Puzzle Love

Now that my kids are getting into more advance puzzles, I realized just how much I love puzzles. I spent three weeks with them working on this amazing 500 piece puzzle by Unicef. (On sale for US $3.99)

As we worked on it, I held myself back from doing the puzzle and just helped them to find pieces or encourage them. But it unleashed a deep longing in me to do the puzzle all by myself. Once we finally finished it and broke it up, I spent three days in a puzzle trance. It was addicting. And also fulfilling.

I remember as a child we had a Unicef circle puzzle that I loved to work on. I was so happy to find this new one with buildings from around the world and map of the world. It was an incredible educational tool because, spending so much time putting it together, they would ask me about the different buildings and we’d talk about the different countries and styles of architecture.

Here’s a few other ways that puzzles enhance development:

• develops problem solving skills
• improves hand-eye coordination
• develops shape/size/color recognition and matching ability
• develops perseverance, detachment and the ability to finish what you start
• facilitates team-work

I’m currently drooling over this puzzle, Gale Pitt’s Victorian doll house puzzle, but have been unsuccessful at finding a shop that will ship it to Canada.

A word about the H1N1 vaccine and why I choose NOT to vaccinate my children.

KNOCKED DOWN BY THE FLU

Well, the good old H1N1 flu got us. It took us down in waves. First the kids for a week and then the adults for a week. Fever, chills, aches, coughs, nausea, the works. It was bad and don’t get me wrong here, I don’t particularly enjoy the flu.

WAIT A MINUTE, IT’S JUST THE FLU!

But here’s where I have to say, IT’S JUST THE FLU! And what is the big scary deal about getting the flu? Come on, people! Yes, some people have died from the flu. But thousands of people die from the flu each year, just in the area I live. Here are some stats I read in the newspaper a few weeks ago…last year 1500 people died from the flu. So far this year, 2 people have died from H1N1 and the people who are dying always have some other underlying condition. In other words, they’re not just dying from the flu. It’s from the other condition that they have.

YOU STILL GET THE FLU, EVEN WITH THE FLU VACCINE

And now a word or two about the flu vaccine. Here’s the thing, every single person I talked to who got the flu vaccine, came down with the flu immediately afterward. And then they exposed everyone around them to the flu as well. Now according to the research, the previous flu vaccines DID NOT STOP YOU FROM GETTING THE FLU, they only shortened your flu by 4 hours. Did you know that? Most people don’t.

RESEARCH DOES NOT SUPPORT VACCINES

According to the Cochrane Collaboration (an international non-profit dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare interventions readily available worldwide and who conduct high quality systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions) they conclude, after extensive research, that: “The universal immunization of healthy adults should achieve a number of specific goals: reducing the spread of the disease, reducing the economic loss due to working days lost and reducing morbidity and hospitalization.” None of these goals have been demonstrated in the available RCT evidence. Clinical implications: “Universal immunization of healthy adults is not supported by the results of this review.”

VACCINES ARE WATERED DOWN

The H1N1 flu vaccine has not be researched enough to know all the negative side effects that come from it (except for basically guaranteeing that you will in fact get the flu, only a slightly shorter version of it). Plus, because it has been in such high demand and there was not enough to go around, I have heard doctors actually say that the vaccine was “watered down” in order to get more out of it. Hmmm…… That’s not even taking into account all of the harmful chemicals and preservatives and, well, basically poison that you are injecting into your blood stream. When somebody is making billions of dollars off a product,  at some point you have to stop and question their motives and do your own research, not just blindly accept the foder they feed to you that preys on your fears.

BUT I’M IMMUNIZED, RIGHT?

Did you know that if you get all of your vaccines mixed together and injected at the same time that your body will think it is one illness? In other words, if you get the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine and then by chance you are exposed to Measles at some other time, well guess what? You’re probably going to get sick. Why? Because your body will only provide you with immunity if you are exposed to Measles, Mumps and Rubella at the exact same time. Now what are the chances of that happening?

But don’t worry, you probably won’t get measles anyways (just as long as you eat your fruits and veggies) because measles is linked to lack of Vitamin A. Which is why some poor, malnourished nations still get a lot of measles outbreaks despite being vaccinated.

But if you’re still keen on vaccinating, single dose vaccines spread out at different times makes a huge difference.

