Homemade ice cream at EarlyON Creative Chefs

Week 155 motherhood of 2 year 11.5 months and 8.5 month old: 

• August 31, 2023:  My mind was running all night about yesterday’s EarlyON incident and how I was going to approach the phone call about it.  I was re-playing the incident in my head and talking to DH about it, trying to decompress and figure out what happened.  DH even stayed home to work from home today in order to be there with me for moral support for the phone call.  He also wanted to hear what they had to say about the incidents.  I also learned that the EarlyON programs in Markham don’t have a dedicated space for complaints; the EarlyONs in Toronto do — this is actually not a bad thing because I assume it means that incidents rarely happen in the Markham/York Region EarlyON centres.
• I picked up the courage and called the centre.  Thankfully, it didn’t lead me to an automated voicemail system and someone actually picked up.  I asked if I could speak to the supervisor and the female on the other line said she was the supervisor.  I then told her my name and that I was going to share about a concerning incident that happened yesterday and if I could talk to her about it.  She answered affirmatively.  I told her what happened.
• I first told her about the staff member who incorrectly labelled my child as “having anxiety towards adults” and the situation where my child simply wasn’t comfortable with an adult next to her and there was no need for that verbiage to be used.  The female supervisor apologized and agreed that that word was incorrectly used.  She explained that in their trainings, they often do use the word “anxiety” when faced with children who might not be ready to interact (something like that), but that the word itself shouldn’t have been used.
• Secondly, I told her about the incident where the facilitator tickled my child without consent, caused her to fall off the chair, mocked her laughter, and continued to try to interact with us despite seeing the visibly upset child.
  • During the phone call, I could recognize from her voice that she was actually present during the incident (during the incident while this happened, I noticed a senior staff member watching the entire incident unfold behind us — I’m glad that there was a witness and this happened to be the same female supervisor I was speaking to).  So without telling her the minute details, she was there and had seen what happened.
  • She told me that the facilitator in question actually talked to her immediately afterwards and said that she “felt bad” about what had happened.  However (and this is a key point), the supervisor told me that the facilitator actually saw the toddler SMILE at her and that’s why she went in for the tickles.  Um, okay…   It didn’t occur to me on the spot but after the phone call when I was talking to DH and grandma about it, they both said that’s a highly unlikely occurrence.  The toddler never smiles at strangers!  Lol…  so that is a “he said, she said” thing that can’t actually be proved because I had my back turned when this happened and it was only the facilitator who claimed that the toddler smiled.  She could be covering herself to protect herself.
  • Despite this, the female supervisor did say that the agency frequently reminds their staff to take a step back and to allow the child to come to them first.  She told me that she would talk to the facilitator in question again and remind her of boundaries.
  • She did say it was a good thing that the toddler has boundaries and that I “know my child very well”.  Lol… of course, I do.  I’m her mom!
  • DH was listening to the conversation next to me and thought that I could have been more stern in my phone call.  However, I knew that the EarlyON centres in York Region are limited and we will visit this one in the future again eventually.  I didn’t want to make a huge deal out of it.  We still have to interact with these people in the future.  But I definitely needed to make the phone call so that they were aware of what’s happening and to have the staff make adjustments and improvements to the way they interact with vulnerable children (who don’t yet know how to express themselves).
• Sigh.  It was such an unfortunate and uncomfortable experience.  I can’t believe that I only turned my back for ONE second to retrieve shoes from a shoe rack that my child was basically attacked out of nowhere.  Why didn’t the facilitator read the child’s cues?  Why couldn’t she see and notice that this child in particular is more timid and reserved than the others (especially when she had already interacted with us during the pizza making process).  She wasn’t a child who was running around or making lots of visual cues that she was open for chatter.  I personally believe that the facilitator was overzealous and going above her head and trying to make the environment an engaging one without considering the child at all.  They need to bring their vibe down a notch.
• Back to regular blogging:  We were lucky enough to attend yet another Creative Chefs class the next day!  This time, it was also in Markham but at the Markham Main site.  I was lucky enough to check the calendar and noticed 3 spots had opened up (just the day before the class).  I pre-registered right away.
• This Creative Chefs class was also 1.5 hours in length.  We were about 4 minutes late and when we arrived, I saw a group of kids and parents lining up at the washroom to wash their hands already.  The space at this centre is small, so the class was maxed out at capacity.  Grandma and the baby weren’t welcome to stay with us in the classroom; they had to go to the Family Stay and Play class upstairs (which they were the last ones to max out as well).  After I checked us in and washed the child’s hands, we entered the classroom where all the kids and parents were already seated at various tables.
