his own teeth, preparing his own toothpaste. (Occasionally I  still prefer to brush for him to make sure it's done right, especially at night time.) This has phenomenally changed the prep time to leave the house from half hour after breakfast to less than 7 minutes.

Next he has to be reminded to put his shoes and jacket on and "get ready for inspection". Their dad likes to tell them to say, "Ready for Inspection, Sir" when they are in fact ready to go out the door. It's very cute.

I was looking up the topic of "Get Dressed Children Reward Charts" but I found an interesting article about "Routine Charts".  I like that, I don't exactly feel that every task in the morning routine warrants a sticker because I don't want them to to do something just for the sticker, but rather because it is what he is supposed to do next! I found this from another blog, called themerrymummy.blogspot.ca so I've reposted it here.

I think it would be good to talk about it and customize it a bit and post it upstairs visible in the bathroom or by the door.

I stumbled upon a Pinterest board with an awesome list that a mom put together, of everything a child should do by himself at age 2 to 18, for survival and enjoyment of life (not academic or athletic).  Take a look!
http://www.busykidshappymom.org/p/life-skills.html

The Barbie Cake Demo

Maggie told me that sbe would like to have a Barbie birthday party and she clarified that to mean a Barbie birthday cake. Good thing she told me or I would've invited a Princess Barbie to come to the party. For her fourth birthday party I had invited Ariel from Little Princess Party Fun I could do the same but she didn't seem that excited about it. The plan this year is to have all the girls bring along a barbie doll and they can all play in the Barbie Dream house and the Dora Castle (which could double as a Barbie Castle). There's just one thing, there's only one Ken doll with only a pair of combat pants (found him shirtless at a garage sale). Mens doll fashions are hard to track down! We'll do nails at the party too; little brothers tagging along can play soccer out in the backyard.

The cake I planned to make. Source

My biggest task is the Barbie doll cake. I even looked up local businesses online to find a baker that could deliver. Delivery for $30 made me reconsider the possibly that maybe I could just try to do something myself, like my own daughter's birthday cake.

This is fairly significant project to tackle. I own the Pampered Chef Large Batter Bowl that is often used for this design. You can actually bake the cake inside that bowl! found some good ideas. I really don't have an excuse not to do it myself other than time...

HOW TO MAKE A BARBIE CAKE

I decided on a beautiful and simple design, easy to decorate. White cream cheese frosting with ornate pink flowers design.

This afternoon I tried out the perfectly pink Barbie cake recipe made naturally pink with fresh strawberries. Divine!

The Pampered Chef Recipe calls for baking two bowl cakes for the assembly. Perhaps it makes a taller and slimmer dress.  It's possible to use a simple cake mix but I forgot and sent the husband out to buy a bag of flour so I just looked for a strawberry cake recipe from allrecipes.com

Cake from scratch

Natural Red

Rookie Mistakes #1: I forgot to mix the dry and wet ingredients separately. I can kinda measured it out altogether in the big mixing bowl and the cake batter alone turned out dry and crumbly. Fortunately, I mixed the 10 large strawberries and pack of jello powder separately in the Ninja and I was able to add the chunky cake mixture from the bowl in the Ninja bit by bit, with a little help from the little brother chef. Then I poured the whole thing back into the Pampered Chef bowl.

Rookie Mistake #2: I forgot to grease the sides of the glass bowl! Three hours later after cooling with the bowl upside down, I still have not removed the cake. I decided to begin scraping the sides with a thin spatula. I didn`t get all the way to bottom but I turned the bowl upside to let gravity do the work. Oh-oh. The top of the cake was stuck to the glass so it was separated from the bottom. Fortunately this is the trial run.

Baking time modification - 350degrees for 1 hour 10minutes. The center was still quite wet. Baked for 350 for an additional 20 minutes.

Chef Brother

Ready to Bake!

Next Steps
I got a baking tip from a mom blog, to freeze the cake for a day and apply the frosting with a hot knife for evenness.

Anyway since the first baking didn`t work out, I used it for level cake cutting practise. I froze the wider part of the cake for my birthday, to test the thawing process.

Alternate Designs
This one is not the typical Barbie cake but I really like her thoughts on planning her own 17th birthday party. Her lifelong ambitions, her childhood heros. This two barbie design takes the cake!