MY DAUGHTER’S REACTION TO VACCINES

When Isabela, my first daughter, was born, I didn’t really do any research into vaccines. I just went along with what my doctor said, and gave her the 2 month old dose of vaccinations. We came home and she cried and screamed the whole night. Then the whole week. And then after that she became a much more irritable, fussy baby. Soon after that she started throwing up more often and developed a runny nose and a cold that did not go away for 3 months and FINALLY, I thought to myself, “Something is wrong. A cold does not last for 3 months!”

My mother suggested that maybe the excess mucous was caused by a lactose allergy, so I went off of cow’s milk and after two weeks her runny nose went away (my baby was only breastfeeding at the time, so what I was eating was what was making her sick.)

When I reflect upon Isabela’s experience with vaccines, obviously I can not blame everything on them, but what is clear to me is that it severely compromised her immune system, triggering and onset of numerous allergies (which may or may not have developed on their own without the vaccines) and it made her so uncomfortable and in pain that she cried for a whole week, and then just cried a lot more easily than before.

ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO EGGS?

If this had, on the other hand, been Diego, my three year old, who had received the vaccines as a baby, he would have had a massive reaction due to his egg allergy. (Did you know that they grow the illness on eggs and so part of it the egg is transferred into the vaccine?) Have you ever had a doctor ask you if your child had an egg allergy before you got a vaccine? Not in my experience.

BYPASSING OUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE

Since then I have done a lot more reading and research on vaccines. The thing that seems the  most important to me is that our immune system has several lines of defense to ward off illnesses. By injecting vaccines directly into the blood stream, you are bypassing so many of the body’s natural lines of defense. First the nostril hairs, then the nose or mouth, the stomach, the intestines, and if the disease is still kicking around, then it goes into our blood stream, but is then attacked by white blood cells. If our immune system is healthy, we will not catch the illness.

HOW TO NOT GET SICK: SLEEP

A study conducted by “British immunologists asked volunteers to inhale a noseful of aerosol containing common cold virus. Ten percent of those exposed resisted infection entirely. Another 30% were asymptomatic despite infection, 30% got a mild cold, and 30% got a bad cold. Statistical analysis of the subjects’ diet, exercise routines, smoking habits, stress levels, and other heath-related items revealed that one of the most significant factors in determining whether someone caught the common cold was how much sleep he go the night before exposure.” (p.77 in To Kindle a Soul, by Lawrence Kelemen – great book!)

1 IN 10 GET SERIOUSLY ILL FROM VACCINE

Now, supposedly vaccines are supposed to give you immunity to diseases, by giving you a small amount of the illness, small enough that the body is supposed to fight it off and create antibodies to protect it later on. But one in ten children develop mild or serious cases of the actual illness their body is supposed to fight off.

THE LINK TO AUTISM

The link of vaccines to autism is one of the most compelling reasons for me not to vaccinate. There is a lot of media controversy around this, but thousands of parents and doctors will attest to this connection. But when the pharmaceutic companies are making BILLIONS of dollars off vaccines, it is in their best interest to make people believe that there is no link. A good friend of mine has a 7 year old son who was a completely healthy, normal 2 year old, and immediately after the MMR vaccine developed autism, most likely due to the high doses of thimerosal (mercury) in the vaccines. She recommended this book, “What your doctor may not tell you about childhood vaccination.”

VACCINES ARE A CHOICE

One other thing. Vaccines are a choice in Canada and most other countries around the world. As in, not mandatory. You cannot legally be denied entrance to school or daycare or a job or anything because of not being vaccinated.

A FEW GOOD WEBSITES

http://www.novaccine.com/

http://thinktwice.com/

http://vran.org/

TWO GREAT VIDEOS

“Vaccine Nation”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6696666502913965744#docid=6531447125053615129

“Vaccination: The Hidden Truth”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6696666502913965744

TWO INTERESTING ARTICLES ABOUT H1N1 VACCINE

“What’s in Your H1N1 Flu Vaccine?”

http://www.straight.com/article-270843/vancouver/whats-your-vaccine

“H1N1 Pandemic or Panic?”

http://www.commonground.ca/iss/221/cg221_cassels.shtml

“Jack-o-lantern” watercolor painting

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

“Sleep, Baby, Sleep” Painting

“Sleep, Baby, Sleep.”