• The toddler wasn’t comfortable sitting by herself in a chair with the other kids at the table.  She sat in my lap.  The facilitator explained to us that we were going to make fruit yogurt parfait and ice cream!  Wow, ice cream!  That’s a new one!! ^_^
• The facilitator passed out a plate of fruit and let a parent at each table cut and distribute the fruits.  I would have preferred if they did the cutting for us beforehand.  I volunteered to cut and distribute the fruits at my table (I didn’t trust the other parents’ hygiene).  There were blueberries, strawberries, one banana, and one mango.  I tried my best to distribute the berries and banana evenly.  I didn’t want to cut the mango (too sticky and messy for me lol), and the other facilitator was able to do it, so that’s what we did.  The kids then sliced the bananas, strawberries, and mango up on their own plate.  I liked how the toddler immediately knew what to do with the plastic knife and fruits.  She’s been to so many of these Creative Chef classes that she knows the fruit needs to be cut up.  (Or maybe she saw the other kids doing it already and knew she was supposed to cut the fruits too.)  Either way, she did it perfectly.
  • The kids were also given a long graham cracker which was put into a ziplock bag for them to crush.
  • We were then given a tub of yogurt.  The kids were to scoop the yogurt into their own plastic cup.  I took the tub of yogurt right away for the toddler to scoop.  I wanted to be the first because I didn’t want the others to contaminate the yogurt.  I was glad to be the first because I noticed the other parents let their kids place their own spoon into the main yogurt cup…  That’s not hygienic for the others… 🤢
• After placing the fruits into the cup with the yogurt, the kids were able to enjoy their yogurt fruit parfait.  The toddler didn’t want to place the crushed graham cracker into hers (she crushed it more in the car — had so much fun doing it — and ate it later at home).  Such a great, healthy, delicious snack for the kids!
• Next, we cleared the tables and got ready to make ice cream!  I had never made ice cream before but had heard about the process.  The steps:  place a cup of half and half cream into a small ziplock bag, add 2 teaspoons of sugar, a few drops of vanilla extract.  Then mix it all together.  Then in a larger ziplock bag, add ice and salt (they used kosher salt).  Put the sealed first ziplock bag into the larger ziplock bag and then shake the bag for 7 to 10 minutes.  The bag of mixed cream will eventually harden and become ice cream!
• The kids had fun shaking the bag.  It got messy too.  One of the parents at my table started smashing the bag on the table and small holes in the bag eventually formed and made the table all wet.  She didn’t realize that by continuing to smash the bag, the water started splashing towards our direction.  I told her to stop because the water was splashing us but her native language was Mandarin and she didn’t understand what I was saying to her.  She just looked at me with a blank face and continued smashing the bag. 🤦‍♀️ So frustrating.
  • It wasn’t until she accidentally poured out some water and it made a huge splash on the other parent at the table that she realized and stopped and apologized.  She apologized to the other parent and didn’t apologize to me, ugh.  (And this is why I always have long detailed stories to tell DH when I come home from these EarlyON classes; there’s always drama with other kids or parents….)
• Anyway, eventually, the ice cream did start to harden up and we were able to scoop it out into a cup to eat!  So neat!  The toddler was pretty fascinated too that she made her own ice cream.  I tasted it and it was really good vanilla ice cream!  Very creamy and not too sweet.  We can make it at home now!! ^_^
• September 1:  During the mornings now when DH is at work and the toddler wakes up calling for her dad, grandma tells her that DH is at work and the toddler will wave and say “bye bye, ba ba”.  So good because she used to sometimes cry and want to “wait” for him.  Now she understands that when he’s at work, then it means he will come home later and there’s no use throwing a tantrum.  She’s also been used to DH being away from the house because he was working three days a week at the office (not anymore though — yay!!).
  • She still likes to crawl under grandma’s legs in the morning too.  Like today once she heard that DH was at work, she said the “bye bye” and then asked to crawl under grandma’s legs lol.
• Ever since hearing the “I’m a knife, fork, spoon, spatula” song from EarlyON for the second time last week, the toddler has asked me to sing it numerous times.  I even caught her humming it to herself a little bit.  It’s such a catchy tune.  Even for me, it’s stuck in my head too haha.  After singing it with the hand motions like the facilitators at EarlyON did, I then brought out the actual utensils for her to see what each item what.  The spatula was a new item for her.  She was asking me what the first three items were in English.  As I sang the song, I held up each item so she could understand what the song was referring to.  At first, she referred it to the “scissors” song, but there’s no scissors involved here.
• The baby continues to clap her hands and enjoys it.  She does it sporadically and it’s so cute, haha.  When DH asked her to clap and started doing it, she began doing it too!  She understands!
• The toddler frequently asks the same question over and over again, even if you have already answered her.  Grandma had her bank card get swallowed up by the ATM the other day.  When we went to retrieve it, the toddler kept asking why grandma’s card had to be retrieved from the bank.  She kept asking and asking all night long lol.
