Sometimes the smallest thing, that seems insignificant at the time, can make the biggest change.
A small little fly can start an epidemic of cholera.
A mosquito can give a week-long itch.
An “I love you, sweetheart” can open up the heart.
An extra bedtime hug can ease the night time fears.
Putting on my rollerblades, while the kids are on their bikes and Fiona is in the stroller.
A seemingly small and insignificant act.
But it brings me playfulness and joy throughout the rest of my day.
Despite having just learned to crawl last week, as soon as Fiona hears the fridge door open, she races (as fast as a new crawler can race) over to the fridge. And all that motivation to reach the higher things actually inspired her to pull herself and stand now too.
Top that off with a few new teeth (for those without kids means A LOT of night waking and daytime crankiness). And boy, has this been a full week.
But thankfully my parents have been around and have taken the big kids out on plenty of adventures. The lake, the pool, a boat ride, the zoo, the park, the ice cream store. Life is good when grandparents are around.
With the arrival of summer comes the arrival of much loved family.
These two have a special connection already, even though they just met. They’re both the third child.
And these two just love to hang out in the garden together.
Kindred spirits.
Grandparents are wonderful.
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, our little newborn baby is now a crawler and no longer a newborn.
It has been a busy week. Fiona learned how to sit, crawl and pull herself up all in one week. It is by the virtue of sheer determination that these incredible babies learn how to move. From the instant Fiona wakes up, she sits right up and starts crawling. She spends the whole day, the ENTIRE day practicing. Practicing, practicing, practicing.
To develop all of those muscles she has spent a lot of time doing the “downward facing dog” yoga position. I can last for about 1 minute doing that. She does it ALL DAY LONG.
Needless to say, all this new movement has brought with it a fresh new wave of bumps and bruises. But that is the beauty of determination. There is nothing, neither pain nor tears that will stop Fiona from practicing and moving until she has perfected and mastered these new skills.
It is an incredible reminder for me about the determination that is needed when I am learning something new.
Or”der*li*ness\, n. The quality of harmonious arrangement.
I love this virtue. Orderliness helps me create beauty and harmony in my space and in my life. As I create harmony in my mind, my physical surroundings naturally reflect that and become orderly and organized.
My sister-in-law, Courtney, with her newborn. Isa swinging (by herself!) on the swing set.
I love newborns. Soft, sweet, squishy and sleepy.
I was looking through these amazing shots one night and learning about bokeh (the blurry part of the photo).
I was so inspired that I ran right out of the house and tried capturing some of my own bokeh from our blooming chives.
I painted this one a few weeks after Fiona was born and Chris was getting ready to go back to work, after taking a month off to help out with the other two kids at home. I never quite got this painting to the level that I wanted it to be. I thought about starting it over again, but of course that might never happen. And I’m actively trying to let go of my perfectionism issues. So it seemed about the right time to post it now.
I had so much fear about doing it all on my own – taking care of three kids all day long and all night long by myself. Somehow I made it through.
Now let’s rewind to about a month and a half ago. Chris got sick. Checked into the hospital. Shortly after that he had his appendix removed and was in recovery for three or four weeks. And so I was single parenting for a lot of that time. And boy did my body ever scream at me: FIND SOME BALANCE ALREADY!
I suspect this is a life-long endeavor, but certain experiences make the need for balance much more apparent. And this last month and half has been one of them.
“I feel like I’m not me anymore. I feel like a new person.” says Isabela, shortly after I gave her a drastically different new, short hair cut (at her persistent request).
It’s amazing how just something as simple as a hair cut can completely change a person. I see her differently. She has completely control over her hair. She’s always hated it when I brushed her hair and with long hair it turned into a wild crazy mess everyday. Which I would attempt to brush and she would attempt to run and hide or scream and complain.
Juliet cut her hair short a few weeks ago and ever since then Isabela has been asking me, “I want my hair like Tia’s.” (Tia is Spanish for aunt). And so last week I cut it. It was a true test of skill on my part, but amazing how this week she was able to completely get herself ready on her own for school, including BRUSHING HER OWN HAIR.
And when she said, “I feel like a different person,” well, I feel like a different person too. This last month has been one of the most life transforming months for me. I’m in awe. Everyday is a new discovery. A new revelation.
I’ve been unraveling all of my emotional repression. Sorting through the phases of my life. Unburdening myself from all of the things that I am attached to and/or that do not bring me joy. Giving away all of my furniture. Giving away all of my art. Throwing away all of the photos that showed the fake me. I only want the real me around. I’m done with bullshit. I’m strongly suspect that the intensity of having three children has brought me to the place where I need SIMPLICITY. Honesty. NO B.S.. Just the real me. I just turned 33 years old a few weeks ago and I realized that a whole lot of my life has been fake. Doing things for other people. Worried what others think of me. Living with an imaginary audience in my head.
And it’s time for that “show” for other other people to get thrown in the garbage, where it belongs.
I re-read all of my old journals and felt like I was researching my life. Recognizing common themes, pulling out the same recurrent tests and the themes of my life. I learned that skill well, when I was working on my thesis for my master’s degree. I’ve decided to make a “Life Time Line” of me. The real me. The crappy, messy, painful, fearful, vulnerable me. I may or may not share some of that on my blog. We’ll see.
A couple weeks ago I read a post about baby wearing. I have to say, at first I kind of didn’t get it.
