Thoughtful Parenting

The Snowy Day

2012-01-28T17:17:00.000-08:00

We love this book! Its so wonderful, although I'm never sure if my Florida kids really get it. Anyways, there is a story on NPR about Ezra Jack Keats that I wanted to share HERE. The book turns 50 this year, Happy Birthday Snowy Day! This is a great story about an author who wrote a good book, in which the child just happened to be African-American. There was no agenda, just a little boys adventure on a snowy day.

I love this portion of the story:
"Keats received thousands of fan letters from children, featuring their own versions of his deceptively simple collage illustrations. Even children in places like decidedly un-snowy Florida could relate to Peter's adventures. But one of the most touching reports came from a teacher whose students had read The Snowy Day.

"There was a teacher [who] wrote in to Ezra, saying, 'The kids in my class, for the first time, are using brown crayons to draw themselves.' " Pope says. "These are African-American children. Before this, they drew themselves with pink crayons. But now, they can see themselves.""

Happy Birthday to a much celebrated book that did indeed allow every child's imagination to flourish! So head on over and listen or read the story and meet a wonderful author.

As a side note before we settled on Owen's name, I was really trying to name him after Ezra Jack Keats. Ezra Jack, its a name just waiting to turn into a rock star or wonderful children's author.

A Working Mom

2012-01-18T16:38:00.001-08:00

Aside from my birth work (mainly teaching classes these days) I also work part time for our church Children's Ministry. This week here is my office...

If you are a work-from-home-mom you might have these moments too. The dashboard desk...

The "lap-top" work space...

And the reason for the odd work location... the sleeping toddler.

This is normal for me on Monday mornings. I take our eldest to school and sometimes on our way to my office Owen will fall asleep in his car seat. Needing to get a lot of work done but not wanting to wake the baby, I will often sit in my car outside of the office working, printing things, making calls, having appointments by the front door (and not in the office), and even cutting out crafts. This particular day I got about 2 hours of uninterrupted work done, ahhhhh, such a luxury.

Cheers to all of you trying to get some work done with children along for the ride!

Weekend Phone Collage

2012-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

Left to right top: hatching butterfly's, panda tea party with friends, first dance class with girlfriends, snacks on the patio, Rosie goes everywhere with us!
Left to right bottom: Owen decides that sleeping with us on the couch is better than his bed, eating at the Bunnery in St. Augustine, what I wish my front gate looked like, Marin poses while looking at antiques, Owen wears boots and a hat out to dinner.

Alive Enough?

2012-01-14T09:23:00.000-08:00

Krista Tippett and Sherry Turkle discuss the topic of why we should protect sacred spaces for our families at On Being by American Public Radio.

Its okay to take your kids to the park and leave your phone in the car, its okay to take your spouse out to breakfast and leave your phone at home! After interviewing many many children, Sherry discovered that it wasn't parents who were wanting their kids to put their tablets, phones and laptops away but kids asking for eye to eye contact. Teens and children who are asking their parents to pay attention and listen.

I found this encouraging, helpful and a eye opener. Listen here

Little People

2012-01-12T13:48:00.000-08:00

Kids are weird, they do weird things... they do things that don't make sense, like washing soap, dumping out a basket of toys but never playing with them, and getting the best sleep of their lives laying across your legs. Kids also do things that make your heart melt and make you wish they would just stay little forever.

Like taking time to stop and watch butterfly's on bushes for a long time. And then ask lots of questions about how butterfly's live in the bushes, and what do they eat, and why do they like the red flowers the most....

They wear jackets with bear ears on top!

Being totally in love with a dirty smelly blankie...

Sleeping...

Drawing her family...

This week I found a collection of tiny acorns hidden in a little bird house outside, Owen started shouting "What!" and its unrelated to a question, Marin still says "Les-ah-lee" for our friend Leslie and calls vitamins "biteamens", Owen is obsessed with his cowboy boots and gardening gloves and kitchen mitts, Marin loves umbrellas and tiny toy people, and they both still want us to lay with them until they fall all the way asleep.

Just Stay Little!

Round Two, Add More Sugar or Did Someone Lick the Spoon?

2011-12-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

We pulled it off again! This has become one of my favorite days of the whole year. The day started with two little boys who were in trouble from the moment they saw each other, the dog's water bowl, and a step stool leading up to a sugared counter!

Three little girls making cookies together. This year they are old enough to hand the recipe and make cookies! What at sweet gaggle of girls, I hope they join us every year and never get too old to cook with their mamas.

M & M baking together!

I never could figure out why the kids didn't eat lunch all day...

You can imagine angels singing here... we made 21 trays of these! Last year we doubled the batch, this year we tripled it. They make great gifts to your neighbors!

