Thoughtful Parenting

Finishing for Valentines Day

2012-02-12T16:22:00.001-08:00

We glued all the little ladybugs onto craft sticks and then Marin wrote, "Love Marin" on all 18! And we gave them little black spots and eyes (not shown sorry)

We made a wildflower mix and I sewed them into little parchment packets. The in each little bag we put a garden stick (the ladybug), a gardening pot and a packet of flower seeds.

Marin folded down the top and put a sticker on...

And there ya have it 18 valentines day projects. I think if I did my math right the whole project cost me about $6.25. Not too bad for homemade valentines for the whole class. And for those of you trying to not add more candy to the holiday this is a cute and easy candy-free gift to give. If you want candy, well then just throw it in the sack.

Happy Valentines Week!

School Valentines Day Craft

2012-02-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

Valentines Day is just next week. Marin's school will have their little party on Monday (as they don't have school on Tuesday). Last year I made heart shaped crayons for the class and Marin signed the cards. But this year I wanted her to do more of the little gift. So here is what I came up with so far:

hmmm little wooden ladybugs and flower seeds...

On our way home I grabbed some little planter pots (less than $2 for 10 at Lowes)...

We mixed all the seeds together so kids will get a little wildflower arrangement ...

Owen likes to get a closer look and the mixed up seeds...

We painted the ladybugs red. Black dots soon to come...

Check back tomorrow to see the finished product!

To Spank or Not To Spank, that is the question

2012-02-07T15:55:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking of this for a while. My longer more thoughtful posts take me months to formulate in my head. Anyways people ask me all the time if we spank our kids as a form of discipline. We always say "no" or "its our last resort". A little while back, before Thanksgiving one of my friends asked, after I said "no we don't spank, but Owen is making it really difficult because he is so strong willed", "so what about what the bible says?" And I said, "what does the bible say?" she said, "well in the Old Testament there are some verses about spanking". I didn't really have an answer and hemd and hawed around the topic because I had not really thought of it from that perspective.

I knew the phrase "Spare the rod spoil the child" was no where to be found in the bible. Sorry for those of you who are just now finding this out. If your parents said it was and you got spanked because of it, well now you can say "It does not exist!" Its one of those phrases that is related to an Old Wives Tale. Like if you have heartburn in pregnancy your baby has lots of hair, that kind of made up phrase.

But I didn't have a response to my friend and frankly I hadn't even done any search as to what the bible might say about spanking. I formed my own beliefs outside of that frame. So let me back up and start from the beginning so I can get to addressing the question.

When Todd and I first got married I worked at a preschool for a while... wait let me back up some more, my second degree was in Family Studies and Human Development and a lot of parenting/family research was part of our readings for different classes. So I had taken classes on the different styles of parenting (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive being the three) and knew the outcome of each (another blog post to come) so I had already made some decisions about my future parenting style based on the research that was out there. After college we moved to Florida and I worked at a preschool and it was there I became very sure of one thing. I could parent without spanking. I mean lets face the facts, as a teacher I could not spank other peoples kids, while there were many times particular kids made me want to spank. But you can't its against the law. So it was here I learned many other ways to discipline children, to change behavior for the positive over time without spanking. It was here I first had the thought, "if I can't spank these kids why would I spank my own some day?" Working at a preschool gave me a toolbox of parenting ideas for discipline.

Sometime between having my first child and that spanking question, I also read Kids Are Worth It: Giving Your Child the Gift of Self Discipline by Barbara Coloroso and some Dr. Sears stuff and was becoming even more settled on the non-spanking decision. But I had not read many contemporary Christian books because there were a few problems I had with most Christian authors, mainly they had no formal Child Development training (not counting one very famous Dr. Dobson who has his PHD in Child Development, but he still comes down a little hard on some issues for me). Because my background was in Child Development I was not going to have some Christian tell me about disciplining my child from their personal trial and error when they had no clue about the developmental stages of children. Case in point, I have read such books where the "terrible twos" is stated as the beginning of our "sin nature" beginning to show. However as someone who has studied child development toddlerhood is not a time of rebellion, its a cognitive shift that God created in all humans where they no longer see their physical body the same as their mothers. Toddlerhood is the beginning of seeing your body as yours, that you can control your actions, they are not reflexes or responses to your mother. You begin to see that your mother is her own person and not an extra leg you have, or something like that. This phase is noted as an autonomous phase (there are a few more times this happens in our childhood) is a way that we become individuals. God made us that way, otherwise we would nurse our mothers until we were leaving for college, or wait we wouldn't be able to leave for college because we were not autonomous enough to do so.

Anyways it nonsense like that that sent me over the edge and I didn't read my next Christian author-ed parenting book until last year. And had I not been alone at my friend Rachel's house with my sleeping children while everyone else was out having fun at a film festival I would not have been snooping through her books to find Spiritual Parenting, by Michelle Anthony. Who knows how long it would have been before I ever read another Christian authored parenting book.

Anyways, back to whacking, I mean spanking... seriously if you are a spanker please do not take this post as a criticism. I'm just finally coming to terms with a more fuller reason for why we have decided for our family to parent the way we do. I have friends who use spanking and we are still friends, and they all think my kids will probably turn out to be rebellious hippies who use cloth diapers on their kids who get birthed at home and other crunchy things like that but they still like me.