It could also be read as, “Sleep! Baby. Sleep!” or if it’s 4am and I’ve been up for 2 hours, it could be “SLEEP! SLEEP! SLEEP! Baby. SLEEEEEEEEEP!”

My paintings in the last year or two have taken on the form of visual mantras or visual affirmations. I paint what I want my life to look like. Then I hang up the painting above my computer and look at it every day. I am a highly visual learner. By seeing this visual prayer every day, it slowly starts to seep into my reality and after awhile I start to notice that I actually believe the message in the painting. Once I believe it, my life and reality then follow.

And so my current visual affirmation is for my baby – almost one and not such a baby anymore – to sleep through the night. Things were going well for quite awhile. But then the teeth arrived. My stress levels soared in the summer (when I’m stressed, Fiona doesn’t sleep). Bad habits were formed. And so on and so on. It got to an all time record low several weeks ago and I was finally motivated to take action. I reviewed The No Cry Sleep Solution and then made a sleep plan, which I am carrying out in various steps.

My first step in the Sleep Plan was to cut out the 10pm wake up (she goes to bed at 7pm and started waking up at 10pm a month and a half ago). No milk, only a brief hug and then leave. The next step was no milk until midnight, only brief hugs and soothing when she wakes up. A few other steps are to make sure she doesn’t fall asleep breastfeeding and keep the middle of the night feeds short (leading to a gradual night weaning).

I’m knocking on some wood right now, but I’m pretty amazed that she is only waking up 2 times now (1:30am and 5:00am) and then is up for the day at 7:30am. It is a drastic improvement from a month ago when there were a few nights where she was waking up every 30 minutes and occasionally up for a few hours in the middle of the night.

My next step is to night wean her from the 1:30am feed by gradually shortening the feeding time and then just using hugs and soothing. After that I’ll work on the 5am feed. And after that, maybe miracles will happen and she’ll sleep through the night. I am definitely read for some sleep. I feel like I’ve been sleep deprived for 7 years now with only brief respite in between babies. Since this is the last child we have decided to have, I found that I have been a lot more tolerant of the night wakings, knowing that “this too shall pass,” but frankly I am ready for this to pass.

I am also eased the fact that I know that it is healthier for older babies NOT to have milk or food in the middle of the night because our bodies were designed for our digestive system to have a rest at night so that all of our body’s energy can go into growth, repair and development. That being said, if the baby is in fact hungry, I would definitely feed her. But in my experience the midnight feeds have more to do with habit that actual hunger. But as anything in life, once a habit is formed, it takes a few weeks of consistency to break the habit and form a new one.

Chestnuts

Last weekend we went for a walk to collect nuts. There are city trees everywhere with nuts that plummet to the ground and nobody collects them (except the squirrels), so we were able to gather heaps and heaps of chestnuts just a few blocks away. I’m not sure if we’re going to eat them, but they make lovely decorations for now.

Banana – Quinoa Flour Muffins (or waffles) dessert recipes (gluten free, egg-free, sugar-free, dairy-free)

I recently got a request for some recipes without wheat, rice flour or chickpea flour. I immediately remembered a delicious Banana-Quinoa Muffin recipe that I used to make all the time. This recipe comes from the back of Ancient Harvest Quinoa, which has a whole variety of quinoa products and also a lot of very creative recipes on their website. If you can’t find quinoa in your town, you can order individual products online at Amazon.com.

Quinoa is an ancient grain from South America that is a complete protein and so healthy that there is almost no malnutrion in the people who consume quinoa in the poor regions of Bolivia. It’s great for vegetarians, babies and people with allergies. You can cook the quinoa grain like rice or cook the quinoa flakes to make a breakfast cereal (like oatmeal). The quinoa flour is also great for baking.

BANANA – QUINOA MUFFINS (or waffles)

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1/2 cup quinoa flakes

1/3 cup brown sugar (or 1/3 tsp stevia for sugar-free)

2 TB honey (or 1/8 tsp stevia for sugar-free)

2 tsp baking powder (or 1/2 tsp baking soda mixed with 1 tsp lemon juice)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 very ripe bananas

2 eggs (or 3 tsp egg replacer mixed with 4 TB water for egg-free. See here for other egg substitutes.)

