New Years Eve with kids can be just as fun as the adult version. Bunch’s Rebecca Brown shares her tips for a Rockin’ New Years Eve with Today’s Parent.
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Miscellany
Bunchland
Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Sliammon First Nation in B.C. will steal your heart.
Ta’Kaiya was speaking at an Idle No More protest and march on December 29 at Simms Park in Courtenay, B.C..
For more inspiration, you can check out her video for the song Shallow Waters here:
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Bunchland
By Lauren Baker
I’m currently 33 weeks into my first pregnancy, and eager to meet the wee lad I’ve been carrying around for the last eight months. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had an amazing, magical pregnancy: I lost some weight I’d been carrying around for a while, avoided morning sickness entirely, skin problems I’ve had for years cleared up and I’ve never felt so chilled-out in my life.
For the first four months, my husband and I decided to lay low and enjoy each other’s company and I happily transformed from a social butterfly to a social caterpillar. It was great. I withheld my pregnancy status from Big Brother—a.k.a. Facebook—and I managed to avoid unsolicited advice from acquaintances and strangers, and acquire only wanted information from close friends and family.
Then I started to show, got that second-trimester energy burst (which was like the best gift I’d ever received) and started to leave the house again.
Bunchland
A member of the Bunch community Mita Williams of Windsor wrote this response to the Newtown tragedy for her blog New Jack Almanac. It’s reprinted with permission:
I didn’t watch the news Friday. But I did watch the aftershocks of the horrific shooting in Newton, Connecticut in the reflections and reverberations in my circle of friends and other people I follow online.
There was an outpouring of grief – people were sick with grief – and then there came the anger and the fury. And it still comes in waves: the grief, the sickness, and the anger. And between the grief, the sickness, and the anger there is politics. In my twitter stream, the only person who I follow online who asked for “no politics right now” was the local journalist, above. But I know it was a more common refrain for others.
Bunchland
Charlotte Bacon, age 6
Daniel Barden, age 7
Olivia Engel, age 6
Josephine Gay, age 7
Ana Marquez-Greene, age 6
Dylan Hockley, age 6
Madeleine Hsu, age 6
Catherine Hubbard, age 6
Chase Kowalski, age 7
Jesse Lewis, age 6
James Mattioli, age 6
Grace McDonnell, age 7
Emilie Parker, age 6
Jack Pinto, age 6
Noah Pozner, age 6
Caroline Previdi, age 6
Jessica Rekos, age 6
Avielle Richman, age 6
Benjamin Wheeler, age 6
Allison Wyatt, age 6
and
Rachel Davino, 29
Dawn Hochsprung, 47
Nancy Lanza, 52
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Lauren Rousseau, 30
Mary Sherlach, 56
Victoria Soto, 27
Let this be the end of this sad chapter.
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Miscellany
Because I am a genius and so good at listening to my body and making sensible decisions, I decided that today would be a terrific day to visit the Royal Ontario Museum with my two-year-old son and our bestest mom-and-kiddo friends, Jess and Ada. It was a spontaneous outing and I was feeling terrific about this decision, despite the fact that for the last three days I’ve been doing a lot of this:
PHOTO BY TINA ROTH EISENBERG
So once I made it back home by subway (no stroller because we’re boss at hauling toddler around Toronto tucked under one arm) I opened up Miss Computer to find this terrific tumblr by Swiss Miss a/k/a Tina Roth Eisenberg, of her sweet two-year-old Tilo.
Thanks, Rebecca! Thanks Jess. And thanks so much Tina R.E. for capturing that.
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Miscellany
Last night I lay exhausted on a polished wood floor as another grown woman tucked a blanket around me as I fell asleep. It was a restorative yoga class, and it was just what the doctor ordered.
I’ve been running on empty for weeks now. So has my toddler, albeit more cheerfully: he’s been battling a chest cold for a month. Every time he seems well enough for playschool – he loves it so much he mumbles about it in his sleep – a chill wind blows and he’s up half the night. As are we. Is any sound sadder than a baby’s uncontrollable coughing?
been bidding friends goodbye with my usual, “take care of yourself!” I’ve been thinking I need to do some of that. When I had the bunchkin’s cold I joked miserably that all I wanted was for someone to make soup and tuck me in. I know I’ve got to take care of my basic needs before I can look after anyone else. Why is that so hard?
Miscellany
It appears to be a soggy morning right across the country. But it was so nice to counter any gloomy morning feelings with this gorgeous photo essay on puddles.
It’s by Karyn, who runs crafty utopia The Workroom in Toronto – and that’s her sweet pal Maisy taking advantage of puddles as only a dog can.
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Miscellany
Your boredom-thwarting plan to stave off soggy spirits
Photo by Scooter Lowrimore via Flickr.
Not all October days are fair-weather strolling and leaf-rolling. Unpredictable as the weather can be this time of year, a little rain needn’t dampen your spirits. Here are some ideas to make like Zoe and enjoy a rainy day, indoors and out.
- Get out the wellies and walk to your local library branch to see what’s up.
- Cozy up with books that celebrate rain. Our picks include gems from Jack and Maurice Sendak, Paulette Bourgois and more. 100% optimistic.
- Rain may not always be fun, but it’s necessary for the eco system. Watch some eco-conscious docs and learn a little more about the earth.
- Get old school and gather round to play 5 not-boring board games.
- Get indoor extreme! Set up your own indoor safari complete with a towel quicksand pit or build a cardboard rocketship and visit other planets.
Miscellany
Ours was packed. We amazed ourselves by making it to every single activity on Bunch’s weekend hit list WHAT?! The highlight really was Planet in Focus’s great kids program, a terrific little enviro film festival we’ve been going to for years. The wee Bunchkin surprised us by folding his hands and watching the entire program without fidgeting, shocking given that he’s not yet two. When the last film unspooled, he followed up by chanting, “MOVIE, MOVIE!” Cameron Bailey will be pleased.
Do check out other family-friendly (often FREE) screenings that TIFF offers throughout the year. We will keep you posted. Happy Monday! What’s on for you this week?
Photo by Helena Nurmikari
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Miscellany
I get misty when during our ongoing basement purge I open a shoebox to find letters from old pen-pals. It’s a pleasure my kids are unlikely to share. I was ecstatic when one box yielded a long-lost childhood artifact - an autographed picture and tiny, typewritten note from Judy Blume.
I can credit my dad for this treasure. I had just read the last Blume novel published (at that time) and was moping about the house waiting for the next one. “Why don’t you write to her?” he suggested. He took me on the bus to the Lethbridge Public Library and showed me how to look up the address for Blume’s publisher.
Miscellany
One artists tender take on the photos that embarrass us most
Thought everyone cringed at their childhood photos?
Finnish artist Wilma Hurskainen actually celebrates them with her project, Growth. She recruited her four sisters to recreate the snaps taken by their father over twenty years ago, doing what can be seen in everyone’s childhood photos—singing happy birthday, country skiing in too-big mittens, stuffed into the bathtub altogether.
“I have always been very attracted by the photograph’s ability to cross time and create this kind of comparisons,” she says. “There is something sad, almost tragic, about looking at old photographs compared to new ones and seeing how people and things have changed or grown up.”
Hurskainen decided to gain control over the change and recreate the photos with the exact same composition, place and facial expressions. Although the new picture of the grown up women looks similar in the original, the same positions can’t really be adopted because those limbs just aren’t as tiny as they were. ”We unavoidably fail. We have to fail—there is no return in time,” she says.
