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Saturday, October 30, 2010

Sullivan- the great teacher


We are dealing with tragedy in our house. Although it is about one of our pets, I feel it is suitable for this blog as we are truly parents to our pets, and dealing with the lose of a pet challenges any parent of children, especially when it was so intertwined with the entire family.
Our beloved dog, Sullivan has always wandered. We are good parents, but in the eyes of many bad animal ‘owners” as we gave him freedom when he asked for it. After 3 years, people started to complain this year, and finally we started to keep him in.
Well, last Tuesday, he left again, he went up to a neighbour’s house and started to bark at their chickens, he called the dog catcher, who had him put down without telling us, and without the 36 required hours. Our boy was gone.
We didn’t hear what had happened until Friday morning. For 3 days, our children and us wondered where he was, called his name and searched. In the end we were assuming he had been lost to the coyotes.
So many emotions are flying through our house, anger at the injustice of it all, devastation for missing him, guilt for him being out, ponderings on whether we appreciated him enough. I haven’t cried so much in years, and our children barely know what to do for seeing us so distraught. They deal with it differently, one of our daughter’s has numbed herself with computer games and Little House in the Prairie reruns. For once we don’t say no. our other daughter mentions him often, dreams of him and cries a little. She tries to refocus on other things, to distract herself and I’m proud to see her focus on his spirit.
Yes his spirit. Good old Sullivan was a master creator, and a brilliant teacher. He came to teach us the power of love and he still teaches even in spiritual form.
Animals are pure positive energy, who never feel the resistance of fear or plans or attachment. They love, because they love. They run free and enjoy each car ride and each butter wrapper with all their might. They are pure love and feel no fear of death. Like all of us, their spirits are always moving towards the more. They grow and expand, look for that new adventure.
We got Sully as a pup. You have never seen such a lively pup, who just wanted to be part of the family. He never messed in the house, so we never needed to discipline him, he just lived, loved and explored. He savoured everything for 3 years. He never had a moment of real contrast. He went free, walked with the old ladies of the village, was loved by all.
When our youngest son was born last year, we knew Sully felt misplaced. He’d been our boy, but was suddenly being called our number one pet. It didn’t really bother him until this last summer when our son started to walk and be more active. Then the complaints started to come in and we had to limit his freedom.
These last few weeks we’ve noticed Sully wasn’t savouring his life as much as before, he stopped eating his pancakes and his plates of spaghetti. He begged to go out and sneaked off as often as possible. He then came back guilty and disconnected. Life for Sully stopped jiving. He decided it was time to move on.
Sunday we took a trip to the city, Sully in tow. He looked down and depressed. He sat on my lap as usual, but didn’t perk up at all over the course of the day. When we got home we found some chickens had been killed, which sent him crazy upset, looking everywhere for the culprit. I think he felt he had failed.
Monday night he took off for a really long time. We usually let him out at night as he never wandered in the dark. Just sat at his spot on the hill. But that night he was gone for a really long time, and we thought he was gone. When he came back, I sat with him, cuddled him, played with him. I told him we loved him so much and not to go so far.
Sully looked at me with those brown eyes and told me he had to go. He had to be free, to run and play. He kissed my feet that night, from under our blankets. He told me everything was alright. Then the next day he escaped, never to return.
It would be easy to paint Sully as a victim, but he was everything but. His life had been funfilled and full of love. He just needed a place to move on to. Sully could never had grown old, or suffer bad health, he would have hated to be penned in, which was the plan within the next few days, he saw his chance and created an out.
Sully is no longer restricted to his body or the world’s rules for dogs. I know he loves us still, and he stays with us always.
We deal with things differently as people. Our youngest daughter, who I mentioned talks about him and grieves for him often, is connecting to him on a different level. I have told her that I felt sully wanted to be her guardian angel, she can talk freely to him now, even imagine him with her everywhere she goes. He would like that I’ve told her. Our other daughter has said she can’t cry over it. I’ve let her distract herself with other things, but give her extra hugs and reassuring nods, knowing she is aching inside. My husband and I are devastated, talking and crying about it often, but coming to terms with his choice. This bothers our daughter, but I told her its like when you have a cut. You stick a band-aid on it and when you take it off it doesn’t look much better, but when you leave it to the fresh air, it heals quicker. Our discussion is only like fresh air as we work through stuff.
Myself. I still talk to him, softly call him when I walk to the car, as I put our son to bed, I imagine him in his usual space beside me on the bed, I imagine patting him, loving him and I hear him as he gently tells me, everything is alright. He is happy in his freedom but couldn’t ever really leave us. He loves us and one day will return. I tell him he now has to protect us from his new vantage point and then I tell him to get downstairs, to make his father feel better too.
Perhaps this post doesn’t belong here, but here it will stay. It is only to say that our animals are pure spirit, as we all are. Sully was a great teacher. He taught me to live in the now, to live life to the fullest, to love and to ‘be’. He was constantly allowing life to flow forth, without resistance. People think animals have little intelligence, they seem them as insignificant, as un-human. But animals are purer than us humans, they are always themselves without socialization, they always love and live in the moment.
Thank you Sully for all you’ve been to us, and I look forward to being with you in the now, where you will never be in the way, or cause embarrassment or slight frustration. I’m sorry if we cry occasionally for the illusion of you, the physical being we knew you as in the start, for the feel of your fur, the softness of your kiss, or just the sight of you on our sofa, but that will pass. I promise never to lose contact with Who You Really Are.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Cash for dance

