Ebony and ivory are for the birds

Beautiful, beautiful day. Got to focus on all things fun.

The boys have not left their Kinex.



The girls build a reflector oven and are waiting to see if their eggs will actually cook.



And I got the really weird job. Our friend, Jimmie, cut off his dreads several months ago and gave them to the kids. We have contemplated the best use of them for some time (Make key chains out of them and use them as a Haiti fundraiser? Sew them together and make a wig? Donate them to Dreads of Love?). Then, after Rocky buzzed all his hair off last week, we knew we had to add the dreadies to the pile, which will be scattered through tree branches. Perfect nesting material for birds.

Rocky is Haitian. Jimmie is albino. Ebony and ivory. LOVE IT!

Magical Milk Pic-o-the-Week

"This mother lost her home in the earthquake. She has these twins that were born before the earthquake. She is breastfeeding both of them. They came in with fever and a cold this week." - Licia Betor RHFH - week of February 11, 2010

H. A. L. T.

There is this powerful little acronym used in Alcoholics Anonymous that is beautifully simple, yet crazy brilliant.

H. A. L. T.

The initials stand for: hungry, angry, lonely and tired.

It's a self-care tool that can change the lives of every single person in any stressful situation. For those of us parenting any child, but particularly special needs kids, it will rock your world. How do you stay patient? How do you not yell? How do you redirect and correct and let them choose their consequences without spinning your head around and spewing devil spawn vomit?

Again - simple yet brilliant.

Never let yourself get too hungry.

You have to eat. It's more about just not dying by starvation. It is your energy. It is your fuel. If you do not stop and take care of your intake, you will begin to shut down on every single level. If you let yourself get too hungry, then you will do the grab-and-stuff. I know all about it. I INVENTED the grab-and-stuff. Bag of cookies. Pint of ice cream. Four million pretzels ("But they're just pretzels!"). Changing your lifestyle and not keeping junk food in the house and finding yourself licking the top of the honey jar. Mmm hmmm.

Keep a stash of healthy and quick items just for you. Do it. DO IT!

Never let yourself get too angry.

You can't not feel angry. It just happens. It is triggered by something deeper. You can't help how you feel in the moment. BUT ... what you do with that anger is the clincher. Are you actively looking inward to figure out the source of your anger? Are you talking yourself through it? Are you peeling back the layers to find freedom from it? Or ...

Are you wallowing in it? Rolling around in its squishiness? Letting your mind go crazy with revenge and defensiveness?

You cannot be in that state and be patient, or loving ... or logical. Pulling yourself out of a situation and taking a mental and emotional break is key. I have a list of several "safe places" where I can put a child (or myself) so that the ranting or - whatever - can continue, but I can regroup. I cannot stay in the battle. The battle enrages me. The battle wants me. It beckons to me. The battle wants to be your friend with benefits, but has nothing long-term to offer you or anyone else.

Feel it, and then dig through it instead of feeding it. WAY easier said than done. Takes tons of practice. If you ever get good at it, don't tell me.

Never let yourself get too lonely.

Fight for community. If the most strength you find is through online connections, great! You need sounding boards. You need support. You need encouragement. It's not a luxury. It's a necessity. Is your spouse/partner pulling away? Fight for counseling and reconnection. Friends causing more harm than good? Find new friends! You cannot give what is required of you when you feel like a lone wolf. You cannot keep it together at home AND tiptoe around everyone else in your life. It will squash you. Heck - email ME! Seriously, I have made some of my dearest connections online as we've all been muddling through this together. Some days I feel painfully alone. That's when I whip out the cell or shoot out some emails. I need my other therapeutic parenting freak heads. If I get too lonely, I will disintegrate.

Don't let yourself get too tired.

Sleep.

Seriously. Go to bed and sleep. Leave stuff. Leave dishes. Leave laundry. Leave paperwork.

Sleep.

If your life is keeping you from getting a proper amount of sleep, rearrange your life. If extra activities are killing your evenings, cut those activities. If you have not learned the fine are of saying, "No," or "Due to some circumstances at home, I'm going to need to step down from that responsibility," then let me walk you through it. Everyone in your home needs sleep. Sleep is medicine for the brain. The brain has amazing abilities, whether healthy or not.

Things are for a season. You may not always have to simplify to such a huge degree. You may not always have to cut out so much. But I guarantee you, if you keep a maddening pace, you will keep falling on your face while watching your family dynamics explode.

