Open roads and clean houses

The roads have opened!  We finally got out yesterday when a small section of road from here to the next town re-opened.  It also meant Chris was back at work.   Not too many days before the holidays though and he will be home with us for almost two weeks.  Assuming the snow stays on the ground it should be a great two weeks.  He is much better at rounding up the boys to go outside when they get stuck in the indoor rut. I am sure there will be a number of snow forts and snowball fights on their way.

Before the holiday arrives though this weekend's list of to-do's is huge.  Aside from the usual holiday clean up before company arrives we are starting to get the house ready for our upcoming home visit to do the safety checks for the adoption approval.  Although it may be a number of weeks or even months down the road there are some things to get prepared.   There are a list of safety precautions that need to be taken care that we wouldn't normally worry about with the boys. For example I might be naive but I think the boys are old enough that I don't have to lock up the medications or household cleaners so we will be finding ways to lock those items up as well as paint cans in the garage.  I believe we will have to secure any furniture that has the potential to fall over like tall book cases.  Some of it feels a bit of overkill but I am coming to learn that this will be a process of concessions and compromise particularly on our part. It will be a good chance for me to learn how to hand over some control.

More snowy days

Chris is in bliss!  We are on a second full snow day here with road closures all around us. Good thing we did groceries on Sunday.  It is a good reminder to get my emergency food bin stocked again for this year. 

It has been such a pleasure having him home to hang out with us. I don't grow tired of his company.  It has always been that way for us.  When we first met in College being in the same program meant we spent a lot of time together and then we landed jobs with the same company often working in the same location together.  I enjoy being near him and I think I can say the same for his desire to be near me. We can certainly be apart without falling apart but we can be together just as easily.  

Today was a fun day filled with Gingerbread houses and crafts.  We sat by the fire outside and with as much cheese as we could muster we belted out Christmas tunes.  It is feeling like the holidays as I sit by the tree in the library in all its lighted glory.  The tree is particularly beautiful this year.   The boys set it up and decorated it all on their own which I think makes it so much more special for me.  I had asked them to set it up with plans to decorate it together but they were on a roll insisting that no one come in to see it until they were finished.  It was actually hard for me. I like my tree to look pretty and had even bought some mesh garland for it this year so I was worried but sucked it up and let them go at it. At the end of it all they proudly led us all in for the big reveal with the lights out, my parents included.  When they turned the lights on it was just beautiful.  They had filled the tree full with only glass Christmas balls and colourful lights. It could not have been more perfect.  

These are the days that I cherish.  The boys are old enough to do things for themselves and young enough to still ask for help.  They are mature and talk things through without the pretense of knowing everything.  They have a curiosity and energy that is wonderful.  

Snow day

Today is a snow day!!!  Roads are closed across our county.  Chris is like a kid waiting for Christmas morning when the weather gets rough here.  He wakes up anxious to check the work phone line for severe weather advisories telling him that he can stay home.  Today the roads are closed so he has a snow day.    We started the day outside enjoying the winter weather.   While Chris cleared out the driveway the boys and my mom I took them out back to a creek to toboggan.  After the boys went back inside Chris started a fire and we sat around the fire pit with my parents. Snow days are precious so we tend to use our day to it's fullest.  It is always a extra special treat to have Chris home unexpectedly.

I love snow!!!  I can't say I love winter because it would be wholly dependant on where I was in the world and whether winter included snow.   If it is cold there must be snow! Some of my most fond memories are building tunnels through 3 ft or 4 ft of snow in northern Ontario and even sometimes sliding down the drifts that reached the roof of our one story home.   Building forts and snowball fights never get old.  Throwing them at the kids now brings a whole new level of fun to it as adults. It can be quite a good release to ping my 11 year old with a snowball. 

Coming back inside to the warmth of the house is all that much better.  Today after lunch Chris sat down to play a board game with the kids and play Guitar Hero World Tour together while I began my long overdue post to this blog.  Snow days are great!

Playing dress up

Halloween has come and gone.  The candy is no longer here, the decorations are put away and the costumes are stored for another time.   Not another year per se but another time.  The boys have always enjoyed costume play.   I enjoy costume play so they have always have a variety of dress up things to play with.   Chris and loved shopping the the days after halloween to get 70% off costumes for the boys to play with throughout the year.  The most used were the wizard cloaks and scary masks when they were younger.  The costumes they use now are more involved.  Seamus has a Link costume I made him for his birthday last year and they all love getting dressed in the suit jackets and bowler hats from last years halloween.  I love getting dressed up!!!!  Halloween gives me the excuse to do it!  

Each year we try to make the costumes from second hand clothes. I am not a seamstress by any means so if it is not easy it doesn't get made.  Here are some pictures of Halloween's past

Halloween 2008

We used bandage gauze to wrap them.  Easy costume idea.  Not so easy to keep the gauze in place.

Halloween Party attire 2009

We threw a big halloween party with the theme of haunted abandoned historic hotel.  The boys played parts.  Eoin was the big shot owner, Liam was the butler, and Seamus the bartender.  I was a maid as you see below and Chris was a creepy handy man.  My parents played the part of two missing tourists from the 1900's.

Halloween trick or treating 2009

Eoin's costume:  Jester made from Seamus' Link costume parts and a Jester's hat from the Michigan Renaissance Festival

Liam's Costume: Wizard using old Harry Potter cloak and silly Wizard hat

Seamus' Costume: Warlock again using old costume parts and the walking stick he got from his grandparent's trip to Texas

Chris' Costume:  A ghoul I think

Jenn's Costume:  Maid's costume from halloween party.  I got the dress from Value village and made the apron and choker.

Halloween 2010

Liam's Costume: Hockey equiptment spray painted over camo clothes to be a "futuristic marine"

Eoin's Costume:  He went for the commerical costume this year with blood pumping through his false chest

Seamus' Costume:  He combined is Link costume with a cloak and a traditional masquerade mask

Halloween 2010

Jenn's Costume:  Twisted tooth fairy made up of my grade 12 prom dress

Chris' Costume:  Twisted dentist Dr. D.K. Payne

Strumming away

My fingers are numb!!!!  I picked up Eoin's guitar today to try to practice with him. He has not complained about his fingers hurting since beginning his lessons over a month ago.  I am amazed because after 10 minutes mine were screaming at me!  I am sure it gets easier with practice but don't see how fingers can move from one chord to another so quickly.  It is a skill I value. I took piano lessons when I was younger, not getting far and played flute in highschool but again did not play extremely well.  Guitar seemed an unattainable option.  I am pretty sure my sister Lorna had one when she was younger but I don't remember her playing much.  That is the struggle with learning music, the practicing part.   I have learned enough in the past couple of years that I am not going to push Eoin into practicing; encourage him a little maybe but not push.  If he even thinks I am "making" him do something he brings up how terrible an experience it was when I made him go to hockey last year and he was only in that for a month and half at most.  

