Terrible 2s / Sprouts / Bad Plastics

Terrible twos

Today I did something I never though I would after C Monster hit me in the head hard enough for me to see stars I told him mama was leaving him in his room alone for a few minutes because he hurt me and needed to think about what he did.

I left him there for a total of about 10 minutes - I was sure he was going to cry as soon as I left but instead he said "mama ouch" and played for a bit with some blocks. When I came back to the room he gave me a hug and a kiss and asked to nurse so we did.

What I though I would not do is just put him in his room if he was "bad" and leave. I always told myself that this is not how you resolve conflict. If he does things like this typically we talk about feelings and why did he hurt. However today, well we had been having a ruff day and this was the tipping point; I was scared if I stayed with him and he did it again that I might scream at him instead of reacting calmly. I think I needed the time out as much as he did.

As I write this and C Monster is upstairs getting ready for bed with papa I heard papa say "Are you done throwing stuff at me, can I come back now?"

Sprouts

For a few years now we have been making our own sprouts instead of buying them at the grocery store. It's pretty easy as long as you have a sprouting jar. I really like the crunchy bean and pea sprouts you can buy; so I decided to try to make some at home. It was super simple here is what I did (the instruction are assuming you are using a sprouting jar)

Use 3 tablespoon dried whole peas soak for 8 to 10 hours. After that rinse and make sure you rinse the peas twice a day and drain. After about 3 to 4 days you will crunchy sprouted peas to add to salads or just snack on.

Bad Plastics

I was looking for some information on polystyrene the other day and came across this great website that really brakes down well good and bad plastics and explains the reasons why one would call a plastic bad in very understandable terms. You should check it out:

http://www.badplastics.com/index.html

Looking Forward To

The maple syrup farm - assuming the weather is cooperating this weekend.

SAFETY

I was sick for a bit so that would explain my absence. Baby and me are both fine, so no worries. I decided to divide these entries by subjects as there is a lot to say.

TOY SAFETY:
The Canadian Goverment released this notice regarding toy safety that I tought would be good to share with everyone.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/advisories-avis/info-ind/toy_lead-jouets_plomb_e.html

Also for those of you that want to keep up to date with recalls in Canada there is a great newsletter from the Canadian government that you can subscribe to.  

On our part, a few of the things we are doing for baby to keep him safe from all the dangers of toxic chemicals out in the world are:

• Use only stainless steel, glass, silicon or wood for meals.  I.E. Glass bottles, silicon trays to freeze milk or homemade food, metal sippy cups,  wood cutlery (once he is there)... If you are wondering why we don't want to use plastic check out this information on Bisphenol A.  You can also check out this great article on what plastics are safe.
• Keeping up to date with recalls both in Canada and in the US.  The US often recalls things a few days before us.
• Choosing his toys wisely, this is probably the over cautious first time parent nerves kicking in but we are doing our best to select toys from manufacturers with none to minimum amounts of recalls.  We will always have few exceptions to this rule as I know we have at lest one Fisher Price toy and we all know they had there shares or recalls. Some of the toy manufacturers that we like are:

Manhattan Toy

Vulli

Kushies

Haba

Natural Pod

Melissa & Doug