Camping Out

Yes, Jack plays with my iPad. We like to look through the pictures in my camera roll together, watch little music videos, and play a few games.

A few months ago I downloaded an app that I thought would be fun for Jack. He loves it and interacts with it like crazy! It’s called Endless ABC by Callaway Digital Arts. It is free. Here is a screenshot.

It’s basically a series of interactive flash cards that show words and explode their letters over the screen. You drag them back to where they go and they make silly letter sounds as you drag them. Once you put the word back together there is a celebration and then a cute video with little monster creatures that illustrates the word.

Jack started off by playing one of the words, ‘flop’, over and over again. How many times could I listen to feu, feu, feu, feu? I asked myself… Soon after he started playing that game I saw him finding Fs all over the place. From the car, we’d be stopped in traffic near signs with Fs and he’d shriek feu, feu, feu, feu! Then, when he tried out other words it started to happen with Ns and then other letters.

When he plays Endless ABC he’s constantly making sounds – repeating the words, the letter sounds, and calling out to the creatures in the videos.

Now, at 2 1/2, he absolutely loves letters, their sounds, and their names. When he sees words he scans them for the ones he knows and delights in pointing them out to me and making their sounds.

I know that the game plays a large roll in this. I also know that it is but one aspect. It’s a wonderful tool within a family culture of reading. What else do I do to support reading?

When we put on clothing with words on them, we look for the ones we know. Jack was so excited when he found the F on this shirt!

His crib is filled with books and before any sleep time, he reads a book to me. Ok. Maybe more than one. Sometimes I read to him, sometimes we read to each other.

When we get in the truck, we look for the letters on the dashboard. He first pointed out the FF on the CD player and it grew from there.

His grandfather bought him an alphabet puzzle on a recent trip and we play it together often.

He sits with me when I read my books, sometimes digitally, sometimes on paper, and he watches. And he says, ‘mommy book’.

Our house is covered with books. His and mine.

We celebrate letters, words, and books. When a book gets torn I become ‘mommy book doctor’ and he watches while I tape it back together.

Oh, and when he plays Endless ABC, or any other digital game, we do it together. It is not his babysitter…

So learning to read and to celebrate reading is so much more than an app or a phonics program and Endless ABC is definitely a fun addition to our family reading culture.

I go into child pose.
Jack drives his little cars all over my back.

Little boy gets to play with his mommy.
Mommy gets to nap.

See?

Best. Game. Ever.

It’s Pesach, the first Seder was last night so yesterday morning was spent making desserts to bring to my parents ‘ house while singing Ma Nishtanh and Daiyanu with Jack…along with help from various singers on YouTube. He definitely prefers Ma Nishtanah. Funny, thought Daiyanu would be more fun.

First off, can I mention how easy it is to bake for Passover when one doesn’t eat grains to begin with? :)

I made moist and decadent spicy chocolate cookies.

Blend these in one bowl:
1/2 cup of cocoa
5 oz ground almonds (a little over 1/2 cup)
Almost a Tbsp of cinnamon
About 1/8 of a tsp of ground chilli peppers

Blend these in another bowl:
1/2 cup of honey
1/3 cup egg white (about 2 large eggs worth)
1/2 tsp vanilla
2.5 Tbsp butter

Mix the two together

I used a teaspoon to make small dollops on a cookie sheet (filled almost 2 cookie sheets)

I baked for 8 minutes at 325 degrees.

Rich, chocolatey, with a hint of spicy.

Jack LOVED the Seder. What could be better than to play with books, point at things, and eat for hours on end while surrounded by the people you love?

I discovered this cookie recipe a while back in my search for a yummy (read – not dry and/or falling apart and/or tasteless and/or too banana-y) cookie that did not call for grains or sugar. Part of my quest also mandated a recipe that could be thrown together quickly – no futzing around with egg whites or whatnot.

The original recipe can be found at CrossFit Rebellion in a post called Paleo Cookies by Alima.

As I wrote, I found this recipe a while ago and I have been playing with it ever since – subbing maple syrup, adding nuts, coconut flakes, raisins…each time, the cookies come out pretty tasty but…

…Yesterday’s batch was the bomb!

It’s Alima’s basic recipe but with about 3 Tablespoons of honey instead of 4 and an addition of 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, and 2 delectably delicious chocolate chips atop each cookie.

The best is how easy these are to throw together, practically no mess, too.

Simple is good :)

So I made a whackload of a kale, onion, garlic, sweet red pepper, ham, apple, raisin sautéed in olive oil with some balsamic vinegar and dijon mustard salt and pepper concoction with the hopes we’d have leftovers for another meal…

Yeah. Right. Here’s what’s left.

I honestly thought he’d pretty much eat around the kale. But he devoured every bit of at least 3 servings! Kale, onions, & all.

Here’s the 22 month old eating monster full of energy after his meal. Can’t get him to stand still!

That was back in June. It’s now almost November and there is still no reason provided. And we are still boiling water. At least now the extra heat created from boiling pots of water on a daily basis is welcome, it was less so in the extreme heat of the summer…

According to the last notice we received on Oct 23, there may be an end in sight by the week of Nov 5 – a full 5 months later. It will be nice to be able to turn on the tap to rinse my lettuce, brush my teeth, give my son a bath…

As you can see, it passed the Jack taste test with flying colours. I made the recipe up as I went along…

• 1 egg (that’s all we had)
• 3 TBSP chestnut flour (started with 2, added another)
• 1/2 TBSP honey (about)
• 2 TBSP pumpkin puree (roughly … and that’s only pumpkin, I made it the other day)
• A few splashes of olive oil
• 1/4 tsp salt (maybe…ish)
• some ground black pepper
• fresh rosemary, chopped…to taste

Mix it all up. I used a spoon. Pour the mix into whatever you want to bake it in and smooth it out. I put it in a 350 oven at first then raised it to 400 after 10 or 15 minutes. I’d say it was in the oven for about 20, 25 mins all told. It’s quite yummy. I’m thinking baked longer at a low temp would give great crackers…

That’s Jack, stuffing his face with some.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy these days, like life-changing happy. Something as simple as finding local bacon that has a short ingredients list

Or, even more exciting, finding an online farmers market that I can order it from on a weekly basis if I wanted. And I do want :)

marchegourmet.ca is my latest discovery and it rocks. Last week I ordered a mix of meats and veggies, with the intention of picking the order up in Vaudreuil on the designated pick up day but the night before I received a call asking if I would mind having my order delivered to my house instead. Awesome. Everything was fresh and gorgeous.

This morning I googled (actually I yahooed, google is disappointing me as of late) kale and bacon, two of my marchegourmet purchases, and found a delightfully simple dish here. I modified it a tad by adding some thinly sliced onion about 1/2 way through the bacon cooking and using lemon juice instead of vinegar. Oh, and I stirred in some fresh thyme and tomato as I took the skillet off the burner.

I think Jack agrees it was rather yummy.

If it’s the small, simple things that are making me happy, maybe those things are actually the big things. Maybe.

I decided it was time for Jack to try cutlery and I figured a spoon with sticky food might be the most…successful. I was right! I must admit, I only took pictures of the beginning of breakfast…I’ll leave the rest to your imagination :)