We can finally be in official count down to Christmas! Have you already started filling your home with Christmas lights and decorations? Planning any Christmas baking this year so that the house can be filled with the lovely smell of spices and ginger? Or are you like me, leaving things to the last minute and then scramble to get everything done in the last week leading up to Dec 25? I promise myself every year that I would start preparing for my favourite season earlier, and in fact I have been gathering ideas for decorations and baking throughout the year! But I still need to put my plans into action and looks like the Gingerbread Village I want to make together with our daughters will only be ready till the very last minute.
Let the countdown begin
My parents used to go to Germany for work every December and would bring home all kinds of traditional German decorations and cookies they bought from the open-air Christmas markets. Every year, my mom would bring me a chocolate advent calendar from their trip, around one week before Christmas. This meant I got to play “catch-up” by eating all the chocolates that were meant for Dec 1st until at least 15th all in one go!!! All these years later, to me advent calendars always bring back the warm fuzzy feeling of Christmas with my parents. When I got older and learned how to sew, I would make my own version of advent calendars with colorful pockets made of fabric scraps, linked together with yarn and gave them to my friends as Christmas garlands for their rooms, filled with their favourite candies. If there is not enough time to make your own together with your kids, here are some nice options too. Maybe your kids might have some “catching up” to do, but in this case, I am sure they would not mind!
Get Organized
Christmas holidays, with various family gatherings and commitments, always seem to fly by so quickly that we never manage to do all the activities we want as a family, such as binge-watching holiday movies together in matching Christmas pyjamas, or going to visit a Christmas market in a town nearby. So the idea of putting together a “holiday bucket list” is super practical and maybe this year we can finally get our act together and do some of these family activities planned! Going for a walk in the park or completing a family new year hike would be a great opportunity to burn off those extra holiday calories too!
Happy Planning! Stay Sparky!
Food for Thought
Seeing the rich yellow, orange, and brown colors on trees while feeling the cool air on my nose, I have this sudden craving for some colorful and yummy Fall veggies that are at their best now! My mom used to always say that brightly colored vegetables are the most nutritious and that each color has its particular nutritional values. She also said that vegetables are the best when they are eaten in-season and grown locally.
This really makes me think hard and wonder about the fruits and vegetables my family and I eat every day.  Living in a city and buying most of our food from supermarkets, I can’t help but notice that so many produces are imported from all over the world and not native to where I live. You can find strawberries grown in greenhouses in Korea in the middle of Winter, or pineapples in a supermarket in Europe. We easily lose touch with the “real” seasons and the harvest each season brings. So how should I introduce this concept to my children and get these little city dwellers to be more in touch with nature and its offerings?
Embracing each season and the food it brings
First, we need to get them to eat what’s in season. Persuading kids to eat their veggies have always been a challenge for parents across the globe. One of the tactics we can use to entice them to eat more veggies is the beautiful colors of the produce. Presentation is key, so convincing them to eat a “rainbow” made of fresh fruits and veggies might be easier than asking them to swallow spoon after spoon of mashed peas in wilted green. There are also many mouth-watering children-friendly recipes that feature Fall vegetables, I am sure the kids would love to try them all!
Then, we can further “inspire” the little ones by linking the current season’s color theme to the veggies – Fall and its colors are rich oranges (pumpkins, squashes), reds (apples, cranberries), and browns (chestnuts, mushrooms).  Bring them along the next time you head to your local farmer’s market so they can experience and see what goodies are in season and the color palate they present.
While looking for kids-friendly recipes using Fall ingredients, I also came across some good ideas cooking for the entire family. This site is great because it gives you recipe ideas organized by vegetable, so you can choose the recipes based on what you have handy in your kitchen! Take advantage of the beautiful season and enjoy all the yummy produce Mother Nature has to offer!
Stay Sparky!
An Inclusive Thanksgiving
Autumn is in full swing and many of us around the world have by now celebrated with our families some form of a harvest festival, be it Mid-Autumn Festival here in Asia or Thanksgiving in Canada. The next upcoming harvest festivity would be Thanksgiving in the US. Since this celebration originated from the coming together of Native Americans and Pilgrims celebrating harvest together, the topics of diversity and inclusion often come up when we talk to our children about Thanksgiving. But this is just the tip of the iceberg because in our daily lives, diversity does not only limit to race, but also gender, religion, disability, and sexual orientation (among many others). While inclusion requires empathy and open-mindedness that needs to be nurtured from a young age.