Here’s a funny little parenting gem of a problem!
Our daughter has always wanted to take dancing classes. After years of looking around for a class that wouldn’t damage her self esteem and self image, we settled on a highland dance class, which turned out to have an amazing teacher and a great location. We were thrilled.
2 weeks in, our daughter decided she didn’t want to do it anymore. It was hard, she said, and she felt embarrassed. Meanwhile, we knew she hadn’t practiced and that it was only going to get worse unless we turned it around for her. I know she wanted us to tell her she could quit and quite frankly, we were tempted as it never feels good to force a child to do something against their will. It never works anyway, as if they don’t want to learn and it becomes struggle they won’t learn. However, as a homeschooling family we are aware of discipline and the temptation not to complete something and push yourself that extra mile. How do you find the balance between passing on a useful tool, such as self discipline and yet stay in that feel good place? If we had told her she could quit, we knew she wouldn’t feel good after. She would feel like she had failed and couldn’t do something she’d always had interest in. she would also feel that she had let us down as the classes had been paid upfront (which didn’t matter, but she would think it did)
After much thought we realized that the learning of self discipline was too important, and yet feeling encouragement and fulfilment in the class was important too. Having another incentive, a sweetener in the deal, became the logical next step. And so, against all parenting logic, but following our hearts, we told her if she completes the course, and practices daily with me, at the end of the term we will give her 15 dollars.
Her perspective soon changed, and we started to look for other positive aspects of the course that quickly made her feel better about the next 6 weeks. Not only that but her younger sister asked for a challenge and lesson in self discipline… for the cash of course.
Bribery is often frowned upon, but the truth of the matter is that for children it can give that extra incentive with a feel good edge. It inspires them to push themselves, and the satisfaction that they receive after is an extra bonus. It stops the Forced issue and makes it proactive.
Yes, I like bribery. It reminds them that at you always get something out of something and helps shift something that can become a spin factory, full of self esteem issues and self torture, to an inspired opportunity for growth.
So our daughter will be trying her hand at dance class this year, and by Christmas she’ll be able to buy herself something pretty as a reward.

