1m2aSandbox

I’m hosting a night soon for some
friends from my church; a group of about thirty people are coming
over to talk about small steps you can take to “green”
your life and move towards more sustainable living. Being the OCD
person I am, I’m writing up a small(ish) handout about the
whole thing, and am including links to lots of helpful sites.


One of the sites I’m referencing is the Story of Stuff, a
website revolving around a twenty-minute documentary about, well,
all our stuff – how it’s made, where it goes, and so
on. I just sat down and watched it again and even though it’s
been out for a while and even though I’ve seen it before,
it’s impacted me. Again.


So target="_blank">here’s the link – seriously, if
you’ve never watched this, now’s the time. It’s
only twenty minutes.

Yesterday afternoon Cora came out of her
room after quiet time begging to play with her rock collection. She
and Maddie both have a jar of polished rocks they’ve bought
at various museums and tourist sites, and their glass jars are a
rainbow of smooth polished rocks.


I laid down some ground rules – keep the rocks in the living
room, don’t feed them to the cat, etc. – and opened the
jar. Then I made my big mistake – I disappeared into the
office to catch up on some emails.


Ten minutes later, I heard an ear-splitting crash followed by an
even more ear-splitting “NOOOOOOOOO!” from Cora.
Rushing out, I saw Cora and Maddie standing in our wood-floored
kitchen, Cora wailing and Maddie looking shocked. At their bare
feet was the shattered glass jar, splintered all over the kitchen,
rocks scattered everywhere.

As I mentioned earlier, both girls are at
theatre camp every morning this week and amazingly enough it marks
the first time since they’ve been born that I’ve been
home by myself – barring being ill, I suppose.


I’ve already got grand plans for the fall when Cora’s
in pre-kindergarten three days a week: one day of chores and
errands, one day of teaching, and one day available to volunteer in
both schools. I picture having all this time to do my home-work
unfettered: grocery shopping, bill paying, toilet cleaning,
vacuuming, sifting through young-child detritus that’s
accumulated under a bed – the possibilities seem endless. And
as weird and sick as it sounds, I’m looking forward to it; I
don’t heart doing laundry in any big way, but I am truly
anticipating getting all the grunt work done whilst childless, so
my time with the kids can truly be quality time with the kids as
opposed to “time doing errands while dragging children
unhappily after me.”

As I’ve written recently, I’m
in full smoothie swing this summer and have been pulverizing fruit
left and right. Recently, though, a mid-afternoon crabby episode
drove me to experiment with, um, other ingredients, and I’ve
hit on the absolute best smoothie ever.


If you like chocolate, of course.


One caveat here – I use a half can (about six to eight
ounces) of coconut milk – the thick stuff that’s full
of fat but oh-so-good. So you should like the taste of coconut
before you make this. I personally love the ice cream made with
coconut milk, so this is, to me, like a chocolate milkshake. Of
course, if you’re not dairy-allergic like I am, you can use
cow’s milk instead, but make sure it’s got some fat in
there for some delicious oomph.


Here ‘tis –

Maddie and Cora started a week-long
theatre camp yesterday at the performing arts school where I work,
and I think I may have created a two-headed monster. Or two
monsters. Or something.


The camp itself isn’t anything career-making; it’s 9 -1
every day, with some singing and dancing and acting, and a small
show on our stage at the end of the week. It’s four-year-olds
through eight-year-olds, so we’re not talking anything
incredibly complicated. My main reason for putting them into it was
really to give the girls a chance to have a week of structure and
getting up somewhat early before school gets started. Cora’s
never done school at all, and this week will be the most time
she’s ever had to concentrate in her life. Add to that things
like learning to get her own lunch in and out of a bag, and taking
care of her own potty needs, and I figured the camp would be a
great testing ground for Cora before pre-k.


I forgot how much the girls just like to perform.

So yes, we went horseback riding, and yes,
Maddie loved it.


Not LOVED loved it, as in, “Mummy, sign me up NOW! I must do
it! I want horsie curtains and horsie sheets on my bed!
NEEIIGHHH!” But loved it as in, I saw that slow smile spread
across her face as the ride began and, in spite of her fears and
challenges along the way, that smile never left.

Maddie’s had trouble with her lovey
being at school; if she brings it, she has a tendency to want to
take it out and snuggle with it. During class time. And when
Maddie’s got Silky in her hands, she goes into a coma-like
trance, only barely able to listen to the outside world. I find
that the days Maddie would leave Silky at home, she’d finish
the day much more alert and attentive, and I tried for a long time
to get her to leave it alone.


Finally I went with the tried-and-true parenting method of
bribery.