What Do You Have in Your Pockets?

I love the treasures that I find in my pockets at the end of a day. They tell me so much about my life and what it centers around, what I value, what I do. -A pair of hand-knit mittens that my friend Michelle made for Ruthie. I love handmade things and on snowy days we take them everywhere we go. Ruthie didn't want to wear them when we first headed outside, but as she ventured out into the snow and inevitably fell down and planted her bare hands in the cold snow she realized that she actually did want her mittens and asked for them. Moms like to be prepared, it makes for fewer tears and a more enjoyable time had by all.

-Some hair ties. Mothers of little girls will understand that a Mom needs an unending supply of these in her pocket.

-Quarters. It was laundry day. One of the domestic arts that has become immeasurably easier in the last hundred years of human history for many in the world. Part of the daily rhythms of my week, the making of a household and a home.

-A stick. This was Anna's 'treasure box', as she called it, and she gave it to me for safekeeping while she played at the playground. This Mom takes her role as guardian of her children's treasures very seriously. What may mean nothing to an adult mind may mean the world to my child. To an active imagination any ordinary, daily object can become anything you want it to be and the line between make-believe and real can become blurred.

-Two rocks. These were Josie's treasures, her 'special rocks' that she picked up at the playground, that she chose as hers from among all the others that could have been had. Yes, they do remember what treasures they gave me to hold and will ask for them later.

-Chapstick. I have to have something in my pockets that is just for me! Mama-care, because I, too, have value as a human being.

Sweet Sister Spirit

With three of the four girls in this household feeling under the weather today, Anna voluntarily became our nurse. She was amazing, bringing us water, puke buckets, washcloths, Becky blankets, dolls, instruments, making cozy spots for us to lie down in, taking care of Ruthie and reading to her when Ruthie was starting to feel better but Mommy wasn't... You name it, she did it. Thank you, nurse Anna, for all the little ways you showed us love today and took care of us.

While I was making them some food this afternoon Anna told me "Mommy, I was a nurse today, but you are a nurse everyday. Mommies are always nurses." So true, Anna. That is my joy and privilege as your Mommy.

If You Can Remember...

I came across this poem yesterday and really liked it. It was what I needed to hear, what I needed to be reminded to remember. I thought I would share it with you:

If You Can Remember

If you can remember that it takes three of my steps to equal one of yours;
If you can understand that I must view life at an eye level three feet below yours;
If you can touch my life with your faith, without taking away my need for self-determination;
Then I can grow, learn and become.
~ ~ ~
If you can remember that it takes time for me to gain the experience in living you have already had;
If you can understand that I can only relate to those things which have meaning on my levels of maturity;
If you can let me take a step of independence when I can, instead of thrusting me out or pulling me back;
If you can touch my life with your hope, without destroying my sense of reality;
Then I can grow, learn and become.
~ ~ ~
If you can remember that it takes courage for me to try again after failure, just like you;
If you can let me find my own path when I want, instead of choosing for me the way you think I should go;
If you can touch my life with your love, without taking away the space I need to breath;
Then I can grow, learn and become.

-Marti King
for the Montessori Foundation

Ruthie

Ruthie fell asleep in my arms on the couch just now and I was loathe to put her down. She had her little arms around my neck. So trusting. So peaceful. So vulnerable. I could feel her warm, sweet, milk breath against my neck and feel her chest rise and fall, her weight so precious in my arms. This is such a wonderful time, a time of connectedness, a time for me of receiving complete love. Her sisters were whispering around us in their play, conscious of her sleeping presence, putting their own babies gently to sleep. Snow is falling outside. It is a time of tucking in, a time of feeling the specialness of family and nurturing connections inside before the whirlwind of summer outside play truly begins and this moment of babyhood passes. A time that will be gone so soon. So much to value in the moment of now.

