Welcome to the June 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting:

Parenting in Theory vs. in Reality

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants are sharing how their ideas and methods of parenting have changed.

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The surprises in my shortcomings as a parent were not immediately apparent. It’s been more of a discovery since my son emerged from a docile toddlerhood into more challenging Threes, he got a sister at four, and my health went downhill. I had read and learned so much from parenting classes when he was young, and I’d gotten so much more knowledgeable about healthy eating, it was as though I could taste the promised land.

But then it all got harder. Ignorance can be bliss, and my overly-informed self was wallowing. I knew what I was missing. I knew what they were missing.

Today, he is seven, and my daughter is closing in on three. I realize I had no idea what it was to raise a toddler the first time. She brings me more challenges and exasperations on a daily basis than her brother did in weeks’ time.

Before she was born, I had some concerns about my ability to slow down and be present. But I had no idea to what extent that would become a physical necessity.

I mistakenly thought that after a relatively quick and easy homebirth, I would bounce back faster than from the c-section I had with my son. Indeed, my milk came rushing in, but my energy also went rushing out. I stayed busy with volunteering at my son’s Waldorf school and with Holistic Moms instead of sleeping all the time like I did after my son’s birth. I needed to sleep. I wanted to be active, but my body — four years older and grappling with what I didn’t quite realize was IBS — could not rebound.

It’s now nearly three years later, and I feel like I’ve been swimming through jello most of the time. I’ve undertaken a number of healing modalities and have had improvement from a lot of them, but inevitably I try to do too much and regress. I recently got confirmation from a saliva test that I’m close to adrenal fatigue. New supplements are helping some, but I continue to wonder just what I am up for.

If I don’t write and participate in my community, I don’t feel whole. And yet, I really need to sleep a lot and to meditate if I’m going to heal. I keep imagining that someday I will hit on the right combination of remedies and magically turn into the mother I want to be. For now, I am making a lot of compromises between what I thought I would be doing at this stage and what I am doing.

Schooling is one of the areas I’m feeling conflicted about right now. I used to teach public school and think there is a lot of good that can come from an activist/whole foodist/environmentalist parent being connect with public schools, but there are also a lot of things I don’t love about it, including tests, screen time, indoor time in inclement weather, and “treats.” I hope to have more energy to work on those issues in the future.

I thought I would keep my son in Waldorf school until 3rd grade and that my daughter would go there, too, maybe starting late since she has a summer birthday. If she turned out to be more introverted, I thought I might keep her home longer or even try homeschooling if it seemed to suit her temperament. I loved the natural environment, the attention to spirit — heart and head — and the fact that the teachers were so grounded and calm. I learned a lot about rhythm and hoped that I would have integrated more Waldorf songs and stories into our home life when I had the chance to start over with my daughter. But then my son started acting out in the family-like environment, and the price tag didn’t seem to compel us to stay if it meant we might miss out on a spot at the Expeditionary Learning public school where he now goes (and which now has a long waiting list)

So we have saved five figures a year twice over (and saved time in additional hours that he’s at school and that he takes the bus home). It is a choice school that does not use grades, an EL school that values community and nature with an intentional focus on meeting the child’s needs. But still, it’s a school where he is tested on screens and spends his days under florescent lights.

This year, my daughter has spent three full days a week at an in-home Montessori daycare/preschool and only six weeks at a Waldorf parent-child class and a handful of times at a homeschooling co-op. Although I think the Montessori approach suits her well, and the home is beautiful,I love seeing her do imaginative play.

We were surprised to get a coveted spot in the Montessori pre-K at my son’s school, a spot that would not come up again. So, instead of going to a Waldorf school and staying home with me the other days, my barely three-year-old daughter will likely spend five days a week, 8:00-2:41, in a public school.

The teacher is lovely, and the setting is familiar and comfortable to her.  I will have consistency in my schedule and be able to pursue work during the day (instead of nighttime tutoring, which is too hard on my body and on the kids) and to take care of my health and, I hope, our home. She will have a consistent schedule, which I have trouble providing when left to my own devices, and she’ll be at a place she is already asking to go. The biggest benefit is that the kids will be in the same place, coming home on the bus or with me without having to truck from one spot to another to get the other sibling.

But still, it’s public school at age 3, and not by financial necessity. It’s because I can’t hack it as a full-time mom.

There are times when I relish the days off of school, when we don’t need to be anywhere at any set time or when we can do an outing that’s impossible when children are gone 8:00-2:40 and come home needing a big snack and rest. These days, I totally get unschooling. However, as much as I enjoy those times with my kids, it feels like an incredible amount of work for me.

And the inconsistency is hard. My Ayurvedic constitution is vata-pitta. Currently, it seems my vata or air energy is way

Since we haven't built a garden or even a front yard since finishing our renovation 10 months ago, all we have is some plants in pots. That my daughter wants to photograph. I think that about captures the essence of our on-hold and thinking *about* instead of living *in* existence.

overblown, and one of the best remedies for that is consistency of daily routines. I also need to eat in quiet or I simply don’t digest. This does not work well even with kids at home but especially not when you’re on the road. When we go on trips, I tend to eat a huge meal at home so that I can skip another one later rather than try to munch while one is stuck on the slide and the other wants me to watch him climb something. I just can’t be in my body and be with my kids at the same time. So I have to have time without them or I literally get ill.

That is not something I expected to say. And even though my son was intense, I had no idea to what extent his sister’s temperament would stress me out. I just can’t be a good mom to her if I have to do it all the time.