But I thought about it in the days following, because, honestly, despite me being on my third child now and being used to wearing my babies, I hadn’t really ever thought about it in terms of the psychological aspect for the baby.
When the baby is facing out, like in a stroller or an outward facing carrier, the stimulus can be overwhelming. As stated by Dr. Evelin Kirkilionis on the Ergo baby site, “In this position the baby cannot make eye contact with his or her parent to evaluate facial expressions, social cues, and so forth to make assessment of the situation.” Which can mean stress and insecurity for the baby. Even in my sling, I realized that it is difficult for my little one to see me, even when she’s facing inwards.
So I thought about it a lot. And then I started watching an amazing video course on attachment parenting, called the Power to Parent by Gordon Neufeld (which I already mentioned before, but I just have to keep mentioning it because it is so amazing. SO. AMAZING.)
Well. One of the things he mentioned was that in all indigenous and tribal cultures, nobody had to teach them how to parent. And nobody ever had to teach them attachment parenting. They just do it instinctively. He said if you need a real live model of attachment parenting, just look to them.
So I thought a lot about that.
And I realized that one thing they all have in common is that they all wear their babies on their back. And as I thought about that, I realized that I didn’t have a proper baby carrier for that. And I didn’t have a baby carrier that was comfortable enough for me to carry Fiona for extended periods of time. Especially when I was in the kitchen, she would just get in the way if she was in the sling.
And then I thought again about the post about baby wearing. I mentioned it to my sister, who also has a baby, and we talked and thought and talked and thought.
The first level of attachment, the way a baby attaches in the first year of life, is though the physical senses. And we wanted to be able to give that physical sense of security and reassurance to our babies. But not at the expense of killing ourselves, being sore, and not being able to do anything in the kitchen.
So yesterday Juliet went out and bought the Ergo baby carrier. I had never seen it before, so I tried it out this morning. It is amazing.
I went out and bought one a few hours later. The amazing difference is that Fiona can actually look up at me and we can communicate and talk while she’s sitting in the front. Not to mention how comfortable it is!
My brother-in-law, Shane, who grew up in what the rest of the world would call “The North Pole” (but we call Nunavut and the Northwest Territories), took one look at us wearing the Ergo with the babies on the back and said, that’s just exactly what the Inuit babies look like when they’re mother’s carry them in hood of their jackets on their back.
Bingo. That’s exactly what we were looking for: a little taste of the attachment parenting that comes so instinctively and naturally to indigenous and tribal cultures.
(photos from the Ergo baby website)
Mama Hugs.
That’s really what childhood is all about, isn’t it?
Lots and lots and lots of Mama hugs.
At least, that’s what every child needs.
This painting has a long story that goes with it.
For the last several weeks, Isabela’s teacher has been letting the kids out early and giving them recess out on the playground at the end of the day. Most kids, I suspect, love this. But for Isabela, if I am not there outside her door when she is let out (which is impossible for me to know when they will be let out, now they they have recess every once in a while), well, it’s just too much for her little heart and she cries and cries and cries until I get there.
So I decided to to make her a “Love Bag” for those times when she is feeling sad, lonely and worried that I won’t be there to pick her up. The Love Bag is a little piece of me that she can physically and emotionally “hold on to” when I am not there. Something that reminds her how much I love her, makes her feel special and brings joy to her heart. Something that makes her feel loved.
I suspect that the Love Bag will be a continuously evolving entity and will grow as she grows. I have plans to make a very special bag with beautiful material that she chose and to laminate some photos of the two of us and of our family to add to it.
For now, inside the Love Bag there are a few dried fruit snacks, a little bag of raisins, a heart note that tells her I love her and most recently, this watercolor painting of the two of us hugging.
But the real story, the story that inspired me to create this Love Bag, has been the completely life transforming and paradigm shifting changes within me, all inspired from an 8 hour video course by Gordon Neufeld, entitled, The Power to Parent: The Vital Connection. As I’ve mentioned before, he is one of my all time favorite authors, and his book, Hold Onto Your Kids, is one of my all time favorite books. But this video course just took the whole attachement parenting to a new level. A deep, deep, life changing level. The kind of level that has triggered reflections and new understandings about my own childhood, about my own self, about all of my relationships, about my children, about the way I parent, about everything.
And it is certainly no coincidence that the video arrived to me, in the mail, on the first day of the Baha’i Fast (whose purpose is mind, body and soul transformation). And it is certainly no coincidence that the medicine from my Chinese doctor started kicking in on the first day of the Baha’i Fast and it’s been detoxing and cleansing my body ever since (if anyone has ever “detoxed” you know just how rotten you feel during that time). And it is certainly no coincidence that we started building an extra room in the house during the Fast, meaning that Chris would come home from work, then go to work downstairs building the room, which meant that I was by myself with all the kids all day and all night. All of these stresses where enormous triggers for transformation.
It’s been overwhelming, exhausting, made me sick, made me sob for an entire day, made me angry, pissed off, yell and scream, made me depressed. In short, it’s made me FEEL. And it’s helped to peel away the layers on my heart which I have built over years and years and years to hide my vulnerability and protect myself from the pain of separation and heart ache from not feeling a sense of unconditional love in my life.
As I learned in the attachment parenting videos, in order to strongly attach and connect with your children, they have be vulnerable, depend on you and open up their heart to you. But the won’t do that it if is not safe or if there is a threat of separation, which is a pain too much to bear. Well, how can I possibly open up their heart, if my heart is not open? As my sister said, “Attachment parenting feels so foreign that I might as well be parenting on Mars.”
