Countdown to Summer!

 Some parents are dreading the upcoming day when the school will no longer take their children from 8:30-2:45 each weekday.  They wake in a sweat at the impending doom of boredom and chaos. After that last bell rings it will begin. For weeks on end the children will tear through the house trashing it like little bandits and then demanding that you help them find their prized toy in the rubble.

    Call me crazy but I am looking forward to it.   It could be partly because each day my son moans and groans and protests the schools required attendance.  It could be because I dislike driving and my daily trek takes me 20 minutes across town each way.  Mostly though, it's because I love boredom and chaos.  It's the place where inventions are made, joy is found, and  people grow.

Without schedules and time we tend to squirm and get nervous. (Well, not me...but most people)   Next thing you know the kids are saying the B word (b as in bored, hopefully not the other one) and while it may make you want to scream, especially when it comes after "Mooooooooooooooom I'm sooooooo..."  I like to reply, "That is fantastic!"  People think of wonderful things when they are bored.  It means you have nothing stopping you from dreaming, no time line, no racing off to the next activity.  You can just sit, and think, and imagine!  It's really the best thing for a kid.   Now, they still groan and look at me like I have three heads when I say "fantastic," but when I walk away I usually find them engaged in something by the time I'm back in the room.
If I get several of the "I'm bored" comments then I start listing off housework.  That gets rid of them pretty fast!

This summer my plan is to not have a plan.  My kids do like schedules and I'm going to suggest they make their own schedule if comforts them to do so.  I'm just gonna roll with it.  My daughter is taking two short camps through our local ASD support place but other than that it's all water fights and deep sea adventures on the hammock at my house.  Blissful chaos!

Personally I hope to get a bit of reading in and drink a lot of iced coffee.  Iced coffee and reading really is the best thing to do for the summer.  Theme parks and long vacations are way overrated.  Plus, that was last summer... this one is the summer of boredom and I can't wait!

Be Still

"Be still and know..."  I can know, I do know.  I believe with my entire everything that God is God and He is in charge.  However, being still is really very difficult and the longer that I must do it the harder that it becomes.
I live in a society that is go go go! do do do!  It's only alright to be still in yoga for 45 minutes, three days a week and then it's time to multitask again.  Being still doesn't come natural to me anymore.
When I was a child I was fantastic at being still.  I mean, maybe I wiggled around a bit but I remember that my favorite place on earth was just sitting on a gigantic moss covered boulder and simply being still.  I didn't worry, I never tried to figure out plans or life or even what to do next.  I just sat there and enjoyed sitting.
Now I am a grownup and I feel an obligation to worry and plan and make things happen but I am pretty sure that I've got it all wrong and I was way better off sitting on my rock.

 "Then he said, "I tell all of you with certainty, unless you change and become like little children, you will never get into the kingdom from heaven." Matt 18:3

See, I had it all right to begin with and now I've gone and tried to be in charge of things and driven myself to having shoulders up to my ears and spending hours on the internet looking at cities and schools and houses for a move to somewhere that may never even happen.  It was set up to be so easy.  Let go and let God.   I see that little saying and I know that is what I want to do.  Then I go to my browser and open up craigslist house ads and obsess.  What is that drive in us to make things happen?  Sometimes even trying to force things to happen.  I also used to spend hours on adoption websites looking at children and imagining them fitting into my family.  I would get very emotional and stressed from this as well.  So badly wanting to make things happen but having it out of my control to do so.  (Husband isn't ready for our family to grow yet.)

My husband will be ending his work contract this week and I'm not fearing running out of money or becoming homeless.  I know God will provide something or if we run out of money and a home then we will have a new experience and learn something amazing. I love homeless people, maybe God wants me to love them even more?   Fear isn't driving me to search wildly on the internet for answers.  So what is it?  Why do I search?  I also search the pages of my bible and sometimes I get clarity but mostly I just get my mind off the situation.   Maybe that right there is the answer.  Don't think about it.  Be still.  A still mind that waits for something to move it instead of vibrating all around hoping something  will react to my vibrations and erupt into an answer.  I don't have conclusions, maybe that is the point of this post.  I'm simply acknowledging that I need to be still.  It won't be easy, but perhaps I can seek out a mossy boulder to rest on for awhile while I wait.   

Play in the street

Yesterday it was beautiful.  The sun was shining (winter in Oregon/rarity) and the flowers were popping up.  The weeds were popping up too and last summer I did an overhaul to take back the front yard.  I knew this was the time for waging war on the grass creeping in to my herb garden.