No, I am not in pain or fighting cancer, and yes, I am trying to work on my stress response. But it was over 30 years in the  making (including some years doing some really harmful things), and it’s going to take a while to reverse.

I realize my children are only young once, but I am not getting younger, either. I feel like now is the time to be present with their newly unfolding selves but like it is also time for me to ensure that will be around and mobile when they have children. It almost seems like I wasn’t ready to really heal at the level I’d needed to for so long until I got so ill I could hardly take joy in my children’s smiles or walk up the hill from the bus stop without getting exhausted.

They sometimes eat without Mommy and sometimes rice crackers and a lot of dried fruit while I tend to my chicken stock and try to muddle through the brain fog and figure out what is the next thing to prioritize to get well. I long for the day when we culture our own homemade coconut yogurt, they eat nothing from a package and more things that are green than white.  And that’s just the start of it.

I try to remember that at least they are very far ahead of where I was at my son’s age, when I’d eaten tons of McDonald’s, gluten, artificially-colored candy, and soda pop and they  have had none. Compared to a lot of other kids, their diet is quite clean, but I know they would do better with fewer carbs, and I admire people who stick with GAPS diet or even a Paleo diet with their kids when there is no smoking gun of necessity (like eczema or asthma).

My hope is that my feel vibrant and alive at 40 and that they have a sense of groundedness I’m just beginning to cultivate. If they can’t see me model having that, maybe they can at least see me working toward it.

For now, it’s the best I can do.

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants (posts will be live and updated no later than afternoon on June 11):

• My little gastronomes — “I’ll never cook a separate meal for my children,” Maud at Awfully Chipper vowed before she had children; but things didn’t turn out quite as she’d imagined.
• Know Better, Do Better. Except When I Don’t. — Jennifer from True Confessions of a Real Mommy was able to settle in her parenting choices before her children arrived, but that doesn’t mean she always lives up to them.
• Judgments Made Before Motherhood — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama looks back on her views of parents she came in contact with before she became a mother and how much her worldview of parenting has changed!
• A Bend in The Road — Lyndsay at ourfeministplayschool writes about how her visions of homeschooling her son during the elementary school years have changed drastically in the last year – because HE wants to go to school.
• I Wish Children Came with Instruction Manuals — While Dionna at Code Name: Mama loves reading about parenting, she’s not found any one book that counts as an instruction manual. Every child is different, every family is different, every dynamic is different. No single parenting method or style is the be-all end-all. Still, wouldn’t it be nice if parenting were like troubleshooting?
• The Mistakes I’ve Made — Kate at Here Now Brown Cow laments the choices she made with her first child and explains how ditching her preconceived ideas on parenting is helping her to grow a happy family.
• I Only Expected to Love… — Kellie at Our Mindful Life went into parenting expecting to not have all the answers. It turns out, she was right!
• They See Me Wearin’, They Hatin’ — Erin Yuki at And Now, for Something Completely Different contemplates putting her babywearing aspirations into practice, and discussed how she deals with “babywearing haters.”
• Parenting Human Beings — Erika Gebhardt lists her parenting “mistakes,” and the one concept that has revolutionized her parenting.
• Doing it right: what I knew before I had kids… — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud, guest posting at Natural Parents Network realises that the number one game in town, when it comes to parenting, is judgement about doing it right. But “doing it right” looks different to everybody.
• A synopsis of our reality as first time parents — Amanda at My Life in a Nut Shell summarizes the struggles she went through to get pregnant, and how her daughter’s high needs paved the way for her and her husband to become natural parents.
• Theory to Reality? — Jorje compares her original pre-kid ideas (some from her own childhood) to her personal parenting realities on MommaJorje.com.
• The Princess Paradigm — Laura at Pug in the Kitchen had planned to raise her daughter in a sparkly, princess-free home, but in turn has found herself embracing the glitz.
• Healthy Eating With Kids: Ideal vs. Real — Christy at Eco Journey In The Burbs had definite ideas about what healthy eating was going to look like in her family before she had kids. Little did she realize that her kids would have something to say about it.
• How to deal with unwanted parenting advice — Tat at Mum in Search thought that dealing with unwanted parenting advice would be a breeze. It turned out to be one of her biggest challenges as a new mum.
• How I trained my 43 month old in 89 days! — Becky at Old New Legacy used to mock sticker charts, until they became her best friend in the process of potty training.
• My Double Life: Scheduling with Twins — Mercedes at Project Procrastinot was banging her head against the wall trying to keep up with the plan she made during pregnancy, until she let her babies lead the way.
• Parenting in the land of compromise — As a holistic health geek trying to take care of her health issues naturally, Jessica at Crunchy-Chewy Mama regrets that her needs sometimes get in the way of her children’s needs.
• Practice Makes Good, Not Perfect — Rachael at The Variegated Life comes to see that through practice, she just might already be the parent she wants to be.
• 3 Dangerous Myths about Parenting and Partnering: How to Free Yourself and Your Family — Sheila Pai at A Living Family shares in theory (blog) and reality (video) how she frees herself from 3 Dangerous Myths about Parenting and Partnering that can damage the connection, peace and love she seeks to nurture in her relationships with family and others.
• 5 Things I Thought MY Children Would Never Do — Luschka at Diary of a First Child largely laughs at herself and her previous misconceptions about things her children would or wouldn’t do, or be allowed to do.
• Policing politeness — Lauren at Hobo Mama rethinks a conviction she had about modeling vs. teaching her children about courtesy.
• The Before and The After: Learning about Parenting — Amy at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work reminisces about the perspective she held as a young adult working with children (and parents) . . . before she became a mother.
• Parenting Beliefs: Becoming the Parent You Want to Be — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children discusses how we can make a mindful decision to become the parent we want to be. Decisions we make affect who we will become.
• The Great Breastfeeding Debacle — In Lisa at The Squishable Baby’s mind, breastfeeding would be easy.
• What my daughter taught me about being a parent — Mrs Green asks, “Is it ever ok to lock your child in their bedroom?”
• Sensory Box Fail! — Megan at The Boho Mama discovers that thoughtful sensory activities can sometimes lead to pasta in your bra and beans up your nose.
• Montessori and My Children – Theory vs. Reality — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares her experiences with Montessori parenting and describes the results she sees in her now-adult children.
• I Like The Mother I Am Now More Than The Mother I Intended To Be — Darcel at The Mahogany Way thought she would just give her kids the look and they would immediately fall in line.