I still have 2 more sets of attachment parenting video courses to watch: Helping Children Grow Up and Common Challenges. And much, much, much more life transformation awaiting me.
If you have an egg allergy or just ran out of eggs in the the middle of baking, here are some things that work as an egg substitute:
To replace an egg:
Does anyone have any other things that work to replace an egg?
There are a handful of authors in the world who truly astound me for their ability to completely transform my life through a book. Elizabeth Pantley, world renowned parenting expert, is one of those authors. And The No Cry Nap Solution is one of those books.
If you are a parent of small children, like myself, you will know that:
a good nap = a good day
a bad nap = a bad day
But getting those good naps can be an elusive, how-do-I-do-it?, FRUSTRATING experience.
A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
Well, along came Elizabeth Pantley. And she has a gift. Her gift is the ability to conduct sound, thorough research and present it in a format that is easy to read, inspiring and truly transforming.
Most parents do not have the time, desire or motivation to pour through all the literature and scientific studies that have been conducted on naps, deduce theories from it, and then set it to trial to revise and refine with a group of 209 Test Parents. Thankfully, we don’t have to. Elizabeth Pantley did it for us.
When I was conducting my own qualitative research for my master’s thesis, I wanted to do research with a group of 20 people and was advised that it was an unmanageable number – 5 or 6 would be better (I settled at 14). So the fact that Elizabeth Pantley conducted a qualitative research study with 209 people is in and of itself amazing.
NAPS ARE CRUCIAL
Elizabeth Pantley very clearly illustrates not only the benefits, but the crucial nature of naps. Based on age, a child may require 0-4 naps. This sleep has various stages, each with its own benefit, such as:
THE VOLCANO EFFECT
On top of this, we are all (adults included) subject to something called homeostatic sleep pressure or what she terms “The Volcano Effect.” Based on our age, we can only be awake for a given amount of time before we literally explode – and we all know what that means – temper tantrums, melt downs, screaming and crying.
By keeping an eye on the clock as well as an eye on our child’s sleepy signs, we can greatly reduce The Volcano Effect. One of the great things I learned from this book was that if I put my children down for a nap when they are sleepy, and not overtired, then they fall asleep quickly and easily.
In fact, I was surprised to learn that presleep, where the child is relaxed and tired, is actually the first stage in sleep, whose purpose is to prepare the body for sleep. But if ignored it will lead to a second wind and eventually an increase in feeling overtired.
A CHILD NEEDS TO FALL ASLEEP ON THEIR OWN
The thing I love about Elizabeth Pantley is her gentle, caring approach to parenting and that everything stems from a place of deep consideration for the child and the parent. She offers a plethora of suggestions on how to get your child to nap, but she always leaves a back door open to keep things the way they are if what we’re doing already is working for us, we’re feeling stressed or the child is sick, teething, learning a new skill or any other number of things that can disturb sleep.
But, if you do want your children to take good naps, more than just the 40 minute “One-Cycle Sleep Syndrome” (a baby’s sleep cycle lasts 40-60 minutes), then this book is for you.
By far, the most important thing that I have learned from reading the No Cry Nap Solution (and its parent book, The No Cry Sleep Solution which focuses more on night time sleep), is the importance of teaching a child to fall asleep on their own.
There is a brief awakening at the end of each sleep cycle. In order for a child to make it from one sleep cycle to the next, unaided by the parent, the child has to fall asleep on their own. If the child fell asleep breastfeeding (or being rocked, bounced, held or bottlefed) then they will awaken, become disturbed that things are not as they were when they fell asleep, and want to breastfeed again. If, however, they fell asleep on their own, then they will briefly awaken, see that everything is still the same and go right back to sleep.
She uses the analogy of us falling asleep in our warm, cozy bed and then waking up on the hard, cold kitchen floor. Of course we wouldn’t go back to sleep! We’d be alarmed and distressed.
NOW, HOW DO I GET MY CHILD TO NAP?
Well, this is why you need to buy the book. She literally has a solution for probably every single nap challenge, such as:
Just when you think you have the naps all figured out, they get a little older and everything changes. The No Cry Nap Solution is a book that I will definitely keep going back to, for each new naptime stage.
YOUR CHILD WON’T CRY, BUT YOU MIGHT
All of the approaches in this book are gentle and respectful of the child. They are not quick fix solutions, but require a tremendous amount of consistency and self-discipline on the part of the parent. And lets face it, it’s hard. Damn hard.
I have cried many tears during this process of endless hours of trying to get them to back to sleep.
Let me share with you one trick that has saved me: I have an iPod touch and during the endless hours in a dark, quiet room, something that could otherwise make me go mad AND get mad, I play games, surf the internet and listen to music and podcasts. I also pray and meditate.
And sure enough, after a few weeks of consistency on my part, those hours dwindle to minutes and I find myself almost wishing I had more time in that dark, quiet room.
It took about 3-4 weeks of consistency before my newborn would nap more than 40 minutes. And then we went on vacation. A blessing and a challenge. When we came home it took another 3 weeks to get back to the place where we were before the vacation, and now we just had Daylight Savings last weekend and she has a cold.
But at least now I know what to do.
And I know how to do it.
And for this I have to thank Elizabeth Pantley and The No Cry Nap Solution.
It’s so much easier in the short term to do the quick fix. Just let them breastfeed to sleep, or whatever you do.
