On Monday morning of this week, I woke up inspired. I’d had some vivid, strange dreams and woke up compelled to get my own act together. It has been 10 months since I took the doula training workshop, and I’ve done nothing towards working on the certification process. I’m employed, and actually enjoy most aspects of my position, but it’s not, nor has my job ever been, what I want to do when I grow up. I’m busy parenting, and living, and working, and working out, but I haven’t been focusing on steering my career down a different path.
As if compelled through the same cosmic vibe, another doula contacted me on Monday about getting together all the doulas in town for a meet-and-greet networking session. I perused some graduate school options, and looked into other formal training to set me firmly on this new road. I’m looking. I know that I will be able to pull this all together into a tightly knit grouping of skills that I will be able to use for my next career. Doula, childbirth educator, herbalist, and then what? Prenatal psychologist? Deep ecologist? Massage therapist? Somatic experience counselor? I'm not yet certain, but I am looking.
And speaking of inspiration, Nena has taken a great interest in cleaning. This can be readily summed up as being inspired by a movie that she currently loves, Another Cinderella Story with Selena Gomez. Nearly every day she tidies up, cleans off the table, the kitchen island, and the coffee table. She cleans the windows she can reach, and the refrigerator. She mops the floor.
Tuesday when I came home from work, she’d begun the process of rearranging the living room. I was surprised, and not necessarily motivated to help her complete the task, but once we got going, we REALLY got going. We scrubbed, and cleaned, and pulled apart all the electronics, we debated which way to arrange the couches and tables and where the TV should go. We drew our ideas on paper, and then discussed them with Daddy and Signe. All the while, we watched HGTV, and Nena kept getting inspired by more ideas along the way. In the end, we did a complete 180-degree rotation of the furniture, and it looks lovely. What I saw as limiting at first, given the constraints of our wood stove and the back door, turned into an excellent opportunity to clean, renovate, and redesign our living space.
I have never forced my girls to clean anything. I’ve asked for assistance on occasion, and probably ranted that I wished they would help me on more than a few, but I’ve never forced or required them to do chores. Seeing Nena’s inspiration to clean and her motivation to design the layout of a room has been so much fun. She has amazing neat and tidy characteristics, which play out in the meticulous care she takes to arrange her bed, and her dresser top, and they way she places blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals on her bed. It is truly fascinating to watch this develop.
Signe has random moments of cleaning inspiration too. Sometimes she’ll head up to their room, shut the door, and I can hear the sounds of bumps and footsteps and singing. After a while she’ll call out, “Mom! Come see my room!” And I’ll head up and everything will be picked up from the main part of the floor, and stuff will be bulging out from beneath the dresser, and shoved into the toy bins, and overflowing from the closet cubbies, and she will be beaming with pride. So cute.
As the summer wanes towards fall, I feel the changing of the season. The leaves are starting to turn yellow and orange. The late summer flowers are starting to die back. The mornings have been a touch chilly, and there is that indescribable feeling of change. It is happening.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Today was our Official Not-Back-to-School Day
Thankfully, today we did not go to the first day back at school. I woke, and as usual took Nuptse out before 7am. The scenery this morning was amazing because of the remnants of the overnight rain storm. Pink, brush-stroked clouds hung low to the East, and rich, dark, almost daunting clouds hung thickly over the east-facing flank of the mountains. The air was damp, and smelled of moist dirt, wildflowers, and sodden vegetation. Once back, Nena greeted me at the door, her hair still mussed-up from a night of sleep. I took a shower and she took a bath, and we hung out while I made an iced coffee and gathered my lunch. She dressed in a new fashion top that she picked out yesterday, and wanted to go to Grandma’s house early, before her sister woke up. I commented that I was glad I didn’t have to fork over cash to the class, in addition to all the other school supplies, school clothes, and other “necessities” that I would have had Nena actually been going to school today. In thinking about that, I realized that the bargain spending we’d been up to all summer on new toys and clothes was still pretty meager in comparison. I gave hugs and kisses all around, and set off to the Farmers Market before going to work.
The traffic was horrid thanks to the many scattered road construction messes in town. I managed to avoid the school zone near my house and went on my way to the Farmers Market, which was burgeoning with fresh vegetables. After the market I sauntered into work, and got busy researching hazardous waste sites that resulted from the Manhattan Project. I went to Tae Kwon Do for lunch, ate a salad for lunch, and checked in with my beautiful daughters early this afternoon. They were playing cars and were about to head off on a walk with their Dad.
The relief and lack of stress of not worrying about another first day at school is profound. Last year I felt as though I was walking on eggshells for nearly two weeks, and Kindergarten was orders of magnitude worse--to say nothing about the first go at it! Last year Nena started the first day out okay, but in watching her play-out the day that evening, I could hear the sound of my heart breaking. She pretended to be her teacher while her sister was a student, and she described the discipline, punishment, and laws of the land. The sense of demoralization was overwhelming and I felt like pulling her out right then and there. But the previous year had gone so well, I reminded myself, no reason to jump the gun.
