How to survive a museum trip with kids!

Earlier this year, I went to Italy. Yep – a big overseas trip with three children! Not sure what I was thinking, but I really wanted to go and I try to be one of those ‘My kids are going to stop me’ kind of mums. So we saved and saved, got the time off work and booked the trip. Everyone was excited. It was our first big trip after the birth of my third child.

Everything started well.  We had a stop in Abu Dhabi which still feels like home to me. We caught up with friends and enjoyed going to some of our old haunts and checking out some new ones.  Abu Dhabi really is so easy and fun for kids. Parks and beaches galore!

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Saadiyat Beach with the Lourve Abu Dhabi under construction in the background

We first flew to Venice. Beautiful yes, but we were a little bit of a walk from the main sights, so lots of walking and not so much fun with a pram. Up and down bridges and steps!  The kids had fun though, but after about 5 days of not being able to really let them get loose in a park (a crowded plaza really is not the same), we moved on.  We were even brave enough to hire a car and so our Italian road trip began.

We travelled to:

  • Bellagio via Verona;
  • La Spezia (for Cinque Terre) via Genoa;
  • Florence via Pisa;
  • Orvieto via Siena; and
  • Rome

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How was travelling with three kids in Italy? A LOT of work. We managed to remain sane for most of the stops. We stayed in apartments and tried to incorporate children friendly activities and days throughout, but by the time we arrived in Rome everyone was tired.  We could only get them so excited about museums and after many tense experiences (the Vatican was the most intense and stressful experiences of the whole trip – so so many people) at various sites, we decided in Rome to try our hands at making the experience of going to museums more fun for them.

One of our tricks was a treasure hunt. Through this we hoped that the older two would actually even look at some of the art works. It worked a treat – but my kids take treasure hunts VERY seriously, so we really had to research to make sure that the things we put on their list, they were able to be find.

While they enjoyed the trip and the copious amounts of gelato and pizza they got to eat, the whole trip was so draining that I swore to never do a big trip with them again. Yes we’ll see how long that lasts.

Once we got back to Sydney life continued at a breakneck speed. But in all the insanity we did manage a trip to the Art Gallery of NSW to see the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibition.  I had been meaning to go for a long time and finally got the time to do it.  But with some of the pain of our Italy museum experiences fresh in my mind, I decided to re-visit my survival toolbox and out came the Frida Kahlo activity sheet!

No, the art gallery did not in fact have anything for kids, so I did some research the night before and put together an activity sheet. Did it work? Yes – for the older two it did.  While they were busy with their activity pack, I did get to wonder through the exhibition and I have to say I was a little underwhelmed.  The art works were great, but there really wasn’t too many of them. Much of the exhibition was a celebration of the artists, rather than the art. We photos and video footage being the centre of attention.  So from that regard, I was a little disappointed. Also the exhibition was VERY crowded. The way we experienced it was to be in a big conga line and just walk single file past the art works. There was no place to sit and linger, which made doing one of the activities I had (to sit in a quiet area and draw one of their favourite paintings) nearly impossible.

In the end I was glad to go because if I hadn’t I would have wondered about what could have been, but the most fun we had was going to the Sydney Botanical Gardens. My daughter had just attended a school excursion there so was full of excitement to show me her favourite parts.  The whole day was helped by the glorious show of weather Sydney had for us and with the promise of a gelato at the end of the day, the kids enjoyed the rest of the day.  So my tips for a cultural day out – bribery with gelato and an activity pack that includes a treasure hunt!  I’ve included my Frida Kahlo one. I hope you find it useful.

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DIY Gifts from the heart

Olive oil

My son is getting to the age when he is learning more about material things. I didn’t even know this. I’m not into ‘brands’ and ‘brand’ things, so I figure he doesn’t get his information from me or my husband, but one day he happened to get a pair of ‘Nike’ sneakers (they were on special!) and when the shoes were presented to him, he shouted in excitement that he had a pair of ‘Nikes’! Also, as he reads now, he is always talking about the brand of cars and other things. Usually my kids don’t watch commercial channels, so they’re not really exposed to much advertising, so it is very interesting how it all creeps into everyday life, which is why I try to discourage them from getting too much into ‘buying’ things such as gifts.