My children were also inspired by the presence of sunshine and dusted off bike helmets, scooters and bicycles. " Mom, can we go for a ride? Come on mom lets go".  But the yard was waiting, and the time of sun was fleeting.  Childhood is fleeting I told myself and started to take off my garden gloves and come along.  Something stopped me.  Maybe it was a distant memory of roaming my grandparents subdivision as a child.  That faint recollection of the thrill of independence and adventure.

"You can go without me"

I almost couldn't believe I said it, but at the same time I knew it was right.
My ever cautious daughter was certain I was kidding and it actually took some convincing that she and her brother would be just fine without me.  (My insides squirmed as I offered encouraging words to let her know they were ready and it would be ok.)  The truth is, I didn't know they would be ok. I don't know if my mother worried about me in the same way that I did yesterday.  Media has this whole "the world is dangerous, don't blink near your kids or they will be snatched or murdered" thing going so strong that even when I don't believe it, in the back of my head I totally believe it.  At the same time I know that this is good for kids, this taste of independence, this taste of trust. It builds them up.  Maybe they have to problem solve a bit without me, but that is what I want right?

It also wasn't as if I let them go wherever they wanted to, not yet, I am still not letting go too far.  I walked down the side street next to our home.  I went over the parameters they were free to roam, instructions on if someone gets hurt, and I was in the front yard.  If somebody yelled I would have heard it.
Then I went back and weeded, and worried,I prayed for protection and that I wasn't being an idiot by telling them to go.  I was also angry that I was worried.  I was worried what other parents would think of me.  I was worried that I made a horrible mistake and they would be hit by a car. (Sunday afternoon, families playing ball in the street, side street.)  

I grew up playing in the forest full of freedom, visiting my grandparents and being gone for hours.  Does anyone do that anymore?  Do all the children just stay tethered to parents and home?   These are questions that bounce in my brain.
 The biggest of my questions is, will I always have that whisper of worry and fear every time I let them out of adult supervision?  This is one I will be exploring and I will let you know how it turns out because even though it scares me I know it's so valuable for my kids.

Getting it ALL wrong

What if all the instincts and impulses that you had inside of you were considered socially unacceptable. Now imagine that your mind and body didn't yet have enough self control to stop you from doing them. Your neurotransmitters just couldn't send things fast enough to tell yourself to stop.   Everywhere you went people would tell you that you were doing it wrong. " Nope, not that way."  "Oh careful, not that." "SLOW DOWN!"  "Oooh you messed up AGAIN!"
 
How long would it be until you broke.  How many times could you hear your name in THAT tone of voice that says "you screwed up!"  before you either stopped caring or just lost your joy all together?   I fear for my little guy that we are dangerously close to this place, if not already arriving.  I have been witnessing the joy dwindle from him, first in small amounts, and now in a way that seems at times like despair has set in.

  Last week I  talked with his teacher (who is amazing and wonderfully gentle in his corrections.) I got  advice from the school counselor after having her meet with him (because when your son no longer wants to play with his Legos, you take it serious.)  Things that were suggested included a light box since we live in the northwest and the sun doesn't like to be around this time of year. Maybe a session or two with a play therapist?   It was suggested that maybe this was a stage and it would blow over.   I hoped for the latter, and we turned on our Happy Light at breakfast time for a few days.  Then I did some thinking and I tried to put myself in his shoes.  That is what the first paragraph was all about.   Constantly doing the wrong thing, not planning to do the wrong thing, not wanting to do the wrong thing.  (this kid sits and draws during choice time so he won't unknowingly do the wrong thing and get into trouble.)  It has to be crushing for him and I think his new sullen attitude is a product of this.

I googled "play therapist" to see if we had one in the area.  Then I thought about play.  I got a random idea and this is what we are trying, and I think I am seeing results of a happier kid. Long term I am not sure this is going to work but I'm taking it a day at a time.  The plan is:  Short burst of one-on-one time with my son (husband is doing this with him too) where we have fun and no matter what he does, we don't correct him.  It's a time when he can do no wrong, we just play and have fun.  He wrestles me to the ground, or we play a board game, or whatever, but NOTHING he can do gets him a correction or even a scowl for the duration of that playtime.  (My goal is 30 minutes)  The rest of life goes on as it did before except that window of fun.  

My hope is that those times will bring his joy back and we can keep working on ways he can help himself be successful at self control so that he won't have to hear as many corrections.  He wants to follow the rules, that is obvious to me, but his little body and mind are just too full of Tigger to make it happen.

