daily moment

Posted in advantageous adventures, daily moment by ElaineMarie

we’re going to go with that sweet top picture as my daily moment since i didn’t actually snap any pics of darla barking like a seal and scaring a whole camp of handicapable children on their outing.

and those others are just thrown in there as if to say “weeeeee! this manmade beach is so fun. join us. c’mon!”

and it was fun. even if the beach was more the consistency of cat litter than sand. it’s ok. if i close my eyes, stay only on my towel and pretend the redneck yelling is really the sound of the waves IT’S JUST LIKE THE BEACH.

maybe like a mississippi beach.

20Jun2013

Impromptu Unschooling: Buck Creek State Park

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

yesterday was a simple, fantastic day. it was a beautiful day for a drive. i love to be on the road. when i read Lolita i actually loved the thought of traveling the US and pulling off at all the brown signs, every roadside attraction. it seemed like such a great way to see the beauty of this country. the rest of the book…not so much.

so this summer i’ve made a promise to myself to see more of ohio in just that way. while driving home from Dayton we decided on the spur of the moment to investigate Buck Creek State Park and we found a beach! sure it’s a little man-made beach that we get here in the middle west but it served as a great unschooling opportunity.

we talked about rocks we found, counted boats, talked with other folks and even examined a dead fish washed up on the shore. i had to squash my conventional instincts of telling darla to get far away from it and not look but i reminded myself it was a teachable moment. we talked about what kind of fish it was and talked about having respect for deceased life.

darla befriended some older kids who were digging a castle and moat. some kids were digging and some were hauling water. i sat down with them and darla and pointed out the similarities between the sand structure and the man-made lake and then explained to them that the lake was made in almost the exact same way that they were constructing their castle moat. it was great to see how proud that made them of their work.

all in all it was a really great way to spend a perfect sunny day. we weren’t prepared for swimming so we’re headed to a closer lake today per darla’s request.

if you’re skeptically sitting there saying “it sounds like this unschooling stuff is just elaine taking her daughter places and then talking to her about it” then you got me. you’re exactly right. since this is the way my daughter has learned everything in her life thus far i don’t see any reason to change things up and make her memorize or take place in structured activities. maybe someday. but not today. and ummm not yesterday either.

20Jun2013

daily moment

Posted in Uncategorized by ElaineMarie

photo E2629F91-F679-4B76-B59F-95196802B2DD-4988-0000043BD7E2D2F2_zpsc7e6b850.jpg

it’s no question my daily moment from yesterday. reunited with mama. reunited with papa.

19Jun2013

easy

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., parenting apparently? by ElaineMarie

not too long ago a phrase that i said to myself quite often was “why can’t anything ever be easy?” nothing ever seemed easy. in fact, the only thing that was easy in life was making myself feel horrible about myself and my life.

and then something changed. i changed. i stopped looking for everything to be easy and then suddenly, it was.

i realized that our world has programmed us to think life should be easy & “convenient.” i realized that nothing ever worth anything in my life came from “easy”. easy never put a dime in my pocket, a lesson in my head or a true smile in my heart. i started to take inventory of my life to see if the actions i habitually made were authentic ones that matched up to how i want to live my life or if they have been placed in my brain as a conventional, easy way of living life.

today i ride my bike everywhere i go, do my dishes by hand and hang our laundry on the line. why? because that matches up with how my authentic self wants to live life. my authentic self believes that i should take advantage of the energy my body provides and that i was not placed on this earth to be a consumer. i feel better when i put my energy out, not when i am using energy up to live my life. some of this is unavoidable, for instance the energy to cool and heat our house. some of the energy is negotiable, say the energy it takes to write this blog post. i try to keep a better balance these days. i can feel the weariness in my body at the end of the day and know that it was a good one because i am now spending my life putting myself out there into the world. it’s an amazing feeling.

this post is not about convincing you that you should live life my way. it’s about convincing you you should live life your way.

i do these things because it is what my authentic, deepest self believes and some of these small changes in life have made me infinitely more happy with my life path. my life is simpler. my focus is true. my goals are more clear. and all i had to do was to start living my life the way i want to instead of what is expected of me. i’ve learned to stop comparing my insides to everyone’s outsides. i’ve learned to respect the paths of others because i respect my own. i fall off this horse a lot but at least now i get back on.

are you living the life you truly want? are you living the life you think is expected of you? are you making decisions based on your authenticity or is it to live up to some standard? whatever that may be.

i think my greatest lessons on this have been from parenting. are you a new parent? i want to tell you something: put down the parenting books.

YOU CAN DO THIS IN WHATEVER WAY SEEMS RIGHT AND GOOD TO YOU.

ok, now you can pick them back up again because there is actually some good information in there but please put that phrase in your head and remember to read the books as an exercise in discovering your own true philosophies and not as a manual. your babies and children don’t have to do anything one certain way. as long as you are making informed decisions based on your authentic self you and yours will be fine.

but that is not a guarantee just in case there would be some kind of legal liability attached to this blog. caution! contents hot!

this is just my experience and my opinion. this is what has made me happier and more confident as a parent and person of this world. parenting and life are not easy. nor should we want them to be. at least i no longer desire for them to be. i know i will get a whole lot more out of it if it requires a lot of effort on my part.

so i’ll be here, no longer expecting life to be easy. i’ll be putting my energy out there and making myself open to the returns. because i now know that “not easy” doesn’t have to mean the same thing as “difficult.” i’m pretty sure some kind of bumper stick is going to come out of this.

i’m thinking LIFE: REQUIRES EFFORT.