You deserve your sleep. Get it. Enjoy it. Don't ever, ever, EVER feel guilty over it. In fact, you should find great pride in taking care of yourself.

That is really what this all comes down to. We martyr ourselves as parents a lot. We have to take care of ourselves. We have to put that oxygen mask over our own faces first, before we can help those around us. Think about these four areas and make them your red flags to avoid. Avoid like the plague. Instead of setting yourself up for failure, set your self up to kick some massive butt-oh-lah.

"There is no time line on healing"

"I've never seen a child who can't come to profound levels of healing.
Never. There is no time line on healing." Karyn Purvis

I keep a time line of Rocky and Mar's lives. This month is very significant. They have both now lived with us longer than every other placement on this planet, outside of their first family. Every day now is one more day than the most painful and abusive of environments. It's something that we are all just honoring and absorbing, as we pick up and tick off another of those little slots.

Eleven moves in five years. That was their history the day they walked into our family.

Thankfully, there is no time line on healing. Although, I sure would love to know and have it marked so we could just sit around and wait for it ... with colorful drinks stabbed with cute little umbrellas.



(photo by ilker, used with permission)

Ch-ch-ch-chia seeds

Having Sara, the Happy Foody, living right next to my house has been quite beneficial in a plethora of ways. One being how I get to try so many things before buying, and determine if they fit the parameters of our home (definition of "parameters": does the actual interest in consumption combined with the cost fit into our grocery budget?).

Along come chia seeds. Have read about them for years, but just hadn't stopped to purchase them and add them to my kitchen. Allow me to introduce you to these power-packed little gems, and take away the "What the heck do I do with them?" factor.

First, let me tell you WHY you should give chia a good, honest try.

I just discovered that chia is most abundant in southern Mexico, but that is the crop mainly used in actual chia pets. That's not so much what you're wanting to consume! A quality product you would want to put in your mouth can be found at Raw Food World (there is an icon on the right side of my blog).

Chia has deep historical roots going back to the Aztecs and Mayans.

It kicks some flax seed butt, by having more omega-3 fatty acids, longer shelf life before becoming rancid and they do not need to be ground to reap the most beneficial properties (Dr. Weil). I love me some flax seed, so it was hard to hear of another seed stealing its thunder, but they are finding a way to coexist in my pantry. Flax is a humble super food.

Two years ago, Dr. Oz was touting his pumpkin chia seed muffins on the Oprah show. They were looking at said muffins when he said, "Remember that broccoli I had before? [One of these muffins] has more magnesium than about 10 of those heads of broccoli, and it's got as much calcium in it as a couple cups of milk." Uh huh. Read that again.

I could go on and on for days, but I'll leave you with a mass of information from Chia for Health.

Now, let's get on to the fun part - eating!

When you combine chia seeds with water, they create a gel. That gel is power-packed with all of these many nutrients we have been discussing. The average mixture is 4 cups of water or juice with 2/3 cup of chia. I put mine in an old jar so I can shake it up. You can start diving into it within about 10 minutes, but most people suggest giving it 2-3 hours for the chia goodness to seep into the gel.



I keep this mixture in the fridge, where it will last for three weeks. Mine usually lasts about three DAYS! If your refrigerator gets a little too cold, and the seeds get a bit thicker (which mine did this morning), you get to call in all of your children while you make poop jokes as it departs the jar. (NOTE: chia gel is NOT black - the lighting here makes it look that way. Again - NOT black. I am not asking you to eat something that actually looks just like poo. Check out the above picture. THAT is what the gel looks like. Still, though ... funny pic - heh. heh.).



Now you can do pretty much whatever you want. It tastes like ... nothing. Really. The gel tastes like water if you make it with water. Tastes like juice if you make it with juice. Treat it like cereal. Top it with fruit, honey, other nuts and grains, straight oats. Your taste buds are the limit. I have added chia gel to smoothies. The other day I made a big green salad lathered in my favorite dressing, and threw some on top of that!



You can add the dry seeds to your dry cereals and homemade granola. I sprinkled them on some roasted root vegetables. Right now I'm still in the, "Why not?" phase of seeing what works for me and how much I can chia-up. Chia Fresca is next on my radar.

