Tales of Life with a Girl on the Go

When we picked Reid up from daycare on Friday, one of the Senior Preschool teachers handed Ken a form and said that Reid would be a Senior as of Monday. She said that due to low numbers Reid had been spending lots of time with the Seniors and so wouldn’t need the usual 5 day integration period. Much of what she has done as a Junior has been similar to what the Seniors do and she has spent lots of time with the Senior teachers since the Juniors and Seniors start and finish their days together. Two of her buddies, one of whom started daycare the week after Reid are moving up at the same time.

Over the weekend Reid talked about what Seniors do and don’t do. It would seem that Seniors don’t cry or drink milkies and did do various other things. Finally, I told her that she should figure out what was right for her and not worry so much about what others did. I talked briefly about how everyone was different. It was probably a first (of many) examples of how I just don’t get kid culture.

This morning when Reid woke, I said something about her being a Senior this morning. She looked down at herself and asked “Did I growed?” I explained that she might have grown a bit but that she was becoming a Senior because she was smart enough and knew how to follow the rules and behave like a Senior. It’s interesting to see how Reid’s mind works – for her older = bigger = grown up.

As they left for daycare, Reid was asking about where her cubby would be and it was an easy focus on how things would unfold rather than sounding stressed. She’s breaking the change down to a manageable level. At least I hope that is what happened, I haven’t heard from Ken to know for sure.

Child Care Worker & Early Childhood Educator Appreciation Day (what a mouthful!) sneaks up on me each year but I remembered today and thought I’d pass it along. According to the Ontario Coalition for Better Childcare, we’re to mark the day on Wednesday, October 24. I’ll be blogging about the fabulous women who care for Reid while I’m at work and I hope you will, too.

One of Reid’s daycare teacher’s sought me out Thursday night to tell me that Reid hadn’t napped that day. I reacted with surprise – it’s almost always P. who doesn’t sleep and occasionally L. but it’s never, ever been Reid. Oh, how the mighty fall!

The teacher told me that she had been surprised, too. She had went over to tell Reid to go to sleep and Reid’s lip had wobbled. The teacher then asked if Reid wanted a hug and then gave one at Reid’s nod. She thought Reid was warm and so took Reid’s temperature. But it was normal.

The craziest thing to me was that Reid didn’t fall asleep on the way to swimming or on the way to Melissa’s for supper. We were on the off ramp before her eyes closed. I took a bit of a detour to stretch out Reid’s initial sleep. This bought me time enough to use the bathroom and get into my pajamas before Ken brought Reid up.

Reid napped well on Friday and Saturday. I’m hoping to continue the streak since I really love my Sunday naps.

I noticed in a CBC story today that Danny Williams has promised $1,000 for each child born or adopted in Newfoundland and Labrador if he is re-elected as Premier in the election campaign that just kicked off. I guess that while you can’t put a price on love,  you can put a price on a child.

I wouldn’t say “no” to a thousand dollars but I think it’s awfully simplistic – and more than a little reminiscent of the $100 universal “childcare” payments – and deals with the result of the problem rather than the problem. People decide not to have children for a variety of reasons including financial, lifestyle, including marrying and having babies later, dual-income couples, lack of support systems when people can only find jobs far from the rest of their families, etc. Oh, and some people think that daycare is too difficult to find and too expensive, especially when you have two kids in full-time care. Problems not solved by $100 a month, even when you add $1000 on the birth of a baby.

I read an interesting post by Katherine at From Dirt to Dish about an Eat Local Challenge yesterday and the actions she is taking to reduce her family’s carbon footprint by buying foods grown and processed close to home. It made me think of the actions that I need to take- and to also wish that the challenge had started in the summer when Ottawa is more hospitable to eating locally. Then, this morning I read Dani’s Postcard from the Mothership on facing her family’s ugly eco-truth and I decided that I could tackle the packaging problem that BlogHer Act Canada has identified for focus this month.

They are asking a few questions and also for reflection on what can be done on a personal level. I’ll answer the questions at the end.

There are quite a few posts about reducing packaging – the first of the trinity of Rs  – and so I’m going to cover reusing. I walk the fine line between keeping too much “just in case” materials and creative re-use. Reid has a little post office/theatre/grocery store from Discovery Toys. We have kept some sample packages for the grocery store part. At a garage sale recently, I saw a woman who had packaged a bunch of empty single-serving containers for just that sort of purpose. She explained that it helped justify the single-serving containers for camping.

In my world, junk mail falls into the category of packaging or at least it does in this post. I’m a shredder of mail with personal information on it. The problem is that the paper then goes to the recycle bin with so much potential left in it. Or it would if I didn’t save it ina bucket. One day recently, when Ken was out, Reid and I had a “snowfight” with the shredded paper, made a craft and then spent a bunch of time sweeping and vacuuming (fun activities for Reid). If I can rig up the frames, I think we’ll make some paper as presents for Christmas. I also asked daycare if they wanted some of the shredded paper and they said, “yes”. Daycare is really good place to send the things that have potential still in them when we are done using them.

Reid draws and paints on a roll of paper that threads through her Ikea easel. As the paper is used, I keep it in a single piece and roll it into itself. When we have a birthday or other occasion, we use the paper to wrap gifts. Even Reid received a birthday gift wrapped in limited-edition Reidie paper. For the most part, our Christmas presents going out into the world in cotton bags. I can’t say enough about bagged gifts. The appearance of the gifts under the tree is fabulous; you can have a much greater variety of bags than wrapping papers. It’s faster to “wrap” a present in a bag and it is *so* much easier to clean up after the presents are unwrapped.

Now for the questions:

1.  How many disposable plastic water bottles would you and your family have used?

We generally use very few plastic water bottles – I’m cheap as well as environmentally conscious – but we went to a cottage for Labour Day Weekend that didn’t have water that was safe to drink. A fact we didn’t know in advance and so weren’t able to arrange for large containers of water. We went through at least 12 bottles in that one weekend alone. At work, I get a plastic glass of water from Starbuck’s each morning. This needs to stop. I will have to buy a reusable metal container since I can’t count on winning the nice one being offered as a prize. I guess the packaging on it won’t be significant compared to the plastic glasses it will replace. So, I can save 3-5 plastic water bottles by being more prepared on weekend activities and 10 plastic glasses for the remainder of this month. And if I keep it up, presumably the purpose of the exercise, that would be 6 bottles and 20 glasses a month.

2.  How many disposable coffee cups do you save by bringing your own?

I bring a travel mug of coffee with me each morning but then switch to tea at the office. Most cups are consumed out of a china teapot and cup. I do go to Starbucks, though, and have gotten out of the habit of bringing my travel mug – a Chicago mug acquired at BlogHer, in fact. I’ll commit to skipping tea when I forgot my travel mug at my desk or at least I’ll commit to going back for the cup when I realize that I’ve forgotten it. If only I drank coffee, Starbucks would give me 10 cents off each cup.

3.  How many cans of pop do you save buy buying larger sizes or switching beverage choices?

Oh, on this one, I’m good. I drink maybe 2 cans of pop a month. Ken, though, is another story. I’m going to have to stick with what Janet at Three and Holding says about recycling the cans because we’re good with recycling the cans.