RAISING BILINGUAL CHILDREN: Not that kind of mum!

Piano practise

Yummy Mummy, the buzzword of the our time! It seems that women like me are meant to be running blue chip companies from our kitchen tables in between breastfeeding, making jam and growing our own herbs. It all seems like a long way away from my life! There seem to be three things that all homemakers are supposed to be good at:
Cooking
Sewing
Gardening

Well, I can't do any of these! OK, I've just about learnt the difference between the cooker and the microwave, but that's about it. I was the sort of teenager who burnt the toast and was terrified of spitting oil. When I learnt to make pizza (as an au pair), I was so thrilled that I practically lived on it the whole time I was a student.

My kids have been a bit luckier, as I've assiduously printed out simple recipes from the internet so I can at least make them something a bit more exciting than fish fingers from time to time, but I'm never going to be one of those mums who finds a use for that ice cream maker she got for xmas... Schmoo's Barbie birthday cake for her 8th birthday was, I'm ashamed to admit, the very first home-baked birthday cake I'd ever made. I've yet to reproduce the experiment for Pan-Pan, but no doubt I'll give it a go soon.

My mother is a fabulous sewer and has always made herself dresses from scratch. Whereas I used to get my thread in a knotted muddle on the sewing machine and when we were supposed to make a skirt for Home Economics I ended up with more of... well, I suppose you'd call it a piece of material!

As for gardening, forget it! Between me & Papa, we've killed off so many house plants that we were a little bit anxious about having kids! 'If we can't even keep a plant alive...', we used to mutter, looking at fragile little babies, who seemed to need a bit more care than plants. Luckily kids are also a bit noisier than plants and remind you loudly when they need food and so on. No forgetting to water them! We have always been famous for our 'minimalist' gardens, ie not a plant in sight! Our last garden had a single tree in it, that a friend not only bought for us, but actually came round, dug the hole and planted for us, as I think he realised if he didn't, it would end up rotting away as we wondered what on earth to do with that darned tree...

Still, I don't despair! I may not be good at 'traditional' mum tasks, but I have my talents and do my best to pass these on to my kids. For starters, there's languages. As you may've guessed by now, I love languages and, growing up, always dreamed of being bilingual. I've never quite achieved that goal myself, but at least I've managed to pass on this gift to my children.

Then I love anything crafty. Give me a cardboard box and some paint, and I'll show you a doll's house, a toy car garage, a puppet theatre... I spend a lot of rainy days on craft activities with my kids and as a result they are both really keen on making things, drawing, art, and so on. Sometimes I even do a bit of sewing with them..!

I also have a love of teaching... anything, really: music, reading, maths and so on. I'll happily sit through an hour of violin and piano practise, and get a real kick out of the tune slowly emerging. Ditto with the slow emergence of literacy & numeracy. I would be tempted to call this particular skill 'patience', except sadly it only applies to teaching, and the rest of the time I am counting seconds, snapping at the kids and tearing my hair out about running late!

I am super-duper organised! All of the children's toys, games, puzzles, art & craft supplies and books are meticulously arranged, labelled and tidied. This means that when the kids want to know what happened to 'that pink plastic watch I got from a party last summer' I can usually place my hands on it right away. It makes homework a breeze and playtime simple. I am that annoying mum who always remembers to pack her son's football kit on the right day and brings in a show-and-tell way before the deadline.

I am very determined (less kind people would say 'militant'!), which is what motivates me to be so scrupulous about the kids' language learning (all screen time in French, for example), and I'm sure this is the main reason they are successful bilinguals, despite me not being mother tongue French myself.

So there you have it. I am not the traditional mum with a rolling pin in one hand and a gardening fork in the other, but I do have other skills that I can bring to my family instead, which will hopefully make up for anything lacking!

And now I'd love to know... what kind of mum are you?!




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CRAFTS: Building a cardboard castle

First, we gathered all of our old cardboard boxes together to see how we could best design our castle. 

