Inspired Photography

We have another fabulous sponsor to introduce to you!

Inspired Photography is another great mom-run business.  Julie, mom of two,  is "inspired by my children, by photographs of my own childhood, by rosy cheeks, dimples, baby toes, and long eyelashes; by new beginnings, belly laughs, and hand holding; by bumblebees, sunsets, the wind, and wild flowers; and by lots more".

I think Julie's work speaks for itself in her ability to capture those fleeting moments and provide timeless memories.

I have been lucky enough to have been having Julie taking photos of my kids since they were first born and I can tell you from first hand experience that Julie does an excellent job. She puts you at ease and brings out the best in you and your family.

Julie specializes in maternity, newborn, children and family portraits and does sessions either in her home or on location in the Ottawa area.  She is very affordable and offers that extra personal touch that makes a photo shoot a pleasurable experience.

She is offering Kids in the Capital a special discount!  Mention that you heard about her from the site and get 25% off her sitting fee.  Head on over and check out her site now!

Being aware of food allergies: how to host a child with food allergies

by a Ottawa mom I am a mom who has been dealing with multiple severe food allergies now for two years (the anaphylactic-Epipen-ambulance rides to CHEO kind). These two years have been the most stressful period of our lives. It has turned me into a total Mama Grizzly on the topic of food allergies and awareness. I am always protecting my little cub at home and outside - constantly on the lookout for crumbs, suspicious food labels and food wrappers left in the park (and more).

The tricky thing with food allergies is that once you're outside of your safe zone, you rely on your friends and the people around you to be sympathetic to your needs and demonstrate compassion by taking your child's medical needs seriously.

Here's a recent (bad) example. One day last month there was a birthday in my son's daycare and the children had a surprise treat of ice cream (it was a surprise to me too as we have an agreement about giving notice for birthday treats). Because of my son's egg, milk and nut allergies, he cannot participate in these special activities. When I collected him at the end of the day shortly after the ice cream had been gobbled up by his classmates, I found my little boy in a high chair eating one of his homemade muffins. He looked miserable. His emotions were on his sleeve and he reached up for a big hug and slung his head on my shoulder. I felt horrible for him. And guilt. Then rage. A birthday party shouldn't be the worst part of your week.

You might not think it's a big deal, but it is when it happens repeatedly. This is just an example from last month. Month. Typing this story out is making me cry at my computer screen. Food allergies comes with a lot of emotional baggage.

You can show your respect towards a child with food allergies (and their parents) by creating safe situations for them when you invite them to playdates or birthday parties. Hosting an inclusive get together doesn't have to be complicated.

Here are some tips :

1. Ask your guests if there are any food or environmental allergies in advance.
2. Understand the severity of the allergies. Is it sniffles and red eyes? Or is it "911 epipen hives and can't breathe ambulance ride to the CHEO" allergies? Does the latter scare you? It should.
3. Before the party:
   • Talk to the allergy parent about your menu plan. This allows the allergy parent to decide if they can allow their child to eat the same food or whether they will pack similar food to bring along. Ideally, I'd like to see the host not serve any food that contains the allergens. Really. If making an eggless cake boggles your mind, just ask for a recipe. I know that I can make a dairy and egg free cake that tastes just as good (or BETTER!) than the regular version. If you are the "allergy mom" offer to send recipes or even bake/cook something to bring for everyone.
   • Let all of your guests know about any special considerations. Some parents may ask that children not have peanut butter or nuts before arriving or ask that they brush their teeth and wash their hands beforehand. You may also want to ask guests not to bring any food.
4. Make the party venue allergy-friendly. Give the place a good clean sweep. Wipe down surfaces such as play tables, kitchen tables and countertops with a clean cloth. Inspect any toys that will be shared for food residue and wash them if necessary.
5. Avoid cross contamination when preparing foods. If you are cooking a separate item for an allergy child, always use clean bowls, utensils and ingredients. Cover any baking sheets with tinfoil if you've baked with the allergen on them before.
6. Confirm any ingredients and food with the "allergy mom". Allergens can be lurking even in products that don't have the allergen on the ingredient list. Have you ever seen warnings that read, "This product has been manufactured in a facility the processes peanuts? " To us, that warning is THE SAME as having the allergen included in the ingredient list. And here's the tricky thing, that warning is OPTIONAL. Processed foods, even things like cereal, may not be safe.
7. Condiments. If you think there is a chance that a knife may have dipped into peanut butter and then into the jelly jar or onto the stick of butter, open a new package or jar. Play it safe.
8. Hosting a BBQ? Have you ever made a peanut sauce marinade for your meat and cooked it on the grill? Maybe? Then your BBQ may still have nut residue on the grill. Cook any food for the allergy sufferer on a piece of tin foil and use separate tongs.

