Tag: daughter

Gingerbread Cookies

It’s the afternoon before Christmas Eve, and my 8-year-old daughter is itching for something to do. Presents are wrapped. Too early for a movie. We turn into Cookie Monsters and bake up a batch of Gingerbread Cookies!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup (or 1 1/2 sticks) organic butter
3/4 cups organic brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg, organic and from free range chicken
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups organic all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Beat butter and sugar together in a medium bowl until smooth. Add molasses, egg and vanilla. Whisk very well. It will take quite a bit of elbow grease to make it smooth, but carry on. It will be worth it.

Add flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Beat with spatula until well incorporated.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough a little bit at a time to 1/4 inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes. Lay an inch apart on baking sheet. (Since I don’t use non-stick cookware, I save the wax paper covers of butter in the freezer and rub my baking sheet with it when I’m baking.)

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Cool on wire racks, then decorate.

Here are some fun ideas for decorating your Gingerbread Creatures.

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2012
Chalkboard Linen Closets

Since we moved into this old ranch-style farmhouse in the winter, we did not want to paint the walls and be stuck indoors with the smell of fumes. But there are child’s scribbles on some parts of the walls including these white linen closets. I tried and tried to scrub them off but they would not come off.

Inspired by the child’s scribbles, my husband rolled two layers of Chalkboard Paint on the Linen Closet Doors. It only took one 30-oz. can of Rust-Oleum Chalkboard Paint to do it.

Materials: Rust-Oleum Chalkboard Paint, Painters Masking Tape, Paint Roller, Metal Paint Tray, Drop Cloth, Sandpaper, Fan.

Sand your surface, make sure it’s clean. Masking tape the edges to make sure you don’t smudge past what you want to paint. Set up your drop cloth under your workspace. Then lay that paint. Since we are doing this in the winter, we had to keep one window open and run the fan. Instructions say wait 4 hours before rolling that second layer, and wait 4 days before using the chalkboard.

To prepare the Chalkboard, rub the whole surface with chalk, then erase. Now we’re all set to draw or write or scribble or doodle. I’ve never drawn this big!

I love my 8 year old daughter’s chalkboard art!

She takes after her Dad.

December 17, 2012
Airplane Sock Puppets

Any parent traveling with children on a plane stocks up on activities to do while in transit. We certainly had a backpack’s worth of toys, drawing books and art supplies. Most important for parents, however is a creative mind to keep kids entertained during the many hours in limbo.

On our flight from San Francisco to Manila aboard Philippine Airlines, we received a plastic bag each containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, sleeping mask and a pair of socks. When boredom set in, it was sock puppet time!

Fold the toe in to make a mouth for the sock puppet. Have your child draw the face using a sharpie marker.

Playtime!

March 6, 2012
A Child’s Creation Story

My daughter loves hearing about how she was born. I tell her about her beginning as a tiny baby the size of a pea growing inside my belly. I tell her about how happy I was when she grew big in my belly and I felt her kicking against me. I tell her about the dream I had of her being held by a larger-than-life statue of the Madonna whose face looked like Freddie Mercury. I tell her that dream meant she had the gift of music.

I tell her that a few hours before she was born, her Daddy and I took a walk around the neighborhood and rescued a lost dog. I tell her that when it was time for her to come out, three midwives came to our home to help me. She likes thinking of them as three fairy godmothers. I tell her that at some point I hugged her Daddy and he could feel her kicking against us, pushing just as hard as I was. I tell her that when she finally came out, she blew all the fluid out of her nose and let out a strong cry, her first song. I tell her that when she was all wrapped up warm in a blanket, her Daddy sang her the “Macaroni” song.

I tell her that three days after she was born, she started turning orange. I said, I don’t want a pumpkin. I want a baby! So we went to Children’s Hospital and put her under bright lights. In a few days she was back to being a baby and we took her home.