This model takes a different construction approach, using many thin layers of cake to form the Barbie dress. I thought her dress was made from thin bages! Stunning.

Games
In the meantime I could plan the decorations, cake and invitations.
I found a great website with lots of ideas
Colouring Pages   Crafts   Games

The Final Reveal
As it turns out, my daughter saw me messing with the failed cake to which she announced, "I don't even want a barbie cake. I said I wanted a cheesecake" I had to correct the tone of voice but I was mildly relieved. Alrighty then! We used the biggest part of the bowl cake for my round birthday cake. The kids helped with applying the cream cheese icing and extra sprinkles. It turned out very yummy with the embedded strawberries and strawberry jello!

To accomodate that request, I bought an assorted cheesecake from the Loblaws-T&T bakery for the party. A mom also made a dozen chocolate allergy cupcakes (for her sons) but the other kids loved those too! We ended up ordering a Barbie slab cake from the bakery at the grocery store; it's Barbie Fairytopia in the Peony! However the kids could not resist touching the cake so there were mild smudges at some sides by the time we got to the Happy Birthday song; twenty kids and 5 adults.

Baking Dough Dollies

Set of Two I made!

I spent another crafty afternoon with 8 ladies at church mixing and rolling dough into cute fancy dolls! The finished Dough Dollies will be baked on the upper rack for 4 hours at 250F to be dried thoroughly (start checking after 3 hours). Finish with a generous layer of regular or craft varnish. This project is most suitable for adults though probably a child over 12 would be able to focus long enough to do it.  Smaller children might like to make farm animals or something with fewer methodical steps.

 The instructor showed us her first dolly that she made for her infant daughter now 21 years old! I tried to write out the measurements; the quantities were very precise for a boy and girl pair without too much leftover.

Dough and white paint

Measurements for the White Dough

Part = 1/4 cup
2 parts flour, no rising
1 part flour salt.
Note: This is a very fine grain salt and is a highly specialized item that is ordered in bulk from limited suppliers.

Using the 1/4 cup as a total portion of liquid
Make 2/3 of it water
1/3 of it White tempra paint.
Mix these together in a small cup before combining with the flour and salt. Knead it together, adding flour and 10mL water as needed to achieve the right consistency: smooth without sticking to your hands, and not cracking.

After making White dough, you can use the same measurements and cups to make blue, peach, pink or green dough. Add a squirt of coloured poster paints to the White tempra mixture and stir well with a paintbrush.

If you had made the coloured dough first, you'll have to wash your hands and all the bowls and mats to avoid contaminating white!

The flour salt is a specialty baking item that has to be ordered in bulk quanties from a special store in Toronto, like 50 pounds for $200 or so. You can't use the regular table salt because your dolly face will not be flawless and smooth.

You need the White paint in the dough to have a white dough effect.  Otherwise without the paint, after baking your project will have the colour of baked bread which is not what you want.

The measurements should be generally precise by pressing the dough firmly into a measuring spoon. You could be off by mL but the quantities are pretty tight. You don't want to run out!

GIRL

1. Body: 40 mL blue (or 3x 15mL tablespoon), roll to a ball then to a teardrop shape

2. Untwist a paperclip and form it into a long loop for hanging; insert into the neck of the doll. Hint: Add a piece of tin foil so that the hook won't be baked hard into the head of the doll. It gets hard to remove!

3. Shoes: Roll a 5mL of white dough into one shoe. Use the blunt side of a knife to form a T mark that makes the shoe like a sneaker. Lightly brush water to the bottom of blue body and gently press the shoes close together.

4. Head: 25 mL. Gently roll into a round ball, delicately. Too much pressure will affect the "complexion" of the face.  Apply water with a brush to the top of the neck, pick up the ball gently and attack it to the top of the neck in the same plane. See below.

5. Face: Gently place the eyes nearer to the bottom third of the face looking downwards. Eyes could be small black beads or cracked peppers. Cut a drinking straw to make the perfect smile shape to press into the dough.

Make the Boy's body, face, legs and shoes etc concurrently.

BOY: Body - 30mL, Each Leg - 30mL, Each shoe blue - 7.5 mL, make an apron (blue). Each arm - 7.5 mL white, the chef's hat (blue or white) is a hefty 30mL oval slab.

6. Roll out a white piece of dough to make a long rectangle to form the "lacy" part of the dress underlayer. Place it on the waist of the doll to cover the lower part of the body, folding creases outward from the waist.