Here is a round-up of June 2012 events for your green and healthy family. Leave a comment for others I should add!

I hope that in May you submitted your school’s information to the International School Grounds Alliance so they can document what is happening in schoolyards around the world. See http://greenschoolyards.org/ for more info!

June 1: Smith Meadows Farm Day, Berryville, VA, 3:30-5:30 p.m. Register at http://smithmeadows.com/farm-day-2013/

June 1: Mind the Mat Summer Fiesta Fundraiser, 5:00-9:00 p.m., $25 (for Global Seva Challenge to support healthcare projects in Ecuador)

June 1-2: Washington Folk Festival, Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo Maryland, 12:00-7:00 pm both days

June 2: Arlington Green Home and Garden Tour, 1:00-5:00 p.m. Booklet and tour map available at http://www.arlingtonenvironment.org/events/gardentour/

June 2: DC Gluten-Free Expo, 12:00-4:00 pm, Doubletree Bethesda Hotel, Bethesda, MD

June 8: Gulf Branch Nature Center Birthday Party, 1:00-4:00 p.m., Arlington, VA Information at http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/ParksRecreation/scripts/nature/TheSnag.aspx or call 703-228-3403

June 9: Love Your Body Day, Reston Town Center, Reston, VA, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. Information from organizer Beloved Yoga

June 10-16: Virginia Yoga Week, various locations

June 30:  Firefly Festival, Fort C.F. Smith Park, 2411 N. 24th St., Arlington, VA, 7:30-9:30 p.m. $7 per person (can register at event – Program #642953-A). Information at http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/ParksRecreation/scripts/nature/TheSnag.aspx

There’s been plenty of talk lately about sexual assault in the U.S. military. I have a friend who has been trying for years to share the stories of women who have been the victims of war rape.

When she and I were seniors at Kalamazoo College, Ivana Ivkovic helped put on an impressive feminist conference that gave voice to the plight of women around the world, including those in her ancestral homeland of Croatia. Now, after working in film for several years and having a child in 2011, she’s working to raise money for a documentary film on the topic of war rape. It’s called Persephone Speaks: The Forgotten Women of Bosnia.

She’s met her minimum goal of $12,000, but just flying to Europe could eat up a lot of that!

I’ve seen Ivana’s passion on this topic for close to twenty years now, and I hope she reaches her dream of sharing this important story with the world.

Check out her project on Kickstarter and make your donation before the project closes a midnight Thursday, May 23rd!

In the past few weeks, I’ve had to cancel some appointments for my own healing because my children were sick and I didn’t have childcare. I got so down, I canceled even more that I could have made; I got overwhelmed and started to question how I was ever going to feel better.

It felt like life was going by in a blur.

As I explained in Morning with a High-Maintenance Mama in late March, I had been getting physical therapy to work on my weak core as well as bodywork and energy work to try to get me to a place where my body isn’t in fight-or-flight mode all the time and to where it actually digests and eliminates all of its food. And figuring out what food agrees with me has been another project.

It’s been intense. I’ve been through major periods of healing before, but I didn’t expect another to come my way when it did in February. And I didn’t expect to be at this point in the spring, nearly a year after our renovation was completed and a year after weaning my daughter and still be looking out a yard of still-construction clay is being randomly populated by grasses and weeds and flowers and experiencing an ongoing inability to focus. On anything, for more than thirty seconds.

The optimistic and hopeful way to look at it is that there is just a lot more I need to learn and experience!

For that perspective, I have to thank a friend who actually came over on Mother’s Day and used her experience with Neuro-Muscular Technique (NMT) and Quantum Techniques (QT) to help me do some emotional clearing. What an amazing difference!

After working with this angel, I felt an incredible lightness compared to the heavy sense of desperation pushing down on me when she arrived Sunday morning. I am deeply grateful to her and to her husband for watching my kids and hers (including a one-year-old!) while she helped dissipate one hefty layer of emotional grogginess. She’s been through a lot and believes she had to experience it so she can help others.

Since her visit, I’ve also seen a Total Body Modification practitioner who said that I am carrying a lot of emotional stuff that needs to be released to work on my inflammation, skin issues and digestive issues, and before she can clear my food sensitivities. This is a familiar refrain! Too much emotion is part of the package.You can’t just address the physical when it’s intertwined with another layer.

She agreed that alkaline water was good for me but said even a pH of 8.5 is a little high, so I’m dialing down to around 8.0 with the loaned Living Water unit I’m trying out before deciding if I want to buy it.