Soft Skills for Future Global Citizens
With the advancement of the internet and the ever-improving skills of our tech-savvy children, the world is literally at their fingertips. Even during Pandemic lockdowns, the kids have access to resources and are exposed to various cultures from all over the world. Therefore, to become true global citizens it is imperative that our children learn the nuances of a diverse society and to develop the necessary sensitivity towards others around them. But I must admit that I find myself sometimes not very well prepared for the questions or observations my kids have on this diversity. Having grown up in a completely different era, my knowledge of this topic came from my own limited personal experience and my parents certainly did not put as much attention to it as part of my education as modern parents do. So, it is really helpful to have found some resources that teach us how to teach our children this important subject!
Exactly one year ago, I wrote a blogpost about screentime for kids during the pandemic and how many of us found ourselves having to loosen our grip on the amount of time our children spend on their electronic devices. What started off as a “necessary evil” we resolved to as a temporary solution became something more long-term as the pandemic drags on one and half years later. By now, our pre-conditioned minds start to worry that the kids are getting too “addicted” to their devices.
Encourage a healthy tech habit
Sooner or later, technology would take on a central role in both education and entertainment solutions for the youngest generation, the pandemic seems to have accelerated this development. Before, parents only needed to be concerned on what TV programs the little ones are watching or the age-appropriateness of their books. But now we also have to be aware and be vigilant on what the “algorithms” are feeding their little minds, showing them more of what they have been seeing, slowly driving them onto a narrow path of junk consumption and isolation behind the screen. Luckily, more studies are now immerging on the impact technology and digital content have on young children and we are slowly identifying certain traits and preferences kids of different age groups have. Through this new found knowledge, maybe we parents can find out how to better help our kids to develop a healthier tech habit. Here is also a wonderful Parent’s Guide to Internet that shares really useful tips!
If you can’t fight it, use it
Since the beginning of the pandemic (which feels like a lifetime ago), the idea of what should be the appropriate amount of screentime for young children have evolved significantly. Looking back, some of the pre-COVID suggestions such as “not more than 1 hour of screen time for kids under 2 years old” sounds unrealistic, if not downright unachievable! Let’s face it, screens are definitely here to stay and have become a vital part of our children’s everyday life. There is no way back and we need to embrace the new era and learn how to use them to the greatest benefit for our kids.  If we cannot set the screentime back to pre-COVID quantity, then we should make sure the kids are getting quality.
Stay Sparky!
The much awaited Trick-or-Treat
Halloween is near and hopefully trick-or-treating in costumes out in the neighborhood is back again this year. For kids who have resumed in-person classes at school can finally show off their costume creations that they had all last year and most of this year to design and finetune!!
The Halloween Photo Corner is now open
For the small kiddies who are not yet vaccinated, I imagine many parents are still quite sceptical about getting them out there trick-or-treating. But it is a pity to miss out on the fun of getting dressed up in their costumes and not to capture these precious moments with a nice portrait photo or two! With the ultra-high-quality camera on mobile phones these days, it is not too difficult to set up a photo booth with some spooky backdrops and props. The kids would have such a blast getting their photos taken!  Here are some useful tips in setting up your own studio at home.
Teal is the new Orange
Having grown up in Asia, to me Halloween, its costumes, and the trick-or-treat tradition were all part of the “Western” culture that I observed from afar, mostly from American TV shows. But this quirky festival has evolved into such an international one through the years, many kids in Asia grew up trick-or-treating in costumes around their neighborhoods too! Although for sure the kind of treats they get differ enormously from their fellow trick-or-treaters in North America! I only got to learn about the Teal Pumpkin Project recently where families would put non-food treats, such as little toys or trinkets, in a blue pumpkin instead of candies in an orange one. Although this project’s main aim is to make kids who have food allergies to enjoy trick-or-treating just as much, I find this an awesome idea to have the kids eat less sugary treats as a result!
Have fun and enjoy Halloween! Stay Spooky!
All Good Intentions
In the past year or so, during numerous lockdowns with a household full of chores and home-learning to complete, food preparation can become a cumbersome and mundane task at times. With the growing convenience of food delivery apps, fast food is literally just a fingertip away. We have all been there, in the first few months we did our best to feed the family all home-cooked wholesome meals 3 times a day, but sometimes, during our weak moments it is so easy to give in to the convenience of ordering tasty meals that gets delivered to your doorstep than preparing something from scratch. Besides, the kids love them and won’t complain about anything tasting bland! But this means losing control of what kind of ingredients go into our meals, so much for trying to promote a healthy eating habit for the family!
Eat Healthy Stay Healthy
Recently, everyone around me, myself included, has become more health conscious now that we are slowly emerging from the post pandemic life. An important lesson we have learned from this ordeal is that we should try to stay fit and healthy in the hope of improving our immune system and lowering the chance of getting sick.  Apart from physical workouts, the next most obvious thing we need to pay attention to is food.  As life sort of gets back to “normal”, running around between home, office, and schools will be part of our daily routine once again, leaving us less time to prepare food. So we need to look for smarter ways to plan our meals to make sure our family still gets healthy breakfasts and dinners all the same.
