Spring hasn’t fully registered here in chilly but blossom-filled Northern Virginia, but I think my stomach is finally on the mend.

I started the GAPS diet on February 6, and I am still in a modified introductory stage. I’m only just now even considering trying to eat any raw foods (besides juice, and avocado). It has taken 6 or 7 weeks for my gut to tell me that it’s starting to heal. Bone broth (so far only chicken stock) is and will continue to be a mainstay, and I can eat eggs, meat, nuts and nut butter and most non-starchy vegetables roasted and/or cooked for a long time in broth. Butternut squash never tasted so sweet!

I still have a long way to go, and I don’t anticipate eating grain or anything starchy for months to come. But it sure is nice to not be in pain!

It’s so clear that this diet is what my body needs, and I am 100% committed. But it sure takes a lot of time!

So the blog has been quiet; I didn’t get to Farm Food Voices, and I haven’t been much on Facebook. My friends’ emails often get ignored or replied to well beyond their time.  Even going to the pediatrician is a major ordeal: it’s impossible to be away from the house for more than a few hours. First there are the specifics of what I need to eat, but then there’s also the fact that eating on the go or while stressed seems just about as bad for me as eating problematic food. I can’t always be sure that eating at home will be stress-free; you never know when the baby is going to wake or change her mood! But at least here I can more closely approach mindful, intentional eating.

I’ve had questions of “what are you eating then?” and probably a lot of people wondering why I’m just MIA. This is what my days are looking like of late:

• Wake between 5:00 and 6:50 a.m. depending on the baby’s antics during the night and morning. I can usually get up and start things moving while she remains in bed, but sometimes she accompanies me downstairs in the Pack N Play or is worn on my back in a carrier.

• Put tea kettle on for warm water. Drink with added mineral drops.

• Make breakfast for husband and son (egg, a healthy nitrite-free breakfast meat, some veggies — usually zucchini and spinach, or maybe green pepper and tomato).

• Make an egg for myself and set aside with sauerkraut, avocado and olive oil

• Take Bio-Kult probiotic

• Bring in-process chicken stock (bone broth)from the day before back up to a  boil and then turn down to low. I have a batch going about 65% of the time and have started using the bones for a second round (and ordering necks and backs from my farmer. But I still haven’t gotten to the beef bones!

• Warm up already-made stock and add onion, celery, spinach, carrot and whatever other veggie I want to let get good and cooked. Add garlic toward the end

• Juice carrot, celery, romaine lettuce (in my birthday-present Omega masticating juicer) and drink it right away

• Take my son to school

• Hope baby transfers asleep when we get home. Or try to get her to sleep if she’s awake. Or give up and have her sit with me while I eat breakfast of broth, egg as noted above, some leftover home-cooked meat and perhaps some leftover “bread” made out of egg, coconut oil and almond flour or pancake of almond butter, egg and zucchini. Take digestive enzyme and Green Pastures cod liver oil

• At some point have lunch. Hopefully I left myself some broth from this morning to heat up so I don’t have to chop more vegetables. And maybe I have more leftover meat (chicken, salmon, beef, pork, turkey) rather than another egg.

• At some point maybe have a snack of apple (if I’ve been cooking out the sugar on the stove in water) and ghee, or crispy nuts, or some almond flour “bread” or pancakes with some almond butter or sunflower butter (the only packaged foods I’m eating. Sometimes a nursing mom just needs a spoonful of fat!)
  

  GAPS diet pancakes of just almond butter and eggs with banana. Right now I'm doing onion and zucchini instead of banana (which was Monica Corrado's adaptation).

• Take care of the baby when she’s awake or try to nurse her back to sleep again. Maybe take a walk. Maybe get some housework done.

• Pick up my son at 3:00 (three days a week. The days I pick him up at noon have a whole other layer to them!)

• If we have nothing going on that afternoon, work on dinner in between giving him attention and trying to keep the baby happy. Wear her on my back in a carrier through much of dinner prep.

• If we have a playdate or a class after school, I’d better hope I spent some of the morning chopping vegetables to make a stew in the crock pot or that there is something else ready as a leftover to have for dinner!

• Hope my husband gets home in time for us to all eat at least part of our dinner together by 6:00. But sometimes I need to feed my son closer to 5:00 and let him eat a second time when his dad gets home.
• Hope the baby will make it until 6:30 so she can see her dad before I put her to bed. On a good day, she’s napped enough that she can happily sit at the table with us. So far she’s tried a little broth and some very mushed veggies (tiny pieces). She seems to really love the lemon-flavored cod liver oil!

• Emerge from darkness around 7:00 or 7:30 to clean kitchen, prepare my son’s lunch for school, and then prepare whatever is necessary for tomorrow’s food — maybe strain and jar the stock if it’s done, or make a “loaf” of almond flour bread or a batch of pancakes, or simmer some apple, or soak the nuts, or get the nuts out of the dehydrator.

• Check email, do laundry (diapers every other day, regular clothes most other days).

• Collapse.

• Or, go back up to nurse the baby and then decide that since I probably two or three quiet hours ahead of me, work on the computer or on the house until way too late. Then feel hungover the next day, especially if she’s up every 90 minutes from midnight until 6 a.m. when she decides to sleep soundly after I’ve gotten out of bed.

So there you go. And it took me two days to get this post up. There are a ton of other things I want to write, but right now — especially the week after my son’s fifth birthday brought with it cleaning, rearranging, buying, baking, and more cleaning — I just am going to need to be rather than reflect in pixels, as much as it hurts to keep my fingers off the keyboard.

One week after I had my baby girl this past August, I padded groggily out of the bedroom late in the morning and found my son looking out our bay window and listening to a SteveSongs CD. With his knees tucked underneath him in the chair that sat where the birth tub had been, my son’s hair glowed orange in the summer sun. He turned to smile at us, and my heart melted. With his sister tucked in the crook of my arm, I sat down next to my little boy, age four, and sang along with him: “Everyone has their own they can sing, with their own special stories and favorite things. Something within us makes each voice unique and it sings la la la la la.”

It’s a moment I’ll always treasure, when we could honor our new reality as a family with two individual children with their own special needs, and when we could take pleasure in listening to and making music together.