I’ve also gotten the results of my saliva hormone test. They show what we’d already suspected: that I am close to adrenal fatigue. My female hormones (estradiol and progesterone) are in perfect balance, and my testosterone is fine, but my DHEA is low, and my cortisol dips too low in the afternoon and swings up at night when it should dip further.

So, one approach is to supplement with bio-identical DHEA, (something my doctor says a woman should NEVER do before testing), and with dessicated bovine adrenal gland, something I did back in 2004 when trying to heal from Graves’ disease and get healthy enough to regain my fertility and start a family. The doctor also sold me a pricey bottle of an herb tonic, which I will wait on for a few days until I’ve added in the other two.

This practitioner doesn’t muscle-test for supplements like others I’ve seen do — to “ask” the body if the supplement is good for it and then to test for dosage –  but I did hold each one to do the lean test: If your body leans toward something when you pick it up, it’s good for you; if it leans away, it’s not. I didn’t lean away from any of the supplements she offered, so I bought them all.

A few days earlier, the TBM practitioner tested that a B vitamin and a complex of maca root and deer antler (that I’d gotten from other practitioners) were indeed good for me, so I’m trying those, too. I had been taking some Energetix and Unda homeopathics a few months back, but this is the first time in a while I’ve been popping pills.

Last night, at the Holistic Moms meeting where Shep Saltzman and Katy Vega discussed Fertility in a Holistic Framework, both speakers talked not a whole lot about birth control but about imbalances in general. It was a foundation-laying talk that helped me feel more invested in a holistic approach to wellness. Looking at only one piece of the puzzle doesn’t give you a good picture of what the whole thing looks like when you connect the other pieces. I have spent a good part of the last several years and a lot of past several months trying to find all those pieces and figure out where they go.

Everything is connected, and I feel grateful to have the opportunity work with and learn from a lot of great practitioners and friends on their own healing journeys.

Coming soon (or when I can get to it): more about how I think I got here!

Looking for events for your natural-minded family? Here’s an evolving sampling of what’s on tap in May.

Before the end of the month: Be sure to submit information about your school’s outdoor space to the International School Grounds Alliance. Register your school at http://greenschoolyards.org/. They’d like to know the name of your school and what you plan to do on your school grounds or what you have done..

Through May 5 – DC Yoga Week

Sunday, May 5 – Arlington Outdoor Lab Open House, 2:00-6:00 p.m. (near Haymarket: see website for directions)

Sunday, May 5 – Celebrate Rust Sanctuary of the Audubon Naturalist Society, 12:00-5 :00p.m, 802 Childrens Center RoadLeesburg

Saturday, May 11 - Spring Market Fair, Potomac Crescent Waldorf School, 8:00 a.m. – 12 noon, 923 23rd Street South, Arlington, VA

Monday, May 13 – “Fun and Cheap Summer Activities,” Holistic Moms Loudoun County Chapter, 7:00-8:30 p.m.,  Integrative Family Medicine, 116 Edwards Ferry Road NE, Leesburg, VA

Tuesday, May 14 – “Home-Brewing with the HMN Daddies,” Holistic Moms Northern Virginia Chapter, 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3901 Rugby Road
Fairfax, VA

Thursday, May 16 – “Fertility and Birth Control in a Holistic Framework,” Holistic Moms Arlington/Alexandria chapter, 7:00-9:00 p.m., 716  S. Glebe Road, Arlington, VA

May 23- 27: Ancestral Knowledge Primitive Skills Gathering, Cowingo, MD Registration has closed but contact the organizers to see if there is still space and put it on your calendar for next year!

May 25: March Against Monsanto, Lafayette Park, in front of the White House, 2 pm rally, 2:45 march.

April in the DC area is bursting at the seams with events to help you get connected to the earth and focus on your health

Here’s a quick look at some of the great offerings for natural-minded families around DC this month.

April 13: NoVA Outside Early Childhood Outside Conference: Lens on Outdoor Learning, 9:00-1:00, (for early childhood educators and school directors) Fairlington Preschool, Fairlington United Methodist Church, 3900 King Street, Alexandria, VA

April 13: Potomac Crescent Waldorf School Family Dance, 1:30-5:30, 923 S. 23rd St. Arlington, VA

April 17: Green Technology Open House: The Benefits of Alkaline Water, 7:00 p.m., 1653 Charter Oak Court, #301, Reston, VA 20190

April 18: Detox 101: How do Spring-Clean Your Body, Holistic Moms Arlington/Alexandria April meeting, 7:00-9:00 p.m., 716 S. Glebe Road, Arlington, VA

April 19-21: Joint International Homeopathy Conference, Hyatt Regency Reston

April 19: Screening of Genetic Roulette, 7:00 p.m., WisdomWell Family Acupuncture and Wellness, Columbia, MD

April 20: Campbell Wetlands Festival, 12:00-4:00, Campbell Elementary School, 737 S. Carlin Springs Road, Arlington, VA

April 20: Earth Day Alexandria, 10:00-2:00, Ben Brenman Park, 4800 Brenman Park Drive, Alexandria, VA

April 21: Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Green Living Expo , 12:00-4:30 p.m. George Mason University’s Arlington Campus, 3351 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA

April 24: NoVA Outside’s School Environmental Action Showcase, 10:00-2:30, George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus — The Hub, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA. Schools and exhibitors should register by April 12 if they want to have a table.

