The Best "Random Toy Find" of Summer 2011:

Clothes-pin-chip-bag-closure-birds!!! (huh?)

I don't really like to buy many toys... especially flashy, blink-y, noisy, plastic-y, overprice-y toys....
so when my kids get drawn to random, inexpensive things that are toy-ish enough to play safely with.. I like to get them for them!
Like these birds the 2 yr old freaked out about (and the 10 yr old likes them too!)...

They are SUPER cute!

What are they, you ask? I have no idea... I think they may be clothes pins, ones that would no doubt leave deep, awkward shaped dents in your wet clothing (the beaks open!)

Some have guessed chip bag closures (but would 6 really come in a set? Does anyone ever have THAT many open bags of chips around? I should hope not!)

Do YOU know what they are!?

I'm not sure, and I don't particularly care, because they kept the 2 year old happily using her imagination for no less than 4 hours that day and loads of total hours ever since! (These birds have taken baths with her, road tripped with her, swam with her, jumped on the trampoline with her, and have gone for rides in anything in the house that can bring 6 lil random birds for rides! These were totally worth the dollar I spent on them!)

Check out the joy on this kids face, with her clothes-pin-chip-bag-closure-birds: in a cage!

Priceless.

Telling my babies to “heal” the boo-boos.

Today, the 2 year old has bitten her mouth 3 times, in the same place.
There’s a big chunk of skin that is irritating her a lot.
I told her to say, “heal mouth, please” (and she says it in the cutest way!)
I can tell by how she holds her cheek every so sweetly that she understands what I’m telling her, that she already understands the power of communicating with her body.
I tell her: tell your body to heal and go to sleep and sleep all night and when you wake, it will be all better, the pain will be all gone.

She delights in this possibility and runs to her bed and cuddles her blanket to her chin, she reaches out for kisses and hugs, and as I walk away I hear her softly say: “heal mouff, p'ease”.

This makes me smile on every level possible. (And I cant wait to find out what she thinks and feels in the morning!)

She believes.

I’ve learned a lot about the bodies healing ability this past year.
I’ve been going on and on about “healing meditation” and how darn easy it is!
And I would never go on and on about something that I didn’t first test on myself, successfully.

I had back pain for most of my life, as well as knee and hip pain.
But now, since learning the healing meditation technique, I haven’t had many issues with either!
And if I do, I quickly do a meditation on it and it vanishes, either instantly or the next day (some serious pains require a deeper meditation before bed- some may even take a few days.)

I want my children to be aware of this power, harness it as early as possible. I want them to know that the body, as well as its self-regulated functions, also takes instruction from the mind, we can speed up the healing process by believing we can! (You must fully believe!)

I tell my 10 year old about it all the time, she’s does it whenever she’s hurting.
Now that my 2 year old understands, I will remind her during every pain she has as well.

It's empowering to feel your power!

Random Blog Alert (home, life, parenting and personal evolution)

Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by housework I have thoughts of burning the house down and moving into a clay hut in the woods. Well, ok, everything but the “burning the house down” part… I would just give everything away and leave the house for the next poor shmuck who wants to live in such a “modern” house (and I’m not using those quotation marks loosely there! Wtf is modern anyhow? I like huts. There’s nothing wrong with a hut! (ok. Maybe it’s not perfect, but at least I wouldn’t have to do laundry… because well, if I live in a hut I might as well not wear any clothes, right? Sounds good to me. Though, my hut will need internet connection.)

NOTE TO SELF: answer my child right away when she runs to me saying “mommy look, mommy look, mommy look, mommy look” …because, note: responding on the second “mommy look” is the only other acceptable “mommy look” to respond to.

It’s rude to ignore people! -even IF they are disrupting the best sentence the world has ever seen to untangle a peace sign necklace from a piece of fence from the horse play-set. DO NOT CHOOSE TO IGNORE THE CHILD! Because by the time she gets to the 9th or 10th “mommy look” it will be rage-filled screams of urgency.

Ok. So I exaggerate sometimes.

And exaggerating may go against the “yogic” way, but it makes a more entertaining read.

See? Right there! I justified my use of exaggeration! Thereby, justifying a reason I am not fully living up to the yogic lifestyle I have been learning about for the past 9 months. (RANDOM ENLIGHTENMENT STUDIES OBSERVATION!)

At least now I am more awake to moments I do that. (Well, ok, awake to MOST of the moments I do that.)

Anyhow, after that random interruption, back to whatever it was I was saying or something completely different, I'm not entirely sure:

Attempting to work and study at home, during moments of harvesting creativity and independence in a 2 year old through alone playtime, is quite the juggling act, which, from many time to many time, leads to dropping the flaming torches, or balls or scarves, whatever one feels safer juggling. (NOTE: For anyone who isn’t a parent: even though the child is “playing alone” she is in the same room, right next to me, and I am giving her a lot of my attention, hence the reason I can usually only focus on something for a short amount of time, and why I end up writing about her interrupting me in the middle of a blog post.)

