Curls

I took a day off today from my full-time job of mothering; my breasts were the only part of me that were required to show up. I worked out, got my haircut, got new plugs for my ears, shopped at at local thrift shop I have always wanted to check out, and then went out to sushi with my lovah. It was a glorious and much-needed rejuvenating day.

Red Jasper

The Self-Nurture Challenge

My amazing friend, Savannah, has challenged us moms to find some way to nurture ourselves each and every day this week leading up to Mother's Day.

I will be playing along, and I hope you will too!!

You can read her post and let her know what activities you have done by visiting her Mindfully Mothering blog.

The Voice of the Universal Child

Written by Bruce Scott

I am several days behind in my email right now, but I opened this today and thought I would share it. It is quite long, so I picked the 13 that most spoke to me, and then the rest follow.


The Voice of the Universal Child

1· Do not throw anything away that belongs to me, unless I
am asked first.

2· Talk to me in the same voice you talk to adults with

3· See me as a whole feeling person when I am a teenager.
Do not write me off as raging hormones or "just a teenager." I will
do the same for you no matter what your age.

4· Do not punish me, ever. Teach me. Hold me. Love me.
Trust that I, just like you, want to do what is right, and don’t want
to hurt anyone.

5· Help me understand what I don’t know. Don't call me
names, or label me or compare me, or make me compete for anything.
Help me cooperate and collaborate. Be the example for me.

6· If you feel embarrassed by something I am doing, hug me.
Come closer. I am being myself completely. If I need to be more
aware of others, I want to know that. I can hear your kind voice
remind me.

7· When it looks like I am having what you call a tantrum, it is
all I know to do to make contact, to be heard, to be taken seriously,
to be held. I am not wanting to bother anyone, or cause trouble

8· I am naturally creative. Notice how I make things out of
leaves, or sticks, or bubbles, or crayons. Notice how I like to
climb and explore, and discover everything all at once. Listen to my
imagination at work. That's not just kid stuff. This is what you
might do too if you would join with me.

9· I may take longer than you'd like, completing something. That
is because I am in no hurry to get anything done. I haven't learned
yet that hurrying, being busy and always anxious, are fun.

10· When I cry, I am feeling. Crying can be like sneezing,
feeling close to you, singing or running. It is just my body
expressing itself. I might have been sad, or hurt or afraid. When I
am feeling in my body, I am relieved. All you need do is be present
with me so that I know you are there, but not try to stop me or make
me feel better.

11· I am wise. I know things. I see things. I know naturally
what I need to know. I believe and trust myself and my intuition.
Unless I learn to mistrust myself.

12· I sometimes feel safe in the world. Sometimes I don't. If I
feel or sense something, and others don't, (maybe even make fun of
me), I get even more scared. I can feel so alone and wrong. It
helps when you take me seriously, regardless of my age, and ask me
more questions about what I “see,” feel or sense. I might be seeing
something you need to know.

13· I am your gift. I am not just a little person who needs to be
"raised" and taught, and taken to activities. I am not in your life
by accident. Incredible or unbelievable as this may sound, I came to
the people in my life to bring a message: slow down. Feel. Be. Over
and over again. When you do, you will notice immediately that I am
not an obstacle to your work, or inconvenient to your daily life.
Instead, you will come to appreciate my honesty, humor, presence and
love.



· Include me before making decisions that affect me.

· Find out what my experience is like with friends, or the
teachers in school, and believe me. Take action if necessary. Stand
up for me too, as a person.

· Respect my interests even though they may seem just cute
to you

· Do not refer to me as a "terrible two"

· If you are afraid for me, tell me so honestly with your
heart.

· Hug me, Kiss me, and Hold me a lot. Be kind with your
smile.

· If you are upset with something in your life, know when
you are upset. Don't be angry with me or blame me, or judge me. If
you want me to know something and hear you, notice your voice and
angry or judgmental thoughts before you give them to me. I, like
you, do not feel good when I am admonished, made wrong or blamed. It
just doesn't feel good. I want to hear and understand you. I like
being connected.

· When you are with me, be completely with me. If you are
in your thoughts, pretending to be with me, then you are not with me
at all.

· Treat me exactly like you would want me to treat you.
Exactly.

· Assume that I see everything. I am exquisitely sensitive
and can feel pretense, falseness, and hidden agendas. I can also
feel love.

· Know when you are sarcastic. Sarcasm is mean and creates
distance, hurt and separates us, almost without noticing. Humor
brings us together.