Monday, October 25, 2010

To Control or Not to Control... no contest

One of the biggest challenges any parent faces is when a child does something we deem as unacceptable behaviour and the dreaded term “disapline” comes up.
Ugh, makes me shudder to think of it.
I’ve beaten around the punishment road a bit in my 8 years of being a parent. I’ve timed out, taken away, even spanked (gasped) in my low moments. What I’ve learnt, it doesn’t work and I’ll tell you why. It doesn’t feel good. It always feels Off and it always comes from a place of some super imposed feeling of doing what you think someone else would expect you to do. You know the voice, the one that demands your child acts a certain way to get along in society.
No matter what sometimes our kids do stuff that drive us crazy, however this is more than a simple case of “do what I tell you to, or else.” As a spiritual parent, we have to look at it wholly and give our kids a bit of understanding.
When our children do something… let’s use hitting for an example, it’s so easy to flip out, loose our cool and ream them, so they understand what they did was WRONG, that they were BAD. They need to act a certain way, and quite honestly that way is the way we tell them, right?
Um… well… hate to say it… but no.
For a moment, look at the situation from your kids perspective. Remember when you were a kid? Wasn’t it rare for you to intentionally and pre-meditatively go and hit someone?
Chances are, most of the time it’s a situation of a child feeling a little disconnected, things not going quite right, and him not keeping up to himself entirely, then Law of Attraction kicks in, he’s feeling a little more frustrated, than irritated, Life’s really pulling on him as he struggles for a better feeling place. Frustration builds, energy builds, someone comes along and just is like sand under his skin, more frustration, more irritation… than lash out. The other kid is suddenly crying and running to tell you what your kid did to him… Law of attraction still is building on your kid’s sense of disconnection. Then he’s in trouble, punished and his connection seems further and further away. Very rarely will a punishment ever help him find connection again. Personally, I can’t think of any instances.
There’s also the perspective of the parent. Are we asking our children to act a certain way in order to make ourselves feel better? When you break it down like that, does that mean that we actually try to make our children follow our voice rather than their own in order to follow the rules we instil?
It’s such a complicated issue. I know in my own day to day, things happen so fast between children, my knee jerk reaction is always to fix it fast, and instinctually fix it even against their will. It is so hard for me to pull back from that speed of light reaction and take a moment to focus on something else for 30 seconds, get grounded, feel better and work with our children from that perspective. I don’t know why I find it so hard though. After all, unless I feel better, getting into at least a hopeful state, rather than frustration or anger, unless I feel better, I don’t have the right words to say to them anyway, nothing hits home, and honestly, it usually seems they could have sorted it out without me.
Connection is where it is at. Not only for us as parents, but passing on these tools to our children too. We as parents have one job, feel good in order to be an example of someone who doesn’t react, but acts. If we have any other job it’s to pass on tools to our children to stay connected. To help them find themselves in those moments of frustration, before it escalates to hurting people. To help them find their way back to connection, even when they feel they’ve gone too far. There’s no point dwelling on what a child did, shouldn’t we dwell on better feeling options, what to do next time and how they feel now that it’s done?
Sure, I’m still trying to figure this one out. I clean our daughters’ room, just because I don’t want to throw myself out of a good feeling space and MAKE them do it. However, it feels good, SO GOOD, when they come and help, or do a few jobs without asking. Sometimes, I ask them to pick up stuff before they play. Bribery seems to work to keep us all jiving! But still, I have my melt downs sometimes. It’s my time of disconnection. I guess really in those times I can be an example of someone who tries to get back to connection as fast as possible.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Distracting with what's handy

What does a plastic ball, the lid of a box and a cup of tea have to do with the world of parenting? Well, I like to call it The Art of Distraction, and although it works almost all the time, sometimes it takes thinking like a toddler to actually distract your toddler.

As often as possible, since our son’s birth especially, I’ve practiced the art of distraction whenever he’s focused on something I think might be dangerous or when I have to interrupt his steady flow of exploration for some reason. I hate to see him cry, especially since I started seeing it as his indicator that he feels disconnected from his source. He burbles probably 75% of the time, with the incredible focus and radiating with connection to everything he is and then… his mom says no! Oh the tears, the flaring of limbs, its awful. Therefore, I only do it when there’s no other option, most of the time a simple distraction seems to do the trick. However as he gets older, his focus is sharper and really he keeps intent to his purpose, until we come up with something that suits him perfectly.
Today, he was eying my husband’s lighter, he saw what it could do, he wanted to test it out. Its very understandable. Making fire isn’t really high on the baby toy list and really is there anything more fascinating than a lighter, especially from a 16 month’s eyes.
When he was younger it was always just a question of pointing in the opposite direction, singing a little song, asking him to go to his swing, anything. But like I said, he’s older now and his intention is so strong. I love seeing it, really. He’s so clear on who he is and what he wants. Its just that lighters… well they fall into the category of whether or not he wants one, he just can’t!
But nothing would switch his mind over, we tried calling over the dog, we tried getting him a snack even singing a song… nope lighter, lighter, lighter!
As I sipped on my tea outside in our greenhouse a small white ball caught my husband’s attention and he showed it to our disinterested boy. Still lighter, lighter.
I then found the lid to the box, and proceeded to roll the ball around it, or throw the ball into it…. Lighter, lighter….
Well, desperate causes lead to desperate measures.
Soon drop by drop I poured a little cooled tea from my cup onto the ball in the lid. Our son’s eyes lit up. Could we have invented a very cool game?
A few drops more, he was in. He asked for the cup, and proceeded to pour, roll and observe. Lighter was put away with out a second thought, or a tantrum may I add.
For ages after, those three things provided great satisfaction. But pouring tea on a ball in a box? Whoever heard of such a thing!
Well it doesn’t matter if it will ever make it to the marketing department as the best toy of the year. All it did was meet our son’s requirements at the moment to satisfy his zest for exploring and testing things out. He’s going through a great stage of mixing things up, trying to put things in the computer printer or fit cables into fittings. He wants to know how things work and I can’t blame him. Its beyond his comprehension why lighters are kept away from him when they look so fascinating. To get mad at him or say No firmly would have just been telling him “some things you just aren’t allowed. Don’t question, do as I tell you.” How frustrating would that be? Frustration, leads to more disconnection, a continuing of painful experiences. Sure, maybe not as painful as a lighter could be, but he doesn’t know that.
No, I’d rather keep him happy. If I can’t give him what he says will make him happy I’ll show him a few things to give him options. And if a ball, a cup of tea and a box will keep him connected until the next frustration, well then so be it.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Article post

