Via SouleMama

You know what I love? When some great bloggers I admire all write about something I’ve been thinking about a lot.

Right now, that thing is trust.

Natalie at Feeleez writes about living a life that doesn’t fit tidily into a facebook profile, and trusting that’s ok.

That’s why I keep reminding myself to trust the process of my life. Who I am is perfectly fine. I didn’t follow a straight path because I am not drawn to that kind of path. I like to have many interests bubbling at once. I like to mother and create and write and then do a completely different combination the next day. This really doesn’t fit in a Facebook profile. My thirty second elevator speech that describes my life just wouldn’t fit in a thirty second window of opportunity. We’d have to keep on riding to the penthouse to squeeze it in.

And Rachel at 6512 and Growing writes about trust, and her journey with the aspen.

Trust grew up in the same neighborhood as it’s all good, as the wise elder mentoring all the young upstart slogans. Trust is the bucket of water I throw on the hot flames of my worrying mind. The more I practice trusting, the better I get at it, which looks something like this: trust → gratitude → generosity → happiness →  trust → gratitude…

I like change and adventures, but I also like the plans for those changes and adventures to be all neatly nailed down and clear in my mind.  Trust is giving these things their own time, being patient and watching for the changes to sprout all on their own when the days warm up and the sun comes out.  Trust is sitting with the discomfort and watching to see what happens next.

Will the real dolphin please stand up?

Sometimes, losing my momentum can be a good thing.

I rush along and rush along, going from place to place and ticking items off my to-do list all the while. But what am I doing? And, more importantly, WHY?

When it comes to my own mothering, homeschooling, homemaking, and personal creative endeavours, the answer is simple. Or at least it is when I have resolved it in my heart. And right now I do – I am resolved to be a present, loving, mother and wife in my family. Because every organization needs someone who cares. That’s my job. I’m the CEO, manager and care-taker.

But I am less clearly resolved when it comes to my work here, at The Parent Vortex, and elsewhere. Why do I write? What is my purpose beyond taking care of my family? Do I need to have a purpose beyond that? Why?

I started a post awhile back and abandoned it, totally turned off by the idea and act of dictating to other parents how they should parent. I want to help parents make changes in their life that feel good and healthy to them, that help their lives and relationships with their children blossom, that make things easier and less stressful. But the more I parent and the more I read parenting books, the more I believe that there is not and never can be a fully comprehensive how-to manual. There is a reason why babies don’t come with a “Care and feeding of your new baby” pamphlet attached to the placenta. Real parenting comes from the heart. It is a highly personal, continually evolving process of nurturing the growing relationship between two human beings. It’s pretty hard to write a pithy how-to article with 5 easy bullet points to elucidate that magical process.

The paradox (and there always is a paradox to these things, which is why I love the vortex imagery so much) is that human beings are also biological creatures with some basic physiological responses that can be measured empirically and observed in a rational way. Relationships and the human spirit have a strong element of the indescribable, whether you call that magic or God or superconsciousness. It’s there, but so are the laws of physics and biology. No parenting manual can explain every individual situation that you might ever come across as a parent, no matter how thorough or well-intentioned the author. But there are some general principles that apply to all human babies and parents. It is each parent’s responsibility to apply these in a responsible, caring way.

I want to help parents understand what those principles are, and how they influence the parent/child relationship. I’m thinking big-picture, with details about biology and physiology as required.

Would you be interested in reading more about these kind of parenting principles? What kind of things do you like reading about here anyway?  What brought you here in the first place?  And what do you think I can safely leave behind in the archives?

Tonight, I tucked the girls in, waited a little while for Claire to fall asleep, and then got up and sat down on my own bed.

And then just sat there.

I surfed twitter for a while, then set it aside.  I just sat there.  No books, no knitting, no writing, no wriggling baby.

Empty handed.