Just a few weeks earlier, my hugely pregnant body had taken my son to see Steve Roslonek, the perennially red-shirted performer known to PBS Kids watchers and children’s music aficionados as SteveSongs. Thank you to the good people at Wolf Trap’s Children’s Theatre- in-the-Woods for providing tickets to me and other “mommy bloggers” at a blogger event last June and to PBS Kids for giving this normally media-shy mama Steve’s fun music video at a blogger event in 2009.

Each time we’ve seen Steve, he’s been just about the most personable guy you could imagine. The show is always funny and entertaining for children and adults alike, and he’s very generous with his time to chat and sign CDs afterward.

If you don’t already have tickets for his performance tomorrow, Saturday, February 12 at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, Virginia, the venue’s site is showing room for the 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. shows, but 10 a.m. is sold out.

According to Steve’s tour schedule, he’ll be back at Wolf  Trap July 12-16, and perhaps he’ll return this September to the National Book Festival (though with his own new baby girl who arrived last month, perhaps he’ll scale back on the travel. Congratulations, and welcome to Nadia Rose!)

Steve was kind enough to share with me some insights on his career, parenting, and all things kid. If you or your little ones have been SteveSongs fans, read on to get to know the man behind the shirt. Enjoy!

Jessica Claire: Where/how did you form your ideas about what kids respond to? I read that your first song was written for your brother (a teacher), and I’ve heard you describe on your DVD how you discovered your ideal audience walking past a preschool. But how did you go from the world of consulting to develop a sense of what would appeal to kids?

Steve: When I started writing my first kids songs I immediately felt as if I was connecting with the kid in me. I’ve always been a fairly cheerful optimistic kind of guy, one might even say child-like (while one other might even say childish).  Anyway, the process of getting back in touch with that side of me through music was exhilarating.  I still feel that today when I write a song that makes me laugh or connects with some other childhood emotion.  Shortly after I wrote and recorded the songs for my first album back in 1998, I left my corporate job, and started to visit preschools as the music and movement specialist.
It was trial by fire, and this fire was 25 hyped-up 4-year-olds. I used to play for almost 20 different classes spread across multiple schools every week.  And that is where I really learned how to manage and tap into the energy of many kids at once and to identify which kinds of songs and interactive activities were effective and which kinds weren’t.

Jessica Claire: When did you start to consider yourself a musician? To what extent were you serious about performing in high school, in college, and before you began your consulting career? To what extent did you have to brush up or to buckle down and study technique and/or theory in order to make your career switch?

Steve: I’ve always liked singing – in fact I still have some recordings of me with my parents at 2 years old that supports that statement.  I sang in school chorus from 3rd grade all the way to college.  I was quite shy in general though, and I had serious and consistent stage fright every time I stepped forward to sing a solo until college when I started to perform with a professional a capella group called the Vineyard Sound out on Martha’s Vineyard.

One night, we sang for almost 4 hours at a bar and I kept on stepping out for a solo here and there, nervous each time until I got to the point of being literally too tired to get nervous anymore. And from that day, I never had a problem stepping forward for a solo.  Looking back, it’s amazing that I stuck with it for so long.

I started playing guitar in college and, from the start I enjoyed using it to write songs.  I “taught” myself how to play guitar using tablature from some Guitar magazines and played as a hobby right up until the time that I left my corporate job to pursue music full time.  Just before I started playing guitar live for audiences, I realized that I had to practice differently, because for years, I was used to playing part of a song, making a mistake and starting over. I think that people are generally more satisfied if you instead play full songs from start to finish (especially if they paid admission to see your show).

Jessica Claire: How do you feel about children experiencing and learning about music at a young age, either through play-based exploration, in participatory classes, or through structured lessons? How have those ideas changed since you became a parent?

Steve: Kids have the capacity to be interested in so many different things, whether new or familiar.  As a teacher, and now as a parent, I feel that it’s my job to introduce kids to what I think they might find interesting and then try and ride their enthusiasm in whichever direction it happens to flow.  I believe that inspiration is king and if a child is not interested in what you’re sharing or teaching, it’s going to be an uphill battle for both of you. I used to point out to my son that different materials and surfaces made different sounds when you tapped them or banged them together. Now he’ll regularly clang the objects from the recycling bin together and say “Listen to this different sound, Daddy”.

The older I get the more aware I am of the importance of balance.  I think kids crave both structure and the freedom to explore on their own.  Play-based exploration, participatory classes and structured lessons can all have an important place in the development of the young musician.  Too much structured teaching can have the unfortunate effect of taking the fun out of the music learning experience, while play-based exploration without a set of rules, guidelines or limits (such as “no hitting anyone else with the xylophone mallet” or “no screaming into the microphone”) can create other obvious problems. Even during free play, parameters and rules help create an environment of safety and groundedness for the child.

My aim is to find a healthy, fun and instructive balance.  Some of my most popular participatory songs have elements of specific instruction and expectation (“Sing this part” or “Dance like this” as well as a free movement part “How will we get across the river?” or “Move like something that flies”).

Jessica Claire: Did you always envision yourself becoming a parent? What was it like to enter the parenthood world ten (or so?) years after you’d been creating music for kids?

Steve: I did always think of myself as a potential parent, and when we started recording kids’ songs, I remember one of the major goals for the band was to create music that we would want our kids to listen to, learn from, and enjoy someday.  And I must say that it is totally awesome to hear my son in the backseat of the car enthusiastically singing one of my songs.  Occasionally, though, we’ll be singing along together and he’ll call out “No, stop singing Daddy!”

One other interesting revelation now that we have our own child is my perspective toward audience parents.  I’ve always considered my best shows to be those where parents and kids are all involved and getting something out of the event.  I also always noticed and liked when grownups would laugh at jokes or dance along to the movements and have fun with the songs or the performance.

But it’s only now as a parent, that I feel more keenly aware of how parents react to their kids’ experience in the show, because I know firsthand the kind of joy that parents can feel when they see their child really connecting with something.  It’s a little bit of extra magic that I never had the perspective to see before.

Jessica Claire: What is it like to be a touring/performing parent? How do you and your partner balance/manage parenting roles when you’re at home, when you’re on the road solo, and when you’re all on the road together? Is there any (online or otherwise) community of performers with young kids where you all swap stories or support one another?

