I bought curriculum!

My oldest daughter turned 4 years old in March and though we haven't really been actively homeschooling, I have always made an effort to educate my children . I wish I could take all the credit, but PBS has played a big hand in teaching my girls all that they already know.

My 4-year-old can:
- read some basic sight words
- write all her letters and numbers
- add and subtract
- spell some basic words by sounding them out
- tell you about all sorts of animals and what kinds of habitats they live in
- understand the concepts of observation and hypothesis
- draw REALLY well
- recognize shapes, patterns, opposites

My 2-year-old can:
- Count to 15
- recognize all her letters and almost all numbers 1-10
- recognize shapes
- do 48-piece jig-saw puzzles

**Don't compare your kids to my kids' abilities in the lists below. Every child learns at a different pace and I don't think every parent needs to be pushing their children to learn. Just expose them to what you can and they'll soak it up when they are good and ready.**

So... considering I had already decided to homeschool while we're living in Japan and the girls are still only old enough for preschool, I started looking around for curriculum.

Many people believe that children of such a young age should learn through play, with hardly any focus on academics. And I agree. But when your kids wake up at 5:30am and don't go to bed until 8:00pm (not to mention that neither one of them is taking a nap), playing all day can get boring without mixing it up a bit. Sure, there are millions of craft and activity ideas on the internet. But, I am notorious at making lists and looking for ideas without ever actually doing any of it. Any mother will tell you that without a routine or some structure, it's easy to fall into ruts where you feel like you're spending your entire day trying to keep the kids entertained without putting them in front of the tv. I feel like we've been stuck in that rut for a while and another year without more "school" will do us in.

This is why I started looking at curriculums. I don't want to jump right into academics and full-on homeschooling, but I DO want some structure and guidance, and some ideas for things to do with the girls to break up the day a bit more. I wanted something that would lay out my week for me, while still allowing flexibility when our days don't exactly go as planned. Something that would start introducing age-appropriate concepts and information to my kids without my spending hours figuring out what topics to cover next.

I decided to go with a company called Oak Meadow. Oak Meadow is a Waldorf-inspired curriculum that believes that education should involve the whole child - with things like drawing, painting, nature study, building things, baking, etc. It integrates all the different subjects and does a majority of its "teaching" through stories and fairy tales. I also chose to buy a First Grade curriculum since Thing 1 already knows many of the concepts taught in Kindergarten. If she's not ready for some of the concepts, we can take our time with it. No rush. I didn't order the complete curriculum package because I wasn't interested in the health or music concepts yet. I would much rather teach Thing 1 and Thing 2 the piano than how to play the recorder. I also decided not to purchase the craft kit because I think I can find more economical supplies on my own.

I'm VERY excited about it, though it was a little scary to actually push the "Submit Order" button. It cost me around $250, but considering some other curriculums were upwards of $800 (!!), I don't think the cost was very high. If I were doing themed units of study, or piecing together my own curriculum, I could easily spend the same amount on materials and books. So, besides the price being reasonable (to me), I was also more than happy to pay for the convenience of someone else putting everything together and planning the lessons. Our shipment should come in before we move (I hope!), so that we will have everything we need to start a more structured "school" routine after we're settled in Japan. I'll definitely keep you posted on how it turns out!

I want for nothing.

My husband will probably laugh at me when he finds out that this post came about as a result of watching "Meet Joe Black," and many of you might too. But there is a scene at the end of the movie where William Parish blows out his birthday candle and says this:

"I'm going to break precedence and tell you my one candle wish: that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one day and say, 'I don't want anything more.'"

It was just a scene in a movie, but in that moment, I realized that at 26 years old, I've reached that same point. Don't take those words the wrong way. I want to live to be 100 years old. I want to see my children grow up and have children of their own. And I want to use my life - however long it may be - to make a difference in the lives of others.

