An Upcycled Christmas

Stepping into December marks the beginning of my preparation for Christmas!  We have been using the same Christmas ornaments and decorations for years and I would really love to give a refreshed look to our home this year.  However, as I try to be more environmentally responsible in my daily life, I would also like to be more conscious of how I celebrate special occasions such as Christmas.   While looking for inspiration on Christmas decorations at home and taking stock of what we have in storage, I found out that there is actually so much we can do to make our holiday season a more sustainable one with existing materials at hand.

Let’s Light it up!

We renounced the use of a real Christmas tree more than 10 years ago and have been taking out our plastic version year after year.  Yes, it is made of plastic, but we intend to use it for many more years to come so I think it is better than chopping off a new tree every year.  Through the years, the only decoration we have updated is the Christmas lights.  We have switched to LED lights because they consume less energy and can last much longer, it is especially important this year with the hike in global energy prices.

Not too shabby at all!

As for the tree ornaments and Christmas home decorations we have been using, I got so many wonderful ideas for repurposing some of them to give them a new look.  To add to these “refreshed” decorations, I plan to make some new ones together with my kids.  I found these salt dough ornaments super simple yet give an elegant Nordic vibe!  There are so many Christmas craft ideas that we can make and can easily involve our kids too.  I am especially inspired by this online book by Christine Leech and Emma Friedlander-Collins where you can find many eco-friendly Christmas craft projects using recycled materials, and it is free to download!  My favorite project in the book is the minimal wreath made from a springform baking pan and a cardboard box.

Wrap it up

The success of a sustainable holiday season also really depends on how we manage to minimize the use of disposable gift wraps and excessive packaging.  This year, I am going to try out some reusable gift wrap ideas that are both really chic and eco-friendly!  What’s so nice about these reusable gift-wrapping methods is that you are actually giving your loved ones a second gift, the gift container itself!  I have been scavenging vintage shops and thrift shops scouting for interesting fabrics or items of clothing that I can transform with minimum effort into gift wrap materials!

Of course, it takes some extra effort and commitment to have a more sustainable Christmas, but with the earth’s limited resources being depleted at such an alarming speed I do feel that we need to do everything we can to slow it down.  No matter how small our efforts seem to be, if everyone puts in their share, we can still make a difference.

Stay Sparky!

Don’t Let the Stress Get to You!

Whether your family tradition is to spend Thanksgiving together in North America or gather to celebrate the fall harvest in Asia.  This event usually also marks the beginning of a super hectic period that will only end with the arrival of the new year!  So, inevitably one might feel a bit stressed when planning the event that kickstarts the holiday season, and it is easy to overlook the true meaning of this family gathering while you are busy checking off items on your to-do list.

It’s all in the planning

Let’s stop for a second, take a deep breath, and prioritize a bit!  Kids are always at the top of my priority list so let me start with them first!  This is the best time of the year to teach them about the importance of being inclusive and thankful for what we have.  So, let’s find some simple Thanksgiving activities to do together with them that can get the message across.  How about creating the Thanksgiving centerpiece together with the kids so that they can be involved in the preparation while learning about Thanksgiving, AND you get the holiday decoration done at the same time?  This is definitely taking multi-tasking to a whole new level! 😀

Nothing complicated

OK, now that the decorations are taken care of, it’s time to tackle the menu for the gathering.  After spending the last two Thanksgivings under the threat of the pandemic, we are all just too happy to be able to get the extended family together again, so I am sure everyone will enjoy any food served as long as we can share it together!  So, to lower the stress level by a few notches, instead of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes which are usually quite time-consuming to prepare, perhaps we can consider introducing some less conventional dishes to the table this year.  With the Fall harvests just behind us, there are still so many great ingredients and simple recipes we can consider, and they can be just as tasty and impressive to please your guests.  Who knows?  Maybe these dishes will make it to the annual Thanksgiving table from now on!

Lasting thankful moments

How about some after-dinner family activities to extend the Thanksgiving mood?  For many families, it could be the first time in a long while since they had their last gathering.  There must be so much to update each other about and so many things one can be thankful for.  It would be nice to pass around some small cards and pens for everyone to write down some thanksgiving greetings or little anecdotes of thanks.  At the end of the evening, all notes will be placed in a Thanksgiving jar with the year written on it.  This could be a family tradition and a time capsule of thankful thoughts that can be carried forward for years to come.  No matter what kind of gathering you are planning to have, it should be just as enjoyable to prepare for as the event itself!  Don‎’t miss out on the precious moments of “now” in search of a perfect “gathering tomorrow”!

Happy Thanksgiving, Stay Sparky!

Where do I begin?