Steve: That’s a great idea: The Traveling Performers with Families Support Group.  It is one of the largest challenges that we have.  We travel all together quite often, but there was a stretch of shows last year where it wasn’t working out that well.  About halfway through each show, my son would make his way to the stage and yell out for me to pick him up.  It would break my heart, but it was obviously difficult for me to oblige in the middle of a concert.

But then one day at a show this past summer for our local library, he walked up to the stage area with his little guitar and stood next to me for a song.  After that song, I grabbed the microphone and asked if he wanted to tell any of his jokes.  He did and the audience reaction was very positive and since then he has joined me on stage at the end of most every show that he’s attended.

He’s only 3, so the “entertainment value” of his participation can be a little unpredictable, but usually if he decides he wants to go up on stage, he delivers – and in all seriousness, there have been a couple of events where his jokes and/or dancing have been by far the best part of the show.

Jessica Claire: Who do you consider your audience, and how do you feel about your audience?

Steve: Kids.  They’re shrimps.

Welcome to the January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Learning from children

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 shared the many lessons their children have taught them. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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It almost goes without saying that my son has taught me about living joyfully, living in the moment, and living as though every detail in the world were worth exclaiming over, lessons I forget and re-learn daily.

But what he’s really taught me is about me.

It’s not that I was new to introspection before he came along. I’ve written plenty about the various roads I went down pre-child to deal with my issues and get healthy in my head and heart: talk therapy, craniosacral therapy, emotional freedom technique, flower essences. I always considered myself a pretty self-aware gal, almost annoyingly so.

But. Then I had a child. Plenty of books talk about needing to get in touch with yourself in order to be a good parent. And plenty of people probably find ways other than parenting to really explore their own complexity. Still, there is something special about having a being that is a product both of your nature and your nurture, something that screams: “So that’s who I am!”

Some of the things I’ve realized about myself have been surprises, but most have been frightening confirmations.

I talk a lot. This I knew. But hearing the never-ending stream of narration from my toddler then preschooler’s mouth. It’s not just a phase. He’s using my words.  My gestures.  My inflection. I even titled my first blog “Mama’s Mouth” because he had a replica of mine, both in shape and in spirit.

I am messy. I do not live a ritualized, orderly life. My son has inherited and/or learned to copy my hoarding tendencies and my failure to put things away in a logical place when we are done with them. Yes, this is the opposite of a Waldorf approach, and yes, we’re working on it.

I am judgmental. Not in a scary way. But when I hear him — with a finger-wag in his voice — spouting about how someone biking without a helmet is not safe or that someone shouldn’t eat a certain food because it has chemicals, I cringe. He’s been learning a bad/good dichotomy from me that I don’t want to be a part of our lives. Safety is cool, and good nutrition is great. But telling people what they should and shouldn’t do? Not so much. The more bossy his four-year-old self gets, the more I remember being that obnoxious girl in preschool who told her classmate, “There’s no such word as ‘buyed.’ It’s ‘bought!’” Notice I said classmate, not friend. My haughty ‘tude never made me all that popular.

I am sensitive. The more I write, the more it sounds like I’ve been stunted at the developmental level of a four-year-old. But when my son stomps his foot, or says he wants something NOW, or falls into sobs on the sofa, I know just how he feels. I can remember doing the same thing at his age, and I’ve spent the intervening 33+ years trying to figure out more appropriate ways to channel the same frustration, sometimes more successfully than others. My heart broke like a Christmas ornament when he came home bleeding from a sledding accident, telling me his friend’s parent said “it would be the most fun run” and that the third parent on the scene was supposed to keep them safe but didn’t. I’m not sure when or how I’m going to get over watching his faith in adults drip out of his mouth.

I am a singer. Never a soloist, I’ve still always been someone who likes to say it with a song. I remember lyrics like nobody’s business, and making up new ones is a specialty. I’d forgotten this until Junior came along, and it was like I rediscovered an old friend in my new and returned singalong self. Now that he’s doing the same (all. the. time), I’m reminded to call on that self with his baby sister, who tends to get me more often distracted than channeling my inner Ani DiFranco.

I am loving. The sincerity with which my son tells me he loves me at least once a day gives me a clue that, despite all of the above, I’m not doing so bad. He seems to get supreme joy from sharing his feelings, making his love known. That won’t always be the case, I’m sure, but I don’t think he’d say it if he didn’t hear it, really hear it, from me.

I can make a positive difference. The baby is the best teacher of this right now. When I’m just muddling through, trying to get dinner made or get the boy run around while it’s still light out, I catch my five-month-old daughter just staring at me with her big blue eyes. All I have to do is smile at her, and she’ll smile back. Wiggle my hips and she’ll giggle. Clap my hands above my head and she’ll laugh.

Then, and when she’s crying in her dad’s arms but stops the instant mine take over, it’s those times I know that I’m not just a broken mom passing her bad habits and quirks onto her children. I’m someone who can create joy, soothe spirits, warm hearts.

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See also this post about watching parents lost their cool at the zoo; at the end, I list some books that discuss how learning about yourself helps you become a better parent. And how to deal with all those issues you carry from your own childhood so they don’t become your kids’ issues, too!

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What is the most profound — or the simplest — lesson you’ve learning from your child, or just from parenting?

Or a lesson from a parenting book that made the biggest difference?

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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 live and updated by afternoon January 11 with all the carnival links.)

