In His Arms

After dinner, we push the island aside, put on some music (last night, "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles), put on our dancing feet, and cut a rug.

In this strange photo, Violet's foot looks like it's put on backwards, but really, she's just mid-twirl. Her dress is PERFECT for twirling, is it not?

We dig a too-small party dress out for Margot, and she feels the thrill of being twirled, too.

When I see the girls dancing with my husband, I remember how my dad used to ask all of his daughters to dance at our small town wedding receptions. We'd jive (none of us with the grace of our mother), and waltz and two-step. We felt safe in dad's arms, and beautiful. I remember the feeling as I grew taller and fit into his arms better, and how I always hoped I'd meet a man who could dance.

I did.

Now we mostly dance in our kitchen, and the kids giggle when their dad puts his arms around me for a slow song. It occurred to me that when older people reminisce about these days we're in (seemingly suffering from amnesia because they never mention the whining, fighting, exhaustion, and mess), THIS is what they miss.

These are the moments they're remembering with such fondness.

And lest you think we're forgetting him, I've already told him that if the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, then the way to a woman's heart is through dance. So we teach them to keep the time, to keep their heads up but be careful not to step on each others' feet, and most of all, to keep their partner safe in their arms.

Because isn't that just one of the best feelings in the world?

A Letter at Christmas, AND a Promotional Discount!

I've calculated that since giving birth to my first child six and a half years ago, we've celebrated Christmas with kids six times, and acknowledged twelve birthdays. I did the math: that's eighteen opportunities for our loved ones to give gifts to our kids. That's three sets of grandparents, five sets of aunts and uncles, plus the gifts we give.

So the question is: how do you politely request certain kinds of gifts for your children? We have been blessed by many grownups that love our children and don't ever want to seem ungrateful. It's just that after so many years, I have had to discard so many cheap plastic/battery-powered toys, or worse, toys that cost lots of money BECAUSE they were battery-powered. They still break. We're overwhelmed with boxes of stuff our kids don't really play with, or those toys that have so many parts it's impossible to keep them together.
About four or five years ago, Mothering Magazine featured a letter that could be sent to friends and relatives well before the holidays to polite state your intentions for your children. I've always felt a bit unsettled about sending it...like I was being difficult, or a toy snob, or taking the fun out of the mad consumerism of Christmas. But I think this is the year.


After visiting a friend's small and beautiful home, I was inspired to take things in hand. The limitations in space demand that her daughter's toys are well-chosen. A few baskets of Waldorf toys (play silks, wooden tree blocks, felt fruit and vegetables, a little wooden play kitchen, and so on). I breathed of sigh of peace at the sight of these beautiful toys. My children HAVE toys like this. But they're so bound up with all the other "stuff" that they're hard to find.

So, upon returning home from her house, I fired off this email:

Relatives and Friends,

I'm just thinking ahead to Christmas (and the many birthdays ahead of us) and the INSANE amount of toys we have in our house. I would like to gratefully acknowledge the wonderful gifts you've given over the years, and respectfully request a certain "kind" of gifts this year. We're working hard at simplifying the "stuff" in our house, and are ditching a lot of toys that have broken over the years, or requires constant battery changing, or was brought into the house from yard sales, thrift shops, etc.

We just have too much; the kids don't even know what to play with anymore, pieces have gone missing, and we're always struggling to keep the toys in order.

Order her at www.babynaturopathics.com

So, as we attempt at achieve a bit more order in our busy house, I'd like to ask you to consider checking out www.babynaturopathics.com or www.naturalpod.com which are both Canadian businesses that support handmade/natural toys. We'd LOVE to build a collection of Holztiger animals (available at the first site)...we love the farm animals, daughter, farmer, and princess/queen/king/etc. kind of figures. Natural pod carries "Baby Bolga baskets" which would be so handy for the kids as they wander on their adventures (eggs, berries, apples, beach treasures!) , as well as beautiful coloured play silks (which are marvellous for dress up and imaginative play).

Visit http://www.naturalpod.com/ to order!