April 26-28: Take Back Your Health Conference, Washington Dulles Hilton

April 27-28: Emotional Freedom Technique Level I training with Jan Steele Watkins, Holiday Inn Old Town, Alexandria, VA

Chicks at Discovery Woods Whole Earth Festival 2012

Luzy Perez in the Take Back Your Health exhibit hall (April 2012)

April 27: Discovery Woods Whole Earth Festival, 10:00-3:00, Coomber Farm, 1521 Dranesville Road, Herndon, VA

April 27: Arcadia Farm Summer Camp Informational Open House, 10:00-1:00, 9000 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, VA

April 27: Celebrating Health Freedom event on Vaccine Exemption Rights, Parent Observations, and Informed Consent with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, 1:00-3:00, McLean Community Center, 1234 Ingleside Avenue, McLean, VA. For info, email  NourishHealAdvocate (at) gmail (dot) com

April 27: SpringFest Fairfax, 10:00-4:00, Workhorse Arts Center, 9601 Ox Road, Lorton, VA

April 28: DC Birth and Babies Fair, 11:00-5:00, The Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003

Arcadia Farm Alexandria Virginia play area

Looking for more Earth Day events around DC? Click here.

Anything I’m missing? Email clairejess (at) gmail (dot) com to suggest any additions for events with wide appeal to healthy, green families.

For more general spring events, visit Our Kids, Kid Trips, A Parent in Silver Spring

And if you’re interested in helping me build a proper resource site for natural-minded families — or designing it for me — give a holler! I’d love to give info like this — and lots more! — a beautiful home.

If “high-maintenance” means “requiring a lot of attention,” put my picture by the definition.

With all the things I’m having to do these days just to make my body function (or to figure out what that even means in this shifting landscape of health), I feel like my children’s lives are passing me by, and I can hardly accomplish any of the writing or volunteer work that feeds my soul. I know that living from a place of fear does no good, but to shift that perspective is part of the work that will take time. Although energy work like Emotional Freedom Technique and other modalities can provide immediate relief from some things, it seems like it’s going to take a concerted effort for me to really own a  warm-fuzzy, love-filled worldview.

The motivation to embark on some of the tasks below came from the fact that one day in late January, after a few weeks of amazingly inspiring interviews and talks with Alfie Kohn, Claudia Welch, and Katrina Kenison such that I felt inspired and enlightened, my digestion simply stopped.

Maybe, as some have suggested this is my super-sensitive body’s way of adjusting to the planetary shift into 2013, something I really don’t understand (but here’s a site for some info and another with more symptoms).

But even if that’s true, nothing can go well if one is not eliminating. So that has to change. My team of healers and I are approaching this from all directions.

- Emotional resistance to letting go in general. This is huge. At the core of everything, I probably need to meditate regularly to change my stress response.

- Structural issues in my G.I. tract due to c-section scar tissue, abdominal separation (diastisis recti) and no core strength or structural integrity to hold my organs in the right place (so all those unsupported crunches I’d started doing this past fall were harmful, not helpful). In addition to finding a lot of tightness and lack of movement in my cecum and sigmoid colon, my physical therapist also points to tightness in my psoas as part of the puzzle.

- Food sensitivities. It was 2004 when I stopped eating gluten and dairy (and soy), 2006 when I stopped eating corn, and 2011 when I stopped eating all grains and starches on the GAPS diet and early 2012 that I took a solid break from all fruit when tests showed my pancreatic enzymes beyond low and muscle-testing said my blood sugar couldn’t even handle fructose. Although this approach certainly healed me on some levels, it probably threw out my balance in other ways.

For a long time, I couldn’t eat raw vegetables either, not without pain or disrupted digestion. But inspired by attending talks given by Green Smoothie Girl and Lisa Wilson of the Raw Food Institute, I started making more green smoothies and fresh juices to get those enzymes. I’m now wondering if I have a sensitivity to oxalic acid found in green leafy vegetables and nuts (which I used to grind a lot as a flour substitute) and if more of these foods in my diet have contributed to constipation.

Also, green leafy vegetables and other things I was eating a lot like cauliflower are, in an Ayurvedic system, vata-aggravating foods; that wisdom says I should be eating warming foods, cooked foods and sweet foods – some of which I was avoiding. That is, they are the opposite of grounding and contribute to an airy, spinning-out-of-control energy. My Ayurvedic dosha is vata-pitta, and I think the vata got way overblown. I’m like a dry leaf.

So now I’m not juicing much and am once again eating rice (either soaked overnight or at least cooked in homemade broth) and root vegetables. And I start the day with stewed apples and apricots with spices to try to get things moving.

Well, I can’t exactly start the day simply. Here are the things I would ideally do before my children wake up at around 6:45.

1. Scrape my tongue to remove ama and encourage peristalsis

2. Boil water. I used to just start the day with plain hot water, then was trying lemon water, and now am starting with powdered magnesium, Clean as a Whistle, followed by lemon in hot water. It has to be taken at least 1.5 hours before and after food, so morning is my best bet.

3. Do yoga.

Exercise before food is supposed to increase my agni, or digestive fire, and this series is supposed to help specifically with digestion but also to help me ground and to open, and to wring out stale energy.

Sun salutation (Surya namaskar)

Chair pose (Utkatasana) with twist

Triangle pose (and I often add in side angle and then reverse the warrior)

Revolved triangle pose

Squat (Malasana)

Somewhere I’m supposed to do thunderbolt, or hero pose, but it just makes me want to scratch the psoriasis on my knees, so I tend to skip it

A seated twist like Marichyasana or Ardha Matsyendrasana

Then knee to chest (Apanasana)

All the while, I should be breathing deeply in case I don’t have time to add in targeted pranayama, which ideally would include alternate-nostril breathing and breath with movement.