• Affection — Alicia at I Found My Feet has finally become a hugger and kisser, now she has someone sweet and small to snuggle with. (@aliciafagan)
• Learning from Daniel — Amy at Anktangle hopes that she and her husband will always be open to learning from their son. (@anktangle)
• Kids Cultivate Awareness of Universal Truths — From forgiveness to joy, Amy Phoenix at Innate Wholeness has become aware of deep truths that come naturally to children. (@InnateWholeness)
• What the Apple Teaches the Tree — Becky at Future Legacy has learned about imagination, forgiveness, and strength.
• A Lesson in Slowing Time — Bethy at Bounce Me To the Moon revels in the chance to just be with her baby.
• Learning From My Children: I Am So Honored — WAHM Chante at My Natural Motherhood Journey is learning to choose tea parties over work. (@MyMotheringPath)
• P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E — Now that she’s a mother, Danielle at born.in.japan is finally learning about a personality trait she lacked. (@borninjp)
• Top 5 Homeschool Lessons My Children Taught Me — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares what she learned from homeschooling her (now grown) children. (@DebChitwood)
• Learning to Live in the Present By Looking to the Future — Dionna at Code Name: Mama finds the patience to be a gentle parent, because she knows how fleeting childhood really is. (@CodeNameMama)
• The watchful Buddha boy — At Dreaming Aloud, they are learning to cherish their thoughtful, sensitive child in a action-driven, noisy world. (@DreamingAloudNt)
• What My Children Taught Me — Dulce de Leche’s children have taught her to value herself for the wonderful person and mother she is.
• Lessons from the First Year — Having a child made Emily at Crunchy(ish) Mama realize that her decisions affect more than just herself. (@CrunchyishMama)
• Lessons from Loss — Erica at ChildOrganics learned so much from the love — and loss — of her sweet Bella, five years ago. (@ChildOrganics)
• The Socratic Baby — Erin at Multiple Musings has so-called “identical” twins to serve as a daily lesson in nature vs. nurture. (@ErinLittle)
• Learning to be a Mother — Farmer’s Daughter learned the type of patience that enabled her to calmly eat one-handed for months and change clothes seven times a day, before noon. (@FarmDaughter)
• A Few Things Being a Mom Has Taught Me — Heather at Musing Mommy shares the curious, hilarious, and sometimes Murphy’s Law-like tidbits we learn from our children. (@xakana)
• I Feel You — Motherhood has taught Jamey from At the Bee Hive empathy, and it extends beyond just her child. (@JameyBly)
• Lessons From My Child… — Jenny at I’m a full-time mummy shares the inspiring ways she’s learned to expect the unexpected — and have a camera ready! (@imaftmummy)
• My child is my mirror — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama has seen herself in her children – and it’s not bad. (@crunchychewy)
• There is enough to go around… — Kellie at Our Mindful Life learned that love doesn’t diminish when it’s shared.
• Learning From Our Children, Every Day — Kimberly at Homeschooling in Nova Scotia, Canada is continually inspired by her children. (@UsborneBooksCB)
• Life Lessons From My Children — Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood has learned that every slug is fascinating, doing the dishes is fun, and sharing a banana is a delight. (@crunchymamato2)
• Things I’ve Learned From My Children — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings uses pictures to share what she has learned from her children. (@sunfrog)
• Beyond the questions lies the answer — Lauren at Hobo Mama stopped wondering and started knowing — loving and liking our children comes naturally. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Learning from Children — Lily, aka Witch Mom, finds out just how enchanting balloons can be. (@LilyShahar)
• Lifelong Learning — Lindsay at Living in Harmony has learned that what works for one kid might not work for another. (@AttachedMama)
• Walking alongside my daughter — Lindsey at Mama Cum Laude is learning to give the clock less power over her family’s life.
• Things my baby taught me about me — Luschka at Diary of a First Child is proud of how she has grown as a mother. (@lvano)
• From my children, I have learned — Mama Mo at Attached at the Nip has a litany of beautiful lessons, from selflessness to sleeplessness.
• The Little Things in Life — In a simple and lovely prose poem, Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children shows how adults worry about the wrong things and forget the little, important ones: watching ladybugs, jumping in leaves, cherishing each moment as it comes.
• The Virtues of Motherhood — Melissa at The New Mommy Files has had opportunities to learn from children as both a teacher and a mother. (@NewMommyFiles)
• My Kids Have Taught Me That It’s Time To Stop Blogging — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! has learned that childhoods fly by too fast to blog. We’ll miss your wonderful online presence, Melodie, and we wish you much peace and happiness. (@bfmom)
• Having Kids Has Taught me a Thing or Two — Michelle at The Parent Vortex learns all day long — from fun facts about hedgehogs to tying a complicated wrap with a screaming child and an audience. (@TheParentVortex)
• We Could All Learn from the Children — Momma Jorje takes time to get on the floor and play so that she can see the world through her child’s eyes.
• Teaching Forgiveness — Mrs Green at Little Green Blog has a daughter who’s taught her unconditional love — even when she feels like she does’t deserve it. (@littlegreenblog)
• Parenting as a joint venture — Olivia at Write About Birth appreciates watching the astonishing way her children learn. (@writeaboutbirth)
• Beginner’s Mind — Rachael at The Variegated Life learns from a child who builds bridges to nowhere, calls letter magnets his numbers, and insists dinnertime is truck time. (@RachaelNevins)
• A baby’s present — RS at A Haircut and a Shave presents a short poem on the differences between a baby’s mindfulness and ours.
• Self-Confidence Was Born With My Daughter — Sara at Halfway Crunchy learned to trust her instincts by responding to her child’s needs — and saw her self-confidence bloom.
• The Importance of Being Less Earnest — Seonaid at The Practical Dilettante has one list of earnest and one list of silly things she has learned as a parent. (@seonaid_lee)
• Lessons my children have taught me — Sheryl at Little Snowflakes learned that attachment parenting was the best way to meet the needs of her child and herself. (@Sheryljesin)
• Till the water is clear — Stacy at Mama-Om learns that being present is the best present. (@mama_om)
• I Hold It — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine has learned that the ability to communicate is much more important than the number of words a child knows.
• What My Children Taught Me About Letting Go — Summer at Finding Summer is learning from her kids to laugh in the face of heartache. (@summerminor)
• Finding My Tools — The Artsymama has applied some of what she’s learned as a mama in the classroom, with great results!

At age 37, I still haven’t learned to ski, and almost five years and two children into parenthood, I can’t quite believe in myself as a real mom of a real family with real traditions of its own. Although a few years of experience in Waldorf education tells me that children thrive on daily rhythms as well as meaningful rituals of celebration, truthfully, I suck at both.

Apple candle from Advent Garden, an inspiring tradition in Waldorf schools

But I’m working on it. If I’ve learned anything from studying positive discipline, it’s that the first step to thinking forward about parenting is usually looking backward at your own history. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my childhood — about the traditions of my family and my role in them.

