Talk Feeleez

This Moment

p.s. The birthday cake was a five-layer vanilla cake with black raspberry filling and caramel frosting.

p.p.s Class starts soon! Look over on the side-bar for the image and button to sign up!

She's Five

I like this girl. 

Really, if you are on the fence about having kids, don't be. Because one day they have a birthday and you get to stay up late with your sweetie wrapping presents that perfectly reflect who she is as a person and you get to wake up to a face like this. And they say and do things that make your heart swell two thousand times it's regular size. 

It's, shall we say, worth it.

But that's really just a side note. The real news is that our "baby" turned five yesterday. It was a big deal to her as she's been counting down the weeks and days since February. And it's always a big deal to me because I love her so much. We're having cake and friends over on Thursday so yesterday Papa and I got to have her all to ourselves. She designed the day and it went down like this:

Wake up delighted.

Put on outfit specifically selected days in advance.

Come downstairs to a birthday tree and presents. 

(This year Echo wanted her "own garden". So our presents to her were centered around that theme. A shovel and hoe, colorful annuals, seeds, garden pinwheel decorations...)

Open presents and squeal in delight.

Receive phone calls from beloved ones.

Eat waffles for breakfast.

Jump around and play while waiting for Papa to be ready to plant the garden.

Painstakingly organize, plant, and water the new garden with Papa. (An event so lovely and precious that it is sure to be a highlight from his life.)

Enjoy an hour of fantasy play.

A trip to the river with the dogs in which it was decided as part of the birthday that Echo would decide how long we stayed. 

Splash in underwear, build a mud wall, orchestrate endless fantasy games.

Go to Big Dipper for a scoop of Yellow Cake icecream with rainbow sprinkles.

Cry through a makeshift funeral and grieving session when the dog we are dogsitting nabbed a chipmunk and broke it's back.

Eat burritos in the evening garden.

Skype with Nana.

Take a bath.

Luxuriate in a long session of Papa reading Harry Potter.

Get sleepy during a session of "Paint" in which I pretend to paint Echo's body in various colors.

Sweet sleep.

 

Really, does it get anymore cute and wholesome than that?

This girl. This romantic, intelligent, thought-spinning girl is five! 

 

Neither human nor giant has seen this,

this death,

this poetry.

Echo, age 5

Strengths and Weaknesses

It turns out I am a much better facilitator of a parenting course than I am an HTML coder-person. As it turns out the "Buy Now" button for our Parenting Course hasn't been working for several days.

Oops! 

Sorry about that folks. But things are a-okay now. In case you're late to the game, our course is an e-course that you can complete at your own pace. It runs six weeks and will cover six main topics of empathy-based parenting. Nathan and I will be available for unlimited email support during the class and will run real-life scenarios. This class is great for getting a start on parenting your young children or as a complete overhaul if your own current parenting strategy seems to be lacking.

Class starts in 2 weeks! Join us!

Happy Mother's Day

I think we can all agree motherhood feels good. Not just on that particular sunny Sunday in May but all those other times too. It's like the best kept secret of all time. We're discussing diaper rashes and playgroup drama and cereal bits left in our sheets but silently what we are really saying is:

Isn't this the best thing that has ever happened to you?

Giveaway!

Our awesome friend Rachel Turiel of the blog 6512 and Growing is offering a giveaway for a slot in our parenting course! 

Rachel's is by far the blog that makes me smile the widest and the longest. She is funny and smart. She's so clever that there isn't a post that goes by where I don't wish I wrote at least one of the phrases. Seriously, even if you don't enter the giveaway go on over there and get yourself hooked. This girl is seriously up and coming.

Class starts May 28th, maybe you will be the lucky mama or papa!

Dream Come True

Sorry mom, I haven't called you back because I have been cleaning the garage for three days straight.

Oh my word people. I wish wish wish I had taken a before and after picture so you'd have a visual but I think even then you just wouldn't be able to understand the magnitude of my recent undertaking.

The garage. 

I know people clean out their garages all the time. I know it's a spring cleaning kind of thing, a common chore. But not for us. A couple of factors have made it so that cleaning out the garage has become an insurmountable task. One thing is winter. During the winter it's so cold in the garage that you can't stand to be out there for more than a couple minutes. And winter comes every year. And then we remodeled our house and stuffed the garage full before moving into our friend Romy's studio. And then we moved back into our house and pulled some stuff out of the garage and shoved some different stuff into the garage. And then there was that time nine years ago when Nathan moved into this house and put boxes in there too. And there was that time eleven years ago that I moved into this house and put some more stuff in there. And then there were those nameless people that lived here before us and some of their stuff is in there too. 