· If I am fidgety, seem bored, have difficulty sitting
still, talk too much, appear to have a short attention span, please
join with me. Ask me, with an attitude of wonder, what my experience
is in the classroom, or wherever I appear to not want to be. I am
not ADD or ADHD, or any diagnosis. I simply want to be where there
is life, movement and creativity happening (ask me what I mean by all
this). Together, we'’ll find understanding.

· Sometimes, I know what to do without reading written
instructions. I don't have words for it, I just know. I have the
ability to see how things go together. I may do things differently
than the way you learned. That's ok. Both ways may work. And
anyway, I have fun finding my own way. The destination doesn't
matter that much.

· I do not need you to always say Yes to me. Actually, yes or
no doesn't matter. What matters is how you hold me in your heart,
how you see me, and your appreciation for me. 'Cause when you
appreciate me, and see through my eyes too, a yes or no will always
be the right thing for both of us.

· No matter how old I am, three years old, sixteen, or forty-
five, I am not intending to deceive you, take advantage of you, use
you or disrespect you. If you have those thoughts or the belief that
I am "asking too much," that is not my intent. I am really, searching
out ways to make contact, and to be with you, for you to acknowledge
my presence.

· Finally, Be yourself, and if you don’t know for sure,
what yourself is, ask me.

Surrender...

my word for the year.

I have been listening to Amy Cowen's The Creative Mom Podcast and she introduced me to Ali Edwards' idea of creating a word for the year. I was immediately drawn to the thought of choosing one word, one singular focus...a kind of a mantra...to aid me through this challenging and life-changing year. It did not take me long to come up with it, and I knew as soon as it appeared in my mind that it was perfect.

My word for the year is surrender: to relinquish to the power of another; yield to the control of another.

I spend a lot of time and mental energy throughout my days and nights trying to exert control, give the appearance of having a small bit of free will, and placating myself into believing I do have some say over how my children act, what I choose to do in any given moment, and when I get to go to the bathroom. In reality, however, I do not.

It is ok that I don't have much power over these things in my life right now. It really is. I could choose to parent by putting my babies on a schedule, letting them cry it out, not nursing on demand, deciding when they should wean, and expecting them to sleep through the night... but that is not what we are choosing to do, and I accept that fully. However, even if we did all of these things, it would still not mean I have total control over these little humans. That would just be foolish and silly. They have brains and wills and ideas of their own, and I know that 99.99% of the time they will differ from my ideas of what they should be doing, just because they know they can. That is ok, too. I want to raise people who think for themselves, and at the same time know that I am here for them and that I love them unconditionally.

And so, I am surrendering to the flow of life...to the moments that happen as they happen...to the situations in which I find myself by virtue of the path I have chosen...when it's 11:55pm and I just have to get my blog post done for the day but no one is happy sleeping without a nipple in their mouth (except if it's Rich... he can wait)--I choose to surrender to motherhood. Surrender to my baby's needs. Surrender to the curiosity of my 6 year old. Surrender to the present moment. Surrender to love and joy and peace...instead of continuing to thrash and fight, tooth and nail, to finish whatever task I had set out to complete at that moment.

I surrender.

Moms Energize Yourself

Many of you are moms. Busy moms. Tired moms. Over-scheduled, over-extended, over-worked moms. As a wife, mother, and woman I am constantly striving to do everything and be everyone to my kids, my husband, my friends, and myself. I know you all already know this, but it bears making my own weary fingers type it: Mom must be nurtured, in order for her to nurture others. I must fill my own cup, so that I can lovingly fill the cups of those in my life.

My friend Savannah is an expert on this. No, really, an expert. She gets paid to support women in figuring out how to care for themselves, how to grow as a person, how to be the woman/mother/wife/being that they want to be.

Last week Savannah was interviewed for a segment on AM NW, and luckily for me they put the segment on their website so that we who a) were not up at the buttcrack of dawn, and b) don't get even a smidge of a television channel can still enjoy her beautiful smiling face and very important message. This was seriously exactly what I needed to hear last week. And this week. And probably ever week from now until Kiran is 18 (at least!). I'm glad I can watch it over and over again.

I kept track of my time yesterday.... This will be a whole nother post. (is nother a word?!? why does it sound right, but look really ignorant?... maybe it should be a-whole-nother?? well, then it looks like a-hole. oh well... nevermind.) I will just say that it was a really valuable experience even just to stop every few moments and take note of what I was doing, and what I had just done--it helped me to stay more present throughout the day, and to see on paper some validation that I really don't ever get more than 5 minutes to focus on any given task... it wasn't just in my imagination!

