Eastward Bound

Well, we were up at 5AM as promised.  I hadn't taken in to consideration the fact no one sleeps well the night before vacation.  The kids were restless with excitement and I, fresh off of packing, had a major case of monkey mind.  The good news is that I was completely packed, carry on's and all by 9:00 PM.  I made my goal of having everything packed 24 hrs. ahead of time.  We take off at 10:00 tonight.


As always, the best laid plans always need room for a couple of surprises.  The biggest surprise is that we are now taking a side trip to the Washington DC area after landing in Baltimore.  We are scouting out the area for a possible relocation opportunity that could present itself this Fall.  So, if you have any wonderful suggestions on how to entertain a family of 5 exhausted Tacomans in 100 degree weather for 5 hours or so before we can check into our hotel in Virginia, PLEASE send them my way.


John and I plan to wear the kids out with a long bike ride and a playground romp so that we can fit in a loooong afternoon nap.  We hope to wake as late as possible and pretend that it is morning all over again.  Most nights, having children that are sleeping by 8PM is a very good thing.  Tonight, I hope they can wear their night owl caps for a little while - at least until take off.

Here is to the adventures of family travel!  Back in 10 days.

The Best Advice, The Worst Advice

Parenting is complicated.  Figuring out what works best for your children and family is a very individual and personal thing.  In the past 9 years I have been given and been asked to give a lot of parenting advice.  Some advice was great and I use it to this day.  Other advice made me cringe as I knew I couldn't follow it.  Some, while great advice for other mothers, didn't feel right to me.  Here are my top 5's.

Worst Advice:


1.  Soothe a baby by dipping their pacifier in sugar 
     such and obvious no
2.  Drive your baby until they fall asleep
     Sleep deprivation and driving are not a good partnership
3.  Create an elaborate night time ritual to ease your child to sleep
     Now I have to give a bath, read books, and sing songs EVERY TIME I want my child to sleep!
4.  Have boys pee on a Cheerio to help potty training 
     This works for a lot of people.  Putting food in the toilet and telling your child to pee on it grosses   me out.
5.  Let the child decide when they are ready to go to sleep
     My children have decided that they are never ready


Best Advice


1.  Make good use of the Logical Consequence
2.  Take care of yourself
      If mother is unhappy, children are unhappy (Thank you Maura!)
3.  When you feel an adult tantrum coming on, give YOURSELF a time out.
4.  Swaddle!!!
5.  Graciously accept help.     
     It took me 3 children to finally do this without feeling like a failure.  I wish I hadn't waited.


What are the best and worst pieces of parenting advice you have received?

A little more quiet, a little more clarity

I was born with a bit of a philosopher's soul.  Sometimes this is a good thing, other times it is a liability.  When I have time to channel it in a positive way, I use yoga, meditation, and running to find calm and make sense of my world.  When I allow my instincts and explorations to take a wrong turn, I turn into analytical crazy person.  I still go running, but here is where I end up:


How will I parent my spirited child without having a nervous breakdown? Will I have enough enrollments to fill my Kindermusik classes?  Why can't I do handstand for more then 4 seconds?  What preschool should Liam attend?  What is the perfect backsplash for our (still) unfinished kitchen?  Will I ever have my pre-Liam figure back?  How can I cut back on processed soy?  Should we get a new puppy?  Boxing or Step class?  Can I give myself the perfect home pedicure?  How can I increase my running time?  Should I even try to increase my running time?  How can I save money on our grocery bill?  Should I go back to work?  Do the kids need to be in private school?  Should I open a bagel shop?  Where should we go on our next family vacation?  


And so it goes, on and on and on.......maybe you can relate.

This past winter I picked up Mark Nepo's "The Book of Awakening" from one of my favorite places on the planet, Source Yoga.  The tag line for the book is "Having the life that you want by being present to the life you have".  Sounds good, right?  It is.  It also sounds a little new agey and Buddhist inspired.  If you too are trying to embrace non-judgement - shame on you for thinking so.  And then, shame on me for judging your judgement.

