wanting more…but needing less

There is no doubt about it, the world is changing at a rapid pace.  Some of the changes are good (smartphones), some are terrifying (3D horror flicks) and some are a nuisance (airport security) – but change just keeps on rolling.

Our children seem to adapt well to this world we’ve made for them – they probably look upon the pre-internet, pre-iPhone era as ‘the olden days’ and marvel at how we ever got anything done (how did we?).

We are a race that wants more – and seem not to know when enough is enough.   There’s a reason why (apparently) 1% of us have everything we could dream of and the other 99% just wants, wants wants it all (and strives like crazy to get it).  It’s the same reason why the developed world has an obesity problem and the rest of the world is starving.  It’s as though appetite has overruled intelligence.

In fact, appetite appears to be a by-product of civilisation and ‘progress’.  With agriculture came settlement; with settlement came increased fertility; with more babies came more roles within the community (we can’t all be farmers, right?) – we got more creative, we built things, then we built things to go with those things, and so on.. we found out what it was like to go without, and got scared and started squirrelling things away ‘for a rainy day’.  Fast forward to today, when the developed world is dependent on systems of every kind, and is bloated & diseased.

What if we decided to have less?  What if we looked at what we have already and decide that it’s enough?  I’ve decided to try it – starting with simple things like food; studies show that eating 40-60% less is the key to living longer and healthier (you can read about that on Dr Michael R Eades’ website).  I’ve also cut back hours at work.  I’ll have less money, fewer chances at a ‘dynamic career’, but I’ll be happier and have time to live and enjoy my children.

It’s a cliche, but it seems truer than ever – the only thing we really need more of is love.

What do you think Mamas?  xxx

and the tumbleweed rolls by…

Oh Mamas, it’s been a ghost town around here, but I’m getting my magical waters flowing again after a year-long drought…

I’ve learned some tough lessons about being a working Mama and what is more important – financial security or sanity (sanity).

Just pass me the shovel, I’ve got to unblock the well…

be with you shortly Mamas xx

 

Five ways to parent with soul, part one

Hello Mamas!

Yes, yes, I know.  I’m hardly ever blogging these days.  I won’t even go there with excuses – but I will offer the post below, which I found when I was looking through my other blog this morning….

Five ways to parent with soul, part one

There’s a billboard outside the primary school I pass on my daily travels and for the past few weeks it has displayed this;

Challenge for the day – find something good in your child.

I don’t know about you, but the idea that it’s a challenge to find good in a child worries me. It reminds me of The One Minute Manager that I had to read when I worked for the Gap years ago. ‘Find something good in your staff, and praise them for it’, is how it went, along the lines of how to win friends and influence people. This billboard doesn’t challenge anyone that far (no suggestion of praising them), so I guess its not about kid productivity levels or morale. But as I pass it, even in heavy traffic, it seems apparent that parents might need to see their kids – and parenting itself – differently. So I’m offering some suggestions on how to parent with soul, that is, with acceptance of all its parts, good and bad.

1. Surrender. Yes, you read that right – give up the idea that you’re in control and that everything will go according to your ideas of how it ‘should’. Babies cry for no reason, toddlers poke things in the CD player and preschoolers swear in front of people you want to impress. Teenagers mumble. Some of them do none of these things. Children do as they do; that is the nature of the beast. Rules do not apply, so throw out the ‘what to expect’ book. Boundaries, on the other hand, teach kids and parents how to be safe and to navigate life – and its up to us parents to see the difference between a reasonable boundary and a dumb veto that’s making all concerned crazy. Telling a toddler ‘no darling, daddy’s watch doesn’t belong in the bin’ is crazy-making (ask my friend who lost a few watches); moving the bin, the watch and the kid out of range of each other is a reasonable boundary. Or maybe the kid has a point? The little darlings want to try out everything they see you do (perhaps – who knows for sure what their reasons are?) and have no idea of the value of a Rolex, until we drum it into them. But they do know the value of time together, just playing and making general mayhem. So stop trying to fit the kid in around your life – for every one’s sake – that’s all over now. Better to concentrate on your own self control, and teach by example. Rearrange your house, rearrange your life. Be prepared to at the very least. Trust me on this – by surrendering control, you gain peace.