I hope you moms find it helpful and encouraging as well.

Longing to Read

This week I have been having a more difficult time than I usually do, feeling overwhelmed and out-numbered by my children... feeling like it will be forever before I get a speck of time to myself, for myself, without a nagging guilt in my throat and my heart that says I am selfish for wanting it. I feel like after being a mother for 6 and a half years, I should have this job down--especially the first 6 years part... I've done all that! And, I did a pretty damn fine job if I do say so myself. But, this siblings, 2 babies under 2, both BOY-boys thing is really throwing me. I can't seem to get my feet under myself... I am going round and round in circles... I feel like a new mom who's at her wits' end and out of Calgon.
Luckily, I have an amazing, involved, and loving partner who is doing what he can to make sure I get some time. Yesterday he sent me off, out of the house all by myself, to go read. I headed straight for the library, with my own magazines that are strategically placed in my bathrooms (the only place I get a second to myself to read...and literally it is usually just a few seconds), and sat in the back in an uncomfortable chair reading my Bust and checking my phone every 2 minutes. Somehow I just can't let them go, even when I am away.... I guess that's the way I'm wired, as a mom and a woman... I know it is a good thing, that this instinct has helped to preserve man- and woman-kind for all of humanity. And even though I was not able to fully relax or focus on my magazine or shake the feeling of guilt and simultaneous exhaustion, I still came back home an hour later with a little more patience in my cup.

So, partly for my need to document so I don't forget, here is my list of 13 books and magazines that I have been trying to read or wishing I could be reading in the past week:



1. Birth House--A group of friends is reading this, and so I thought I would put it on hold at the library, just to *see* if it would arrive on time to read it (HA!) before they got finished with it.
Well, I got it within a day or two, but so far I have only gotten to read the first few pages. It hasn't grabbed hold of me, so it is easy to just not read it, plus as I mentioned above I have many other demands on my attention--I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this one or not.

2. Bust magazine--My friend, Andy, gave me an issue of this sweet magazine... my first time reading it. This is what I read a few articles out of on my trip to the library yesterday.

3. Making Allowances--We have been talking about needing to begin giving Kylin an allowance for the past year. I just finally cracked open this book that we have had checked out from the library for almost that long (I renew online, people...don't worry) and we have our allowance plan all mapped out now. It begins Monday.

4. We'Moon--Danielle gave me this calendar/journal/book as a sweet, sweet gift and I have been reading through it. I am very excited to start my astrological homework assignment in it tonight (I'll explain in another post).

5. Hip Mama--Another magazine that Andy gave me...I love Ariel Gore and devoured her books long ago. The magazine touches me in just the same way.



6. Success With Organic Fruit--When we move into our new home that comes complete with fruit-bearing trees I want to know how to care for and properly love on them so they will bless us with lots and lots of juicy yumminess. This is waiting for me to pick it up at the library.

7. Mac World--Got a subscription with my Mac and I LOVE it...lots of Mac eye-candy, and plus I'm learning all kinds of neat things I didn't know about my new love.

8. The Macintosh iLife '08--To help me learn exactly what was so cool about the new programs I just installed.


9. The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook--I just bought this so that I have some tasty things to make when Kaden and Kiran and I attempt another round at the elimination diet. This was my favorite cookbook last time.

10. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle--I would love to do this. Can't wait to read about it.

11. Eat, Pray, Love--This has been on my "to read" list for awhile now. My attempt at reading a novel is not going so well right now, but when I am able to again, this will be next.

12. Getting Things Done--I keep hearing about how wonderful this system for organization is (thank you, rich and marlene). I even have the book on cd to listen to. Now to make the time...

13. Organic Gardening--For my grand hopes of planting a huge organic garden as soon as we move into our new house. Who wants to come help me????

And, if you have read this far, you deserve a little something special... so here is a memorable highlight from our day:

Kiran took 4 steps, all on his own.

Look out, Kaden... he's coming for you.

Encouragement, Love and Support

This came from Aunt Debbie:

The best things in life are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

I have received so many wonderful calls, emails and comments from you all...thank you so much. It is so immensely helpful to know that these are normal feelings, and to be reminded (OFTEN!) that this stage passes all too quickly, and it is grounding to focus on the present moment.

I am, indeed, a lucky girl.