What I love about this book,  outside of the inspired writing and insight, is the format.  It is broken up into short 1/2 - 2 page passages.  The readings are meant to be used to provoke daily contemplation and meditation.  I can read them while the kids are finishing up breakfast and it gives me something to think on while I clean the dishes afterwards.  On a good day, I carry it through my day.  Yesterday was such a day.

Having gotten off track and missed many days of reading (okay months), I stumbled on a passage today that stayed with me from breakfast to bedtime.  The general message was that we too often hold ourselves back by clinging to something that doesn't serve us.  Be it a relationship, a dream or a perception, these attachments often bring grief and paralyze growth.  How much time do we waste clinging to something that doesn't serve us?  As you can see from the clutter above, I waste quite a bit.  This is not new information to me, I have taken a step back to look at this many a time.  Sometimes, having the same information presented in a different light makes all the difference.  If you could use some help in de-cluttering your head, check it out.


What things do you spend to much time analyzing?  What do you do to clear out and keep yourself sane.

Musical Bingo

We are back in Tacoma after a wonderful escape to Hoodsport.  Beautiful weather, a back drop of the Olympic Mountains and fabulous friends to share it with.  I hope that all of you fellow Northwesterners who have been impatiently waiting for summer to arrive had a spectacular weekend as well.

After 3 days of being outside in the sun, I am getting some indoor activities ready for the kids today.  They will be less then thrilled to learn that one of those activities is being dragged to the gym so that I can get my workout in.   Hopefully, some down time making their own musical bingo board will soften the blow.  


My children, like most, LOVE board games.  They also like putting their own personal touches on things.  I was looking for a way to drill musical notation.  So, musical Bingo it is.  Today our ficus will be pitch names, but this will work well for rhythmic notation too (note value and rests).  I decided to start on a very basic foundation - the C scale.   Here is the game

1. Each child will be given a blank Bingo sheet of 20 squares
2. The player creates his own board by writing one the notes of the C scale:  C, D, E, F, G , A or B in each box
3. The caller (parent) notates the randomly selected letter on a large grand staff (search google and print if you don't have one)
4. regular laws of Bingo ensue

After each game, the players will have the opportunity to play their bingo composition for the other players.

For younger Children:

Option One:
My Liam (3) is too young to learn musical notation (though he will pick some up through exposure).  Instead, he will just focus on letter writing and recognition.  We will still use the letters of the c scale.

Option Two:
For toddlers, create an auditory bingo with animal pictures and sounds.  Create a pictorial animal board and enlist the internet for real life sounds of favorite animals.  This activity is great for sound recognition, a basic musical skill.

Play On!

Happy Travel for Adults, Part 2

In the past week, I have taken some time to start thinking about how I can prepare myself for the exhaustion and stress of travel.  Like many, my travel plans are closely linked with finances.  Accordingly, I often find myself starting my vacation either flying a red eye, or with some ridicuolously long layover in a hub several hours in the wrong direction of my final destination.  Sometimes, in a worst case scenario I am stuck with both of the above.  Unable to stomach the idea of flying from Seattle to Atlanta and then to Philadelphia, we went with the flight red eye this time around. 

We all know that sleeping on a plane is not really sleeping at all.  Therefore, it should be  looked at only as a bonus.   I cannot function on less then eight hours of sleep.  I am cranky, depressed and irritable.  Not a great way to start a vacation.   This leads me to my first step in happy travel preparations: 

Rest well PRIOR to travel. 

Normally, I begin packing and getting myself ready for an upcoming trip well before I need to.   Yet, I always have a million “last minute” things to do that leave me frazzled right up until take off.  Everything snowballs from there.  I don’t sleep well the night prior.  So,  I drink to much coffee and I don’t make time for a healthy meal.  Funny, those things are all directly related my travel discomforts:  Exhaustion, irritability, dehydration and physical discomfort.

My practical and boring solutions:

Get an extra hour of sleep each night the week prior to travel.

Limit caffeine

Drink lots of water

Make nutrition a priority

Have EVERYTHING packed 24 hours prior to travel.