I have to be very picky about price, and chia seeds last. Goji berries do not meet that criteria, so we grind them and sprinkle (another frugal health food post for another day). The chia, though, passes the Christine Budget Crunch trial, in many areas. They store long, when added to liquid their mass increases, and it doesn't take much to be very, very filling. If you're lucky, you will start to grow grass out your ears.

Ch-ch-ch-chia.

Cha-CHING!

We need access

I received an email this week from a really great online friend. A foster care specialist in her state had forwarded my therapeutic parenting videos to her! ha! I'm sure she was like, "Yeah, yeah. Old news."

I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. I DO plan to do more now that my computer has survived its flu. In the meantime - THRILLED!

With all the health care debate there has been much wigging out. Yes, some of you are WIGGING OUT! Own it ... and the chunk of you nodding your head in agreement need to bite it because you were probably wigging out when George W. took office ... goes both ways, friend. People are FREAKING. Terrified.

You don't know scary. I hate to tell you, but don't. I once thought I had a clue what scary was, but I'm currently eating that big serving of crow with some chia seeds.

Scary is realizing your child isn't as charming as you thought, but in fact, has never ever attached to a human.

Scary is the realization that your child may very well have a severe attachment disorder, and google searches bring up names like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Son of Sam, Boston Strangler and Charles Manson. Yeah ... it's our job to save the serial killers from themselves - NO PRESSURE! *eye twitch*

Scary is having insurance, but it not covering ANY attachment therapists in your entire state.

Scary is not HAVING any attachment therapists in your state.

Scary is having attachment therapists in your state whose waiting lists are months out, and you are left completely on your own.

Scary is not having insurance, and finally working your way up the waiting list, and realizing that you can either save your child and lose everything else ... or watch your child self destruct and spend the rest of their lives destroying everyone around them.

Scary is being the only one who is targeted ... and receiving only questions and doubts from your friends and family.

Scary is that your only hope and your only help, which is free and accessible, is some freak from south Texas who happens to tape her ramblings.

Now, you could insert just about any major illness into this discussion on RAD (minus the case studies of serial killers). It is not just those of us parenting traumatized children. I get real fear. I get terror. I get lying awake at night. I get how it is a constant battle to be free from it.

I am not a Democrat. I am not a Republican. I am a registered Independent because there is no box that says "I just want to vote, please." I do not like our party system. I do not like what it does to people. It is a natural inclination of humans. I get it. We divide and congregate to those most like us. Yet, then that can become a downward spiral to the pit of "Where The Hell Did All the Reasoning and Coexistence Go?" That is an actual pit, by the way. Look it up. ;)

I finally watched Religulous this week. It was fascinating. Fascinating to watch the reactions of some, the fleeing of others, the miscues of anger in many. I saw myself in just about every single person in that film, including Bill Maher, at various points in my life. Some are always going to blindly follow. Some are going to seek to know and understand those who disagree with them. It's a discussion that will never end. It is the nature of humans and it cycles.

Do I agree with this health care bill? Are you kidding me? There are approximately 5.27 million teensie details in that sucker. I guarantee you I love some of it and I hate some of it. So do you. And we love and hate plenty of opposite parts. We're a nation of lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people. I do not agree with how every police station and fire department is run. Yet, I happily pay into taxes so that every single person can pick up a phone and have a full crew of firemen show up to save their home. I will not agree with the beliefs and practices and individuals in every home that is saved from fire. I will never be totally sold on a President. I will rarely be totally sold on a MAYOR!

The way I think and function in politics is not the norm. That's absolutely okay with me. I don't live in fear, because Americans are very determined ... and LOUD. I see the actual "power of the people" every year among homeschoolers. Watched some poor guy in the Oklahoman government just say he was THINKING of proposing more oversight in homeschooling. It never even made it to paper. I say "poor guy" because he had no life for about ten days while his phone rang off the wall, his email inbox overflowed and people from all over the state showed up at his door.

That is America.

It's speaking your mind and having your vote and making your wishes known, and knowing you can make those thoughts be heard.

But it's also community.

It's many different people.

It's compromise.

It's give and take.

It's understanding the heart of the other person in the midst of disagreement.

It's never perfect, but entirely possible.



(photo by Kriss Szkurlatowski)

Magical Milk Pic-o-the-Week

"That pic was taken after 38h of labor that ended in a c/s. What I wanted most in the world was to do skin to skin right after birth, but my hospital has a policy against this if you have a c/s. So I begged the recovery nurses to send me to my room as soon as possible, and undressed in the hallway (on the way to my room), just waiting for my chance to put my daughter skin to skin."