Please, no plastic toys this year, or toys with tons of little parts that will get lost...there's no need to spend tons of money on wooden stuff; a lot of the items I've mentioned are around $10.

Find this beauty of a marble run on etsy!

If you enter the code KnittyGritty11, you'll get a 5% discount, and so will I!

Kirk's wife Erin grew up near my hometown; they're good people. Support real craftspeople!

Jude is really into experiments and building stuff; we hope to get him a wooden marble run on etsy (made by Erin Egan's husband, Kirk); he already has a microscope, but would probably love a magnifying glass, or a small aquarium/terrarium, or anything that allows him to keep things from nature to study! He also loves drawing and music as usual.

Other ideas include: an amaryllis bulb that they can watch bloom in the winter months, gift cards to a bookstore, a bug-viewing kit, art supplies, or camping gear (a flashlight, an enamelware cup and bowl), contributing towards lessons or classes, or just making a date to spend time together!


I hope no one thinks me rude...this is the desperate plea of a desperate mother; I really want to pare down the amount of stuff in our house and have found through experience that the toys my kids keep returning to are the open-ended, natural ones...they feel nicer, last longer, encourage imagination, and don't need batteries or make annoying noises. They are made by hand, with little or no impact on the earth. These are the values we hope to pass on to our children, and hope you can help us!


Thank you for reading through all these mama thoughts of mine, and for respecting our request!


With all that said, please know that our children do not expect gifts; they do not keep track (nor do we!), and always remember the joy of being with loved ones when they talk about Christmases past.

We so appreciate your role in our children's lives, and appreciate the love you show them by choosing gifts thoughtfully.

With gratitude,
Stephanie

When I mentioned in yesterday's blogpost that I'd written this letter, several people commented on my courage. It's less courage (because it's taken me six years!) and more that I really, really want to stop stepping on sharp plastic toys. I want to feel peaceful when I see my children's toys. That, I hope I can achieve with words.

If you're feeling similarly fed up, and possibly courageous, please feel free to copy or adapt my letter! You can replace the Canadian sites with others (I also love Nova Natural Toys in the US!), or tailor it to reflect your child's interests.

It is time to do more than THINK about making change. I'm the person who picks up messes and has to dispose of broken craptastic toys (with the eco-guilt that entails). So I'm taking charge of what comes into my house. I should have done it years ago, but I'm starting now instead!

carefree

Camping is fun. Packing for camping is not.

Back in my late teens and twenties, it was almost a competition amongst outdoorsy types, to see how little you could take with you for a week long canoe trip. A Thermarest, a sleeping bag that stuffed into a sack the size of  a loaf of bread, a little Primus stove, and a pack of matches...that was about it.

I'm five days into packing for a family of five's five-day camping trip. I've created framework organisers to keep track of every-weather clothing for all of us, packed and unpacked the kids' suitcase, and have anticipated every possible ailment that might occur. I'm ready for days of rain, with a bin full of playdough, craft materials, books (fiction and non-fiction!), and games. I have fishing rods, boogie boards, snorkels, goggles, and bikes.

All this packing had me exhausted before we've even leave home, and wondering if it's all worth it.

Then I remembered days at my cousins' cottage, when I was a child. There was always a dry towel wrapped lovingly around me when I finally emerged from the cold, northern lake. As the evening chill came on and the fire was lit, there was always a warm sweatshirt and a pair of track pants ready for me. We never thought about food; our mothers just set out cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, and copious amounts of Koolaid to get us through the day.

One of the many gifts our mother gave us was a carefree childhood. Of course we didn't think about bring rubber boots or bug repellent...kids shouldn't have to think about those things. Everything we needed was just there, as if by magic.

And now, all this packing feels like a privilege; I can now offer my children the same thing my mother gave me: warm pyjamas, plentiful snacks, dry clothes after a swim, and little flashlights to play with in the tent.

Of course, I've packed a basket of goodies for myself, just in case I find a moment to relax, after all this packing.

Here's to all the mothers out there, who work behind the scenes (birthdays, Christmas, trips, holidays) to make sure that their children's lives are fun, stimulating, safe, and most of all, carefree.