Taking on the vending machines
Now the trick is how to make sure the kids get a decent lunch when parents cannot keep a watchful eye on the little ones when they are at school? Our ultimate challenge is back again: open war with fast foods and vending machines!  The fact sheet put together by Centre of Disease Control and Prevention in the US shows us a summary of what youngsters’ eating behaviour is like these days and I am shocked by the amount of empty calories found in the most popular snacks available at schools.
Let the kids decide
Therefore, we need to guide our children to choose healthier foods so they can develop a balanced eating habit in the long run. I find this article very helpful in suggesting a moderate way to slowly change the eating preferences of children, and to let them have a choice within a reasonable selection of foods. As they get older, they can be involved in setting their own school lunch menus. My daughters get together every weekend to lookup yummy recipes, decide what shall be their lunches in the coming week, and come up with a grocery list for me to get the ingredients. It’s so nice to see that they are in control of what they eat and are making sensible choices!
Stay Sparky!
Ready or not
The hot topics these days among parents are about vaccines, start of school, and the now rampant Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus. The combination of these issues frames the mood of uncertainty and concern in most families as schools around the world are resuming classes, in one form or another. Parents are faced with the nagging question of whether to let the children go back to face-to-face school or keep them at home, especially for children under 12 years old who are not vaccinated.
The impact of the pandemic on our children’s education is profound, both academically and socially. They missed out on more than a year’s worth of learning how to interact with other children and were deprived of many bonding experiences such as camps, sports, and games. Not everyone takes well to online lessons either and many kids prefer in-person classes which are more effective in helping them learn. In order for children not to miss more precious time at school, we need to find out how to make it safe for kids to go back into the classrooms again and how best to help lower the risk of them catching the nasty virus.
Mask up!
It has been one and a half years since the pandemic started and one can only be on high alert with cleanliness and hygiene for so long. Additionally with the arrival of Summer there was this false sense of security that the worst is finally over. Don’t know about you, but my guard has been lowered somewhat when it comes to constantly maintaining a high standard of cleanliness around me and my family ! Unfortunately, the situation has once again become more concerning with the super contagious Delta variant, which means we need to stay vigilant again on everything and everyone we touch or encounter. Many places around the globe resort back to mandatory face coverings in public places indoor, schools included. With the arrival of Fall also comes the flu season, so the best way to keep our kids healthy is still to ask them to wear their masks when at school or playing with friends. Another important habit we all learned during the pandemic is to keep our hands clean and don’t touch our faces with dirty hands, so never let your little one go to school without a small bottle of hand sanitizer! Here’s a list of school supplies ideas and tips for your child to start the school year safely and healthily.
When in doubt, sanitize
Many households have developed their own set of rules by now on what to do when you come home from a day at work or from grocery shopping. Some of these rules might include changing out of the clothes you were wearing outside, wash hands with soap, disinfect the bags or items you have brought into the house, etc. The same might apply to your child when they come home from school, additionally it might be better to regularly sanitize their school bags and smaller items such as stationery and toys they might have shared with other children.
We have come this far already in the pandemic and have found so many ways to make the best out of a difficult situation. Getting our children back to school in a safe and responsible way is just another hurdle we must jump over to take back a bit more control of our lives as we knew it before COVID-19! We got this!
Stay Sparky!   Â
What is the “new normal”?
As more and more people get vaccinated in many countries, the world seems to be slowly waking up from its Pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Many of us are working hard to try to get back to “normal” mentally, socially, and economically. Of course, the idea of “normal” might vary and we might think that things will not, or might not, go back to pre-COVID times. To me, sadly, the “carefree” days of walking on the streets without a mask, shaking hands with others, hugging a friend I bumped into at the park, even eating an ice-cream while walking in the street, can no longer be taken for granted. Questions of social etiquettes such as “should I keep wearing a mask in public?”, or “would people look at me alarmingly if I eat while walking in public?” keep popping up in my mind.  Re-introducing ourselves into society post-COVID, although sounds a bit silly, feels like a daunting task.
A silver lining
If we as adults can feel insecure about it, I can only imagine how scary it must be for children to emerge from the Pandemic. With sporadic lockdowns and ever-changing social-distancing guidelines, the sense of stability children need is lost and things can be so confusing for them. But the silver lining from this pandemic for many kids could be more family time with their parents. This article identified many aspects of what families went through during the past one and a half years, the pros and cons and the dilemmas we all faced at one point or another.