2. Be still. Stop trying to ‘fix’ your kids, your parenting or your life. You can’t make everything perfect for your kids, you can’t make your kids perfect for your life, and you are the parent you are no more and no less. Every heroic action creates a victim, every martyr creates an oppressor. I see so much solar parenting around me that its no wonder there’s a greenhouse effect. Ah, OK, its a ‘hothouse’ effect – close enough – my point is that we could do a lot better by allowing our kids to have their own failures and teaching them to forgive themselves. While we are at it we can allow our own parenting ‘mistakes’ (if there is such a thing – and here we can throw that damn book of expectations again) and let our children see that we are human,imperfect and lovable. And, you know, your children are great the way they are anyway – complete with mumbling and ‘bad’ grades and black nail polish. Who says they should be any different? (aim that book at them, whoever they are!) Last year my family grew, and we all had some growing pains. My fourteen year old daughter, eldest of five, started having conflict with teachers at school; her grades dropped and she seemed like the weight of the world was upon her, like nothing mattered, like she just ‘didn’t care’. In this situation the only thing I could change was myself – my thinking. I knew I cared and could do with lightening up. The school teachers started calling me and asking me how to ‘get through to her’ and then, later in the year, asking me to ‘do something about her’.

“I have faith in her” I told them.
“I’ve delegated the task of sorting this out to her” I reassured them.
“I’m doing the best I can, and so is she. Please be patient.” I tried, when that wasn’t the result they expected.
“Stop relating to my kid like she’s an animal that needs to be tamed!” I finally blurted. Actually I put that one in writing.

I do have complete faith in her, whether she improves her grades or not. She’s not a performing monkey, she’s a person. I’ve always maintained that there’s no point in making kids miserable so that ‘one day’ they can ‘make it’ in the world. I want mine to be happy and true to themselves now, and because of this I love her even more when she is ‘acting out’. Anyway, she found her own way, with my full support, and she’s fine. Only a few weeks ago her teachers called me to say how great it is to see the kid doing so well. So what I’m getting at is that we are doing too much – we as parents have some kind of compulsion for taking action – just stop. Stop that right now! (I’m waggling a finger at you) Stop doing. Let life unfold as it will and have faith that everything is how it must be, because it is. (more soon)

mercury redux

Hello Mamas!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the mischief of Mercury (planet of communications and celestial Trickster) in its retrograde (backwards) phase. Its almost over – the planet is ‘stationing’ to begin its forward motion again today.  For those of you who hold no stock in astrology consider this – Mercury is a great big ball of metal – in fact its an enormous magnet.

If the moon, which is basically just dust, influences the tides, then imagine the havoc Mercury can wreak.  Technical glitches (yes, all those computer & telephone problems you’ve been having these past few weeks), car problems and bingles, errors in general communications (yes, like that email you sent to the wrong person, or that parcel sent to the wrong address) and all kinds of mental meanderings.

I like to keep things simple during Mercury retrogrades, but I find my mind occupied with ideas and words I’m too busy doing other things to put on a page (Well. I’ve got multiple scraps of paper with obscure scribblings on them alongside lists of things to do).  But they do say Mercury retrograde is a good time to go back over old ground.  Revise, revisit, return.

So here I am – in the nick of time.

Lately people have spoken to me about their parenting issues (something that doesn’t happen often) which reminds me of the ‘bigger picture’ that I can see now that my oldest child has grown up to be the person SHE wants to be and not the person I thought she would be. All the effort and investment and  gentle guidance is not exactly wasted, but not really worth tying myself up in knots for either.

Rewind 17 years to when someone told me I could never make life perfect for my kids and to just minimise negative influences and trust them.   Moment of revelation – sometimes advice is useful.

Occasionally I indulge in imagining how things would be now for my children and I had I done things differently – made other/better choices.

These imaginings always lead me to the same conclusion;  I couldn’t have done anything differently. Things are in fact perfect the way they are.  Even if there are things that I’d like to change, things I struggle with daily, mistakes I wish I hadn’t made.

We Mamas (and Papas) wake up every day and do the best we can for our families.  Sometimes that best isn’t very good at all.  Sometimes its brilliant.  The magic is in accepting all of it in its richness and depth and variation.

Kids will all have problems, just as we parents have problems.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, that you’re a Mama who sets herself a high standard and may just as often feel good about getting things right as feel disappointed about failing to.  And, chances are, that you’re able to tell yourself that its OK to mess up, that mess makes life interesting and its great to have such high standards in the first place.  Right?

