The inconvience of ethics

When I was kid there were two things I was not allowed to have.  A Tonka Truck and a Pound Puppy (which was made by Tonka).  My parents told me this is because Tonka moved their jobs out of Minnesota and to some where else, causing large layoffs.  I actually just learned more about it by using the google machine.  "In a major blow to Tonka's Minnesota workforce, steel truck manufacturing began to move from Mound to El Paso, Texas in 1982 with the transfer of equipment and production completed in 1983"  So because of my parents ethics I wasn't allowed to have either of these items and I some how survived.

It turns out that trait of following unique ethics has passed down another generation, to me, and poor Marcus is now impacted.  Here is the story.

I have said for a long time that if I could find a reason to be ethically opposed to sugar I would probably be able to easily avoid it.  Afterall- I have no struggle at all in not eating meat products because I have a strong belief behind it (I am not going to get into my veggie thoughts on this blog today).  Well it finally happened.

During my girl trip to San Francisco my friend Erin, pointed out some of the horrible ethics behind chocolate production, specifically the fact that child labor is a huge problem.   That is one thing that really don't sit well with me.  I know that there are also some environment problems as well but the big one to me really is child labor. 

When I got home I did some research and learned that this is absolutely happening but to be honest a lot of the details seems pretty foggy-  some articles say it is improving and other articles say the opposite.  The one that that is clear is that is still a problem.  Here are some interesting reads on the subject.


http://fortune.com/2016/03/25/easter-chocolate-child-labor/
http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/fairtrade/whatyoucando/BigChocolate.cfm

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/judith-lewis/e-is-for-easter-and-ethical-chocolate_b_9527918.html

There are also some great resource that rank chocolate and discuss how it is ethically produced (or not) and scores the manufactures.  One thing that is odd is that the rating were note always the same - although pretty much in all lists Nestle, Mars and Hershey have a lot of work to do.  Here are some links.

http://rankabrand.org/chocolate-brands/Ritter+Sport

http://www.thegoodshoppingguide.com/ethical-chocolate/

http://theartofsimple.net/chocolate/

Since I got back from San Fran I have not bought any chocolate from the big three and I am working on  passing that down to Marcus.  For Easter he didn't have any chocolates from those three either.  This is actually pretty hard to figure out but I am glad to put the effort into it.  The good news is that Marcus really hasn't noticed any of this.  I don't look forward to the day when I have to explain it all to him.

In the meanwhile I am going to continue my search for better resources that discuss the problem and better chocolates that are made in a fair manner.

A fun family Easter

This past week end we drove to Aunt Jess's house in Iowa to celebrate the Easter holiday.  We don't actually get down to see Jess that often, mainly because they come up pretty frequently but it was a nice get away for the weekend.    Marcus was very excited to see his cousin baby Liam and to stay at a hotel.  We drove down on Saturday and took the scenic route through one of my favorite towns, Decorah Iowa. We went out to T-bocks and enjoyed a lazy lunch.  Next we walked around town and just enjoyed Decorah.

We didn't stay long and soon we headed down for some family fun in Iowa City.  Saturday night was pretty non-eventful.  We went over to Jess's house and spent some time visiting.  Then back to the hotel to play in the pool for a while before a very long drama filled drawn out bedtime (but the blog is not actually about that).  Sunday morning is what this blog is actually about.

We woke up on Sunday morning and talked about the Easter Bunny.  Luke and I told Marcus that Luke had called the Easter Bunny and told him to deliver his basket to Aunt Jess's house since we were in Iowa.  Honestly I think he understood the concept of what we were talking about but didn't 100% get what we were talking about.  He learned quickly!

 

When we walked into Aunt Jess's on the table was the proof that the Easter Bunny had visited.  Hot air balloon baskets for both Marcus (white) and Liam (green).  Marcus was so excited- so was his puppy who jumped right into the basket.

Next we learned that the Easter Bunny had left a note (well played Jess) telling Marcus and Liam all about the eggs hidden around the house.

 

So Marcus and Liam did their hunt for the eggs and lucky enough, they found them all.

 

 

 Once all of the eggs were found Marcus spent the next hour or so playing with his hot air balloon.  He ran all over the house with it- pretending like it was being blown around by big gusts of wind.  This was clearly a successful gift.

 

 Even Grandpa Don got in on the action.

Marcus blowing air in the balloon.

Eventually it was time to eat and the food was wonderful (thanks to my Mother-in-Law who provided the feast).  I think Liam was a bit disappointed he didn't get to dive into the cheesecake!

 

Overall this was a very successful family Easter full of food, fun, the Easter Bunny, and most importantly love.

