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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The At Least Game... and a lot of Mud.

Spring has sprung and with it comes one of our daughters’ favourite seasons- Mud pie season.
Around here mudpies are not a simple act of making mud into patties and letting them dry- oh no- the Fletcher mudpies have become an art, a science and it can take a few hours, nay, a few days to have the desired effect achieved.
Pie crusts have to have the right firmness, “chocolately” glop has to have the right consistency and the froth, a mixture of soap and water stirred, shaken and concocted has to have a meringue effect to be sufficient. Its been developed by our 2 girls over the last 4 years and it was with a heavy heart last fall that I put away the various assigned buckets and containers. At 8.5 and 7.5 I thought that by spring, mud pies would be a thing of the past, and they would have out grown them. But no sooner had the first rays of the spring sun shone, that they were at it again, with an air of satisfied contentment and looking muddier then ever. I love to see them at it.

This year marks a change. At 20 months our little boy has gotten the bug too. Nothing thrills him more then pouring and stirring and it was with elated glee that he joined his sisters, each with their own bucket and pie experiment. For their father and I we watched with pride and joy as, somehow, age differences had been bridged and a new bonding had occurred, even if it was over, lets just say it, mud. Blissful, delightful, and ever so goo-ey, mud.

But after near enough a week of muddy bliss, the glee was broken today when I heard our younger daughter give a panicked yell to her brother and then screams from our son.
Her precious mudpie had been taken over by him and he had poured the content of his bucket on top of her newly finished work of art.
As she said “it went from a masterpiece to a disaster piece” in a blink of an eye.
In her panic, our boy had been scared and fallen over. Broken hearted our daughter ran upstairs, devastated. She felt we thought she’d upset him on purpose. She thought her sister thought she’d pushed him and she mourned her mudpie. On top of it all, she’d tripped and was filthy.
At first glance, I got a wave of frustration, thinking “all this is over mud! She’s upset her brother and I’m dealing with numerous tears, over MUD!”
But after taking a moment to set our boy back up, after seeing what a mess her project was now, I was reminded that at 7, art is art in any form and when we create, it is heart breaking to see it destroyed.
I went upstairs to find our girl, face down on her bed.
I hugged her close and told her she had every reason to be upset. She told me how she felt, what had happened, what she thought we thought, and how everything had gone wrong.
“Yes, absolutely.” I reassured her “it happened and you, by all logic, should feel upset and mad. But now what?”
Tears came again as she felt so awful and couldn’t see a way out. She also knows about the Law of Attraction. She’s been raised to be aware of how she feels and knows that from this place of upset, happy outcomes were unlikely results.
“Looks like its time for some At Leasts.” I suggested.
The At least game is something our younger daughter and I invented. Basically when you feel bad, simply find a few sentences beginning with the words At Least and things won’t seem as bad.
Suggesting this at this point, I was expecting some resistance, some pleas and cries of “I can’t!” But that girl… she doesn’t feel the need to hang around in a feeling space she doesn’t like. There’s no feeling of riding it out. Sometimes when our children are so much stronger then ourselves.
“At least my crust will still be alright. It wasn’t that much water.” She said brightly.
“And at least his water will make it gooier once I pour it off.”
“And at least,” I added “we’ll give you more soap so you can make an even better topping.
She didn’t even look back as she dashed downstairs to start again. A few minutes later she said with pride it was better then ever.


And our son, he was given a few extra buckets… just in case.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Comprehending beyond words

Although I’ve known it for a long time, it’s sometimes hard to remember that children, babies, in particular, comprehend by our intentions. They understand us by what we are feeling, and feelings don’t lie. We can be saying positive and uplifting things, but if underneath those words are covering up feelings of frustration and anxiety, our children will be wondering what’s the matter with us.
On the same token, we can understand our children by what they are emitting on an energy level.
This was so obvious last night.
Yesterday, our son seemed off . He cried easier, and life seemed to be overwhelming. He wasn’t focused on his play as he usually is and all in all, I thought it best to take him to bed early to see if it would help.
When I took him up, he didn’t ask to go to bed as he usually does by climbing on the bed, pulling the covers over himself and then patting the space beside him for me to join him. (He still hasn’t started talking yet. At 20 months he’s our latest talker, and we feel it’s simply because we all understand him so well anyway, he doesn’t need words.)
Rather, he went and hid behind the bed, his way of asking me to play peek abo. I started to play, half distracted by other things I needed to get done, but slowly our son called me back to myself. Slowly, I found that present, in-the-moment feeling where we could connect.