At five years old, she began adding to the story. She says that once she was an angel who wanted to be human. She looked over all the mothers and fathers in whole world and picked us. Then she came into my belly and started growing there. I tell her how lucky we were that she chose us.

I suppose it is natural for humans to be curious about our origins. Where proof ends, we speculate. Cultures create and appropriate their own versions of creation myths. Even Science has its own unproven theory of our beginnings. We need these stories to give us a sense of identity. These stories, like stars, guide us as we navigate the future.

August 23, 2011
How Does Your Garden Groove?

Vacation comes, school is out
Summer ends, year in, year out.

-Neil Young

I can’t believe the summer went by so fast. This summer marks Malaya’s first theatre production. My baby girl is all grown up and onstage! Here is a video (a little over 13 minutes) of their summer camp production of “How Does Your Garden Groove?” by Michael and Jill Gallina. She played Pea # 2. And the sweetest pea in the garden, she is.

August 21, 2011
The Pretzel Fairies

What do you do with two 6-year-olds on a misty Sunday afternoon?

Make pretzels! It’s so easy making pretzel dough on the breadmaker. And after seeing me make spider-shaped pretzels, the girls, still wearing their fairy wings, took over with their own creations: bacteria… uhrm… dots of some sort.

Still yummy! 😀

More pretzel shapes:
music notes and G-clef
skeleton bones

August 7, 2011
Amigurumi Girls

Amigurumi Girl gets a little sister!

Sunday morning my daughter and I were going through my leftover yarn collection. I have a bag of one-skein yarns that I reserve for very small projects, such as amigurumi toys. We found a skein of the Classic Elite Flash in marled pink that reminds me of peppermint candy. I bought it for my daughter years ago but never got around to doing anything with it. That morning, I asked her what she imagined that yearn could be made into.

“Can you make a sister for Clariana?” she asked. Clariana is what she named the Amigurumi Girl I made last summer.

So I set to work. Then halfway through the head, I broke my bamboo crochet needle. The only US size B I have. This must be why metal crochet needles are popular.

I had to use a smaller size. 1.75 mm metal hook.

My stitches were tighter with the smaller hook, which made this sister a little sister. Other than the difference in hair and dress color, I used the exact same kind of yarns, Classic Elite Bam Boo for the dress and skin, and Classic Elite Flash for the hair.

I had finished the head and the body, and was working on the limbs when my precocious 5 year old made a discovery. Put together differently, the head and the body looked like a mushroom. Since she’s the boss of this project, I had to turn the parts into a mushroom and start all over with the little sister. I spent the whole day crocheting, supervised by my 5 year old boss.

It was a lovely way to spend a rainy Sunday together.

The Girl Pattern is in page 84 of Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts Amigurumi by Tomoko Takamori.

January 27, 2010
Lemon Garlic Tea

Well, actually this recipe is listed as Garlic Lemonade in Aviva Jill Romm’s book, Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives. Among recipes for boosting immunity, this one excited me most because my daughter and I can incorporate it into one of our favorite playtime activities: Tea Party.

We usually boil a cup of water, squeeze half a lemon and stir a teaspoon of honey into it. A porcelain tea set makes things fun and fancy for my little princess. This recipe adds only one more element: garlic, known for stimulating the immune system.

Here is the recipe:

Garlic Lemonade

3 medium-sized garlic cloves, chopped
(blogger’s note: instead of chopping, I pounded the garlic in a mortar and pestle)
Juice of 1 lemon
Maple syrup or honey to taste.

Place the garlic in a 1-quart jar and fill the jar with boiling water. Let the garlic steep for 20 minutes and then strain it out. Add the lemon juice and sweeten with the maple syrup or honey.

Give 1/2 to 2 cups daily, the lower dose to prevent illness and for younger children and the greater quantity for older kids who feel like they are coming down with a cold.

Don’t give the lemonade every day; just use it periodically as needed.