(photo by Cecilia, a reader)

***You can submit your photo to christinemoers [at] hotmail [dot] com***

Happenings at Hill Shade

Our RV park is loaded and it is glorious. The richest portion being the vast amount of family goodness.

There are the Miraculous Moers (7)
We have the Happy Janssens (7+4)
Followed by the Rockin T Crew (7+4+6)
And then rolling in yesterday was the Ticknor Tribe (7+4+6+13)

Four families.

22 kids.

8 grown ups (heh. heh. If you can call us that)

Sara is an amazing photographer. You can check out her work here.

And after you do that, be sure and look at the fun she has captured right here in my own back yard.

I absolutely love what she sees, how she sees it and then captures it forever. Artistic eyeballs paired with an uber loving heart = super beauty.

I'll try this again ...

I started blogging early this morning. It was going to be all about chia and its many health benefits and my having FINALLY tried it. I'll get to it, but here is how things began to play out ... and shift.

The boys came in and asked if they could set up one of our little pup tents in their bedroom. They thought it would be fun to play in it. Great idea. So, as they are getting everything ready, it hits me ... they are going to set up a tent, in their ROOM, in their HOUSE, to PLAY IN ... while at the same time, our kids' first family is LIVING in a tent, and it is ALL THEY HAVE.

It just smacked me in the face. Stopped me in my tracks. Not to mention, Michael shared a Facebook status of someone who ... well, they were being pretty darn exorbitant. Just put the entire world into perspective again.

I am filthy, stinking rich. Nasty rich. Insanely wealthy. I have it so very, very good. I forget, and then life reminds me.

I. want. for. nothing.

So, how is that for a morning? Then on to:

*washing the dreads
*cupcakes for Presh's birthday
*burning stuff out back in the field (uh-huh, still just looooove to burn stuff)
*staying out of Michael's hair while he was glued to the NCAA tournament
*wondering how I had managed to not pick a bracket this year
*taking back my bathroom (meaning - cleaning out every child related item)
*praising husband for walking away from the tournament and mowing the rest of the park
*enjoying snagged moments with my two new friends
*welcoming a family of THIRTEEN to the park for two days (22 kids between four families - sweetness). Check out the Ticknor Tribe!

And now crawling into my very own bed in my very own house, working on my very own laptop which is constantly connected to the entire world ... feeling blessed beyond anything I could ever dream or imagine.

Blogher and Me and some Sprint 4G (GIVEAWAY!)

If you're smart, you'll hop over to my review blog and check out my $300 Visa gift card giveaway. Big thanks to BlogHer and Sprint for making this possible.

Go, go, GO!

Magical Milk Pic-o-the-Week

(photo by Courtney, a reader - breastfeeding her adopted son)

Trauma sandwich

Yesterday, when talking to a friend (Hi, Carrie!), I began to really comprehend the amount of current trauma my daughter is processing.

Mom left for longer than she has ever been gone since joining this forever.

LOTS of new people entering our lives over several days.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd ... her baby sister's birthday is this week.

In reality, that birthday thing is probably the BIGGEST part of our current behaviors. They are a guaranteed trigger. Throw in the fact that the Happy Janssens brought along a perfect new bestest friend for said sister and ... ka-boom. Not necessarily KA-BOOOM! But a ka-boom, nonetheless.

She is completely stuck. Old school, rockin' the retro RAD, stuck. Will. not. talk. about. it. Constant stream of attention-seeking behaviors (tumping over things, hurting siblings through play, clogging/spilling/breaking, and last - but never the least - peeing where thoust shouldn't be peeing).

Read a great post by the Porter's, discussing how our kids cycle through the healing process: "The kids are always cycling in their progress, meaning they improve, then regress, then improve and regress and so on... "

Spot on.

I have many people talk with me with such worry - how it doesn't seem like the kids are getting better. They are. My son, with a history of trauma, has crossed into a new and completely age appropriate "normal." He is THERE. His trauma will always cause him glitches, but it is rare that we have to have any major therapeutic interventions with him now. My daughter ... not so much. BUT when you back up and look at the big picture of where she was ... wow.

She is not the same girl she was two years ago. Her dips in the cycle are significant. Yet, I can make you a list of things which are gone. I can make you another list of things which are now a part of the dips but not the everyday behavior.