Sisters

 They are so different from one another, like chalk and cheese. One might suspect that they are not even related, so different are their faces, colouring, build, and personalities. 
Their relationship was off to a rocky start, being born 21 months apart. Margot was unwell as a baby, and Violet treated her as the usurper she was. They have fought and scratched and bit, they refuse to share, they pick fights and scrap over clothes and toys.

Imagine my joy when we were walking out of the beach yesterday and I overheard this conversation:

Violet (hugging Margot): Look, mom...she's as tall as my heart!
Margot: (wrapping her arms around Violet) My sister...
Violet: I'm your big sister...
(Violet takes Margot's hand and sets off down the path, as I grab the camera)
Margot: My big sister...
Violet: Sometimes I slap you. Sometimes I bite you.
Margot: Yeah.
Violet: Sometimes you slap me and bite me. But sometimes we're nice to each other.
Margot: Yeah.

They continued on down the trail, till their voices came to me in fragments, Violet pointing out this leaf or that bird to Margot, helping her little sister up when she fell and brushing her knees off, encouraging her when she lagged.

I watched them as they made their progress away from me, with joy in my heart for this moment of peace between them.

this place

A path leads through the woods, to a place where all of my children learned to splash, then wade, then paddle like mer-people.

This mama has walked this path alone, then carting a baby, then pregnant with a toddler in tow. The light begins to glimmer as we near the end of the path, then flashes off the water that greets us as we emerge from the trees.

There's a dance of glee when we are the first to arrive here, and have our pick of beach spots.

This boy stays in the water till he's wrinkled and shivering, going out where the water is deep enough for us to call, "Come back!" I thrill to see him taking to water, as he was a toddler who didn't want to splash or wade. Faith and patience brought us here, to a day where we have to coax him out of the water with watermelon.

The day before Violet was born, I walked these paths with my little son, showing him toads and the stools they sit on. Later in the day, I bared my belly to the sun and felt peace wash over me as I whispered a prayer for this new child that would soon join us. Two weeks later, we returned with our newborn daughter, and my husband lost his wedding band when he shook the sand off the old quilt. Now, she's our little Nut Brown Maid, in and out of the water like a selkie.

Days at the beach aren't so busy these days, and I can get a bit of knitting done as everyone plays,

or naps.

At this place, there are no chores to be done, no phone ringing, and no toys to fight over. There are rocks to climb on, sand to build with, logs to float on, driftwood to improvise with. Friendships grow and are forged by sunlight and water.

These are the days they will remember. I remember every moment, too.

Oh, Canada

This is a vast land we live in.

I've travelled from coast to coast more than once, and have some grasp of the diversity of the people and landscape of Canada. We celebrate Canada's "birthday" on July 1, with outdoor play, barbeques, ball games, strawberry shortcake...all culminating with fireworks.

All across the country, people park their cars in the local ball field or school yard, spread out blankets or unfold lawn chairs, and watch the show. The children scream with delight, and the crowd swells with "oooOOOH!"s and aaaAAAh"s!

We spent the long weekend with my sister, and checked all the requisite Canada Day activities off the list, and then some. The kids stayed up extra, extra late to see the fireworks, and declared that they were AWESOME! (I missed them because Margot was too little and had to go to bed...I'll admit, I was a bit overtired, too!)

When I was 9 or so, we drove across Northern Ontario, then across the prairies, the foothills, and the Rockies until we reached the farthest western coast of Canada. No text book could have taught me as much about this country I live in. My children will often say, after an hour or so of driving, "Are we in Canada now?" or "Are we still in Canada?" They're too little to comprehend the expanse of land that we call Canada. But with plans in the works for a trip to Canada's east coast in a couple of years, their knowledge will grow as mine did, from the backseat of a car.

Oh, Canada, glorious and free...I'll admit it: I'm a patriot.

Coincidentally, this piece was posted on Independence Day, so to all my American friends and followers out there: Happy July 4th!