Here are some situations that make an allergy mom extremely nervous when unsafe food is available :

• Unsafe food within reach (it's not fun to be the helicopter parent standing next to your child during the entire party... and it's not much fun for the child either )
• Children running around with unsafe foods. Dropping food. Trying to give the allergy-kid food.
• Children with foody hands touching toys, tabletops, crayons or worse, touching the allergy kid.

Make it a safe party for everyone. And have fun!

Applesauce season: Reading about and making applesauce

by Brie I saw the book sitting on top of the shelf the last time we were at the library. Knowing that a Kids in the Capital apple picking meet up was planned in a few weeks I had grabbed the book with one hand while running after the kids. Am I ever glad I did.

My 4-year-old girl and I have read Applesauce Season (link is to the Ottawa Public Library in case you want to reserve the book) at least five times a day in the two weeks since we brought it home. The story is about a little boy who goes to the market to buy apples and then makes applesauce at home with his family. The book illustrates about all the steps in making applesauce and includes a recipe at the back.  The book also talks about different kinds of apples and all the different ways you can serve or eat applesauce.

This past Saturday when we were at the Main Farmers' Market I asked the girl if she wanted to make applesauce. The answer was a loud yes. So we bought a bunch of apples for applesauce and "as many for eating out of hand". The last bit was her quoting from the book.

While we made the applesauce the girl made sure to follow the actions on each page very carefully. She also quoted sections of the book to me as we went along.I was instructed to cut the apples in "quarters or sixths", just like in the book. She was not happy when she realized that we didn't have a food mill like in the book, but we managed. Instead I peeled and cored the apples before cutting them into sixths and then used a potato masher while they cooked to break the apples up. To that we added some fresh apple juice also bought at the market and let it all simmer in a pot on the stove for twenty miutes.

In fact, making the applesauce was very easy.  The only tricky part was that the recipe was at the back of the book and the girl wanted to follow along with the pictures and the text. This resulted in me adding way too much cinnamon sugar to the applesauce. But in the end, I think the girl was quite happy with that. When the applesauce had cooled the girl ate some from "a special cup", just like the boy in the book.

Applesauce Season has been a fabulous book at just the right time of year. I loved how enthralled the girl was with it and the information that she picked up from it about apples and making applesauce. I loved that we went from reading it to making applesauce together. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to get their kids excited about apple season and applesauce.

And if you have any applesauce left over you can use it in this easy cake I made for the meetup. Combine 2 cups sweetened applesauce and one beaten egg. Stir together 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Add 1 cup raisins now if you want them. Mix everything together well and then pour into a 9x9 inch baking pan. Cook at 350F for about 45 minutes.

 Enjoy and celebrate applesauce season!

Brie is the mom of a 4 year old daughter “the girl” and 2 year old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.

Goin' On A Treasure Hunt

by Erin Ever heard of geocaching?? Yah, me neither until about a week ago. I came across it while surfing blog land. It sounded interesting so I had to learn more.

From Wikipedia:

Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammo boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is most often described as a "game of high-tech hide and seek,"...

Interesting, I thought, but surely there would not be any geocaches near me, and certainly not any in areas that I could go exploring with my 2 1/2 year old.

WRONG!

I signed up for a free account at http://www.geocaching.com/, and was excited to learn there were several geocaches within 10 minutes walking distance from my house. Now this was getting exciting!!

In order to find caches near me I had to plug in my postal code. This provided me with a list of caches near me sorted by distance. The caches are also rated for difficulty and terrain. Because I had no idea what to expect, we chose a very basic one. There is also a place to log your visit to the cache on the website. It was helpful to read through the posts because it gave me some hints on what to look for as well as some insight into the difficulty.

