All posts in Four Little Eggs In My Nest

Moments With My Three Year Old

by admin on May 9, 2012 in Dem Kids Sayed WHAT?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Little Things, Mama Heart Mushings with 1 Comment

Lovely moments in time, specifically today, but everyday, are in beautiful abundance when you spend so much TIME with children!
My three year old has been very chatty today:)
Morning Moment 
“My cars are on your mark and engines ready!” says my three year old as he lines up cars in front of my breakfast. “The blue will win because he is blue! RRRRRRRUMMMMM!” Watch out mommies toast! I had somehow gotten in the middle of a crash derby race!
After Our Walk Moments
My three year old picked his first ever bouquet of dandy-lions for me on our walk this morning! He then told me he couldn’t get me a lady bug cuz a lot of them where dead on the grass… awe 🙂
The street sweeper and cleaner went by and he screamed “OH BIG TRACTOR for me, for me!!”  We had to stand and watch every time it went by.
After Snack Moments  
There’s an old computer keyboard in the basement, three year old is pounding on it “I working on my puter… I don’t know why but we need a new one upstairs Mommy.”
“Can I watch a movie?” I said for sure.  “Ya an adventure!” The joy with which he throws himself onto the couch and under his favorite blanket, just for a half hour cartoon before lunch, reflects how he throws himself at everything in life.  Kids are excellent examples of GUSTO if you let them show you!
TTFN

Young Hunters and Pirates

by admin on April 25, 2012 in Adventure and Me, Better Check Out Links, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Northern Tales with No comments
Be sure to click this link for 
more info on the story behind the stories of my childhood.
(The Creek)

Watching my children create an entire pirate kingdom on our patio brought to mind a favorite imaginary world I had shared with my younger brother.

(Mopsy and two spring babies.)

I can remember pretending to be hunters.  We would get the perfect stick and stalk the goats through the brush (my parents had a goat farm and we had endless games involving the live stock).  One afternoon though we expanded the game, thanks to my brother getting his hands on a pellet rifle.  Now don’t worry about the goats, we where smart enough to know shooting them was a quick way into my folks bad books.  We decided, instead, to travel down river and seek out an ever worthy prey…squirrels and chipmunks.

The faithful orange Coleman canoe was loaded up, life jackets clipped on and we pushed off.  The river was actually a creek that ran through the bottom of our small farm property.  It was a very healthy water way, leading to many lakes and even a small set of rapids.  Smooth flowing water, riddled with weeds just below the surface.  It twists and turns, sleepily,  around beds of floating weeds.  Walled in by endless trees and bedrock, it is a true northern shield water way. 

(The Munro Dock)

I was guide.  We sought out signs and sounds that meant our game was near by.  I would let my brother off on land to do the hunting.  As faithful guide I waited till I hear a shot and then let out a good ‘yahoo’ for his efforts.  Never did he come back with proof of kill.  Considering how many times we repeated this process I highly doubt he even came close to tagging a tree rodent of any kind.

It kept us incredibly busy and happy… till Mom honked the horn three times…. that was our get back home call.  We where usually ready for the honk as our imaginative and wide wandering games often left us with healthy appetites.

My kids hunted down and buried treasure, fought the authorities and forced mates to walk the plank till supper; and they too ate well.

(My younger brother and I.)

TTFN

H’orderves on the Menu

by admin on April 17, 2012 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Domestic Damsel, Foodie Like Me, Four Little Eggs In My Nest with No comments

Since Garnet was diagnosed with hypoglycemia the traditional meat and potato meals have been out the window in our house.  While it was a struggle to learn to cook with NO SUGAR and LOW STARCH I am finding a groove.  Add to this dietary restriction four kids to cater to….

To be honest, this Mama isn’t the catering type.  If I serve them something they don’t like (after having tried it) I will reintroduce it over and over till they DO like it.  This is how I won on the avocado front! 

All that good parenting advice aside, I like to treat them now and again.  That means asking what they would like for supper or making something I know they will love.  On the weekend I surprised them with pancakes and strawberries for lunch (high protein and fiber, sugar free but they didn’t no that).  The other night I needed a meal in a hurry and dared to ask for their hearts desires.  They all agreed on ‘salmon h’orderves’.  I started making them cracker topped snacks years ago and to them it is the fanciest of my meals. 

Salmon h’orderves is what they call the meal in the photograph at the top of the post.  Salmon salad atop some greens on a cracker and then topped with cheese, in this meals case we had havarti.  I boiled a few eggs, steamed some broccoli and made an avocado salad for good measure… done in little time.  One of my oldest kids found the home made apple cinnamon sauce in the fridge and requested it as ‘a side’… since it too is sugar free I agreed with little pressure.

