When I was young I was all but ignored. When I had my daughter then, I was at a serious loss. I hadn’t a clue how to parent her as I’d never been parented myself. Yes, I had been provided for, for the first 7 years of my life, but not guided or taught or assisted in the exploration of the world. I had to make sure my own child would have the opportunities I was never afforded – time of a parent.

When Veronica was just 4 weeks old a very good friend of mine said: “Read to her. All the time.”

“But she doesn’t understand the words! Why would I read to her now? Can’t this wait a few years?”

“No. Start now. Here’s a book – Slippy Chicken Soup with Rice. Read it.”

So I sat on the edge of the bed, tiny baby Veronica drifting off to sleep “Slippy once, Slippy twice…slippy chicken soup with rice!”

Feeling rather silly. I kept it up anyway. Every night there was a story. Right up until she was 10 years old. Sometimes she’d read to me. Other times we’d alternate paragraphs. Serious bonding time. Serious make a child literate time.

In a world that is slowly but surely turning away from paper books and having faces glued to monitors and television screens, the importance of developing a passion for reading when very young cannot be overlooked. Reading is a habit and should be established well before they even know what you’re saying. There’s no forcing required – I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve heard from full grown men about their mothers shoving words down their throats and chastising them for being incapable.

If you can’t excite your child over the written word yourself, before you do any damage, consider a few options:

Sign him up for reading class. There are many well structured after school reading classes that aim to draw children to books. They help kids with diction, idioms and phrases. For young children, these classes can be fun with animated characters and pictures. Illustrated picture books, rhymes, silly songs and pretend stories all work to engage a young child into the joy of reading.

If your child has a favorite character, topic or animal, pick a series of books that features this character. For my son, it was Spiderman. Thanks to a love of wildlife, my best friend’s son latched on to some great chapter books early in his childhood.

Set a good example. A skill like reading cannot be learnt in isolation. Do not leave all the hard work to the after school program. Pick up books that you think your child will like. Sit and spend time reading together, or reading seperately, but in the same room.

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A lot of people have gone before me and many will follow after as it fits with the environmentally “green” lifestyle choices we’ve made. For many of us a Vegan lifestyle is in perfect alignment to a return to simpler times, age-old ways, and is considered a far healthier way to eat. If you are sitting on the fence as I was, here are a few considerations to make before making bold strides and statements towards eating Vegan.

Quite a few environmental groups today claim that Vegan is the ultimate way to go green. In many ways, this is correct. While others only claim to live green, those who are eating Vegan as well as being environmentally conscious are really walking their talk.

Eating Vegan is certainly good for your organ health. Very quickly you’ll see a decrease in blood sugar levels. This is extremely beneficial to diabetics as it may one day eliminate personal insulin usage. Goodness, don’t go doing anything or making any dietary changes if you are diabetic without discussing the entire matter with your doctor. Making changes without talking to your doctor could have devastating consequences – it only takes a minute to ensure you have his approval.

Want to lose weight and control your blood sugar? Vegan eating may pack twice the benefits. People who avoid eating meat are also often able to lose weight much faster accounted for in the decrease in calories and fats from some meats. Plus fruits and vegetables that are common in a Vegan diet also assist in weight loss due to their negative calorie effect. While this is not a huge benefit for everyone, it can be a massive help if you want to shed a few pounds.

As you can see, a Vegan diet substantially lowers fat consumption. Consuming excessive amounts of dairy products and fatty meats are detrimental to your health. Just one more reason to switch – especially if you have struggled in the past to manage your weight.

What About Your Children? Should They Be Switched to A Vegan Diet Too?

Quite a few parents today are starting to raise their kids on a Vegan diet as well. If you find yourself trying to determine whether a Vegan lifestyle is suitable for your children you are certainly not alone. Each year there are thousands of people switching to Vegan and children are often included. A quick check in with your family doctor can offer yo some of the best advice for children’s dietary needs.

Before you switch children over, take stock of your nutritional knowledge. If you are lacking, it will be extremely difficult for you to meet your own nutritional needs, not to mention your child. Choices in diet for children can affect them for years to come. Adequate nutrition is a strong point in Vegan diets for youth, even more apparant if you are not meticulous in your nutritional knowledge.