Photo: @caitlin_gradl

I remember vividly the day I came home from the hospital after giving birth to our first daughter.  Before leaving the maternity ward in the hospital, we were only armed with the basic skills of changing diapers and bathing our baby.  After our arrival home, my husband and I looked at each other and felt so lost: “now what do we do next with this bundle of joy?”  We were basically waiting for our baby to give us the cue to get us started with the daily routines as a little family unit.  We were living in Italy with no immediate family around to help us, nor did we have any experienced friends to give us advice on handling a newborn.  So, we had to learn on the job and relied on each other for support (including jumping into the shower with our baby still fully clothed, covered in poopoo – long story!).  Thinking back, although those first few months gave us an excellent opportunity to bond with our baby, it would have been much less stressful if there were someone around who could answer all the questions I had about the baby or my own physical and emotional condition.

Confinements in various cultures

Growing up in Hong Kong, I have a rough (but biased) idea of what Chinese postpartum confinement is like.  My knowledge of it mainly came from the first-hand experience of my grandma who gave birth to 11 babies (yup, double digits!) in the 1930s to 40s and went through confinement almost annually!  She told me about “horror stories” which involved consuming chicken soup and at least 10 eggs per day for 30 days, and not being allowed to wash her hair nor leave her bed for the entire duration!  So, when it was my turn to enter motherhood, I really considered myself “lucky” that I was in Europe and was not pressured to go through the confinement like my sisters or friends in Hong Kong did.  But in reality, modern-day postpartum confinement is not so “unrealistic”, it takes a practical approach that suits our current lifestyles a lot more.  Interestingly, there are so many similarities between confinement practices in different cultures.   The general idea is to have other more experienced women help the new mother to physically heal, bond with her baby, and take this time to calm her emotions caused by the hormonal changes in her body.  All this can be a super positive start for both mother and child on their life journey together.  As this article rightly points out, some women might find this experience a bit overwhelming (thus my grandma’s traumatized anecdotes).  But I think if given a second chance, I would like to have this precious experience and take advantage of the advice given to me by experienced mothers, to gain more insights on how to better take care of myself and my baby from day 1.

Preparation is key

Confinement or not, postpartum care is still an important healing process for every woman.  We all know that the first few months after having your baby are really tough physically and emotionally, no matter how many babies you’ve had (ask my grandma and she would agree!)  If you are welcoming your second or third baby, being well-prepared for this period is especially helpful when you also need to take care of the baby’s older siblings.  It is too easy to put the children’s needs first and ignore the warning signs of your own body and mind, so keep that freezer stocked, leave the dishes/laundry/housework for later, and enjoy your bonding moments with your baby (and kids)!

Stay Sparky!

Are you ready for Halloween?

It’s time to get your creative juice running again coz Halloween’s just around the corner!  After 2 years of “alternative” Halloween celebrations, we can finally celebrate this festival in the traditional way!  Since this year’s Halloween is on a Monday, we basically have the entire weekend to immerse in the spooky mood! What kind of fun activities can we do with the kiddos on a Halloween weekend?

Go big or go home

While growing up, we used to hang out regularly with our extended family at our grandparents’ home.  One year during Halloween, together with my sisters and cousins, we created a “haunted room” for the adults to visit.  We spent the entire evening decorating the room to create this scary experience for our visitors!  We got fake spiderwebs, scary masks, black cloth draping over lamps, and of course face paints to turn ourselves into Frankenstein, Dracula, Zombies, and other spooky characters.  One of us would be the tour guide to lead the adults to different stations in the room where they could find kid-sized “corpses” and skeletons strewn on the floor or hanging from the furniture.  It was so much fun for both adults and kids!  Why not turn your home into a haunted house experience for the kids and their friends?  Or on a smaller scale, younger kids can build their own scaled haunted house with recycled materials.

Be original!

Then there are the costumes to think about.  With an entire weekend to prepare for Halloween, DIY costumes should not be too big a challenge for handy parents and their kids.  Nothing beats the sense of pride when children show off the original one-of-a-kind costume that they made by themselves or with their parents!  Take a look at this website for some cool and fun homemade costumes.  Don’t worry if you are not handy with a sewing machine or needles and thread, there are some no-sewing required costume ideas too!  I wish I had access to these great ideas when I had to make my daughter’s first Halloween costume, she was so upset because I dressed her up as Kermit the Frog instead of a cute spooky witch!

Are you bloodthirsty?

Last but not least, a Haunted House experience cannot be concluded without a visit to the dining table to feast on some delicious yet scary snacks to settle the kids’ nerves after the spooky tour.  Care for some bloody severed witch’s “fingers”?  Or slurp on some muddy punch with an “eye” or two swimming in the cup?  I am all for creating a fun party for the parents too, so some Halloween-themed cocktails would be most welcome after we have put in so much effort to make sure the little ones have the best Halloween weekend.  So, bottoms up!

To celebrate Halloween, Bombol has created a Sparky filter on Instagram.  Come and check it out with your mobile phone!