This dip is kicking my tail. In this one we are back to a constant stream of behaviors. When we put her on play restriction, she then looks for a fight in any way possible by drawing in others - hoping they will feel sorry for her. I walk away. I DO the right things. Yet, my mind is always there. I am always processing where she is and what is going on - even if she has been asked to just hang out at a table!

And yet, even in this deep dip, things are better than in the past. This whole dipping thing reminds me of my first car. It was a '64 Lemans. Had no AC. Black vinyl seats. On cold days had to pop it in neutral and rev the engine at stoplights to keep it from dying. When I finally sold it for a newer car, the driver's side door would not open from the inside. I was totally Dukes-of-Hazzard'ing that puppy everywhere I went - in and out of the window. I would belly ache and complain.

Fast forward to our newly used van, which is GREAT and has AC in the front AND in the back. One little overhead light pops out of its casing and I'm all whining and moaning. Seriously? It's because I had a new normal. That first old car would get water in the FLOOR BOARD when it rained. Yup. Had to ask people to lift up their feet in the passenger's seat when you put on the brakes, because all of the water would come sloshing forward.

Not kidding.

And now I huff over a little popped out light.

You get really used to those crests in healing ... tastes of a new normal. It's nice. It feels like you could take on the WORLD. Then, along comes a dip and even though it's not the worst by any means, you have forgotten. You cry. You moan. It FEELS just as bad or worse. IT'S HARD.

So, I'm stepping back to see the big picture. I'm still VERY frustrated. I'm VERY tired emotionally. I just don't want to do another dip. Hate the dips.

We'll get through it. We always do. I'll see you guys on the other side.


(photo by krrass)

She'll be comin' round the mountain

We have new friends coming to mesh with us for awhile.

This crew will be here for two weeks. This crew will be here for ... oh, I don't know ... two months? They don't know either. That's why I love me some Happy Janssens.

There are still so many ways to get this dern double wide done. Four million walls to paint. Broken sofa legs. Still plenty of dead bug carcasses stuck to various walls from what we can only assume was some sort of hurricane or flood before it became a repo. Bathroom floor partially peel-n-stick tiled (some are slowly floating away from the others because they don't have a neighbor ... like they're trying to escape). My bedroom has become the catch-all of the things which should be more in the "office" area, but that area is so teeny, they are at the foot of my bed (the foot-o-the-beddy-office-area). Areas of this place are quite whickity-whack (how does one spell, "whickity-whack" anywho?).

Yet these two gals who are coming ... ahhhhhhhhh. They are so very yummy. They do not care. But then again, they do. They care about what is real and breathing. I will ask them to add to my decoupaged fireplace. Why on earth would I finish it now when I can forever see their handiwork in it?



Um, yeah. I'm totally decoupaging my entire fireplace with my old Seventeen magazines, and whatever else we can chop up and glue on. If that surprises you in the least little bit then, seriously - how long have you been reading me? Christine is cutting up magazines and gluing them ... to her WALL. And the sky is blue and dogs bark.

So, how did I get ready for the arrival of two delightful additions to our little community out here? We spent the day creating. The kids were outside painting. I was inside cutting and wadding material. It was SO FUN, and every inch of it was recycled.



Oh, how I love people. Come out for a visit. The more, the merrier. Bring a funny word from a magazine and glue it to my wall. Sure, there are safety hazards everywhere, but if you sit really still I promise you won't die.

Everyone has a story

One of my greatest lessons learned:

Know that everyone has a story.

If you disagree with someone or find them hurtful or offensive or they trigger any major feeling inside you ... be purposeful in asking.

Do not merely listen to their story.

Hear it.

Let it change you.

This has radically altered my life. It has brought much complication and pain, much joy and happiness. It has forced me to trade understanding for judgment and kindness for anger.


Please get very good at it so you can remind me, when I forget.