Intellectually, I know that this is the uncomfortable period in between one burst of creative inspiration and another.  But I am feeling, well, uncomfortable.

~~~

On the winter solstice we walked through a beautiful beeswax candle labyrinth, and the word “trust” came to me as we were walking.  Trusting that I couldn’t get lost walking that labyrinth.  Trusting in the inherent drive towards growth, wholeness and love in my children, and in myself.

Trust.

Via SouleMama

SOPA matters to parents, Canadians and the global internet community. Have you ever…

- Looked up something on Wikipedia to help you answer your child’s question?
- Watched a video on YouTube to learn how to latch your breastfeeding baby or hand express milk?
- Connected with other parents, parenting bloggers or your extended family on social media websites like facebook and Twitter?
- Supported your family from income earned in an internet startup or blog ad revenue?

SOPA threatens all these things by forcing website owners to monitor all content posted on their sites for copyright infringement. The practical reality of this is that large websites with user-generated content like Wikipedia, YouTube and other social media will be impossible to maintain. Control and censorship of the internet will squelch innovation, dramatically reduce new internet businesses and reduce the information available to people on the internet around the world.

What kind of internet will be around when your kids are old enough to use it on their own?

Learn more:

SOPA matters to Canada
Stop Online Piracy Act
SOPA infographic
Americans, Take Action here

Kids are the masters of making the most of whatever comes their way.

If life sends lemons, you better believe the child is reaching for the jar of sugar to make lemonade. And if the sky sends down 5 centimeters of snow, the children are throwing on their snowpants and gathering up every scrap of snow from the lawn to make a slide, snowman or fort. At least here on the West Coast they are, because snow here is rare and therefore precious.

It’s pretty inspiring, really.  It’s too easy to look out the window at masses of white flakes falling out of the sky and think, “Yikes! I have to drive the car in this!”   But even as adults with responsibilities we can still make the most of the magic that’s given to us every day.  We can put on our own proverbial snowpants and lick snow from our mittens.  Or crunch through the icy layer on the duck pond.

I’ve been spending Sundays unplugged from the internet, inspired by this Unplugged Sunday project.  It’s been good.  Very good.  It helps me see where and when I feel twitchy for a fix, and where I’m using technology to actually achieve something or make the most of what I’ve got.   Creating that space feels good, like a freshly made bed or clean countertops.

Snowy, computer free Sundays.  We’re making the most of it.

Inspired by SouleMama – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

You know what I really love?

Yes, morning toddler snuggles and hot cups of tea and reading a good book in bed.  All of that.  But I also really love going for walks in the windy, cold forest.

I know, right?  Crazy.

But on a Thursday morning in January, we’re the only ones on the trail.  We have the beach to ourselves, and we can throw sand and rocks and seaweed if we want to.  There’s plenty of space to park the car and nobody hogging the swings at the playground.  The air is crisp and the rainforest is literally dripping with green moss and gray lichen.  There are mushroom cities to wonder at, and gigantic muddy puddles to splash through.  We can sit quietly and watch for birds flitting in and out of the bushes.  The damp fog makes our skins glow.

And when the cold wind gets just a little too far under our coat collars, we run back to the car and head back to our toasty warm house.

Love it.

It is easy to talk about positive thinking in calm moments. When the sun is shining and the sky is blue, positive thinking is like drinking sweet nectar from flowers growing beside your head. But when the wind is howling outside, and there are dark scary shadows on the walls, what happens then?

Last night, Claire went to bed in a fury of over-tired two-and-a-half-ness. A Taurus, born in the year of the earth Ox, she is one STRONG little kid, and as she grows that strength is beginning to show itself in various ways. Including tantrums. But she’s my second baby and I’m a little less upset by toddler tantrums now than I used to be. Tom & I tag-teamed our way through the stormy bedtime and went to bed ourselves.

Fast-forward to 1am. Claire wakes up howling, scared from a bad dream, angry about us trying to comfort her and not at all interested in cuddling, talking or even being touched. My mama instinct says, “hold her!” but she screams back at me, “don’t want you! don’t touch me! you go ‘way!” I try holding her anyway, and she fights and kicks and I don’t want to wrestle her down and pin her to the bed so I back off. I start thinking about how I haven’t even gotten to sleep myself yet, and now my toddler is inconsolable and can’t stand the sight of me. I think about leaving her in bed alone, as she’s asking me to do, but I don’t feel right about leaving her when she’s so obviously upset and scared and angry. She’s screaming and I’m lying there trying to think of something to do when a thought pops into my head. Where is the joy here?

I check in with myself. I stop paying attention to the screaming and raging for a moment and discover that deep inside I’m remarkably calm. Claire is angry but I’m not. Claire is scared but I’m not. I know that it’s normal and developmentally appropriate for little kids to go through a phase of having bad dreams and monsters under the bed. I realize that I am joyful about loving her, about being calm in this moment and about trusting that right now what she needs is to hide under the covers and scream while I’m nearby.

You know what? After I thought of all the reasons I had to feel joyful in that stormy moment, the energy shifted. Claire started making sad sounds instead of mad ones. She gradually calmed down a little. I reached over to comfort her and she snuggled up close, then went right to sleep.