Love List

Free Our Kids

I loved this article which you can read here about a journo’s resolution not to spend any money on her child for a year.  In this day and age it is refreshing to see someone not wanting to give their children everything (materialistically). I must say it gave me (and my exploding toy room) food for thought. The blog response she got was huge because this is actually a real problem. We joke about how kids “prefer to play with the box” and laugh at how they pick the $10 toy as their favourite thing, but it’s true. We are setting these kids up for constant wanting and need-meeting.

Even at Christmas Julian opened his first toy up and wanted to sit and play with it but we hurried him on, “discard that toy, open the next one! Look there are so many!” When there was nothing left to open he cried.

We did that to him.

I put away nearly half of his Christmas toys (to open at a later date) and he doesn’t know they are missing.

My girlfriend said yesterday that she was considering not having a birthday party for her daughter as she just couldn’t imagine where she would put all the presents. I feel the same.

I would love to hear your comments on this subject.

If you want some hints for paring down during the back to school craziness you can read Natural New Age Mum’s article Eco-Friendly back to school tips here

Animals

My blog on Monday which you can read here  sparked some interesting comments regarding the treatment of animals and the choice to be a vegetarian. Last night I watched the start of Food Inc and I was crying within the first ten minutes. One of the comments really resonated with me, they said that we are so far removed from the source of our food and that’s we don’t think about how our food ends up at the supermarkets. If we actually saw the reality (and a bit was shown in the film) we would be horrified. I was and I am. Chickens who couldn’t walk because the growth hormones allow them to grow bigger breasts (because we prefer white meat) but their bones don’t catch up and so we are essentially disabling them, e-coli breeding grounds in slaughterhouses….I will watch the rest…it was just a lot to take in at once.

School Holidays

As frustrated as I am at certain times of the day having both kids at home, it is actually really lovely and flying by too fast. My to-do list, as always, is endless and I keep thinking to myself, next week I’ll take them out and have fun, more park visits, more activities, more swimming, more friends. Thank God these are the long school holidays – I still have a couple of weeks to get it right 🙂

Search Terms

On WordPress (the host of my blog) I get to see the kind of things people put in to google to find my site. Sometimes helpful (green smoothie), sometimes horrifying (leather housewife) and sometimes cool. Yesterday someone searched Bourne Housewife and got me! I’m not exactly a danger-monger or a spy kind of Mum but I was delighted just the same! Julian (who has a Bourne, Jason obsession) would be proud.

Gift Vouchers

This weekend I get to go guilt-free to the day spa. Heaven!!

Vegetarian Food

Thanks to everyone who gave me recipes this week! So helpful. You can see my first-time ravioli making experiment on my facebook page here. Today for lunch I had sauteed silverbeet with mango, cherry tomatoes and fried haloumi (delicious!) and tonight we are having nachos with kidney bean salsa and sour cream.

This vego thing is kinda cool.

What are you loving this week?