I know that he will get better much more quickly if he were to practice but right now he is just enjoying hanging out with his instructor and learning at his own pace.   If I enforced practicing the joy of playing would go out the window along with his interest in it. That is not to say that I am not tempted to push the practicing part a bit more. It is hard not let in the voices of all the people I have heard talk about how they were so grateful their parents made them stick to music lessons.  I can see more value though in his lessons than just becoming a guitar player. Eoin is getting a lot from the experience of being mentored by a young man.  His instructor is only about 20 and plays in a band so I am sure, to Eoin, seems pretty cool. It has been too much fun just bringing Eoin each week to watch him take this new challenge on.  Eoin does not outwardly seem to make too much in life seriously, but he does take pride in carrying his own guitar in each week and sending me off to wait for him.   There is no way that he lets me even try to get the guitar out of the car.    The change in him is obvious from the moment we get in the car to head off to his lesson.  He becomes a serious young man and wants to be treated as such. 

 I hope that he continues his interest.  The sound of a guitar can be so beautiful.  I already am attracted to just the simple chords Eoin is learning.  Maybe I can pick up a little along the way....if I can ever feel the tips of my fingers again.

Bag Boy

Hanging out with my three boys is amazing!  I really do enjoy being out and about with all three of them.  When they were little I would slip the youngest in a sling and then the other two would each take a hand. It was funny how many suggestions I got about where to get a good double stroller. I would smile and thank them with fond thoughts of the one I had just donated to charity.   It was busy sometimes but always an adventure.  The more we went out together the easier it became.

Being they were so close in age there was always a baby who needed my near constant presence.  It was rare to get out of the home one on one time with Seamus once Liam was born and with either of them once Eoin was born.  As they have grown older it is rare to get them to want to come out with me without one of their brothers.   Last night however I invited Liam out to lunch with me today and he excitedly agreed.  His pick was Tim Horton's.  We do not have many options here.   It was nice to be able to spend some time just with him.  Often times I forget how quickly Liam is maturing.  Seamus is the ever helpful child leaving little room for the Liam and Eoin to shine.  Although at the grocery store it is Liam who is usually the most enjoys emptying the cart and filling grocery bags.  This became obvious to me today as we shopped after our lunch.   Without the other two I realized seeing him work so diligently that it is always his face at both the loading and packing end of the cash.   The manager of the store was ringing us through today and made Liam's day when she asked him  to come back to her in a few years for a job.    I have no doubt in 5 1/2 years Liam will be on her door expecting her to hold up her offer.

Remembering a Pilot and Ambulance Driver

Yesterday was a day to remember.  A day to remember the men and women who put their lives at risk in the name of protecting our country and the lives of those in other countries.   In our family both Chris' grandfather John Reid and my own Everett Quinlan were military personnel during World War II.   John Reid was a pilot and Everett Quinlan a front lines ambulance driver.  Neither shared many stories with family members of the experiences they faced during their roles in the Canadian Military.  Both passed away in later years due to illness and most of their story stays with them.
Thank you Grandpa.

There will be bumps in the road

Parenting advice abounds!   Literature and web content on parenting how to's are easy to find.   At one time the prevailing thought on parenting was spare the rod spoil the child, and children should be seen and not heard.  Mothers were encouraged to hold their babies minimally for fear the child will learn that when they cry they will be picked up.   Thankfully much of the misinformation has been discounted and marked even in some cases as detrimental or dangerous.

When Seamus was first born the content of many parenting books contained modified versions of this old misinformation and highlighted how to train a baby to sleep through the night and fit baby into the parents' life.  The trend of less mainstream parenting techniques was growing though.   Dr. William and Martha Sears were well known amongst new parents looking for support in connecting with their baby.  In the eleven years since I have become a mother things have changed and stayed the same.  Parents looking for information to make parenting less of a burden have no trouble finding the advice they need to touch their baby less and get more sleep.  Parents wanting to parent outside the box find support through one another on forums, through blogs, La Leche League (LLL is an organization supporting mothers of all parenting styles), Attachment Parenting International, and an increasing amount of literature supporting a more balanced family life that takes the child's perspective and needs into consideration.

Researching different techniques and trying on various styles is a necessary part of becoming a conscientious parent.  Particularly for parents who were not parented gently themselves.  But here is where I am going to play a bit of the devils advocate.  "Attachment Parenting" can be bad. It is easy to get caught up in trying to be too ideal or at least expect to be the ideal parent right out of the starting gate.   You will make mistakes, you will cringe at some of things you do.  When information does not acknowledge the challenges with these styles it is dangerous. 

The ideals behind gentle parenting, respectful parenting, alternative parenting, attachment parenting or any of the names used to describe techniques that lean toward high touch and respectful communications are sound. They are beyond sound.  I, along with many others have grown next to some wonderful people (our children) and can see the beautiful results of the extra effort that connected parenting takes.   Having seen the results after 11 years I can now say that it was worth it.  I am a huge advocate and continuing student of respectful parenting.  I am also a realist, most of the time.  It can be difficult!  Parents are often isolated from supportive family members who keep an eye on wandering toddlers freeing mothers to care for younger children or take care of home tasks.  Mothers often perceive that they are expected to do it all and without the "village" of days gone by they do it all alone.   It is easy to get overwhelmed and feel burn out.

The best resources include both the tools, or ideas to be a conscientious parent along with what to do when you mess up.  I feel it is important to give a head's up that it is okay if you don't get it right every time.  Without this message it is very easy for new parents or parents new to connected parenting to feel unsuccessful when there is a bump in the new road. One of my favourite daily emails is the Daily Groove by Scott Noelle.  His Monday to Friday daily emails provide great food for thought and a realistic attitude.  Much of his thoughts can be carried over into any interpersonal relations.  I actually found his website while appreciating the thoughts of another parenting writer who has great ideas but lacks the realistic approach to encourage parents where they are.  Despite the great information she share I know of mothers who were left with a sour taste in their mothers and feeling a bit inadequate and unable to live up to the writers ideals.  I know I would have found myself in the same boat had I followed her thoughts when I was a newer parent. 

There will be bumps in the road!  The road will get smoother but it will never ever be bump free.  Give yourself the space to learn and adjust.

Five A.M. Comes Early!

What time do you get up in the morning?  To be honest, and this is embarassing, the kids and I do not usually get out of bed until 9:30 at the earliest.  I am not sure when it started happening but it has been a slow progression over the past three years.   It is not actually something I feel good about.  By the time we get ourselves moving breakfast is pretty much lunch.  The day feels almost gone before we begin.