 However, I kinda think that the hundred acre woods weren't as fun until Tigger moved in.
(perhaps we need to move to the woods and homeschool?)

Peace that passes understanding

Almost a year ago I found my escape world.  A place where I could go to grow stronger, and work so very hard that my body would quake like a California fault line and my mind would stop jumping and racing and simply focus on not falling over or collapsing.  It was the ballet that I loved as a child, the yoga that I found relaxation in as a collage student, and the pilates that I knew my 2 times pregnant tummy needed. Sometimes it is a place of prayer, it started with a very serious "please Lord don't let me pass out or fall over." and overtime it became deeper than that.  

     Barre3 is the place I can go where I don't feel guilty for escaping, and despite the insanely hard work, it is a break from my busy mom reality and it keeps me calm.   Recently I have been thinking more about what my children need to keep calm.  What space can we create? What things would help them reach that place.
I created a soothing sensory zone under my sons loft bed. After a trip with my Mom to the magic land of IKEA I ended up with a duvet cover and a ton of pillows to fill it with.  We decked it out with white Christmas lights overhead and more and more pillows.  Both the kids use the space (individually) when they need to find the calm.  Usually they bring a comic book in with them for the ultimate happy place.

     What else though? I'm sure that isn't enough.  How can they find peace at school? On a car ride? At a friends house?   It's great to have a physical space, or an activity that we do that brings us peace but what we really all need is to have that peace inside us.  A place we can go without leaving the room.  Sometimes I feel like I can do that.  I can take that deep breath and have that peace. People comment on it sometimes, how I am so peaceful and calm.  It's true that I am filled with a calm spirit but it's not my own.  I am happy to have it there in me.  Sometimes I have trouble finding it there when it's really crazy.  I want to show my kids how to find it when life is overwhelming (when isn't life overwhelming?)

  I think the trick might be as simple as acknowledging that that calm spirit is within you.  It may not be you, your life may not be calm at all, but that spirit, it's there breathing slowly and just waiting for you to welcome it. Your busy life and jumpy mind may push it away again, brush it off for another time, but there it is always, patient (of course) waiting for you.  

     I'm not sure I can teach my children this, telling them about it just isn't enough.  I can model it but I think they will have to seek it out, make their own discoveries of what dwells within them.  Until they find it I can provide a squishy soft lit place under the loft for them to read.

A Good Family

Family, (a good, solid, loving family) takes you as you are.  They may encourage you to soar a little higher, but they don't judge. They love you even if you are sitting on the floor in the back of the room  instead of in a row of chairs next to them.  I love my church family.
Today we (myself, son, and daughter) sat on the floor in the very back of the building (church is in a middle school gym) because the sounds of our amazing worship team were too loud for one of my children.  The service has become longer for the kids so they can spend more time worshiping with our entire church family. This means that my other child needed to wiggle and be squished by climbing under my legs and behind me and all around.  Silently my child squished  into a comfortable and peaceful place.  
What I love, and am so thankful for is that I did not get one single judgmental look from anyone.
That, is a good family.  

January Fever

     Our family,( like many others this time of year) got hit by the flu.  The day before we started going down like a family of dominoes, I read about a speaker who was coming to talk to parents in our area.  Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity  Parenting would be speaking.  I had heard of some parents I know reading the book but I wasn't totally familiar so I did a google search to find out more.  I stumbled across an article that mentioned a soul fever.       This idea made sense to me, it intrigued me, and I thought I understood it. Then we got the body fever an our family had several days of  despair, and sickness to remind me just how much we hide away and rest when the flu hits.   I didn't question that what my children needed was extra love and comforting, it was obvious.  I wasn't about to push them to run to the grocery store with me or hurry up.  I let them follow their instincts of curling up, hugging mama, and sleeping.  The world outside our home could wait.
     Now we have come from the of the piles of blankets and tissues and slowly entered back into the waiting world.  Nothing was ruined by our absence, nobody horrible offended that we didn't show up for anything.  Society respects a body fever, they expect you to stay away.  Does society respect a soul fever though?  I think it surprises and puzzles them a bit.  I have had my daughter skip a party, step out, or leave early from a function and I do get looks of surprise and confusion.  I know that my girl isn't the only one who has moments when she just need to step out from the action, we all do. I dare us all, myself included to be brave and say "no" to things.  To leave when our child is melting down, and not scold them for ruining our outing but instead comfort them like we would if they suddenly had a fever of 103.
     The more of us who show this respect for the soul fever the more society will see it as normal.  We can all become more gentle and kind.  I have a feeling if this was done by all, we would see a lot less fevers popping up.