We've been too swamped to blog.

Literally and figuratively! (we have some water damage in the basement playroom when the snow got banked too high on the south side of the house. Its not as bad as we first thought but my beautiful lazured room is getting all new drywall and a new floor! *sniff*).

BUT I must post the great freecycle gift we got - giant 30cmx30cm alphabet puzzle tiles! We made a rug with them that COVERS the floor in the kid's room and we started by making it into a family name word search.

Now Nature Girl and I have started playing letter "simon says" on it and a sort of word version of twister. Wild Thing is pretty resistant to any writing of his name etc, but he loves the puzzle aspect of this (the individual leters pop out of the tiles) and is getting everything squared away in his brain about how the letters should look to go into the puzzle.

Parenting Boards and Insomnia and Enki Education

Somebody, who will remain nameless, woke me up with their snoring and now I can't get back to sleep.

I started off reading my old Enki Education Teacher's Guides - warm, familiar, overwelming nourishing and dense reading - should help me sleep...but no, they got me all riled up for some reason.

So I came down here and fished around on Google for Enki and Waldorf related blogs and discussions. So much good stuff out there as well as a whole lot of anxiety about how to do it "right".

PLEASE PEOPLE RELAX - the most important thing is a NATURAL home rhythm! Get rooted, get centred, SLOW WAY DOWN and focus on your breathing, in - relax - out - pause - in - relax - out - pause. That is what it is all about. Not the right toys. Not the perfect story. Not the right recorder. It is all about breathing in a relaxed and natural fashion.

If you don't think that is important, talk to someone who is anxious, or worried, or scared, or is suffering post traumatic stress syndrome.

I found the secret to overcoming it, and it isn't pharmaceutical. It's all in the diaphragm. It is feeling the anxiety climb up and pushing it back down with a good deep breathe that lets your diaphragm fall down to your navel. Pause before you breathe out again.

Let it spread out from your breathe to touch everything else in your home. Let your breathe guide your parenting, guide you through homeschooling - intake, pause, outtake.

Darkmirror Got His Wisdom Teeth Out

DAY ONE

DAY TWO

TURNING THE CAMERA ON MOM WHO HASN'T BRUSHED HER HAIR YET TODAY, WHAT WITH ALL THE NURSING GOING ON!

One of the best thing about toddlers

Is their undying desire to help you do EVERYTHING!

Sprout dragged over the stepstool, opened the dishwasher, took out a dirty knife. grabbed my carrot tops and helped me chop carrots.
.


When Nature Girl took over to add maple syrup and cumin he grabbed a bowl and spoon (and an offered pinch of cumin) and mixed up his own dish.

We really haven't mastered rounds yet, but he is DETERMINED.

Happy Valentines Day from my flock to yours!

Our morning started as usual, with a pileup in the livingroom. (Darkmirror is still asleep)

We were then visited by a huge flock of Bohemian Waxwings! I couldn't get great photos ...hmmmm need fabulous ZOOM lens next.

Some waxwings closer up.

Then I gave them my valentines gift - a flock of lovebirds, which, given our visitors soon were renamed Bohemian Lovebirds.

This is why we stayed up all night last night

This is Nature Girl "gone away behind her eyes". We hope it is daydreaming, but it might be absence seizures. Enough people have noticed them (besides me) that it was decided we needed an EEG to rule them out.

This was about 3 seconds after I took the first picture.


I'm not sure how I feel about this. I got used to the ADHD label, we're coping with the dyslexia and dyscalcia and her intense school performance anxiety.

While EPILEPSY is a really scary word most kids outgrow these things. You don't outgrow ADHD.

Maybe this would be better?

I really just want an emotionally healthy kid.

I'm returning to add a few more pictures - the picture above was taken while Nature Girl was unwrapping her Christmas stocking gifts. Most of the pictures I have of her like this are during events that are engaging - and I have the camera out for them! Part of the test to say "this is daydreaming" is that it happens when the child doesn't feel engaged in what they are doing. This was during her 4th birthday party


Hamming for the camera as usual.


Gone behind her eyes.


2 seconds later she's back but a bit confused.

I am so happy to see a "star" promoting breastfeeding this way!

Why? Because breastmilk is an infant's RIGHT. Because we have two breasts and are social creatures and we are meant to nurture not only our own babies but those in our community.

Salma is facing purient criticism for STILL NURSING but she is bucking AMERICAN culture and staying true to herself, her child and her cultural memories - Because extending nursing is NATURAL AND NORMAL AND NOT A CRIME

What to do about February According to Sprout

Say NO to the 100 mile diet!!!

In fact...don't just say NO! THROW IT ALL TO THE DOG!!!!!

Wear orange and eat orange foods.


Eat oranges.



Eat tomatoes every way you can, especially in homemade tomato soup..

What to do about February according to Wild Thing

Read Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven.





Make your own sun bread, be patient while it rises.



Eat your sun bread.

Oh yeah, and wear lots of hats.

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal.

In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are we make them worse.

If we treat them as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

-Goethe

Snow Day Shenanigans

pasta fingertips sound like skeleton bones

Wild Thing post speech therapy. Our therapist comes to our house to keep it natural. She always leaves us with toys and fun games....and most are pirate or dinosaur related.

Old Man Winter and his trusty sidekick Jack Frost

I have lost count of snow days, we've had that many.

I think it's been about 4 a month?

No snow is falling yet, I'm waiting for 30 cm of snow - blowing snow.

This is the size of yurt we're making this summer

It fits the size requirements for booths at the farmer's market and the kids can use it year round for camping.

Prayer flags in the woods

Sprout prefers eating snow to sledding

Wild Things most excellent wipeout

Because helmets are cool

and Nature Girl has already hit her head on a tree while sledding.

More from inside Wild Thing's head...

"I want to listen to the scary monster music that goes yeah! yeah! yeah!"

I have no idea what he is talking about.

"Did you hear it upstairs or downstairs?"

Upstairs, I rule the cd player and it could only come from my folk collection, or from the various classical for kids cds that Nature Girl is fond of. Downstairs it's Darkmirror's domain and it could be anything from Viking metal to Gwar, to Lemon Demon to Tom Waits - I'm LOST. I figure he's going to say downstairs and I'll have to sit him down with Darkmirror and YouTube to find something Ork related.

"Upstairs."

"Really???!!!! Was it scary music and no singing or was there singing? He's been on a Tchaikovsky kick lately because he likes nutcrackers and the music from Swan Lake is mixed into that too and he finds that kind of dark and scary.

"Boys and girls singing and their arms go up and down"

I have no idea what he's talking about but I look through the cds I know we've had out in the last week. Maybe it's the three Billy Goats gruff song on The Bottle Let Me Down - an awesome folk collection for kids. No, no trolls.

Finally I put the cd on and go through it opening verse by opening verse.

....


.......



.........

It's the Chipmunks - The Chipmunks are scary monster singers.


It figures, my pirate obsessed little Wild Thing thinks Littlest Pet Shop toys are the scariest thing on the planet. CREEPY BOBBLE HEADS. My boy who lovingly strokes a hunan skull with an arm from a human skeleton while visiting the osteopath is frightened by the Chipmunks.

Forest Kitchen Shining through the Snow

Inside the yurt...

I love my friends, this is my community!

Pushing back the darkness at Little Foot Yurts