Optional: blueberries, raisins, cut up apricot, cranberries, grated apple, grated carrot, or cinnamon.

_____
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix flour, flakes and all dry ingredients. Mix in mashed bananas and all wet ingredients. Pour into greased muffin tins (fill muffin tins 1/2 full). Bake 20-25 minutes.
______

To make waffles, add 3 TB oil and 1/2 cup milk.

We have a walker

Still tipsy and toddling, but definitely a walker.

Sleepover

My first reaction to learning that Isabela was going to have a sleepover camping trip with her class was, “What? NO WAY!”

Chris’ reaction was, “Hey, that’s great!”

Which made me realize that the problem was that, whether or not Isabela was ready, I was not ready.

At first Isabela did not want to go, but as the time came closer, and as they talked about it more and more in their class, she started to get excited. Just a few days before the trip, without any prompting from us, she decided to sleepover.

After dropping her off at the camp and helping her set up her things on the bunk bed in the cabin, we said goodbye and without a flinch or second glance she bounced off to play. My, this is a different child than the one who used to sob and sob every morning at school drop off, during recess and when I was not the first parent in line to pick her up.

They hiked, created nature art, visited a salmon hatchery, the water reservoir and dam, roasted marshmallows, sang camp songs and SLEPT OVER in a room with 25 giggling girls. Granted, I’m not sure how much sleep they actually got.

Isabela is growing up.

“Nose Kiss” painting

After I did the painting, Mama Hugs, for Isabela, Diego said that he wanted one too. So here is Diego and I giving each other a “nose kiss.”

And here is the painting in Diego’s room. I love that what he looks at when we wakes up and before he goes to sleep is his mother giving him a huge hug and connecting together with a silly nose kiss.

You may notice the painting is, in fact, crooked. It is now at the perfect height for Fiona to bang it. Fortunately the “glass” is actually a really thick plastic. And you may also notice the very red walls and the very red blanket.

Ah yes. Red. There seems to be something about Diego and the color red. This summer I decided to paint the kids rooms and wanted their input on colors. Immediately Diego choose this color of red and Isabela chose a dark pink. I was all, “No way! You have to choose a lighter color.” But we couldn’t agree on anything and finally came to an impass. Weeks went by.

Finally I started thinking about something in one of the attachment videos, from the series Helping Children Grow Up, by Gordon Neufeld. He was talking about how children need “room to be themselves.” Of course, he was talking about it in the metaphorical sense, but I realized that this applied in the literal sense as well. I needed to give my the kids their rooms as their own.

I mean, how much time do I really spend in my kids rooms? Mostly we play in the living room and kitchen. And why can’t I just get over my issue of not liking those colors? Why can’t I just let them like those colors and immerse themselves in them?

So I let them pick their colors again and they immediately went back and chose the exact same colors (out of hundreds and hundreds of color swatches) that they had originally chosen.

And you know something, now it has grown on me. I really like those colors a lot.

Here is Isabela’s very pink room.

Baby Wearing – watercolor painting

In celebration of babies being carried.

In celebration of wonderful, deliciously comfortable baby carriers.

In celebration of the Ergo and how it has changed my life.

In celebration of babies feeling secure and attached to their parents.

In celebration of cooking dinner and washing dishes while carrying Baby.

In celebration of not getting a sore back or sore shoulders from carrying Baby.

In celebration of International Babywearing Week (Sept. 21-28, 2009).

In celebration of being “Close Enough to Kiss.”

Getting used to something new

“I hate school! I’m never coming back here!” screamed Isabela to her teacher.

This came after a huge blowout on her second day of full day school – a mixture of tears, temper tantrums and Isabela yelling at her teacher. Not terribly surprising since it took her 8 months to get used to kindergarten last year. I brought her home after lunch and spent an hour and a half with her crying. At which point I was crying too.

Chris came home early from work and did one of the most spectacular parenting jobs I have ever seen in my life. He immediately went into her room and played with her. Created a really strong attachment. Was silly and playful. Then told her about his school experience. And then talked, consulted, encouraged and honored her tears, her fears and her experience at school.

It took 4 hours.

By the next morning Isabela was ready for full day school. (And Chris was ready for a day off.)

When we got to the school, this is what she said: “I’m really scared, but Papa said that in order to get used to something new, I have to try it. So I’m going to try going to school all day today.”