Day 2 and Nena did not want to go, but somehow she mustered up enough courage to give it a try. The weekend came, and I knew that Monday was going to be tough. But this time I’d done my research. I was prepared for her to say she didn’t want to go. And she didn’t. Fine, I said, stay home and play. So she did. On Day 3, and Day 4, and Day 5. On Day 6, I said, this is crazy, you do not need to go to where you are feeling so much pain. So I formally pulled her out. She went to first grade for 2 days.
For 6 weeks prior to the first day of first grade I saw a continual build-up of anxiety and fear. Panic attacks started happening, which I thought were extreme “tantrums” or “fits” and yet I hadn’t made the connection between the pending first day of school and this upswing of severe emotion. Finally, after school had started, and these panic attacks occurred multiple times throughout the day, I realized that these could not be simple extreme tantrums. These were so much more than that. The doctor confirmed my concerns, and that only made my decision to remove her from school so much easier. Ironically, all the psychological banter surrounding separation anxiety involves working towards getting a child back in school. Everything I read about it made my stomach turn, yet deep down provoked a fear that I might be doing the wrong thing.
But as the weeks went by, the panic began to subside. The bright, sparkley-eyed girl started shining through.
As the first day back to school came nearer, I asked if Nena wanted to give it another go, and she said no, although when all the catalogs with the shiny and colorful new backpacks arrived, she gave it some further thought, but then said no again.
We went and checked out the class lists out of curiosity, and wondered why her nemesis wasn’t on any of them...had she moved and changed districts? We’d seen her a few days prior, so we knew she was still in town. Had the school messed up and forgotten to put her name down? Nena worried about this as this girl was a major factor in her discomfort with school. Try not to worry, I said, it’s really unimportant to our own situation.
No eggshells today. Just another normal day. For that, we are all glad.
The traffic was horrid thanks to the many scattered road construction messes in town. I managed to avoid the school zone near my house and went on my way to the Farmers Market, which was burgeoning with fresh vegetables. After the market I sauntered into work, and got busy researching hazardous waste sites that resulted from the Manhattan Project. I went to Tae Kwon Do for lunch, ate a salad for lunch, and checked in with my beautiful daughters early this afternoon. They were playing cars and were about to head off on a walk with their Dad.
The relief and lack of stress of not worrying about another first day at school is profound. Last year I felt as though I was walking on eggshells for nearly two weeks, and Kindergarten was orders of magnitude worse--to say nothing about the first go at it! Last year Nena started the first day out okay, but in watching her play-out the day that evening, I could hear the sound of my heart breaking. She pretended to be her teacher while her sister was a student, and she described the discipline, punishment, and laws of the land. The sense of demoralization was overwhelming and I felt like pulling her out right then and there. But the previous year had gone so well, I reminded myself, no reason to jump the gun.
Day 2 and Nena did not want to go, but somehow she mustered up enough courage to give it a try. The weekend came, and I knew that Monday was going to be tough. But this time I’d done my research. I was prepared for her to say she didn’t want to go. And she didn’t. Fine, I said, stay home and play. So she did. On Day 3, and Day 4, and Day 5. On Day 6, I said, this is crazy, you do not need to go to where you are feeling so much pain. So I formally pulled her out. She went to first grade for 2 days.
For 6 weeks prior to the first day of first grade I saw a continual build-up of anxiety and fear. Panic attacks started happening, which I thought were extreme “tantrums” or “fits” and yet I hadn’t made the connection between the pending first day of school and this upswing of severe emotion. Finally, after school had started, and these panic attacks occurred multiple times throughout the day, I realized that these could not be simple extreme tantrums. These were so much more than that. The doctor confirmed my concerns, and that only made my decision to remove her from school so much easier. Ironically, all the psychological banter surrounding separation anxiety involves working towards getting a child back in school. Everything I read about it made my stomach turn, yet deep down provoked a fear that I might be doing the wrong thing.
But as the weeks went by, the panic began to subside. The bright, sparkley-eyed girl started shining through.
As the first day back to school came nearer, I asked if Nena wanted to give it another go, and she said no, although when all the catalogs with the shiny and colorful new backpacks arrived, she gave it some further thought, but then said no again.
We went and checked out the class lists out of curiosity, and wondered why her nemesis wasn’t on any of them...had she moved and changed districts? We’d seen her a few days prior, so we knew she was still in town. Had the school messed up and forgotten to put her name down? Nena worried about this as this girl was a major factor in her discomfort with school. Try not to worry, I said, it’s really unimportant to our own situation.
No eggshells today. Just another normal day. For that, we are all glad.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Random Thoughts and Other Rantings
Happy Birthday Mom!! It's my Mother's 66th Birthday today, and we all hope it's a beautiful day!