And then there is my personality, and Nathan's too. When it's winter we're holed up and working on projects and raising kids and we don't want to suffer the cold to organize a space we aren't even interacting with. And then spring comes and there's that luscious garden to sink our hands into and the river to swallow us with it's cottonwoody greenness and still those kids to raise, and well, you get the picture. Basically as long as I was able to open the door, cram the stroller within, and roll the door shut I was fine.

But really I wasn't.

The emotional weight of something like that garage is almost indescribable. Knowing there are unopened moving boxes in there is a yucky feeling. Seeing the teetering towers of random stuff every time I cram the stroller (aka: every day) is a gnawing blah feeling. And though our house is tidy and not overly crammed and lovely to look at, that unseen space out there in the driveway still looms large in my psyche.

Then this spring came along. I'm not carrying a baby anymore, I'm not even nursing. I'm like a regular person unencumbered by an attached little person. And we aren't moving out this spring, or back in this spring, and Nathan's got a head start on the garden, and it's not yet rivertime, so.... hello overalls!

I scoped out a three-day stretch that was meant to be sunny, no spring showers of any kind, and put on my striped overalls my gramma gave me when I first bought this house, working clothes, and proceeded to pull everything out of that little garage and into the driveway. It was like a collosal joke! There was so much stuff in the driveway. It was like a homeowner version of clowns stuffed into a volkswagon. It was incredible. I knew I had three days so I tried not to get overwhelmed. I kept my head down and kept at it sherpa style.

And Echo was in heaven. Random stuff, like non-cellular phone and a Return of the Jedi wastebasket? Intriguing!  A maze of boxes and a highchair and big weird things and small treasures? Heaven! Mom basically in one spot for three days straight? Perfect! A free pile of unwanted items that people stop for and actually gather and bring home? Amazing! One day she spent the entire day playing with a freshly-dead bird. Another day she had a teaparty on a wooden ramp amid a mound of cardboard recycling. And on the last day I retold her the entire first two books from the series A Song of Ice and Fire - a very adult story that I had to g-rate as I went along, but one she is enthralled by. Knights, princesses, intrigue, suspense! I shuffled garage things about while detailing the many characters and plot twists. 

And every evening we were FILTHY FILTHY FILTHY.

But now? Oh. My. Goodness. That mother-f-ing garge. I tell you. It's a painting studio. It's a supremely tidy storage space. It's spacious. (Parts are even empty!) It's a zit, ten years in forming, lanced, pumped, dried, and then sterilyzed. Metaphor too gross? Okay, it's a...

dream come true.

 

Testify

Here's a letter from a past particpant of our e-course. She said we could share this with you in case you were wondering wether or not to make the leap. The class starts May 28th. Hope you join us!

My husband and I are learning a ton from you and Nathan with this course. It was not our natural way nor was it what we were used to seeing from friends and family, but it is so working, even at times when I thought it wouldn't. 

Our son was really having a hard time transitioning with a new little one in the house, and it was really hard for us in an especially tiring time. But little by little, I see improvements in his behavior, which I know isn't always what you get, but it was so needed to make our family work together. Thank you. 


Thanks, again, for the course. Super glad I signed up.

Annie

P.S. I love when others post a comment with a situation and you reply to that specific situation. Even if it's not a situation I have experienced with my own kids (my kids seem to be younger than others in the group), I learn A LOT through the exchange, even for my own situations. The philosophy in practice really helps, especially when you almost take on the persona of the person's child to show what that kid might be feeling and relate that to us. Super helpful. 

What Will the Neighbors Think?

It's dandelion season around here. It probably sounds silly but I get a little anxious when I see these flowers ALL OVER our grassy spots. It's not just that they spread so quickly and edge out the softer-for-playing-on lawn, it's the other part. To our left lives Bill and he has a postage stamp sized yard of grass without a single non-grass item to be seen. It's edges are trim, it's shade pure green. He stands at his gate and gazes upon this lawn. To the other side is a retired military officer that used to work for county weed control. And on the other side of the street is another retired couple. Yesterday the gentleman was outside with his walking cane and a weed picker, painstakingly making his way across his green expanse and s.l.o.w.l.y gathering everything that even looked like a dandelion.

Then there is our yard. Unconventional, wild, and interesting. We have bikes and animals and toys and hula hoops and strange structure for beans to grow on, and rubble, and compost piles and chickens and flowers and grape vines and compared to these neighbor gents, utter chaos. Yesterday I was mowing the lawn so that at the very least our pet dandelions wouldn't go to seed and fly like fairies to our neighbors. I felt self-conscious about our yard, nay, our way of living. I started to get defensive thinking hey if we didn't have kids, or if we had extra money, or if we weren't so busy, or something then we too would have a perfect lawn and be welled-liked by our gentlemen neighbors.

But you know what? Fuck that.