We have just this week however begun to get up with Chris before he goes to work in an effort to eat our breakfast together and get an earlier start on our day.   The challenge is that Chris gets up at 5 am and heads out by 6 am.  YUCK!   Despite the horrible hour it has been really nice seeing him interact with the boys in the morning.  I was a bit worried that we would throw off his morning routine but he seems to be enjoying the time with them. 

We will have to make some adjustments to keep this up.  I, for example, will have to switch my reading time from late, late night to early, early morning.  Eoin has found out that eating his breakfast that early leaves him too hungry until lunch even with a snack so has decided to eat a very light breakfast with his dad and save his more filling food for later in the morning.  

Eating at a regular time, even if it is at 5:30 in the morning, is important for all of us.  I have found that our eating habits have been poor lately with very little consistency in our meal schedule.  We have migrated away from the dinner table and found ourselves eating in various areas of the house.  That doesn't work for me.  The boys are snacking on poor choice foods more often or maybe not eating at all when they need to.   We have both ends of the spectrum in our house. 

Each of the boys has mixed feelings on getting up.  They have enjoyed being up with their dad but really enjoy their sleep as well.  Liam chose to stay in bed this morning.  Tomorrow he says he would like to try to get up again I think feeling like he was missing out on something.   My hope is that it gets easier for each of us as we begin to feel more tired at night and get to sleep earlier.  The boys are asked to do quieter activities in their room from about 8 or 8:30 pm with lights out and ideally sleep by 9 pm.  That is not how it often works.  They are chatty at night.   They giggle a lot at night. It can be 11 pm before they finally drift off to sleep.   And in my case it is not uncommon to find me reading at 2:30 am.

I would say in part this attempt to begin our day earlier is a way of trying to put some more structure in our lives.   We certainly will never have an hourly schedule, nor will our fun and spontaneity be dictated by a strict schedule.  It seemed odd to me when other mothers of young children would limit their social time because their toddler had to nap at exactly one o'clock every day.  The boys tended to fall asleep wherever we were when they were tired even if we were out and about. Wearing them in a sling was a big help in making their bed portable.  They also didn't nap much beyond 15 months, to my dismay!   They were raring to go.   I understand that meeting your child's need for sleep is important and for some children it is less work to get them to nap each day then to contend with them when they have not slept.   It seems odd to let that dictate your life however.   But that is another topic all together.

I have been struggling with the idea of consistency and structure for a number of months now. Mostly because I found that I have been off balance some in providing it for the boys.  Our day is not completely all over the place but it has felt like maybe they didn't know what to expect from me.   I have felt a considerable amount of guilt over my lack of effectiveness in this area of my parenting.  I knew it was not where I wanted it to be but wasn't able to get past the bad feelings and move forward.  

This past week I was in a position where I needed to confront these feelings at a time and place I did not want to.  It was uncomfortable for me.   The most recent adoption training session was on discipline.  I knew going in to the class that it would be best if I remained quiet when my thoughts differed from what was being presented.   Surprisingly on paper the parenting suggestions in the curriculum were sound.  My one disagreement was the idea of being firm and consistent, I did push a bit of a further discussion on this topic.   My issue is not in being consistent in regards to discipline but rather in just telling parents to be firm and consistent and leaving it at that would tend to leave parents feeling they need to stick to their guns.   There is room for flexibility, there is room for going back and admitting mistakes.  I strongly feel that with honesty and flexibility my children will respect me more than if I say no because I have said no in the past despite the consistency that may bring.  Ultimately however my thoughts on the matter mean nothing in regards to the discipline policies of CAS. 

I was feeling quite edgy during the class and really just wanted to bail.  It was not the topic of discipline that put me in the state of discomfort as I had thought it would.  It was mention of consistency in meals and daily schedules that made me squirm.  I had already been beating myself up for my struggle to get my act together enough in the morning.  Hearing it come out of the mouths of the presenters as behaviours in abusive households was hard.   Inside my own head it was easy to push it away and leave it to another day.  Knowing that in putting ourselves forward to be an adoptive family we were being held accountable and that my choices did not make the grade, even in my own mind, was difficult to face.

Flexibility is important but I have to recognize consistency as equally important. Getting up at 5 am may seem an extreme change.  It is not one I am forcing on the boys.  They have the choice and actually came up with the idea that we start our day eating breakfast with Chris.  I know that getting up with him would be easier than getting up at 7 am for example. It would be much easier for me to turn off the alarm and go back to bed.  Knowing we are getting up to see him makes it easier.

See you in the morning ;)

Saint or Salmon

Being a saint is a difficult job!  My goals in life did not include becoming a super woman to rise above all others, I had no dreams of standing upon a pedestal looking down at those who just couldn’t do what I could.  Between you and me, answering questions politely when you want to shout “really this is none of your business” is actually by far more challenging. 

I am not a saint, I am not a super woman.   I only do what I can, not what everyone else can’t.    My view of myself is not of a martyr but more like a little fish swimming upstream, navigating the current.  A spirited little fish maybe to have taken on such a powerful current but a far cry from the saint I seem to be so often labeled.  

There are a few who falsely put me up on a pedestal, to whom I willing tell that I will fall fast and I will fall hard. The majority of time I am called a “saint” or a “patient woman” I recognize it not as a compliment but rather as a discomfort with either my choices or their own. Any criticisms that come my way in that vein are more about the criticizer than me.

 It has taken me a while, 11 years in fact, to come to an understanding that my choices are not necessarily better.  Not that I thought I ever deserved any such title or believed that my choices were flawless but there certainly were some painful moments while I took up a lot of room to grow into the woman I am and the woman I am still hoping to become.  Somewhere along the way I have stopped trying to defend my choices and in that I found freedom.   

My new found liberty has not really sat well with everyone.  I have found that it is expected that I should defend myself.  It seems when I don’t I may appear weak or undecided.  It has confused some people, clearly it can take a rather strong and decisive person to pick the less travelled path.   Aside from letting go of the need to defend it really would be hard to defend something that is ever changing.  The core of my beliefs remains constant, the execution of them can change by the hour.  Defending is tiring, swimming is so much better.

Throwing a Ball Against the Wall

Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown let me down.....................I was going to write about finding balance in life but became stuck on this childhood teeter totter chant.  It has just now hit me that the boys have not had the opportunity to learn some of the childhood chants and games I enjoyed so much.  It is not crucial they learn the current school yard games for their overall development but I wonder if I have dropped the ball some in not taking the initiative myself. 

Homeschooling has its benefits and for our family and many others it is the option of choice for helping their children grow.  It is not without fault.  It would be naive to think that a homeschooled child would not be missing out on some things in life by not being in the school system.   Not nearly enough to warrant putting them in school of course.   But there are things that will not happen because they are not in school with the majority of their peers.....thank goodness for the most part! 