Family is one of the epitomal aspects of being human. Family relationships often become all-encompassing--whether for better or worse. Our children rely on us, their parents, for nearly everything--love, guidance, food, clothing, fun, toys, hope, explanations, encouragement, answers, clean laundry, excitement, new crayons, blank paper, ice water...the list goes on and on.
But as parents, how often do we meet our childrens' requests with a happy and joyful heart?
How often do we react out of exhaustion, or with a cranky and "not again" attitude?
As a working Mother, who works because I'm the breadwinner of the family, this is my biggest, current challenge--being able to meet the requests (as well as needs) of my kids with a heart that is open, full of joy, and unconditional love. I strive for this constantly. But it doesn't always come easy. Sometimes I am exhausted. A night of poor sleep combined with brain fatigue after a full day of work, and domestic obligations greeting me at the door can sometimes make for a grumpy mama. I struggle with this dilemma because I am particularly sensitive to desiring the absolute best for my kids. I want them to know what unconditional love, true respect, and be able to pursue their on interests in a safe, and encouraging environment.
For my Mother's birthday we went to my grandmother's house, which is nestled among the cottonwoods along the Pojoaque River. I was fortunate to grow up a few hundred yards away, as the Raven flies, and explored every inch of their wondrous property when I was kid. Horses, chickens, kitties, and aging cats and dogs abide there, along with my Aunt and Uncle. We don't get down there often enough, and as such, my kids are still cautious about exploring on their own, and request that I accompany them to visit the variety of animals. And that I walk them to the bathroom, and help them fix their plates, and get their ice water, and...
As we were leaving, my Grandmother said she hoped I got a break every now and then, and that caused me to ponder time and family and what it truly is that I hope for and actually do when it comes to my own (family and time).
It seems to me that when my Grandmother was raising her children, time must have traveled a little bit slower. Life, lately, has seemed frantic. Rushed, frantic, hurried, overwhelming. Not just for me, but for many people that I speak with. Everyone seems to have schedules that are jam-packed and catalogued into every compartment of the day...whether they are homeschoolers or not. So much of me wonders whether my hurried days are a result of working and parenting, but even the moms I know that don't work complain of the same thing. I so wish I did not have to work outside the home 32 hours a week, but I am so thankful that I can work part-time and support my family, and still have quality time with my kids.
And this, too, may someday change.
Family is one of the epitomal aspects of being human. Family relationships often become all-encompassing--whether for better or worse. Our children rely on us, their parents, for nearly everything--love, guidance, food, clothing, fun, toys, hope, explanations, encouragement, answers, clean laundry, excitement, new crayons, blank paper, ice water...the list goes on and on.
But as parents, how often do we meet our childrens' requests with a happy and joyful heart?
How often do we react out of exhaustion, or with a cranky and "not again" attitude?
As a working Mother, who works because I'm the breadwinner of the family, this is my biggest, current challenge--being able to meet the requests (as well as needs) of my kids with a heart that is open, full of joy, and unconditional love. I strive for this constantly. But it doesn't always come easy. Sometimes I am exhausted. A night of poor sleep combined with brain fatigue after a full day of work, and domestic obligations greeting me at the door can sometimes make for a grumpy mama. I struggle with this dilemma because I am particularly sensitive to desiring the absolute best for my kids. I want them to know what unconditional love, true respect, and be able to pursue their on interests in a safe, and encouraging environment.
For my Mother's birthday we went to my grandmother's house, which is nestled among the cottonwoods along the Pojoaque River. I was fortunate to grow up a few hundred yards away, as the Raven flies, and explored every inch of their wondrous property when I was kid. Horses, chickens, kitties, and aging cats and dogs abide there, along with my Aunt and Uncle. We don't get down there often enough, and as such, my kids are still cautious about exploring on their own, and request that I accompany them to visit the variety of animals. And that I walk them to the bathroom, and help them fix their plates, and get their ice water, and...
As we were leaving, my Grandmother said she hoped I got a break every now and then, and that caused me to ponder time and family and what it truly is that I hope for and actually do when it comes to my own (family and time).
It seems to me that when my Grandmother was raising her children, time must have traveled a little bit slower. Life, lately, has seemed frantic. Rushed, frantic, hurried, overwhelming. Not just for me, but for many people that I speak with. Everyone seems to have schedules that are jam-packed and catalogued into every compartment of the day...whether they are homeschoolers or not. So much of me wonders whether my hurried days are a result of working and parenting, but even the moms I know that don't work complain of the same thing. I so wish I did not have to work outside the home 32 hours a week, but I am so thankful that I can work part-time and support my family, and still have quality time with my kids.
And this, too, may someday change.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Unschooling: Doughnuts and Peanut Sauce | Life Learning with Wendy Priesnitz
Unschooling: Doughnuts and Peanut Sauce | Life Learning with Wendy Priesnitz
Thanks Wendy for taking the time to do what I don't have the time to do at the moment.
Thanks Wendy for taking the time to do what I don't have the time to do at the moment.
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