Kidzarama

The kids were amazed at this little bit of “magic”. Imagine being able to cut part of a plant off and grow a new one from it!

If you don’t have a daisy plant to take a cutting from, chances are that someone you know will. They’re a very popular plant.

Choose a healthy daisy bush with lots of new growth on it. Using clean secateurs or sharp scissors, cut a length of about 10-15cm (5-7in) from the end of a branch. I have to say that although my own secateurs could use a good going over, most of my cuttings still strike (grow roots).

Gently strip the leaves from the woody part of the stem and dip the cut end in some honey. This acts as an antiseptic, to kill any germs and give your cuttings a head start at fighting diseases in the soil (or from my secateurs).

Poke a hole in your potting mix with another stick and plant the cutting, pressing the soil around it. Gently water in.

Leave for a few weeks in a sheltered spot - filtered sunlight is probably best. Keep moist but not wet, so that the cuttings won’t rot. Less moisture is needed after the first week.

After about three weeks, you can very gently move the stem of a cutting to see if it has grown roots. Once roots have grown, you can put it into a slightly more sunny spot.

Leave it in the original pot for at least 2 months before re~potting, and longer before planting into the garden.

Other thoughts:

• Cuttings usually strike best in mid- to late-Spring.
• It’s a good idea to take a few cuttings to grow at one time, as they may not all strike.
• If you have curious little hands like we do here, you may need to put them up out of reach (but not out of sight) of children until they grow roots.

What do you do if your whole family loves cats, wants to adopt a cat, but can’t?

Well, in January we came up with our own answer.

We got guinea pigs. Two. One for each of the kids, named Olga da Polga and Mrs Guinea Pig.

Wren’s little black gp has been named Olga da Polga, because that was the name of my guinea pig as a child.

My Olga was named after the main character in the book series of the same name by Michael Bond (he also wrote the Paddington Bear books).

Luckily, I kept those little books and now Wren & Mr Bump love the stories, too. ~ It’s lovely to share those special childhood memories with them.

This fictional Olga was a bit of a wild child gp who delighted in adventures like car rides and biting that wavy thing dangling in front of her cage (until she realised there was a friendly cat on the end of it).

Meanwhile, poor Mrs Guinea Pig had a bit of a gender identity crisis. Mr Bump wanted to call her Mr Guinea Pig (after Pinky Dinky Doo’s guinea pig). After some thought however, he decided that it just wouldn’t do, and she was happily renamed. Crisis averted.
These two little furballs are very cute and are more affectionate than I remember from my childhood. Somehow I think that might have something to do with me being a whole lot more gentle now. I don’t remember being rough with my own Olga, but when I see how the kids handle these two… They think they’re being gentle, but still….

Some mornings I sit and watch the two little creatures in their run when I stop for a morning cuppa. All of a sudden, one of them will squeal and jump in the air, doing a 360º turn. Both will disappear into the sheltered end, then reappear just as suddenly. This sometimes goes on for 10 minutes, with me roaring with laughter the whole time.

The first time I saw them do it, I went and checked them both for fleas! Needless to say, they didn’t have any, and the entertainment continued almost as soon as I closed the hutch door.

They’re so cute, but I’m still hanging out to get a cat…

Afterthought:
On a totally unrelated subject, unless your guinea pigs are toilet trained, I read The Potty Poem, on Quiet Mom’s blog earlier today and just had to share it here. It’s wonderful!

Since I became a parent, I’ve worried a lot about getting Wren & Mr Bump to eat healthy food.

At one stage when Wren was 3, hubby & I were so desperate for her to eat anything that we gave her bread and butter for dinner. ~ It only lasted for a couple of nights, but it gave us all some breathing space and some time to think up some new attack strategies.
I found that a really big struggle we had was vegetables. We’re supposed to be eating 5 ’serves’ per day (whatever that means), and the kids were more more likely to throw 5 serves a day.

After much experimentation, hubby & I came up with a number of methods that have worked really well and I actually have children who enjoy eating vegetables now!

1. In the Raw.

The biggest obstacle I could see was that kids usually leave what they don’t like until last, by which time cooked veges are yuck. So I cut up some raw carrot, tomato and cucumber for dinner ~ it saved time, too. That went down okay, at least it still tasted alright after half an hour!

2. Frozen peas & corn.

Not surprisingly, the kids think it’s fun to eat undefrosted vegetables. When hubby first suggested it 5 years ago, I thought the idea was plain weird. But really, that suits our children perfectly, and what difference does heating them make anyway?

3. Grow your own to pick and eat off the plant.

My mum did this with me, and I loved it. You don’t need to have a huge vege patch, or even a back yard. You can grow your own tomatoes from seed in a pot. There are heaps of things you can grow this way. Mr Bump has gotten a huge kick out of the whole tomato experience ~ and we haven’t even had fruit from then yet.

4. Cut up a selection for a platter.

I’ve found that the best way to get Wren & Mr Bump eating veges regularly is to cut them up raw and put them on a platter on the dinner table. I try to vary what’s on offer a bit and sometimes add some cheeses so we don’t all get bored.
We serve the main part of the meal (lamb chops or whatever), then I put two or three pieces of each vegetable on their plates. This must be eaten, and almost always is.
If they want more of something, they can have it after finishing what I’ve given them. Sometimes, they’ll ask if they can leave one piece of tomato (for example), and we might bargain with them ~ “you can leave the tomato if you have two pieces of cucumber”.

We’ve found that over time the kids have really begun enjoy eating veges and
actually come back for more.

Hope this has given you some new ideas to run with, in the battle for healthy eating!

Four days after Easter, and we have 19 eggs (of assorted sizes and colours) left here.

To be honest, I have no idea of how many we started out with, but we’ve certainly eaten our way through a fair whack of them.

The Easter Bunny (EB) was very organised this year, with an itemised list and locations ~ I think he must have had a talk with hubby, who manages inventory for a living…

Some years, we’ve had tears because someone got what someone else wanted (I just can’t help throwing a tantrum sometimes). So this year, EB left the big eggs in the kids’ doorways, which worked amazingly well, and there were absolutely no tears or arguments!

Unlike a few parents I know, we usually just let the kids just go for it and eat what they like on special occasions like Easter & Christmas. Maybe I’m a bit cruel, but I’d rather get it all out of the way as soon as possible.

Surprisingly though, neither of the kids have gotten to that bouncy, itchy stage of chocolate overdose this year. (Christmas was a different story, with Mr Bump literally unable to stand still without his left leg twitching at one stage!)

They both seem to have learnt how to self-regulate their intake, although I do realise that I may be speaking too soon here, with 19 ~ no, 18 now ~ eggs still in the house…
How many eggs are left in your home right now, and how long do you think they’ll last?