Our Valentine's Day party

I like Valentine's Day.

I get why some people don't, but I like it. And, as I told you l last week, I think celebrating Valentine's Day with the kids is a whole lot of chocolately fun in dull February when we can all use a little something to cheer us up.

Because we have company staying with us right now while their home is renovated, the playdates are basically built-in. (And so are the fights over Lego and light sabres, but that's another story.)

I'm going to save some shots for next year, but here's a peek at Valentine's Day morning at our place. All these photos are by my dear friend and current housemate, Kelly Smyth.

With plain newsprint covering the table - something we have handy because our dining room doubles as art space - each kid's place setting was painted with a heart and his or her name.

Most of the Valentines were waiting in the glass bowl at the end of the table.

There was a little poem for each child (almost 5-year-old Nolan shows off his above).

The visiting puppy, Marlowe, took a liking to this one.

A few treats were scattered about...

...including some chocolate-covered strawberries (you can probably recognize them by now, but those are my guys, Alister, 2, in the foreground, and Cameron, 6).

At the end of the meal, there was just enough pancake batter left in the bowl...

For this wee bit of canine indulgence.

Hope you had loads of lovey fun!

A family Valentine's Day

I'm struggling to decide how to start my post about celebrating Valentine's Day with your family.

I LOVE making a big old deal of Valentine's Day for the kids. But at the moment I'm preoccupied with the fact that this evening, after our dentist appointments, we've got to practise the dictée words Cameron doesn't yet know for his weekly quiz tomorrow. And the Valentine's Day cards are not yet complete. And I haven't baked anything for the class party.

So a bit of advice before I move on to all the happy stuff: Don't allow the other half of the parenting operation to suggest that your child do just a few Valentines a day in the six days leading up to the class party. Just knock 'em off on a Sunday afternoon with some fun music playing and maybe a handful of cinnamon hearts for incentive (just make sure everyone brushes their teeth, particularly if you're facing a finger-wagging dental hygienist anytime soon).

With that out of the way, I thought I'd share my own tradition for celebrating this romantic holiday with your kids. Because who said the lovey-dovey stuff should be confined to couplehood? Pshshaw!

I always make a Valentine's Day breakfast for my kids, whether it's a school day or not (delighted it comes in the middle of weekend this year!). I decorate the table with hearts made from construction paper. My kids get a little chocolate and maybe a Valentine's themed T-shirt or some other little token, which is waiting for them at their place setting. Like this...

Or this...

I'm pretty sure that last year's Valentine's Day was the beginning of my youngest child's love affair with chocolate.

What do you think?

For the menu, I make some sort of pancakes (usually in heart-shapes, but I wish I didn't burn my fingers on those moulds each year!), and serve it with some fruit. That's all!

Since I've got three extra kids in my house right now, we may need to forget about the novelty shaped pancakes and just chuck in a few chocolate chips. (I'm sounding pretty irresponsible with the sugar, aren't I? In my defence, may I add that I won't be giving them giant heart-shaped boxes of chocolates?)

However you celebrate the day, I hope you have a lovely time!

What a cookie can do

Noticing a slip in sales of Girl Guide cookies, Girl Scouts of the USA created this remarkable video.

Check it out.

Even if you don't have a daughter in Guides or Scouts, there's a very girl-positive message here that makes it worth sharing with any young ladies in your life.

Here are some other things you won't want to miss:

Kids give Barbie a real-world makeover

The Canadian Girl: A work in progress

Three household routines that cut childhood obesity

Baby is on to you: Research shows infants can read faces at six months

Subsidy cut means fewer daycare spots

First Lady tackles a weighty issue

Number of kids categorized as obese about to skyrocket

Cute kid quote of the day

Easton, 4, when his grandma, Jean Hewson, entered his room wearing pajamas in a brown and pink cupcake print:

"Grandma, are those your pajamas?"

"Yes, they are."

"Oh, they are sure cupcakey!"

An experiment in pack parenting

Last night was an exciting one at our house. That's because our dear friends, the Smyths, moved in with us.

The main floor of Kelly and Colin's house is being renovated for a reality TV show (I don't believe I'm allowed to say which one just yet!), and that meant their family of five - including Ella, 6, Nolan, 4, and Carson, 2, plus golden retriever puppy, Marlowe - needed to be out of the space.

I have a small one-bedroom suite in my basement, bunk beds in Cameron's room and an extra cot, so we're all squeezing in for one epic playdate/sleepover.

Kelly and I met at a Fitmom prenatal yoga class when we were both expecting our first babies. And, along with our other dearest mommy friend, Lori, and her family, we've been sharing childcare, dinners, martinis, tea, sympathy and life's ups and downs. In short, our kids are growing up together, and so are we.

Here's a photo of the gang (the boys on the ends are Lori's Jake, (left) and Davis, who are not staying with us, but this gives you the idea anyway):

We're comfortable telling either others' two-year-old's to "get down from there." We know who likes their spaghetti with sauce and who likes it with just Parmesan cheese. It's not uncommon for us to have a pack of kids in pajamas watching a movie while we try to sip a little wine and eat some dinner while it's still hot warm.