She went the whole day without any problems.

The next day, with a little attitude in her voice she said, “Diego, if you want to get used to something new, you just have to do it.”

Isabela turns 6

This girl is now 6 and I am in amazement – in fact flabbergasted and in awe of the things she can do now.

Like the other day I overheard her say, “Diego, I know I fight with you over wanting your cars, but actually, I was just fighting. I don’t really want them. Here you can have them back.”

WHAT?

Is that the same Isabela?

Or this one: “Isabela it’s time to get ready for bed.”

“O.K.” she says. And 1 minute later she’s got on her pajamas and teeth brushed.

WHAT?

I think I’m liking this.

Isabela is my child that teaches me to be a parent. First of all, she’s the first. So everything I do with her is trial and error. And unfortunately, a lot of error. But she’s also my most sensitive and challenging child. And because of this, she is really the child that MAKES me become a better parent.

When kids are easy, we don’t have a lot of motivation to change, as a parent, or to learn new things. But when we’re pulling our hair out, screaming into a pillow and cursing under our breath, well these are the things that trigger us to search for new solutions.

The greatest parenting investment I have ever made was to purchase a set of parenting videos by Gordon Neufeld about attachment parenting called “The Power to Parent”. Not cheap. And NOT easy to do. But so incredibly helpful, practical and inspiring. For me the proof of these miracle parenting videos is how dramatically my relationship with my children has changed. Read more about how I have been re-learning to parent here.

And now I leave you with some birthday party photos.

Decorations courtesy of Isabela and Diego.

To all the parents out there. I have noticed that every single time we go outside to play in our yard or we have children come over to our house to play, they ALWAYS end up in the sandbox for a significant amount of time. Sandboxes are CHEAP (especially if you buy them used – we buy all our used stuff from craigslist.org) and sand is CHEAP ($5 at Home Depot for a huge bag, or free if you get it from a beach).

You will never lose with this investment. It will provide HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS of entertainment. So my advice to you is this: Go out and buy a sandbox.

Mermaid Birthday Cake

I’m not really sure what the deal is with mermaids and princesses and that crap, but I decided I can get over my issues – at least for the birthday cake – and let Isabela choose what kind of cake she wanted. I was hoping for something more like this cake from here:

But who am I kidding, really? At this stage in my life, I need the simple solution. And so off we went to the dollar store, bought a couple of mermaids, and then a bunch of bags of candy from the Quickie Mart down the street. “Whoa! That’s a lot of candy!” says Harry, the store clerk.

Then the kids iced and decorated the cake themselves. And which kid wouldn’t want a cake covered with candy? The irony, of course, is that I don’t ever eat sugar and hardly ever let my kids eat sugar, but what the heck. Birthdays only come around once a year.

We were searching through Google Images to get some ideas for mermaid cakes and I taught Isabela how to click on the image that she wants, enlarge the photo, then go back to the main page to continue searching through the images, then click to the next page of images. This was out of a matter of necessity, since 3 kids requires so much multitasking and Fiona is at the “pounding the computer” stage and so I didn’t have a lot of time to sit down and look at photos with Isabela.

To my complete amazement, I only had to teach her once and she remembered exactly how to do all of those steps.

I got my first email address when I was in university. Not because I was technologically repressed, but because NO ONE ELSE HAD EMAIL ADDRESSES. There was no Google. No Facebook. No Wikipedia. And look, I’m not really that old. That was only 13 years ago. But it was all so new and I used to curse the computer endlessly because it didn’t do what I wanted it to do and I didn’t know how to fix the things I had by some magical mistake messed up.

And now, here is my 6 year old daughter, going, “I can do it. I can do it.” And she really can.

And then there’s my three year old picking up my Ipod Touch, turning it on, scrolling through, finding the game he wants, opening it, playing it, closing it, checking the weather, closing it, and turning off the Ipod and putting it away. Not that he does it that often, because just like the sugar thing, I also have a TV/computer/electronic anti-thing for kids. So they don’t use it that often and that’s why it just amazes me that when they do it, they remember all of the steps all on their own.

He is so comfortable with the touch screen that often forgets that my computer is not a touch screen and tries to open and move things around on the screen instead of with the mouse. I suspect that his first computer will probably be a touch screen computer. I’m sure those will come out sometime soon.