"Then he came back to the basket and took out his son Benjamin by the ears, and whipped him with the little switch"

So it really bothered me that I didn't have an answer, I have to admit I sort of thought this was the type of thing that was passed down from parent to child and no one really knew why it was done. And we all told ourselves that spanking was biblical but didn't really have any proof, we just thought it was okay because we turned out okay right?

I started doing a little reading, like where in the bible would the idea of spanking your kids come from? What do we find in the bible about disciplining a child? And what is the roll of the parent?

All those questions soon to be answered in part two! Check back soon...

The Snowy Day

2012-01-28T17:17:00.000-08:00

We love this book! Its so wonderful, although I'm never sure if my Florida kids really get it. Anyways, there is a story on NPR about Ezra Jack Keats that I wanted to share HERE. The book turns 50 this year, Happy Birthday Snowy Day! This is a great story about an author who wrote a good book, in which the child just happened to be African-American. There was no agenda, just a little boys adventure on a snowy day.

I love this portion of the story:
"Keats received thousands of fan letters from children, featuring their own versions of his deceptively simple collage illustrations. Even children in places like decidedly un-snowy Florida could relate to Peter's adventures. But one of the most touching reports came from a teacher whose students had read The Snowy Day.

"There was a teacher [who] wrote in to Ezra, saying, 'The kids in my class, for the first time, are using brown crayons to draw themselves.' " Pope says. "These are African-American children. Before this, they drew themselves with pink crayons. But now, they can see themselves.""

Happy Birthday to a much celebrated book that did indeed allow every child's imagination to flourish! So head on over and listen or read the story and meet a wonderful author.

As a side note before we settled on Owen's name, I was really trying to name him after Ezra Jack Keats. Ezra Jack, its a name just waiting to turn into a rock star or wonderful children's author.

A Working Mom

2012-01-18T16:38:00.001-08:00

Aside from my birth work (mainly teaching classes these days) I also work part time for our church Children's Ministry. This week here is my office...

If you are a work-from-home-mom you might have these moments too. The dashboard desk...

The "lap-top" work space...

And the reason for the odd work location... the sleeping toddler.

This is normal for me on Monday mornings. I take our eldest to school and sometimes on our way to my office Owen will fall asleep in his car seat. Needing to get a lot of work done but not wanting to wake the baby, I will often sit in my car outside of the office working, printing things, making calls, having appointments by the front door (and not in the office), and even cutting out crafts. This particular day I got about 2 hours of uninterrupted work done, ahhhhh, such a luxury.

Cheers to all of you trying to get some work done with children along for the ride!

Weekend Phone Collage

2012-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

Left to right top: hatching butterfly's, panda tea party with friends, first dance class with girlfriends, snacks on the patio, Rosie goes everywhere with us!
Left to right bottom: Owen decides that sleeping with us on the couch is better than his bed, eating at the Bunnery in St. Augustine, what I wish my front gate looked like, Marin poses while looking at antiques, Owen wears boots and a hat out to dinner.

Alive Enough?

2012-01-14T09:23:00.000-08:00

Krista Tippett and Sherry Turkle discuss the topic of why we should protect sacred spaces for our families at On Being by American Public Radio.

Its okay to take your kids to the park and leave your phone in the car, its okay to take your spouse out to breakfast and leave your phone at home! After interviewing many many children, Sherry discovered that it wasn't parents who were wanting their kids to put their tablets, phones and laptops away but kids asking for eye to eye contact. Teens and children who are asking their parents to pay attention and listen.

I found this encouraging, helpful and a eye opener. Listen here

Little People

2012-01-12T13:48:00.000-08:00

Kids are weird, they do weird things... they do things that don't make sense, like washing soap, dumping out a basket of toys but never playing with them, and getting the best sleep of their lives laying across your legs. Kids also do things that make your heart melt and make you wish they would just stay little forever.

Like taking time to stop and watch butterfly's on bushes for a long time. And then ask lots of questions about how butterfly's live in the bushes, and what do they eat, and why do they like the red flowers the most....

They wear jackets with bear ears on top!

Being totally in love with a dirty smelly blankie...

Sleeping...

Drawing her family...

This week I found a collection of tiny acorns hidden in a little bird house outside, Owen started shouting "What!" and its unrelated to a question, Marin still says "Les-ah-lee" for our friend Leslie and calls vitamins "biteamens", Owen is obsessed with his cowboy boots and gardening gloves and kitchen mitts, Marin loves umbrellas and tiny toy people, and they both still want us to lay with them until they fall all the way asleep.

Just Stay Little!

Round Two, Add More Sugar or Did Someone Lick the Spoon?

2011-12-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

We pulled it off again! This has become one of my favorite days of the whole year. The day started with two little boys who were in trouble from the moment they saw each other, the dog's water bowl, and a step stool leading up to a sugared counter!

Three little girls making cookies together. This year they are old enough to hand the recipe and make cookies! What at sweet gaggle of girls, I hope they join us every year and never get too old to cook with their mamas.

M & M baking together!

I never could figure out why the kids didn't eat lunch all day...

You can imagine angels singing here... we made 21 trays of these! Last year we doubled the batch, this year we tripled it. They make great gifts to your neighbors!

**We used this recipe, I mixed it up with whole wheat and used brown sugar instead of the white. But its so easy to follow PW's directions and have 5 kids, and three women chatting at the same time. And when you gather a group like that you need to follow easy directions.

And they are now delivered!