Stay Spooky!

You got this!

September is here!  The kids are all back in school, have settled down to their daily routines, and parents can take a break from trying to occupy their time with Summer activities.  Yet with school, comes all kinds of challenges for the little ones and sometimes also for the parents. The children are once again immersed in the school’s social environment where they learn how to interact with one another, and they are facing all kinds of situations among peers that they need to resolve.  That’s when sometimes unfortunate incidents like discrimination or bullying happen.  As parents, it is hard not to feel protective of our little ones when we learn that they are facing bullies at school.

We are here for you

I remember when one of our daughters was in grade school, she came home one day and told me that for over a month her classmate was being mean to her and asking other friends to gang up against her.  Although my first instinct was to contact the school or even reach out to the parent of the bully, through personal experience, while growing up, I know it is important for my little girl to learn to deal with this situation by herself and I would only step in when absolutely necessary.  When we were young, if we were going through some rough patches with school friends, we could take a break from the stress when we got home from school.  But kids of this generation are prone to both online and in-person social atrocities – the bullying continues online, after school.  It can haunt them through text messages and social media, subjecting them to a constant bombardment of cruel comments and snide remarks.  There are a few things parents can do to help their kids navigate through this challenge, but I find it most important to give our kids the mental support they need.  Family is always going to be the refuge they can escape to when things get tough.

Be smart about it

I think for kids to effectively handle bullies at school, it is important that they understand the probable causes of this toxic behavior.  Could the bully be acting out frustrations that were caused by an unhappy home life or lashing out due to a psychological complex of some sort?  Actually, encouraging a sense of empathy in our children towards others might help them handle these negative experiences better.  It is also handy to “arm” our little ones with a couple of clever comebacks to fight off those nasty comments and end the exchange right there and then.  A well-worded (but civilized) reply can catch the bully speechless and get your kid out of the situation.

You are not alone

I can imagine that a child might be reluctant to connect with new friends after having been a victim of bullying.  They might have lost confidence in themselves or in others.  Yet we need to encourage them to get to know new friends because childhood friendships are so important for the kids in every way from developing social skills to lowering the likelihood of depression.  When my daughter was suffering from her ordeal at school, apart from getting pep talks from us, it was most fortunate that she had the mental support of her best friend.  She knew that someone her age knew exactly what she was going through, even though they did not go to the same school.  And she would reciprocate this support when her friend experienced friendship issues in her school sometime later.

We might not be able to be physically by their side to help them navigate the social challenges at school but giving them mental stability from home and support from their friends can help them overcome any situation like a champ!

Stay Sparky!

Get ready for Round 2

I still remember the sense of accomplishment when our firstborn was finally sleeping through the night at the age of 8 months!  Those long months of sleep deprivation and numerous nights of trial and error just to make her sleep a bit longer, I must admit that was one of the toughest periods I have ever lived.  We tried everything, from holding her to sleep and then putting her into her crib as gently as you would handle a bomb, to letting her cry it out in the middle of the night while I cried with her outside her room, to sprinkling numerous pacifiers around her so she could grab a replacement anytime hers fell out of her mouth while she slept!   We thought the battle was over once she stopped waking up in the night and that our precious baby is finally giving us back our restful nights.

The peace was unfortunately short-lived, and our nightly battles began again when she was a toddler.  I am sure many parents have gone through this phase when their 2-year-old refused to go to bed or got out of their own beds to hop into yours.  Apart from feeling exhausted after an entire night of fencing off little arms and legs in your bed, we also wonder if the little one is getting enough sleep at all.   How come so many toddlers are having these sleep regressions suddenly and how can we help them?

Striking the balance

As your child grows, they might not need 2 naps a day anymore or could go to sleep at a slightly later hour in the evening.  Unique to every toddler’s needs, there seems to be a delicate balance between naps and night-time slumber.  Another reason could be since they have recently moved into their new “big-kid” bed and can get in and out of bed by themselves, they want to take advantage of this newfound freedom and don’t want to miss out on family activities even after bedtime!

Chase away the boogieman

Toddler-years are also prone to nightmares and night terrors that keep the poor little ones awake at night and afraid to go to sleep alone. According to this article, children at the age of two might not yet be able to tell the difference between dreams and reality.  It must be very distressing for them when it happens and of course, they would prefer to sleep with you in your bed and get cuddled to sleep without having to worry about “monsters” or being alone in the scary darkness.

Routine is Key

From my own experience and the numerous parenting websites I visited, setting a good sleep routine is a good start.  Every age has an ideal sleep amount and that changes as the child grows older, so it would be best to slowly adapt the sleeping schedule according to their changing needs.  I also came across the method of Progressive Muscle Relaxation to help children, and adults, fall asleep.  This link also suggests the script appropriate for children from different age groups, up to teenage years.  By helping the body to relax, it can also relax the mind and help it release the anxiety built up in the child, be it from a particularly exciting day of activities, overcoming a high fever, or after having a scary nightmare.