Who knows who we'd be without kids or lots more money or extra time, because that's not who we are right now. We do have kids and we don't have excess money and we are super busy and even if all of that weren't true we just might STILL HAVE DANDELIONS IN OUR YARD. Because we don't want pesticides or because we are concentrating on other things, or, or, or just because. Who knows. The point is that I'm worn out from wondering what other people think of me and how they judge my choices. It's certainly no fault of theirs. We all form opinions about the actions and ways of others. The fault is mine. Somehow through the years I have absolutely have gotten approval for my actions mixed up with approval of me as a person (you're absolutely right Bonnie).

It's exhausting.

It's okay if Bill doesn't like our dandelions. It's okay. There are all kinds of ways to live these lives we are given. Phew.

 

And speaking of living outside our mainstream culture... we're signing folks up for our e-course. Parenting with connection in place of bribes or time-outs can feel a lot like tending to a yard of dandelions while the neighbors squirt weed control. If you'd like to join a crowd of like-minded folks and get hands-on tips and ideas while feeling cradled with support then sign up! Class starts May 28th.

Breaking News

You know you are living a pleasant, rolling right along kind of life when the big news is not some sort or sordid drama, illness, or death, but... hung curtains! My friends gifted me with curtains for my birthday last year, almost an entire year ago. They knew that my evening bedtime struggles, getting Echo to bed before ten, was almost entirely due to the evening sun slanting through our windows and blinding the child with it's radiance.

When you live at these northern latitudes the extended daylight hours are no joke. And when mama says to child, honey its nighttime its time to sleep, but the bedroom is lit up like it's high noon, that mama loses all credibility. And my lady friends know this. That's why they are good friends and that's why I was grinning ear to ear last June, clutching curtain rods to my chest.

But then, you know stuff happens. I gathered tools and supplies and gumption one day only to realize hanging curtains level and in the right place is a two person job. Back went the tools to the basement and the days slipped by. By night I was pledging to gather the parental workforce and get the buggers up asap. By day I was doing stuff and living life and swimming in the river and not thinking about curtains for even a second. So the days slipped into fall.

Now the fall and winter at this latitude are anything but too sunny. Pitch black night comes at 4:30 at some point. Seriously. No need for curtains. Okay, I probably flashed the neighbors with my white booty a couple of times but accidental nudity is way lower on my list of motivations than a child who won't close her eyes til the sun sinks. That's how we came full circle through the seasons without hanging a single curtain.

When spring sprung and the days noticeable grew and my girl's eyes remained wide-fucking open past nine pm, my mind turned to the bulging gift bag sitting in my closet. And one night when we had after-kids-are-asleep plans that I didn't want to miss I grabbed Nathan with desperation and said, lets race upstairs with a drill and hang those curtains before bedtime. And we did. A project that took us eleven months to begin was easily squeezed between teeth brushing and stories.

Curtains. Ta da!

They are rumply and maybe need to be hemmed, but they are up! And they make a gorgeous silhouette with the earring holder. No more super late nights, no more booty flashing (sorry neighbor Bill). And even though it's not exactly dark in the room, my girl is falling for it.

 

Encore! Encore!

 If you missed it the first time, here's your chance! The Parenting on the Same Team - He Said She Said, eCourse!

We offered this course in the fall to rave reviews. Over six weeks we discussed six juicy topics with like-minded parents all over the country. A good time was had by all and Nathan and I felt the full pleasure of working with a powerful community. In fact, the course meant so much to us and the participants that we want to do a sequel. In prelude to that next step we're offering this first course again to gather ever more parents before we move on.

Parenting on the Same Team is the premise - a way of parenting that involves "working with" versus "doing to". (Others call this Gentle Parenting, Peaceful Parenting, or Natural Parenting.) We will cover the basic day to day realities of what that looks like as well as the conceptual and philosophical perspectives that, whether or not we like it, always accompany us for all of our parenting moments. 

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Battlefield Moments and Tactics
• Leadership
• Our Underlying Stories and how they help or hinder us.
• Praise
• Punishment
• Empathy
• Acceptance
• Grief and Guilt
• Fun

(We'll also include several personal challenges each week. Homework, if you so choose.)

We hope to not only share our personal parenting style, from top to bottom, but to also invigorate, inspire hope, offer support, and develop a community of like-minded parents we all will enjoy.

Participants can involve themselves intensely- joining in each discussion, asking for advice on specific issues, and posing questions, or as lightly as they like - simply reading along anonymously. Participants will also receive discounts on any of our services. 

Join us!

Starting May 28th

Price: $50

Email us for scholarship information.

ps. A word about the format. We will be using a private, password protected blog for the course. Discussion will take place in the comment section and/or a forum. We selected this format so that our friends all over the world can join in at their convenience. After you sign up via paypal we will contact everyone with an address and password.