 

Making Ballons 2.0

 

On the Friday night before Easter I decided it was time to finish Marcus's Easter Surprise.  I wrote a blog last week about the beginning of the project when I made my demo balloon.  After that demo balloon I decided I needed to buy larger Chinese lanterns to really do a good job with this project.  The small one was super cute and I bet Marcus would have a ton of fun playing with it but it just wasn't a great option for a hot air balloon basket- the basket was just too small.

I looked at stores and quickly learned that 10" was the largest carried in stores so instead I had to order them off of Amazon.com.  I got two, one 16" and one 20".

It took a few days to get these in and once I had them it was go time (especially since Easter was only 2 days away).  I learned a lot doing the demo and because of that I made a few improvements.

• I picked up a bit of paper mache paper (any other light paper would work too) for the top of the balloon.  The felt was just too hard to work with and it was a pain.
• I got regular glue for the glue gun-  good bye glitter glue sticks.
• I picked up more pipe cleaners.  I was not sure exactly how I would use them but figured they were a good tool to keep around.

Once I got everything pulled together AND Marcus to sleep it was time to work. I didn't take pictures of the process this time (only the results) but here are few things I learned along the way.

• I had picked out a few baskets because I was sure what was the right size.  In the end I ended up using the baskets that were the best design for the project.  If you do this the best baskets to use are woven. This gives a great place to tuck the support into (and glue of course).
• Depending on the size of the balloon and the size of the basket you need to make accommodation.  If you look at the finished basket you can see on the green balloon (16"). The supports go up to the outside of the balloon and are reinforced with pipe cleaners, that is because there was no way to tuck them inside the balloon.
• I would advice getting difference sized balloons (i.e. Chinese Lanterns) to try,  Here are a few things I learned:
• 10" Chinese Lantern-
• Positive- Most structurally sound and in many ways because of that easiest to work with.
• Negative-  Because of it's small size limited the basket.  It was also difficult to put my fingers inside because it was tiny.
• 16" Chinese Lantern-
• Positive- Probably my favorite Chinese lantern to work with because its size.  This was also a pretty tough balloon structure.
• Negative-   The hole at he bottom was pretty small- necessitating in big changes to how I actually made the balloon.
• 20" Chinese Lantern-
• Positive- Because of its size it was far easier to stick my hand in a maneuver around the balloon.  Also because the hole at the bottom was so big could easily get the sticks in place.
• Negative-  The structural aspect of this Chinese lantern are not good.  This is the most likely to be destroyed quickly by Marcus. The actual Chinese lantern would barely stand up.
• I also added hanging hooks at the top so we can hang these in the bedroom is wanted - or like Marcus did, he can drag it around the house while it "Flies" by this.  I just used pipe cleaners for this one.

OK enough details-  Here is the balloons actually turned out like.  The green one is for cousin Liam and the white one is Marcus's.  Overall I am very happy with this project.

Not My Proudest Mommy Day

 

My little boy does not always behave the best.  One of the problems we have is that sometimes he says the meanest things---- I don't know where they come from.  We don't say things like that in our house, and we don't let him watch a lot of TV so it is not coming from there.

 

Anyway, this problem has been going on for a while and we have talked to him about it and even done a few time outs.  The good news has been that he has only done this at home, well and once with Grandma Cheryl.  Well that all changed earlier this week.  Yesterday when I walked into daycare I was greeted with this note.....

 

 His mean talk made it to daycare.  I was pretty horrified.  We talked about it on the way home.  How we don't say mean things and that if it happened again he would start losing privileges if he continued to act like this.  I have a really hard time discussing things like privileges and consequences with a 3 year old but I know that is the only way he will learn.  He promised me he will be good tomorrow and only say good things to his school friends!

 

After dealing with that next on our agenda was going to swimming lessons.  Marcus was excited (he missed last week because he was sick) but when we got there he didn't really want to play along with the teach.  Eck.... what a day.  We ended up leaving the class a few minutes early and going home.  Normally if he does good we will stay and play as a reward for being good during swimming lessons- No such luck this week.

 Yikes-  this was a long day.  We my little guy wasn't so sweet.  I know that I have harder parenting challenges coming but this is so frustrating.  I want him to grow up to be a good person.  I know he is never going to be perfect but I want him to be empathic and say nice and good things.  These are things I really value and it makes me sad when he does the opposite.  I think this is just a phase, part of being a threenager, pushing boundaries to see what sticks, as least I hope it is.

 

When we got home Marcus was my sweet and cuddly little boy again.  He told me he will be good again tomorrow and the good news is that he was.  I picked him up from daycare today and he was a good kid all day!

 

Here are some pics of my sweet boy dreaming last night!

I wasn't going to share this story today but Luke said I should.  This blog is about the adventures we have, and not just the fun ones! I love Marcus to pieces and I wouldn't want to change him but sometimes I wish he would take it a bit easier on Mommy and Daddy!