Since Miss K has a serious obsession with a certain cartoon "explorer", I thought this would be right up her alley. She drew her own map and everything!

In addition to our GPS we brought some stickers and a magnet (for trading), a pen (to sign the log book) and a camera (to document the find). Since we weren't venturing far from home I didn't bother to bring drinks or snacks, but I will in future if we decide to go farther. Also, I highly recommend wearing closed footwear. Miss K wore Crocs and I wore flip flips - not the best choices when searching a wooded area.

I plugged in the coordinates provided by the website and away we went. It didn't take long for me to realize that something just wasn't right with the GPS. After some fiddling with the settings I realized that the unit should have been set to "pedestrian" and "off road". Once I had everything fixed up we were back on track.

Miss K and I followed the "pink path" until we reached the general area of our treasure. On the website it describes what the cache will look like. We were looking for a medium size food storage container covered in black duct tape.

It took a little playing with the GPS unit to figure out how to find such a specific point, but finally the unit told us we were within 0.8 meters of the coordinate we had entered. A quick peek behind a tree revealed our prize:

We were very excited to say the least. I fished the container out of the tree and we opened it up. Inside there was a log book and pen sealed inside a zipper storage bag along with a variety of other items. I let Miss K trade swap some stickers and I signed the log book. We sealed the container up again and placed it back in its spot.

This was a really fun activity. Miss K is motivated because there was "treasure" and she got some new stickers. We are planning on going again soon - Daddy wants to come next time because he thinks that he will be able to find a more difficult cache with his superb orienteering skills (we will see). I think we will also create a cache of our own to hide on one of our favorite dog walking paths.

Erin is mom to 2 (almost 3) year old “Miss K” and 6 month old “Mister J”. You can read her blog at My Suburban Adventure

Pop Life: Taking a trip to the National Gallery

by Barbara

I've been excited about the Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit at the National Gallery since they started advertising their search for identical twins to be part of one of the works of art. Somehow, though, the summer passed and we didn't go to the exhibit until recently. Luckily, the exhibit will be open until September 19^th and you still have time to go.

I went with my six-year-old daughter, Reid, my mom and my 30-year-old niece and we all enjoyed ourselves. I asked Reid if she thought I should recommend that other moms take their kids and she said, “Yes! I am a kid and I liked it and so will they.”

Reid's favourite parts of the exhibit were the Andy Warhol pieces. He is her favourite artist right now, thanks to the Dropping in on Andy Warhol book and video we signed out from the library. She watched a bit of the Love Boat episode starring Andy Warhol, giving me time to read a bit more of the labels.

The piece featuring the twins – two young women playing cards when we were there – was more of a fascination to me than to Reid. When you're six, I guess you have less of an expectation about what will appear in a work of art. Reid enjoyed the room depicting anime art, especially the video of Kirsten Dunst singing “Turning Japanese”. The video is on YouTube but it is marked as possibly unsuitable for children. I didn't find it to be inappropriate, though.

We both liked Keith Haring's chalk drawing-like images. You can purchase items featuring his art right in the midst of the exhibit but it's a passive offering and the kids (probably) won't notice. Ashley Bickerton's “self portrait”, in which he presents himself through the logos of products he uses, was the springboard for a surprisingly good conversation about the things we use. I think Reid and I could do something like this at home. The other artists and their works provoked conversations as well. Reid didn't have any “they call that art?!” reactions but she did have some questions about what she saw and why it was included in the exhibit.

Admission is $15 for adults, $7 for youth 12-19 and kids under 12 are free. There are a few rooms with explicit artwork but these are well-signed and easily avoided.  There is a horse with something stabbed into it that isn't signed and you might want to be ready to avoid it or explain it.

There is a sign in the foyer indicating the cameras are banned in the gallery and there are many guards in the exhibit and so I took no pictures. The exhibit is visually powerful and I agree with Reid, kids will enjoy it. You may want to explore other galleries while you're at the National Gallery but don't be too ambitious. Good behaviour is tiring and you'll want your kids to be as eager to return as you will be.