Wordless{ish} Wednesday – Regatta 2011: the toddler version

What’s the most important thing on events like the Regatta in Paradise?

Checking out the chicks with Daddy

and playing on the big-kid-stuff:

Climbing up

can be pretty tough when you are little

and goes much easier

with the helping hand of a girl.

Going down is another story.

but ‘Timan’ loved it anyway.

And he’s still very much into helping with the beach erosion,

two hands full of sand at the time.

(as part of Wordless Wednesdays and linked up with live and love … out loud, project alicia, parenting BY dummies, Dagmar’s Momsense, Seven Clown Circus, Tara’s view of the world, Flip Flops and Pearls, Supermom Alysha, 5 Minutes for Mom, Angry Julie Monday, Better in Bulk and NapTime MomTog )

Surviving the bug and diggin’ the dirt

I think every woman knows when men are sick, the world is falling apart for them and they suffer a gazillion deaths. This week I learned that my little tot is on the way to become a man.

1. Last week ‘Timan’ was in creche (preschool) for only three days, for the first time in his life. And he caught a bug already. Saturday night he was a very sick little boy, suffering from THE COLD.

Ok, I agree, having a cold is uncomfortable and a pain in the neck, especially when you’re three years old. But all the screaming ‘Mommy, Mommy, hold my hand, stay with me, don’t go away, never, Mommy, Mommy’ sounded more like my Hubs when he’s sick (just change the Mommy to Honey). Well, the little one is a man in training after all.

2. This shows without a doubt, bugs are everywhere and just wait to jump on my tot. Well, that’s the way it is and I better get used to it. But there is a good side to every coin, isn’t it? The more often ‘Timan’ is coming down with a cold, the better his immune system will get trained and the easier he can handle getting sick later in life, or the more immune he will become to those nasty bugs.

3. Just look at me. When I was a child I probably had every virus on the planed that is causing a cold. But now, not anymore. These days, both of my men are getting sick, the big one on a regular basis. And me, I can be the nurse.

4. The Hubs was working on Sunday so the tot and I spent the day cuddling on the couch watching movies and I was the ‘nursie no. 1’ to my ‘oh so very sick’ little man.

5. And guess what, early Monday morning ‘Timan’ was himself again and started the day with decorating the bathroom with toilet paper and the cold was just a shadow from the past.

6. And because I’m desperately looking for things to do with the little one we did some planting this week. I’ve bought some seeds for kitchen herbs and ‘Timan’ was very eager to help when he heard the magic words ‘let’s dig the dirt’. But he did it very carefully and filled up the pot and put the seeds in.

If all goes well and he doesn’t I don’t forget to water the plants,

we will have basil, sage, thyme and parsley in no time. Hey, we are living in the tropics and everything is growing like weeds ;-), anyway, things are growing much faster here then in a temperate climate.

8. I’m already looking forward to a good old ‘insalata caprese’ (if I’m lucky and find somewhere some mozzarella), one of my favorites.

I wish everyone a wonderful weekend.

For more of those important lessons life is teaching you, head over to ‘Life Ever Since’:

Do you experience the same phenomena with your male family members when they are sick?

It’s Sweet Tooth Tuesday: Ginger Cookies

The Hubs, ‘Timan’ and I love Ginger. So it won’t come as a surprise that ‘Ginger Nuts’ are the cookies we probably eat the most in our house. They are ‘Timan’s favorites and they are totally milk-free. A win/win situation, because we are still fighting to keep the tot’s allergy at bay and the little one as rash-free as possible and without eczema.

But we are living in Paradise. Very often I hear ‘na pa’ in the shops. If I translate this into proper English, it would be something like ‘I’m very sorry, but unfortunately we don’t have it on stock right now. But certainly we will have it available for you in the future’. 😉

It used to give me a headache and the last time this happened I knew I had to do something. My bones started to itch and I was well aware I would have an erupting volcano at home during snack-time if I simply told the tot ‘na pa’.

I figured the only way to save the day was baking the favorite cookies myself.

Or should I say ourselves? Baking without ‘Timan’s valuable help is not possible anymore.

This time he was the one to break the egg. It’s actually very easy for a toddler to break an egg, LOL. But seriously, even without making a mess. Have him crack it on the hard kitchen counter. Then he can easily open it at the cracks himself and empty the content into a bowl.

But to roll out the dough was even more fun.

Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/3 cups (300gr) whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ginger, ground

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp mixed spice

3/8 cup (3 oz or 90ml) olive oil or 1/2 cup (125gr) margarine

3/4 cup (150gr) brown sugar

1/2 cup (4 oz or 120ml) honey

1 egg

Method

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 3-4

Mix and sift flour with baking soda and baking powder, add ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed spice and mix.

In separate bowl beat egg, beat in brown sugar until fluffy, beat in olive oil and add honey until well combined.

Start with stirring flour-mix into egg-mix, later proceed with kneading it in until combined. Wrap in plastic paper and put in fridge for an hour.

Roll out dough 1/5 – 1/4 inch (4-5mm) thick, cut out cookies with your favorite cookie cutters and place on a greased baking sheet. Put in freezer for 10 min. Bake for 12-15 min and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 min. before taking them off.

I was using olive oil because of ‘Timan’s suspected milk-allergy, but you can easily replace the oil with margarine. Feel free to use molasses instead of honey, or use half of each.

Enjoy. If you are looking for a stronger ginger taste, check out the ‘Sticky Ginger Honey Cake‘.

What is the favorite cookie your little one just must have once in a while? Is he also going for ‘Ginger Cookies’?

“Preschool is so cool – but I wanna go home – but I love preschool …”

… to be continued in January. 😉

***

Lots of laughter and about the same amount of tears we shed this week. And with ‘we’ I’m talking about ‘Timan’, myself and maybe also the Hub. But what did I learn? Or better what did my little tot learn?