Finally, massage my belly deeply or lie on a tennis ball for several minutes

4. Do physical therapy exercises to strengthen my core

I’m supposed to do 15 supported abdominal crunches — with a sheet or two legs of sweatpants pulling cross-wise to approximate my abdominal muscles being closer together. I could get some kind of a girdle or brace and take on the whole Tupler technique but haven’t yet.

Then I get to do 30 kegels of different varieties (and repeat those later for a total of 60 a day)

5. Take homeopathic remedies

Last time I saw my doctor, she muscle-tested me for four remedies from the Unda company plus Relax-Tone, Thyropath, Lymph Tone II, Core Maca Root and Core Pau D’Arco from Energetix. I also take the herbal remedies Skin-Gen and Digest-Gen.

Once I’ve done all this — or when I hear movement afoot upstairs that suggests hungry gremlins could descend at any moment, I start on breakfast for the kids and their dad — usually sausage and eggs with spinach and peas in broth and turmeric. I usually also have a little lunch prep left to do before everything can go into backpacks.

6. Prepare to eat

For me, I warm ghee with cardamom, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, ginger, clove and nutmeg and then add apples and water. Oh, and I’ve probably already started soaking apricots, which I add after a while.

If I’m lucky, my son and husband take off and I can eat this warming applesauce while my daughter finishes breakfast. But if we have somewhere to go together, or if I have somewhere to go right after dropping her at daycare/preschool, then I might have to take it along with me. If I have time to blend it in the Vitamix, so much the better (but not if it’s too hot since I don’t trust any plastic). I also don’t really want her eating a whole lot more fruit than she already has, so if I sit down too early she’ll just want what I  have and not get any fat in her.

Some days, I have homemade almond milk to add or I might even have the time to make some. It’s better if the almonds are soaked overnight in salt water, but I’ve also started just blanching them on occasion. However, maybe I need to get rid of almonds for the oxalates.

So this is all before 8:00 or 9:00 a.m., depending on the day.

It’s important for me to eat mindfully and not rushed or stressed in order to actually digest, but that’s hard to manage. Either my daughter is asking for something or I’m out in the car on my way to an appointment, or I’m home thinking about how much time I’m spending eating when I should be cleaning the house or responding to emails or meditating.

I have not mastered the art of eating as meditation. I just get impatient. The best I can do is tune out my own reality and read the Style section of the Washington Post.

Oh, and consistent meal times are also recommended for balancing vata. That consistency is tough, too, with a daughter home two days and appointments peppering the other three days.

There are other supplements and regimens later in the day, and I will probably soon do some saliva testing to check on my cortisol and other hormone levels (especially since starting to read Donna Jackson Nakazawa’s The Last Best Cure), but this is plenty for one post, don’t you think?

And more than plenty for one morning, a morning that has to start around 5:30 in order for me to feel grounded.

I welcome suggestions and advice! Just don’t get mad if I can’t find the time to follow them!

Welcome to the March 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Tough Conversations

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have spoken up about how they discuss complex topics with their children. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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Having my child in a Waldorf preschool helped me learn to hold my tongue and listen to what sense my son made of things. As much as I wanted to explain and answer, I came to understand the value in hearing out his thinking. Sometimes I assumed things meant more or something completely different to him than I expected. If I didn’t first pause with a “Hmm… I wonder” or a direct, “What do you think” and then really listen to his response, whatever I would say might be totally inappropriate.

When my son first referenced someone as a color, I freaked out before I realized he identified them by the color of their shirt, as in “the purple guy.” This made it clear to me that any kind of nuanced conversations about “race” were far in our future. He’s only in first grade now, and I find myself questioning the wisdom of the messages he is getting at public school about things like Martin Luther King and segregation when there he is in a class — here in the diverse D.C. suburbs — with kids whose parents are from at least half a dozen countries.

It’s kind of like not thinking something is just for girls or “sissies” until someone gives you that idea or teaches you that word, even if they are trying to criticize stereotypes. My degree in women’s studies and my background in critical pedagogy (that talked about making the debates and questions transparent) are sometimes at odds with what now seems developmentally appropriate as the parent of a six-year-old and a two-year-old.

The more I listen, the more I learn. And yet, I’m a talker. And I do care that my son knows my opinion about some things. So when he asks me if I think there should be slavery (!), I  have a hard time not screaming and going off on a lecture. But would that do him any good or make him any more clear on the concept of discrimination and racism? I think not. And so I muddle, starting in and then backtracking to hear his side before I make assumptions.

Now, when it comes to things like tragedy and death, I am most guided by the fact that my boy is incredibly sensitive. I’ve had at least three practitioners tell me through energy work that he feels more than his fair share; he has fuzzy boundaries between his own “stuff” and other people’s. We’re working on some woo-woo ways to break that enmeshed connection, but it is clear to me that what another kid might shrug off, mine holds firmly in his heart and his head.

So we have not once talked about Sandy Hook, for example. In my opinion, there would be no benefit to my son or to anyone else for him to know about something of that proportion that is not affecting his daily life. I don’t think he could sleep at night if he really knew.

But something bad could happen in our neighborhood that we could not ignore.

So I try to be matter-of-fact when things do come up: when he sees photos in the newspaper or hears about something on the news. “That is sad,” I agree, offering that we should keep those people in our thoughts and hope they feel better, or get what they need. I hope to get better about more family volunteer work and giving back.