Mean Kids

What do you do when other kids are mean to your kid? It makes me sad to see Anna bullied, bossed, yelled at, toys taken, to the point that she finally walks away from the group of kids and chooses to play by herself, a sad look on her face. This feels like a repeated scenario to me lately. There is one child in particular that is a playmate of Anna's that keeps being mean to her. That child's parent is often right there 'watching' but not parenting, not teaching their child appropriate behavior. The behaviors are normal 3 year old behaviors, but not acceptable behaviors. The sort of behavior that if it is not checked can become a serious issue down the road. Anna is not perfect either, she has her moments. I don't expect her friends to be perfect. But it bothers me when I see a parent not teaching their child appropriate behaviors or correcting inappropriate ones and then watching that effect my child.
In general Anna shares really well with her friends and plays kindly. She's not a follower, she marches to the beat of her own drum. This playmate gets mad at her because this child wants to be able to boss Anna around and have her do everything she tells her to. This child doesn't share well. If she's played with something recently but has since moved on to another toy she is still extremely possesive of the toy and will scream and cry and grab it away from my daughter if Anna tries to pick it up to play with it (and the toy doesn't even belong to her). She's not just mean to my daughter, you can witness this kind of behavior often towards whatever child she has decided she doesn't want to play with or share with. I get so angry! And they're only 3!
I'm never quite sure what my response should be when I see this child being so mean. There are times that I do intervene if she is doing something that could hurt another child, grabbing a toy from my daughter, or if her words are particularly mean. I tell her that is not appropriate behavior and that she can't treat my daughter or another child in that way. But I feel really awkward saying it because the parents are right there and they should be the ones saying it, they should be correcting their child and teaching appropriate behavior, enforcing appropriate consequences.
How should I approach this whole situation with Anna? I know it doesn't do Anna any favors to rescue her from this child. She is going to be faced with people like that her whole life. I want to teach her how to deal with it in healthy, kind, nonjudgemental, socially appropriate ways. I tell her she can just walk away, I tell her she doesn't have to let herself be bullied and bossed around but can choose to play however she wants to play with a particular toy or in a particular game. We've been talking about how people make unkind choices sometimes but that she can still choose to be kind. But sometimes I feel at a loss. I do want to protect my daughter. It is hard as a mother to watch your daughter have to deal with the harder side of life.

Some Thoughts on Love and Raising Children

Some years back I read the book "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. Contrary to my expectations (what could a book with a pink cover adorned with a doily and flowery writing have to offer me?) I was quite impacted by the concepts in the book. The author talks about how there are five different ways in which people express and receive love and the importance of communicating love to a person in their primary love language, in the way in which they best give and receive it. With kids it can be hard to know what their primary love language is, and it is important to express love to them in all 5 love languages. Lately I have been thinking a lot about what it means for me to love my girls in all 5 of these ways. Here are some of my thoughts. You don't have to read it all if it's too long for your busy day, but it is good for me to write it and think about it:)

Quality Time: As a stay-at-home mom it could be easy for me to just check this one off the list. "I spend all my time with my girls, I can't give them more time than I do, I'm good at this one!" But I think that quality time for Anna and Josie and Ruthie is time that I spend completely focused on them without other mommy distractions. Quality is especially time with each of them one-on-one without their sisters taking any of my attention away from the one that I am focusing on. That, my friends, is hard to do. This week there were a few days when Anna didn't take a nap. Sometimes that is hard for me because getting them all down for a nap at the same time is one of my highlights. I actually get some time for me! But the time that I was able to spend with Anna was precious time. We played Go Fish and a few other just mommy and Anna things and we both loved it. I find I have to be very intentional and creative and it takes a lot of energy for me to find the space in our lives to spend time with just one daughter at a time.

Acts of service is another way of expressing love that seems at first glance to be easy for me. I feel like I am serving my girls all the time. Serving them feels like all I do sometimes. But then I realized that for me there is a difference between acts of service that are just my daily responsibilities and acts of service that are extra ways that I put in extra effort to serve them. In our house there are things that are Anna and Josie's responsibility to do and things that are my responsibility to do. When I need them to do something that is their responsibility to do I tell them to do it, I don't ask them to do it. Anna is responsible for getting herself dressed every morning. When it is time for her to get dressed I tell her that. I don't just ask her to. There are things, like changing diapers, that are my responsibility to do as a mom. Sometimes when I am changing Ruthie's diaper I ask Anna or Josie if they want to do me a favor by bringing me the diaper. They usually love to help out in little ways like that. But it is always something I ask them to do and they have the option of saying no to the request because it is something that is completely and totally my responsibility to do. When they do choose to help me out with something that is my responsibility to take care of then they are serving me, then they are showing me love and I try and express to them that I really appreciate what they are doing. I want them to know how it feels to show love like that, how right they feel inside when they serve. When they obey me and take care of something that is their responsibility to take care of, that is great but it is not an act of service. When I make lunch for the girls I am doing something that is my responsibility to do, it is not an act of service in a going above and beyond the call of duty sort of way that they will receive as love. It is an expectation in our daily life although done with a lot of love on my part. When they are doing something that is their responsibility to do, like getting themselves dressed, and they ask me for help, I can choose to help them or I can choose not to. When I choose to help them in those duties that they know are their responsibility to do then that feels like I am truly serving them and I can see in how they respond to me doing those acts of service that they do feel loved and nurtured by that.

