Bunchland

Cynthia Kinnunen blogs about sharing stuff from your childhood with your kids

What colour are your kicks?

I remember my father wearing red high tops. Those bright red beauties with the thick white laces and big white toe that you wanted to get just a little dirty so it wasn’t so very white and bright. Worn in but not too much. It was my dad’s foot covering of choice for what seemed like a very long time. Red, high top All Stars, baggy shorts and a concert tee was his uniform. I had my own Converse, too. And that’s pretty impressive for a wearable item: one that a teenager and their parent wear simultaneously and neither looks out of place or resents the other wearing them.

Multi-generational chucks for the cool kids.  Read more...

Meri Perra blogs about the challenges she and her partner face in trying to raise their girls with feminist values

I’ll admit we’ve let some things slide since becoming parents of two. Almost immediately following the birth of our beloved Lileith, we began using disposable diapers (and usually not the chlorine-free kind), paper towels, and worse, Lysol wipes. We frequent multinationals with parking lots much more often than our local merchants. Protests happen we don’t even know about.
And it’s all in the name of convenience, followed by the always popular, “we don’t have enough time; we’ve got little kids” excuse.

When we’ve let so much slide already, I’ve wondered where it will stop. Will we start to believe in tax cuts before national childcare? Gravy train cuts over public services? Never. Some values are so fundamental even convenience and disorganization can’t defeat them. I hope.  Read more...

What we’re reading today:

1. “Does this have alcohol in it?” “Oh, God, honey, no! What kind of mother do you think I am? Why, do you want a little bit? Because if you’re going to drink I’d rather you do it in the house.” — Mean Girls. A recent study shows that supervised drinking does not help kids learn appropriate drinking habits.

2. Does a pregnant woman’s diet dictate whether or not her baby grows up to be obese?

3. Salon writer Caroline M. Grant says that raising kids means always living on a fault line, whether or not you’re actually living on a fault line.

4. So, there was this wedding this morning that is kinda hogging all the arts&life/style-type sections. Bookies in London, in addition to placing odds on what the Queen wears, bet that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will announce a baby next year.  Read more...

I.e. Wedding of the Century Day

Today’s Postcard from Bunchland is from Trevor Lowe in London via Flickr.

Do you have a Postcard from Bunchland?  Send photos of family fun to meghan@bunchfamily.ca or find us on Flickr.

Make an event out of the Wedding of the Century

So, you might have guessed that we’re kind of excited about tomorrow’s royal nuptials. We’ve already told you why we think it’s a nice idea to watch the wedding, and now that we have you convinced, we have a few suggestions as to how to party. Yes, we think pajamas and tiaras are a great pairing, and if you want to get up for 6:00 a.m. and watch TV all sleepy-like, we suggest mixing up a batch of the Queen’s Scone Pancakes.

For those of you who want a slightly more extravagant affair, whether you’re watching before dawn or catching the afternoon rebroadcast, we have a few suggestions:  Read more...

• This is a Royal event. As such, we think all attendees should be announced with their titles and made to wave as they take their seats in the family room

What wear to at your Royal Wedding watching party

Yes, hats are great, but sometimes you just want a little oomph without all that brim. We asked Stratford Shakespeare Festival costume designer Leslie Norgate for some tips on how to create our own fascinators. Here’s what she said:

You’ll need:

• paper plates, dessert size, preferably the inexpensive thin kind with a slightly rounded, wavy edge, in funky colours/patterns (the dollar store would be the ideal place to find these, and also many of the items listed below)
• hair barrettes, available at the drugstore or dollar store
• all manner of decorative elements, such as feathers (old hats can be a magnificent source for these), flowers, netting, veiling, buttons, castoff jewellery, ribbons, sequins, lace, felt, fabric. The sky is the limit
• scissors, glue gun, strong adhesive tape.

Steps:  Read more...

The case for waking up early tomorrow

It’s no surprise that Sunday’s New York Times Wedding and Celebrations section included a few items on tomorrow’s Royal Wedding. Bethany Kandel spoke to a few moms who were pulling their kids out of school to watch Kate Middleton walk down the aisle and become a princess.

The moms in Kandel’s piece make a good point. Sure, Royal watching can be silly and perhaps we can get a little too caught up in what Kate’s wearing, but tomorrow is a chance to see what a real princess looks like, when she’s at her most Cinderella-esque.

Maryland mom Lara DiPaola told Kandel that she still remembers what her mom said when they watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding 30 years ago: “A fairy tale is just a story, but  princesses are real. Princess Diana’s wedding is part of our history.”  Read more...