On learning styles and life lessons.

You know, there's a WHOLE lot of talk of "creating a critical thinker" when it comes to nurturing young children.

I'm of two minds on this.  On one hand, I agree that yes, we should encourage our children to think critically, and nurture their analytical skills while they're so open to it and so naturally curious.  On the other hand, though, I don't think that every moment of your child's life should be spent teaching some sort of lesson or thinking skill.

I take great issue with mothers who sneer at me when I respond "she wasn't" to questions like "how high was Kinder Major counting when she was two?"

Kinder Major showed a great right-brain preference from a very early age.  She was drawn very strongly to music and color, and showed a vested interest in coloring and painting by 11 months.  I nurtured that creativity.  Instead of teaching her counting and numbers and her alphabet at such a young age, I taught her color names and allowed her to play in paint and with crayons.  We colored on "her" wall next to my bed at night.  We read books together that were filled with color and texture, we sang and listened to music of all kinds, we danced and played with blocks.  As she continued to develop cognitively, she proved to have a knack for engineering based on aesthetics.  Again, I nurtured that.

A big part of attachment parenting is *knowing* your child and nurturing their innate abilities.  I don't feel that forcing "critical thinking" education on a child that doesn't learn that way is following that facet of APing.  I believe that every child is different, and should be nurtured as such.

Now, please don't interpret that to mean "don't encourage curiosity and awareness" - that's not what I'm saying.  What I AM saying, though, is don't bully your pediatrician into making a referral for speech and occupational therapy for your 18 month old because they haven't learned their entire alphabet yet.  (True example.)  Don't fill your child's day with structured learning, either.  Allow your child to grow at their own pace, and to be a child, especially if they are still on the variable line between late infancy and early toddlerhood.  Hell, even later toddlers.  Allow them to be them, and allow them to grow as they will.  Our children are not meant to be clones, nor are they meant to be programmed to fit our personal agendas on what we feel the perfect child should be.  They are their own person, and should be allowed to grow as such.

That is a life lesson that we all need to learn as we grow with our children.  Likewise, we should apply the same concepts to ourselves, since respectively, most of us are infants in our parenting lives.  We need to remember that we are all different, and allow ourselves to grow as we will, instead of as someone else (or even our pre-child selves) think we should.  We need to have confidence and faith in ourselves that we will thrive, and only with that confidence will our children form their own.

<3

Feeding our families, souls and communities.

Before I go on, I'd like to let you all know that I'm not preaching.  Quite frankly, there are very few things that I'm passionate about enough to personally preach.  I simply want to share my experiences.

I became a locavore quite by accident.  I had known about the locavore movement, but didn't put much thought into it.  I shopped at a grocery chain that made it a point to use as much semi-local produce as possible, where I checked origins and made it a point to skip over anything non-US grown and avoided anything that deviated from the Southeastern area.  For a time, that was enough. Then I discovered the gems that are my local Farmer's Markets.  THAT'S when I was converted.  A sunny, summer afternoon spent people-watching, chatting up vendors, and buying some of the most beautiful tomatoes and Muscadine grapes I had ever laid my eyes on, all the while snacking on beautifully made artisan bread still warm from a vendor that gave it to us for free, in exchange for a smile and a hug from my outgoing and bubbly toddler.

Kinder Major after we got home from our first market adventure, circa July 2006!

That afternoon got me hooked on the soul-food that is interacting with the community in a small yet impacting manner, as well.  As my daughter played at my feet and I watched the busy goings-on of the downtown market, I saw many beautiful things.  Families still smudged with dirt, vending from the tailgates of beat-up 20 year old pickups laughed and played together between customers.  Mothers brought their children and fed them directly from the stands they just purchased their foods from.  Indigent residents came and bartered and haggled to afford vital fresh veggies and fruits that otherwise wouldn't be available to them, that provided them with the nourishment necessary to keep them going just that much longer.  Students, professionals, young, old, fashionable, scene, hippy... you name the demographic, it was represented.  It was and is a breathtakingly beautiful melding of our community, all gathered together to laugh and play.  Smiles are abundant between strangers, which we all know is a rarity in today's society.

These markets are so much more than food markets.  Locally made crafts, clothes and gift items, vocal advocacy for political and social issues, musicians, dancers, artists... they all gather to ply their wares, stances and performances.  There's something that appeals to every sense.

It's markets like these that truly feed us as a society.  Not just by providing nourishment for our bodies, but economic nourishment, social nourishment, and soul nourishment in the form of hope.  In today's society where so many are isolated by choice and by chance, these markets provide us with the opportunity to come together for a common purpose.  It provides the necessary soul-ular (get it?  Soul-ular instead of cellular?  I'm punny =P) vitamins of smiles, kindness, laughs and camaraderie.  It helps to rebuild our faith in our fellow man, if only for a few hours each week.

I didn't become a locavore to spit in the face of Big Agriculture, nor to perpetuate a socio-political movement or simply because my friends were doing it and it was trendy.  I became a locavore because I realized that by feeding my family the (literal) fruits of my neighbors' labor, I was feeding their families as well as my soul and our communities. 

This year I plan to take my locavore-ism to the next step, with a garden that should produce enough to feed my family comfortably, as well as allow me to reach out individually to someone who is in need, since there will undoubtedly be more than enough to share.  I've said in jest that even in the worst-case scenario, I would have enough extra to set up my own vendor's stall at the market, but that goes against what it feels right in my heart to do.  The profit I'm looking for isn't monetary - I want to give back the good feeling I've been blessed to receive that comes with knowing that someone cares about me and my family, and is willing to share their good fortunes with me.  That, in my opinion, is the key motivator behind home-base locavoreism.

So that you gain more than just my rhetoric from this post, I'm going to leave you with links to finding out how to become locavores in your own communities and a recipe.  Happy Nurturing!

http://www.localharvest.org
http://www.eatwellguide.org
http://www.eatwild.com/

Vegetable Squish
***Please note:  All measurements are approximate.  I'm a firm believer that cooking is based more on feeling and heart than measurements and calculations, but I acknowledge that not everyone cooks that way, which is why I provided the estimates.  :)

• 5 large tomatoes (two cans of diced tomatoes can be substituted, or you can mix fresh and canned.  I often make this substitution, simply because tomatoes get eaten like apples in my house and I never have enough left.)
• 4 mid-size crookneck/yellow squash
• 4 mid-size zucchini
• 2 large onions
• 1 TBSP minced garlic
•  Fresh ground pepper, to taste
•  Fresh ground sea salt or kosher salt, to taste

The layers in which you add your veggies is important, so take heed.  In a large pot, add garlic.  Dice tomatoes, making sure to reserve all liquids.  Add to pot.  Coarsely chop onions, add to pot, stir to combine with tomatoes and garlic.  Chop squash and zucchini, making sure to discard ends. Layer on top of the onion/tomato/garlic mixture on the bottom. 


At this point, cover your pot and simmer on low.  The idea is to cook the tomatoes well along with cooking the onions to translucency, while steaming the squash and zucchini.  


After ten minutes of simmering, mix to combine the squash and zucchini with the tomato-onion-garlic mixture.  Cover and simmer until squash and zucchini are tender to taste.  (We like them very mushy, so it's usually another 20 minutes or so for us.  YMMV.)  


When veggies are fork-done to taste, add ground pepper and the salt of your choice, mixing to incorporate.  Cover for another five minutes to let flavors mingle.  Remove from heat and serve over white or brown rice, or egg noodles.


I generally serve this over white rice with stew beef marinaded in a honey-sesame teriyaki sauce.  It's a very flexible dish, though, so experiment and enjoy!