Remembrance Day

Hi. I'm Charles the Bear Cub. You know me. I live on Sparkle Road with my buddy, Grandpa James. He's really old. He was the second Canadian to get off Noah's Ark, you know.

 Oh. Wait! Chance lives with us, too. He's a newborn cubby someone left in a basket on our doorstep. He's a wee little thing. I look after Chance, too. He's a handful!

Chance and me are wearing our poppies. We get them from the nice people at the Royal Canadian Legion. We wear them on Remembrance Day.

Everybody wears poppies on November 11. We remember soldiers at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Know what? this is 2011. That's a lot of elevens!  Lots of folks go to the Cenotaph to remember. Remembrance Day is on the $10 bill with the poem, too.

 I know the poem for today. It's In Flanders Fields. We learned it at the Scruffy Maple Day Care Centre. It goes like this.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

         In Flanders fields.

We remember our soldiers in the Canadian forces and all the hard work they do to keep Canada safe.
 Some of the soldiers are in the Royal Canadian Navy. Some of the soldiers are in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Some of the soldiers are in the Royal Canadian Army.

Our soldiers have important jobs. Some of the soldiers  are peacekeepers. Peacekeepers go to work when neighbours don't play nice. The peacekeepers call 'Time Out' and separate everybody so no one gets hurt. Some of the peacekeepers went to Cyprus and Rwanda and Bosnia. Some of our soldiers belong to DART. The DART Team helps people when disasters strike, like in the United States after Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti and the cyclone in Mayanmar.

Some of our soldiers fight in wars, like World War One and Two and Korea and Afghanistan. Sometimes soldiers die. That's very sad. I sure hope that there aren't any more wars. Wars are not nice.

Oh. Wait! Did you hear that? Grandpa James is hollering, "Where are my handsome bear cubs? Where are my Sons of Windsor? Where are my Princes of Ontario? That's me! Charles! That's Chance! We're handsome bear cubs. We're Sons of Windsor and Princes of Ontario! We gotta go find Grandpa James so we can get our ears tickled and our noses kissed.

 This is me, Charles the Bear Cub saying, "Be good citizens. Remember our soldiers. Be kind to friends and neighbours. Then you can eat Smarties and drink root beer. Oh! Wait! Come over to our house and play with us! We can remember our soldiers together! Okay! Over and out!"

Happy Hallowe'en!

Hi. I'm Charles the Bear Cub. You know me. I live on Sparkle Road with my buddy, James. He's really old. He was the second Canadian to get off Noah's Ark, you know.

 Oh. Wait! Chance lives with us, too. He's a newborn cubby someone left in a basket on our doorstep. He's a wee little thing. He doesn't have any teeth. He just drinks chocolate owls' milk.  Chance climbs way up high and then he can't get down. I have to say, "Come down from there this instant, my son!" Then I climb up and get him, 'cuz he's afraid.  Chance is a handful!

Know what? We're dressed up. That's 'cuz it's Hallowe'en. We get to go visit our neighbours and friends. We ring their doorbells. When they come to the door we holler, "Trick-or-treat! Smell our feet! Give us something good to eat!" They have to guess who we are. I'm wearing sunglasses 'cuz I'm Ray Charles. Chance has an orange ghost hankie tied around his neck. He's the Littlest Hobo, except he's a Chance the bear cub, not London the dog. Oh. And Chance isn't on TV--yet. When our friends guess who we are, they give us goodies. We got Smarties and gummy worms and gummy bats and pumpkin cookies and Coffee Crisp and Cherry Blossoms and caramel apples and lots and lots of yummy goodies to eat. James will only let us eat a little bit every day. He says he doesn't want us to bounce off the ceiling. I'd like to do that, wouldn't  you?

Hallowe'en is a good holiday. We get to dress up and be very s-c-a-r-y. At the Scruffy Maple Day Care Centre we're very, very scary. We shout "Boo!" and scare each other. That's a fun thing to do. At home, James helped us to carve a pumpkin. We made a very scary jack-o'-lantern. Then we put a candle inside. See?