Changing a habit is slow. It takes time and patience. But it’s so well worth it in the end, particularly when you think about the stress and anxiety that too much crying can cause on the child AND the parent.
WHAT DO NAPS LOOK LIKE IN MY HOUSE?
I have 3 nappers in my house.
THE BABY
A 4 month old, who would much prefer to have three naps a day, has had to adjust to 2 naps a day due to her big sister’s kindergarten drop offs and pick ups. She LOVES to breastfeed to sleep. I have to work pretty hard at remembering to take her off the breast just before she falls asleep, because if I don’t, more often than not I get a baby who’s stuck in the frustrating, 40 minute, One Cycle Sleep Syndrome. A lot of times I forget, but fortunately Elizabeth Pantley advises that we try to help them fall asleep on their own at least 50% of the time.
The other thing that has helped me a lot with her is the suggestion to maintain a consistent sleep routine, which sends signals to the child’s brain (or sleep cues) that it is time to sleep. Ours goes something like this: change diaper, give family a kiss goodbye, get wrapped up her swaddle blanket, turn on white noise, close curtains and lay down to nurse. One weekend I forgot to turn on the white noise and couldn’t figure out why I was having so many problems with her naps. Suddenly I remembered: white noise! I turned it on and she instantly relaxed and soon after that fell asleep.
The No Cry Sleep Solution also recommends to try changing around the way we calm them down and get them sleepy so that they are not completely dependent on one method (ie. breastfeeding, bouncing, rocking, etc). This has helped me tremendously because I when I get to the end of my rope, I know I can count on my husband to give her a little, gentle head jiggle (which we learned from The Happiest Baby on the Block) so I can leave to regain my sanity. With my two older children, if they didn’t fall asleep nursing when they were babies, then I didn’t know what else to do. I felt powerless. Now I feel like I have options.
THE 3 and 5 YEAR OLDs
They both still nap, on and off, usually when they had a bad night sleep or they’re starting to get sick. The rest of the time they do what Elizabeth Pantley calls the “Hush Hour” (or what we call “Quiet Time”) in their own room. It takes a month or two for them to adjust to this, but it is incredible how beneficial this restful time during the day is for them. They rest, read books, draw pictures, play with their toys and above all else, learn to enjoy playing by themselves and finding things to do on their own.
It is also a critical break for the parents, where we can nap, rest, read, rejuvenate ourselves and spend a little time filling ourselves up so that we are ready to parent again for the rest of the day. I napped every single day when I was pregnant and now I use the Hush Hour as a time for rest, reflection, creativity and exercise. Things which I otherwise find difficult to do with three children around.
As you can see, this book has the potential to change your life!
MORE FROM ELIZABETH PANTLEY
Ever since I was first lent a copy of Elizabeth Pantley’s book, the No Cry Sleep Solution, 3 years ago, I have become a HUGE fan of her books.
In fact, normally I am a voracious reader, but my mind went into a pregnancy fog this last year and the only two books I have been able to read since my baby was born, 4 months ago, were Elizabeth Pantley’s No Cry Sleep Solution (which I took off my bookshelf to re-read the day I came home from the hospital with my baby) and The No Cry Nap Solution. I think that says it all.
Here is a list of her other books, which I highly recommend:
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Just in case you were ever wondering what would happen if you put a pot on a hot stove element for some length of time without any water in it, let me show you. It will save you trouble of needing to try this experiment at home.
The bottom of the pan melted right off and all sorts of lovely hot metal oozed and dripped all over the stove.
If you do decide to try this experiment at home, do be sure to borrow Isabela. She will warn you just in the nick of time about what is going on, in order to prevent your whole home from turning into a hot metal forge.
We are now on the fourth day out of the nineteen day Baha’i Fast.
No food or water from sunrise to sunset. For nineteen days.
As I described to my kids, Everytime your tummy grumbles, it reminds you to think of God.
But it’s been 7 years since I’ve participated in the Fast, since I am now in my 7th of year of being either pregnant or breast-feeding (7 years!) Having children has been the single most challenging thing I have ever done. But it has also been the greatest time of spiritual transformation for me. Which is the whole purpose of the Fast. So in a way, I have been spiritually “fasting” (fasting from my own desires) for 7 years.
For a little inspiration, check out: nineteen days
Google + Wikipedia = Googlepedia
It is a free application for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. When you search something in Google, your search returns come up on the left side and the Wikipedia entry is shown on the right side. It’s very cool. It looks something like this:
Dr. Harvey Karp in The Happiest Baby on the Block, describes the first 3 months after a baby is born as “the fourth trimester.” It is a fascinating idea that our babies are “evited” 3 months early, when they really need all the benefits of the womb still. But if they stayed inside of us any longer, their heads would grow too large and they could get stuck and die.
I like the analogy of the fourth trimester because it reminded me that I needed to be her “womb bubble” to protect and care for her with great gentleness and love. And all of her reactions are based on instincts. The amazing thing is that all of the calming reflexes from the womb are still intact and you can tap into them to calm your baby.
Now that Fiona is four months old, I can see new light bulbs switching on in her head all of the time. While she has definitely moved out of the fourth trimester, she still settles down quickly with the Happiest Baby on the Block techniques.
We tried her in the Jolly Jumper today and I’ve never seen her get so excited. She was giggling, smiling and bouncing. Just knew exactly what to do.
I’m having an afternoon of meltdowns. Mine and everyone elses.