When my grandfather died, I was holding his hand and stroking his beautiful white hair. I got to the hospital room within minutes of his passing. When he realized I was there, he tried to focus his eyes on me and attempted to say, "I love you," in jumbled speech between his difficult breaths. To this day, being with him while he died was one of the few moments in life that I'm most grateful for - right up there with my wedding and the birth of my children. The love felt in that room, between all of us, was indescribable.

At the risk of sounding cliche, love is the most important thing we experience in this life. Love is the only thing I'll be able to take with me when I'm leaving this world. It was the only thing I felt like I could send with my grandfather, wherever he was going.

I have experienced what it's like to love someone unconditionally. I imagine that the love I feel for my children is the same as the divine love that people associate with God. It comes so naturally.... I have loved my children, my husband, my family and my friends. And even better, I have felt loved by all those in return. I don't imagine that there could be anything else I would wish for when it comes down to it. Anything else - travel, a big house, fancy car, good career - is just an added blessing.

When you realize that you have experienced the best that life has to offer, you don't really need much else. It's a very cozy and comfortable place to be. A place I hope everyone can get to.




Thank you, Papa, for helping me learn this.

What Mother's Day really looks like....

Today is Mother's Day. Before I had children, I always knew Mother's Day as the day I tried to spend some money on my mom to tell her how much I love her. It also usually involved lunch at my grandmother's house with some faaaaaantastic home-cooked food. My first Mother's Day as an actual mother myself was very quaint and even picture-perfect. I was so in-love with my then 2-month-old baby girl and I spent the whole day staring at her, holding her, nursing her, and enjoying the new laptop that my husband had bought me.

Four years later, Mother's Day has become one of the most meaningful days of the year. I have two beautiful daughters and becoming a mother has transformed my life in more ways than I can count. However, it also looks nothing like the Mother's Day I knew before children, or what I expected it to look like.

I woke up this morning and realized that my husband had let me sleep in! Yes, I slept in until 7:30am - quite late in this household - and it was a great start to my day. But then I left my bedroom. My husband had taken care of the kids and cleaned up the kitchen, but then he started getting sick. Some sort of head-cold or something. Then, around lunchtime, I started getting sick. While my husband took Thing 1 to the store to get me a chocolate cake (the present she insisted on getting me), I wrangled with Thing 2 to get her to take a nap. She fought it HARD and I realized that she seemed to be feeling a little off too. The rest of the afternoon, my girls fought with each other, cried, screamed, yelled, went all noodley when we tried to get them to do something, refused to eat any of the Chinese food we got (because we felt too crappy to fix dinner), got upset when we wouldn't give them cake because they refused to eat dinner, and were basically miserable until we put them to bed early at 6:45pm.

Over the last couple of months, I've been really proud of myself for remaining calm, not spanking, not yelling, and being more compassionate when my children are having a rough day. But when I'm not feeling well, it's REALLY tough to keep that up. And today on Mother's Day, I lost it. I yelled. I talked in my super-angry voice. I threatened to throw away toys. I told my daughter I was going to poke a hole in her beach ball if she didn't quit throwing it at our dog. I threatened to spank Thing 2 if she didn't quit screaming at everyone. (Then, she threatened to spank me back.) What I wanted more than anything on my Mother's Day was to get my kids in the bed so I could have some peace and quiet.

Welcome to Mother's Day with two small children! This is why there should be a Mother's Day in the first place. Some days are fantastic, and some days, you count the minutes until bedtime. I wouldn't change a thing, however, because no matter when you have children, how financially prepared you are for them, whether you stay-at-home or have a career... motherhood is a challenging, yet transformative and immensely meaningful experience. No matter how rough the day has been, my children still want me to sing to them at night and they can't go to sleep without a big hug and kiss from their mom and dad. In-between the bickering and crying today, my girls still told me "Happy Mother's Day!" and proudly showed me the chocolate cake that they had baked for me.

 It wasn't a Hallmark-card-worthy Mother's Day... maybe a kindergarten home-made card with scribbles and glitter-glue, held together with tape. But, this is the season of life that I'm in. And now, I'm going to eat my chocolate cake, watch Celebrity Apprentice and prepare for yet another day in the trenches.