Just thought I'd start posting some articles I've written as they still haven't found a home.
Check out my Pages section to see them. I just posted one that I wrote about celebrating birthdays and celebrations with a young child.

thanks for reading.

Birthdays

Tomorrow is our eldest daughter’s birthday. She’s so excited.
However, with that excitement has come a lot of frustration and anxiety these past few weeks as well. What is it about birthdays or other special occasions that chuck us out of a feeling good space, when in fact they are suppose to be the other way around?
She’s a smart girl and over the last couple of days she’s looked at me and told me “I know I’m anxious about my birthday, so I need to distract myself.” What followed was movies and computer games. Not really jiving material, albeit distraction.
Of course, she was right, distraction is always the best route when something is stressing you out or chucking you out of feeling good. However, I tried to tell her, distract with appreciation and all will flow well.
But, no matter what, a child’s birthday is a bit of a fork in the road. I can sit here, and chuck myself out of my feeling good place, and get stressed at the idea of whether we made enough cupcakes for her swimming class or not, I can wonder if we bought her the right present and if she has seen it, or I can do as she’s done, distract myself, only take my own advice, and appreciate myself through the day. What better way than to appreciate the birthday girl herself.
I love the fact that she is grown up enough to take part in normal conversations and that her opinion counts, I love how she makes strong decisions, I love how strong-minded she is and how no one can tell her what to do, I love how she observes how she feels and knows when she needs quiet, I love how she is tall like her dad, and looks like me, I love how she dances, and how she sings, I love to see her in a flexible position reading, I loved to watch her talk the classics to her amazed grandmother and the fact that she’ll then turn around to watch preschool television shows, because she likes them.
I remember when she was born that tiny little bundle of pure positive energy, with her fingers so small her skin seemed too big for them. She was so sensitive that she refused to go back to her bed after they did the healprick test to her there. She slept in our arms, alternating between mine and my husband’s. I was in awe of motherhood and didn’t know what to expect. Yet she made it easy.
I love birthdays of our children. Sure I could focus on the spin it sends them through on the expectation and the almost lining up for disappointment, on the jealousy of siblings or the chaos. But my favourite thing to do on one of their birthdays, is to appreciate them and to remember them as Who They Are. I always take one of our children’s birthdays as a celebration for myself too, of where we’ve come together. It passes so quickly, through different phases.
Our son is just heading out of the stage where he needed me as The Provider, he’s now becoming the little explorer. But I know our eldest is heading from Little Girl to Big Girl. It now seems that Little Girl or Boy stage is the only time you have to set up the tools that matter. Already she seems to be using them and being in situations to use them rather than run to us for advice. It all passed so fast.
But she is doing exceptionally well. I guess we have 10 years at least, to stand by as she tries out her tools and maybe comes back to us for sharpening.
What a blissful rollercoaster ride it is.
Happy Birthday our first Baby.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Music and Feelings