It was 2pm and I had just had a nice 1/2 hour rest on the couch. I was standing up to get some food, when, Whhhaaaaaaaaa, comes blaring over the baby monitor.
3:30pm. An hour and a half to get her back to sleep. She’s sobbing, and I’m sobbing and the kids are screaming. I suddenly realize that all I had eaten that day was a bowl of oatmeal and small sandwich. Enough for some people, maybe, but not nearly enough food for a breastfeeding, hypoglycemic mother.
I’m at the table sobbing and sobbing into my bowl of cheerios, with Diego and Isabela lurking around asking me, What’s wrong? Why are you crying?
And suddenly, my savior.
Juliet walks upstairs to borrow a can of beans, gives me a hug and takes all the kids downstairs, feeds them a snack, then throws her baby into the baby backpack and takes them all out for a bike ride. And to top it all off, makes dinner for us too.
Thank God for her.
And thank God for the mini-village in our house.
Parenting is hard. Damn hard. And it was never meant to be done alone. The saying, “It takes a village to raise a child,” I suspect has a lot to do with the support and encouragement that parents need through the incredibly difficult job of raising children.
In my mind, Ayyam-i-Ha is almost synonymis with painting cookies. It was one of the activities we did each year when I was growing up, and something I looked forward to the most.
So, as one of our Ayyam-i-Ha activities this year, we brought in small presents to Isabela’s kindergarten classmates (playdough and a deck of cards) and I organized an edible art activity: PAINTING COOKIES. Yum.
I baked a huge batch of Roll Cookies from the Joy of Cooking recipe book and cut them into hearts and stars. Then I brought icing sugar in four different colors (the paint) and tons of paintbrushes from the dollar store. After they painted the cookies, they then decorated them with sprinkles.
I heard comments like, “This is the funnest activity ever!” and “I wish I could do this everyday!”
I had a little bit of anxiety about Fiona, wondering if she would scream the whole time we were there, since it was right during her normal nap time. Fortunately some intense affirmations of “Everything will go smoothly and Fiona will be peaceful,” as well as some extra guidance from above, enabled Fiona to take a short nap in the sling and then she was kept pretty busy and happy watching all of the activity in the classroom the rest of the time.
I also had one of the other stay-at-home moms help me out. There is a small handful of us, we’re definitely in the minority, but I couldn’t have done it without her.
Diego joined right in with all the activities and sat down with the class to eat the cookies at snack time.
Next year I’m planning to add a little card for the students that tells them and their parents what it is we were doing and why, since the memories of kindergarteners can last about 5 seconds.
“What did you do at school today?” “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
Or, as recounted to me by one of the parents when they asked their child: “What are the cookies and presents for?” “Oh, just because. They like to do that sort of thing.”
MORE ABOUT AYYAM-I-HA
And if you want to know a little more about Ayyam-i-Ha, here is a great write-up that I just found from Kurt Hein, father of luckybeans, and the witness at my wedding.
The Baha’i year consists of 361 days — 19 months of 19 days apiece. To bring it into conjunction with the 365-day Roman calendar, a four-day period is set aside in late February and early March. These four days, referred to as “the time outside of time,” stand apart from the rest of the Baha’i calendar and commence the holy day cycle.
Known as Ayyam-i-Ha (pronounced: Ah-YAHM-ee-hah), the four days are traditionally a time of gift-giving for Baha’is, ever since Baha’u'llah founded the faith in the 1840s in Iran. American Baha’i children often await Ayyam-i-Ha the way Christian and Jewish children anticipate Christmas or Hanukkah.
As with those holidays, Ayyam-i-Ha has another dimension: “The Baha’is view the world as a place where people have been bestowed with enormous gifts — the gifts of love and generosity, kindness and forbearance,” says Suheil Bushrui, a Baha’i scholar at the University of Maryland who was born in Nazareth. “Baha’u'llah speaks of the human being as a treasure house — as a mine of treasures. And as you go about your life, you begin to dig out the diamonds and rubies and pearls. And the days of Ayyam-i-Ha are days of giving love and generosity. Perhaps the world needs a little sharing.”
American Baha’i families typically visit nursing homes or clean up neighborhood parks during Ayyam-i-Ha. “We’re supposed to do all those things all year-round,” says Jean Quinn, a former Catholic who converted to the Baha’i faith with her husband, Mike. “But it’s like Christmas — we finally bring the toys over to the homeless center.”
We LOVE Ayyam-i-Ha (pronounced: Ah-YAHM-ee-hah), a special time of year for the Baha’is where we show hospitality, service, generosity and thankfulness.
Juliet and I inherited the gorgeous Ayyam-i-Ha banners that my mother made about 25 years ago, and we divided them up. I don’t know how, but I lucked out with this 5 pocket Ayyam-i-Ha banner.
Each day we put a small present inside the pocket along with a clue that leads them on a treasure hunt throughout the house toward another present in the end.
I just heard that when my brother-in-law, Shane, was growing up, his parents would put their clues underneath their pillows at night when they slept and so he would wake up at 4am and run through the house on his treasure hunt.
And alongside the pocket banner was the Ayyam-i-Ha countdown calendar that I made last month. Juliet also made a beautiful Safari-theme calendar, since Olee is quite in love with animals.
Since I lucked out with the pocket banner, Juliet took to making a new one this year for herself. She is amazing.
The top banner was one of my Mom’s. And all the ones that follow are my Mother’s amazing craftwork.
