As much as the New Year is about setting new goals for ourselves it is a time for reflection.

When I sit back and think about the goals I had for myself for 2008 I realize why so many people don’t bother with resolutions.

In 2008 I wanted to eat healthy, lose weight and run the yearly marathon in my city. I did none of those things. I cheated on my vegan diet, I didn’t lose weight and I didn’t run any races at all. To be fair I found myself pregnant in February and up until that point I was working very hard and was on the right track for meeting ALL of my goals.

My goals for this year are pretty much the same. I want to eat vegan, exercise daily, lose weight, make better consumer choices (better for my budget, my health and the environment), and run that marathon.

I have also added some parenting goals. Like actively being part in my children’s education. All three are too young for school (my eldest is only three and a half) but I figure that they are never too young to be taught at home especially since they will be unschooled at home anyways.

I want to spend more time working on the alphabet with them and reading to them. I want to take them on nature walks (where they can collect nature samples, paste flowers into their Nature Journal and take pictures of the things that are either alive or too big to fit in the box) and I want to take them to different educational venues like the Space and Science Centre, local protests, the library, the museum, ethnic restaurants and such.

I want to limit their movie viewing time and increase the amount of free-play they get. I want to increase the time they get every week for making art (using watercolour and acrylic paint, wax and pencil crayons, sidewalk chalk, bathtub crayons etc.), singing songs and playing with musical instruments.

I know they will only truly grasp a new concept when they are ready to and therefore is no sense in torturing them to listen to a “lesson” on grammar. But just because their schooling is unstructured and unconstrained doesn’t mean that I can be lazy about it. The earlier that I allow them to follow their natural thought processes, the earlier I will be able to see some results. Children, even toddlers, are much more capable than we give them credit for so long as we allow them to take risks and learn from the outcomes. I don’t know why people insist on doing everything for their children. Even if you know their tower of blocks will fall over don’t interfere. They don’t know that it will fall over and when it does they’ll have learned something!

I am also trying to allow them to share stories and ask questions more and more often. This is very hard when I am busy and would rather say, “That’s nice sweety. Now please go away.”

 

So far in the year I have failed pretty miserably at most of my goals. I have had cheese and junk food. I have not excersized every day and I have forgotten to bring my cloth bags with me to the grocery store (which we were so proficient a remembering until the last month or so)! But I am going to keep trying and when my husband gets back to work tomorrow it should help us get out of our lazy holiday slump and back into our healthy routines! *Knock on wood.* Ha ha ha.

I started looking up some of the online stores that sell Waldorf toys a few days back. There are some great ideas that would be simple enough for us to make ourselves.

My husband is a cabinet maker and would be more than capable of doing some of the projects on these sites. Things like building castles, lace-up cheese, teethers etc.

I can sew and would be able to make dolls, dress up clothes, play scarves etc. I have even been fortunate enough to find instructions for making Bambolettas. They are so beautiful but quite pricy (which is fair considering the price of the materials (wool batting etc.) and the time required to make them.

The upside to making my own, besides saving money and personal pride in my work, is that I can make it out of cotton instead of wool and make it vegan-friendly while still staying true to the doll.

Anyways, I am having so much fun making toys and planning for the next ones. I can’t wait to make it to the wood shop soon and buy some more wood trinkets for my next project!

Who knew that making my own toys could be so much fun for me and for the kids? Not to mention how much healthier these toys are for their bodies and minds.

I found this article on a vegan forum I frequent today. There is a whole breed of people who occupy themselves by going onto forums to get everyone rilled up. You know who I am talking about. Those that go on vegan forums to say that they had the most delicious pigeon steak today! You know…Jerks.

Anyways, someone posted this link as a reason not to be vegan: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4087977.ece 

The story is about a 12 year old vegan girl who has the spine of an elderly woman because of a lack of Vitamin D through her childhood diet. The parents will likely be brought to social services for neglecting the needs of their child. Included in the article was also a story about a 10 month old girl who died because her parents were feeding her nothing but breast milk, raw fruit, juice and nuts. They are awaiting a sentence for her murder and are facing jail time.

The forum was a flurry of outrage. Some of the responders complained about how the media is constantly victimizing vegans and how the media never misses an opportunity to bash vegans yet they never talk about obesity and other carnivorous problems.

Well, none of that is true. The truth is there are bucket loads of news stories about those very things. It is true that the media will always be biased towards the dairy industries (who are strong lobbyist and valuable advertisers with lots of government support), but there is no real persecution there. Many associations (like the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the diabetes one) have supported vegetarian diets as a way of reducing these diseases and maintaining a healthier weight.

The article was quite harsh about vegan diets but  I think it did more good than harm. The families described in these incidents are “hardliners.” Probably leaning towards the raw food movement. This is ABSOLUTELY inappropriate for infants and children. Children need a diet higher in fat than adults do and they need decent sources of protein (not derived from walnuts). It’s great to have ethics, but at what cost?

In the article is this quote: “A spokesman [of a vegan association] said: “I would suggest that it is not the vegan diet itself \ but the parents.” “

I agree with this.

I think that a vegan diet can be healthy for children but it requires planning. In this pregnancy I had started drinking milk but couldn’t bring myself to keep it up after I started thinking about what was in the milk. I read that vegan moms have a higher risk of having a baby with hypospadias (a minor penis deformity) as a result of the phytoestrogens in soy products. So I am cutting way back on soy. I am trying to make sure that we aren’t getting more than one serving of a soy product per day.

My kids are on an all natural multi-vitamins and I also use a vegan friendly Essential Fatty Acid supplement (Udo’s Oil 3.6.9) in their diet. I try to make sure that they are getting the best go at life without compromising my ethics too much. My boys are, afterall, my number one priority. 

And it seems to be working. They are bright and alert. They are as big and active as their peers and they have strong immune systems.

I see this article as an education for myself as a parent. To continue to evaluate their diet. Or rather, a confirmation that I am on the right track.

To see a more balanced look there is also this news clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYX18NGTwls This is a CNN news clip that does a good job of showing how a vegan diet reduces your carbon foot print and lowers you overall caloric intake without reducing the tastiness of your meals.

Anyways, here is to moderation and vegan chocolate cake!