**We used this recipe, I mixed it up with whole wheat and used brown sugar instead of the white. But its so easy to follow PW's directions and have 5 kids, and three women chatting at the same time. And when you gather a group like that you need to follow easy directions.

And they are now delivered!

On Being Grownup: A guest post

2011-12-26T08:53:00.000-08:00

Marin loves my friend Sarah. I love my friend Sarah too, but Marin thinks the whole reason we go visit her, or she comes to visit is because Sarah must want to hang out with Marin. Sarah makes kids feel this way. They feel really special and important when Sarah hangs out with them. Their ideas, and thoughts matter, and kids know it. Marin is also obsessed with vanilla beans due to this relationship.

I snapped this picture of Marin and Sarah looking for small treasures in the sand on a trip to the beach.

Anyways, I asked Sarah to write something about her thoughts on parenting. So without me chattering on anymore, below are her thoughts on parenting. Thanks friend!

When do you become a grownup? There are times when we all feel helpless, childlike, and wish for the calm surety apparently possessed by our parents or grandparents, but do these instances ever diminish in frequency? Theoretically I know that no one is ever as “grown up” as we perceive them to be as children. So when do you stop feeling like they are?

I live in a university town, where childhood (or at least irresponsible adolescence) blooms perpetually, refreshed every four years by a new onslaught of freshman. Having graduated from said university and worked in myriad local coffee shops over the last six years, I have a lot of connections in Neverland. I also have recently acquired a husband, a child, a house, and a small entrepreneurial venture of my own. More importantly, I have a delightful, 50’s-cheap-but-still-very-cool china cabinet that belonged to my great-grandmother. These things are traditionally harbingers of adulthood; some might argue they even cement one’s status as grownup. My family is still (endearingly?) eccentric enough to blend in with the resident kids, but this tenuous relationship is becoming increasingly uneasy.

I suppose the ways in which we approach adulthood are just unusual enough to disguise them a little - I cloth diaper, my darling sister is our roommate, we built our own clay pizza oven in our back yard, my business is making French macarons in our home kitchen with our 11-month old on my back, my husband rides his fixed-gear road bike to work – but truthfully, I suspect we are grownups in disguise. Recently a friend of mine with a little daughter suggested we go on a picnic, so we got out our strollers and walked to the park. I never could shake the feeling that we were pretending. After snorting with laughter at the idea of two mid-twenties ladies gleefully pushing around pretend babies, I started to get a little disturbed by my own attitude. A while ago my husband and I were renting a movie at the local independent movie store, and we overheard this conversation spoken from a girl to her boyfriend: “…no, just because the movie is about babies doesn’t mean it’s anti-abortion! Some people actually WANT to have babies.” 8 moths pregnant at the time, I was extra sensitive to the tenor of the comment. It was genuine wonder that anyone would choose to have a baby. I’m raising my child in a town peppered with people who think this way, and I think it’s time that I embrace my adulthood so I can effectively raise him to embrace his own one day.

When my sister and I set up our china cabinet in our little house, we joked that now we were REALLY adults. Neither a college degree nor anything else could so firmly ensconce us in the category as the setting up of our very own china cabinet. Perhaps it was true.

-Sarah is a mother of a beautiful almost one-year old boy, wife, friend, and an amazing baker. You can check out her Macarons at her Cottage Industry, Lark.

Repost on Santa

2011-12-24T08:14:00.000-08:00

Dealing with Santa from 2009

My little thinker...twisted, but still thinking...

Monday was the Feast of St. Nicolas, according to the church calendar. Every year we read an Advent book and the readings coordinate with the different feasts and celebrations on the historical church calendar. So Monday evening at dinner my husband read to us about St. Nicolas.

It really is a beautiful story. According to our book (there are many different versions, where I find they differ is in the details) this saint lost his parents at some point and inherited their money. With the money he did many good things for people who were poor. One famous story says there was a family with three daughters and they were very poor. So poor that the daughters might have be sold as prostitutes, and one night St. Nicolas came by their house and threw three bags of silver in the home. Maybe down the chimney... and maybe that's how the tradition of Santa coming down the chimney was born? Either way he did enough great things for people in need that the church now recognizes him as a saint.

Today is Friday, five days have passed since we read that story, and to be honest I was unsure how much Marin really listens to our evening Advent readings. There are beautiful pictures of historical art in the book and she likes to look at those and ask questions about what is going on in the picture. But today we discovered how much she is listening. The following conversation took place this morning in the car after we took Daddy to work.