Physical touch is a way of expressing love that seems extremely important to young children, especially babies who don't have a separate identity from their mothers yet. In our household with three girls aged three and under there are constantly needs that need to be met from the moment the first one wakes up in the morning until the last one is finally asleep at night. Despite this pressure to do, do, do, I find that making sure I take the time to sit with each of the older girls each morning (one at a time) until they decide they have had enough snuggle time and climb out of my lap on their own goes a long way towards meeting their need for physical love each day. If I rush that time and try to move them on before they are ready to move on (breakfast has to be made, laundry needs to get started, I want a shower before Mitch walks out the door...) I find I pay for it later with little girls who are fussier and clingier than usual and just want to be up all day, their way of making sure their need to be close to me is met. I have also found that my baby carriers are invaluable. They are one item on the endless list of 'stuff you supposedly need to buy for your baby' that does actually seem important to me. They truly help me to be a better mother. I love my Ergo backpack for that reason, I can carry any one of our three girls on my back or front and still go about my day getting the endless list of chores done that makes our household function. It allows mothering and the domestic arts to go hand in hand. Wearing my girls (hopefully one at a time) allows my girls to feel loved even when I feel overwhelmed by all the stressors of life and don't feel like I can just stop and hold the one that needs to be held. Wearing Ruthie allows me to hold her and be responsive to her needs even as I keep moving to meet the needs of the older two and do all the tasks in my day that require two hands (laundry, chopping veggies for dinner, changing Josie's diaper...) Another thing that feels like it helps meet their need to be close to me is cosleeping. I love our big family bed! We have a queen size bed and a twin size bed right next to each other in our room that we all sleep on. Our room is basically one big bed:) It feels like this is what allows Mitch and me to continue parenting our girls in the way that we want to (responding to them when they need us, letting them be physically close to us when they need to...) even at night and still get the sleep we need. When they wake up at night they can roll over and feel our warm, sleeping bodies right next to them and they can go right back to sleep feeling safe, secure and loved even at night. (For tips on safe bedsharing check out: http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/sleep/family-bed-safety.html )

Verbal affirmation, telling them I love them, is something it is easy for me to forget. Of course I love them! But I find that it is so easy for a day to slip by without telling them so. Coming from a 'Deeds, not Words' family where the emphasis was more on showing love means it is especially easy for me to forget how important it is for Anna and Josie and Ruthie to hear me say "I love you." But every time I tell them and see their responsive grin and how they cuddle up to me I am reminded that they do care. They do need to hear it. It does contribute to their feeling of well-being, to their physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Gifts are hard in our family because neither Mitch nor I are good gift givers. More 'stuff ' is not a very high value of ours nor do we have much money to spend on gifts or often have the time, hands and money it takes to make gifts. But it is another way in which our girls receive our love. So the little bit of time we do find to devote to making gifts is usually spent on making gifts for our girls, sorry to all of you who haven't received a gift from us in the last number of years:). I think that kids are natural gift givers. Our girls love to tell me who each of their creations are for and sometimes I am able to get those creations to their intended recipients.

It feels like all of these things are pieces of what contribute to our girls feeling a sense of rightness inside themselves, a sense of security, a foundation with which to approach the world, a confidence in themselves and joy in the world around them. I love the smiles on their faces when they feel these things inside themselves. I love seeing them share that love with each other and with others around them, modeling how they see us loving them. It is good for me to remind myself of what I am trying to do, of how I want to love them each day in the ways that Mitch and I have chosen to parent our girls.

Spontaneous Music Making

I love it when Anna and Josie spontaneously make their own music. Two pencils can become rhythm instruments and they sing whatever comes out in the moment and let their little bodies move to the music they make without any of the social inhibitions that stop us older folk. They are full of kid creativity. I was able to capture this little moment on video before it was over. Enjoy!

You can tell by Josie's perkiness that she is feeling much better today. Still not 100% and she hasn't eaten much, but I did get her to drink quite a bit by having a tea party!

Anna didn't take a nap today, but then she fell asleep on the couch listening to a tape of Beatrice Potter stories at 5 pm. (Why do they call it tape, Mommy?)

At dinner Josie insisted we put Pooh Bear inside her shirt on her back because she wanted to carry him that way and keep him close to her. Interesting that just lately I have started carrying Ruthie on my back in the backpack, too, instead of just in front. Monkey see, monkey do. How much of what we learn in life is actually formally taught to us and how much is picked up by watching the people around us? Tonight as I was in putting Josie to sleep we could hear Ruthie start crying out in the living room. Josie told me "Ruthie wants Mommy, I think you need to go get her, Mommy. She wants to lie right here with us, too." So I did, and two girls fell asleep at the same time, content with their mommy. Anna and Josie are learning so much about mothering right now as they watch me mother little Ruthie (and them). They are sensitive to their sister's cries and understand her nonverbal cues about what she wants and needs and mimic those same things in their play. They make my heart happy:)