Whoa. I started out with Mermaid birthday cakes and ended up with predictions about touch screen computers. I bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?

Mastitis home treatment

Mastitis (breast infections caused by plugged milk ducts) can come on very quickly and completely knock you off your feet. Usually there is an intense pain in the infected area of the breast, followed by fever, chills, aches and pains. It usually lasts for about 1-3 days and then eases up.

It is the biggest, surest sign (for me anyways, everytime I get it) that I am TOO stressed, doing TOO much, and not taking care of myself. It is my body’s way of getting me to lie down and REST.

So here’s what I do when I get mastitis:
1. 5 Phytolacca Decandra every few hours (homeopathic remedy that you hold under the tongue until it dissolves)
2. Lots of Vit. C and echinacea
3. Lots of an infection fighting herb such as Golden Seal, Oregon Grape, Silver Shield (colloidal silver), or oregano oil
4. Take lots and lots of hot baths.
5. Massage really hard (it hurts like hell, but you have to do it) the blocked milk duct, which is the cause of the infection. I usually do it in the shower or bath.
6. Keep nursing, as often as I can, to get the milk ducts flowing and unblocked.
7. Ask my husband to take the day (or days) off to watch the kids so I can sleep, rest, watch TV, movies, etc.

8. Raw cabbage leaf, tucked in the bra and changed when warm and/or wilting and grating raw potato and placing on the infected area as a poultice were two other treatments recommended to me by my midwives. I’ve actually never tried these, but hear that they are very helpful. They help draw out the heat and the infection.

I’ve had mastitis A LOT and I’ve never needed antibiotics by following the above treatment. But if by some chance you do take antibiotics, makes sure you follow it with a HEAVY treatment of probiotics (acidophilus, bifidophilus) to replenish your body with the healthy bacteria that the antibiotics all kill off. Otherwise you are sure to get a yeast infection.

(The best ever) Blackberry Crumble recipe (sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, wheat-free)

I made this blackberry crumble last week at a dinner party and you know you’ve hit the jackpot when everyone there tracks you down later that week for the recipe. It’s oh-so-yummy.

And did I mention that it’s also sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and wheat-free (gluten-free)? It’s hard to find a good dessert that EVERYONE loves that falls into that category. Well, if you’re looking for one, here you go:

(The best ever) Blackberry Crumble Recipe

2 1/4 cups flour (any kind of flour ie. rice, spelt, wheat, oat, etc.)
1 1/2 cups rolled oats (or quinoa flakes, kamut flakes, rice bran or ground up nuts)
3/4 tsp stevia (or 3/4 cup sugar, if you like that stuff)
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then add:
3/4 cup butter (non-dairy butter for the dairy sensitive ones)

In a baking plan, spread out:
4-5 cups of blackberries
Optional:
1 cup of blueberries
1-2 cups of peaches

Sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over top of the berries.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

You can make this recipe with any combination of fruit. If you use apples, your baking time will increase to about 50-60 minutes.

When you are picking your own blackberries, the biggest, blackest berries will always be the sweetest. Look for them by sunny roads, train tracks or trails.

******************************

Even though blackberries are considered a weed, it’s hard to find them here in Vancouver, where every inch of land is developed and consequently, weeded.

Last night I took Isabela out on a special outing to pick blackberries, made even more special by the fact that it was just her and I, out late at night, way past her bedtime, doing something that we both love. We had to drive out to Richmond, a nearby city, and went to an industrial area with blocks and blocks of blackberry bushes.

We were both sort of giddy and singing and playful the whole night. Every few minutes Isabela would say, Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!! These are the best blackberries I’ve ever eaten in my WHOLE life!

And then every once in a while she’d find an enormous one and she’d yell, I found THE QUEEN of the blackberries! It’s going to save it for my birthday cake. And then she’d eat it a minute later.

It was a wonderful mother-daughter bonding experience, the kind of time where I can step back from my life and look at my daughter with fresh eyes. What an amazing girl, I kept thinking to myself. I was also thinking about how much my own mother would have loved to be there with us.

End of summer

This blog has been around long enough for me to recognize a clear pattern now. Every summer, the blog stops. Somehow even just writing an email feels impossible in the summer.

Between family, visitors, a full house, late nights, daily outings and the general mayhem that summer brings, I can’t seem to even get myself to my computer.