I Choose Love

Fear has many disguises. It is a shape-shifter. On any given day, it can appear in my life as

• rage
• disgust
• anxiety
• judgement
• anger
• self-loathing
• negativity
• despair
• grief
• hatred
• defensiveness

The list could go on and on. But these are the guises in which fear most appears in my life. I once read that all human emotions can be divided into two groups: fear, or love.

Think about it. When you have that knot of anxiety (for me, it's in my upper abdomen/solar plexus; in my husband, it's his teeth that hurt when he feels anxious), poke at it a bit. Like your tongue probing the gap left behind by a just-lost tooth, it's a bit morbid to explore pain; it hurts. But it's hard to stop yourself, too.

If you just breathe through it, like breathing through a contraction, you'll see that surface emotion beginning to unfurl, revealing the base of it all.

Fear.

I'm tired of feeling fearful. Fear of the future, fear of not having enough money, fear of being "stuck" here with my children all summer without a vehicle, fear of something bad happening to my loved ones, fear of being clung to and depended on, fear of failing, fear of succeeding, fear of being overweight for the rest of my life, fear of not fulfilling my potential, fear of clutter.

Did I say I'm tired of feeling fearful?

I'm EXHAUSTED. It takes a lot of energy. That fear needs feeding and daily nurturing. It needs negative self-talk. It needs the encouragement I give it when I give in to it.

I read the book I mentioned above (I can't for the life of me remember its title) when I was in the newest stages of love with my husband. We read it together, and marvelled at the simplicity of it:

Choose love.

Choose love.

There have been moments in my life as a wife and mother where I scoffed at the over-simplicity of that concept. Sure, I could choose love when I made enough money to cover our cheap rent, when I had time to exercise and meditate, when the future lay ahead of us like a treasure map. Like the bloom of first love, it faded into the mediocrity of every-day-living.

There's just so much more to fear now, with three little people depending upon me, with my heart walking outside my body in the form of my children.

But I've recently come to realise that all of the things I long for: a peaceful, clutter-free home, harmonious children, a passionate and connected relationship with my husband...are within my reach.

When I get angry at my children, it is easy to blame THEM: they're aggravating, they make too many messes, they are so DEMANDING!

When I am frustrated with my husband, it is easy to blame HIM: he's forgetful, he's self-centred, he doesn't earn enough money, he doesn't take care of his car.

I'm tired of all this blame. I'm remembering something I once knew:

It's not them. It's me.

I'm afraid. Mostly I'm afraid of not having control in my life.

But I've made a decision, because I've remembered in a deep place within my soul what once made perfect sense to me.

I have a choice.

Starting today, I choose love.

I choose love.

So Long, Farewell...

"I don't have time to (enter activity of choice)".

Exercise. Cook healthy meals. Play with my kids. Paint my bedroom. Put in a garden.

What? When did this happen? I LOVE these activities. Or at least, I used to, before blogging and commenting on the blogs of others gobbled up some of the most precious commodity in every mother's life: my time.

I need to centre in on my real life for awhile. I came to this conclusion last August when I wrote this post. I was inspired by the brave decision of my friends at Twig and Toadstool to step away from a space they'd nurtured and loved when it became clear that their real lives were suffering. Remember "Childhood Magic" and how shocked we all were when she closed her wonderful blog? I wonder how she's enjoying her life and time these days...I imagine she LOVES it. Nicole at Frontier Dreams wrote about this very busy-ness today. I have also been deeply touched by this heartbreakingly honest post over at Apples With Honey.

I feel myself floating away from the mother I want to be. I want to be engaged. I want to be in the moment. I want to breathe through those moments (and there are many) of impatience and anger. I want to sit and have a tea party with my daughters for hours if they so wish it, without glancing away in distraction. I want to build Lego robots with my son.

I love that feeling of flipping the page of a calendar and seeing that the coming month is mostly blank. You can choose to fill up every square, or make a solemn promise to carefully consider your yeses for the month.

After a month of birthday craziness, I flipped the calendar to June.

