MamaPie

Multicultural Kids

Ezra, Reuben and I went to a great event yesterday. Hosted by three faith communities who came together last summer to create a camp called Abraham's Tent, it was a song, craft and story morning. We learned about the Advent candles (which my Waldorf School boys are already quite familiar with) and sang an Advent song, lit the Chanukah candles and sang Maoz Tzur and heard some verses from the Koran containing images of light. The light in the dark times, shared by three different faiths...we played dreidel, rolled beeswax advent candles and learned how to write "the light" in Arabic. We closed by all singing "This Little Light of Mine" together--blond-haired and head-scarved and kippah-covered children all singing together.

Chanukah so far

 

So far, with nights one and two behind us, Chanukah 2012 has been wonderful. We celebrated the first night at our shul's Chanukah party. It was really exciting to see such a big and enthusiastic turn-out.

Our little shul has been struggling along since the death of our beloved rabbi four years ago. As everyone knows, in order for a congregation to grow and thrive, there needs to be a big, happy and active cohort of families with young kids. That first night of Chanukah, it felt like we had it! Finally! Everyone brought chanukiot from home and seeing so many brighly colored Chanukah candles burning in chanukiot of all shapes and sizes was completely magical. Then, Ezra and Reuben performed songs with their Hebrew School classes, which felt like a sweet rite of passage. 

Last night, Andrew fried up lots of delicious latkes which we made this year with potato starch instead of flour, on account of my fairly new gluten-free status. They were perfect and we all agreed they tasted just as good as always. We'll use the potato starch again when we fry up tons of latkes tomorrow to bring to Ezra and Reuben's classrooms, along with applesauce and dreidels.

Gifts? So far they have been simple and sweet and fun. On the first night, we gave Ezra and Reuben flannel pajamas along with a puzzle for Ezra and a stuffed raccoon for Reuben. Last night, they got (the first batch) of presents from Grandma and Grandpoppy: a perplexus for Reuben and a maze game for Ezra. Reuben has been watching Ezra play with his perplexus for months now, but, whenever he tried to do it, it was just a little bit too challenging to be fun. So, he was delighted to have one more suited to him. and seeing him cock his head while playing in just the same way that he has seen Ezra do is a very sweet study in brotherly imitation.

Onto night #3 of Chanukah 2012! Happy Chanukah to all!

Chanukah Books for Kids

After confessing how much I love reading others' favorite book lists, here's one of my own! Ezra and Reuben are 8 and 4.5 and, this year, we've been enjoying:

• The Chanukah Guest: Seriously? This book makes me laugh out loud. It's a great, funny story or mistaken identity on the first night of Chanukah.
• The Golem's Latkes: A great story about an invention gone wrong and a fun introduction to the mythic Golem.
• Herschel and the Hannukah Goblins: (and now I'm realizing that all of our favorites our written by the prolific and wonderful - and local! - storyteller, Eric Kimmel) A slightly "scary" story about outwitting goblins who are out to ruin Chanukah. Read-aloud disclaimer: this book is a bit long, so have your cup of tea by your side.

Chanukah is coming - early this year (although not as early as next year, when the first night of Chanukah lands on Thanksgiving!) - so break out your books about dreidels, menorahs and maccabees. What are your family's favorite Chanukah books?

The Season

The Winter season - she's a starting. And with her comes all sorts of things - some that I love and some that I find draining. But, today, for this quick little post, let's stick with the loved things. 

• I love Rhythm of the Home, the Waldorf-style online seasonal magazine. And, today, their Winter issue has arrived!
• I also love all the book lists that come this time of year. They're starting to show up, too. My reserve list at the library is now full. 
• Soup time! We are loving the black bean soup from Clean Food and the split pea soup from Feeding the Whole Family

What do you love about the beginning of Winter?

Fall Salad

Inspired by some delicious butternut squash I steamed a few days ago, I created this salad for dinner last night. New Seasons didn't have any more butternut, which is what I looking for, so I bought some delicata squash and went from there.

Delicata, Walnut & Date Fall Salad

1 Delicata squash

1 cup walnuts, toasted

1 apple, chopped

1 head Romaine lettuce

3 dates, cut into small pieces

First I cut and removed the seeds from the squash. Then I roasted them on a baking sheet with a little olive oil and salt at 425 for 15 minutes. I tore the romaine into small pieces and tossed the lettuce together with the squash, chopped apple, walnuts & dates. I made this dressing with a little more honey than it called for. 

Such a good fall dinner!

Reading List

One of the (many many) great delights of the past (almost) eight years of raising children has been reading children's literature. As an avid library-goer and reader of children's literature reviews and blogs, I seek out high-quality books for my boys. As there are so many good books out there, and, thanks to our incredible library system, we have easy access to them, I try to avoid what I consider to be "average" books. Of course, the average, or sometimes even downright bad, book sometimes makes it home with us from the library, but that is an easy problem to solve: one (often highly-edited) read and back to the library it goes.