• Sept. 6:  The baby has been difficult to put to sleep lately, whether it’s for a midday nap or for sleep at night.  She is capable of turning over and flipping around on the bed, so after she latches for a while, sometimes she’ll turn over and move around on the bed and lie on her belly on all fours which she definitely can’t fall asleep by then anymore.
  • She’s started to do “gymnurstics”.  She started to nurse while laying on top of me.  It gets annoying when she’s moving around and yet tired because she needs to sleep but can’t.  Because she moves around all over the place, her legs and feet often end up near my body and her kicks are so hard and painful.
• She’s also been waking up so much more often than before.  She was able to do 4 to 5 -hour stretches of sleep, but lately she’s regressed to waking up every 2 hours.  She also doesn’t sleep for long in her crib, which means that DH is relegated to the sofa often.
• The baby has also discovered my hair when trying to nurse to sleep and has been pulling on it, which is so painful.  I have to keep telling her my hair is not a toy. 😫
• I felt quite touched out this week and irritated because of it… we had been go, go, go all week last week with four EarlyON classes and lots of weekend activities.  The baby was so hard to put asleep and I’m the only one who can do it because she only passes out when boobed (or else we put her in the car seat and rock her, but I don’t want to make that a habit).  I just need some time to myself with no one touching or talking to me.
• When we were at a family lunch this weekend, the toddler observed her older cousin using his hands to eat vermicelli out of his bowl.  And then the next thing I know, a few minutes later, even though the toddler had been using her spoon so nicely to eat her cut-up pho noodles, she started digging her hands into the bowl too.  I immediately told her that we eat with utensils and not with our hands!
  • Same thing the other week when she observed the cousin pointing at food instead of using his mouth to describe what he wanted to eat, I noticed that the toddler pointed at a few items on the table later that evening too instead of voicing herself.  She is so impressionable.  It reminds me we have to be careful who she is around because she can get influenced (negatively).
• Another EarlyON class this week was Creative Chefs at the Richmond Hill location where the kiddos made banana boat s’mores!  How fun!  The kids were divided into three small groups (ordered by who arrived the earliest) so that there weren’t too many kids “cooking” at one time.
  • The kids were given a paper plate, some tin foil (which the parents molded into a container for the banana to sit in), a full banana, and lots of toppings (mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, sprinkles, and chocolate syrup).  The kids were asked to peel the banana and then place the toppings on it.  Then the kids could choose whether they wanted to eat the banana boat as is or toasted in the oven.  Everybody opted for the warm banana boat.
  • The toddler enjoyed this treat so much!  She finished her banana boat.  The EarlyON staff were so impressed that she finished her entire treat that they asked to take a photo of her with her empty plate.  I reluctantly let the facilitator take a photo of her (she was so happy and enthusiastic that it was hard to say no, but I usually don’t let my kids be photographed by others — especially because I don’t even know them).  Oh, well.
• The toddler is still gradually coming out of her shell.  She found a rolling toy that she was fascinated with.  When we were playing with it, she screeched and laughed so loudly.  She definitely wasn’t like this a few months ago.
• The baby loves toys that make sound and music.  She can often be seen playing with the rattles, shakers, xylophones, and drums at EarlyONs.
• At yet another EarlyON today (“Move and Groove” for the first time), the toddler was comfortable to walk on the beams, crawl through the tunnels (a long and short one), and sit and ride on the small cars.  It was good that there weren’t a lot of kids there initially so the toddler felt comfortable in her own skin to move around and play.  Once more kids arrived, she was more reserved but still found her voice when she was riding on the small cars with grandma.
• The toddler continues to enjoy reading and being read to.  After a while of playing at EarlyONs, she will usually resort to getting a book to read.  The baby continues not being interested in books…  It’s hard to hold her attention with a book.
• I was really proud of the toddler for participating more in the songs these days.  I can see her gradually and slowly make the motions for the songs like “Wheel on the bus” as well as copy the facilitator when she is comfortable and familiar with the song.
• Whenever the facilitators ask the kids what their favourite song to sing is, the toddler usually answers that it’s “wheels on the bus”.  We’re one of the first to answer, so we usually get to sing it.
• The toddler had her first taste of a macaron today when I picked up a TGTG surprise bag that had some in it.  She enjoyed the flaky sweet treat.
• It was so hot this week that we turned on the AC for only the third time this summer.
• Watching the kids return back to school this week, it reminds me that we only have one more year with our oldest daughter at home until she’s officially in junior kindergarten next year.  I can’t believe she’ll be off to school full-time next year…  One last year for her to be at home with us all the time.
• We frequently tell her that she’ll be going to school/kindergarten next year and she always comments that she doesn’t want to go to school.  I say it’ll be fun for her, she can make friends, learn things, and it’ll just be like EarlyON.  She always says she wants to be “solo” and doesn’t like playing with others or sharing…