School yard games could by the nature of location be more easily learned in the school yard.   Assuming they take place anymore.  I would  guess to some extent they still do, however I am coming from the perspective of having been a young girl in the school system.  I will make sure to ask my husband what his experiences were with school yard games.   I am not ready to go out and enroll the boys in school so that they can take part in recess antics.   It has made me consider what experiences I enjoyed that I would like to share with them.  I am sure they will quickly let me know whether they want me to share.

Identity crisis

Jennifer:  wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, neighbour, volunteer, home learning facilitator, breastfeeding mentor, lactation educator, birth partner, labour support, birth advocate, breastfeeding advocate, early childhood educator, cloth diaperer, baby wearer, hockey mom, rugby coach, attentive parent, avid reader, writer, homebirther, prospective adoptive parent.........the list can go on.  I started out trying to place things in order of  priority but realized that each item takes priority at different times or even on different days of my life so it is neither prioritized nor exhaustive.


This list does not share who I am, it does show some ways in which I define myself or ways others may define me.   The last on the list, and not the least of my priorities, is prospective adoptive parent.  We have been thinking about adoption for over 11 years and just in the past months have decided to take more concrete steps to deciding if we will choose this path for our family.  The Child and Family Services Act 1990 regulates adoption legislation in Ontario and indicates that in order to be consider as a potential adoptive parent one has to meet certain requirements.  One of the first being to complete a PRIDE (Parent Resource for Information Development and Education) course.   This is a 27 hour curriculum covering a variety of topics on adoption, parenting, attachment, loss, child development, supporting cultural identity and maintaining meaningful and healthy relationships with previous connections.

The most recent topic covered in the course we have been a part of was loss.   The obvious loss that most think about is through the death of a person. Beyond death we can experience many types of loss such as loss of proximity to family, loss of health, loss of trust to name a few. In adoption itself there are losses for the birth family, child, foster parent, adoptive parent and adoptive family.  It was a particularly powerful component of the PRIDE course. 

One particular loss that struck me was a loss of identity.  Loss within adoption is far reaching.   Learning about how we have faced loss in our own lives and how we have managed that loss is key to being able to support a child in our care who has experienced loss.  This is an issue in adoption however in particular the loss of identity that came immediately to my mind was my own loss of identity when we moved.  It actually took me by surprise when I took note of the intensity of my feelings that night.  I realized at that moment that a number of items on my list roles of how I might be defined disappeared when we moved.  I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, volunteer, neighbour....and so much more however a large part of how I related to others and how I defined me was my connection to the birth and breastfeeding community.   Moving to rural Ontario I left that all behind.  My babies were no longer babies when we moved making it difficult to make those connections in a new community. I am sure there are breastfeeding mothers, homebirthing families, and attached parents in this area but finding them was a lot more difficult without a baby in a sling or toddler to break the ice. 

I made new connections here, although not as deep, with sports parents but it was still a big transition to go from well known and hopefully respected in one community to virtually unknown in another.   My ego took quite a dive, although I didn't recognize this until just this past Thursday at our PRIDE course when I framed it as a significant loss of identity for myself.   Throughout everyone's lives circumstances occur where a sense there may be a loss of identity.   Often times a loss of identity is accompanied by other losses like proximity to friends and family in my case, or the loss of the home we built and within which Eoin was birthed.  Recognizing this loss gives me a deeper understanding as to my reactions and emotions, it allows me to give myself the space to redefine myself in my new space and it has given me a better grasp as to how loss can affect those around me.  



 

Three Musketeers

Eoin had his second guitar lesson today.  On the way to the lesson I asked him if he preferred me to be in the room with him or stay in the waiting area.   His response was "I would like you to stay in the waiting room because then I have things to tell you about when I am done".   He seems to be really enjoying it so far and was excited that with the three chords he now knows his instructor will begin helping him learn songs to play.  He is just cute as a button carrying his guitar to the car, into the studio and back again.   It is quite clear that he doesn't want any help with it. 

These lessons are the first thing he has done independent of his brothers that is just for him.  He is on different sports teams but usually we go as a family to practices or games and his brothers, at least one of them, will be playing the same sport on a different team.  It is great to be able to spend time with just him in the car chatting.   Chris and I don't insist that they spend time together but they usually want to be together.   The odd time one will want to stay home with Gramma or Papa but usually if one offers to come somewhere with me then they all usually come with me.  They even want to come with me to my hair appointments and sit playing with the toys or reading over the hour and a half it takes sometimes.  Although the draw to that one is that they enjoy playing with the big duplo blocks that they may normally feel they are too old to play with.  They often stay home with my parents so it is not that they can't be away from me, they choose to be with one another so where one goes the others follow.  In fact they will push me out the door sometimes earlier than I need to leave just to be away from me. 

They are very close.   It is interesting how some people comment on this and view it positively and others seem to find fault with it thinking they are too attached to one another.  My mother has mentioned that a few different friends have thought it odd that they share a room.  We don't intend on giving them each their own bedroom.  We simply don't have the space to give them each a bedroom and they haven't asked to have their own rooms.  There is enough space in our home that if they need space they can find it easily enough. Sometimes when one is fed up with the noise on a tired night he will ask to sleep in our room or the spare room but usually there is no complaint.  In fact even when they each go in a separate sleeping space then at some point two or all three end up together cuddling again.   Liam in particular loves to be next to one of his brothers when he sleeps.

I would describe them as inseparable.  When I hear about siblings being inseparable I think of it positively.  I would not have imagined that it could have been seen as a negative.  It has been expressed to me that maybe I not use that term as people may think it is not healthy.  Apparently there are people who take that literally and think it means they cannot forge relationships outside of their threesome. 

They are shy children but they come from a father who was also shy as a child.   I wonder sometimes if they would be more outgoing if they had gone to school but then I just need to take one look at Chris and remember where they came from.  I am sure they would know more children had they been in school.   I am not confident that they would be better for it.  Different but not better.  I remind myself that there are many children who go to school are also shy, who do not have many friends and some sadly none at all.   I notice others sometimes looking closely at the boys behaviours and seeing them through "they are homeschooled" glasses rather than just seeing them for who they are and realizing that one part of their lives happens to be that they are homeschooled.  I find myself doing it sometimes so it is difficult to call others on it.

Despite being a little more timid they can all speak to other children and are capable of making friends.   Seamus in particular enjoys spending time with his friends and going out on sleep overs.  Liam and Eoin have expressed a desire to find a way to make more friends and I am confident that will come in the next few years.  We have responded by choosing an activity that is more social than sports to give them the opportunity to interact with kids their own age and create more meaningful connections.  The deeper connections came for Seamus at 10 years old and I have a feeling that it will follow the same general pattern with the other two.  As their parents we ensure that they have access regularly to other children and adults with whom they may develop deeper relationships with.  The rest is up to how people click and who they choose to connect with.   Right now they click really well with each other and I am not going to complain.  How many parents do you hear saying "my kids get along too well."?  I am okay with having the three musketeers!