The kids had seconds and thirds and…I told them I was done making h’orderves when they pleaded for fourths.  A speedy, healthy meal all around and all the better because my crew thought it was grand! 

Do you make your kids h’orderves’?  If so what are yours like?  Fancy actual h’orderves or ‘kid style’ ones?

Bless you and your meal making efforts!

TTFN

‘Scrub’ Sports

by admin on April 13, 2012 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Mama Heart Mushings, People In My Heart, The Pet with No comments
(Photo’s from summer past, a rough version of soccer on Papa and Nanny’s lawn.)

Had my first game of ‘scrub baseball’ with the kids.  Riddick, the family dog, was tied to a tree so he would stop breaking up the game.  He has a nutty streak that just wants to destroy every ball he sees.

My youngest, being only three, spent most of his time bursting in and out of the game… apparently he was a little confused as to which game we where playing.  I would be just about to pitch the ball to the child at bat when someone would yell, ‘Baby boy, playing through!’, on cue a boy and his yellow soccer ball would madly run in and out of our way.

The older two figured the game out in no time.  Hit the ball with bat, put bat down, run to big tree and back to home before being tagged.  We had the expected attempts to nail the runner by throwing the ball AT them as hard as possible, the occasional stomping of feet when one didn’t make it back to home before being tagged, and one person got hit with the ball… that was Mom, of course.  I knew no good could come from being the first person to teach my oldest boy to pitch… he got me in the back and then I taught him, with excellent patience and grace I might add, to aim over the plate and not AT the batter.

My five year old daughter did a great job at running to the little person’s base and back (had a shorter run for the shorter kids) but forgot to put the bat down and that sure slowed her down… considering it’s almost as big as her.

The older two really liked getting Mom out and thought it was fun to try to block me on my way back to home base.  The required, but rare, scrub baseball tackle entered the game at this point.  “Mama will knock you down”, I grinned between wheezing for breath, as I picked my 8 year old up off the ground.  Dusted him off and we both laughed about it.  Of course he pulled it again in hopes of another wrestling match with Mom… ah boys…

So we didn’t completely stick to baseball, but it was a good first lesson!

My parents introduced us to pretty much every game under the sun, the ‘scrub’ version that is… less rules, rotating teams, no counting score and just fun…  I will always cherish the times my Grandma Smith got involved and wowed all us grand-kids.  She was such a sportsman!  I hope to encourage my children to JUST ENJOY it like she did.  I figure, like my parents must have, introduce the kids to enough sports in your own back yard and you help encourage them toward an active lifestyle.  We learned quickly it was about fun and activity.  That it didn’t matter much how amazing we where if we where hearty of spirit and ready to play!

TTFN

Delightfully Different Daughters

by admin on April 12, 2012 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Little Things, Mama Heart Mushings with No comments

My five year old just got a ‘salon’ cut and she is thrilled.  Perhaps a stylist in the making, this girl was pumped just about getting to watch the hairdressers do their work, let alone getting a new look herself.

For weeks she has been asking to have a ‘bob’ and insisted she genuinely wanted short hair.  I didn’t know what to think.  My eldest has had such a flip out thing about getting her hair cut.  The last time I got her hair cut shorter, many many years ago, she almost had a panic attack.  Well my little lady is entitled to be her own person so I decided to go for it.  She is anything but conflicted.  Absolutely tickled about her cut and really looking forward to showing it off to her Daddy tonight.

She looks adorable, I am thrilled about the style too.  Bobs always reminds me of Christoper Robin from the A.A.Milne stories, back when bobs where more commonly on sweet little English boys.

While I clearly know my girls are different persons, it can be hard to know when to learn from the experiences I have had with eldest daughter and when to just drop them because they don’t work with my youngest daughter.  Same struggle has been going on with my parenting of my two boys… sometimes I use the old saying ‘boys will be boys’ and other times that doesn’t work for them both.

With two girls and two boys (the same sex siblings being about 5 years apart with each set) I learned long ago that no matter how experienced you are as a parent, or how many children you have, you still have to work with their personalities.  No cookie cutter kids in my house.

Their uniqueness is a treasure to this mother!

TTFN

Spring Activity

by admin on April 3, 2012 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Life Keeps Changing, Little Things with No comments
Spring makes family time SO easy!  
All of a sudden our yard, front or back, is a wonderful place to be!