Well, we’re at the end of summer. Which means two things. First off, I’m somehow magically able to get back to my computer. Maybe it’s the hundreds of emails that have been piling up in my inbox and awaiting a response that finally did me in this morning, but I think it’s also a freeing up of my mental and emotional energy, turning the page to a new start.

I love having my family here. It is a such a blessing for our kids to have incredibly attentive, loving, playful grandparents and aunts and uncles. And to reconnect personally with everyone. My biggest test is that I often find myself feeling like I’m 10 years old again and reliving all of my childhood patterns. This summer was very unique in that we, as a family, really started opening up to each other in a way that we never have, sharing things that we have wanted to say for, well in the case of Juliet and I, our whole life, to our parents.

Diving in deep into our family issues brought up A LOT of emotions – anger, frustration, tears, resentment, guilt. All those emotions were pretty exhausting and we all got sick a lot this summer from the intensity of it all. But the amazing thing was that it also brought an incredible sense of unity and love.

One thing that really helped us work through a lot of our issues was using Byron Katie’s 4 Questions, which she calls “The Work.” It is a simple set of tools that has helped me to free myself from some very painful thoughts and beliefs I had.

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and find three genuine, specific examples of each turnaround.

Her website has some really great examples of how to do this work and some great free downloads. I’ve listened to two of her audio books over the last few months (I usually listen while I’m putting Fiona to sleep at night) and one of the concepts that I really love is about trying to stay in my own business, my own work, instead of spending my time and energy in other people’s business. This seems simple enough, but there are a lot of subtleties to it that I have been trying to work through.

The second big news is that Isabela is turning six years old in a few days and the following week she starts Grade 1. Saying that I have a six year old makes me feel sort of old and also somewhat experienced. Like, Hey! I’ve been parenting for 6 years full-time! I guess I know a thing or two by now. But at each turn, as she gets older and moves into a new stage, there is always something new for me to learn as a parent.

I was just visiting a friend with a newborn a few days ago and thinking to myself, Thank God I’m not at that stage anymore. Going from no children to one child is the biggest, most difficult leap that I have ever done. I know I’m not alone in saying that when I had brought my first baby home from the hospital I knew NOTHING. I didn’t even really know how to change a diaper. I had so many fears and worries because I didn’t know what was normal or abnormal. What I should be concerned about and what I should just ignore. Everything was new and everything was difficult. So let me say it again, Thank God that stage is over. And for all of you new moms, let me reassure you that it does, in fact, get easier. Even though you don’t believe me.

10 years

Last week Chris and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Hard to believe. 10 years. Since I’m 33 years old, that means I’ve spent about a third of my life with Chris.

But it got me thinking a lot about my grandparents, who celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary this year. 67 years with the same person is truly phenomenal.

Just a few months ago I was cleansing my old photo albums and threw out bags and bags of wedding photos from all the weddings we attended of friends who are now divorced. I just couldn’t believe that so many of our friends are divorced. Except that I can believe it. Because we have been through our own share of tears and struggles during our 10 years. Years of counseling and therapy (thankfully, much of it was free) was probably the single most important thing that helped our marriage.

After 10 years I am still amazed at how lucky I am to be married to Chris, a loving husband and a devoted and playful father. And I am still amazed at the ability of my love for him to grow with each passing year.

Well, I decided it was time to finally get rid of my wedding dress, despite the fact that I still love it, I’m definitely not planning on wearing it again. And I’m not into dying fabric. Nor do I have those type of fancy outings to attend anyways. So I put it up for sale on Craigslist and low and behold, a friend of mine who I haven’t seen for a few years found the ad, came over, tried on my dress, it fit her perfectly and she will be wearing it this summer at her wedding!

Small things. Big changes.

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.

What’s inside my fridge?

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.

Kindred Spirits

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.

Determination

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.

Orderliness

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.

Adoration

My sister-in-law, Courtney, with her newborn. Isa swinging (by herself!) on the swing set.

I love newborns. Soft, sweet, squishy and sleepy.

Daisy

Balance comes from focusing on one thing and leaving the rest in bokeh.

- Richard Hastings

In search of bokeh

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.

This girl is amazing

Finding Balance – watercolor painting

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 a new person

“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.

Baby Wearing

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” Painting

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.