* Part of our Advent reading gave the estimated birth and death dates of St. Nicolas (I feel this is important to note for the following conversation)

M: Mommy my friends last night..
me: Oh yeah A and W?
M: yeah they don't know that Santa Claus is dead.

Halt conversation as I pee my pants, swallow down my heart and carry on...

me:... what did you say?
M: they don't know he died a long time ago
me:...ummmm you didn't tell them he died did you?
M: no I just know they don't know
me: OK no matter what any one says about Santa we never say he is dead OK
M: OK, but what did Daddy say about him?
me: you mean what we read in our book at dinner?
M: yeah
me: (I'm really confused at this point as to how Santa is dead) well are you talking about St. Nicolas?
M:yes
me: Santa Claus is the memory of St. Nicolas. St. Nicolas was a man who lived a long time ago and helped people with the money he inherited from his parents, or so the story goes.
M: but he's died now

me: well he lived a very long time ago. But he is not the same as Santa, so we don't say, Santa is dead. Santa is very alive to many people. So when kids talk about Santa you can pretend with them. Don't ever disagree with them about Santa because lots of families have different traditions, like we make cookies for Santa and know its pretend but mommy loves that tradition because its what she did as a little girl, even as a big teenager my family always had a big family night decorating cookies together and then we would pick our very favorites and put them on a very beautiful plate and set them near the fire place. Some families do other things like put oats and carrots in their yard, and other things to think about Santa, or as a way to celebrate Christmas. Santa is a tradition, and he is part of the holiday for people who believe he is alive and pretend, and for our family Santa is a reminder of how we, like St. Nicolas need to help care for people who do not have what they need. Santa is always there to remind us that God takes care of us, and gives us everything we need and even enough to help other people, the way St. Nicholas helped people.

M:can I write a letter to Santa
me: sure, there is actually a box at the Post Office for you to put it in
M: OK
me:OK

M: can I stay home today?
me: no you need to be at school today, but don't say anything about Santa. OK

We want to celebrate Christmas, we don't want to lavish our children with gifts, we don't want them to think its about getting, even though there will be things they get. Christmas is about a baby being born, a baby who changed the world. We don't want our focus to be Santa Claus, but he is a part of Christmas, even if you don't "believe" in Santa, he is part of Christmas. For us we want Santa to remind us of St. Nicolas and how he was deeply convicted to be concerned about poverty, especially children. Maybe he was the beginning of social justice? Or maybe he is simply there to remind us that Christmas is not about us, or our children, or Christmas Eve dinner. But St. Nicolas and Santa are there to remind us of that little baby who was born into poverty, in a barn, to a teen mom, came to change the world, and make things right. Maybe we need Santa Claus to be our reminder to take care of the people who need more than we do. This does not mean we don't also enjoy and take part in our own family traditions, in fact they should become more meaningful to us each year. The more I understand about Christmas the more grateful I become that we celebrate this holiday. That we have a time where we are supposed to have a family night decorating cookies, going to church rehearsals, planning a feast with friends. These are the things that should remind us how much our family and friends matter, and that we should take the time to slow down and do something for the people who need a little help.

The Nativity Idea

2011-12-15T15:31:00.001-08:00

Each year Todd and I read God With Us, an Advent book. One of the things we love about this book is that along with readings, and art, and poetry, and scripture meditations, each feast date also shares Advent traditions from around the world. One of these is a French tradition that I fell in love with.

Each day of Advent children get to add pieces of straw to the manger, they prepare the manger for the arrival of Jesus. Its a picture of how we should be preparing our hearts for his arrival. So when the kids do kind deeds or their prayers during Advent they get to add straw to the manger.

I worked with a woman from Urban Homesteaders on Etsy who also makes the rings I buy for my little Teething Gnomes.

Anyways the kids have enjoyed adding the straw each day. And they have added a few of their own ideas to the nativity...

Owen dumped out the straw and poured water into the manger...

And he added a leopard to the group awaiting the birth of Christ...

And then a few others joined, I took them outside for a picture :)

Is Shopping Local a Joke?

2011-12-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

Okay so what's the deal with shopping local and it never working out for me? I try and I try, I want to support the local shop trying to make it work. Trying to offer something to my community that is unique and fresh. But here is what usually happens.

