GETTING GEARED UP FOR YULE TIDE AND WINTER SOLTICE

This is such a special time of year. With the snow beginning to fall, families come together, apple cider warms our insides and hearts, and rose colours our cheeks and noses. For us this time of year has become so great because we get to imagine with each other, create, decorate and spend warm time indoors (and mostly cold times outdoors with Daddy).

We have begun to start creating some traditions and one has been to write to Santa Claus. He has been very good at responding and although Charlotte isn't quite ready to print yet, she tells me her ideas. She always wishes for other people and for happiness for her loved ones. Above is also potato stamps that we made to create our very own wrapping paper. Charlotte was very impressionistic with hers, but you will have to wait and see.

MEET LORAX!!!

On Tuesday, while Allen was walking home from school he found a little kitty in distress. He brought her home and she was just frightening to look at. Her face was covered in blood, left eye covered with an abscess, claws filed down, whiskers singed, congested, dirty, covered in burrs and weighing less than a pound. You could feel all her BONES!!! Immediately we took her to the local veterinary clinic. The prognosis didn't seem well. Charlotte wondered daily about the "sick cat" who was going to "feel better". But after 4 days of observation we were able to take her home. She had been eating well, urinating and her congestion will remain but treated. She remains thin and frail, unable to jump up, but she is loving and loves us. She sleeps in our bed but can mostly be found in the sun (she has no fat on her body and this is how she stays warm).

As for the name LORAX: it is the title of a Dr.Seuss book we have been reading to Charlotte daily. The Lorax (a mangy orange thing - similarly to our kitty) is a protector of Swamee Swans and Truffula Trees. A Once-ler uses all of their environment's resources to make Thneeds, causing the inhabitants to all flee this smoggy destroyed land.

If I wrote a children's book...it would have been this

Waiting for their children to let them into their lives. In due time!

This photo is actually on its side but it acknowledges breastfeeding and the relationship it builds between mother and child. I also admire the illustrator's decision on how to draw the breasts. They have to be lifted to feed the babe.

...when the prince is excluded he feels that the princess is totally absorbed in the baby. The passage and illustration acknowledge what is often overlooked, the father's desire to have a deep connection with his partner and baby as well.

On a dit...

let's put great things on our babies bums.

Stinky poos but...

This photo highlights co-sleeping. Notice the shape of their bodies (a heart and the veins on the comforter). The parents are also extremely happy although exhausted and tending to a crying child.

This particular page highlights how often a mother does not feel the same in her own skin when pregnant. She is still beautiful and loving but the book acknowledges that difficult reality that changes may bring.

The father creating a nest for his wife and little one to be.

The book acknowledges the making of the child and how beautiful it is for the parents.

Baby cake decoration.

The happy couple first meets. The cake is halved to represent equality and possibly the tiers make reference to the tiers of their lives together.

Each week Charlotte and Harriet venture to the library. Charlotte is extremely excited each time we go, and I am as well. It is an opportunity to explore that which I love and change up the books in our collection. While browsing through the shelves, I came upon this gem. I wish that I came up with the concept myself. It is a french book of illustrations depicting of the relationship between a prince and a princess and the subsequent development and relationship with their children. Although the entire book is exceptional and struck a major chord, I picked out the illustrations that were most relevant to our beliefs. Les Heureux Parents is a book that will blow your mind if you are into natural parenting.