“THANKFULNESS” tree
“SERVICE” tree
We also started a new tradition this year with a Thankfulness Tree and a Service Tree.
On the THANKFULNESS tree each day we write something that we’re thankful for on a leaf and tape it on.
And on the SERVICE tree we write down how we showed helpfulness to others that day.
This has been a wonderful exercise for the family, reminding us of our blessings and also being conscious of helping others.
Some of the leaves read:
“Isabela showed service by saving Mina (a toddler) from falling down the stairs!”
“Diego showed service by helping Isabela pick up the popcorn that she spilled.”
“Mama is thankful that Fiona slept well during her naps today.”
I got the idea for making the trees from An Ordinary Mom, who got it from Chocolate on My Cranium. Amazing how the circle continues.
Just last week we were at a friend’s house for her son’s birthday party and I saw, hanging on her wall, an Ayyam-i-Ha calendar that she had made, after getting inspired by the one that I made. So the circle continues.
I once read that “copying is the highest form of a compliment.” We all inspire each other, and through this we make our life a little brighter.
The rain clouds have come again, but I feel all sunny inside.
Fiona is sleeping again!
For close to three weeks after we came back from our trip to Mexico, Fiona was waking up every 40 minutes (one sleep cycle) and it would take me FOREVER to get her back to sleep. Made me a little bit grumpy.
But, Hallelujah! She’s sleeping better now. Which is why I’m back on my computer again, instead of spending hours upon hours during the day trying to get to her sleep.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Elizabeth Pantley for your No Cry Sleep Solution and No Cry Nap Solution books!
I’m long overdue to do a posting about her lastest book, the No Cry Nap Solution, and it will be coming soon. I promise. It is a fabulous book.
My nephew, Will, 7 months now, has a mouth full of teeth already and is suddenly crawling and getting everywhere.
And into everything.
And suddenly making me realize that I need to BABYPROOF! It’s a great warm up for getting things ready for things to come with Fiona, now 4 months.
Um. Ok. Don’t freak out family.
We’re all safe.
But we did have a real live C.S.I episode in our back alley today. Last night there was a shooting. No one died, but most of the alley was closed off. And the Vancouver C.S.I. (Crime Scene Investigation) team spent the whole day sweeping the neighborhood.
Once I got over the initial shock and the non-stop stream of media knocking on our door, it was actually pretty interesting to watch. They combed through everyone’s yards and roofs. Juliet got interviewed by CBC news and might be on the news tonight. An action filled day.
This was the first time something like this happened so close to home. Chris heard the shots at 10:30pm and called 911, then went out talked with the police.
I went to bed at 9pm (with my earplugs) and slept through the whole thing. But I got a jolt of adrenaline when I woke up in the morning, opened the curtains and saw a line-up of cops in our back alley.
This episode reminded me of two things.
1. God is always watching out and protecting my family. Despite the chaos around us, we are always safe. And usually violence (as was the case with this episode) is very target related. We’re not a target.
I have traveled to so many potential dangerous places, but I have learned to trust my intuition, and so I have always felt safe.
2. Don’t trust the media. I was interviewed several times today and my knowledge was based on what Chris told me right after I woke up. We both had fuzzy morning brains with three kids demanding our attention. And how do we know what happened anyways? Why trust us?
Also, all of the interviews were trying to “feed us” answers, like “Aren’t you so concerned about your safety and your neighborhood now?” “Wouldn’t you like the government to crack down on this?” They feed you the line they want to hear and then unconsciously you repeat it, even though it might not be what you feel at all.
After Chris and Diego barely recovered from a traumatic hospital visit last fall that required three stitches, this time, when Diego got a huge gash on his chin, we opted for the Sterile Suture Strips, that act like stitches, without actually needing stitches.
Oh, Diego.
Sweet, Diego.
Being the younger sibling of a boisterous older sister has definitely shaped his personality and thus far, given him two scars.
Sweet is the word that sums up my Diego. He is gentle, thoughtful, innocent, generous and a lovely person to be around. He is hugely kinesthetic and loves massages, hugs and cuddle time. He can spend hours upon hours in the sand, feeling the texture of it between his fingers.
From the moment he was born, he was the complete opposite of his older sister, and his easy going nature was such a merciful gift to me, as a parent.
We celebrated his third birthday in Mexico (Mets-i-to) with a huge party with all of the family at the beach.
Two days later his aunt got married.
He was melting in the heat in fancy suit we made him wear, but ever the sweet non-complainer, he just sort of melted onto the floor. That’s when Chris made a quick trip back to the hotel to get him some different party clothes, a little more weather appropriate.
I have a love/hate relationship with traveling with kids. I love to travel. It inspires me and opens up my eyes to new possibilities and new ways of life. When I come home I feel tired, but re-charged, renewed, and re-excited about life.
Traveling with kids helps them to see themselves as a world citizen, that despite our differences, we are all very much the same. It helps them open up their minds to a world that is much greater and larger that what they see in their daily life. It fosters an appreciation for diversity and creates opportunities for practicing flexibility and adaptability.
We are not, by any means, well-off. But somehow we have managed to travel a lot since we’ve had kids. 12 trips in 5 years, to be exact. I think that because the first 5 years of our marriage we lived as poor, full-time university students, we learned how to live frugally. And to be OK with that. In the entire period of our marriage, almost 10 years, we haven’t had more that a span of a few months where we both worked full-time (at the same time). A double income allows for a lot more frivolous spending. We have chosen, for the well-being of our children, that one parent (me) will be at home with our children, to take advantage of the short, but crucial period in their lives for character development and maintaining a strong parental attachment, and all of the benefits that go with that. And so the other parent will bring home the income.