Because in doing so, we show our children that we aren’t perfect and that its OK for them not to be perfect either.  In being wrong and in knowing so; in being emotional or over stressed, or over-tired or just over it – and saying so – we allow our children to accept these things in themselves.

These are all things I’ve written before.  Acceptance is the old ground to keep revisiting – because acceptance is the opposite of judgement, and judgement won’t teach us anything about ourselves as Mamas or as people.

Until next time, Mamas xxx

one tired Mama…

Oh my God/dess.  I’ve never been so tired in my life.  I hadn’t quite realised until late this afternoon while standing in the queue at the supermarket with my 3 year old that I’m aching with it. All over.

The Dung Bug (my three year old daughter) is just brimming with enthusiasm for life and asks a dozen questions a minute (when she’s not announcing her hunger, her thirst or directing me to the next object of fascination to examine – “I want to go THERE, Mama!”).

My gratitude to the team of carers at our daycare centre is beyond words.   I don’t know if I could ever do a better job – for one thing I have no idea how to make an erupting volcano.  For another, I have no patience for collecting caterpillars and feeding them until they become butterflies.  Oh but I wish I did.

And I wish (today) I had patience for repeated requests for lollypops in the supermarket checkout queue, and trying on ten pairs of shoes just for fun, and looking in the cake shop window for twenty minutes.  *sigh*  I LOVE this stuff.

My seven (almost eight) year old daughter, The Chipmunk, is the son I never had – she’s more likely to bounce around a room than sit delicately reading or drawing like her older sisters. She really needs to be outside, with a stick and a bucket.  She is always On Safari.

I collect her from After School Hours care each afternoon and she’s covered in mud, has chewed fingernails and a collection of things in her hair.  I’d like to say I’ve given up trying to neaten her up – the truth is she looks like that within moments of emerging from the bathtub each morning – but I still chase her around the kitchen shortly thereafter with a hair brush and face washer.  Never give in to dirt is my motto.  (You should see how much washing I do every week – I probably should give up.)

This week, my ten year old Darling – who is never any trouble at all  – was a little off-colour.  It was one of those situations where I felt pulled in all directions (mostly between work & an important deadline and wrapping my child up in cotton wool, spoon-feeding her chicken soup and renting enough dvd’s to see us through two days of tummy-aches) and relied on the kid’s determination to help me out.   I’m ashamed to say that I bribed her into going to school instead of staying home and resting.

To the  little trouper’s credit she rose to the challenge and held me to my word.  I took her out for icecream and waffles after a day of holding it together (there was no way she was going to miss a trip to Bracegirdles no matter how poorly she felt).  She collapsed into bed the minute we got home, and I kept my commitment to both jobs (parent and employee).

Well, I kept my commitment to my employer, and my Darling let me off the hook as a Mama in exchange for chocolate.  Bad Mama.  Bad.

The biggest challenge of all this week (aside from just keeping it together) came from my fourteen year old.  She’s a beauty, she’s smart and she’s talented - she can really SING – but she is going through some strange stage of caring more about what others think and say than how she feels.  It pains me, although not as much as I can see it pains her, to witness her refusal to take part in life but to sit on her bed and do nothing.  I can remember being similarly immobilised at various times in my life, and now I feel powerless to help her.

At least my seventeen year old girl is doing well – I really NEED her to be. Proof that I’m doing ok, you understand.  Proof of the pudding – here I am doing the work with these less-cooked ones (and sometimes feeling like the batter is all wrong, the souffle is failing, and that I need an assistant) – and here’s one I prepared earlier.  See?  Here she is, all brown and sweet and gorgeous and doing all the things she’s supposed to.

*sigh*  For tonight, the kitchen’s closed, and the cook’s going to bed.

Zzzzzzzzzzz Mamas xxx

full moon magic

There’s a very auspicious (I just LOVE that word – it makes me think of wrinkled old sages on mountain tops dispersing advice) full moon (in Sagittarius) tomorrow, followed by the ingress of Uranus into Aries.