Readers are popping up all over the yard, following the sunny spots really.  The front step is a favorite place to sit.  Just the other day my mother (in law) and I sat upon it and enjoyed tea in the sun together.

All the sports equipment is reappearing.  It emerges from the garage and is instantly spread all around the yard.  Catch with Dad is a favorite.  In the above picture we are enjoying the front yard, during a part of the day with more sun there.  My littlest man is wearing his biking helmet, though he didn’t bike much.  It just happens to be a favorite outdoor fashion accessory of his.

Our drive way takes up the whole west side of our yard.  It, the driveway, is taken up by a large collection of pine cones.  They are forever falling, thus providing forever fun.  My five year old collects them like nobodies business.  One minute they are eggs, next minute she is just the maid trying to keep this yard clean (by golly) and later they became newspapers.  She would pass them off to her older two siblings who (TRUTHFULLY) then bike up and down the block throwing a pine cone into each yard; calling at each stop ‘NEWSPAPER’!  I laughed so hard and didn’t want to ruin their fun but kept my fingers crossed that the neighbors would forgive us…

Speaking of bikes, you bet the bikes are out and busy!  All four of our crew are now puttering around.  The bigger two are so good at it they could motor all over the city, if they where so inclined.

(The kids working on a dinosaur excavation toy in the back yard.)

Back yard fun has included a lot of clean up, all the winter gunk seems to collect there.  But, there has been fun too.  Just today the kids where digging up dinosaur bones ( an Easter present from their grandparents).  The other day they got to dig in the backyard sandbox for the FIRST time this year and it took a lot to talk them back out.  Of course the back yard is home to the famous apple trees and my eldest is often up there pushing her monkey child limits.  She likes to go up high enough to see her friends house (two blocks up in our crescent) and then try to signal her to come over and play.

Neighborhood kids are popping up left right and center.  They zero in on our yard like puppies to bacon.  I smile, set my limits, enforce my limits and let them enjoy the yard with my children as long as they behave.

Basically I know it is spring because I have gone from demanding the kids “Get out side and get fresh air”, to demanding they “Get inside ALREADY”!

TTFN

Mud Hunters

by admin on March 16, 2012 in Feeling It (Thankful), Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Life Keeps Changing with 1 Comment
 Springtime is the land awakening.  
The March winds are the morning yawn.  
~Quoted by 
Lewis Grizzard in Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You

MARCH means mud, at least this year!

My youngest two and my niece went hunting for mud and puddles.  We where impressively successful, in spite of snow and ice still being around.

While the park was dry enough they only used the slides and monkey bars a short while.  Most of the our time was spent with sticks in hand exploring the mud.  A couple times the girls worried me, almost toppling over right into the mud, but most of the time we basked in the squishy sounds of mud below our rubber boots.

A few of us went home with wet feet, those of us brave enough to wade into the deep puddles soon learned why Mama doesn’t. I decided not to worry about them getting all a mess… somehow we all ended up going home in good spirits… wet feet and muddy clothing and all.

 Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.  
~Doug Larson

TTFN

DO NOT Call My Children Tweens

by admin on February 24, 2012 in Bits Of My Personality, Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest with 3 Comments

tween – A child between middle childhood and adolescence, usually between 8 and 12 years old.

             

NOW my definition – A creation of consumer focused advertisers, seeking to expand their teen girl spending high.  Teen girls consume a lot, so why not treat girls who are younger like teens sooner so they will spend like their elders?!

For definitions resembling mine look at these links:

HERE
and HERE

My beef – These kids are still KIDS!  Why rush them out of an already too short childhood?  Boys and girls alike, their innocence is INDEED threatened by the consumer mind set that is at the core of the tween trend.  Once made a commercial commodity they are under threat from the most successful advertising campaign style to date; and that is SEX.  Most of the STUFF aimed at tweens are indeed focused around sex; to look older, sexier or meant to produce a type of lust in their young little hearts (ex: the lust craze after young pop stars)

This is my rant, agree or not, but I am wearing my heart on my sleeve because I have seen this pinch put on kids (especially girls) as early as in grade one!  By the time they reach grade four, if the parents aren’t letting them embrace this trend then the parents are classed as strict and over the top.

Do I feel the pressure?  Yes, but not in any way to give into this tween crap…. I feel the pressure to educate my children in defence against this stuff, to pray protection over their precious hearts and demand others let them be themselves, let them BE CHILDREN!

I mostly feel disappointed in my own culture, sad for the children swallowed up in this and amazed that it is seen as harmless.  I’m tired of it already.