There are things that we just don’t do very often, like eating out at restaurants or buying lots of the newest, latest gadgets and toys, in order to live within our means, and maintain the choices that we have made. But one of the things we do value is travel. And so the money we are able to save, usually goes toward that.
When Isabela was 4 months old I flew to California and Arizona to visit grandparents and relatives. A month later my grandmother passed away and we all flew to Minnesota for her funeral. Later that year, just before she turned one, we spent a month in Venezuela, visiting all of Chris’ old stomping grounds. A year later we flew to California again to visit family and after a particularly rough trip, by myself with an almost two year old who wouldn’t sleep and wouldn’t nap during our trip, I came home exhausted and said, “Chris, let’s wait a while before we have any more kids!” Ironically, I had been feeling pretty sick during the trip and went to the doctor later that that morning, only to find out that I was pregnant with Diego. I figure that God had a good laugh at us over that one.
A few months later we did an overnight road trip (Chris stayed up all night driving while Isabela and I slept in the car) to Alberta for a family wedding. Later that year we visited California again and then went on a 5 week adventure to Taiwan (to visit Chris’ aunt and uncle), Malaysia (to visit my parents) and Bali (for a family vacation). Since then we have been to California again, this past summer, and now we have just returned back from Mexico.
Our trips have been so outstanding and memorable, but as is the case when traveling with kids, they have also been downright exhausting. The problem is that for an older child who can go to sleep by themselves AND sleep through the night, they can adapt and ajust quite easily. Not so easy with a baby. When we went to Malaysia, Diego was 11 months old AND SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! It was wonderful. But after we came home from our trip, it took him 1 month to get over the jetlag and another 3 months before he started sleeping through the night again.
Which brings me to the present moment. I have been working HARD, VERY HARD, to get Fiona into a good sleeping routine and before we left she was doing great. Going to bed at 7pm, waking up a few times at night to feed, (which is normal for a three month old) and taking regular naps through the day. Now since we’ve been back, the only thing that’s predictable is that she will wake up crying 40 minutes after she fell asleep. And it will take me another 30-90 minutes to get her back to sleep. It will eventually straighten out again, but it feels a bit like all my hard work got flushed down the toilet pretty quickly.
But despite all of that, I have loved all of our trips and would do them again. But maybe I’ll wait until the two naps a day are gone. Or even better, until all the naps are gone. I had visions of fun, adventurous vacations in 3 years when we can frolick at the pool and beach all day and not have to worry about the disasterous effect of a child who has missed her nap.
And so, since we have been back from our trip, I have been exhausted. Falling asleep everytime I breastfeed and going to bed at 7:30pm (right after all the kids are in bed) kind of exhausted.
But yes. I would do it again.
TWO THINGS THAT HELPED FOR TRAVELING WITH KIDS:
1. The bag of tricks for the airplane.
I stocked up at the dollar store before we left and when we were traveling, particularily for the airplane when we have to sit in one place for so long, we systematically pulled a new item out at strategic intervals to maintain the peace. Playdough, plasticine, stickers, markers, paper, new books, new toys, lots and lots of snacks and juice.
And the icing on top of the cake was my iPod touch, which I dowloaded 50 children’s video podcasts (free on iTunes) with all their favorites: Sesame street, Dora, Diego, Blues Clues, etc. This was such a lifesaver for us on the trip. We even pulled it out during the second ceremony of my sister-in-law’s wedding when they started getting fidgety. They just watched the videos (without sound) there and everyone commented about how well-behaved our children were (heh heh).
2. Rent a condo
The second thing that I did right on this trip was to recognize our need for a 2-bedroom condo/apartment style place to stay. It cost a little more, but it was well worth the extra expense for the piece of sanity that it gave us. Isabela and Diego in one room, Fiona and I in another, and Chris out on the couch. That way we could all get a good night sleep in order to actually be able to enjoy our vacation. Plus there was a TV with tons of children’s channels. I am not a fan of TV in anyway at all, but I do appreciate it for those times when I think to myself, “OK, I could kill them, or I could let them watch TV.”
The other great thing about staying at a condo was that it had a kitchen. Let me tell you, after two days we got completely sick of restaurants with kids. We hit the big supermarket in town (it was like Costco – enormous!) and stocked up. After that we ate most of our meals in the condo, which saved us a lot of money and gave us more time for hanging out down by the pool and the beach.
Some photos from our trip, still to come.
This is a watercolor painting that I created as a wedding present for my sister-in-law, Emily and my new brother-in-law, Juan Pablo. The background of the painting is where Juan Pablo proposed to Emily, in a small village in Italy, and amazingly ended up looking a lot like where they got married, in Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo, Mexico. I had my other sister-in-law email me what the wedding dress was going to look like and included that in the painting as well, in order to surprise them!
The wedding was amazingly beautiful and seamless organized. It started out with a civil ceremony at a gorgeous Villa in Ixtapa that Juan Pablo’s family was staying at. It was then followed by a Catholic ceremony in Zihuatanejo (a town 10 minutes away), and then followed by a Baha’i ceremony back in Ixtapa at a beautiful restaurant just as the sun was setting. What a view! Dinner, dessert and dancing followed, but my night lasted until about 9pm when the kids started to melt down and we had to leave for them to go to bed.