If you are not certain exactly what your child needs nutritionally it is time to enroll in either a nutritional class, talk to your doctor, and/or research online to get some clear information on exactly what you need to focus on for your children’s nutrition. It is extremely important to watch intake meticulously. Many beginner Vegans overlook and skip the essential nutrients that are critical to basic nutrition. If you are determined to live and raise your children as Vegans, a vitamin supplement is extremely helpful.

An increase in fruits and vegetables are important for children. Many tend to shy away from eating vegetables in normal life, however if you are encouraging the healthier lifestyle of Vegan eating, you’ll have to remind them until it becomes a habit, to eat enough fruits and vegetables. This is not always easy to do, particularly if your children are in the habit of consuming meats.

As a family, an educated approach to a Vegan diet can allow your children to eat the same meals as you, without any major upheaval and complication. You will be consuming far more carbohydrates on a Vegan diet. This has been considered good because it provides a great source of energy all during the day. While protein is an essential part of your diet it can take much longer to digest, which will allow you to pack on weight faster and have lower energy levels.

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For those of you who didn’t know me when I was a city girl, let me tell you dealing with more than one child at a time (never let them outnumber you was my motto!), much less a roomful of children, has never been my strong suit! 

It’s a tough job keeping 30 children of various ages amused for 90 minutes. For those of you who do this on a consistent basis, my hat goes off to you!

I was at a loss every weekend wondering what to do with those children (ages: 3-15) every Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. So I started searching online for some help and I’m compiling a list of my favorite resources on this page.

Help for craft or home school classes, amusement and then rushing home to make dinner, is on my current list. More to follow.

Quiet Time – Collecting and Crafting

I’m a flower child – even in northern Canada (with our short summer season) I have 9 flower gardens that provide me with enough short-term joy to keep me doing it every year.

Throughout the summer I collect my best petals and create interesting arrangements under glass (mixed with poetry) as artwork.

And it’s simple enough that children can do this too!

You’ll like this next resource, you’ll learn the tips and tricks, plus ways to make great gifts and money on your creations.

What a great two-step project, collecting flowers then using them in a craft or artwork activity at a later time!

You start by collecting and then pressing to dry, the flowers. Then you make cards out of them, artwork pressed behind glass plus many others. I’ll try to provide more ideas here as time permits, but again this is an inexpensive and easy craft for children that anyone can do. Let your imagination run wild.

What’s for Dinner?

On the run and finding that dinner is a consistent challenge? Me too!

That’s why I love cookbooks that get it from the fridge to the dinner table extra fast – without having to be some pre-packaged, factory made food.

Below you’ll find some of my favorites in books of dinner ideas that are different and delicious!

These may be used or slightly used, but the prices are right and you can’t beat the value of feeding your family a healthier meal – even on the busy days. Whether you’re rushed for dinner or just too darn tired to think of something new to cook, this helps.

Family favorite recipes, perfect when you’ve run out of creativity and dinner time is just hours away. Recommended Recipe Books

Laura Childs
Just Another Home Schooling, House Keeping, Working from Home, Mom

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You’ll also know that I began the celebration that is my daughter’s life alongside this website. But first I had to leave my fast-paced, high-stress, life in the big city, behind. Hence the name “GoodByeCityLife”.

Although the details of my decision are rather personal, I can tell you this much. She was six days old and in a stroller – I had her out for that token walk of ’scare off the jaundice and get a natural dose of Vitamin D’, took a look around at the world I’d be raising her in and said “No way.”

A month later we were heading for the hills like two country kids en route to the greatest adventure of all time.

Country Children – A Gentler Start

Every so often I’ll spot a newspaper for my old stomping ground and find myself shocked at the headlines. Sometimes, if I have enough time or energy to sit myself down in front of the idiot box (television) I’ll catch a glimpse of the evening news.

Both of these distractions from our normal life make me shudder. I wonder what happened to the once friendly, albeit large, city of Toronto.

What possibly could have happened to turn Toronto the Good, into a city where children are now involved in drive by shootings and gang wars? This isn’t all about Toronto, the trouble is in every major city in North America. (For the record, I’ve been to many large cities in Europe in the last few years and, except for Rome’s trouble with street kids, don’t see the problems there as I do here.)