Oh. Wait! Did you hear that? James is hollering, "Where are my handsome bear cubs? Where are my Sons of Windsor? Where are my Princes of Ontario? That's me! Charles! That's Chance! We're handsome bear cubs. We're Sons of Windsor and Princes of Ontario! We gotta go find James so we can get our ears tickled and our noses kissed.

 This is me, Charles the Bear Cub saying, "Be good citizens. Good citizens get to go trick-or-treating. Then you can get Smarties and gummy bats and chocolate bars. Oh! Wait! Come over to our house and play with us! We can trick-or-treat together! Okay! Over and out!"

Baking Cookies for Hallowe'en

Hi. I'm Charles the Bear Cub. You know me. I live on Sparkle Road with my buddy, James. He's really old. He was the second Canadian to get off Noah's Ark, you know.

 Oh. Wait! Chance lives with us, too. He's a newborn cubby someone left in a basket on our doorstep. He's a wee little thing. He's so little he doesn't even have any teeth. Chance drinks chocolate owls' milk. He makes little squeaky noises when he's happy and little squawky noises when he's afraid or hungry or has poo in his diaper. I look after Chance, too. He's a handful!

Know what we're doing? We're baking cookies. We're baking pumpkin cookies for Hallowe'en. When boys and girls come to our house and shout, "Trick or treat!" Chance and me will guess who they are and give them the cookies we baked. I'm sure they will like them 'cuz they're taste-O-liscious! We know 'cuz we ate them had to  make some more.

This is how you make pumpkin cookies. We measure all the ingredients in a bowl. Here are the ingredients. See?

• 300 ml all-purpose flour
• 5 ml baking powder
• 5 ml baking soda
• 5 ml ground cinnamon
• 2 ml ground nutmeg
• 3 ml salt
• 100 ml melted butter 
• 300 ml  sugar
• 250 ml cooked pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 5 ml vanilla extract
•  
• 
  

 Then we stir them up. James says I'm the Minister of Stirring. I l-o-v-e to stir. Chance is the Deputy Mini-Stir. That's a pun, you know. Then we put the dough on a cookie sheet. Then we put them in the oven.

We are very careful not to get too close 'cuz the oven is very hot. I have to hang on to Chance. He wants to go in the oven with the cookies! He can't do that! He'd get all crispy! Bear cubs shouldn't get burnt. Bear cubs have to be safe. If we got burnt, we'd have to go to Hotel-Dieu and see the doctor.


Now the cookies are in the oven. We set the timer and we watch them bake. The cookies have to bake for 12 minutes. That's a long time.  I only have to sit on the Time Out Chair for five minutes and think about what I did. Five minutes is a long time. Twelve minutes is really long! I wonder what the cookies are thinking about while they bake. I know what they should think. They should think about me. I'm as hungry as a bear and I'm gonna eat those cookies all up! While we wait, we sing The Prune Song and laugh.

Oh. Wait! Did you hear that? The timer is ringing! I know what that means. It means the cookies are done. We have to turn off the oven and the cookies have to come out of the oven. James takes them out but we can't eat them, yet. They're too hot. When they cool off, we get to eat one. Cookies are yummy and yummy is one of the four food groups in Canada's Food Guide. We want to eat more but James says we can have another one after we eat supper. We're gonna have pumpkin soup for supper and pumpkin cookies for dessert!

Oh wait! Did you hear that? James is hollering, "Where are my handsome bear cubs? Where are my Sons of Windsor? Where are my Princes of Ontario? That's me! Charles! That's Chance! We're handsome bear cubs. We're Sons of Windsor and Princes of Ontario! We gotta go find James so we can get our ears tickled and our noses kissed.

 This is me, Charles the Bear Cub saying, "Be good citizens. Good citizens get to help bake pumpkin cookies for Hallowe'en. Oh! Wait! Come over to our house and play with us! We can bake pumpkin cookies together! Okay! Over and out!"