Eco-friendly - not so easy

My bubba's birthday is all done! He still has a little celebrating to do because only seven of his friends showed up at school. Understandable, because it was -40 outside. My little monkey was way to excited to sleep. Oh to be excited about getting older!

courtesy: catchmyparty.com

I am rather a committed person when it comes to not harming the planet even if I cannot help it all that much. So I looked up the internet to see what other moms are up to as far as loot bags etc. are concerned. We are all about Batman this year, so that too had to be considered. Pinterest being my amazing source of inspiration I went on and spent a few happy hours scouring pictures and blogs. This is what caught my eye. I loved the paper bags more than anything and I figured the batman emblem should be easy to cut.

I also found another cute summer birthday inspired by books/stories. Mine is not an avid reader by any means, but we have always made sure he has books around him. I am also tired of all the junk he brings home and didn't want other parents to have to deal with what we do everything he brings those things home.

So I decided to try and reduce, reuse and recycle. Or something like that. I went to the local thrift store and picked up picture books for $0.99 each. I got one free book for every four I purchased. Score! So I bought almost forty books because there are thirty kids in his class (let's not go there right now). Seven kids will be at his party and a few to spare. You can never have too many books.


Now I needed brown paper bags. I was going to throw in a pencil, eraser and this book and make a stamp of the bat emblem and get offspring to stamp the bags. Neat? I thought so. And cheap. But would you know that we have no paper bags larger than the tiny lunch/sandwich sized bags to buy? We don't, not in Toronto. Not retail. I spent four hours hunting and of course that was not very eco-friendly, all the emission from the car and drive-thru coffee. I finally gave up and bought some plain white wrapping paper. Hubby and I cut out bats while the offspring cut out the circles.



In the end our 'loot bags' looked like this, and by the look on one little girl's face as she was leaving school yesterday I'd say it was a hit. If not the book, the bat certainly was :).

Milestone

Five years ago, on this day I was walking around feeling rather uncomfortable wondering when the baby would come. I had had enough. I had seen my obstetrician earlier in the day and she assured me I would have the baby before Friday. She was right. Just over 24 hours after I'd seen her, he arrived - tiny, gross and a lot like Benjamin Button. I remember feeling relief, more than anything else, when he was born. I felt like my job was done, little did I know.

Five years later I realise that my work had only just begun on that day, for life. Being a public health person, a child reaching five years has always been a big deal for me. My little gross baby is a handsome, chatty, incorrigible know-it-all. He wants me to buy him a cell phone and a tablet for his birthday. He will get a tonne of colouring books, brand new felt pens, a batman mask (top that!) and a handmade throw.

It has not been an easy five years. In fact it has been extremely challenging. It truly does take a village to raise a child and when you do it alone it is difficult on you and the child. However, it has been the most meaningful five years of my life.

It MUST be good!

Last year was a challenge to say the least. There were some good things, like resolving certain health issues and adjusting to big boy school for the offspring. But overall it pushed our limits. It also marked ten years of being married and I am afraid we did little to celebrate. That is another story, for another time, and probably will not be told here.

But this post is about 2014. It must be good. That is all I am saying. I pushed myself to accomplish little things last year and told myself if I keep at it I can accomplish more this year. I am not going to list anything out here, because that, I am afraid, would be setting myself up for failure or at least being disappointed. One of the things I did in December was make an afghan, from start to finish in under three weeks! Unheard of!! 

This means I can also write that darned manuscript in January, email drafts and start working on the annotated biblio of more interesting topics. I can sit with the offspring and patiently work on cursive writing or make play-doh people.

I also must begin full-time work again. But someone needs to employ me. So that hunt must commence. The house hunt is on in the interest of a better school for the offspring. Living in this area may result in me assaulting the next person who speaks to me in a language they assume I speak. And there is the very exciting trip happening in May. So all in all this year will be eventful if nothing else.

In the meantime I prep for my part-time teaching contract, another school term, a big birthday next week (we turn 5) and showing this house.

So happy new year to people who still visit this site and here's to a year that is more than we can all hope for.