handmade::to market, to market

Last year I had planned to make my bestie a market bag.  I had found this orange hemp yarn (Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy) at a local shop on crazy sale and scooped it up.  I mean it’s orange!  And hemp! And awesome!  After some debate on what to do with it, I finally settled on a market bag.

It’s the free pattern Everlasting Bagstopper from Knitty, and is seriously easy.  So easy.  You can knit this bag in a day if you’re a superstar knitter.  If you’re not a superstar knitter you can knit most of this bag in a weekend, then get to the last 10 rows and put it in a basket.  Then move it to a bag.  Then back to the basket.  Then the bag.  Several months later pull it out and look at it.

Put it back in the bag and wait a few more months.

Then pull it out and finish it in half an hour.  Now put it back in the bag.  A month or so later, take it out of the bag and put it in the basket.

A year past the the Christmas you were originally going to wrap it up and give it to your friend, take it out of the basket and spend 15 minutes sewing the handles on.

to market, to market

Then keep it because you love it.

ANYWAY.  It knits up super fast (if you’re normal).  My handles are a thrift store find from a few years ago - embroidered fabric ribbon that was in this huge $3 bag of lace and ribbon and whatnots including the owl and bird ribbon on the kid’s nature bags (which are still in heavy use, I need to make one for Anna).  I love how that thrift store ribbon is perfect for the color and style of this bag without any planning or forethought on my part.  It’s like the hippie universe aligning.

to buy a locally raised, grass-fed, free range chicken

hello, hello

I’m still here just, I don’t know.  Uninspired I guess?  Busy and tired and when the end of the day comes I don’t feel like writing.  I haven’t even started my Christmas newsletter which is ridiculous considering I have a photo for it that I paid for (or at least, will have to eventually pay for) and then what?

My first completed project for 2012 was the kid’s 2011 Christmas ornaments.  Hey, at least I’m predictably late but I finished them before Christmas 2012 so I WIN.  ha!

callum's penguin

claire's snowman

anna's snowman

the entire gang

The whole gang includes ornaments for other lucky kids.  I just mailed them yesterday, so you know, their mothers are going to be cursing me when they have to dig out the Christmas box to store them.  oops!

handmade::knit hats

Now that Christmas 2011 is just around the corner I thought I’d show you some of the creations of Christmas 2010.  Many of which didn’t actually get wrapped and placed under the tree.

I’ve got nothing.  I had a baby?  She breastfed a lot?  My eyes are bigger than the number of hours that exist in a day?

One of those items that were basically finished, except for the linings, were these super cute and designed by me hats.  I designed them!  I almost never do that!  I knit them using a basic ear-flap hat pattern – from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, Kim’s Hats - then embellished, embellished, embellished.  SO. MUCH. FUN.

plus MATCHING COATS. You know you love it.

I used wool from  my stash.  The grey was used to make a wee baby jacket for Callum, and the brown was a thrift store find.  The brown wool is ridiculous in how itchy it is.  It is NOT hat material and had to be lined.  I was stupid to use it.

It's a dog. Case you can't tell.

The grey is less itchy, but still itchy-can’t-wear-it even though the girls were desperate to wear the kitty cats.  I eventually got around to lining them about a week ago.  They sat in my mending basket for over a year.  It took me 15 minutes.  FIFTEEN MINUTES and I could have wrapped them and put them under the tree last year.

cuteness overload, yes?

I may be the world’s biggest idiot.

wordless wednesday::two years ago today

two years ago today

rewards

The other night some friends and I were discussing the rewards their kids get when they bring home that golden report card, and the rewards they themselves got in their youth for that report card.  Then Laura was recently talking about the idea of using stickers to encourage Miss Gwen to stay on task when she needs Gwen to, well, stay on task.  Instead of hi-jacking her blog with my (very opinionated) thoughts on the matter I thought I’d just write my own blog post about it all!  I’m all considerate like that!

(and in case there is any doubt, my friends and the lovely Laura are amazing parents.  I respect them tremendously and feel they are raising amazing children.  Let me repeat.  I do not think it makes someone a bad parent if they give their kid a sticker or a loonie or a reward for a school year well done.)

I’ve never been down with Reward-for-Good-Behaviour gig.  Even before kids I wasn’t down with it.  Even when I was a kid I wasn’t down with it.  It is something I have never been able to reconcile in my brain.  What does a reward have to do with getting an A in math?  I’m good at math.  I like math.  I want to learn math.  A sticker, a dollar, or even an “I’m so PROUD of you!” doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it.  It was about me, I wanted to be good in math.