Moving Your Children Out of the City

I’m not making any judgment calls here. Not everyone can just pack up and get their kids out of Dodge City like we could. In fact, the move itself was rather easy for me as I had a history of moving around a lot when I was young and then in my 20s.

I realized young that I could reinvent myself in every new place and aspire to greater accomplishments with every move. I also realized that a person can make friends anywhere, can make do without your favorite restaurant, and that you can live out of a suitcase for a month if you have to. Essentially you can figure the whole mess out when you arrive and in the meantime make a better life and enjoy the tiniest taste of freedom as you begin to control your own destiny.

Today, (as I write this), Veronica is 13.

I wonder about my friends’ daughters and who they’ve grown up to be.

I wonder about the differences between our children and if the city vs. country life has made all the difference.

Surely with television, satellite, cell phones, and the internet they are equally be bombarded with the same messages and be affected in the same way. Or are they?

Perhaps the lesson isn’t in where you raise them, but how you raise them. Certainly the stresses and values of city parents vs. country parents are much different. I know for a fact that I could not have afforded to spend as much one-on-one time with my girl as I have if we were still living in the city. I also know there are a lot of parents in my community that barely spend any time with their children – and wouldn’t, even if they could afford it.

It is troublesome and it causes hurt. The children hurt and look for ways to mask or dull it. They hurt and are left with no recourse, no tools for coping, but to hurt others in return. Personally I think it is a large part of what is wrong in our society today and why our crime rate is on the rise, why our kids are thugs.

On the other hand, in our tiny world of 3,500, the children of the house are top priority in (a guess) 70% of the families. You make ‘em, you raise ‘em and that doesn’t mean shoving them out the door steady or propping them up in front of a television set.

It does means sitting down with them. It means taking a hike with them. It means going fishing together. Skating. Whatever – something – time.

I used to think that raising my daughter in the country would mean that she’d have a chance to extend the glory days of youth, but being raised in the country hasn’t afforded her the luxury of ‘being a kid longer’.

I still had to prepare her for the ‘real world’, but in the country we have time for compassion and age appropriate teaching. Furthermore the lessons in themselves make more sense (I can’t tell you how many adults I’ve talked to that don’t have a clue where their grocery store meats come from.)

This country child was:

• Street smart by 5.
• World traveled by 12.
• She’s had to deal with death, and has had to help with birth.
• She knows first-hand the animals that gave their lives for her as she sits down to dinner.
• And she understands the work involved in growing her own salads.
• The only stress she’s been spared is to not need to fear for her safety at the hands of society every time she heads out the door.

Country Kids Aren’t Immature or Ignorant of How the World Works…

Thirteen years ago I was chastised in my social circle. “You can’t take her out to the country! She’ll turn out dumb as a stump, without culture, and easy prey should she ever leave that small town…”

In retrospect I’m not entirely certain why I counted those people as ‘friends’.

As for Veronica, now nearly an adult at 13: Nicely mannered. Great social skills. Two percentage points shy of being an honor student (and that’s after being home schooled for the first part of her education). Traveled and touched by the cultures of Africa, Puerto Rico, France, Italy, Spain and, of course, the USA. She’s been to a ballet, symphonies, live theatre and more. Avid reader of many genres.

Culture? I wouldn’t have been able to take her on those trips had I continued living in the city with my high mortgage payments.

Dumb? I wouldn’t have been able to give her those years of home schooling (which I fully believe in) had I stayed in the city.

Easy prey? I think not. You’d just have to meet her to know how laughable that one is! She’s a strong and fiercely minded young woman, loaded with confidence and determination. Traits I may not have been capable of instilling had I raised her in the city.

Is There Really A Difference Between City and Country Kids?

I’m not certain I could make that distinction, although I do feel incredibly blessed to have raised her here. Had I stayed in the city I would not have had the time or finances (too busy going to work and spending my pay checks on high mortgage payments) to devote to her and her education.

On the other hand there are certainly our fair share of ignored and obnoxious children and teens in our country town. You can’t blame that on the kids though, they haven’t been parented. The smart ones will try to give you the excuse that they’re a ‘product of their environment’ – it is their cop out and sadly they can’t even spell what they’re saying.

When it comes right down to it, this is more about how you raise them, than where you raise them. If you can’t give your children the time and energy required to turn out responsible, compassionate adults, then perhaps you need to do what I did – say “Good Bye City Life”!

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