Maybe one day when they're old enough, my kids will buy me a massage.

Don't keep your kids in a bubble.

Parents are (usually) fierce protectors of their children. From the day they are born, and I assume, until the day they die, we never want to see them suffer. Every time my two-year-old falls and skins her knee, I think it traumatizes me more than her because I hate seeing her precious little knee covered in blood. I hate seeing her get hurt. And I hate that I wasn't able to prevent it. 

Many parents are accused of keeping their children in a bubble - away from the dark shadows of the world - so that they can protect their child's innocence as long as possible. I understand that. I count myself as one of those parents on many occasions. However, I think a distinction should be made between "protecting" our children and "secluding" our children. 

I started thinking about this yesterday while I watched "A Little Princess" with my 4-year-old daughter. I wanted to find a movie that both of us would enjoy while her younger sister took a nap. Not far in, however, I wondered if maybe I had made a bad decision. It's about a young girl (whose mother apparently died when she was a baby) who becomes a servant at her boarding school when the headmistress is informed that the girl's father has been killed in combat (WWI). I have always loved this movie for several reasons: the ties the girl has to India because of living there with her father, the girl's impeccable character and ability to stand her ground when confronted, her generosity, and especially, her ability to disregard skin color as having any bearing on a person's character or purpose. But, watching this with my own daughter made it a great deal more powerful. 

And I should have known that my sweet, sensitive child would be greatly distraught at times during the movie. She knows that people die (though she's never asked what happens to someone afterwards) and we've never tried to keep death hidden from her. But when Sarah (the main character) was told her her father's death, my child cried with her. At the end of the movie when it appears Sarah will be taken from her father after just reuniting with him, my daughter literally lost it. The movie made me emotional, but seeing my daughter crying put it over the top. I'm just glad my husband slept through the cry-fest and can't make fun of me for the rest of my life.

But it made me wonder: Should I keep such awful possibilities from my daughters? It makes me ill to think about her losing someone she loves, but... there are children all over the world who do have that experience - some who have had that experience several times over. I don't want to scare my child, but I do want her to know that people suffer. Educating her about her the world - both the good and bad - is the only way, in my opinion, to also teach her compassion and gratitude.

And though I know I won't be able to protect her from experiencing inevitable pain and suffering, I can help teach her that such feelings are impermanent. I can teach her that bad experiences don't have to define who she is or what kind of life she leads. I can try my best to show her that more important than an event or situation is how we react to it. Even after Sarah has learned about her father's death, has become a servant, has had all her possessions stripped from her, and is living in an attic, she moves forward and continues to bring happiness to others. She shares what she is given, she takes care of those less fortunate than even her, and she insists on writing her own life story rather than having one written for her.

So, yes, I will always have my shield up, ready to protect my daughters when I can. But, I will not keep them from seeing everything that I'm trying to protect them from. How can I expect them to be the change they want to see in the world, if they've never seen the real world to begin with?

What is a "good" day?

Many days, I find myself making a list of all the things I did - and more often, didn't - do during the day so that I can give my husband/myself/my family a report of how good I'm doing at my various jobs every day. I am a list person. I always have been. I almost always have a list of things I would like to get done during the day, yet more often than not, only one of those gets crossed off the list by bedtime. I realized today that almost every time I qualify the day as a "good" day, it's because I've been "productive." I've crossed things off the list. But since that doesn't happen every day, most of my days are qualified as "not that great," "a waste of time," or "a disappointment." 


But are these labels accurate?


It's quite possible some of the slowest days are indeed the best days. I finished the book Buddhism for Mothers this evening and it's funny that some of the last paragraphs spoke to exactly what I had been contemplating earlier today:

"When we are too plain busy we have no time to absorb the present moment, notice our surroundings [...]. Nor do we have space to reflect on our lives, analyse where we're going and whether we even want to go there. [...] It's so trying to spend time at a park when there's 'important work' to do. When you become too obsessed with productivity it's hard to adapt to the children's pace, to be present and accepting of the present moment."