And a sticker (or insert coveted item for appropriate age group) was never motivation enough for me to try harder in English to get an A.  I just didn’t give a shit.  I never cared if that was the proper formation of a sentence.  If what I was trying to say was clear enough that the teacher understood, then woot! Good enough.  That is all I wanted.  I was pleased with the Bs.

I feel like when I use reward-base techniques to teach my children how to behave in a situation what I am saying  to them is that the reward is the end result of all the things we do.  But what I want the end result to be is to have my children look around and do what is best for the situation, not what is best for them or what will get them some “thing”.

This is pretty high in sky, I know it.  Teaching that isn’t going to be easy.  It’s hard.  It’s tiring.  It’s irritating.  Sometimes I just want them to put their damn shoes on and get in the car ALREADY.  WHY IS THAT SO DAMN HARD?

I totally get why people want to give out a sticker or a dime.  I really, really, really get it.  And I’m no saint,  I have given out my own share of things to get them motivated.  I’ve bribed.  I’ve begged.

The big picture for me, though, is that we don’t get a “thing” for being adults that give back to our society.  If we work together and look big at what our community, our province, our country needs collectively, we get a nice place to live.  A safe place to live and work and raise our children.  We don’t get an iPad.  I don’t understand why we teach our children to want an iPad instead of that safe, secure community.  And while that may seem like a ridiculous comparison, that is what is going on in my head when I try to come to terms with the reward-based teaching idea.

That isn’t to say I don’t think that a sticker chart or a reward has a place.  I believe it to be a valuable tool to say,  track a goal – a goal that the child makes and tracks.  If that goal is to read 100 books this year, then go to town and make a poster and buy a stack of stickers.  That makes complete sense to me.  But if it is my goal to force my kid to read 100 books, well then that sticker chart loses merit in my mind.

Although  my kids could totally read a 100 books. heh.

Right now my children are young and I believe that my role in these early days is to train.  Perhaps I should say “to teach” as that sounds much lovelier, but really it is just training.  Training them to understand the real consequence of their actions.  Training to see the world beyond their own wants and desires.  In every situation the consequence of not behaving a certain way differs, but there is always a consequence.

For example: if you don’t eat your breakfast right now, you will not be eating breakfast because in 10 minutes we are going to be getting into the car.  The logical consequence to not eating breakfast is you’re hungry and pissy all day.  Tomorrow, the kid will probably eat breakfast (I have pretty easy-going kids, so it is a guarantee that tomorrow they will eat breakfast.  well, except for maybe Claire).  Do I care if my kids eat breakfast?  OF COURSE I DO.  But they will not die if they don’t eat breakfast, I am not punishing them by taking breakfast away because everyone was given the opportunity to eat and then if they chose not to, well in the long run the lesson of realizing that they are responsible for their own well-being (or will be in time as they get older) is more important than what someone else thinks when they find out my dawdling 5 year didn’t get around to eating and that is why he is lying in a puddle of tears at my feet at the end of the day.

I don’t always have a reasonable consequence at my disposable, though, and sometimes (often) am flailing around like a crazy person, but hey!  Welcome to parenting!  I am getting better at this all the time and there are certainly non-negotiable points in every situation.  It comes down to three things – Is it safe for my child?  Is it safe to me and others?  Is it safe to the environment?  The consequences fall out of that.  Usually.  I still have a really hard time diffusing the crazies.  You know the crazies?  When the kids are having a blast but they are being annoying and insane and over the top?  And running away from you laughing like complete lunatics?

No?  Your kids don’t do that?

huh.

More than anything, though, I feel like when we start dolling out rewards to get the behaviour we want, it is really easy to slip into a situation where you stop listening.  Really listening.  At least, I believe this to be true for me.  Instead of realizing that Claire is digging her heals because she’s hungry and needs a snack, I bribe her with something to get my way (which might be for a completely valid and necessary reason) and then I have allowed for a real need of hers not to be met.  Sometimes the behaviour is a cry to be heard, or a cry for some attention, or love, or understanding but they can push that aside in the interest of getting the coveted ”thing”.  At least for a moment.  After that moment, though, the need is still there, I’m all out stickers and I’ve got three kids losing their marbles with no end in sight…