Vancouver(ish) Tribe: October... the season of mists and mellow fruitfulnes.

[tooticky]

welcome lower mainland mamas!

(and mamas to be)

From John Keats' poem, To Autumn, 1820:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.



All local mamas are welcome here! Visitors are welcome to pop in too. We are brought together by our passion for conscious/thoughtful/attachment/respectful/wholistic/natural parenting, not always agreeing on the path but agreeing to respectfully discuss, share, and learn together. Feel free to join in the conversation and introduce yourself!

This is our thread for chatting online, discussing issues relevant to the Lower Mainland, and arranging meetings in real life. If you have issues and questions that are not specific to the Vancouver area, please start a new thread in the appropriate MDC forum (e.g. breastfeeding, discipline, health, etc.). You can also post a link to your topic in this thread if you are requesting input from your tribe members. This allows us to

1. adhere to MDC guidelines;
2. keep questions and responses organized; and
3. reduce thread traffic and allow readers more control over which discussions they engage in.

Meet-ups are sporadic and include gatherings at parks, Science World, and people's homes. Anyone is welcome to suggest a gathering time/place. Meet-ups are either announced in the meet-up thread in the Canada Forum or here.

Remember that to get email notification of new posts in this thread, you can post to this thread to subscribe or you can use 'thread tools' and click 'subscribe'.

Please note that our Vancouver(ish) Tribe has other threads in the Canada Forum, including:

• Vancouver(ish) Meet-up thread
  
• Knitting Group Thread: look in the Canada forum
  
• Vancouver(ish) Doctors for Children
  
• Vancouver(ish) Dental Resources for Children
  
• FAQ: Greater Vancouver Area Liveability and Affordability

[beaner&tiegs]

Hey thanks Erin....yes, wow, the thread is rather quiet. I know I'm not up for posting much these days, but I miss hearing about everyone else - Ksenia, you're very quiet these days, what's going on in your neck of the woods? And Lisa, you're quiet too - good news, I hope?!! How's everyone else?

We're still trying to sell our house - chose the crappiest time EVER, but you know can't fill your life with "shoulda, woulda, coulda's"!!!! So we shoulder on, enjoying the extra time we have here and trying to stay positive! Ultimately, we're still going to make out well, so it feels silly to complain, but still, kind of unsettling to be in such a state of unknowns. Also, delicing the family and dealing with a brutal cold, so energy can be really low some days.... but the sun was out today and the air is crisp, gotta love fall!!!!

Anyways, hope everyone else is doing well this October!

[Ellp]

Subbing...(if I actually remember to click on the button on the bottom...)

Emma's class got cancelled this morning due to to illness so we took a day trip to Burlington for some outlet shopping. I haven't been in ages!

The lineup going south was actually only 10 minutes (having arrived there at 11:30am), and coming back as the same (4:30pm).

The kids survived the long drive, and it was actually nice for me to just sit in one spot and let my mind wander on the long highway. It was probably the longest I've spent sitting in months...

I spent about $45Cdn on a zippered cardigan and yoga pants. No problems with customs either...

Now I'm ready for dinner, and bed! Dh's gone to a council meeting so its just me and the kids...

[dawncayden]

subbing

more later, waiting for rice to finish so we can eat our stir fry :

[Autumn Mama]

An email just came across our HLVan list for homelearners...so I'm forwarding it here. It's regarding the (possible) loss of the UBC farm! Hope others are moved to sign the petition as I was...

They are aiming for 3000 signatures, so far they've got close to 2000! :

[Len]

Thanks Tooticky for starting an October thread!
Not much happening around here.... settling into our fall routine and busy all around.
Just subscribing for now....

[kdtmom2be]

I just ran across an ad on Craigslist for this local company... hadn't seen it mentioned here before and thought others might be interested.

Organic Bedding

(She was looking for seamstresses, in case anyone was interested in that bit.)

[erynw]

I was wondering what "subbing" meant and now that I get it, I'm subbing too

[Alison's Mom]

Originally Posted by Autumn Mama

An email just came across our HLVan list for homelearners...so I'm forwarding it here. It's regarding the (possible) loss of the UBC farm! Hope others are moved to sign the petition as I was...

They are aiming for 3000 signatures, so far they've got close to 2000! :

Thanks for the heads up on this!

Erin tooticky - where did you get the eczema medication you said worked well for your DD? Was it cliniderm or something? My DS's eczema looks worse today than it has the last few weeks, and I've been good about avoiding dairy. . . .

[widemouthedfrog]

subbing too. Things are busy around here, as per usual.

Today dd, age 3 1/3, decided that she wanted to go to the breastfeeding challenge. She thought that sounded way better than the pumpkin patch.

I told her that you know what they say, if you're old enough to ask to go to the breastfeeding challenge...you're too old ,

I told her she could go with someone else and I'd go to the pumpkin patch, but she informed me that she needed my nummies to be there, too.

Can't put one over on this kid, it seems.

[dawncayden]

Originally Posted by erynw

I was wondering what "subbing" meant and now that I get it, I'm subbing too

erinw

[artparent]

it really is october now

erica, lice and a slumpy market sound miserable!! there's someone who wants your house right now, despite the market...i hope they find it very soon.

we're dying to get into our little house in london, but hanging out in birmingham for the moment, then pushing on..must book more places to live. i'm looking forward to no more suitcases and no more bookings, ready to settle! the sun is out today, so i'm hopeful, we've been rather cooped. i think we will head to spain in a while, for a conference...this is exciting but i think i'm so tired out, i'm not jumping around about it!!

the girls are well, though they are missing friends.

i've been doing yoga on youtube, there are some seriously challenging workouts on there!! so i'm feeling better about that, but i have dreams of running again as well. yoga i can do next to sleeping children at least.

i'm also relieved to find that muswell hill is similar to main street in that i can walk to library, swimming pools (1 outdoor even!), soccer fields, parks, organic food shops...and the recycling is amazing, they even compost for the city! it all makes it much easier to be so far from vancouver. now we're hunting for a great sofabed, so we can have visitors. you're coming for a visit, right?!