This period is interesting to me in a couple of ways:

First, it's an experiment in what I like to call "pack parenting." (Maybe the phrase that will come to mind for you is that old cliché we use but don't really live: "It takes a village.") In pack parenting, whatever moms or dads are around work together to give everyone attention and move all the kids through routines of meals, outings, bedtime, whatever, invoking an "Everyone behind the yellow line!/Everyone clear their plate!/Everyone brush their teeth!" kind of group think. Any parent who has struggled through the "arsenic hour" feeling depleted and outnumbered knows how much easier that it is when there's another adult around. So these three-weeks-and-a-bit will be, I think, both chaotic and supportive.

Secondly, much of the world lives this way. The nuclear family is really a very modern idea. It's quite a western luxury to have four walls and a roof for just us. And as a person who lives many time zones away from extended family, I've often thought that perhaps multi-generational households have it right, with more people on hand to stir the soup, read a story or supervise bath.

Already there have been some memorable moments! While Kelly and Colin were schlepping things over from their place last night, I was supervising dinner. Everyone got along famously but there was a wee tussle over a stool between the two-year-olds. I caught one child by the footie pajama'd ankles just inches from doing a head plant, but entirely unfazed and still chewing a meatball. The puppy arrived later in the evening and skidded around the hardwood sniffing things and ecstatically wagging her tail before finding some blackboard chalk to chew. And this morning Carson "helped" me mix the orange juice, adding a little soapy dishwater for good measure when I turned my head to make the smoothie.

I'm sure I'll be chronicling a lot of this here and on Twitter, but meanwhile, there are some other things you'll probably want to check out today:

Humour columnist Vinay Menon's take on the CBC documentary Hyper Parent and Coddled Kids, which airs tonight at 9 p.m.

Kris Rushowy's fascinating story on innovative programs that use exercise to help at-risk children pay attention and stay on their best behaviour.

Ann Douglas's thought-provoking take on iPhone Apps for parents and kids.

Susan Delacourt's exclusive interview about daycare with former Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Trish Crawford's interesting article on the link between preschool aggression and bullying, plus the bullying victims who have launched a website to help bullied youth.

Daycare should not be a partisan issue

Why must child care be so divisive?

Michael Ignatieff announced yesterday that - no matter what the cost - a national childcare program would become reality under a government led by him. 

Not surprisingly, partisan gloves immediately came off. On one side, Liberal supporters happy to hear the news. On the other, the expected conservative accusations that the initiative is too expensive, too ambitious and not supportive of the traditional family where one parent stays home to look after the children. "You had 'em, YOU look after 'em," is the basic message.

What I think gets lost here is the notion that children themselves are citizens. There are always the predictable daycare naysayers who speak of kids as though they are a luxury consumer product. "If you cannot afford children, don't have them. Don't expect me to pay for your bad family planning," espoused one such commenter on Susan Delacourt's story. 

While there's a cogent argument to be made that there's a worldwide population crisis (though my own take is that we have a more urgent over-consumption crisis in the developed world), Canada does not have that sort of population problem. In fact, we are not replacing ourselves fast enough, not even when immigration is factored in. The boomers and seniors complaining that a universal child-care program is "20 years too late," and that the money would be better spent on the medical and old-age security costs associated with an aging population, are incredibly myopic.

The children in daycare now are the very ones whose income taxes will support the "Me Generation" when they are elderly.

Here's what I'd like the ask the commenters who use the phrases "my money," "my paycheque" and "my taxes" as if there had been a going-out-of-business sale at the Fraser Institute: Just because you're done with raising kids (or didn't have them), do you think people aren't going to continue to have babies? Are we simply going to wind civilization down here to coincide with your slow, pharmacologically-enhanced demise?

No, not everyone who has children can afford them. Teen pregnancy may be down thanks to public health campaigns and better access to birth control, but there are plenty of other ways to wind up with both kids and a small bank account. Fleeing a place of less fortunate birth, for instance (should kids from Haiti not be entitled to a licensed daycare spot?). Becoming the victim of spousal abuse, or simply being left by the other parent to fend on one income. Not having a higher education and a chance at a professional salary. Getting pregnant in the middle of a higher education and not being willing - because of religious conviction or other deeply-held personal beliefs - to consider termination as an option. Becoming ill or disabled.

None of these circumstances (or, I'd argue, any decision made by any parent) removes the right of a child to quality care in the critical preschool years. If you're not clear on the connection between good early years and successful adult outcomes, read the Pascal Report for starters. And while you're at it, ask an average middle class family in Quebec about the difference $7-a-day daycare has made in terms of the stress - even on double-income, professional couples - of providing for a family.

To put it in terms that tunnel-finished, free-marketeers can understand, there is a demand for childcare spaces that far outstrips supply. Witness: two-year wait lists for licensed daycare spots and longer wait-lists yet for coveted after-school programs.

So keep in mind that while you're busy spewing your disapproval of federally-funded childcare into commenting fields on articles, there are low-income parents dropping their children off at unlicensed basement daycares where they will sit in front of the television with no one to sing to them, read to them, or engage them in a little finger painting.

And furthermore, access to good quality childcare does nothing to threaten the right of families to choose to have one parent look after the children at home. A daycare space does not remove a stay-at-home mom space.

A national daycare program is a good idea. And it's a good idea no matter who thought of it, and no matter what political party manages to make it happen.

Cute kid quote of the day - very newsworthy today!

"Someone was talking on their cell phone while driving, which, of course, I know is illegal. I just saw it."

Cameron, 6 (my law-abiding citizen)