Case conference. Stag and Doe. Stag party. Shopping for weddings. Wedding rehearsals. Friend's wedding. Brother's wedding. Birthdays. Class trip. Kindergarten graduation. Grade 8 Graduation. Report cards due. School Fun Night. Assemblies. Gigs. Doctor appointment. Anniversaries. Data due.

Oh. My. Goodness.

How can we possibly have writing on 26 of the 30 days in what is already a busy month in the home of two educators?

So. I'm taking the phone of the hook, so to speak.
If you're a new visitor to this space, please read through the archives, or check out some popular posts (by clicking on the buttons at the right). If you're an old friend, you can email me by going to my profile page. I also highly recommend those wonderful women over on "Kindred Spirits" roll.

July is looking good. Two music gigs. One bellydancing gig. Kittens due. A birthday and an anniversary.

Bring on July.

(*haha...I had to take a deep breath before I hit "publish post"...but as with any great leap, I know the fear will soon be replaced with relief that I just did it...there). Phew.

Fairy Tea Party

While I profess to follow the KISS* rule of raising children, I somehow cannot resist the potential of a little girl's birthday party...the food! the decorations! the favours! the costumes! I usually start checking out sites for ideas a few months in advance, jotting down anything that grabs my fancy. I can't really credit any of these ideas to one specific site; they're kind of a reflection of what my mind does with a bit of inspiration!

*Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Wands, created in Northern Ontario from birch bark coloured with watercolour paint, glued on to sparkly fun foam; ribbons and sparkly hearts were added as embellishments, then the whole lot was attached to a sturdy twig with hot glue.

Invitations gently suggested that fairy wings be worn, and every guest complied with joy. Daddy entertained the guests with silly songs, including the faery hokey-pokey..."You put your left wing in, you put your left wing out..."

Fancy tea cups are a must for any tea party; if the Guest of Honour's name happens to be Violet, then a tablecloth adorned with violets are a nice touch!

Tiny toadstool hors d'oeuvres...made from pinching one end of a mini-marshmallow and inserting it into a raspberry. Following the note I left before rushing away for the weekend, my husband and his buddy sat up till 2:30 a.m. making these...

...and these: Faery Fruit Wands!

Strawberry cupcakes with buttercream icing, tinted pink, of course...decorated with fresh violets from the garden (of course!)...

Violet requested that mommy wear a "special dress".

Tinkerbell graced us with her presence.

Sweet girl, with pink nail polish (only for a four-year-old girl!)

A wooden play kitchen has been on our wish list for a few years, but there never seems to be the money for one...so I printed off a picture of one I liked from the internet, handed it to my hubby and his buddy (the one with the tools and the know-how!), and sent him off night after night to work on it. I'm so thrilled with what they managed to create without a pattern!

Violet was thrilled, too!

While I did the research and planning of this party, credit for its execution goes to my beautiful man, who so graciously takes on extra tasks when I'm looking like I might burn out...sends me off to the north, stays home alone for a weekend with the kids, doesn't freak out when he realises that I accidentally took the van keys with me (OOPS!), and loads the kids into his little Mazda instead to get groceries for the birthday. Violet felt like the most special little girl in the world for a day, and what more could anyone want on their birthday? My heart overflows.

Yaarrrr!

The Pirate Dad created a scavenger hunt for the pirate-partygoers, and helped the littlest ones read the clues, written in calligraphic script on tea-stained, burnt-edged scraps.

I kinda like my husband in his swashbuckling garb. I love piratey words: swashbuckling, swabbing the deck, keelhauling and parleying. I love how my husband adopts these words like they're his first language, as in "Sit ye down and drink yer grog!"

Lego pirates adorn the gluten-and-dairy-free birthday cake, where X marks the spot.

A proud first mate presents the cake to the Captain,

...and shows off her piratey grin.

By late afternoon, the guests are gone, a fire is lit, the two girls are sleeping,

and the Pirate Dad hits the bunk for a well-earned kip.

The remains of the party whisper of the fun we had,

and gifts are assembled and admired and played with.

Scattered wrappers of gold doubloons litter the floor,

and the evening sky wishes Jude River a wonderful 6th Birthday.