One category of books that was a little more challenging for me to find were bedtime chapter books for the young-ish reader. Here are some that we have enjoyed with our boys when they've been four and five years-old:

• Raggedy Ann Stories
• Paddle to the Sea
• The Wind in the Willows
• The Wonderful Adventure of Nils

Read a good book today!

MamaPie's Travel Tips - Part 1

So, we recently got back from a trip to Israel. A big trip. Over 14 hours on the airplane, with several more in various airports. The return journey, from start to finish, took 25 hours. 

We were in Israel, travelling around from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Tiberias, for two weeks with a big family group. So, I think I earned a little bit of credibility to provide some travel advice -what worked, what didn't, what to do if you visit Israel etc.

I'll start with some things I did before leaving that turned out to be worth it:

• I made a well-stocked first-aid kit. I used a medium-sized zippered baggu pouch and filled it with both conventional and alternative first-aid supplies. I didn't use everything, but felt good knowing I had it all. Here's what was in it: band-aids, neosporin, sting/bite pads, arnica gel, wound care cream, peroxide pads, apis homeopathic pellets, arnica homeopathic pellets, wood splinter tweezers, cortisone cream, Advil and Tums. We ended up needing children's Tylenol, which I considered bringing, but left at home due to fear that it would spill over everything. We were easily able to buy it. I bought everything at either REI or New Seasons.
• I bought a bunch of snack foods, both for the airplane, and to pack in my suitcase. It was great to have: Clif Bars, fruit leathers, trail mix, almond butter and lollipops on hand for long bus rides and more adult-oriented tours.

I'll be back soon with more Travel Tips. For now - off to the market to get back-to-school lunch supplies!

Miscellany

Right now, daily life seems to be taken up with trip preparations. We are going to Israel with a big group of extended family. We'll be leaving in a week. So my headspace is filled with thoughts about food enough for four of us on a fourteen hour flight, making and stocking that first-aid kit that I never seem to have with me when I need it, packing enough, but not too much and things like that. I feel like I will be some sort of authority on preparing for long trips with children after all this, so if we do have a successful trip that is in some part based on my trip prep, I will be happy to share my strategies here.

In the meantime, though, regular life goes on, and here are few things that I've been enjoying:

• I made coconut yogurt! And it's completely delicious. After spending too much money buying coconut yogurt made by Salt, Fire & Time, I asked my friend Andrea for a recipe and she gave me this one. I followed it exactly, with help from my boys, and it turned out great. 
• I like this article.
• Boke Bowl is delicious. Try the broccoli cauliflower salad.

Off to do more packing!

Summer Porridge

My friend J. posted about this summer porridge/refrigerator oats on her facebook page yesterday and I right away had to go out to get the ingredients. We have a really good rotation of breakfasts for the rest of the year, but summer breakfasts have been a little uninspired. Which, you know, is fine of course, not all meals need to be "inspired", but I was excited by this. I especially liked the idea of using chia seeds, which I've been trying to work into our food, and the fact that you make them in individual mason jar portions.

I made the mango ones and Ezra and Reuben loved them this morning. They were a little thrown off at first by the look of the chia seeds, especially given the fact that we'd hatched praying mantis eggs in mason jars recently and the little chia seeds stuck on the lids of their porridge jars looked like the holes we'd punched in the lids for the praying mantises (manti?), so they were having a bit of cognitive dissonance (she wants me to eat praying mantis for breakfast?!). Once we got over that, though, they loved them. And Andrew tried it, too, and asked me where his was (I'd only made two). So, tomorrow, I'll make four. I modified the recipe in the following ways: no almond extract (didn't have it), used coconut milk instead of regular milk (we don't drink regular milk) and I used regular yogurt instead of Greek. 

Happy, pretty summer breakfast!

Summer So Far...

has been great. It's only really been sunny and summery weatherwise for a week or two. I'm happy because I feel like we are taking advantage of summer. We are using it, living it, wearing out these gorgeous days. 

We've hiked Horsetail Falls and to Memaloose Lake. We've gone berry picking and made jam (which we are quickly tearing through with all the pb&j's we're bringing on all our adventures). And we've spent lots of time in our neighborhood pool. The biggest news for us on that note is that: Reuben learned to swim! The little trooper stuck it our through two fairly miserable weeks of swimming lessons (after the third day he told me, "I don't like it, but I'll do it," which, I thought, was pretty awesome for a four year-old). And then, a day or two after the lessons ended, after the teachers told me that he would definitely need to stay at that (low) level of lesson (where they practice getting their face wet and kicking at the wall)...he swam. Just like that. Our boy.

A good summer so far.