We only want the best for our children, and that also includes the best sleep quality they can get!  Sleep regression in toddlers is definitely something we cannot ignore.  Hope the above information could be useful to help you and your little one to get some restful nights!

Goodnight and Stay Sparky!

Pushing the buttons

Have you ever found yourself playing the referee of a heated argument between your kids?  They don’t seem to be able to get along on anything and they are fighting over the tiniest thing just because they want to get on each other’s nerves.  Our daughters are 2.5 years apart and since very young they have this strange love-hate relationship that is quite volatile at times.  They would be playing and laughing together at one moment and then arguing at the next.  It looks like they are testing and pushing each other’s boundaries constantly.  As this article rightly pointed out that siblings are the children’s first experience in learning how to handle social interactions with peers and the effects can be long-lasting, well into their adulthood.

Photo by @pamelarescende

It is never fair

I am sure so many of us are trying to raise our kids in the most equal way possible, but it is achievable only to a certain extent.  We need to take into consideration the difference in interests, personality, and circumstances in which the siblings are growing up.  Our oldest daughter sometimes complains that her little sister always gets to do things at an earlier age than she did:  getting her ears pierced, being allowed to go out with friends alone, or trying her first coffee all at a younger age than her!  I guess she is right, being the firstborn to inexperienced and sometimes paranoid parents can be hard and I do feel apologetic about it!  It is normal and acceptable to feel disappointed or upset and we are there to help them understand.

Photo Credit: @xo_dynaa

A solution to the problem

But disagreements among siblings can never be avoided, the tricky part is to know when to intervene and when to let them resolve the arguments by themselves.  In the past 2 years when school kept switching to online learning, our kids found themselves stuck at home for prolonged periods.  They were fighting so much to the point that I was at a loss on how to resolve the constant conflicts and that they themselves couldn’t stand it anymore either!  One day when I came home from work, they told me that they have looked it up on the internet to see how to fight less and that the methods seem to be working!!  I am super proud of them for acknowledging the problem and for being proactive about finding a solution (of course the truce was short-lived, but it was the effort that counted!)

You can always count on family

Photo Credit: @koryssa.anne

After the conflict is over and everyone has calmed down, I try to find the right moment to remind the kids of the unconditional love and support one should always get from their siblings and parents.  When they become adults, no matter what life throws at them, they will still have a close relationship with each other and warm arms to turn to.

Stay Sparky!

Learning to be Street Smart

While our kids’ childhoods are filled more and more with electronic devices of which most of which are connected to the internet, they could be exposed to a lot of unwelcomed attention from predators hiding behind fake identities in games chatrooms, apps, or social media.  I understand that as technology advances, it is inevitable that they start using various devices at a much younger age and on a more frequent basis than our generation.  When we were kids, our parents were warning us about the potential danger when playing outside the house or going on a grocery run to the corner store, and therefore taught us to avoid talking to strangers and stay alert about who could be following us home. The same now applies to how we should educate our kids about internet safety and how to be “street smart” when surfing the internet.

The ugly side of things

I have always been aware of the potential danger we are all exposed to when we have an online presence, but I became extra concerned after listening to this interview of Roo Powell, the journalist who exposed herself as a potential victim to internet predators by posing as a teenager on gaming sites and social media platforms.  Roo Powell’s investigation into the ugly side of social media rings alarm bells for all concerned parents around the world.    I always thought that as long as our kids don‎’t have an account on social media platforms they should be safe from catfishes and scammers, but apparently, these individuals can still get to our little ones through well-placed comments on innocent games like coloring apps!

Don’t be a bully

Another threat for this generation of kids is cyberbullying.  The average age of children owning their personal smartphone or tablet gets younger every minute, very often thanks to the social isolation brought on by the pandemic.  The social dynamics between individuals are significantly different when communicating through text messages or comments on someone else’s social media posts compared to face-to-face interactions.  One might feel like they are entitled to use harsh comments or cruel criticisms when hiding behind the “safety” of their screens without concern for others’ feelings.  This can be very damaging to the delicate emotions of kids when they are still trying to grasp social skills in the more traditional way, let alone online!

Let’s talk about it

So, it is up to us parents to educate our little ones at a young age how to navigate the dangerous territory called the Internet!  Apart from the gradual introduction of technology when they are small, it might be useful to find out as much as possible about the potential dangers they could face and then slowly teach them how to handle them one by one.  An important piece of advice I came across from various sources that talk about internet safety for children is to keep an open dialogue with your kids.  So that they can come to you whenever they encounter someone or some situation online that bothers them.

Stay Sparky and vigilant!