It was an awkward position to be youngest child of five, almost nine years after the fourth. When I was young, I was the only one still really getting a kick out of kid things. And from a fairly early age, I was a little too conscious of the fact that everyone else was ready to move on. I struggled between wanting everyone to be excited the way I was and just wanting myself to grow up already so I could be like them.

The traditions we had — of storytelling on Christmas Eve, of finding the bounty of red pistachios left by the “Valentine Pig,” of hunting for Easter eggs from clever clues — they were all around well before my time and seemed to have a fast-approaching expiration date. By the time we moved to a new town when I was ten, my siblings were all in college. It was like starting over.

Couple that with the fact that on the verge of an already-going-to-be-rocky adolescence, my brother died a week before my fourteenth birthday. Cynicism and sadness crowded out joy and expectation when it came to celebrations. I grew up before my time.

I got a bit of my groove back as in my 20s, but, as I developed into a more holistic-minded person, I lost the lust for many of the trappings of traditions. They seemed tacky at best, toxic at worst. Once you give up the candy, the glitzy plastic, and the TV, things can look at little, well, dull.

I’m all for eschewing consumerism and going green, but being a full-on Debbie Downer is not exactly inspired parenting. My children deserve a model of joyfulness. My wider family has rekindled a secret Santa tradition with all the cousins and spouses included; we write poems to reveal who has given to whom. But in my house, I’ve been living in a fog, not knowing how to build something from scratch with my new family of four.

Where I am right now, with a son nearing five and a baby daughter barely rolling over, is trying to release my humbug and embrace a joyful spirit. To start, I am trying to identify some core values so that I can create traditions I feel good about … and actually sustain them. Without that crucial first step, stuff just doesn’t happen in my world. It lingers in a pile in the corner. In order to really get invested and model excitement for my children, I need to figure out what I want to hang my hat on.

A great source of support has been my chapter of Holistic Moms Network, where last year two life coaches talked about aligning values and priorities, and where last month, our “holistic holidays” speaker helped us get beyond mundane (though important) questions of how to deal with your in-laws giving toys or foods you don’t let your kids eat, and to think instead — at a more fundamental level — about what kind of experiences we wanted to create for our families.

Our new "Harvest Wreath" that will come out again next fall

After taking my baby out to the “holistic holidays” discussion, I decided she wasn’t up for accompanying me to Craft Night the next evening — or for staying home without me. I struggled a bit with the desire to honor her needs while also trying to become a crafty domestic goddess. I identified “beauty” as a value I wanted to uphold in my home in general and with respect to the holidays in particular, and I wanted it to start now, darn it. But just the suggestion of the wreath-making activity and then the jovial reports of those who attended were inspiration enough to get me started.

With those models in mind, I took my son to the craft store just before Thanksgiving so we could make a “harvest wreath” that we will put up every fall. We got started on a Christmas wreath, and I stowed away some blue and white ribbon for a winter wreath and pastels for a spring wreath.

Our new Christmas wreath that will get new greens each year

It should be noted that I am not one of those people who ever has anything on her door, much less seasonal banners flying in the breeze off my front porch. A friend got me a subscription to Family Fun magazine, and I usually look at it with astonishment that it and I exist on the same planet. To walk up the steps and be greeted by something pretty hanging on my front door is just short of revolutionary around here. So I’m pretty excited at our initial efforts.

My son and I also wove a ribbon placemat on which to put our signature GFCF pumpkin pie and made sure to start that Thanksgiving and every dinner since then by lighting the candle he made at his school’s fall festival. He was so excited by our mini-decorating spree and by the resurrection of the candle that I went a little crazy adding to the school’s group order of beeswax candles from Hinode Farm. I decided I’d rather spend money up front on a quality product from a vendor I feel good about than rush to come up with something at the last minute, either running out for cheap tchotchkes, drawing a crappy picture with whatever random marker happens to be available, or just doing nothing. After a lifetime of flying by the seat of my pants in a society that values disposability, I’m working on approaching parenting with intentionality and on treating things with a sense of reverence.

Decorating our first family tree

So now, we will have special candles to light just for holiday nights — among them a turkey, a bunny, and a pine tree — and a leaf, a star, a tulip and a daisy for solstice and equinox celebrations. Also, I pushed for going out to get a Christmas tree from a farm this year — just like I used to do as a child — and I was amazed how happy it made me to have it to decorate.

That’s the mom I want my children to see. The one who both sings Christmas carols at full tilt (while sprinkling colored raffia on a pesticide-free tree) and who also tears up at the silent beauty of our school’s Advent Garden.

Never mind that I don’t yet have any more specifics on holiday celebrations or seasonal festivals. There is plenty of time, and plenty of reading material for ideas. We’re celebrating baby steps around here, and today, I’m just glad to have started to believe in myself as a happy mom who can create something beautiful for her children.

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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:

• Traditions? What traditions? — Olivia at Write About Birth needs your advice: how can she make the most of the holiday season in a new country with only her immediate family? (@writeaboutbirth)
• TRADITION!!!!!! — Ella at My Intentional Journey reminds us all to be thankful for family traditions; there are those who have none.
• tradition! — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine came to realize that families can make incredible memories, even if they’re not wealthy (or organized).
• Taking a child’s perspective on traditions — Lauren at Hobo Mama wants to keep in mind how important even the mundane traditions will be to her little ones. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Sunday Dinners and Lullabies — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment finds traditions in the small things throughout the year.
• Simple Family Advent Traditions — Michelle at The Parent Vortex crafted a set of advent bags with daily surprises to eat and to do. (@TheParentVortex)
• Parenting: Family Meetings – A Timeless Tradition — Amy Phoenix at Innate Wholeness discusses a year-round tradition in her household: Family Meetings. (@InnateWholeness)
• Our Mindful Holidays — They may not be “traditional” traditions, but they fit the family of Kellie at Our Mindful Life.
• Our Holiday Traditions, New and Old — Even with three young children, Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings is finding ways to be intentional and meaningful about holiday traditions. (@sunfrog)
• Our Cupcake Custom — Amy at Anktangle knows celebrations need minimal excuse and lots of cupcakes! (@anktangle)
• On the bunny slope of tradition-making — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama is finding her groove as a holistic-minded mama with a joyful holiday spirit. (@crunchychewy)
• No, Virginia, There Is Not a Santa Claus — Just because her family is not going to do Santa, does not mean that Sheila at A Gift Universe can’t instill some mystery and magic into Christmas. (@agiftuniverse)
• New Traditions — Becky at Future Legacy shares a few traditions she is starting for her family, including popovers, a birthday banner, and service.
• My Holiday Family Traditions — The Artsymama continues a long tradition of adopting family members and sharing two favorite games that work well for a crowd.
• Mindfully Creating Family Traditions — Alison at BluebirdMama has ideas for celebrating birthdays, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas — though her family’s still figuring some of it out. (@bluebirdmama)
• Memorable Traditions — Lori Ann at MamaWit follows four mindful steps when instituting any tradition.
• Let’s Talk Traditions — Lily, aka Witch Mom shares her family’s traditions that are centered on the wheel of the year. (@lilyshahar)
• Homeschool Christmas — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now did not always celebrate the Christmas season in the same way with her family, but they always celebrated together. (@DebChitwood)
• Holidays, food and family — For Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood, the holidays are about family and food. (@crunchymamato2)
• Giving Christmas to the Critter — Rachael at The Variegated Life has found a way to tie her Zen practices to the Christmas story of the baby in the manger. (@RachaelNevins)
• Family Traditions + To Santa Or Not To Santa — Stop by Natural Parents Network to discover some of the traditions from other natural parents. NPN is also featuring snippets of posts from NP bloggers on the topic of whether to encourage children to believe in Santa Claus. (@NatParNet)
• Family Tradition Origins — Momma Jorje discusses her family’s traditions, and her desire not to make anyone feel obligated to conform to them.
• Everyday Traditions — For Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children it’s the small, daily traditions that make life special.
• Establishing Traditions and Older Child Adoption — MrsH at Fleeting Moments is trying to find ways to start traditions with a family that was made very quickly through birth and adoption.
• Emerging Family Traditions — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! shares some of her favorite birthday and Christmas traditions. (@bfmom)
• Does Rebellion Count? — Seonaid at the Practical Dilettante has instituted a day of rest and PJs at her house on Christmas. (@seonaid_lee)
• December Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Traditions — Sybil at Musings of a Milk Maker tries to give her girls a mix of traditions to foster togetherness — but worries that not being near extended family is a disconnect.
• Craft-tea Christmas Celebrations — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud created a delicious Christmas tradition that she named “Craft-tea.”
• A Christmas Tradition — Luschka at Diary of a First Child knows that even though she won’t be able to have her usual holiday traditions this year, the important thing is that she has her family. (@lvano)
• Celebrations without the Holiday — Asha at Meta Mom shares several ways to celebrate the winter holidays without focusing on religious traditions. (@metamomma)
• Celebrating the Journey We Have Traveled Together — Acacia at Be Present enjoys the chance to draw closer to her family during the Christmas holiday.
• Celebrating Motherhood — Do you celebrate the day you became a mother? Dionna at Code Name: Mama offers some ideas for traditions to mark your passage into motherhood. (@CodeNameMama)
• Celebrate! Winter Traditions Brought Home. — At True Confessions of a Real Mommy, TrueRealMommy and her family are celebrating many different religions and traditions this month. Stop by to see their schedule of events. (@TrueRealMommy)
• “Always Ready”, Holiday Style — Amy at Toddler In Tow discovered that it’s not the traditions themselves, but the emotional experience behind them that makes them special.

When I first took Rene Hackney’s Positive Discipline class as part of a play and workshop series at Parenting Playgroups, my son wasn’t even two, and he was too cute for words. Just coming off of some intense separation anxiety and just starting to string together sentences, he could do no wrong. It was easy to practice what the class preached, and to think that everyone else could and should, too!

Now, not so much. He’s goofy and quirky and whiny and annoying. My tolerance is low. It’s like I turned back into a teenager and he turned into the parent I roll my eyes at. I forgot what it was like to cringe this much. There’s potty talk, a host of demands, and a never-ending string of bizarre mashups of language — real English words and things that would seem to rhyme.

And it’s sweet that he loves his baby sister, but not when he becomes a health hazard. There’s the risk of suffocation by adoration, the chance he could get so excited about her that he squeezes her toys clear off.

It’s not exactly attractive, this new attitude of impatience and distaste of mine. I am not committed to being this kind of parent, and I hope it wears off when he hits a new developmental stage, or when I’m less newly postpartum and sleep-deprived.

A packed crowd listens to Kirk Martin at Arlington Central Library

But I do have to admit that I find myself saying and doing a lot of things that I know better than to say or do. It would help to re-read some material (some books I like are in this post), and I plan to take Rene’s play and workshop class again when baby girl is a playful tot. When I heard good things about Kirk Martin’s “Celebrate Calm” workshops happening in my area, I decided to check one out.

I was not disappointed. There is something about hearing someone dramatize parental anger that sends chills up your spine. He was that dad, for nine years. Even if I haven’t sunk to the depths of many of his examples, I could identify with the emotion behind them more often than I ‘d like to admit. And I was feeling like my husband could, too, so I begged him to go to one of the sessions later that evening.

The first and most important thing Martin said is something I know I should know — that our job as parents is to control our behavior and to teach children how to control theirs. We can’t think of ourselves as “responsible” for what kids do, as though we have to fix them or clean up after them, as though we’re supposed to control them. And we can’t let them control us by letting ourselves lose our composure because of something a child says or does. We just have to be the kind of people we would like for them to become. That means patient, compassionate and, yes, calm.

I have read this in books and practiced it with Rene’s workbook. I have complained to my husband about acquaintances who say things like “What is wrong with you?” to their kids and even blogged once about a mom’s negative behavior in a toddler class. I have tried very hard to be a positive mama. But life looks a whole lot different with a four-and-a-half-year-old who is a big brother than it did with just a toddler. So I’m glad I got some powerful reminders and some new  insights.