January 20, 2010
Doing Nothing When My Child is Sick

There is nothing worse for a parent than having a sick child. There is no sleeping when the germs are having their way with our kids. And as a reward for our care, we parents get a dose of the same sickness after our kids are through with it. Can someone please remind me why I wanted so badly to be a mom?

Whenever I come across someone twittering about their kid being sick, I am filled with so much empathy for their plight. I know how it feels to look helplessly at a fevered, coughing, snot-runny, crying child and not have a magic wand to wave it all away. I’m going through that right now.

My daughter had a slight sniffle on Friday morning, and though I felt conflicted, I brought her to her dentist appointment for a filling. (I feel very badly about this. I don’t know anyone who has ever had a filling on a milk tooth. I feel so stupid, and scammed! Worst of all, I have to face the fact that my 5 year old now has something in her mouth every day that weighs on her immune system even just the slightest bit. All because I was a schmuck who didn’t think it through clearly enough before everything was said and done. After all the reading I’ve done about questionable dental practices, I still got sucked into signing my kid up for it. But I digress.)

Everything was fine over the weekend. Monday she went to preschool and had a playdate with a friend and her little one-year-old brother after school. Wednesday, she woke up with a cough, her friend was absent from school. Thursday morning my daughter woke up with a fever. I kept her home.

The most valuable resource I’ve ever gotten prior to giving birth was Aviva Jill Romm’s book, Naturally Healthy Babies and Children: A Commonsense Guide to Herbal Remedies, Nutrition, and Health. The first of Six Steps of Healing, “Step 0: Do nothing to interfere; observe. Recognize and observe the processes taking place. Allow the processes to unfold.”

I’ve always listened to my daughter’s body wisdom. From the very first moment I held her in my arms and watched her suckle instinctively, I was constantly amazed at what she knew about her body. I was humbled, and tried my best not to get in the way by imposing what I thought she was supposed to do. I did not adhere to any feeding schedule. She ate when she was hungry and didn’t when she was not. I believe that eating disorders begin when our own basic instincts are supplanted by messages from the outside, whether it’s mother imposing feeding schedules and quotas, or later on mass media telling us we are too fat. We grow up not trusting our own instincts, tossed about from fad diet to fad diet, unhealthy, unhappy, out of touch with our own bodies.

So I listen to my kid, long before she learned to talk, and I don’t see myself changing soon. As soon as she learned to talk, we taught her the word, “symptoms.” Every time she complained or cried about pain, we asked, “What are your symptoms?” She’d say her head hurts, her nose is runny, her throat hurts… all very helpful clues to a parent, and educational for a child growing up in touch with her body and all its functions.

Doing nothing is the hardest thing. A crying child is a siren of alarm and I don’t know any parent who can sit there without a twitch. In my 5 years of being a mom, I’ve found 5 Ways of “Doing Nothing” when my child is sick. Let me share them with you.

1. Touch. We all have the gift of healing hands. How many times have we instinctively clutched our bellies during a stomach ache, or massaged our temples when we have a headache? I lay my palms on my child and my touch alone comforts her, relaxes her enough to be clear when she talks to me about her symptoms. I ask her if she’s comfortable, if my touch makes her feel better, if she’d rather I touch her elsewhere. Last night for instance, I had my hand on her forehead, and she told me she’d rather have my hand on her neck. Touch aids communication. Touch is communication.

2. Healthy food and water. No matter what it is that ails our children, lots of water and healthy foods will help their immune systems heal them. Carrots and fruits are some raw foods that children already like to eat, so there’s no coercion needed. I like to serve soups at mealtimes because it’s healthy and hydrating. Best ingredients to put into soups for sick people are shiitake mushrooms and leafy greens to support the immune system. When my daughter was still breastfeeding, I made sure she had my milk as often as she reached for it. Not only did it aid her immune system, it also kept her hydrated. Avoid anything fried, dairy or sugar.