We decided our castle had to have a moat and a drawbridge, so we started there, by painting the inside of one of the larger boxes blue for water.

Then Pan-Pan cut out a handy stripy bit (thanks, Addidas!) on one of the smaller boxes to make his drawbridge.

Pan-Pan finished off his drawbridge while the moat was drying!

Next we glued paper over another big box so that we could paint it. Pan-Pan drew the outline of the castle doors, not forgetting to make them high up for the drawbridge!

He decided his doors should have lines on them, so he drew these on with biro.

We painted the castle gold, black and pink, and then Pan-Pan stuck on windows he'd made from foam. Finally he stuck purple felt to the inside and glued the castle inside the moat. The drawbridge folds up and down nicely!

No project in our house is complete without adding stickers at the end! Here, Pan-Pan decides his drawbridge would look better with gold stars.

Et voilà – one cardboard castle, one busy happy morning, and a busy happy afternoon ahead to play with it!

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RAISING MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN: French macarons

Perfect macarons in every flavour at Ladurée

Today I took the kids on an important French cultural outing... to the macaron shop Ladurée in Covent Garden! I actually didn't know the shop, but was out with a friend who knew it from Paris. She said we had to go in and bought us a box to share.

Rows & rows of marcarons... heaven

The rows and rows of macarons are so pretty with all their delicate colours and the taste is out of this world. We chose the flavours dark chocolate, rose, pistachio and violet. Hard to pick a winner, but I think the chocolate may have just clinched it! Pin It now!

RAISING MULTILINGUAL CHILDREN: Mandarin progress

To help with the kids' burgeoning Mandarin, I bought one of those talking pens online, along with a few of the books. After a bit of research, we picked the e-Readbook system and it's great, has plenty of books to go with it and is super simple to use, with just one single button on the pen. When you touch the pen to words in the book, it says the word aloud in Mandarin – perfect, as I cannot speak the language myself!

After a while, Schmoo asked me how to switch the pen off and I said to push the button. A tirade of Chinese came from the pen. 'Oh yes, she just said "Goodbye",' Schmoo said. I was really amazed that after just a few Mandarin lessons, Schmoo was already able to identify this key word amongst the torrent of Mandarin. Kids really are linguistic sponges!

We aim to get the Mandarin talking books out every evening as part of our bedtime reading routine. We just listen to one or two characters, practise saying them and sometimes they draw them as well on their doodle board. I find I'm picking up quite a few characters along with the kids!

I really hope that one day we will be able to afford to take our kids all the way to China. Pin It now!

Black Children's Cartoons

Schmoo with two of our favourite cartoons

Cartoons featuring Black heroes have traditionally been thin on the ground, but there are more & more springing up lately, filling a much-needed gap for our kids. I've gathered all the ones I've discovered in this list, along with their decade of inception. I've tried to include only cartoons that you can still get hold of to watch.

Bino & Fino [2010]
This is about modern-day children living in Africa (check out Fino's gorgeous Nigerian-style dress!). You can watch a free episode on the Bino & Fino website, which also has a blog and tie-in merchandise. My kids were gifted this DVD for Schmoo's birthday and they did enjoy watching it, but it is pitched a bit young for them.

The Cleveland Show [2010]

A modern American family, consisting of Cleveland, his second wife and their three children, this series was nominated for an Emmy. The animation and style are reminiscent of The Simpsons.

Zarafa [2010]

A young boy escapes from slave traders and befriends an orphaned giraffe. We are going to see this film when it's showing at the French Institute later in the month, can't wait!

Sara Solves It [2010]

I'm very excited about this one! Combining maths skills with two kids that look like mine, this brainy brother and sister solve puzzles together.

Available online at: Amazon Instant Video

Static Shock [2000]
Finally a Black superhero! My son LOVES Static Shock, who has the same hair & heritage (Ghanaian) as him. He wears his Static Shock t-shirt with pride.

The Princess & the Frog [2000]
The first African-American Disney princess is sassy and beautiful! The story is fun and clever and it was one of my kids' favourites for a long while.