After about 15 minutes, our little boy climbed on the bed and decided to read with me. We got his book about cars and trucks and he kept turning to the pages of backhoes and loggers. Thru his actions, he expression and his determination to show them to me, I got the feeling that he was sincerely frightened by them, which affects him greatly as where we live, we see these on a regular basis.
Although he doesn’t talk I reassured him that if he stayed with us and didn’t touch the trucks, he was safe. I told him there was nothing to worry about, but validated his concern by saying it was best to stay with us or in the car. I then distracted him away from it, by reading him a pretty book about winnie the pooh. His dad came up to say goodnight, and immediately our son grabbed the car book and pulled it open to the pages with the backhoes and loggers. (as a side note, I love watching his serious face as he flips through pages of a book. He looks so lovely, it makes my heart beat double time.)
His dad talked to him about how they worked. Showed him where the driver sat, and that they needed a driver to work, and that no matter what we would keep him safe.
Our son looked at us relieved, snuggled down beside me and went to sleep, happy, safe and content.

The next morning he was himself again. He played with gusto, and was grounded and focused.

He hadn’t said a word, but by taking the time to read his feelings and his subtle ways of expressing himself we’d gained insight to what was throwing him off. And all from starting off from getting to a better, more in tuned, place by playing with him a bit.
Some joy equalled more joy… at that average, I think I’ll play even more often.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

A little Magic


Anyone who knows us well knows that we’ve kept goats on our small farm for about 4 years. It’s been a wonderful experience, amazing for the children and a huge learning curve.
Our goat keeping took a turn last month. Our beautiful doe, Maggie, who was our first, was pregnant and overdue. Finally, after 3 days of labour, she gave birth. The first was breach and died after a few breaths, the second came sideways and was rushed into our daughters to be taken care of and the third was stillborn. Not my usually upbeat post, right? Sorry.
Well, we thought the worst was over, “Magic”, the sole survivor, was taken back to his mother for a few minutes, and they cuddled and cooed together.
It was a beautiful thing to watch and as a woman and a mother I felt a strong instinct to let them have their time together. Where there is death there is life and to see them together seemed to give Maggie strength and we knew the birth had been hard on her. However, Magic had to be kept warm and Maggie couldn’t get up, so we brought him in for the night, promising Maggie she would see her son in the morning.
But life took a turn when the next morning we found Maggie had passed on, leaving her one remaining son, alone in the world.
From the prospect of having a milking goat with little kids running around, we found we had a little buck, solely dependant on us. It was a farming disaster on a logical place. We kept goats for the milk, and now we had to buy milk to keep goats. Well, we aren’t farmers really, whereas most farmers would have probably done away with the little fellow, we brought down our son’s crib (he’s a full time co-sleeper so didn’t need it) and for the last 3 weeks we’ve had a house goat. He slept with our daughters for the first week, cuddled in their arms for body heat, he became house trained, and played with all of us, all day long.
What could have been seen as a disaster of a plan gone wrong, in fact turned into a little miracle, who’s taken away the pain of our dog’s passing last fall. Joy and fun has filled the house again and we all are experiencing the greatest appreciation for little Magic.

But then the inevitable happened. Magic thrived. He went from the dependent infant to the little explorer who chased at our heels, to the bigger playful explorer, who at a month old stood taller then our little boy.
Magic started to look for further explorations, moving upstairs, knocking over laundry or garbage, chewing on papers and almost knocking over our 20 month old son.
The girls wanted to keep him in the house always (it has been known before) and actually take him with us on our road trip this summer but suddenly it seemed we were holding him back. He didn’t have that same sparkle in his eyes, in fact he seemed to be resenting us.
And so, yesterday, Magic moved out to the barn. There he had his Aunt and his half brother and sister. Suddenly he found out he was indeed a goat!! He was excited and bounced and played about, running as fast as he could.

If you go outside and call his name Magic comes running. He’ll follow you everywhere. We still give him his bottles 3 times a day and each time he’ll nestle in your arms, his nose under your chin. But he is happy in his new vantage point. He loves his new family, and he loves us still, probably more now since we’ve given him freedom.

Why am I telling you this long winded story?
Its taught me a valuable lesson about parenting, and although this experience has only been within a month, I find that at a slower pace, lasting years, my parenting of children will mirror the experience (minus turning them out to the barn, or them chewing paper… needless to say.)
If we had held on to Little Magic, determined to selfishly hold him in the place of dependency, having enjoyed his infancy so much, it would have gone wrong. He would have rebelled, and gotten angry, creating more havoc, we would have gotten frustrated and anxious. By trying to hold on to something that was bringing us joy we would have prevented the “new”, the new joy, the new adventure, the new moments, not only for ourselves but for Magic as well.
We tend to think of letting our children grow and expand all at once when they turn 18 and move out, when it really is a slow step by step process as we let them grow from babes in arms to little explorers to toddlers seeking independence, school children expressing themselves and so on. Each moment in our children’s lives are opportunities to find the “new”.
So although we miss our little infants, who depend on us to provide everything, we can enjoy their new discoveries and adventures. When we support their joys and look for ways to help them follow their bliss, we get the satisfaction of watching them thrive and leap for joy. And then, like Magic, even when they’ve grown, they will still run to us, happy to be back in our arms, knowing that when they want us to, those arms will be opened to let them explore again.