Kirk Martin at a Celebrate Calm presentation

One thing Martin said that I hadn’t heard elsewhere was about video games, something I hope we can stay far away from for a very long time, even if I have caved somewhat on screen time in terms of watching TV. Video games, Martin said, are so appealing because they are consistent. The rules never change. Kids always know what to expect.

Waldorf education is big on consistency. Children thrive when they feel safe and secure, when they fall into a comfortable rhythm. It’s too much freedom or too many peaks and valleys that pose challenges for kids.

So video games provide a techno substitute for consistency when home life — and parental emotions — are erratic. No wonder they are so appealing.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around a more rhythmic life for a while, and this point about video games and the importance of creating the right home environment for calm and peace — the morning after I heard Waldorf educator Jack Petrash say many of the same things at a lecture.

It’s inspiring when approaches dovetail and the path becomes clear. I haven’t even popped in any of the Celebrate Calm DVDs I bought, but I swear that attending that morning and sending my husband that night were like shots in our arm, boosters (if you’ll pardon the vaccine analogy) to our rekindle our previously waning commitment to a positive, happy home.

And I have to say, seeing the packed crowd hear this man speak — especially with all he had to say about sensory issues and other contributors to behavior, including food — I felt hopeful for a whole generation.

“Priorities” pops up as one of my most used tags because this blog is essentially about my trying to figure out what my priorities are and how to accommodate them when they seem to contradict one another. Or when one supposed priority gets bumped off its seat for something I don’t claim to care about but apparently do (or else I wouldn’t do it).

Where is my head these days?

Lately I’ve been thinking even more than usual about priorities. How my work to share information and make a difference in other people’s lives is really important to me, but that sometimes it takes precedence over my being very good at the relationships that are most immediate to me — to my husband, my children, and my friends and family. Those folks all kind of get the short end of the stick because I know they’ll take it. That’s not fair. That is not a choice made by someone who values her relationships and seriously wants them to be fabulous.

So I’m working on that.

I feel like this “think it through” message is coming at me from all perspectives. Last week, Diane MacEachern of the Big Green Purse spoke to my chapter of Holistic Moms Network and really got us thinking about what it means to be holistic and what we value as a means to shed light on what choices to make.

Last December, Carolyn Semedo and Suzanne Couming-Caldwell addressed our chapter and said essentially the same thing with respect not just to eco-friendly choices and budgeting priorities but to our family life, where so many of us feel out of balance. This might seem like a long time ago, but it’s been on my mind in part because I recently went to see Gloria Feldt with Carolyn (who is a work-life balance coach) and also because I have been thinking a lot about an introductory conversation I had with her almost two years ago about finding personal fulfillment and career success in one fell swoop.

The other day I had a conversation with chiropractor Jeanne Ohm about the ICPA Freedom for Family Wellness Summit that I’ll be going to later this week. (What a line-up of speakers!) She talked about making choices from a place of consciousness and a firm understanding of one’s goals and values. Once she understood the concept of vitalism — of the intelligence of the body and the desire to let it freely and fully express itself physically, emotionally, spiritually — it was clear to her that of course she’d want a homebirth, of course she’d want to attachment parent.

Today I met with a homeopath who was interested in not just my physical concerns or even acute mood issues but also with my overall approach to things and the ways I react and express my emotions. Nothing totally new came up; I just shared insights I’ve been working on for quite some time. But there is something about telling your story anew to someone that feels good and can get things working even before you’ve taken the remedy. (She needs to mail it to me for an LM dose of daily for six weeks, and she won’t tell me what it is until that time has passed so that I don’t go researching the heck out of it).

And then I talked to a good friend about all this thinking and, well, the meta layer keeps going and going as I type and Tweet.

Suffice it to say that, despite all the busy-ness of October and November and the ridiculousness of putting on a big birth options meeting when my daughter was six weeks old and other lapses in judgment (like staying up late right now), I feel like there is a personal shift coming. A shift toward acceptance, toward a paradigm that exalts beauty and love as much as it does the satisfaction of making a difference and the recognition for having done so.

This will not be a place without internet or busy days or self-questioning, but I do believe it will be a place of breath.

Sigh. Sometimes it’s easier to mother when your child is really in a rough state.

My son has been mildly sick for over a week, just sick enough that he’s been unable to go to school. And I’ve been unable to work. It’s been a delight to see him fully immersed in play by himself, to have three meals a day with him, and to see him grow developmentally — like actually being interested in creating representational art instead of scribbles. And, at the same time, it’s also been incredibly frustrating to not have any time to focus on anything either in my head (writing, volunteer work for Holistic Moms) or in my body (meditating, doing yoga, focusing on the baby in my belly). I have really been impatient for him to hurry up and get well!

The weekend offered some respite, but it was not as restful as the boy needed. Though I do appreciate his dad taking him out to Home Depot to buy garden supplies and then involving the boy while he worked, clearly the activity (and the insane wind!) tired both of them out such that sick one needed another day home on Monday to recoup. I was not pleased and felt sorry for myself.

He declared himself “still sick” and not well enough to go to school, and I decided not to push it. He’s never had Tylenol or any other drug, and I’m not one to just push him through because I don’t think that is going to do him any favors in the long run. But this letting the body heal approach sure takes time! It seemed like he needed a transition day to warm to the idea of getting back out in the world. He’s a very social kid and is always saying he wants to see friends, but I think he got pretty used to being home all day when he could rub his face on his mama’s growing belly at his leisure (well, not really, but it sure was more accessible than when we’re apart!)

After a very low-key morning, we had an afternoon visit from a friend who was dropping off some pregnancy and baby items now that she’s had her son. All day, E was asking, “When is Liz coming over?” He hasn’t even played with her daughters in months, but he really wanted company.

And yet, while we were at the park, he started to melt. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He was hungry but wouldn’t eat the apple I cut up when we got back. I ended up having to kick out my friends because he was just crying like a baby. Reminder: he’s four. I couldn’t believe what I had on my hands.

Fortunately, the dinner was mostly made, so we ate just after 5:00. “I want to go to bed,” he whined, and I complied as soon as I felt his belly was full enough. “I guess Daddy’s going to have to celebrate his birthday by himself,” he sighed, then offering with a little glint of possibility, “Or maybe we can celebrate in the morning.”