The movie “Motherhood” (Uma is AWESOME in it, btw!) totally reminded me of so many times and things in my life (some “times and things” a little more than others!)
Especially, the part about choosing to stay home with baby, while putting other types of dreams on-hold, well not really “on-hold”, so much as decreasing the amount of hours put into those dreams, and not killing myself in the process.

The millions of new tiny little things (and big humongous things!) the mind starts running with after the babies are born, takes up quite a lot of space and energy in the mind and hours in the day.
All minds are different remember, so for some people, the shift is easy, natural, smooth, and they don’t think about much else, they have the benefit of being able to comfortably not do or worry about much else. Which is great for those people!

But I am totally not one of those people.

And I would’ve been more envious of those people years ago, but yogic belief reveals the harm in it- and I can’t afford any more energy leaking!

My mind needs to process, analyze, evolve, try as many new things, and connect with as many new people, as possible! Therefore, my parenting style reflects this: lets do as much as we can together, with other people, and during our alone times. (That is a summed up version of how I’m living right now.)

Which leads me to point out one of those things in life I’m currently dealing with: the undying feeling that I could be doing more! I need to do MORE! WHY AM I NOT DOING MOOORRRREE!? Which can cause impatient feelings during my days (sometimes feeling suffocated, like a pillow firmly placed over my face (oh yes, and I am NOT exaggerating there!)

Also, this “need to do more” curse, can usually lead to a trail of unfinished projects (and dishes) and drop in confidence, but more on those defects later. ;)

Even though I am doing a lot of study and working and exploring new things, while aiming to be the best Mom I can be- I still battle with the need to DO MORE- MAKE MORE MONEY-BE MORE GODDAMIT!

Luckily, a thing about children: with a surprise hug, giggle, moment of trust or a homemade card, they snap that pillow off my face and remind me of the importance and love with which I brought them into the world and all feelings of impatience about certain things are replaced with feelings of importance of other things yet. (Yes, I tend to write very 16th century poetic sometimes. It’s a flaw readers and natural born editors will have accept about me;)

My kids are the reason I am a mother, the reason I have been able to feel love at its highest capacity. They are the reason I dedicate so much energy into evolving my own mind and life and ways of thinking about the world, in order to love them and support them as much as I can, in as many ways as possible.

Though, I still screw up and get stressed out at times. Because, they, my sweet little love forces, are also, at times, my biggest sources of stress. Which just affords more opportunities to learn and evolve! Thank you my stressful little precious children!)

Meh. I’m not perfect----yet ;)

Now, back to that darn pile of laundry.

It’s OK to be GAY.

In order for that belief to be the norm in society, we must start referring to homosexuality as normal and acceptable, early in children’s lives.

When my first child was very young (daycare age!) someone asked her: do you have a boyfriend yet?” To which I quickly added: “or girlfriend” (and gave a supportive smile to the question asker- didn’t want to offend. And she actually said to me later, how great that was to say, that she never thought about it that way before.)

It was the first time (and not the last!) my daughter had been asked that question, so I was very happy I was quick to the draw on it. I wondered, what if she was gay!? What if she wanted a girlfriend? Wouldn’t being asked “do you have a boyfriend” make her feel she couldn’t have a girlfriend, or that there was something wrong with wanting a girlfriend? Or if she wasn’t gay, wouldn’t it make her think that having a boyfriend is more “normal and acceptable”? THAT was not the type of thinking I wanted her to develop. I want my children to be open to any possibility and accept people for their differences, and be free to choose for themselves.

So, it’s either scrap the question altogether, or get real about it… some kids are gay, don’t make them feel bad about it or make other kids judge them for it.

I also give my kids the longwinded statement: there’s: boyfriend and girlfriend, girlfriend and girlfriend, and boyfriend and boyfriend- everyone is different! :) ← never forget the smile!)

In order for the teasing in schools to stop and more acceptance to evolve, everyone needs to be asked the question that way: ‘boyfriend or girlfriend’, just so they stop for a moment, think, and are made to see the normality of the fact that it IS possible to be gay—and that it’s OK!

(photo: these are peace-rocks i tend to make whenever i go on a hike.. if you see one, let me know! ;)

'no, mom, dont take a picture of my berry-juice face!'