Every year for special holidays and birthdays, I ask my kids to make gifts for family rather than buy. Usually, we bake cookies, but this year, with baby no.3 keeping me busy, I didn’t even have time for that, so we made herb infused olive oil. Luckily I had some spare jars in my garage which I used. I also had herbs to use from my garden. With our scissors in hand my son and daughter and I went harvesting – first some rosemary, then Thyme, then lemon myrtle (an Australian native plant) and lastly some chillies. Here is what you need to do the same:

  • Jars – I sterilised mine with boiling water and let them dry out completely;
  • Extra virgin olive oil – I usually like my olive oil quite fragrant, so I usually buy a strong one;
  • A clove of garlic;
  • Chillies; and
  • Herbs as you wish. Good ones to use are rosemary, thyme and basil.

Now, I have to state that there are apparently issues with making your own herb infused olive oil. This relates to botulism. Apparently, the water in fresh garlic and the herbs can lead to bacterial growth in the oil.  There are ways to avoid this, such as using the oil soon after making it, using dried herbs, preserving the herbs first (in vinegar) before using, and pressing the herbs. This article contains great tips on how to avoid this: http://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/infusing-olive-oil

I ended up drying my herbs in the sun and then the oven for a little while before using.

Firstly thoroughly wash your harbs then dry. Keep in the sun for a day or out in the oven on low heat to dry them out.

Warm your olive oiI in the oven. Then get creating and add your herbs to the jar and carefully add the olive oil. Viola!

These make a great gift. They were very popular and I’ve had great feedback from family about it. It’s also super easy for kids to make with you.

Gardening lessons learnt

Over the last year I have been growing vegetables. Last summer I enjoyed zucchinis, tomatoes, spinach and all sorts of other goodies. During winter I enjoyed Kale, carrots and snowpeas. So I’ve been looking forward all winter to spring when I can start to plant my summer vegetables. After preparing my vegetable beds and finally adding my compost (which I’ve had ‘brewing’ for many many months), I thought I would grow my seedlings to then plant into the garden beds.
This is when things started to take a downward turn. I feel that as well as sharing my successes, that I have to share my failures too.
I had seen something in my organic gardening magazine about using toilet rolls to plants seeds into. The idea is that once the seeds have grown into seedlings that you could plant the whole thing and that over time the toilet roll would break down.
This idea had me excited. This was a great reuse idea and an upcycling one at that. I could reduce waste to landfill and grow my vegetables organically!
For months I saved toilet rolls and the odd biodegradable takeaway coffee cups. When the time came, I cut each toilet roll in half and created bases for them. I happily planted my seeds into them. I placed them in a sunny spot and watered them regularly. I waited and waited….weeks went by….oooh a corn seedling …..ahh no more…..nothing……seedling died…..hmmmm, nothing grew!

My toilet roll collection
My toilet roll collection

Up to 1 October 249
Up to 1 October 250
Up to 1 October 251
Up to 1 October 253
Up to 1 October 254

I have thought about why this was such a dismal failure. There are a number of potential reasons:
• The rolls were in a very sunny spot – maybe it was too hot. Certainly the soil seemed to be quite dry a lot of the time;
• Spring seems to have skipped Sydney this year altogether and we are straight into very high summer temperatures. Maybe it was too hot for the seedlings to grow;
• My seeds are from last year – maybe they are not so ‘fertile’ as they have been in a cupboard for a year;
• Maybe there were chemicals in the toilet rolls that didn’t allow the seeds to grown.
Perhaps if you are willing to undertake this experiment, I would love to hear how you went.
For now, I decided to plant some seeds directly into the soil. Let’s see how I go….

How to entertain during the school holidays on a budget

As I sit here resting after another school holiday day, I wanted to share some of the things that I’ve been doing with my children during these holidays. Usually school holiday time seems to be the perfect opportunity for prices to go up – double or triple. So holidays away always seem to be quite pricey, as do most activities. 