I’ve tried to normalize death so that his first experience with it isn’t a direct one with a family member or friend. I have commented on other children’s grandparents dying and my grandparents dying. The other day we were discussing ages and when someone had died. He asked about his grandfather’s age and put it together that he might die soon. My husband (the son of this 80-year-old man) commented that his dad had been through a whole lot and was still going strong. I agreed but countered that yes, someday he would die. The tone I’m going for is some combination of matter-of-fact and compassionate.

My son’s sensitivity requires me, I think, to shield him from what I can but to prepare him for what I can’t. The first time he loses someone close to him, I know it will hurt, but I don’t want it to be a complete shock because we’ve never talked about death. So I bring it up whenever I see an opportunity that I think won’t burden him too much with someone else’s sadness.

And when that first close loss does happen, I will encourage him to cry and feel his feelings. But I will be at the ready with Rescue Remedy, and lavender oil, and aconite, and Emotional Freedom Technique, and maybe some craniosacral therapy or Reiki to ensure that whatever negative energy comes up can move through him and not burrow deeper into his body to keep hurting him.

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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be updated by afternoon March 12 with all the carnival links.)

• A Difficult Conversation — Kellie at Our Mindful Life is keeping her mouth shut about a difficult topic.
• Discussing Sexuality and Objectification With Your Child — At Authentic Parenting, Laura is puzzled at how to discuss sexuality and objectification with her 4-year-old.
• Tough Conversations — Kadiera at Our Little Acorn knows there are difficult topics to work through with her children in the future, but right now, every conversation is a challenge with a nonverbal child.
• Real Talk — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama explains why there are no conversation topics that are off limits with her daughter, and how she ensures that tough conversations are approached in a developmentally appropriate manner.
• From blow jobs to boob jobs and lots of sex inbetween — Mrs Green talks candidly about boob jobs and blow jobs…
• When Together Doesn’t Work — Ashley at Domestic Chaos discusses the various conversations her family has had in the early stages of separation.
• Talking To Children About Death — Luschka at Diary of a First Child is currently dealing with the terminal illness of her mother. In this post she shares how she’s explained it to her toddler, and some of the things she’s learned along the way.
• Teaching 9-1-1 To Kids — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling talks about the importance of using practical, age-appropriate emergency scenarios as a springboard for 9-1-1 conversations.
• Preschool Peer Pressure — Lactating Girl struggles to explain to her preschooler why friends sometimes aren’t so friendly.
• Frank Talk — Rosemary at Rosmarinus Officinalis unpacks a few conversations about sexuality that she’s had with her 2-year-old daughter, and her motivation for having so many frank discussions.
• When simple becomes tough — A natural mum manages oppositional defiance in a toddler at Ursula Ciller’s Blog.
• How Babies are Born: a conversation with my daughter — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger tries to expand her daughter’s horizons while treading lightly through the waters of pre-K social order.
• Difficult Questions & Lies: 4 Reasons to Tell The Truth — Ariadne of Positive Parenting Connection shares the potential impact that telling lies instead of taking the time to answer difficult questions can have on the parent-child relationship.
• Parenting Challenges–when someone dies — Survivor at Surviving Mexico writes about talking to her child about death and the cultural challenges involved in living in a predominantly Catholic nation.
• Daddy Died — Breaking the news to your children that their father passed away is tough. Erica at ChildOrganics shares her story.
• Openness — sustainablemum prepares herself for the day when she has to tell her children that a close relative has died.
• Embracing Individuality — At Living Peacefully with Children, Mandy addressed a difficult question in public with directness and honesty.
• Making the scary or different okay — Although she tries to listen more than she talks about tough topics, Jessica Claire of Crunchy-Chewy Mama also values discussing them with her children to soften the blow they might cause when they hit closer to home.
• Talking to My Child About Going Gluten Free — When Dionna at Code Name: Mama concluded that her family would benefit from eliminating gluten from their diet, she came up with a plan to persuade her gluten-loving son to find peace with the change. This is how they turned the transition to a gluten-free lifestyle into an adventure rather than a hardship.
• How Does Your Family Explain Differences and Approach Diversity? — How do you and your family approach diversity? Gretchen of That Mama Gretchen shares her thoughts at Natural Parents Network and would like to hear from readers.
• Discussing Difficult Topics with Kids: What’s Worked for Me — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares parenting practices that enabled discussions of difficult topics with her (now-adult) children to be positive experiences.
• Tough Conversations — Get some pointers from Jorje of Momma Jorje on important factors to keep in mind when broaching tough topics with kids.
• Sneaky people — Lauren at Hobo Mama has cautioned her son against trusting people who’d want to hurt him — and hopes the lessons have sunk in.
• Mommy, What Does the Bible Say? — Amy at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work works through how to answer a question from her 4-year-old that doesn’t have a simple answer.
• When All You Want for Them is Love: Adoption, Abandonment, and Honoring the Truth — Melissa at White Noise talks about balancing truth and love when telling her son his adoption story.

I turned 40 on Monday. On my birthday eve — last Sunday — I had the most beautiful yoga class with a small group of friends. I walked in anxious and grumpy and walked out grateful and open-hearted.

This weekend, I am off on a retreat through Beloved Yoga at the lovely Kent Manor Inn. Inspired by some friends who are headed next weekend to a silent meditation retreat in Ohio with Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood author Karen Maezen Miller, I sought out something closer to home and with more movement. Luckily enough, I found this gem an hour from home with the focus on cultivating a home practice.