(raspberries, cherries, and strawberries: and it didnt stain her face, wow! lol) (it's even on her nose) ♥

caterpillar go potty too?

she thinks: if i gotta do it, the sprinklers gotta do it too...

sister action shot!

when you lay on the floor, it's an open invite to be POUNCED ON!
(see the fear in the big sisters eyes? ;)

the face of an evil sand-throwing baby:

punk.

playing in the snow (and eating it!) at the kitchen table...

because somedays... it's just too cold to play outside...

One of those mornings… what?! Cant be another one!!!? BABY DRAMA!!

 Sometimes I forget (or am too lazy to reap) the benefits of waking up and spending 15-30 minutes alone in meditation, being silent and grateful for all the things in life. so not taking that time, sometimes, really posses the possibly of my day going unplanned or undesired.

It’s important to not let one situation lay the setting for the rest of the day. One or two “bad moods” could give you a life time of “bad moods”… if you dont pay attention to them.

When sleep is important, and when im not getting enough, getting up a half an hour before everyone else… to sit and be… is not always easy. (I have set a goal to eventually do it everyday. But right now. It’s a tough one.)

The morning ran rather smoothly, baby slept until the alarm went off (from the last time she woke up!), that’s a good thing- when im dying for “just a few more minutes”.

Big Sis was no trouble waking… and how could she be? I always wonder; she gets a puppy and a baby and a mommy coming in the room to smile and snuggle and, in ralfees case, lick her awake.  (And usually to the ringtone of “here comes the sun”. best alarm ever!)

So, then we all ate and got ready and then we drove Sis to school.

That also went well; “bye” “love you” “have a nice day” smiles

I was happy, but I was still feeling groggy and tired and a little blah.

Then me and baby pulled in the driveway. 

And everything changed.

The next 10 minutes were intense. (even bunny was stopping her foot in the cage! And when she does that- she means SHUT THE HELL UP IM TRYING TO BE A BUNNY OVER HERE!)

Baby drama:

The last 3 mornings she’s threatened to stay in her car seat, letting me know by the way she hugged into the straps at her chest, that she meant business, she was staying in this seat.

So, ok. I don’t OWN you. Stay there for a bit if you want.

“ok, moms going in, you staying here?”

she shrugs tighter, a lil more baby stern, and gives a very pronounced “hm!”

“ok, moms going in, I love you! See you soon.” 

I turn back around, expecting an arm reach from her.

Nothing.

Ok. I'll get out. Shut the door. Wait for the “MOM!”

Nope. Nothing. Ok. Turn and say “bye”

The first 2 days, that was enough: arms out, screamed “mom”, revealed by her expression she wants to come too!

But today. Pfft. Nope.

I turned away and said bye. And nothing again.

This time I went up the stairs and stood and looked down at her.

STILL NOTHING! This child is a rock!

Ok. I turn and walk to the front door. (surely THAT will be enough to make her scream out for me to come back.- but nope.)

I go in the house. Close the door, open the door and come back out again and walk down to her window, hoping to make her smile from the delightful surprise I was intending.

Nope. It pissed her off. A lot.

She screamed!!! Then I opened the door. She screamed even more!

“ok”, I thought, “I cant leave you here in the car we need to go in” and proceeded to struggle with her to unbuckle the straps (shes got a mighty bearhug!). Which, of course, made her freak out even more.

My soothing words were nothing but irritation to her.

Fine. I'll stop talking. Just unbuckle and smile.

She put up quite the struggle, but I got her out.

She flung dead-weight and tried to flop back on to the seat, but I got reflexes like a cat! She is NOT getting away that easily!

I finally get her into the house. Lay her on the floor and she goes nuts and heads for the stairs. It’d be ok if she was stable enough to climb up them, but today she can barely lay on the floor without falling.

Flailing around like a captive prisoner who is so guilty he is forcibly being angry about the entire situation!

I need to keep her from rolling down the stairs in a tear-filled heap, so I carry her up the stairs, feet and arms straight out in both directions, screams wailing from her throat. 

Lay her safely on the floor, with the baby gate safely locked, and she proceeds to reenact that scene from ‘the exorcist’… remember that really scary one?

She’s an over actor for sure! because if the scene in the movie went on that long, there’s no way I would have watched it to the end!

It took a long time and a lot of taking off shoes and putting shoes back on and zipping and unzipping her coat (and I don’t just mean I was trying to take them off and she wanted them back on, no no. all of this was inside of her! On and then off and then on and then off; unzip, zip, unzip, zip. AHHHHH!

Tho, my asking if she wanted to take her shoes off was what triggered it, so I guess its my fault somehow? Lol

Oh human kids! How I do love your ways!

So, all of that triggered this facebook status:

[babys] starting the morning with a tantrum to go back in the car. she wont even LISTEN to the benefits of meditation ;)

and ps: its not really "one of those days" anymore! things have gotten stress-less ;)