Conditional right?

I just recently filled out and sent in a form to notify the local school board that we intend to homeschool.   I don’t really like the idea of answering to a school board as to how I choose to raise my children so it didn’t sit so well with me.  Of course I am grateful that in Ontario Canada sending my letter of intent to homeschool is sufficient enough information to indicate that we are providing adequate education for our children.   Despite how grateful I should feel for the leniency my country allows, I begrudgingly signed it and sent it along.

Should I be put out by this request?  Am I just being stubborn or ridiculous for feeling cantankerous about sending in a form each year?  It could be argued, and is, that it is important to ensure that some families are not simply keeping their children home for selfish reasons.  It could also be purposed that it is the parents who happily send their children to school each day and count the days of summer vacation until their children are back in school that are selfish.  It has been debated that it is crucial in maintaining a list of children who are not in the school system to keep track of them for their own safety.  It is questioned, what about the children who do want to go to school but their parents will not let them? If every parent exercised their right to choose the education path for their child without accountability then perhaps there may be an increase in parents who keep their children out of school for reasons that involve abuse.   

Are children safer in school systems?   The violence and bullying that continues to occur in schools is something parents complain about a lot.  Many high schools and some primary schools have metal detectors in place because of the risk of violence.  Certainly some homeschooled families may have an abusive environment.  Schooled children can also be and too often are in abusive home environments despite the detection methods that are in place. 

Without doubt there are some children who would choose going to school over being home educated.  I wonder though why we don’t ask how many schooled children are asking to come home?  How many times does a child have to feign an illness for parents and teachers to realize that they are asking for help, asking for change?  I remember a big debate in a small community in southern Ontario a number of years ago where a young teenage girl wanted to go to high school but her parents refused.  I felt for the girl and believe that her considerations should have been taken into account.  It seemed as though the parents were viewed as monsters for holding her back from an education.   Yet everyday parents are holding children back from getting an education suited to them.  Everyday children are sent to institutions when they would be best to a different learning environment.  Who is monitoring these families to ensure that children who should be home educated are afforded that right? 

Do parents of children enrolled in school have to fill out “intent to institutional school” form each year?  Education is a right but institutional schooling is only one option.  The right to choose the education path for a child should not be put to question above any other option.  It is not our right to chose the education method if it is in line with the social majority.  It is just simply our right.

Is it only hair?

Cook, clothes washer, chauffeur, nurse, counsellor, mediator.....and today hair stylist.   I cut the boys hair this morning. I usually cut their hair but sometimes feel uncertain about my abilities and take them into to get their haircut by a professional.  The outcome is the same as when I do it and I realize that I can do all that for free and we go back to home hair cuts. 

Our hair clipper set is on it's way out. The boys were troopers to sit through the first bit having to listen to the roar of the clippers in their ears.  It was hard for me to deal with the sound and it wasn't right against my head.  Thankfully Papa picked up a new one today while in town to use for the next round of hair cuts. The first cut today was successful.  Eoin although hesitant about how much I was cutting, likes his hair and thinks it makes him look "English"????   The third cut was also successful.  Seamus is happy and as usual thinks he looks great.  Liam's haircut was a disaster.  He looks quite nice and it is actually one of the nicest haircuts I have given him.  He does not agree.   Liam is very particular about his hair. I can relate, my hair is important to me.  He didn't say much to me after the cut but Gramma told me how much he didn't like it and when I went back to fix a few places after it dried he expressed his distaste for it quite strongly.   He was teary in the mirror and visibly stressed that his locks were lessened.  I was almost in tears myself.  Liam had enough of me and went off to his room. 

I did some dishes and put on a kettle to make us a hot drink to bring up to his room.    With a hot chocolate in hand for Liam and a French Vanilla for me I knocked on his door and he invited me in.  He was pretty sad and had covered himself completely with blankets.  It was heartbreaking.    I apologized for cutting his hair without getting his thoughts on it clear beforehand and let him know that I had brought a hot drink for us to chat it over.  It lifted his spirits some.  We had a nice chat and played rubix revolution.  He still doesn't like his hair any better but it was nice to reconnect with him.

The hot drink didn't make it all go away.   He still has to live with his haircut, as he sees it, until it grows out. Whether or not everyone else likes it or that it really isn't short doesn't matter to him.  His power was taken from him.  He saw his hair as an extension of who he was.  It may seem like a small thing to some but for Liam it was important.  It would be hard to imagine living life again from the seemingly helpless place of childhood.  There is a prevailing thought that children cannot or should not make decisions for themselves, for example the choice to eat fish or chicken.  

Making decisions for oneself is a critical part of development.   Getting the choice to eat a vegetable and get dessert or not eat the vegetable and miss out on dessert is not really choice.  It may allow the parent to feel better about forcing the child to finish their veggies but it certainly goes no where to giving the child a sense of power over their own lives.  We all want to feel in control of our own lives.  It feels bad to feel helpless.  

In parenting it is a challenge. Giving a child power over their own lives in part takes some of our power away.   For example the boys are upstairs right now giggling away. It is long past the time we ask them to turn out the lights and we would certainly prefer the quiet of sleeping children (although giggling children is not hard to stomach).  We feel powerless in a away in not being able to do anything about it aside from using punishment or threats.  And those two things only work for the moment and don't give satisfaction to either of us.  It can be difficult to let somethings go.  In our case the boys can sleep in so it doesn't really matter if they stay up later sometimes. It doesn't mean that it is not something that hits a nerve at times.  There are nights when Chris and I may really want to be alone and that may be in contrast to the boys late night deep conversations. 

We are encouraged in our culture to make sure to be what is often mislabeled as consistent but is instead the expectation to be unbending once a rule is set like bedtimes.  It is hard not to give into the idea though that to give a child an inch and they take a mile. It is like if you give them some power over their own lives they will run wild with it and be uncontrollable.   However in families where the children aren't given even an inch that is often blamed as the cause when a child begins to rebel. 

The idea that parents and children are adversaries is prominent in our culture.  My children have gotten much of that idea from the media exposure in their lives.  On almost every child oriented show they watch parents and adults are against children somehow.  Adults are portrayed as barriers to what children want and the adults who aren't are too often portrayed as irresponsible and immature.  It is something that has been irritating me more and more.  I am not going to limit their television any more than it is but we will certainly begin talking more about the idea that parents are not the bad guys as is perpetuated in what they are watching. 