TTFN

I Think I’m In Love (Still)

by admin on January 25, 2012 in Feeling It (Thankful), Foodie Like Me, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Little Things, My Romance with No comments

This man knows me well and the regular dinner and a movie date is not for me.  We got some time off last Saturday and decided to go with an afternoon date so we would get home in time to snuggle up, after the kids where in bed, and watch an episode of our favorite show together.  I would take an hour on the couch watching our show together over two hours in a movie theater any day. 

Talking is largely what our dates are all about, uninterrupted talk time!  No censoring it for little eager ears who don’t need to know everything yet and no being interrupted by chatty little attention hogs.  The eager ears and attention hogs happen to be the same four kids. 

Our date consisted of going to a tea shop and picking out some new flavors (we are both big tea drinkers).  This took plenty of time, pomp and ceremony really, and we really cherish having enough time to fuss at a fuss kinda shop.  He does the smelling (since I can’t) and I do the reading and humming over the styles of tea.  We walked up and down the mall after that just to talk and hold hands. 

We drove across the city so we could continue our conversation and then he took me out to WOK BOX.  I just can’t move past this simple little chain restaurant, there is so much to like about it.  Fast, fresh, noodles and loads of veggies.  Mostly I can’t get over their sauces and tofu!  It ain’t fancy but he knows it makes me smile.  We laughed and teased and sucked up our noodles like a couple of teenagers.

(There’s my man!  Taken last summer.)

When it was time to go home he let me drop him off and take our sitter, my sister, out to a movie!  Ha ha ha, this may sound like a rip off to some or very unromantic to others but he knows I need away time, girl friend time and me time and that took years to teach him.  He knows I will be home around ten, just in time for tea and our show.  He knows he makes me so darn happy because we aren’t overly clingy with our time and yet totally into one another still.

He is such a prize!

TTFN

Nya and Yellow Whisker

by admin on January 19, 2012 in Adventure and Me, Bits Of My Personality, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Life Keeps Changing, Little Things, The Pet with No comments

 The kids where hanging off of the railings at the fish pond (in Market Mall) once again. Garnet and I where waiting. Myself more patiently then him. The kids can stair at the koi forever! I mentioned perhaps we should get a coffee and just let them stair while we talk.

Somehow we started talking about getting fish. I have never really been into this type of pet, mostly because they lack a lot of actual pet like advantaged… like touch and affection. Well Garnet dared me to get set up with fish for under 20 dollars because I had said it would have to be kept simple, no big tank, no more then two fish, no adding to it later. Well I marched into Zellers with his bet on my mind. Got a tank with the gravel, plant, food and conditioner for 11 dollars. Marched over to a pet shop and got two fish for 60 cents a piece. Done, only about 12 bucks!

For less money then a lot of their barely enjoyed toys cost we had a new pet. The kids where ecstatic. I don’t think having their own fish had ever entered their minds before. The whole affair took up most of the day and that was intentional. We had no plans (something rare on a weekend) and so this was turned into a grand family adventure.

After we picked the fish up we went home to choose names. Everyone, even our three year old, have very very strong opinions on a name for each fish. So we decided to draw the names out of a hat. My eldest’s warrior cat name ‘Yellow Whisker’ and then my oldest boy’s Lego Ninja name ‘Nya’ won. I was very disappointed that my suggestions ‘Jane Eyre’ or ‘Eeyore’ didn’t make it. Garnet was clever and picked spaghetti as a name and I thought meat ball would be perfect for the other in that case. No one but me liked ‘tweedle dee and tweedle dum’. My five year old daughter was heart broken that her names ‘cute and cutie’ didn’t get picked so she is refusing to stop calling them by her names. The youngest, our three year old, picked Bob the Builder and Diego… I am sure we all know where he got those ideas…

My olds daughter was sure everyone would be coming over JUST to meet our new fish. The littlest two spend a lot of time staring at them and talking about how CUTE they are. My biggest boy is hoping to teach Nya (the bigger of the two) how to do kungfu or spin-gitzu.

For now I am in charge of feeding them and we are all learning to not torment them. It they want to shake or touch something go find the dog. Eventually we hope to have the big kids feeding them too.

I am in no rush though. I find it very relaxing to feed them and watch them do their thing. Bonus is how smashing their pretty purple bowl looks in my sitting room.

Here is to new pets!

P.S. I want to put in writing though, that I draw the line at birds and rodents. I have a lot of reasons if you would like to know.

TTFN

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