Magical Milk Pic-o-the-Week

"I am especially proud of our breastfeeding relationship because I fought so damn hard for it. My son was in the NICU for three weeks after he was born due to meconium aspiration. For the first week or so of that stay, he could not be fed anything by mouth - his lungs were so scarred and his breathing so labored, the doctors were scared he would aspirate if fed by mouth. So out came the (manual) breast pump and, boy howdy, you better believed I pumped those suckers dry. Every morning, I would take the milk from the previous night, pack it in a cooler and make the 1-hour bus trip to the NICU to drop off my kiddo's nummies for the day. We would hang out together for 8 or so hours and then I would hop back on the bus for another one-hour ride home and the process would begin anew. When he was finally well enough to be fed by mouth, we had a really hard time getting him latched on. I have flat nipples and my boobs are on the, er, larger side (as you can tell in the first pic - he was full-term and a normal-sized baby and my boobs just dwarf him), so it was really difficult for him to get them in his mouth. So I continued to pump. The pictures I am sending are of some of the first times I was able to get him successfully latched on and eating."

(photo by Bria who is still breastfeeding her boy - he is now 19 months old!)

Dear Darleen T.

I'm a little embarrassed to be writing to you like this and hope you don't find it forward. You see, I am one of your biggest fans. I realize you probably do not even know who I am, but I absolutely think the world of you, and hope to meet you some day.

I'm assuming you are WAY cooler than your daughter. ;)

Sincerely,

Christine

The beauty of women

Nine women converged on Orlando.

We took a chance.

The vast majority of us have either never met, or only had very limited contact via blogs and email.

I could never describe our differences. It wasn't until I actually arrived that I could appreciate the insane risk we all took in coming to this place. Backgrounds, beliefs, personalities, histories ... all so diverse.

And yet ...

We have laughed til we wet ourselves and we have cried til we purged some massive pain (okay, so the pain is still there but we had a safe place to share it!). We all parent children with special needs. We all have something to give and we have all needed our souls to be fed by one another. It was serendipity at its most magnificent.

Please, do not wallow in jealousy that you weren't here ... because you were. We all really did understand how we represented this entire village. This weekend allowed us to put a tiny blip of it in flesh and blood and simply solidify what we have all wanted to truly believe - we. are. not. alone.

I really wanted to write a little blurb on every single woman. I started to. However, each blurb kept turning into a novelette. I can't limit my thoughts. They are exploding and spilling out of my ears right now. I'm trying to figure out how to bottle my joy so I can sniff it as needed.

Again: you were here, too. Trust me. We talked about you. We longed for you and hurt for you. We also laughed for you and peed our pants a little for you.

Cause we're fancy like that.

See the rest of you next year, but for real this time, K?

Florida rundown - Saturday

* Corey started her tattoo series this afternoon. Her daughter's art. SO beautiful and special. Each character will represent a marathon she has run.

* The house just got quiet for a whole twenty seconds. That was WEIRD!

* I love these women. I seriously love, love, love these women. This was like a giant blind date, and we are all letting out a huge sigh of relief. We're very happy with the set up.

* It is amazing to be with women who can hear some of your most uncomfortable experiences/feelings as a mother, and instead of showing shock, they are all nodding in agreement. It is freeing. I AM NOT ALONE!

* Laura is friggin funny. She is the cheapest entertainment I have had in years. She's also my roomie, so I get All Laura - All The Time.

* Kellie - another of the chics who actually blogs - is beautifully psychotic. Stick her on your feed reader. Send her some love.

* All of them - ALL OF THEM - are treasures. Absolute treasures. We are a cooky, eclectic mix of women. It's beautiful. A magical mix. Sharing and encouraging and laughing and ... well ... having those really nutty discussions which can only happen when you put women together with free time.

* We're doing it again next year. Mark your calendar. You WILL be here.

Goodnight Moers Crew

In the great double wide

there was a flight itinerary

and a mocha brew

and you can picture it now --

twenty movies in the Netflix queue

a child with a glare sitting in a chair

and two noisy boys with 1,000 Lego toys

and a smaller one about who was starting to pout

and the oldest of the girls who was combing her curls

and the best mom in the world making green smoothie swirls


goodnight mocha brew

goodnight Moers crew

goodnight twenty movies in the Netflix queue

goodnight glare and

goodnight chair

goodnight noisy boys

goodnight Lego toys

goodnight one about

goodnight pout

goodnight girls

goodnight curls

goodnight world

goodnight smoothie swirls

goodnight Texas

goodnight cares

goodnight suckers everywhere




cause tomorrow I'll be in Florida!

"Your children are SO polite."

I hear it all. the. time. "Your children are SO polite."

Seriously. I have kids who have raged and destroyed and peed and cussed and done all sorts of crazy cake stuff. Yet, when we take those children to a sit-down restaurant, almost every time we hear, "Your children are so polite/well-behaved."