When one party holds so much more power over another it is difficult not to see it as adversarial.  There are going to be times when as a parent I have to make a decision for my child. I cannot stand by and let them hurt someone or put themselves in serious danger.  There are also times when I need to ask myself if I am just simply taking the power from them to preserve my own.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves

Eoin jumped out the hammock this morning to look outside of my bedroom window and asked "wow do we have to rake today the yard is literally covered in leaves".  There were a lot of leaves.  We have been raking the yard about every few days for the past two weeks just to keep up.  It is a seemingly never ending task.  It is met with different feelings from each person in our house, ranging from excitement to get started raking each year to hate for anything to do with raking.  Seamus seems to have figured out as we closed the pool this year that scooping leaves is essentially raking in a pool as well as sweeping them off the deck.... he is the one who hates to rake. 

Today there really were a lot of leaves on the ground.   One of the aspects we were looking for in a house when we moved from the city was having a treed property.  We certainly succeeded in finding it.  We rake more the first rake of the Fall here than we did in the ten years in our previous house.   The prospect of raking the leaves that were on the ground today put Seamus in quite a funk.   Once he got raking with Gramma, who absolutely loves raking, he perked up and had quite a good time.  They had decided that today they were going to try to rake the leaves all into one pile in the middle of the yard instead of smaller piles throughout.   It was massive. 

The mountain of leaves was of course calling out to each of them to jump in.   It apparently also called to them to bury Eoin within it.   They had figured out that if they put a hoodie on Eoin backwards he could cover his face so the leaves wouldn't bug him.   Then the pile of leaves cried out to have them all covered up together with flashlights to light up the hoods that covered their faces.   My first reaction when I found out they buried Eoin was "Yikes" and "Eww there are probably spiders in there".   I managed to keep that to myself.  They were giggling and chatting away so it was difficult not to appreciate the joy.

I find I have to stop myself from interfering in their escapades more often than I would like to.   It is hard to watch them get into mud from head to toe with the thoughts in my head of having to wash the clothes and cleaning the mess that comes with peeling off the muddy clothes.  I would like to be more free spirited or accepting of their free spirited moments. It is not the way I am wired though and I have to work harder at it to balance my needs with theirs.   I will ask myself out loud "why am I wanting to say no?" when I get that feeling that I am saying "no" out of my own need for order.   There are times that a need for order wins out as well.  Today my need for order was not as great as their need to wrap themselves in Fall.

Kids and Pets

Chris asked why it seems that kids or pets seem to get sick at night, on weekends or on holidays?  I had no answer but his pondering certainly seemed to ring true in our family.  The boys have just had their first experience with the possibility of losing a pet.  Our lab Willow was quite ill and ended up at the vet over this past Thanksgiving weekend.  There is always the balance of what information to give children versus what they need to know and can comprehend when a traumatic event happens.   In this case Willow didn't look sick, when the boys said good night to her they went to sleep thinking their dog was just a bit under the weather.   When they woke up in the morning though we had to tell them that we had brought her to the vet and even though she looked fairly healthy the vet had said that she would do the best to make sure she was okay but there was a very real possibility that she may not be able to stop the internal bleeding that seemed to be happening.  It was made clear that despite her outward appearance Willow may have changed for the worse very quickly.

The kids were of course surprised and worried but went on with their day as usual.  Or seeminly they went on with their day.  Every so often one would walk up to us and make a comment that seemed to come out of nowhere like "I was upstairs praying and praying that Willow will be okay" or "she is my world I don't want her to die".  And then they would find something to distract them and get about their business.  It was hard on everyone.   Watching them, one would not have noticed immediately the how deeply they were affected by the situation.   On the outside they seemed fine but it was obvious from their comments that even though they went about their day she was often on their minds.  They didn't want to hear from us that all would be fine they just needed to express what had been on their minds.  

They didn't necessarily come to us for their comfort.   It was heartwarming to hear them talk to one another, trying to ease worries and share their fears without an adult in their presence.  Willow is home now and doing much better and hopefully will continue that way.  We are poorer because of the experience on a financial level but richer for the life experience, and very happy to have our Willow here to cuddle.

The hammock life

We had the pleasure of going to Riveria Maya almost a year ago for the wedding of my brother and his new wife.   It was beautiful!   Being a home learning mother I thought I would look up some information to share with the boys on the Mayan culture and general information about the locations in Mexico that we would be visiting.  We tried to learn some words as well and the children loved "donde esta el bano?" or "where is the bathroom?" They made quite a few friends with the staff at the restaurant who remembered them when my parents went back to the same place a few months later.

One of the most influencing bits of information that I came across was how some people in the mayan culture and across the world choose to sleep in hammocks.  Immediately the idea intrigued me.  After reading up on hammock sleeping I was determined I was going to buy one when we got there.  It was quite the fiasco to find a quality one in the touristy areas.  I was continually told to get traditional quality hammocks we would have to go about 2 hours further into Mexico which we couldn't do on this trip.  I finally found one that I liked and one for each of the boys.  Ours was a natural cotton and the boys made of brightly coloured nylon.  I couldn't wait to get them hung up when we got home.  

Chris smiled and went along with my idea like he usually does; bless him.  I think he was afraid I would throw out the bed.  It was an intersting experience the first night, just gettng in was a hilarious site.  Being that it was December we were a bit chilly with only a blanket on top of us.    I can't say I loved the first night but we had brought them across North America so we gave it another try.   The next night we put a blanket under us.  It made a huge difference and we found it much easier to get into it more gracefully even by that second night.   I think after that night we were hooked. 

The children's hammock experiences were not so successful.  The nylon hammocks didn't spread right and were not comfortable at all. Plus the boys like to sleep together and the single size of the nylon didn't accomodate them all.   So their hammocks went into the closet until I found some cotton hammocks online that I had shipped from seasidehammocks.com along with a slightly bigger one for Chris and I.  They were perfect!  And the colours were gorgeous! The boys sleep in theirs about 50 % of the time or more.  They get to choose if they sleep in the bed or the hammock each night.  Sometimes they choose a little of both.  Finding space to hang three hammocks in one room was quite the challenge and took 4 adults five hours to find the right positioning so that they weren't bumping into dressers or each other. 

Chris who I am sure was rolling his eyes up into his head when I first told him is now a converted hammock sleeper.  We dread having to sleep on mattresses and know that there will be aches and pains in the morning.  We went so far as to buy a portable stand to take our hammock with to sleep in when we tent. When Chris trods off to work in the morning I look forward to first Eoin joining me then Seamus and then Liam. It is our morning ritual to hang out together in my hammock saying good morning and cuddling. Priceless!  You can't help but cuddle in a hammock!