What does it mean?  It means, in short -

• its the end of an era – Uranus has been in Pisces since 2003 and hasn’t been in Aries for 84 years.  This is a big change that is bound to see some shake-ups on a wide scale.
• its a grand old time to initiate and manifest BIG goals – aim that arrow to exactly where you want it to go and follow it there.
• that some people around you may be not-quite-as-sane-as-usual as they process some ye olde crappe or deal with externally-driven change.
• that we Mamas get to be as magical and superb as usual

Light a candle &  make a wish, Mamas.  xx

(ps. dare I predict a baby boom?)

works like a charm

Ok. Another micro-blog…

My thoughts on being and becoming a Mama for the day:

• becoming a Mama can bring up a lot of unconscious merde that we would rather remain in the depths – feelings about our own Mamas, feelings about responsibility and a whole lot more.  It is worth getting counselling so you can be the healthiest Mama you can.
• You becoming a Mama can constellate the same things in your partner.  It is a Wise Mama who can deal with this compassionately and lovingly without taking it personally.  Again, counselling is a good idea.
• Being a Mama is challenging in so many wonderful ways, not least of which is that our little (and big) darlings are perfect mirrors of ourselves.  “If it bothers me, its about me” is my motto – taking a good look and doing some serious truth telling is truly Mama Magic.

until tomorrow Mamas xxx

ps.  Full Moon in Sagittarius tomorrow – think expansively, honestly – and be adventurous!

more magic wand use for beginners…

Goodness, Mamas – I’ve just been reading my daily dose of Problogger and learned that I must blog every day.  Every day!  I have a lot of days to catch up on…

So here is today’s thought about Mama-hood:  it is fleeting.  It only seems like forever – but before you know it your sweet tow-headed darling will be a pimply adolescent who would rather do anything but spend time with you.

• listen to what they say when they are little – every word is a gift.  One day you may find yourself wishing your child would say something, just ONE coherent phrase.  Preferably with a smile on his face.
• keep a sample from those big piles of artworks which are accumulating on top of the fridge.  There may come a day when you will truly appreciate those smudges and lines which don’t look anything like ‘a dinasour’.
• take lots of photos. ..  especially of subsequent siblings.  Don’t forget to put yourself in the picture.

tick tock, Mamas xxx

magic wand use for beginners

I only have eight minutes before my lunch break is over.  I’d have had more time to blog if I hadn’t walked way out of my way on a quest for Chocolate Covered Almonds (which I now regret for more reasons than just the one).

I only have one thought on my mind, after almost three weeks of working full time and caring for five children on my own -

How.  Do.  Working.  Mamas.  Do. It???

I know the title of this post promises much – it is more like an instruction for myself.  I need a magic wand, not to mention that nifty little spell that Hermione uses in Harry Potter that enables her to be in two places at once.

If you have any suggestions, words of encouragement or just sympathy – now would be good.

Where do the hours go Mamas?  xxx

baby magic

Hello Mamas!  I hope you’ve noticed the new look of the blog?  Just cleaned things up a bit really – I’m getting my house in order before launching myself into the world of full-time paid employment on May 3rd.  I have a temporary job working on a website for a university, which I’m quite excited about – as well as nervous at how I’ll go juggling caring for five kids on my own and commuting to work all day.   I figure that for two months I can do just about anything.

But enough about me.

I was just out at the shops and noticed how many babies there are at the moment.  I see them everywhere these days (even in my sleep)!  Good friends of mine who are far away in Nashville, Tennessee, have just had a baby girl, their first and the pics are adorable.

*Sigh*  I’m getting nostalgic (again) for those first baby days, the smell of a newborn baby – the wonder of a brand new face.  Remember that?  When every little burp and eyebrow twitch was special?

If you’re a lucky Mama like me you’ll remember soft days and softer nights – of gently picking up sweet hungry babies to feed and marveling at how easy it is to do -  for someone you love so much.

I call this the ‘babymoon’. 

I guess there are some hormones to blame for remembering the bliss and not so much the pain of birth and the sore insides afterwards, the leaking and the bleeding; the sudden flop of the belly and overexpansion of the breasts.   The tiredness, the feeling that you’ve just been hit by a truck.  Or your life has.

No, we remember the little onesies and tiny hats with curls peeking out beneath and the delicate waving hands and rows-of-corn-toes – the elation of that first smile, first tooth, first step.

It feels good to remember these things.  I thoroughly recommend it right now – as Mercury – the Divine Child of the pantheon – is retrograde in the sign of Taurus – a fertile and motherly sign.  Consider this a signal to think back on the early days of being a Mama – of what you enjoyed most about your babies.

Reconnect with the essence of who your children are and the initial joy of getting to know them.

Blessings, Mamas xxx