7. Make the boy's arms (white), apron (blue) etc.

8. Roll out a blue piece of dough to make and cut a long rectangle about 15cm long and 7cm wide or so. Layer this on top of the white dress.

9. Arms: Roll two 5 mL balls into a long tear shape to form the bell sleeves. Brush the sides of the body with water to attach the arms. Bend one arm slightly to let the doll hold a bread or baquette.

10. Use an oval cutter or free hand to create a blue bonnet.

11. Fill a garlic press with a small piece of white dough to make the hair. Brush the top of the head with water and place a the "hair" on the head, making rounded curls or long side ponytail as desired. Make a small tuft to tuck under the boy's chef hat.

11. Cover the girl's hair with the bonnet. Place a blue cap on the bonnet unless you want it to look like a witch hat.

Ready to bake

Hints: I found it easier to make the layer the dress and the apron before attaching the arms. You can precut the small hat band piece for the chef's hat and the thin pieces for the apron bow and necktie while rolling and trimming the other blue pieces. Check the side view of the face for a good hairstyle. I noticed that my doll looks great from the front, but I could've added more hair on the side ponytail.

The bun and baguette pieces were created separately from scrap pieces of dough without white paint. When baked separately with a previous batch of dolls they will turn bread colour.

Next steps:

After baking for half an hour at 250F, add the small hands and the bread or baquette.  Total baking time: low temperature 250 for about 3-4 hours. Start checking it after 3 hours. If the back of the dough is hardened, then it is done. Do not put on the lowest rack because it will burn easily.

Apply the finishing touches - cute lower eyelashes, a little powder blush for the cheeks, flower dots for the dress, apron and sleeves.  Varnished with "EnviroxTex Lite" from  Michaels or most hardware stores.

 Created by Instructor Valerie

Psanky Ukranian Easter Egg Painting

A productive afternoon of Psanky while sipping zavarka samovar. I was very lucky to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon with our gracious host and six crafty ladies. We have accomplished something extra-ordinary. Psanky takes a bit of planning and designing, and lot of faith. Note that these are completely raw eggs, and the making of one egg took about 3 hours! To preserve the egg entirely, one should shellac the egg and then blow out the egg. Daring!

The finished masterpieces.

A good egg.

Start with a white raw egg, sketch the design lightly in pencil. Apply the first lines of wax with the kiska tool to mask the areas that will remain white. Think of fine white lines, do not cover up too much area, number one rookie mistake!

Progressive layers of colour, lightest to darkest.

I dip the egg in yellow. Think of a reverse mask; whatever is covered with wax black) shall remain white. Next I the wax to draw the lines of wheat, the bee, and yellow parts of the flower etc. Then I dip the egg in orange, masking more parts of the flower and other designs to preserve orange.

Orange dye. Red is next.

I have an intermediate step different than the other ladies. I use a q-tip to apply green to the leaves, sparingly instead of dipping the whole egg in green. Guess what I have to do preserve the green? I should've done the stems green as well, but I had masked those in the first step. Then I dip in the egg in red and this is the final part of the design.I apply extra red hearts to keep more red!

A different way to segment the egg.

This is Kathia's egg. The deer symbolize hunting. She refers to her Nordic ancestry. The handiwork of an Engineer, look at that precision and symmetry!

Synthetic dyes.

Jars of dye. Traditional dyes were made from natural materials like onion skin, berries, soot etc using secret family recipes.

The ultimate reveal...

I dip the egg in black dye and I let it steep for a deep dark black. The last step is to melt the wax and wipe away the wax with tissues. We used vanilla scented candles as the open flame. The host also provided a blow torch which is a traditional method for the brave I suppose. Imagine the damage!

The last step before the final reveal. This is symbolic to me. The egg is so icky looking and lumpy and black, like the part when Jesus dies on the cross and they take him down to bury. For three days he is in Hades, the belly of Jonah's whale, in North America preaching to native Indians or in China doing the same, whatever. But on Easter Sunday, He is the Risen one; glorious and victorious.

White daisies turned out well.

The documentation identifies 10 ways to divide the egg in terms of variety of basic designs. It appears that  Brenda and Eleanor have made a gated design, when the lines are drawn from the top to bottom of the egg in segments.  The gated design represents the gates of heaven and this type of egg is normally given to older people. I see it must be a mindset or underlying preference. What does it all mean?