Tonight as I was walking back from doing some gardening, I introduced myself to one of our park guests. She said she wanted to meet me, just to make sure she was able to tell me how polite my children are. "They will come right up to me and talk. Kids just do not do that anymore."

Of course, I absolutely have one child who still has an itch to charm and triangulate. However, she is never allowed to converse with new people unless she has a parent or older sibling with her. It has given her GREAT accountability to know we will call her out on manipulation. So, she gets to practice just ... being who she really is ... figuring that out.

That helps me, too, to understand and know exactly what this lady meant. My kids say hello. The boys are crazy shy. Yet, they know to be polite. They wave. They ask, "How are you?" They answer when someone asks them the same.

How on EARTH do I do it? For those of you NOT asking this, it's because you've already figured it out. For the rest of you, here goes:

First, I expose my children to lots and lots of people of all ages. It is the way we have always done things. It's more than just grandparents. It is stopping to have a conversation with someone at the store. Visiting people in their homes. Taking a gift to a neighbor. Sitting at the nursing home and reading to residents. Chatting it up with the mailman. My kids get really excited when people come over, whether it is other kids, their Aunt, our semi-retired neighbor, or the 80 year old down the road. It's just how we roll.

Second, I have always tried to not ask my kids for more than they are developmentally capable. My first born could not handle more than 20 minutes at a restaurant for years. Come to find out, she is the one with Tourettes. When she was done, she was done. She would then feed off my stress. I listened to her and let her teach me early on what she needed. We sometimes had a babysitter. We sometimes took turns eating/walking with her outside. We many times just chose places which were really noisy already, with lots of other kids. Or we stayed home and invited others to join us there. It was for a season, and it did change. That child is now my most naturally polite, thoughtful, and social. Go figure.

Third, when my children are able to sit for 45 minutes to an hour at a table and enjoy a meal out, I have a very simple rule. You are either strong enough to sit with your siblings, or you are needing some strength building time between/next to mom and dad. When you have five siblings, the LAST thing you want to do is sit by your parents when everyone else is at the end of the table playing a story game. Can't handle yourself at the grocery store? That is not a problem. Holding on to Mom's hand or the grocery cart will help you with that ... even if you are a tween. One of my traumatized kids called my bluff one day. Got lots of hand holding love the rest of that shopping trip. Never. happened. again.

I am also a lover of the Talking Time Outs. Sometimes we just get carried away. That's cool. Just means our voice could use a bit of a rest. "Why don't you give your voice a rest for about five minutes. Thanks. I'll let you know when you can try again." Talking Time Outs work everywhere - especially in the car.

When we added more children to our home, we would talk openly about how to show the world around us kindness and love through our actions. Before we entered a restaurant, we discussed how everyone would enjoy hearing their conversations, and some adults need an even more quiet atmosphere when their hearing is compromised. We had those conversations each time until we started to notice the manners and out-pouring of love and kindness coming more naturally from our children.

Because that's the point, isn't it? I do not teach my kids to have good manners in public so I can be praised. Seriously? You all know what we battle at home. When I experience kindness and consideration, it brings me warmth and joy. When a waitress compliments the kids' behavior, I say, "Did you see her face? Did you see how much joy you brought to her?" THAT is the heart of manners. Some etiquette is highly overrated, and much more about clout and status and rules. However, kindness, thoughtfulness, consideration ... those are gifts to the people around you.

It is an ongoing process. We still have to remind several of our kids to look at the waiter or waitress when ordering and speaking to them. We do plenty of teaching, correcting and Talking Time Outs along the way, on the days they get carried away. Now that all of our children can handle eye contact without melting like the Wicked Witch of the West, we discuss the importance of sharing your heart with others through your eyes when speaking with them. Of course, we also keep it all in balance. When my attaching daughter has worked very hard at making good choices while we are out and about, and it is obvious she is needing to just let down her guard, we work with her. We do what we can to help her out and make it easier to succeed when we are in public. If the six-year-old is tired or ill, we dance with it. We don't try to make her something she is not in that moment. Sometimes we will change the plan for one of us. Sometimes we will find a compromise.

See that? Showing manners and kindness and consideration to one another in our own family.

It takes balance with lots of communication.

Oh my goodness, how we all enjoy each other more because of it.

