Another Contest!

Kim the owner of thebabymarketplace.com - a great online spot for Baby Clothing, Shoes, Toys, Gifts and Cloth Diapers is hosting the January Gift Card Give-Away @ mommyknows.com go on over and comment and be entered to Win one of two $100 Gift Cards!

Contest!!!

Kim the owner of thebabymarketplace.com - a great online spot for Baby Clothing, Shoes, Toys, Gifts and Cloth Diapers @ is hosting the December JuJuBe Diaper Bag Give-Away @ mommyknows.com go on over and comment and be entered to Win one of two great JuJuBe MiniBe Diaper Bags!

This Is Getting Ridiculous

I'm not kidding when I say that EVERYday I get another email from the Consumer Product Safety Commission about more and more children's product recalls. For the first time today the alert contained information about a toy we have in this house. The Curious George doll that has been recalled is one that was given as a gift to Jack for his second birthday. It will certainly be a delicate process to extract it from him because he LOVES George. But all of my kids are very aware of all of the recalls and Annie is checking everything to see where it is made - and if it is made in China she is convinced it must be thrown out and burned in the fiery furnace of toy death.

I am getting so overwhelmed about all of these concerns, especially with a new baby on the way. I feel as if I should be making all homemade toys for the baby. None of my kids really put things in their mouths any longer but a baby most certainly will. As if there isn't enough to worry about with kids...now their toys are poisonous. OY!

We're Famous!

Here is a link to a video to a local newscast about lead levels in toys that all three kids and I are in. You just see Jack briefly in the beginning but he is there! The girls actually speak and I have a short sound byte at the beginning. Pretty exciting. Just click on the picture and the video will start!

Oh and if you'll notice I already missed a day of blogging yesterday...ah well, I'll keep trying!

Soccer and Life

Today was the girls second to last soccer game. They play on a local team and Alex is their coach. They have been doing really well all season but today they lost 7-0. As I sat around listening to them after the game I had to laugh. They were exclaiming very loudly "they got seven and we had ZERO...can you believe it ZERO". While most of the kids were fairly unfazed by it all one little boy was taking it very hard. Alex sat on the grass and talked to him about it, listening to his feelings and reassuring him that the most important things was that he did his best and had fun. He seemed a bit bolstered by this but not totally convinced of the merits of Alex's pep talk.

I can relate to that...sometimes when life beats me up 7-0 I am more than a little cranky. And it helps a little to know that I tried hard but in reality I still feel like road kill. I feel flattened and fatigued and discouraged...probably how the little boy felt to a certain extent. Lucy, who is usually pumped up after a soccer game (read: win) fell asleep on the way to the waterfront...I could tell the game had worn her out rather than invigorate her.

Losing is hard work! What is important is learning how to lose gracefully and not to let losing take the wind out of your sails for too long...and I hope that all of those kids today have already forgotten about the beating they took and are looking forward to next week!

Rule Maker or Rule Breaker???

Alex and I are in a small group made up of 6 couples (including us) from our church. We met last night and in the midst of our time together we had an interesting conversation. We were talking about parenting styles and personal preferences...and that led to some people classifying themselves as rule lovers, while others...okay just me and Alex, placed themselves into the rule hater category. (big shock huh?)

I grew up in a house with a lot of rules. There were rules about how to answer the phone, how to make a bed, how to clean a room etc. I remember getting soap in my mouth for calling one of my brother's friends a "jive turkey". It was the 70's for goodness sake...that was slang in all it's perfection. For the most part I followed the rules...even though in my mind I thought they were fairly pointless. I was told to obey authority...all of the time...without question. I didn't care to rock the boat back then...but now it's my boat and I call the shots.

It's not that I don't think rules can be valuable, because I do. I believe kids work well within boundaries but I confess that I think most people's boundaries are way too strict. In the midst of our conversation last night I expressed surprise that some kids respond well to the whole "well, those are the rules" thing from their parents. One of the folks in our group made the observation that my kids are "challenging". At first I was hurt and a little mad but the more I thought about it the more glad I became.

My kids ask questions. My kids tell me when they don't think something is fair. My kids won't blindly follow anyone. My kids don't run and tell on each other or their friends. My kids (for the most part) work out the issues they have with others. My kids seem to be more concerned with people than with the rules. And for ALL of that I'm glad.

I try to teach them to be respectful...but I also tell them it is okay to disagree with people in charge. I try to tell them that when they disagree it is okay to speak up as long as they do it in a kind way whenever possible. My kids disagree with me a lot...and sometimes they are right. I'm not afraid of them disagreeing with me - I welcome it. I want them to see the world in ways that empower them to speak up. Because if they do it now and find their voice then my hope is that later in life they will use that voice to speak up for people who have no voice...even if that means breaking some set of rules society puts forth.

I wouldn't call my kids challenging - I would call them free spirits. I would say they aren't ready to fit into any one's mold of what they should be. In my world kids should be seen and heard and listened to and taken seriously. After all I'm not raising children I am raising adults and the kind of people I hope they grow up to be will question authority with respect, speak out on behalf of the oppressed, and have a ton of fun on the process.

So what are you? A rule maker or a rule breaker? A rule lover or a rule hater? And if you are also a parent how has that influenced your parenting?

Off with the masks!

I wonder so often why we think we have to have it all together. In my opinion this premise leads to a world filled with fakers, people who wear masks in order to hide - out of fear that their authentic selves would not, in fact could not, be loved and accepted. How sad is that?

I have had the honor of working with students grades 6-12 since the fall of 1989 and in that time the pressure to perform, to be "together" has increased dramatically. It has led to generations of children on medications for depression, ADD, ADHD, and anxiety disorders. Young people today operate under so many false assumptions that I never even worried about. How have we adults let that happen? Is our drive to be successful and "together" so strong that we push our kids to be mini-adults before they are even remotely ready.

I see kids with hours of homework in elementary school. What is that all about? What happened to recess and eating paste and games of red rover? I see kids with 4 and 5 after school activities per week...so that everyday they are booked solid until dinnertime. The high school students in our school district get picked up for school at 6:30 in the morning!!! So if they want to shower and dress and eat breakfast they have to be up at 5:30. That is all kinds of CRAZY.

Maybe adults rationalize it by saying we are preparing them for the world. Well I say YUCK to that. Who wants that world? Who wants a world in which they are perpetually exhausted, cannot concentrate, and feel pushed to the maximum all of the time? We aren't preparing them for anything good, and we need to stop fooling ourselves.

In our family we have made a conscious choice to step OUT of the rat race. We won't overprogram our kids. They can choose 1 activity per season. We won't kill ourselves for a paycheck, it isn't worth it to us. We value family time and we value simplicity. To be honest, I would like to get rid of half of our stuff...and maybe I will begin working on that. Family is of utmost importance to us...and that goes far beyond blood relations.

Sometimes living off the grid sounds mighty appealing. Maybe today we can all take off our masks for a moment and see the sunshine and smell the fresh air. Maybe together we can breathe a little easier and realize that having it all together isn't as great as it seems. Wish me luck and I'll do the same for you. Peace.