Apparently, I made a Vinochok, popular style of Psanky that comes from the word Vinky for poetry expressing a girl's wish for freedom.   I used a simple three garland design, the three circles represent three parts of human existence - the hopes in birth marriage and life. This is a traditional style of an egg for a younger girl.

Bee. A symbolizes hard work and pleasantness, providing honey, wax and pollination of plants. I chose a bee in my design because Deborah means "industrious bee" in Hebrew.

Wheat. A plentiful harvest.  For many centuries, the wheat symbolized the life's work of a Ukrainian peasant.

Flower. Represents beauty and children. Apparently flowers have little mystical significance.

Sun. The source of life, it's radiant beams. The solar design can appear as a circle, a flower, spiral or star-like. I didn't mean to do it or maybe I did, by coincidence. Can you see my sun inside the center of the flower?

Hearts. Love, love, love.

Star. Represents success. Stars were usually drawn with even number of points for symmetry of design.

Fish. I suppose this could be a reference to the miracle of the multiplication of the fish and bread, two fish and five loaves of bread to be exact, that fed 5,000 men not counting the women and children.  In Chinese culture, two fish is a symbol of luck in terms of fate and destiny. The word fish sounds like the sort of luck you have when you meet "the one true love".

Helena's egg top left. Like circuitry!
Brenda and Eleanor choose geometric designs.

We are missing Dee's egg but her design contained a star or a snowflake, wheat and dots. Happy Easter!



A Man of Few Words

The other day, Lincoln had his 18 month old check up with the doctor and one of the items on the Nipissing checklist is, does he say 20 words? Well I know he talks but I couldn't count 20 right off the bat because I simply didn't spend enough time to listen. So I just said no; I wanted to say, probably his nanny would know, but that would be a totally unacceptable response. So I went home and started to write down as many words as I could so now I have my answer!

The word and the pronounciation
By 16 months
Fish (chinese and english) - signs fish
Please - signs please, pwease
More - signs
Milk (chinese) - nye nye
Momma, Dadda (sooner)

By 17 months, if not sooner
I want it/ that (sounds whiny but that's what it sounds like)
I don't want it/ that
Mommee
Daada
Brother (chinese) - Gogo, geh geh, AJ
Amen - a-men
Bye
Go!

By 18 months
Monster - mon-a Roooooar
Cat (chinese) - maeow
Dog (chinese) or four legged mammal  - woah woah
Duck - queck queck (with hands)
Water (chinese and english) - seu, wata
Give (chinese) - bay
Eye - points to eye, eye (even if you say "I")
Nose (chinese) - ba do
Sister (chinese) - ga tsa
Nanny - Tita
Ball - ball
Book - bo
Socks (chinese) - mut
Up - up
NO
characters - WooDEE, Bu--, Elmoo, Mo-mo (Nemo)
Ready for Inspection Sir - Weady!
Pick me up (chinese) - por
Counting, with hints - Won, Tooo, eeeee, four, ive
Poo
Pee - pee, bee
Hi
Look! - loa
Open (chinese) - oi
Open the door - oi moon, oben doa
Airplane or flying (chinese) - fway

Brand new this week.
Butterfly - budda-fwy!
Singing or humming with the same sound - Brahm's lullaby with nah or hmmm.
Put it back - eee back
He cry
He hit/ bump/ hurt me - eee po
Pasta
Dora
Bear
Monkey - money!
DO (C sound on the piano, 'This is the sound of Do Do Do") - DO DO DO DO!
I/ me (chinese) - ngoa
Spider - spid-O!

21 months
Water - Wa-doo
Milk - mewk
I do this
Singing, time to put the toys AWAY!
Singing, trying to follow along with the Alphabet song

I'm noticing a few new words a day since I started the post. I am also intrigued by the mix of languages. The Chinese words seem easier to say because a one syllable word represents a concept that takes more words to say in English. Like "Give it to me now!" is "bay".

I really shouldn't compare him with his older sister Maggie who was talking clearly in three to five word sentences at this age. I remember it being strange to see a young girl with a baby face, talking. Lincoln on the other hand speaks in long sentences with animated gestures and descriptive words, and if you pretend to understand him he keeps talking and talking, like speaking with someone in a foreign language and just pretending that you understand.