Being a big boy can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it’s sooo nice to be Mommy’s little ‘snuggly’.

This week was all about ‘creche’ (preschool).

1. Finally the Hubs was off for 5 (five!!) days in a row. I didn’t believe this would happen ever again. LOL. He hasn’t had a single day off in 2 (two!!!) months. What a relieve for all of us. And ‘Timan’ was beside himself with joy. Me too by the way. 🙂

2. The three familiarization days in ‘Lakres Bel Eau’ (the preschool) started middle of the week.

Day #1 was quite ok, the Hubs was still off and we all went together.  ‘Timan’ was looking forward to go. When we were there, the tot … hmm … kind of agreed to stay on his own. But he was very happy to see us in the afternoon.

3. Day #2 didn’t go well at the beginning. ‘Timan’ didn’t want me to leave at all. And cried, and begged me to stay …. and cried and held on to my clothes … and cried some more. So I stayed for a couple of hours. When I left he cried again. And inside myself I cried a little too. I was told by the teacher the crying didn’t last long and he had a good time after all.

Just before he fell asleep that night he told me he has made a new friend, Corin, his first girl-friend. Way to go little one. 😉

4. I really enjoyed the way to school with a great view over the harbor area and the islands close by.

5. Day #3 was all right again. The tot seemed to get used to all the other kids. He was still begging me to stay and shed a couple of tears when I left, but was all right soon after. And he was very proud of his art work when I came to pick him up.

6. But I think sometimes ‘Timan’ felt a little left out because he doesn’t speak ‘Creole’. The teacher however reassured me that he will pick it up in no time from the other kids and be able to speak like anyone else in school within the fist six months.

7. And finally I had a blast being myself again during these three days. It’s so nice to go shopping without a little tot, talking to people I met in town without someone pulling me away, cleaning the house in peace, having some time for myself. I was loving it.

8. Of course I missed my little one for a couple of minutes terribly, but I know he was in good hands. I’m looking forward to next January, when ‘Timan’ starts preschool full-time. Happy times lay ahead of us. 🙂

9. Now I will put up the dark curtains again, so the sun won’t wake up ‘Timan’ too early and sleep in until … maybe 6:45am?

Have a good weekend.

For more of those important lessons life is teaching you, head over to ‘Life Ever Since’:

or check out ‘Sunday Funday’ at ‘The Fence’:

How did your little one handle the familiarization days for preschool or kindergarten, being away from the family?

Dancing the streets or how to get a message in paradise

This week I learned that the proverb ‘constant dripping wears away the stone’ is totally true when it comes to the public school system here in paradise.

But first comes first, it started with a street party local style:

1. I already mentioned the ‘Creole Festival’ last week. I would have loved to see more of it, but without the little one in tow. On Saturday however we went to watch ‘Kanmtole’ in town, with the little one. ‘Kanmtole’ are many different traditional dances to creole music and a big part of the local culture. They look a little bit like square-dance with a different music and the steps are different as well. Similar to country dances the changes of steps during the dance is also being announced by a caller. And all took place in the streets, in the center of town.

‘Timan’ was a good sport at the beginning, but got a little bored after a while. He couldn’t run around the way he wanted and he didn’t get the ice-cream he wouldn’t have eaten anyway. Bad Mommy. 😉

But we had fun anyway and followed the parade after the dance.

2. More than a month ago my neighbour told me about a meeting with all the future preschool-parents. Hey, I am one of them. 🙂

But nobody at the school was able to tell me the correct date. Instead they said I should listen to the radio every morning. Eventually, I would hear a message that tells me (and the whole population in paradise) about the date. Please note that we are talking about roughly 30 parents to take part in this meeting. Hmm, I never listen to the radio and certainly not to the shortwave radio messages at 6:15 AM. So once a week I gave the school a quick phone call and all of a sudden, past Wednesday, the head teacher told me: “Wait, wait, ahem, yes, the meeting is tomorrow at 8:30 AM.”

Huh??? Planning the future a little further ahead then the same week is apparently not possible. Oh, well …

But all is good now. I went to this meeting. The school is taking it very seriously, has a proper curriculum and is very focused on frequent interaction with the parents. Maybe they actually wanted me to call them every week. 😉

So next week ‘Timan’ is going to spend three familiarization days in ‘Lakres Bel Eau’. I hope, no, I know, he’s going to have a lot of fun.

3. The Hubs just has to give the tot a crash course in those most important words in Creole. Apparently they focus on good interaction with the fellow students who are already attending preschool. I’m sure he needs to know phrases like “Hey dude, show me where I have to go to make pee pee/poo poo.” or ‘Oh man, that Miss is making us doing funny stuff, I’d rather go outside to play on the slide/kick a ball.”

4. We are all set now. After the meeting the tot and I went to buy a raincoat, a new drinking bottle, new food containers and other important things for this full day preschool-try-out.

5. As usual I let the tot carry some of the bags while we were in town. At home I unpacked them and found a ball. I’ve never seen this ball before, didn’t buy it and certainly didn’t pay for it. ‘Timan’ didn’t even ask me to get it for him. And one more time, I explained my little one that everybody has to ‘give money to the store keeper’ before leaving the shop with the item he wants. This is not the first nor will it be the last time this has happened. Bummer. But hopefully … eventually … the do’s and don’ts are going to sink in.

Have a good weekend everyone. 🙂

For more of those important lessons life is teaching you, head over to ‘Life Ever Since’:

or check out ‘Sunday Funday’ at ‘The Fence’:

Tell me about the secret how you made your little one understand that not everything he sees and wants is to steal grab and put in his bag without telling anyone.