Bismillah...Rainbow is 6 months old today...that's 6 months more than his brother lived, alhamdullelah. 6 months after Hussein died I was simply in shock; now here I am parenting my Rainbow child. He has filled the void in my heart and (along with my other kids), help me get through the days and nights.

The reality of grief is very tricky, because in grief there is always hope (at least there was for me), I am happy that this hope was realized. When I look at Rainbow I see Hussein, because both boys look like their baba. I love my little Rainbow child...



Stay tuned for a book review from Chasing Rainbow's newest contributor, Amalia tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by. I am cleaning up this blog...Please Excuse the mess.

Bismillah...it's Monday again and that means that Rainbow is in the spotlight. Rainbow had a great week because Iman and Amira were at home on Easter Break.

Outings:
The weather was so beautiful on the week-end that we went for a special day out. We had treats at a yummy Portuguese Bakery. Rainbow was awake for the first time EVER. He made a huge mess with the napkins (he likes to eat them, lol). I think  in his opinion they taste better than rice milk...

Lessons:
Unschooling takes a lot of work...it's incredible. I don't mean it in a bad way, just trying to make sense of what I do with my time. In order for me to really stay on top of teaching my kiddies, I need to spend less time online. I already cut down my time, but I will have to do even more.

 Happy Earth Day!

Toronto Zoo Party for the Planet

Bismillah... If you remember last week, I had written that I will no longer post Recipe Thursday. I have yet to find something to fill the slot, so we'll just go with the flow for now. As stated I wasn't feeling very great, I am just starting to catch up on my sleep as well, which is really funny because at any hour of the day I just curl up in a ball and nap, lol. I am feeling so much better.


So on with the show...Are you looking forward to Earth day? Have you been doing any activities with the children? How do you speak about the importance of taking care of the earth?

Teaching kids about the Earth is a good way to get them excited about taking care of our beautiful planet. There are so many resources out there, it's not hard to find books, interactive media and activities that are fun for the whole family. I was looking for some great resources for Amira to do an Earth Day project and I found some great stuff. Amira is not keen on showing her work here, but I will see what I can do. For the moment we (the family) are giving it up here. We don't have television, so I have also tried to talk my hubby into exercising more, therefore turning off the computer etc etc. On my end the issue is the same. Less bogging, more activities. What do you say?

Check out these great resources...

Bismillah...Hello everyone. I have had a not so great week, and I am off schedule...I know.
I guess I will begin by giving my Rainbow update, which will allow me to get into the heart of the issue I have been facing.

Well, Rainbow is almost 6 months. He's crawling backwards, which is more like doing the worm (backwards). It looks cute, I can't help but laugh. He's sitting up, but would rather stand (not working). He's getting into the groove of eating his rice cereal, and every time it's "eating" time he tries to grab the bowl from my hands and put his face in it. He's hates his vitamin D drops, so I have started putting it into his cereal. Now I think the little bug knows and I think he's plotting his revenge against me when he can...sleep with one eyes open anyone? What else? He's a little guy...he's still in size 1 diapers. He's got a strong kick, and likes to bug everyone by kicking at anything in sight. This includes, food in hand, the laptop, your face...anything.

We are doing okay here with his lessons. He is extremely patient when it comes to listening to stories and watching his videos. He loves Ludovic, Troto, and an Arabic video with dancing fruit (lol). OPOL not bad last week. I say kudos to hubby and I will continue to nag him. From my end, hmm, not so great. I read somewhere (a blog perhaps) where a linguist stated that parents who do not speak a language fluently shouldn't try to teach their kids because it gets frustrating and you will pass on imperfect pronunciation etc. I'm sorry, that's crap in every way. It is frustrating, and it takes a while sometimes for me to formulate what I need to say and how to say it, but there is nothing wrong with trying. The best example is hubby. He still has a hard time with English. Obviously, Arabic just comes naturally to him. He speaks English to all of us, but at times, he has to find the word...even look it up, sometimes I have to ask him to spell a word, because I have no idea what he is saying. This takes times, and effort, but that's how he will get better at it?! Hmm, so why shouldn't a non-Native French speaker like me, learn to do the work, and pass it on to my kids?  I wish I could find that article again.

So I have been under the weather for about 2 weeks. It didn't start out bad, in fact, I thought it was just the change in the weather. I was wrong. The funny thing is that it has affected both Rainbow and I. It all started when I began drinking soy beverage AGAIN. I am lactose intolerant, and usually drink rice milk. Unfortunately, I don't get out of the house much and the closest supermarket sells only soys and almond beverage (as an alternative), so a couple weeks ago, I bought soy when I couldn't get to the bigger supermarket.

I began to feel ill everyday, but not like when I drink milk, so I never connected it to my food choices. Then Rainbow had the rash, I spoke about last week. The Dr told us that it was like baby eczema, so we were happy to know it wasn't something worse, because it looked really red and scaly, and it was very itchy.
I didn't drink soy for 3 days and Rainbow's rash got better. When I drank it again, his rash came back and his face was a bit swollen. At the same time I was feeling very lethargic and feverish with brutal headaches.
When you have a little baby and you don't get much sleep, food intolerance is the last thing on your mind...I just never connected the two.

 My question is what is really in our foods? When people say that years ago they didn't get sick from foods, and that children didn't have all the health issues that they have now, many people disagree, but I think they are right. Almost everything makes children sick, and even healthy adults are starting to get sick from everyday foods.