Although he was more stable by the time we got upstairs, I had seen him really hit bottom, and out came my fierce unconditional love tools. I wanted only for him to feel better in his body, mind, and spirit and to know that everything was going to be okay by seeing me not lose it (and nourish myself — I was not going up there on an empty stomach, either!)

So I held him like a baby while looking through my homeopathy books to see if Pulsatilla was the best choice. I chose four Bach flower remedies I thought might help: Mimulus, Aspen, Larch, and Gentian. At dinner, I made sure he finished his broth from a gelatin-rich batch of stock I made and added apple juice to water with a little electrolyte powder so he’d be sure to hydrate. Once upstairs, I wiped his face and feet with a wet washcloth with lavender oil and then gave him a foot massage before we put on clean socks.

After reading two stories, I felt compelled to sing to him — to make him some kind of offering–, but he declined the offer of a serenade. So I told him how, when he was in my belly, I sang to him every morning and that after he was born, his dad and I sang to him while he held one of each of our fingers. With the storytelling preamble, he let me sing “You Are My Sunshine,” somehow ignoring how my voice broke and noticing (or saying) only after I was done, “You’re crying!” I smiled and told him it was because I loved him so much.

He climbed into bed and fell asleep while I closed rocked in the chair. I left at 6 p.m.

But then he woke three more times in the next few hours. I took one of these shifts and just laid next to him and let him feel as close to me as he needed to. His dad handled the other two wakings, and when the boy came into our bed after going potty sometime in the night, he slept soundly and woke at 6:15 a.m. talking about how he remembered one time Caillou got sick and had to stay home. Before I knew it, he was jumping on the bed, and two hours later, I was handing him over to his teacher, who seemed very happy to have him back!

It will take a while to crawl out from under all the backlog I have to get to the place I expected to be mid-week last week: shifting my focus to my baby and my body. But I’m confident that some of these steps along the way — the bonding with my son, the benefits I got when I found a craniosacral therapist who would work on both of us, the memory of how powerful it is to nourish and nurture another being who is seemingly helpless– were all important in their own way.

Having someone in from out of town helps you see where you live with new eyes.

When my brother-in-law visited, I was kind of psyched that after my husband picked him up at Union Station, they got enjoy a lovely drive through the District — past the monuments — at dusk on a perfect summer-feeling evening (not very April-feeling, but still about as nice as it gets). I felt some pride in the fact that they found delicious gelato in Georgetown on a Friday night and that our visitor enjoyed the next day’s trip to MOMs, the natural food store we frequent most often.

And yet, I appreciate what living in a log cabin in rural Maine affords my BIL and what kind of rhythm that can foster. Sometimes I feel like I should live in the woods instead of just in a house that backs up to the woods, but I know I value urban life and convenience too much. I love being able to walk to a mini downtown, even if its restaurants are not organic. The grocery has some decent produce, and the library is right there. It feels like a community. And when Metro is not delayed or overstuffed with tourists, I think it’s pretty cool that I can hop on it and in less than 15 minutes, be at the American Art museum across the street from the library I attend an ICAN meeting.

This weekend, I was wary of track work delays on the Metro, so I decided to drive up to Bethesda to work the Holistic Moms table for a Celebrate Mama event. Now that downtown is one hoppin’ place. Lots of cool shops and restaurants. But even if we could afford to buy a home there — our house would probably sell for an extra $200K if it were plopped down in that zip code — I don’t think I would ever want to dress well enough and be cute enough to fit in.

So there is my living-on-the-border self. Not a homesteader, not a chic city girl or hip suburbanite, either. I liked driving up on Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues and seeing all the urban, cultural stuff going on. But it was busy and a little overwhelming, so on the way home, I took the Beltway to the GW Parkway, and I enjoyed the quiet serenity of the tree-lined and river-lined route, even though it was probably a couple more miles.

Although sometimes having too many options gets overwhelming (can anyone say Internet?), I do find that I like to put myself in the position of having them.

It feels good to look forward to seeing your son. Lately I’ve felt so swamped — and especially after all that snow with no break — I haven’t exactly loved all my many minutes with my boy.

Today I went to the National Institutes of Health for a conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), which I hope to write about in more depth later. But the experience of the day was something in and of itself. Getting dressed in real-people clothes, taking my boy to a friend’s so she could drive him to school and pick him up, getting on a crowded Metro during rush hour, and then listening to a lot of doctors talk about best outcomes for moms and babies… Well, it was intense. Especially considering that I’m 4 months pregnant and hoping for a home VBAC (HBAC) with baby #2.

I knew E would probably be okay, but I also knew it was a long day for both of us. We were both exhausted when I picked him up from the park. I could not wait to trade my button-down and blazer for a sweatshirt and just sit on the couch hugging and talking to him. If we weren’t both hungry with dinner nowhere in sight, I would have happily sat there for an hour. It felt good for that to feel so good.

For someone always looking at her watch and struggling to just be in the moment when I really want to be writing or researching or exercising, that uncomplicated couch time was a true delight.

Just what all does one do during a snowed-in weekend like we’ve had here in the DC area? I got an email this morning telling me that DC Metro Moms Blog was low on posts, so I imagine I’m not the only one who did not use the time to catch up on writing. (I hope that’s not for lack of electricity, but there are still some outages, I hear. We got lucky [knock on wood] and clocked in at only 18 inches, a low for the region!)

Over these past three days, I have let the computer collect some dust. I took an unplanned two-day hiatus from even opening the email box for the nonprofit group chapter I run. (That’s going to have to end soon. Just as soon as I get up this post!) I was already behind from just general life and from last Wednesday’s thoroughly unnecessary snow day with no preschool.

Since the snow began to fall on Friday, I have avoided finishing a freelance assignment and replying to long overdue personal notes, taking the time only to delete emails from lists I should get off of and from yoga studios telling me they are closed. Oh, and I took photos of the snow and sent links to my family. That’s about it. It’s kind of revolutionary to see the lid of my laptop closed and my phone quiet.

The only real thing I’ve wanted to do is clean the house… Read the rest of this post at DC Metro Moms Blog.

My apologies to my sister DCMM writers who I found out after writing this post have been — and in some cases still are — without power!