thefutureisred

When #FollowFriday & Photo Friday Collide: What A Delicious Baby!

Why am I posting my own personal photo of wildflowers in Iceland's Thingvellir National Park as part of today's Follow Friday recommendation?

Because there's no better way to introduce you to a wonderful blogger and the unique and community-building Photo Friday feature she includes on her blog.

Who is this person?

That would be Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby, a website dedicated to traveling with babies, toddlers and kids. I've written about her before in relation to her work on Passports With Purpose. You can also find her tweeting as @deliciousbaby.

How does Photo Friday work?

You post a photo on your website with a link to Delicious Baby.  Then, you simply fill in the short form on Debbie's site that creates a link from her page back to yours. You don't have to be a travel blogger or parent to post. You simply need a desire to share your photos and explore the photography of others.

I first heard about this about a year ago from Carolina of Kids Go West, another kids travel site with a focus on California and the western United States.

Two others I've seen participating in Debbie's Photo Fridays that I must mention. 

The First: Caitlin from Roaming Tales writes cogently and honestly about travel and the environment. A recent favorite post of hers discusses the effects of Nestle using palm oil in their products with a particularly interesting focus on how Nestle uses (or mismanages) social media.

The second: Philanthropist, goofball and nutcase Peter Carey from The Carey Adventures. His photo of the day today shows an incredible close up of pachyderms from his recent trip to Kenya. Nothing quite like a baby elephant taking a nap.

All four are most definitely worth a follow on this lovely Friday morning!

How To Raise Frogs & Other Tales Of Country Living

Today we fed the tadpoles. I learned how to keep them alive the hard way. At least now I know.

Back in November, when we first moved into the house, we collected tadpole eggs laid in rainwater in the pileta out back. I cut the top of a big plastic water jug and left them in fresh water. I read up on how to feed them and learned they can feed off the algae in the water.

What the internet didn't tell me on my searches is that there's generally not enough algae to feed ten tadpoles in a jug of well water.

So when our tadpoles started floating, I was surprised. Then I facebooked my friend Cory, a frog specialist and our neighbor in Bocas del Toro. She told me what to do.

Preparing Tadpole Food:

Take some greens. Lettuce. Spinach. Watercress, which seems to grow abundantly both in markets and wild here in Salta.

Boil it until the greens are very soft and dark. The water turns green too. Let it cool and drop it in the water.

That's it. So simple.

Hundreds, possibly thousands hatched from a recent batch laid in the the pileta, but we carried most of them to the San Lorenzo river nearby and set them free in the water. I felt bad at first, not knowing if they could live there, but when we found other frogs, I felt better.

About 20 remain. They are tiny, ant-sized and hungry.

Lila tells me she hears them scream out in tiny shrill voices. "We want spinach."

That, among other things, is what I did today.

Photo by Jake Wasdin

Then Last Night They Reminded Me Why I Love to Read

Last night, I began reading a new chapter book to Lila called The Pushcart War. I remember having this book read to me when I was her age. To be honest, I don’t remember the details at all, I just remember loving it.

I happened on a copy of this book while in college, found it sitting on the crowded table of  NYC bookseller on the Upper West Side. His name was Mr. Levin, a large man whose bulbous nose sported enormous pores and sat above a mustache worthy of the Mustache Hunt. He unloaded his books every day from a white van, and I would sit and listen to him talk with his big booming voice.

The Pushcart War he placed on his table had worn, ratty edges and pages of a cliché yellow all old books must have, but it was in decent enough shape for a dollar. I didn't want children at that point in my life, but I bought it to read to the children I might one day have if maybe I changed my mind.

I'm glad I did.

This book brings me to the beginning of reading.

To the days I learned that you can disappear into a book, and how one book can change your life forever.

Fast forward to fifth grade when the librarian of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas introduced me to Madeline L’Engle and A Wrinkle In Time.  I remember certain details but if you asked me to outline the entire plot, you’d have me at a complete loss. I do clearly remember three witchy women who could bend time, wrinkle it, so you could move between places and dimensions in seconds. Close your eyes and you’re in a new world, a fantasy, where magic exists and anything is possible in spite of the danger inherent to your adventure.

Would you trade a safe spot for the thrill and excitement? I wouldn’t.

I read all Madeline L’Engle’s books and even had the chance to hear her speak live. She talked about the nature of writing children’s books. You don’t, she said, write as if you’re writing for a child. A storyteller writes for an adult, for any audience and if you do it well, a child will adore it as much as her parents.

I think about every author I’ve read who has opened new worlds and adventures. Shakespeare and Chaucer showed the adventure of language. How just because a word is foreign, doesn’t mean it can’t be funny, raunchy and fascinating. I devoured Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and Virginia Woolf's A Room Of Her Own and Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love In the Time Of Cholera.

These days, I tend not to read books anymore.

They’re too heavy to carry around in a suitcase, and between having a child, a job, editing Matador Life and figuring out how to lead this new expat life in Argentina, I’m wiped out by the end of the day. That I spend my day writing articles and reading other’s work leaves me jaded to the written word.

But as I introduce Lila to the first book I remember reading, her excitement opens me up to the possibilities of reading once more.

And as I finish writing this blog entry, I realize how all of who I am today, all I’ve done and accomplished, the choices I make, the people I love and places that call my name, all became inevitable when I held that first book in my hand.

Photos courtesy of h.koppdelaney and austinevan

It's Earth Day ! How Many Thneeds Do You Need?

