Jam On It!
Every parent knows how important jelly is to a child (I mean who doesn’t love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?), and when you run out of the sweet nectar of the gods, your child and your own inner child scream like Luke Skywalker does when he learns Darth Vader is his father. Nooooo!
In order to avoid the PB&J meltdown all you have to do is make your own and store it in the pantry. Yeah, Darth Vader has nothing on you! The ingredients are few, but the time it will take may seem like forever, so give yourself a couple of hours for this project, and although there are things your child can do, don’t be surprised if you are left working alone at times. Also very important is naming your jam, this should not be taken lightly, or you can just let your kid do it. Lighten up, it’s just jam.
Step 1 – The first thing you need to do is obtain the fruit. For this recipe, we have used a combination of plums and apples. I’m sure you can use almost any firm juicy fruit. Really, no bananas or melons, come on. We started by trading with our neighbors, our squash for their plums and apples. Our bartering was successful, we ended up with a lot of fruit, and now ready to make jam.
Ingredients:
6 pounds of fruit
3 lemons
6 cups of sugar
1 cup of water
canning jars and lids
Other things you may need:
scale
large pot
immersion blender
spoon
ladle
knives
thermometer
juicer
labels and marker
extra dish towels
Step 2 – Sort and weigh the fruit. This is a perfect job for your young assistant. Azul loved it.
Step 3 – With your child busy with a job, you can juice the lemons and zest one lemon. Then prep the fruit. Wash, peel and core or pit whatever fruit you were able to pick, buy or trade. This job, because it involves a knife, may be best for an adult. Prepping takes some time and can be booor-rring!
Step 4 – While you prep, your child can measure out the other ingredients and add them to the pot. Place the pot on the stove over low heat and add the peeled fruit. Cook on low heat and stir occasionally. Just remember low and slow, low and slow.
Step 5 – Have your child make the labels for the jars. You don’t have to do this, but it is super cute!
Step 6 – Once the fruit is cooked down, use a hand blender to blend any peels or large pieces to make it smoother. Now, turn the heat up to medium and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Keep an eye on this hot liquid, there is so much sugar in it, it can burn easily.
Step 7 – Cook to 220°, this is hot enough for the jam to set. Then turn off the burner and begin to ladle “the reason you are the best mom ever” concoction into the jars. Leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch of head space, tighten the lids, place the jars on their heads, and let them cool. There is no need to boil the jars, the heat from the jam will help the lids seal.
Step 8 – While the jars of jam cool, you can clean up. Yeah! Once the jars are cooled, stick the labels on the jars and place in a cool dry place or in the refrigerator to chill.
After all our work, my six year-old said, “I think it’s cool we make our own jam.” And because I am a child of the 80s, enjoy … and Jam On It!
Attack Now
Every parent knows the undertaking of communication with your child can be a slow process of huge milestones. First, you start with the verbal, tiny screams of an infant, the cute cries of helplessness that tug at your heart-strings. And in a state of confusion you try to understand what your child is telling you. To any new parents out there, they usually they need to be held, fed, or changed. And when you are successful, you’ll think, whew! At least I understood that.
Then as your child’s vocal cords grow, so do the bellows, but the meanings of their communication stays the same, only louder, a lot louder.
Through the baby years, your child’s realization of their environment increases and so do their demands. Now there are grunts and finger-pointing that accompany the cries, both of these make it easier to determine what you child wants. The addition of the non-verbal cues really do help. Then comes the cooing, sweet spit bubbles and small words like “mama” and “dada.” This is when it starts to get fun. Your child is communicating that they do recognize you and by doing so, they are now formally thanking you for all you have been doing for them for the last year or so. You’re welcome!
Next, the non-verbal communication and babbling turns into full-fledged talking. Yay! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, your toddler can finally talk and the things that they are ready to say are awesome. But, once the talking starts there is no stopping it and it becomes a constant companion to your child’s personality. Although you will never have a quiet moment again, the good news is, kids are funny if you let them say what they want.
The last task of completing the communication trinity is writing. Once that is introduced they are now able to communicate without speaking. Which needs a lot of verbal explanation! It first starts with drawing and then they begin to add words into the mix. Now things get really amusing and in addition, you now have crayon inspired evidence. More fun! And because children begin writing phonetically, and we all know how tricky the English language can be, things are not always as simple they appear.
At this point your child now has a pocket full of resources to use while communicating, verbal, non-verbal and writing, and they know how use or not use each one of them to get their point across. And when the day comes, when you are given a hand written note you need to approach each word carefully, repeating and rereading, just to make sure you are reading what you think you are reading. And while you are in a state of communication confusion, not again, they know exactly what they are saying.
Azul, my six year-old, spoke not a word to me as he held up his hand written sign. I looked at it trying to figure out what it was saying and then I carefully read it aloud.
“Attic … something” is where I started, his non-verbal communication told me I was wrong, so I slowly tried again, sounding much like a baby babbling random sounds.
“Attack. Now?” I said with some hesitation.
Then he threw down the sign and did as he was told. HE ATTACKED ME!
As every parent knows the undertaking of communication with your child can be a slow process of huge milestones, and then sometimes you just get attacked.
Azul Always On Beat
I am well aware of the fact that there will come a day when my now six year-old will no longer play with me, and my innocent request for fun will be greeted with a deep sigh, roll of the eyes and the dreaded “Maaahm.” But until then he is mine to do as I please, or until I get in trouble.
Recently I have found another way to amuse myself at the expense of my child (yes, I mean play) … and it’s awesome! This may not be new to you, but it is to us, and it’s called Dubsmash. If you’ve never wasted countless hours of your busy day on this app, you are certainly missing out.
It’s basically a video app where you record yourself during a short audio clip (only a few seconds) and there are hundreds of audio clips to choose from. Now, any responsible parent would go through the clips in advance and edit out the more obscene options before including your child in this activity, and believe me, there are a lot of questionable clips. I would imagine doing so would be similar to the way the Motion Picture Association of America rates movies, so you know which ones to watch with your underage child and which have “material not suitable for children.” Or you can just jump right in with your six year-old and start recording and listening to any and all material without any worries. The choice is all yours.
The “jump right in” option, by the way, is hilarious if you think watching your innocent little blessing mouth the words to something dirty is funny, because to them they are just words, words without meaning. After all, you haven’t really taken the time to define what “cocksucker” means until he says it in front of your husband, who doesn’t find that behavior quite as funny as you do, and you get in trouble for promoting “vulgar” behavior, not instilling a sense of humor, which is what you thought you were doing because you think humor is an important trait. Ugh! That’s just one hypothetical situation that could happen if you do not edit your audio clips in advance, again the choice is all yours.
Well anyway, this is Azul’s favorite, rated “A” (by the yes I’ve already checked it for content association) for ALL to enjoy! He loves this song, chose his own prop and stayed right on beat. (Really, it’s okay to click on, it’s not dirty, I’ve learned my lesson from the above, totally made-up scenario.)
Carmelina Hart 