1. Lets visit Halloween:
I found out our local food coop was having a Halloween celebration. Being the crunchy-support your community-buy local gal that I am I wanted to go and support their efforts. Well let me just say, efforts is a stretch. I got there towards the beginning of the event but not right away, with two kids dressed up, with treat baggies, and ready for some fun. I was also thinking that this place would offer something different than the normal pass out a gob of candy events offered for small children. After arriving and milling about for about 15 minutes and wondering if I was at the wrong place I took my oldest to the potty and then milled about for a little longer wondering what the heck was going on. Let me also say that during this time not a single person working in the store came up to me and said anything, like, "Hey are you here for the party? Its over there... or we canceled it last minute... or we were just joking there really isn't anything going on." In fact everyone seemed to ignore me. Finally I bought us a little snack and asked the cashier, "Did I misunderstand the poster on the door? Are you all not having a Halloween event?" and the reply went something like this, "The person who is running it has not shown up yet and we don't have the stuff..." Oh awesome so were you going to just let me wander around the store for hours or tell me that this was happening? (is what I was thinking). Finally the "person" arrived, unorganized and she had not set up for the event ahead of time so guess who helped her set up the event so that all the kids waiting around could get their face painted? ME that's who! I set up for the stupid event. Because I'm nice and I told my child there was face painting. We left as soon as we got our faces painted and went on the the local grocery story where there was music, people dressed up, people greeting us and acting happy to see us, and excited that we were dressed up, and talking to my kids. "Hey! Happy Halloween! Oh are you Pippi Longstockings? You look awesome! Guess what I am?"

I came home and felt horrible. Here I am trying and trying to teach my kids about supporting our local businesses, about supporting our neighbors, about buying things that come from places as close to home as we can get and all my kids got out of it was that the little food coop was boring. I mean this was their chance to really do something fun in the community, to bring in some business. But in the time that I stood there waiting for the show to start (an hour and a half late) four other moms walked in and walked out.

2. Lets visit today:
So its raining and I wanted to be home so I'll admit I was already a little crabby. But I wanted to start the search for Todd's gift from the kids. We have been thinking about it for a while, and so we decided after school today that we would try to locate it. So on the way home we ran into a little store up the road from our house. I get both kids in, wet, cold, and needing a snack. There is only one other customer in the store, but somehow it took the two guys working 15 minutes to notice that a mom and her two kids were in the store, even after we knocked down a display and threw an item in the fountain. **Side note, if I owned a store I would quickly help out any mother with children as fast a possible, so they could also get out as quick as possible.

Anyways, finally I just shouted, "Do you all have blah blah blah?" And the guy at the counter said, "Oh no we don't carry those in the store, we can order them though, but it might take a while with the Christmas season." Grrrrr! Are you kidding I can order it on Amazon and have it shipped to my house for free in two days! But I wanted to support you. But if you are going to order it I would have to come in here again and deal with all the breakable stuff you put on the floor and the fountain (with two children).

Here's the deal, I really want to support local businesses, I want to buy from my neighbor, but they sure are making it difficult. So what is a mom supposed to do? I would love to hear ways you support local without getting frustrated and going home and just ordering on line. Or is that the phase I am in? Sure I could get a sitter, but then my kids aren't going with me to get their dad's gift, from them!

So there ya have it, real parenting, real shopping with kids, the real tension of trying to teach your kids about how valuable your local shops are. Okay I gotta go pick up my veggies from my local farmer, who might I say makes picking up my veggies very kid friendly. Thanks Kathy and Marvin for making it kid friendly and easy to buy from your beautiful farm. And we now know what a Dikon or Japanese Radish is too.

You Will NEVER

2011-12-08T06:31:00.001-08:00

feel like this when pumping!

I found this image on the site of a breast pump company and while their products are as earth friendly as they can get, there is nothing earth or should I say Mama-friendly about pumping. You might get used to it, but it never makes you want to do meditative yoga at the same time, NEVER!

The Pooh Get-Well Book

2011-11-29T06:21:00.001-08:00

Have your kiddies been getting the sneezles and wheezles these days? I came across this little treasure at our library book sale. It was written my A.A. Milne himself.

Milne decided to write a book for kids stuck in bed. He wrote it back when kids used to get measles and other such illnesses that left them in bed for days and days on end.

The first part of the book has poems and riddles. The middle portion has "healing" recipes, such as Honey and Lemon Juice for a Squeaky Voice, Issue-A-Reward Lemon-Honey Jellies, and Honeycomb Chewing Gum. The third section of the book includes games and other fun things you can do looking out the window. This includes how to spot insect eating birds and seed eating birds. The final section of the book has enlarged pictures of all the different Hundred-Acre characters for tracing.

I love this book. Its just about the sweetest little thing I have ever come across for those days when your five year old has a "squeaky" voice, or the wheezles and phtheezels. I can't even imagine why the library would stamp "discarded" on the front page, but I'm glad they did, because now our library has a lovely little addition for those yucky days. Thanks A.A. Milne for taking the time to understand what its like to be sick kid and write a book for just such an occasion.