But one thing that I have done for the last two holidays has been cheap and fun. Essentially I take my kids on what I call a ‘treasure hunt’ through the City. I work in the CBD of Sydney, so before the ‘treasure hunt’ I usually scout for some ‘clues’ to help us on the way to funding our treasure.  

The day starts with a bus ride, which for my children is the ‘most fun ever’!  We get to sit on the bus as it goes across the Harbour Bridge and see the Opera House. 

Once in the City, the treasure hunt begins.  I print them off a table with various landmarks and points of interest which I hope to see. Usually I have a route or destination in mind and along the way as we see our ‘clues’ they get a stamp once they’ve spotted the clue.

This time around ‘Art n About’ was on in Sydney, so there were a few more fun things to see like giant snails. My route usually takes me from the bus stop in Wynyard, to Hyde Park where we eat a home packed lunch.  then on the way back to the bus stop we stop at David Jones’ where we go and get chocolate dipped fruit. This is about the only thing I spend on the day and after a few hours of walking, the kids are more than happy to get the bus back home.

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This is an idea which I think can work on so many levels. Already I’m thinking of doing this at an art gallery, bushwalk or overseas ‘cultural’ holiday. 

I hope you enjoy your treasure hunt with your children as you point out things that they would have otherwise missed.

Bush Kids

I have been enjoying a glorious autumn in Sydney. The weather has been beautiful and I have taken this opportunity before winter to get out into the bush.

I have been trying to encourage my children to enjoy nature. A few weeks ago, we decided to go on a bushwalk in a local national park: Lane Cove National Park. My son who is now nearly 5 was super excited. He donned his hat, backpack filled with snacks and his binoculars.  My daughter also was excited, as she seems to be excited about anything that her brother may be into. She just turned 2. The walk we chose is ran along Lane Cove River, along the mangroves.

We chose to take the pram with us (yes strange to take a pram on a bushwalk, but my guidebook told me that there would be boardwalks there).

Once we found the track, we got walking. My son decided he wanted to take photos of spider’s webs which was great, as last year the sight of them scared him. I suppose the Abu Dhabi is slowly leaving him and he is getting more used to the abundant creepy crawlies that call Australia home.

The walk is pretty easy actually, but there is strange part to it when you hit Chatswood Golf Course and you have to walk through it, but then the path dips back along the river with beautiful views. Overall the kids enjoyed the walk and the snacks they got along the way (the best part of a walk no?!) and my daughter even walked most of the way. While the success had me excited, I did feel a little pang of sadness at the realization that they are no longer my little babies….now they are bush walking children!ImageImageImageImageImage

With this success under our belt, my husband and I decided to go to the Blue Mountains, a beautiful part of New South Wales, about 1.5 hours west of Sydney. With autumn leaves glistening and the sun shining, we decided to go on a bushwalk. The one suggested to us was Sublime Point walk. I have to say, this time it seemed that my son’s excitement of the bushwalk had waned and I suddenly had a flash forward to a grumbling ‘I don’t wanna’ time. I was hoping that this would not surface at age 4! With some encouragement however we got out and walking and what a sublime view it was. With that short walk under our belt and children in need of their ‘babycinno’ fix (for those not familiar with this, a babycinno is frothed milk with some chocolate sprinkled on top).

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After that it was time for our second bushwalk of the day, this time Leura Cascades. This walk was a little bit more challenging, with lots of steps. It is relatively short however (500 m to the cascasdes) and the views were spectacular. The actual walk was beautiful too, as you go along a creek with wet sclerophyll vegetation growing overhead.  While walking back up was a little hard for my daughter who was carried back most of the way, my son found it an enjoyable bushwalk altogether.

I think with regular encouragement my kids will grow to love the bush as much as I do.

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The Garden, oh the Garden – Part 3b: Eating Organically

Over the last few months, my vegetables have been like my children. They are my babies. Sometimes they bring me joy and sometimes frustrate me. I go out every day and check on them. How are they doing? do they have enough water? do they need more fertiliser? more garlic chili spray? I haven’t named them yet, but have been close! I doubt I am unique in this regard.