I have no investment in nor do I sell hammocks but I love telling people about how wonderful they are.  Here are some of the benefits we have found

*better nights sleep
*little or no discomfort in the morning
*cool and breezy in the summer
*cuddle close to loved ones
*less back aches all day
*more rested
*no pressure points
*tucks away to leave floor space (although we still have a bed in our room)
*great conversation piece (you can't imagine the questions we get....or maybe you can :))

Ripple of poetry

Today Seamus was reading A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein.   Yesterday he read Falling Up also by Shel Silverstein, in it's entirety.  I absolutely love watching children read. I have many fond memories of hearing Shel Silverstein poems when I was a child.  They were so very much fun to listen to.  Yesterday Eoin noticed Seamus reading the book and brought down Mr Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends from the bookshelf. I began reading it aloud to Eoin and along came Liam to hear the poems.  It was a great ripple moment.

We have a house full of books.  Buying books is almost problematic for Chris and I. It is hard to buy a book from amazon.ca without buying a bunch "just to save on the shipping (please consider accessing amazon.ca through a link at lllc.ca to support this wonderful organization). Chris has always been an avid reader and now that the boys are older and I have more free time I have developed quite the appetite for reading.   There are many nights when I start reading a book and don't put it down until I finish it at 5 am. Thank goodness the children are late sleepers and don't have to get up to go anywhere.

Seamus has a list of books that he wants to read and makes a plan every night to read a bit so that he can make it through his list.   It is a sizeable list.   The novels he is reading on top of his wish list right now are Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labryinth by Rick Riordan, The Tapestry by Henry H. Neff, Squire's Tale by Gerald Morris.  

I hope that all the boys develop a love for reading. Liam although he can read he doesn't enjoy it just yet.  Well in truth he loves reading graphic novels and does that frequently, he does not feel comfortable in his ability yet to get through a novel.  Liam likes to feel confident in his tasks.  Eoin is just in the beginning stages of reading and has really begun to enjoy listening to books more.  He did not enjoy listening to books at bedtime when I read to the boys.  Seamus and Liam both enjoyed hearing novels from early on but Eoin just these past few months has begun asking to be read to from novels.  He has always enjoyed picture books.  They all enjoy listening to novels on cd while we are in the car.   One downfall to moving from the bigger city to rural area is the sad list of cds we can take out of the library.  And novels on cd are just too expensive to buy normally.  Although we have found some success with bookcloseouts.com  and occasionaly Zellers has books on cd for $7.99.

It is the perfect time of year to sit by the window with the fall breeze coming in, wrapped up in a warm blanket reading a book!

Taught to eat octopus

In taking a course for the process of adoption I have been reacquainted with the terms authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive.  Authoritative is the style that is being presented as the best and most healthy option for families. The idea of it is making me edgy!  Ack!!  I don't what it is but this term gets the hairs on my neck to stand up.  I really don't see how it is all that different from the word authoritarian.  Both words come from the word authority which is synonymous with control.  The word "power" is used to describe authority in a few of the definitions.  

Permissive seems to be touted as equally bad as Authoritarian which is seen as the desiring complete obedience and often includes corporal punishment in terms of parenting.   Yet "permissive" by definition (on dictionary.com)is "habitually or characteristically accepting or tolerant of something, as social behavior or linguistic usage, that others might disapprove or forbid.".   Looking at the first part of this, what is wrong with being characteristically accepting or tolerant of things?   Since there is usually going to be someone or more than someone who would otherwise disapprove of or forbid the things you are tolerant of it would impossible for anyone to avoid being permissive. 

Here is the disconnect for me I think;  what an attentive parent may see as respectful dialogue or unique personality quirks or normal exploration too often others see as misbehaviour or push-over parents.  It is also culture specific.   What would seem permissive in one culture is not in another and cultures do not only come from heritage.  There is a culture among vegetarians, among babywearers, among neighbourhood communities. 

Here is an interesting story that happened last week in the grocery store.  

Me to Eoin conversationally while waiting to be served at the seafood counter
"would you like to have Tilapia with me and dad tonight?"

Eoin's response while smooshing his face and hands against the beautifully cleaned glass,
"ummmmm no I don't think so"

The older lady who was serving us gives me an admonishing look
"No it should be you ARE having fish with us tonight".  

Jenn to seafood lady (after taking a breath to make sure my words were polite)
"Oh I don't think I would want to always be told what I was going to eat"

Seafood lady:
"no it is teaching them not telling them"

Jenn to Seafood lady:
"Hmmm I don't think that I would want to be taught to eat things, like octopus for example"

Seafood lady:
"Well you would try it right?"

Jenn to Seafood Lady
"Certainly I might but that is different than being taught to eat something I don't want to eat"

End of conversation.  Here is the funny part of it all.  Eoin LOVES Tilapia.   However after trying it Seamus and Liam do not love Tilapia and therefore I will make them chicken if Chris, Eoin and I want to have Tilapia.   Eoin ultimately chose to eat the Tilapia instead of the chicken.

I wonder if the message she was trying to send me oh so subtly was that I was being permissive and that I should be more..... authoritative?  I think what was most amusing about the situation was that the woman saw a small snapshot of our lives and felt she understood our dynamic.

How did permissive become synonymous with "push over parents" and children running wild doing whatever they please and to whomever they chose to do it to?  Remembering that "permissive" can mean tolerant or accepting, permissive does not equal an imbalance in the control. A parent who may be permissive does not necessarily allow the needs of their children to come first above all else and everyone else.  That would be an imbalance and not healthy. To be a permissive/tolerant parent does not always mean that there is not consistent interactions or structure in a home.   Ultimately because the adult is the adult, they have the added responsibility to ensure the safety of young children but the relationship does not have to be adversarial. There does not need to be a tug of war for power.

Bake-off

The boys proposed an idea to me the other day at the grocery store.  Usually their propositions mean something very involved that grows into a project of unbelievable proportions.   This one seemed simple enough.

Challenge:  A Bake-off
Participants:   Team 1 (Seamus, Liam and Eoin) and  Team 2 (Chris and Jenn)
Tasters:  Gramma, Papa and maybe our neighbour
The Prize:  Having fun!

My terms:
It had to be a blind taste test.  My parents could not know which one the kids made!  Like that would go over well.  We all know the results if they get even an inkling of which one the kids make ; )

Knowing we didn't have any idea on what to bake we deferred it to another day to find the right recipe.  After some searching the boys have decided on Chocolate Almond Bonbons they found in Pillsbury:The Complete Book of Baking.  It is actually the first baking/cookbook that my mom gave me to add to my hope chest when I was a girl.  Sniff, sniff.

So we are off today to buy the ingredients for our first baking competition............................

........Back from groceries and apparently I was mistaken the boys were making the Chocolate Almond Bonbons and Chris and I had to pick out our own recipe.  So after we returned from the grocery store having not realized I had to do this we found a recipe with what we did have in the house and chose Split Seconds from the same cookbook. 

We had a blast baking!  Here are the results and Seamus' picture:

The vote on taste was almost unanimous from both bakers and the testers.  The Split Seconds tasted slightly better than the Chocolate Almond Bonbons but the Bonbons looked much better.   I liked the Bonbons better, but I love chocolate.