Introducing... language

2011-11-28T13:09:00.000-08:00

I love the American Public Media show Krista Tippett on Being.

A few weeks ago she recorded a show with Jean Berko Gleason who specializes in language development. So of course it's about a child's development of language. I loved it and if you get a few minutes to fold the laundry, cook dinner or whatever and listen to it you might enjoy it too.

Linguistics pioneer Jean Berko Gleason says language reveals unexpected truths not only about our human relationships with our world, but also our consciousness of ourselves. You can find the pod cast here

You can also watch Deb Roy's lecture on language development here. At least listen long enough to hear the time-lapse segment on his son's development of the word "water" its really cool.

Fun Things

2011-11-26T17:14:00.000-08:00

I got a little sewing done over the past few days. I know I said this would not be a sewing blog, but I'm not doing tutorials or anything.

M got a rainbow and O got a penguin...

with a Christmas hat

Another t-shirt and some flower corduroy pants

If the shirt fits... our little monster. I loved this little monster because that's how O would walk when he first started. Arms in the air and mouth open yelling for joy.

I know I said this would not be a sewing blog, not that there is anything wrong with sewing blogs, there are lots of good ones out there. But I know that's not the purpose of this blog. But I sew sometimes because its something that I like to do and its soothing, except when I have to use the seam ripper. Either way, when I was not even a mom, on of my friends once told me a story about how one evening when her husband got home she loaded up all the laundry and took it to the laundromat. This is a mother of four young (at the time) children who had been trying to get the laundry done all day, along with a million other things. When her husband got home she had reached the point of needing to accomplish something from start to finish. So she loaded up the laundry and did every ounce of it, washed, dried and folded.

Sometimes it takes me days to get the laundry put away, so long M and I start dressing in which ever room the basket of clean laundry is waiting. "Mom I need some socks!" "Go check the clean basket in the living room." "Mom do you know where that one pink shirt is?" (This is always a hard question when you have a five year old girl because most shirts are pink) "Check the clean laundry dumped on my bed, or the pile on the couch."

I didn't understand my friends need to pack up her laundry and get it done somewhere away from the house, when her washer and dryer were working fine. But now I do understand the need to get something done from start to finish. When I sew I get a lot of interruptions and that means I make a lot of mistakes. Sometimes I stay up really really late, even through I know I'm going to regret it later (like around 3pm the next afternoon when I hit the wall and go comatose and only dark chocolate will bring me back) just to be able to sit and concentrate on a project and get it finished.

Distraction is a part of being a mom, sometimes its frustrating. Sometimes it will drive you mad. Sometimes you might yell "I'm loosing my mind!" But here is what I am learning about the distraction of a child, a child does not set out to frustrate you. They might want or need attention, but their thought is not, "hmmmm how can I frustrate my mommy today?" Their thought is more along the lines of "I just really need some juice right now." or "I'm going to dump all the blocks on the floor because I love the sound of them hitting the hard wood." Frustration is my problem, frustration is not with the child, its with me not getting MY things done when I want them done. Everyday I have to remind myself that if I let it something will frustrate me that day. But the frustration is my deal, and its my issue to work through, its not the fault of the child. The child who is interrupting me is not intentionally bringing about the frustration. While the laundry needs to be done, and while the dishes needs to be cleaned, if I get interrupted while dealing with either of them, I can always come back, they are not going anywhere. But the needs of the young child often cannot wait. Or their needs can wait, but more importantly a young child needs to know that you can be trusted to respond and they can trust that when they call, you are listening.

The Most Amazing Moment in Your Life

2011-11-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

This photo is included in the National Geographic 2011 Photo Contest

This is the most amazing moment in a mother's life, meeting her baby for the first time. Dad's too, but I'm a mom and I experienced that moment through the eyes of a mother.

Remember When part 2

2011-11-21T17:58:00.000-08:00

Okay so walking down this sandy path to the beach is just about as wonderful as the boardwalk thing. Look at those sweet little girls...

This didn't take long... get those toes into the sand!

Rembmer When...

2011-11-21T17:37:00.001-08:00

Remember a few posts back when I said I could never take enough pictures of my kids walking down boardwalks to the beach, and sleeping... I just uploaded these and needed to post them. I really can't get enough of these pictures.

Fig. 1--Owen trying to get a head start on Marin...

Every time I watch them run down the boardwalk to the sand and water, my heart just wells up so much it might burst.

Fig. 2--Marin catches up

Sweet babies, walking together, and look now you get a glimpse of the ocean out there. They can see it too, and they are starting to run.

Fig. 3--she waits for him (because his legs are still so short he just can't keep up)

Fig. 4--feet meet sand, all is well on this cold and blustery day on Amelia Island