A few weeks ago some friends came over for ‘high tea’ at my place and where once these girlfriends and I may have talked about boys, men, sex, politics and philosophy, this time we talked about our children and our vegetable gardens. What we planted, what worked and what didn’t. How things have changed!

As the last post showed, I went bananas with my planting and have been going organic, hence no pesticides.

So what have been my successes?

  • Tomatoes – they are going really well – a little too well to be precise. I had planted the seeds and waited until they were seedlings before putting in the planter boxes. The problem is that the ballpoint pen I used rubbed off – so in the end I didn’t know exactly what I put in the planter box. All tomato seedlings looked the same to me, so I put them all in and now they are taking over the planter box, but they are doing really well. Lots and lots of cherry, Roma and normal tomatoes growing.
  • Squash – My little yellow squash are also growing fairly well.
  • Corn;
  • Zucchini – My zucchini is going gangbusters – so much in fact that it is crowding out everything else. I didn’t know that Zucchini plants would grow so large.
  • Turnips – initially did okay, but now, not so much. Maybe it is too hot right now for them. I’ll try again soon.
  • Spinach

The so so list:

  • Pumpkin, Okra, Cucumber, Lettuce, rocket – they are being eaten too rapidly by caterpillars…Chilies, and Capsicum.

Failures:

The following crops have been an absolute failure!

  • Eggplant, Beetroot, carrots, shallots, onion, snow peas! I thought it would be really easy to grow snow peas, but they all shrivelled up and died 😦
  • Beans – I thoughts my beans would go great, but not so.
  • My herbs – total failure. No matter how many times I planted basil, they never took hold. Neither with the oregano, nor my parsley.

I have learnt a few lessons though which I will share:

  • Don’t plant everything under the sun. I tried to think in my head of all the vegetables that I eat and tried to plant those. It is too much and thus many of the seedlings never took hold.
  • Plant less quantities of seedlings. Because I lost track of what I did and did not have due to my bad disappearing pen incident, I planted too many seedlings. Now that I know how big some plants get, next year, I will only plant 2 zucchini plants and 2 tomato plants.
  • Cover my herbs with chicken wire. I am sure the culprits of my failure are the possums that frequent my house!

While I am disappointed with some of my crops, I am pretty excited to be eating from my garden and teaching my kids about where food comes from. Do you have any successes to share?

They say Zucchinis are great for lazy gardeners. I'm not lazy, but there is a sense of satisfaction with growing these beauties!
They say Zucchinis are great for lazy gardeners. I’m not lazy, but there is a sense of satisfaction with growing these beauties!

 

Ready for dinner!
Ready for dinner!
Delicious stuffed zucchini flowers
Delicious stuffed zucchini flowers
A lovely zucchini ratatouille like dish I made with cuscus
A lovely zucchini ratatouille like dish I made with cuscus

 

After...thriving plants
After…thriving plants
Corn
Corn
Butternut pumpkin
Butternut pumpkin
Some unwanted visitors on my lemon tree - Stink Bugs
Some unwanted visitors on my lemon tree – Stink Bugs
Another citrus I am yet to see fruit. It is not doing well either way.
Another citrus I am yet to see fruit. It is not doing well either way.

 

 

Fresh herbs

Avocado tree. Not doing wonderfully,  but this picture shows some new growth
Avocado tree. Not doing wonderfully, but this picture shows some new growth

 

 

 

Changing the world?

My daughter enjoying her ‘Babes in the Bush’ adventure through Bush Kids Lane Cove

 

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a friend’s house for lunch as part of the Dinner Party Project. As some of the people attending were parents, rather than dinner, we arranged lunch (so much easier!).  The aim of this lunch was to encourage people around Australia to engage in a dialogue about the issues that are important to us and to provide the powers at be, our ideas on how to make this country a better place (for more information on the Dinner Party Project, go to http://www.thedinnerparty.net.au/about).

The people who gathered at this lunch party were what one could say – left of the mainstream political spectrum. They were intelligent, passionate and great cooks.