No perfect answer
With vaccination rate slowly climbing, many schools around the world are planning to hold face-to-face classes after the summer, and companies are starting to jump-start their business activities again. It is time to get ourselves and our children physically and psychologically prepared for what’s coming up next. This Summer could be a good transition period for all of us to do just that, slowly but steadily. I guess the first concerns many parents have when they need to go back to their full-time jobs in the office, is what would happen to their kids. Should they be sent back to the day care? How likely will they be exposed to the danger of COVID-19 while they spend their playtime / naptime there? Are the schools doing enough to safeguard the children’s health? There is never a correct or satisfactory answer to each of these questions and most parents in the world are asking them! But we need to evaluate the risks and find ways within our capability to mitigate them, such as get ourselves and our children (age permitting) vaccinated. If the children are too young to be vaccinated, then at least we need to make sure their caretakers are.
There is still time to get prepared for post-COVID times and as long as we keep getting informed about the latest situation around us, I am sure we will find a way to get back to “the new normal”.
Stay Sparky!
Learn to be responsible
Kids nowadays are more exposed to the idea of environmental responsibility much earlier than when I was growing up. They are being taught the basics at home and at school, get to practice them in everyday life such as separating paper from plastic, turning off the tap when brushing their teeth, etc.  By starting with the smaller things in life, hopefully that will help them to be constantly mindful of the limited resources in the world. But not all these daily activities can show them the immediate effect of their actions. Donating or sharing toys and books is a great way to get them involved in a less wasteful mindset and can help them understand easily how their actions can actually benefit someone else.
Sharing is caring
At a very young age, we started explaining to our children the concept of “sharing” toys with other kids. Apart from getting brand new toys from us and others, through the years, our kids have also been on the lucky receiving end of tonnes of wonderful books and toys from our friends and family with older kids. We periodically sit together with them to go through everything so they can be the ones to decide what they would like to pass on to other children who can be the next to enjoy them. To them, buying a new toy from the shop or receiving a hand-me-down toy from their cousins are just as exciting. They preferred the hand-me-down toys more at times because they used to belong to someone they knew, with that extra emotional link to them. In turn, when they grew a bit older, they are also very generous in passing along their possessions to other children because in their minds this is a normal “life-cycle” of toys and books!
Works of Art
However, sometimes the toys are “so loved” that they are no longer in shape to be given away, but the thought of them ending up in the landfill is just as troubling. Many creative parents give these toys a second life by turning them into craft materials and art pieces! Why not get the kiddies together, grab a glue gun and create something new from their old toys?
Give it a new life
There are many artists and toy lovers who make big efforts to give old toys a new beginning. For example, this BBC video interviewed someone who collects and restores old dolls to give them a “makeover” with lots of patience and then donate them to children. I am sure the new owners of these dolls would feel the love and attention the artist devoted to renewing them.
The other day I came across an article that mentioned the possibility to send old or broken toys back to the manufacturer, and in collaboration with a recycling company they can recycle them and make either new toys or other products out of them.  This is such a great initiative, although it must be a costly operation and is only available in some countries.  Hopefully, we will see more product companies globally to join in the effort of reducing waste by recycling or coming up with more creative ideas to tackle this problem. In the meantime, we do our best in our smaller reality by teaching our next generation to be as environmentally responsible as possible.
Stay Sparky!
Home for the Summer
While some families are planning their Summer getaway after being cooped up at home for so long during the COVID lockdowns, many of us who live in cities where quarantine regulations are still very strict are not going anywhere any time soon. So it can be a bit stressful to find Summer activities for the kiddies while still trying to observe some form of social distancing.
Home improvement
For my family, since going away for holiday is not an option, we have decided to come up with a simple family DIY project to spruce up our home and to use this opportunity to do some family bonding. Each of our 2 daughters is responsible for designing and creating 1 item to improve our living room, while of course my husband, being an industrial designer, has a more ambitious project for himself in mind! And I will be everyone’s assistant to hand out tools and prepare refreshments! If you are not the handy type, smaller Summer-themed craft projects for the kiddos can be tonnes of fun too.
The Happy Camper
While looking on the internet for ideas for things to do this Summer, I came across this website that teaches you how to set up your own Summer Camp at home for your kids and maybe even their friends. You can assign different themes, durations, and activities by following their “planner”! This is such a brilliant idea that can let your children avoid crowded places, yet still get to do fun activities with a couple of their closest friends. It might be more work for the parents, but maybe you can take turns with other parents to host the camps. This way the kids will be hanging out in a different “camp-site” each week.
Summer Treats
Last but not least, to tie in beautifully the whole Summer themed family time, here are some really beautiful, delicious, and healthy summer desserts you can prepare at home. Better yet, have the kids make some yummy treats for everyone. Nothing beats a homemade fruit ice-lolly to cool down the Summer heat, while taking a break from your DIY project!
