Child of the Nature Isle - Healthy Pregnancy, Natural Birthing, Ecological Parenting in the Caribbean and beyond.

Happy Blogaversary to me – 3 years of Child of the Nature Isle!! Woah! I almost let my 3 year blogaversary pass me by but I just realized that I’ve been posting here since January 2009 and wanted to slow down to celebrate! In the last 3 years I’ve shared my pregnancies, births, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, babywearing, homeschooling and the ongoing commitment to growing our family as naturally as possible. One of the most amazing things I have gained from writing is the community of other natural Mama’s who provide so much guidance and support for this...

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Some of our Favourite Posts

Happy Blogaversary to me ... Woah! I almost let my 3 year blogaversary pass me by but I just realized that I’ve...

Making a Moon Phase Calen... My children always see the moon first. During its waxing phase they spot it on evening...

Birthing the Quiet Revolu... Let’s chill to some poetry today. I wrote this poem way before I even contemplated...

Leave de Boy Penis ALONE!... I find it interesting that for many of us, one of the aspects of life that we know...

Playing with Plants in the Nature Isle – A new n...

In December I heard that a new book was being launched in Dominica with the intriguing title ‘Playing with Plants in the Nature Isle’. I called the forestry department and found out the new publication was documenting the many handmade nature games existing in Dominica. Of course a book on the subjects of nature, children and games was music to the ears of ‘Child of the Nature Isle’. The very next day I packed...

Wordless Wednesday: The impromptu trumpet solo...

Keeyah had her first musical lesson on the keyboard when she was 4 months old! Now here she is at 3 years trying out the trumpet Listen here to her trumpet solo: ;

From Disposable Paper to Reusable Cloth – AGAIN!...

Welcome to the January 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Experiments in Natural Family Living This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have reported on week long trials to make their lives a little greener and gentler. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. *** I feel...

Intactivist for Life!...

Hey there! I know it’s been a bit quiet on Child of the Nature Isle lately. I’ve been working on a number of other projects whilst Organic Dad and I do a temporary role swap: I go out to work while he stays at home. It’s been an interesting reversal that neither of us can embrace completely but it works a few days a week. Last week to make things easier through the transition I stayed home but set up my desk on...

Wordless Wednesday:Happy Birthday Daddy!...

Front of Keeyah's card to her Daddy. She is becoming quite the expert card maker and we no longer have to buy any cards Back of the card. The blue figure is a fireman and his red fire engine is above him! Keeyah's first attempt at writing by herself! I held her hand to write 'Daddy' as we usualy do but then with a little encouragement she managed the rest of the letters all by herself!

A Kwanzaa Memory Game...

Hey we are in the midst of Kwanzaa! We are not totally prepared this year for the full Kwanzaa celebration but I have been sensitizing my children to the concepts by singing a song of the Kwanzaa principles and talking to them about it. Last night my daughter, Keeyah asked me to sing the song about 40 times and tried to join in more each time. (Hearing her get closer to pronouncing Kujichagullia was a joy!) To build on...

Making a Moon Phase Calender...

My children always see the moon first. During its waxing phase they spot it on evening walks and in the waning phase they’ll see it in the morning or afternoon. Their enthusiasm for the sightings of our orbiting celestial body is a joy. A few months ago we kept them up later than usual so we could go on a moonlight walk to enjoy the full moon amidst our natural surroundings – it was beautiful. (We haven’t been...

Wordless Wednesday: Girl meets Giant Veg!...

Girl Meets Giant Edible Calabash Posing with Veg-Style!

Making Super-Simple Felt Boards...

Here are the simple felt boards I made for my 3 year old. Simple felt boards - day and night This is what I did: Start with the base felt…I’ve seen people attach these to actual boards and make them very sturdy…I didn’t. I just cut it out! Cut up different shapes. In the first instance I cut up a variety of shapes…some which have more recognizable shapes of objects while others were more random. I noticed...

A peek into what’s been happening…...

Hey there! You may (or may not) have noticed that Child of the Nature Isle disappeared last week. Technical issues that are thankfully resolved for now. I missed my blog so much, it felt weird. In the meantime life was a little crazy in other ways so I didn’t write a whole stack of posts to efficiently upload when my site went back up. We experienced a death in our family – the loss of my beautiful cousin at just...

Birthing the Quiet Revolution...

Let’s chill to some poetry today. I wrote this poem way before I even contemplated having children but it was filled with conception, pregnancy and birth analogies. I used it as my poetic affirmation for many years and I am wondering why I haven’t shared it here earlier! This is me… Ready for the revolution baby! Birthing a Quiet Revolution By embracing purity, accepting unconditional love and intimately...

Leave de Boy Penis ALONE!!! (Aka: He is Intact, Do...

I find it interesting that for many of us, one of the aspects of life that we know so very little about is the human body. You would think that living in a body, for like our whole life, we should really know tons about how it works and why. But I think it’s true that most of us take it for granted and don’t do too much investigation into it until it goes wrong (and sometimes not even then). In 2005 I read a book...

Wordless Wednesday – Should We Kill the Hung...

Gosh I’m terrible at keeping my Wordless Wednesday posts wordless! Indulge me a little on this one to explain the title… My kids love seeing these caterpillars (Keeyah likes to stroke them, Amarii likes to squeeze them – ah the differences between girls and boys!). This week we spotted them on my Grandmothers plants and she immediately wanted to take them all off and kill them. Whilst I could understand...

The Ocean Sensory Tub...

We started on the beach and ended up in the deep ocean with turtles and sharks. Of course I’m talking sensory tubs here not real life! From our last sensory tub ‘The Cornmeal Beach’ we ventured further out to sea for our ‘Rice Ocean sensory tub’. Ocean Sensory Tub I created this using: Blue dyed rice (representing water) Shells Coral stones that we found washed up on the beach Cut out...

Gratitude List 100 – Thanks, thanks and more...

I’m writing this post as part of the challenge by Amanda at Let’s Take the Metro to list 100 things we are grateful for. I decided to walk through my day giving gratitude from sunrise to sunset and of course for the hours in between…here goes Awakening and giving thanks to the Spirit of Life Planet Earth for hosting me another day My two gorgeous children who are snuggled either side of me (or usually jumping all...

The Blessing of Guest Posts – Thank-you to a...

When I began Child of the Nature Isle I was documenting my practices of natural mothering and eco-parenting. I love to write about things I am passionate about and so what could be a better subject than my children? I now probably read more blog posts in one week than I have ever written on this blog! The category of ‘Mommy Blogger’ is now a well accepted blogging niche but may be too cutesy to really describe the...