Magical Milk Pic-o-the-Week

"My adopted daughter Tamaya was being breastfed for the last time by her Haitian mom - It was taken the day that she was placed in her "foster home". We were so LUCKY that Marijke (a missionary from the Netherlands) took this priceless picture for us."

(photo submitted by Sue, a reader)

Unschooling ... hello, old friend

I have always called myself an eclectic homeschooler.

See that? It basically means everything and nothing all at the same time. I LOVE that.

Yet it is the only way to describe this constantly changing and evolving process we call education in our home. Funny to think that I started all of this seven years ago with Abeka curriculum and an actual area set up for a school desk. I laugh in my own face when I think back. I was SO UPTIGHT! I still think I have a lot of areas where I don't trust enough and let things flow. Yet, today's version is light years away from teaching my Kindergartener perfect cursive and making her cry.

Cringe with me. It's okay. I have apologized and she has long since forgiven me. She was the first, the oldest ... a.k.a. the guinea pig. I was an idiot. I tried to do school at home. It took about three years for me to realize I could determine when my children had grasped a concept, and the extra 20 worksheets or problems were for the kids in a classroom who may not yet have nailed it.

We slowly worked our way to unschooling. We had workbooks, but my two school aged kids loved them - asked for them. We landed somewhere in the middle of Sonlight, with no set schedule and an insane amount of flexibility. Again, my kids got very excited and wanted to know what we were reading next. Sonlight gave us stuff to pick from and rarely disappointed, mainly because it involved books. We eat books for breakfast around here. So, we just went with our interests of the day, but we didn't talk about it a lot. Plenty of frowns and looks of concern in our circle. Not many unschoolers, though.

And then came attachment disorder. The key to healing and attaching and bonding was EXTREME structure in the beginning months. Now, we had flexibility in how we filled our days, but our home was already structured when it came to sleeping, waking, meals, etc. Tourettes and OCD appreciate the heads-up on those things. We just had to make our schooling more purposeful and more predictable every day. Written out goals to be checked off. Giving a solid sense of accomplishment, and plenty of opportunities to succeed (even if that meant checking off in the right spot!). It was vital, and helped us all to have a sense of control and organization in the always escalating behaviors.

We are nearing the two year mark. We have seen wonderful progress. I say that after a day of yet another clogged toilet, a PTSD induced pee fest and sudden death to a flower pot. Yet, the big picture? We are starting to loosen up our boundaries. Unbenownst to most of our kids, I have been slowly opening them up to directing their own learning more and more. If you do it too quickly, your attaching kids will wig out. I have had to give just a bit more opportunity each day ... say, "Well, what would you all rather do?" ... allow them to finish breakfast and immerse themselves in something completely self-directed, like playing Webkinz Survivor for hours.

Not kidding. Actually, it was a full three days of challenges, immunity idols, tribal councils. It all culminated in the finale, where the votes were taken, Jeff Probst Skeleton (a Halloween edition black cat) took the votes and "flew" across the house to the live finale show. There were interviews with voted off Webkinz. My husband and I did not stay for the whole live show, and appreciated them allowing us to sneak out early.

There have not only been miracles in learning throughout this stuffed animal monstrosity, but I have been shocked to see the amount of cooperative play, conflict resolution, trust and sheer joy with one another. I swear, my kids are leading themselves through play therapy.

I have had to approach these changes carefully, and keep a close eye on the hearts of the my most challenged kids. Yet, they are hanging with it. They are enjoying it. They all love to learn something new, and school themselves 24/7. It is almost as if we have always unschooled, except when we stop to open a textbook or workbook.

The heart and intent of unschooling is easy for me - most days. My dad was the poster child for autodidacticism. I remember walking into his office one day and finding him reading and talking about something new he had just learned. It was like crack for me. His desk was surrounded by books. I just wanted to hug them all. I LOVED being in his study. He taught himself electrical and plumbing through Time Life books. I cannot remember a day he wasn't learning something. He never taught that to me. Just exposed me to it constantly and I became an autodidact.

Now I do the same. It's not so much teaching it, as it is getting out of the way and letting it happen. The massive structure was for a season. We are able to move away from that now, slowly, without it harming the work we've done in the hearts of my kids. It is refreshing. It is still crazy. Most unschoolers do not have to plan around therapeutic interventions, but the basis of unschooling allows for that ... as often as my kids need it.

Ahhhhhhhhh.