 I will need even more sleep that the extra hour.  For that matter, so will my children.  My husband will do fine without the extra sleep, but he will have to get up and suffer with the rest of us.  Therefore, we are waking up early the morning of our flight.  We will probably wake up by 5 AM so that we will be able to take a long nap in the late afternoon.  When we finally settle in upon arrival, we will not have any plans other then to nap, visit, read, watch movies and lounge.  This is particularly hard for me.  I would much rather jump in to our vacation.  But, it can wait until one day.

Coming soon:  Part 3, finding comfort in flight.

Embracing Failure and Letting Go

Sometimes, who we would like to be and who we authentically are don’t jive.  Sometimes, these two people can’t even be friends.    Last night, my two petty, jealous rivals came to a standoff.  It all went down at my sewing machine.

10 years ago, I bought my first sewing machine.  I was fresh off of my honeymoon and spending the summer living in Alaska.  I traveled to Anchorage with my two dogs to be with my husband who was on a 5 month assignment for work.  I was thrilled.  Having taken a leave of absence from my job, and found myself with nothing but time.  Being a newly wed, I decided to dive into the domestic.   I didn’t actually know how to sew.  But, being the creative type, I figured that I would catch on quickly.  As you may have guessed given the title of this post, I didn’t.

Looking back, I can see that I made many mistakes along the way.  I had no interest in taking a sewing class.  So, instead I bought books (ha, ha).   I also bought my sewing machine based on the way it looked rather then what I needed it to do as a novice.  So, my cute, vintage, singer machine and I spent many tense hours together.  I can’t remember what I actually created that summer.  I think that there were a few acceptable dog pillows that came out of it.  I certainly didn’t create the bedding or alter and repurpose clothing the way I had envisioned.  Mostly, I just felt defeated and frustrated.

I took a break from sewing for a year or so.  But after my daughter was born, I tried again.  This time I had visions of designing baby clothes.  I would save so much money and Amelia would have one of a kind dresses.  I had so many great designs in my head.  Again, this didn’t work out so well.  So, I took another break.

4 ½  years into my abusive relationship with my Singer (I was the abuser), I was convinced that the machine was the problem.  If sewing wasn’t coming naturally for me, it wasn’t my fault.  Impulsively, I went out and bought a new machine.  With it, I brought home the dreams (and fabric) for a new set of bedding for Amelia.  I owed her for 4 years of suffering without handmade dresses.  Many late nights, do-overs and tantrums later, I actually finished this project.  I felt validated.  I tried sewing clothes again.  It was a bust.  And so it went on like this for the next 4 years.

With 10 years of practice, I figured that a simple project like sewing a child’s busy bag for next weeks airplane venture would be a snap.  I had years ago learned my lesson about jumping in to a project too soon.  I carefully made a pattern, measured, ironed and set myself up for success.   The result:  a gigantic flop.

On the bright side of this 10 year struggle, I am now, finally at peace with my lack of skills.  For me, sewing represents a lot more then just a skill.  I think that women who sew are the epidome of domestica.  If you are an accomplished seamstress, give your self a pat on the back.  You are perfection.  I wanted a little of that for myself.  But, spending 20 hours and $40 on an Easter dress that Amelia can NEVER wear (peak-a-boo neckline) does not make me happy.  I would much rather spend my time and money shopping with her for the perfect dress.   I can’t make it.   There are many things on the domestic front that come naturally to me.  I am a terrible sewer.   I am not a sewer.  It just wasn’t meant to be.  There is a great freedom in letting go.

Have you ever tried to be good at something that just wasn't good for you?  Did you let it go, or are you still struggling?

Happy Harmonica's

Liam jams with Grandpop

Summertime is perfect for the many joys of the harmonica.  In the dead of winter when all of the windows are shut and the walls are closing in, this may not seem like a desirable addition to your home.    The Summer is a much better fit.   What is more adorable then a toddler playing the harmonica around the camp fire? 

Harmonica’s are a great first instrument for small children.  Without their even knowing it, kids learn so much.  They teach some of the early principles needed for learning woodwind or brass instruments like breath control.  Most children use the instrument to create patterns and explore rhythm.  And, best of all, they are small,  don’t break, are affordable, and are easily cleaned.    

For you local Tacoman’s check out Ted Brown.  Otherwise, they can be found at most large music retailers or online at Amazon.

Happy harmonizing!