*

[tooticky]

Welcome, erynw!

Alison's Mom: I started using Cliniderm on dd and her eczema cleared up the next day. I had also been doing a pretty major elimination diet for a few weeks, so I'm not sure if it was a combination of the two that finally had such dramatic results.

I'm not crazy about Cliniderm because it's petroleum based, but it's the only cream I was able to find that was free of all of the allergens we are avoiding right now.

UBC Farm: I was pretty sad to hear about this too! I love the UBC farm... Gotta go sign the petition.

Elena: Are you really a moderator in training? Congratulations!

[robugmum]

Happy October Everyone!:

[dawncayden]

Erica, I love your house! I sure wish WE could buy it
hey and since you have so many people waiting for a bid to occur before they get involved, can't you just get a friend to make a bid?


Ksenia, did you find a mothers helper? How is this year with Wolfie's homeschooling/NWHL's?


Artparent, your journey sounds like a dream....going to Spain, staying in London gives me goose bumps to think about. Helena Bonham Carter is in London and she's into alternative stuff like Homeopathy, maybe if you bump into her, you can ask where her sources are


Getting bigger over here, feeling lots of flutters :

[Len]

Originally Posted by tooticky

Elena: Are you really a moderator in training? Congratulations!

I am, but for a *new* MDC board that will open soon, hopefully not as busy as this one!

[vancouverlori]

Congrats, Elena!

Originally Posted by widemouthedfrog

I told her she could go with someone else and I'd go to the pumpkin patch, but she informed me that she needed my nummies to be there, too.

: That's too cute!

We're settling in to Fall too - somehow everything takes more time than I'm expecting! Yesterday was our first "class" with Summit Learning Ctr, a Musical Theatre class in Coquitlam. Both kids were in it (not many activities like that!) but at first Calvin didn't want to join. So I told him he could just sit quietly in the corner and watch. The teacher was positively amazing - the kids were having so much fun running around playing games that Calvin finally joined right in. And now he can't wait until next week. They're doing a Frosty the Snowman production, so the kids are working on Christmas carols (no! NOOOOO! it's waaaay too early!!!).

Sadly, the Vice-Principal at Summit died in a car accident on Friday, so the Principal was at the class and she was pretty emotional about it. :

Right now Calvin's watching a very questionable Hot Wheels movie from the library. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to accidentally get returned too early...

back to my usual "homeschooling with ADD woman"!

[Storm Bride]

A new thread - I missed it yesterday!

We're chugging along over here. I've been in a funk lately...probably brought on by the cold that will not die (been over two weeks, and I've thought I was kicking it twice, only to wake up feeling crappy), the feeling that the anniversary of Aaron's death is creeping up on me (think that's partly because I was labouring on Halloween, and the kids are talking about Halloween a lot), and the fact that we're on our third cycle of unsuccessfully ttc. DS2 has also been a major handful lately - he was actually beating on me with both fists today, because I tried to get him down for a nap.

I'm here almost every day, but not as much as before. I'm trying to cut back, so I can interact more with the kids, and that's going okay. DD has finally decided that she wants me to read Harry Potter to her. She resisted for a long time, but finally agreed...and the chapter a day has become at least two. She's loving it.

We attended "Fungus Among Us" at the Ecology Centre on Monday. That went pretty well, although dd burned the first few minutes freaking out about going into the room for circle time. It's not hard to tell whose daughter she is, and I'm now convinced that social anxiety and shyness is at least partly genetic. I wonder if she'll have my lifelong fear of walking through a closed door...

[vancouverlori]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

I'm now convinced that social anxiety and shyness is at least partly genetic. I wonder if she'll have my lifelong fear of walking through a closed door...

Yeah, I think there's something too that genetic link. And I know someone who walked full-tilt into a glass door and broke her nose on her first day at a new job. Come to think of it, I once *ran* full tilt into a closed patio door, chasing some friends at someone's house in high school. It hurt a little, especially my pride, but it's none so bad. At least everyone's pretty sympathetic. No, what's really awful is walking through the mall with the back of your skirt tucked into your undies. Yep, did that too (2 mos ago!). These sorts of fears are not unfounded, for some of us. Embarrassing stuff really does happen to us and not some others. You just have to hope that you don't wake up in the middle of the night reliving the embarrassment too often.

So what's everyone's kids being for Hallowe'en? Calvin wants to be either a guard robot or something he just mentioned yesterday that I can't remember right now, and Emily wants to be a pre-Christian Irishwoman again. I'll probably be a medieval princess or Laura Ingalls again. Not feelin' all that creative at this moment.

[Storm Bride]

DS2 said he wanted to be a bat for weeks, but told me a couple days ago that he actually wants to be Batman.

DS1 is going as the Joker - the Heath Ledger one. He's working with a friend of my mom's to make the costume. She's a very talented seamstress, who actually made him a Three Musketeers style hat a couple years ago. He's been quoting lines from the movie ever since he saw it, so I guess this is just his thing.

DD hasn't made up her mind. She usually wants to be a princess or fairy or something like that.

I buy their costumes, as I'm textile-challenged in a big way. I'll probably take them out this weekend.