Thank you to our neighbour who kindly tried both desserts and somehow managed to keep the dog from eating them. 

What a fun time! 

Finding my way again

Parenting babies is easy.... retrospectively of course.   In the thick of it all it certainly seemed difficult, at least with the first child. It got easier with each addition.  Having 3 boys in just over 3 years I am sure made it all that more overwhelming.   They demanded my time which I gave easily through breastfeeding and keeping them close, they demanded nurturing which I gave through breastfeeding and keeping them close, they demanded my protection....again breastfeeding keeping them close covered a lot of it.  

As they grew though and the breastfeeding went away and the co-sleeping and baby wearing went away I had to work harder at keeping connected.  Those early choices set up the infrastructure but it didn't pave the roads for me.  In reading some thoughts from another mother on sports it has brought back to me something I realized a bit ago; how disconnected I was at times with my children as they reached their "school age" years.  The mother of days gone by who listened to her toddler as he tried to express his needs and met them the best she knew how somehow was replaced by someone I wouldn't recognize.  Sports brought out the worst in me. 

I am not sad, well I am not entirely sad, that none of our children will be playing hockey this year.  The part of me that is sad is the one that will miss the connection between the other mothers in the stands or while we waited for practice.  Mostly though I breathe a sigh of relief that our hockey time is done for now. I became a terrible person.   Did I yell at other kids or care that their team won?  No I was not that parent but I was the parent who shouted out for my son to work harder or chase the puck faster (or the soccer ball for that matter in the spring).  Whether in pseudo encouragement or out of frustration it didn't matter they were the same words.  I knew as a logical and seemingly respectful parent that this was not good for me, my sons or anyone.  But the words came out of my mouth none the less.

I can't even imagine how conditional my love seemed to them at the time.  No matter what I said that was pleasant the words that I am afraid stuck to them were the ones that sent a message I had worked hard to avoid since their births; when you do "this" I like you more than when you do "that".  I like them just fine no matter what they do but my actions and my words certainly spoke differently to the them.

It seems I took a mental break for a while and just gave it a half hearted attempt at being a respectful parent.  I took the easy way out, the authoritative, "I am the parent" way out.  Moving forward and getting back in touch with where I want to be with my kids and knowing how I am going to achieve it feels good.

Respectful means that I will not coerce my child into playing a sport that they have no interest in.  Respectful means that I will listen to what the have to say. Respectful means that I will stand back and let them be them.  Respectful means that I will truly love them unconditionally!

The idea of unconditional love was reintroduced to me through Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn It is a book that I have passed by so many times in the last ten years. I am so very glad that I found it again a couple weeks ago at a discount book store.  It cost less than $10 but the information was priceless. Reading the book now came at a time when I was ready to re-group.  It is going to be one of those books that I share with everyone I know.  I did not have a complete regression into poor parenting, there were certainly more respectful and connecting moments than there were negative times but it is never a poor practice to review what we do and how we do it.  I took inventory of my parenting and realized that I was a little low on unconditionality and respect.  Now I am restocked!

Unconventional life

Unconventional would be a word that could be used to describe more than the learning atmosphere in our home.   It is not a conscious effort to do things differently.  In fact I have found that the choices I have made and we have made as a couple have often created more challenges.  It has brought unbelievable joy as well.   However it is what it is and I have found myself living an unconventional life.  It is conventional in so many aspects as well.  We have a home, kids, cars, a dog.....  

Crunchy mama ( see meaning "crunchy mama" ) type things are becoming more and more common.  Babywearing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, responsive parenting seem to be gaining more appeal to mothers. Attachment parenting, attraction parenting  ( Scott Noelle's Daily Groove  ), unconditional parenting, whichever term is used, is not the easiest parenting journey to take.  It can feel lonely when there is no one around you who seems to hold the same philosophy. It can also bring parents some of the greatest connections they will ever know! 

Homeschooling was just one more adventure that was off the beaten path for us.   Even within the homeschooling community we have chosen an unconventional style.   There seem to be so many labels to define what and how people do things.  When we began parenting we discovered the "attachment parenting' philosophy and I excitedly told everyone about our attachment parenting approach. In part due to the light that came on when I learned about how breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing could profoundly affect parents and children and partly because I was still learning about what kind of parent I was and the label helped me figure it out.  After 10 years I don't use the term attachment parenting often and almost never in talking about my parenting style.  Not because I don't believe in the ideals, I still do, and strongly.  I don't use it because it seems to be connected more to parenting young children and because I am more than just those ideals.

In homeschooling I needed to find my way as well (and still am finding my way).  We tried on different terms and different philosophies.  We went through the school at home approach for a very short time and then we didn't and I called what I did unschooling for a while.  But when I labeled myself it felt as though I were limited to what the term meant to the majority of people.  We do unschool but we are not radical unschoolers.   Last year we used no curriculum at home but this year has brought new outlooks and we will be adding in some lesson work.  Our approach is so fluid that it would be hard to pin it down to one style.

This year we will have "Focus' days", as so well termed by my 7 year old.   Monday will be a day that we try to catch up on projects that have been left undone. For example the boys decided to make a landscape to play with their military toys that is being completed slowly. Although projects can be worked on whenever during the week having Project Day on Monday reminds us of the things we started and haven't finished.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are "Focus Days".  Each child has time during those three days they spend focusing on basic academic skills they would like to accomplish.   Our 7 year old has about an hour's worth of time over the three days up to our oldest at 11 years old having 2.5 hours of focus time.  And Friday is Field Trip day.  Again like Project Day, this day can happen whenever during the week but giving it a day reminds us of getting out and doing community activities.

Recently we gave away our underused exercise equipment and turned that room into our creativity room for the boys.  It is pretty :D.  I found IKEA this year and we have become best friends.  Each boy now has a workspace of their own.  This was my way of eliminating the clutter on my kitchen table after the daily drawing or sculpting sessions.  They seem to love it and we can eat dinner each night without cleaning up a huge mess.

One motivation in creating a "school" type room and beginning our "Focus Days" is based on another unconventional journey that we may be taking.   So, I am conforming to be unconventional.   I am conforming because we are opening our lives up to be put under a microscope.  We have decided that after years of discussing it we are proceeding with the next step in considering adoption.  My intent is not to hide our learning philosophy or that we do not "school" at home, but an open child led approach is not easily understood by many people.  It will be a smoother process, I feel, if the Children's Aid Society Adoption Resource worker will be able to see what we do.

We don't fit into any mold.  We are what we are and we do what we do.  Our approach to parenting will change with circumstance and as the boys develop.  To say we do things one particular way or another would not be accurate.   Even to use unconventional as a broad term for myself would be inaccurate as I conform when the need calls for it.