Slow days may leave dishes in the sink, errands not run, or children still in pajamas at dinnertime. But instead, they might include a long conversation on the phone with an old friend, lots of laughter and giggles while playing with my kids, less tension and irritability that sprouts from being interrupted or hurried, and a sense of relaxation and contentment from having experienced love and joy during the day.

I'm going to make an effort to stop labeling and judging my days. I also know that to stop doing this, I need to stop desiring that those around me think my day was productive and useful. It would be great for everyone to think I'm Super Mom, but at the end of the day, all that matters is what kind of experience the day held for me. And if I have any influence on my perspective, every day can be a "good" day.

Some days, I just don't like the kid.

I love both of my children immensely. Without having to think about it for a split-second, I would take a bullet for them.

But as of late, I don't want much to do with my younger one, Thing 2. She is going through a HORRIBLE phase right now. I mean, the-devil-must-have-bribed-her-to-be-this-bad horrible. Today has been a particularly rough day, but it's by no means abnormal around our house. The ENTIRE day has been filled with yelling, screaming, throwing her body on the floor, kicking her legs, and guttural noises that sound like The Hulk is breaking lose. Many other parents would say I just need to discipline more, but I'm convinced that is not the answer anymore. I never intended to be a spanker, but I've done it. I've tried time-outs. I've tried removing her from the situation and letting her cool off in her room. Nothing works. It doesn't really help her calm down any better and it sure as hell doesn't keep her from having the behavior again.

On worse-than-normal days (like today), I spend the day on pins and needles, trying to make sure I stay really calm and say things in a nice voice so that I can avoid setting her off. The smallest of things evoke the same over-the-top, emotional, angry response from her. For example, she came and sat with me in the recliner when she woke up from her nap. When she said she wanted to get down, I helped her down and said, "Hey! Do you want to play with your sister's pretend makeup while she is taking her nap?" and she immediately yelled, "No! I don't want to play with makeup!!" and then started with the guttural noises and flung herself onto the floor. This morning, I said we were having cereal for breakfast and after she threw a fit about that (don't know why), she came back up to me and said, "I want cheerios" (with a mean face, by the way). I said, "We're going to have Lucky Charms!" and she collapsed on the floor, screaming, "I don't want Lucky Charms!!!!!" For those of you that don't know, she screams like a banshee. Like, I've seriously wondered why some of my windows and mirrors haven't shattered yet. When my husband got home from work, he asked how my day was and I collapsed into tears. I had kept my cool all day, but it had been emotionally exhausting to see my child throw tantrums every few minutes.

So, how I am fixing this problem behavior, you ask?

Well, I've almost completely stopped trying to punish the behavior. She's two yeas old. I think that a lot of her reactions are just uncontrollable for her. I used to get angry over her behavior, but as of late, I just feel compassionate towards her. It can't be pleasant to have such extreme emotional reactions to everything. If she falls in the floor and throws a tantrum, I let her do it. I don't give her any attention and I don't try to stop it either. When she finally calms down a bit, I simply ask her if she wants me to hold her or give her a hug. I don't have a Ph.D. in parenting, but I guess my thinking is that I want her to know that no matter what her behavior, I will always be there to comfort her and I will always love her. In Buddhism for Mothers, Sarah Napthali writes, "Children have a right to their feelings no matter how intense or how socially unacceptable. We need to convey the message that there are no wrong feelings, only wrong behaviors." (The book also includes a great list of synonyms for basic emotions to help children begin to find just the right words to express what they're feeling.) And like I mentioned in my previous post, one of the most important things I can teach her is how to maintain calm in the midst of those intense feelings. And the lesson sinks in even better when I'm a good role model.

There are times, however, when she is screaming or causing so much commotion that it is too distracting for the anyone else around her. During those times, I simply take her to her room and tell her that she can yell/scream/tantrum there until she has calmed down.

We don't have less tantrums in our house, but we do have a little less stress. Once I quit fighting with her - once I quit trying to change the reality of the moment - I began handling those moments better. And most of the time, I'd much rather hand out some hugs than a time-out.