3. Warm washcloth. Aviva Jill Romm wrote it best in her book, Naturally Healthy Babies and Children: A Commonsense Guide to Herbal Remedies, Nutrition, and Health, “Fever is not an illness. It is a process occurring as a response to infection and a signal of illness. It is not the fever itself that needs to be eliminated. Rather, the task is to support and nourish the child while the body does the work of eliminating infection, regaining equilibrium, and healing. In fact, fevers may be important in the body’s fight against invading organisms by stimulating the immune system and creating a body temperature inhospitable to bacteria.” I have never given my child medicine to reduce her fevers. I work with a washcloth and water, as hot as I can take it, and I hold it on to her forehead. As the washcloth cools slowly, so does the fever in her head subside.

4. Echinacea. A tincture of echinacea is an over the counter herbal remedy for supporting the immune system. Our medicine cabinet is always stocked with it. I squeeze a few drops in water in a shot glass, depending on directions on the label. My daughter actually likes the taste of it.

5. Zap. Zapping has to be the best kept secret to health. The concept and practice of zapping has been studied and documented for over a hundred years beginning with Nikola Tesla in the 1900s. In a nutshell, a zapper is a device that emits a frequency which resonates throughout the body to shatter bacteria, viruses and germs, much like a singer shatters glass with the right pitch and frequency.

Despite the zapper not being acknowledged by the FDA and the medical establishment, I’ve been using the zapper since I came across it in 1997, with satisfying results. My daughter does not know life without it. Zapping doesn’t feel like anything, there is no electrical jolt or buzz. It’s the ultimate in doing nothing because you just sit there holding the electrodes while doing, well, nothing. I believe it works because symptoms are relieved after use, sometimes dramatically, like with a stomach ache. With colds or flu, it takes a while, but I’ve noticed my family kicks it sooner than most. Cuts that are pink and puffy with infection dry up faster when we zap.

(Disclosure: I am owner/manager of NaturalHealthSupply.com and we sell zappers. In 1999, my husband and I began selling zappers because we believe in them, not the other way around. I feel really lucky to have found the zapper as a solution to many of my health problems. I’ve spoken openly about zapping long before we started selling them. My testimonial above is my own personal experience with the zapper, and is not intended as a medical claim.)

To this day, “doing nothing” has helped my daughter through fevers, coughs, cold, flu, ear infections, cuts and scrapes. When would I consider medical help? Broken bones. Knock on wood.

January 16, 2010
Preschool Pen Pals

My 5-year-old daughter has a pen pal. Iris and Malaya met one summer in Maine when they were both three. They hit it off instantly! We had play dates all summer and rainy days spent indoors. When we headed home to California, the girls hugged each other and promised to stay friends.

It began with us, Moms, writing what our daughters wanted to say to each other. The girls decorated the notes with stickers and drawings. After a few exchanges, the girls started signing their own names at the bottom of the letters. Now, my preschooler writes full letters to her friend, asking for my help to spell out the words she wants to say.

There is so much excitement when we get a letter in the mail. I let her open her own letter, and together we sit as I read it to her. Sometimes she immediately wants to write her friend back. Other times she just sets it aside and goes off playing with something else. Some mornings when she thinks of something she wants to say to her friend, she recruits me to help her write a letter.

Having a pen pal has given my daughter so much enthusiasm and inspiration to read, write and express herself on paper. She loves the whole process: writing a letter, decorating it with stickers and drawings, folding it into the envelope and putting the sticker-stamp on the top right corner. I even let her write her name on the top left corner, and her friend’s name on the center of the envelope. As a favor to the postal worker, I write the addresses. A trip to the post office where my daughter puts her letter into the mail box completes the process.

Iris and Malaya only see each other in the summer when we visit Maine. But the two share such a special friendship as pen pals. I imagine their letters becoming more and more interesting as they learn about the world they are living in. Someday I know I won’t be in the loop anymore, as my daughter learns to read and write letters on her own. Until then I am happily helping her keep in touch.

January 12, 2010