More about the rest of our Mexico vacation to come…
This amazing photo is taken by Scott Miller or Blair Kent (thanks to Arezu who lead me to this link to figure out who took the photo.) It was sent to me as one of those email forwards and could be a bit tricky to figure out if you don’t know what you’re looking at.
FOG. We have been immersed in fog for the last two weeks. A rare thing for our city. This photo was taken from the top of Cypress Mountain, one of the local ski hills, with just a few of the skyscrapers from downtown peeking out over the clouds. Amazing.
The fog has been so beautiful and I have been itching to go out in it to take photos, but have been using every spare moment I have to pack and get ready for our big trip to Mexico tomorrow. My sister-in-law is getting married in Ixtapa, Mexico to her Mexican sweetheart which she met several years ago when she was doing a study abroad program there. When they mentioned that they would have the wedding up in Canada to make it easier for the rest of the family up here, we all said, NOOOOO! WE WANT TO GO TO MEXICO!
Now we are about to embark on our first “Family of Five” traveling adventure.
I decided not to take my new camera because I didn’t want to be worried about it during our stay. I am missing it already. Juliet just upgraded her camera and has a very sweet Nikon D90 now. She is teaching me so much about photography by sending me all sorts of interesting links and when I said I wasn’t going to take my Canon XSI, she said, “You will regret every photo you take.” Alas, this is true. But if last weekend, at the Baha’i Regional Conference was any indication for me, I will probably have Fiona on my lap the whole time and not even have a free hand to take my camera out of the bag.
So I am taking my point and shoot, Canon G4. Which really is not a crappy camera. When I bought it 5 years ago it cost $1100. But now that I have gotten used to a digital SLR camera, there is no turning back.
Well, speaking of crappy cameras, I took some shots on my camera phone (2 megapixel) at Isabela and Diego’s first dance class yesterday. Isabela has been asking me, twice a week for year, to go to dance class. Everything was a write-off when I was pregnant. The world came to a standstill. And now, almost exactly a year later I am just starting to get back on my feet. And so they began dance class.
(Not a bad photo, for a 2 megapixel phone camera!)
Diego spent the whole class hiding out behind a chair. I am determined not to push him into anything before he is ready. I still have vivid (and scarring) memories of Isabela running away from her swimming class, me running after her screaming to stop while holding Diego (still a baby), and the lifeguard running after all of us, blowing his whistle and telling us all to stop running. Ahhh. Some memories I’d rather forget.
So this time around, no pushing. When they are ready, as I have seen so clearly with Isabela, they are ready. And they just dive in on their own.
Fiona spent the whole dance class screaming on my lap. In the last two weeks, her routines have sunk in and her awareness of life has multiplied. If things are out of the ordinary, out of the normal routine, than she is not a happy girl. For example, most of the time I breastfeed her lying down. So now she gets really upset if I try to breastfeed her sitting up. This should be interesting on the airplane….
By sheer coincidence, both Fiona and Will were wearing the same outfit today (different sizes) that we got as gifts for Diego and Olee when they were babies. Which means, of course, photo shoot.
It has taken me three children to finally let go of the cultural stereotype that boys wear blue and girls wear pink. Fiona wears Diego’s hand-me-downs, which are blue, and Diego wears Isabela’s hand-me-downs, which are pink. When I first had Isabela, getting her all dressed up like a girly-girl was fun. And I still felt, in the back of my mind, that my children’s appearances reflected on me, as a mother.
Once she hit about 2 and a half years old, she refused to let me dress her or pick out her clothes. And so I started detaching. Now I applaud their efforts at dressing themselves and don’t care at all if their clothes are on backwards, mis-matched or pink for a boy, or blue for a girl. Generally I find that people who don’t have kids notice that kind of thing. But it seems that other parents with kids generally don’t care either.
I learned this lesson from Elizabeth Pantley’s book, “Hidden Messages: What our words and actions are really telling our children.” She used the example of a child making her bed and the parent praising her, but then straightening out a corner of the bed. It is a subtle thing, but when we correct their mistakes (on things that are really not that important), we teach them that they will never be good enough in our eyes.
And so I let them wear their pants backwards and their shoes on the wrong feet, because eventually they will figure it out. I am just thankful that they can do it by themselves.
Isabela so desperately wanted to be in this photo of moms and babies that she was sobbing and sobbing and kept diving into the photo. Which gives the photo a bit of character, I think. Full-fledged, do not forget me, Isabela character.
It seems to me that the most captivating photos are the ones that tell a story or that show real emotion. Like this one.
The Big Picture is a website that tells news stories through photos. It is captivating, disturbing, amazing and I couldn’t pull myself away from it.
These would be the news headlines of my life from the last few days:
WOMAN GETS PEED ON BY 3 YEAR OLD, THEN PUKED ON BY BABY.
WOMAN HAS MELT DOWN WHILE TRYING TO PACK FOR 5 PEOPLE.
BABY PICKS UP WOMAN’S STRESS, TAKES 3 HOURS TO FALL ASLEEP.
Fortunately all of the packing is done (I literally started a month ago) so I have the rest of the day to relax and let go of my stress before our travels. Some intu-flow, a hot bath, and lots of prayer, meditation, and affirmations is exactly what I need right now.
I'm a stay-at-home mom with three kids, Isabela (5), Diego (3) and Fiona (baby). I am also an artist, a Baha'i and I live in Vancouver, Canada.
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