As we enjoyed our vegetarian lunch, my friend started to ask questions to get the dialogue started.  Firstly we were asked what our ideal society would look like.  We responded similarly in saying that it would be a just society where the arts, culture, public healthcare and education were recognised.  I added that safety was important, because if you don’t generally feel safe, then it’s hard to engage in society.  Another guest added that they felt housing and the lack of affordability was important, so a ‘good society’ would have greater equity in housing.

As the conversation continued, it was apparent that we were all good at identifying problems.  These problems ranged from a lack of appreciation for arts and culture, greater emphasis on ‘jobs’ at universities over theory, difficulties in getting real information in the age of information, disengagement from politics and politicians, cynicism at the world at large and the inability to ‘switch off’ from social media.  Interestingly, the internet was seen a source of a lot of this evil, by demanding a 24 hour news cycle where we receive snippets of information and more and more sensationalist headlines to get our attention.

Something else that we as lefty, activist people identified was our exhaustion – we simply had no time. No time to get up and do something, no time to get the whole story and too tired to bother with much political engagement.  As parents, our children take much of our attention and energy and rightly so. By night time we’re so tired, we’d rather watch something ‘light’, than a serious documentary or ‘depressing news’.

I think this is something that we were struggling with, well it is something that I struggle with. Have my ideals waned? have I become softer?

I am the child of parents who were activists. Even when I was a baby I was going to rallies with my parents who were protesting the Shah of Iran (in the US!) and I remember going to Iran at the time of the revolution. I grew up around politics. We Iranians love to talk politics and having lived through the Iran and Iraq war, there was a lot to talk about!

I remember before I was passionate and pissed off – at a lot of injustices in the world.  My friends at school will remember me as the girl who wrote anti-war messages on paper and then sticky taped this to my school shirt (I think to my peers, I was a bit of a ‘weirdo’ at school). I went to rallies with my parents and continued this on until I was in my early 30’s. Stop the Jabiluka Uranium Mine, Stop deforestation, Anti-Nuclear War, Palm Sunday Peace Marches, Refugee rights, Anti-Iraq War…..

Now what? nothin! I see posters for rallies – marriage equality, refugees etc, but I’m no longer attending.  I too am tired and after negotiating with my 4 year old all day, I prefer a good comedy over a serious ‘depressing’ film too.

So after this lunch, as I drove home, I thought to myself – what practical things can one do? I mean politicians probably realise the problems too, but it’s very hard to ‘fix’ things.  I am a practical person, and these are the ideas I had to remain active, albeit in a different way.  You never know, I might start attending rallies again too!

  1. Pick your issue – there are a lot of terrible things going on in this world and it can get very overwhelming. Accept that you can’t fix it all, but pick something that you’re especially passionate about. For me that’s the environment.
  2. Try and find local action groups that you can get involved with. Or just ones you want to be in contact with to see what events, if any they run. There is a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction in getting something done and seeing the fruits of your labour. I think that is where a lot of people get disconnected. They don’t SEE the impacts of their positive actions.  I have found that there are so many people and groups through my local Council and community groups that are doing great things, and rather than going it alone and starting from scratch, I try to tap into these existing groups and resources.
  3. Live your life in accordance to your ideals. This is a lot harder than it sounds. It means changing the way you live. Put your money where your mouth is. Don’t just advise or tell others the way it should be done – do it yourself first. If people see that, then they will follow your good example.
  4. Break down the ‘big issue’ into bite size chunks, that way it won’t seem so overwhelming and impossible.
  5. Accept your limitations – whether that is time, finances, whatever it is.  You’re less likely to become disengaged if you realise that you  only have so many hours or minutes that you can dedicate to your issue.
  6. Share you ideas, ideals and information with your children, family friends and if able, the wider community.
  7. Take care of your health. It is something that we take for granted when we’re healthy. Keep it that way.
  8. Love life and remain positive. It’s very easy to get caught in a negative cycle, but think about the things you have been able to do.

So that’s my checklist. I’d love to hear from anyone with any more ideas and while  most of this is not able to be forwarded to the politicians of the world, it is something that I can control in my life and that makes me feel good.