I haven’t written a post for awhile, but I’m back and I want to tell you about the reason why I’ve been not writing for a week.
My husband, the king of my heart, is a songwriter/singer and we’ve been busy releasing his first single, The True Wonderland. Its now available on his website, CDBABY and to hear on YouTube.
But this is a parenting blog, and this post is still about parenting, have no fear.
A few weeks ago on The Mothering Magazine Facebook page, they asked the question “what embarrassing song does your child sing?” There were so many responses, about children singing inappropriate lyrics out loud, then other replies of attacks from parents who asked how those types of songs could be played around children so they learnt the words. The banter went back and forth but the focus stayed on the lyrics and whether children should only be allowed to hear Nursery Rhymes and Barney until they were 13.
Music is such a powerful medium. Songs go through our heads all day long, without our awareness half the time and the intention of the song plays over and over setting up our feeling of the day. Law of Attraction plays a part then and tunes in to the tune we play sort of speak.
My husband creates music that raises vibration. They make you feel Good, the lyrics are about appreciation, about being connected, about magic and Who We Really Are.
He’s been inspired and he truly feels the songs have written themselves. In the beginning he just started writing them for us, in order to have music to play in the car. When we became aware of the power of music, it became difficult to find music that left us with the feeling we wanted to feel all day. The girls had their Abba and that was iffy sometimes for vibrations!
Now, all they want to play is their dad’s songs. They know all the words and sing them all day long. Our 15 month old asks to go in the car just to dance about and hear it.

Today, our son was fussy. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. Finally, with his repeats of “da da” and going to the stereo I figured it out. I put it on in our daughters’ room and soon all three children were dancing and playing and from being a stressful day, relief was found. All three were connected again.
I find it amazing to watch them. We talk concepts of LOA, we talk ideas of feeling good, we talk creation of a day, but then put on a song and BOOM they comprehend it, they go straight to that place of burbling joy and they dance and play. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

It goes beyond lyrics. If a song is about Love, than as long as its about Love, and it resonates with love than no questionable lyrics will do any harm. However, no matter how “clean” the words are, if the song’s intention is negative, that’s what a child will react to and carry for the day.
Children work on feelings, not words. Music is a direct link to their feeling space and our house has never burbled with such happiness, or so much dancing, as it does now that this music’s been written.
And quite frankly there’s nothing embarrassing about hearing our children sing lines like:
“Longing for happy futures will never lead me to my goal, worry and disillusion will only keep me in my hole.”
Now, this isn’t PR (although if you want to check it out you can visit his website www.jefffletcher.ca) but I would love to cause an awareness to the power of music and the fact that the feeling of a song can affect our reality, our children’s reality, their perspectives, their feelings and their connection. Wouldn’t it be great if they grew up asking themselves before they put on any music “How will I feel after listening to this song, and is that how I want to chose how to feel?” As Spiritually aware parents, isn’t that an amazing tool to offer them? And wouldn’t it be great to look them squarely in the eye, and no matter what music we love to listen to, if they asked us why we love it we could always reply “because I love how it makes me feel?|”
What a profound statement that is, for all choices of entertainment. That is the way our son feels, you can tell. He can’t comprehend the lyrics, he loves the songs because of how they feel!
Now, I have to go. Jeff’s recording again! Tra la la!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