When one of the leaders started talking last night about the power of the brain on the body, thoughts creating and strengthening neural pathways, and things like theta brain waves, I also felt lucky to have just started the book The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life by Donna Jackson Nakazawa.

I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m already enthralled by what now seems like an obvious connection between childhood trauma and my health issues. I’ve long thought of the emotional and intellectual legacy of my childhood on my brain, and I’ve often talked about the health legacy of a gluten-filled childhood on my body. However, I’d never fully thought that trauma — specifically my brother’s suicide a week before my 14th birthday — was having a direct impact on the very cells of my body.

I suspect that after more talk about this work tonight and tomorrow and after I finish Nakazawa’s book, my outlook on how to heal will have taken a new shape. After trying so many different modalities and finding insight and relief from many of them, I’m starting to see that the busy-ness of mind I’ve considered part of my personality is a self-fulfilling unhealthy prophecy that can be shifted.

Somehow, even if my dominoes may first hit barriers before they have enough oomph to knock down the next one and this journey may continue to be slow and winding, I do feel like it’s not random. One of those friends going on that retreat with Karen Maezen Miller is Pleasance Silicki, owner of Lil Omm yoga studio.

In January, Pleasance brought to her studio author Katrina Kenison, who has just come out with a new memoir, Magical Journey, after her amazing The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother’s Memoir. I attended that reading with my friend Doris, who introduced me to Kenison’s work several years ago when she was my son’s first babysitter.

A week before her talk, I had the chance to interview Katrina, and in the course of our conversation, she recommended to me Nakazawa’s book, which was not yet published. I put in in my Amazon cart and received it as soon as it came out. One of the reasons I had the courage to ask to interview Katrina was because I know she knows my friend Pamela of Walking on My Hands blog. When my digestion recently went crazy, I turned to the copy of Eat-Taste-Heal: An Ayurvedic Cookbook for Modern Living
that Pamela lent me almost two years ago. I think it was Pamela who put the bug in my ear that Lil Omm was hosting Karen Maezen Miller back in 2011.

I am so grateful to all the people who have been part of my journey, including this weekend’s teachers. They have put together an amazing retreat. I am so grateful to be here. I hope to write more about it and about my yoga eve birthday soon.

Now, though, it is time to get out and enjoy the sunshine. And draw a mandala.

What will you do with this day to be good to yourself, your today self, your past self, and your future self?

I did not go to my child’s school to read in my pajamas today. Does this make me a bad parent? I’m going to vote no.

I did have his dad pick him up some new non-flame-retardant-sprayed pj’s at Hanna Andersson yesterday (for the “it’s organic and in the mall” price far above Costco rates) so that he’d have something decent to wear to his school’s Reading is Fundamental Pajama Day in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday.

Earlier this week, I did provide his class with organic, fair-trade hot cocoa for their “how-to” project. I also sent in almond milk and gluten-free granola on Monday for the first part of the how-to project (how to make cereal, if you can believe that) and then let my son stay home on Tuesday when he woke up stuffy and feeling tired. Maybe it was the homeopathic remedy he’d just started the day before or a reaction to virus-die-off from the first of twice-daily massaging of On Guard essential oil blend on his feet per (naturopathic) doctor’s orders.

Last Wednesday, I went on a field trip and brought him a gluten-free snack (and hat and mittens, which he’d left at school) and then emailed the nature center with some suggestions for non-artificially dyed gummy worms (like YummyEarth and Surf Sweets) along with some links about why I care about food additives, gently explained, of course.

I took him to the chiropractor last week and to the acupuncturist this week in the hopes of strengthening his system so that a month from now he won’t suffer the nearly-closed-eyed allergies he has for the past two years, forcing him to stay inside for more than three weeks during the onslaught of tree pollen and spring pesticide spraying.

So I’d say that missing a nutty day of reading at school is probably okay, except, of course, if they gave out more treats he couldn’t have. I am not a derelict mom. I just can only do so much. Pajamas and reading at home I can do.

But I did miss bedtime last night for the fourth time this week. I’d tutored twice and gone to a Holistic Moms motherblessing another night. Still, I decided it was important to get out to see author and Gargoyle literary magazine editor Richard Peabody and poet and first-time novelist Rose Solari read at One More Page Books, a great little shop in Falls Church that I’d never managed to make it to.

I had, however, seen both authors read before, but it felt different now that I am considering myself a novelist. For years, I’ve filed away information at writing conferences and in classes, but I feel like it’s finally nearing the time to actually use all those insights.

And to use all the observations I’ve made over the years that are now speaking to me about how they want to morph into fiction. It is still a surprise and a delight to feel blessed with the necessary task of writing. I’m so glad I made it to the reading to hear about both of their processes and experiences as writers.

After chatting briefly with writing teacher Hildie Block, who has been a great resource since I first took a class with her now six years ago, I scooted out in search of new yoga pants so that I can look decent a yoga class I’m having for myself and a small group of friends this weekend in honor of my 40th birthday on Monday. But before I headed into the stark florescence that is Marshalls, I was called to compose a poem, hours before the closing of a contest at Split this Rock Poetry Festival. All I had was lime green highlighter on the back of an old flyer under the orange parking lot light, but it was enough. I typed it up and sent it out at 10:22.

It was a long week, but at the end of Thursday, I felt good about it. And maybe my toddler insisting on taking a book into her daycare on Friday also helped me feel okay about staying home from my son’s Reading is Fundamental pajama day.