Today, the day of the earth, Earth Day!

So how should we feel on this day? SaD at the state of the planet? Rain forests deforestated. Waters full of mucky muck. Or should we be happy and proud that we are maybe, just maybe improving? Maybe, just maybe, we are learning?

So on this Earthy Day today, I'm asking the question: How do we teach our children to honor and protect this planet. It's the only one we've got.

I've talked to Lila about the importance of recycling. About throwing trash in bins and not on the ground. Ask her what people who litter are called, she'll say "Lazy and irresponsible." We've taught her to say that. It's adorable; it really is, but I'm not entirely sure she knows what it means.

Ok, tongue in cheek aside, I read the Lorax. She loves the story, asks for it almost every night, and she truly understands, feels the pain of the loss of trees, fish, birds and barbaloots in their barbaloot suits.

Today, this very Earth day, you'll find a special limited edition online text of The Lorax full to bursting with ideas, thoughts and more for Earth Day.

Some other things to do:

• Collect Recyclables together and either reuse then in a project or take them to be recycled.
• Plant a garden. I turn to Gardening Advice on Twitter for tips.
• Check out the Children and Nature Network. Lots of great ideas for connecting our children to the environment.
• Read and subscribe to Cheap Like Me where you'll learn endless amounts about how to reuse, recycle and conserve, all written by a mom who knows.

Now I am no expert on this subject by any stretch, so I ask you to add your own ideas here as comments or e-mail me. I want to hear from you, because unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

So happy Earth Day to all. Today's the day, we're off to great places, we're off and away.

See My Guest Post on Nomadic Matt's Travel Website

Welcome to all of you who have made your way here from Nomadic Matt's travel blog. If you like what you see, please subscribe to my feed or, better yet, subscribe to my e-mail list -- if you subscribe in April 2009, you're automatically entered to win my April Fool's Give-Away.

Today's topic on Nomadic Matt is What Traveling Has Taught Me About Parenting. In it, I talk about what to pack for your child when traveling, what you can expect and some general tips for traveling with children.

As for the picture above, it was taken at Mont Sainte Victoire, best known for being the mountain Cezanne painted. We couchsurfed for two weeks with Maryanick and her wonderful family at the foot of this mountain, woke every morning to see it and another just as beautiful mountain on the other side.

What I also remember clealry about this place? See Lila's flip flops? We bought them for ten euros at some roadside stand. Then lost them. It was a devastating time. One filled with the heartbreak only a four-year-old feels.

We magically found them again, though. Apparently, they'd fallen out of the car when we stopped to make a reservation at La Beliere, a chambre d'hotes near Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. The owner found then, kept them and gave them back to us when we returned for our stay.

So thank you, Mr Mollinatti, yes, for a wonderful stay, but mostly for finding those shoes.

Update: Making Paint In Your Argentinian Kitchen

Last week, Lila and I experimented with making paint. It didn´t work well at all.

First, I couldn´t find the food coloring, so really, all we had was white paint. Then, it didn´t give very good coverage and was rather grainy. Still, we decided to make the best of things and instead used it for glue. It wasn´t perfect as glue, but it worked.

So today, we tried glue again. Only this time, I left out the oil and salt. Just flour and enough water for it to form a gluey, gloppy paste. Bad paint, great glue.

Here is the picture Lila took of her work of art:

As you can see, it´s mixed media. Paint, markers, crayon, glitter glue, flowers and of course, our homemade glue. It worked extremely well. Sort of makes me not want to eat floury products anymore, though.

As for the paint, we´ll keep trying. Perhaps if we add the salt, but lessen the amount of vegetable oil used the consistency will be smoother and not as gloppy. Also, it woudln´t hurt to give it a whirl in the blender. See what that does.

As for color, I still haven´t found our food coloring. Very disappointed that I lost it, too. We used that coloring for everything from art projects to cooking, and Lila loved it. I haven´t seen any in stores here.

What we will do instead is attempt to create our own colors by boiling plants and flowers in water. Beets, for example. Then, we´ll use the colored water to make our paint.

How To Make Paint In Your Argentinian Kitchen (Or Wherever)

See the update!

We found a school for Lila!

Martin and Franca, two of the people involved with El Devenir hooked is up with Colegio Uzzi. It's a beautiful open space and the school focuses strongly on art and self-development. The school year begins, summer ends, in early March. Until then, Lila and I will hang out and do stuff while Noah works with Martin and the rest to develop the eco-tourism projects and raising money for the geriatric home.

Today's activity?

Making paint. I found a recipe online:

1 cup flour
1 cup salt
1.5 cups water
1.5 tbs vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients. Then heat water with vegetable oil. Mix wet and dry ingredients. This particular recipe includes a packet of unsweetened Kool Aid for coloring. I brought food coloring with us from Atlanta, and one of the best things I included when packing.

If it works nicely, I´ll try adding egg yolk next time and see what that does for texture.

Will let you know how it goes!

See the 2.18.09 update!

El Mercado Municipal on St Martin

Music plays while people paddle across the lake in quaint painted boats. Lila sits next to me playing a wooden whistle we bought here for 4 pesos. That's about $1.25. Now Noah has joined in with a tiny drum, similar to the one Mr. Miyagi played in one of the Karate Kids. We've been wandering for hours, taking in the sights and sounds. There's so much for kids too. A big blow up balloon slide. A fountain. A cable car to take you up the side mountain.