An example of LOA in a parenting scenario

Last night I was wondering what my next post would be about, when suddenly I “felt” Law of Attraction and parenting would be a good thing to cover. I remember pondering how I would write about it, thinking that a personal example would be good, and then just before drifting off to sleep, I offered it up to the Universe to tell me how to write about it.
Well then today happened… what a good intro to parenting with Law of Attraction.
I woke up groggy this morning. It’d been a late night working and I was woken up by a slight disagreement between the girls, I then stumbled downstairs and did the breakfast routine, but everyone seemed to have jangled nerves. Wait, rephrase that, I don’t know if they had jangled nerves or if I was just feeling off, so it jangled mine, but it seemed that everything and everyone required my attention at once. Our daughters wanted to tell me things, our son wanted to get into things he shouldn’t, animals needed to be let out, pancakes started to burn… total mayhem for my barely awake brain.
After breakfast was no better, our 15 month old son kept asking to go outside to play, usually I take him for a little walk, but this morning, my focus was shifted, I was lost in my stressed out thoughts, which seemed to escalate everytime he got into something. He then pointed to the car keys, he wanted to play in the car (which we sometimes allow when its parked up somewhere, he just likes to pretend to drive the steering wheel), suddenly the phone was ringing, one of our daughters needed me upstairs the other wanted my help writing a story. I told everyone I needed to put our son down for his nap, but he refused to settle…. More chaos, more chaos.
Finally, I realized what was happening, I was creating this chaos and it wasn’t going to get any better unless I did!
So, I set the girls up, telling them I just needed to fix my thoughts and change my feeling space, I grabbed our son and took him out to the car. In my frustration I moved a tub of apple sauce, and as I moved it, it splattered all over me. My husband stared at me in disbelief, there was no logical reason for me to get splattered. Rather, I was getting a huge indicator to change my Point of Attraction.
I sat there in the car and my husband joined me. Our son played at the wheel, emptying out pockets and the thing-a-ma-jig in the armrest. He tumbled out CD’s and wrestled with the crooklock, he even tried to put the key in the ignition. But none of it bothered me. All I could notice was how he was connected again. His frustration was gone, and he was up and running, with a pure signal. I watched him, appreciated him, played with him. We put on some music and he danced and sang. I sat back, and refocused away from all that chaos. Suddenly, in that moment, I woke up.
By taken my thoughts away from the chaos, it disappeared. By appreciating my son’s play, playing with him and staring in my husband’s eyes for a few moments, I relaxed. I ‘let my cork float’ and by the time the song was finished I was back to Feeling Good.
After that, I had a lovely day. Sure our son didn’t settle for a nap until 4pm, but it was lovely having him awake. I put some music on upstairs and we danced together, he even learnt how to kick. Our daughters joined us and really, it all turned out a simply lovely Saturday afternoon.
Sure, it might have turned out alright even if I hadn’t changed my point of attraction, but the question is, even if it had, from my chaotic mind, from my place of frustration, would I have noticed the turn around? Or would I have focused on a small thing that would annoy me. Chances are, I would have, because that was where I was vibrationally. It wasn’t until I made the shift that I was able to see things from a different light.
So there you have it. A bittersweet example of Parenting with awareness of the Law of Attraction.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Appreciation- short cut to feeling good.

I think a good first post is to talk about appreciation. Appreciation is a family affair for nothing will take you faster from being Connected to your spirit than appreciating something for any moment in time. It’s important to teach our children about appreciating things in their lives, just as it’s important for us as parents to appreciate in order to raise our feeling space and get connected. (Connected is another word for what Abraham would call being in the vortex, it is when you are keeping up with all you really are.)

Appreciation is slightly different from Gratitude. I say slightly different, but that difference makes all the difference. When you think of those two words you will notice that Gratitude feels like thanks to someone, there’s an element of being indebted to someone or something else, while Appreciation sweeps over you as a feeling of blissful surrender.
I’ve taught both gratitude and appreciation to our children. When they were small I told them to start saying “Thank you God’s” at night before sleep. It worked wonderfully for awhile, but I soon noticed that the words became static. “Thank you God for my family, thank you God for my cat, Thank you God for my bed….etc.” The list seemed to grow and grow as they looked for more things to be thankful for, but the feeling of thankfulness seemed to diminish before the end of the first week. Now I’m not saying that its not important to be Thankful, but God doesn’t need words, rather it works on feelings, or vibrations, and that’s where appreciation comes in. Appreciation can be focused on one thing, even the smallest thing, and when we put our focus on it, the feeling grows and grows to the point of overtaking us.
Like I said, it doesn’t have to be a big thing. Sometimes the smallest thing works the best. For instance, I LOVE to appreciate that first sip of my morning tea. I savour it, roll it around my mouth and truly let it be tasted down to my toes. I have a tree that’s outside our bedroom window, I appreciate it every morning as the wind rustles its leaves. I appreciate my children’s laughter as I hear them playing together in the next room.

I was watching our son today and actually appreciated the way he appreciated! He’s 15 months, and as someone who is usually connected, with occasional disconnected moments (the screams, the tantrums, the fits when he’s disconnected!) he lives in a state of appreciation. He savours every bottle cap, thrills at every taste of ice cream, nothing goes taken for granted. What an example. His connection to his spirit is amplified by every moment of appreciation. Surely that’s what it’s meant to be like. Connected… amplified, connected amplified. As he grows he’ll have more moments of disconnection, but I will always be able to ask him to appreciate something, to draw him back to that wonder. That is something to appreciate too.

So from now on I tell our daughters to appreciate fully. On an off day, I ask them to pick one thing, even a toy, their bed, their pillow... anything. Sometimes they let it flow over them and their day is turned on again. Its a tool, hopefully one that will last them the rest of their lives.