The Boondocks [2000]
Definitely NOT for the kids, with swearing and violence, but included for completeness, and great for grown-ups!

The Proud Family [2000]
Very funny for the whole family, with sassy characters and slapstick humour.

Adopted by Aliens [2000]
This sweet & fun animation created by two sisters is available to view for free from their website.
Available free online at: Adopted By Aliens

Fatherhood [2000]
Another Bill Cosby creation.
Available free online at: TV.com

Kirikou [1990]
Kirikou and the Men and Women is my all-time favourite animation. The story is so full of positive identity messages and it is even in French! I took my kids to see it at the cinema and they adored it. We have a few other Kirikou stories on DVD and they are all fabulous.

Little Bill [1990]
A very cute but realistic cartoon about a little boy. Good for smaller children.
Available online at: Amazon Instant Video

Mr T [1980]
A spin-off from the TV series 'The A-Team', Mr T was a popular character who gained his own following.

The Jackson 5 [1970]
This featured the extremely popular Jackson superstars and is now available to buy again from Amazon.

Fat Albert [1970]
This was voiced by Bill Cosby and is based on his own childhood.

The following cartoons also focus on Black heroes, though they no longer seem to be available on DVD or Watch Online. You might find snippets on YouTube though:
Blokhedz
Kid And Play
The Harlem Globetrotters
Jamurai
Filmore
Hey Monie
La Reine Soleil



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Pushy parenting

Schmoo practises her violin

These days we see a lot of articles about the negative effect of pushing children too much. There's just so much on offer now, and it's tempting to enrol your kids in lots (and lots!) of classes. I have to hold up my hand and say my kids are doing quite a lot outside of school.

Ahem! Practising their figure skating...

Like most London parents, our lives are a whirl of extra-curricular activities and aside from having schooling in French, my kids are learning Mandarin, ice-skating, judo (Schmoo), football (Pan-Pan), violin & piano.

Schmoo prepares for her blue belt grading

We somehow find time to fit in extra maths every day, as well as an hour of violin & half an hour of piano practise. This is on top of their school homework, which is around half an hour a day. I think we partly manage this by banning TV during the week, which is a double bonus as it means less screen time!

Pan-Pan learns to ski

Every winter, despite the crippling cost, we take them skiing, while every summer, again really stretching the budget, we enrol them on a drama course. Although no Tiger Mom, a term coined for mothers who relentlessly push their children to study to the exclusion of almost any social life, I do feel a strong desire to give them everything I possibly can at this precious age when they soak it all up like sponges.

Pan-Pan loves his football club

Music seems to be an especially wonderful gift. I learnt the flute and piano as a child and still love being able to express myself through an instrument, which is completely different to any other form of expression. Sport also feels really important, because sporty kids are part of a whole culture that promotes health and well-being.

But are the critics right? Is it all too much, too soon? Are we all frantically trying to create little musical/sporting/academic geniuses at the cost of any fun?! My own take is that the balance of scheduled activities versus downtime is one that needs to be worked out for each family, and each child.

Schmoo learns a new piano piece

For us, except perhaps when we have to drive to the freezing ice rink again through jam-packed traffic on a dark winter night, it doesn't feel too much. Both Schmoo and Pan-Pan are lively kids who demand a lot of stimulating activities. And they have a half day off school every Wednesday, which is actually designed to make time for whatever they're not learning at school, such as sport and music.

I do think it's important to recognise that playtime is at least as precious as their other activities and we make sure we have plenty of it. I aim to get all homework completed by Friday evening, so that the weekend is just for downtime. Even then, on the weekend we avoid 'heavy' outings like theme parks or museums, instead simply strolling round the corner to the park or river, or staying indoors for crafting (as you can see from our Crafts page!), drawing or just plain old mooching. Playdates and sleepovers are frequent events and on those days, we cut back on music practise to make time, or do the homework all together if the kids are from the same school.

I'm so interested to hear how you manage activities for your children! Do you like to squeeze in as much as possible, or try to limit them?






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