12Jun2013

climb thoz treez!

Posted in kiddie-do, parenting apparently? by ElaineMarie

my daily moment post prompted some thoughts about tree climbing to start swirlin’ around in my brain space so i thought i might as well dump that here too.

oh gawd. that was getting long and preachy and stupid so i just scrapped it and am starting over by saying what i really want to say.

i was a crazy monkey child growing up and darla is too. i loved the feeling of mounting the obstacles. i loved the satisfaction and pride it swelled up in my tiny, gangly body. i can see it in darla too. can you see her face right there? maybe not because it’s hard with the sun {or is it jesus?} shining right down on her. but she’s really good at it and even though she’s small, i’ve let her from a young age.

and i don’t mean that i’ve helped her. i mean that she’s been climbing trees {and various other items} on her own for a couple of years now. i feel it’s really important for her to see that i trust her and that she can trust herself and her own body. i just think that’s where all the magic happens during an ol’ fashioned tree romp. for a lot of kids, it’s the first big risk they get to take and come out successful and triumphant. who am i to deprive her of that by hovering too closely and directing her from branch to branch. of course i’m nearby but the act is all her 99% of the time. plus, remember when falling out of a tree and getting a bump, bruise or… gasp…even a broken bone was just part of life and learning lessons? not that i want my child to get hurt but i know it’s not my job as a parent to prevent anything bad from happening to her. it’s my job to show her how to recover from the bumps, bruises and breaks. and it’s my job to show her that 99% of the time they do not happen.

we can trust our children. if we trust them more now when they are small we’ll be able to trust them a whole lot more when they are big. that’s just my opinion though. check in with me in 12 years when darla’s climbed out her bedroom window and the jack daniels is missing from the liquor cabinet.

ha! we don’t have jack daniels or a liquor cabinet. squashed that little plan of yours there, missy. you can’t pull anything over on this hawk squaw.

oh anyyyyyyway…

last summer our neighborhood festival brought a rock-climbing wall for the kids. darla was only 3. i could see the desire in her eyes and she quietly told me “mommy, i really want to make it all the way to the top.” i told her to be brave and never give up. well, her turn came quickly and she proceeded to climb all the way to the top. even when she lost all footing and was hanging on by just one hand. even when the bigger kids around her gave up. she did it. and she came running to me with a huge triumphant smile after. the folks working the climbing wall said they were amazed that she was able to do it but i wasn’t. i was confident that she would.

ok, so that last paragraph was some parental boasting but everything before that was me just putting it out there how i feel about letting my girl get up in a big ol’ tree, or sometimes small ones, and figure it out on her own.

my tips for letting a child {in this case mine but could be yours if you like what i’m puttin’ down} swing from the boughs:

1. don’t do it for them.

2. don’t do it for them. i repeat this. even from the beginning. getting up into a tree should be the child’s effort entirely. that is what makes it an important part of childhood.

3. do help them spot and locate a safe branch if they are stuck. this is different from giving them a play-by-play on how to climb. if she needs help, i direct her and reassure her on which branch to try next.

4. it’s ok and probably best if they don’t wear shoes. our feet are designed for this kind of stuff and have better gripping potential than any sneaker. i have witnessed a surprising number of parents yelling at their child to get down out of a tree for not wearing shoes to climb. this is usually initiated by the fact that my child is running around barefoot so other kiddos follow suite. but this leads me to…

5. don’t yell at your child while they’re up in a tree. this could scare her and cause her to fall. even, if i’m scared or surprised by her climb, i calmly instruct her to come back down.

6. let go and know that it’s going to be ok. i let her try for herself even if it makes me uncomfortable. we’re both learning from the experience in that way. and even if she falls, or has a close call…i know that it’s all going to be ok.

11Jun2013

Unschooling: The Grocery Store

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

i‘m not going to lie to you, 10 minutes before these photos i was trying to negotiate my daughter into going to the playroom at the grocery store because, yeah obvious, but when you’re child answers “mom, i hate to say it but i don’t like kids’ activities” it’s hard to keep pushing. {or is it?}

so i tried one old tactic – bribing her to stay in the cart with a sucker – and then a new one: turning the trip into an unschooling exercise. so this is not anything new. groceries and markets have long been places of learning and exploration for little ones. i’m not tooting my horn about that, i’m simply here to tell you it worked. she stayed by me, she helped and she only asked for about 50 additional items which is a sharp decrease from her normal 200.

background info: darla will tell me to go eff myself if i try to encourage her to do something because it will make her a “good girl” but she’ll be right there if i am framing it as a need for a helper. {i’m thankful she’s given me these insights into how she would like to be raised along the way.} as my helper today she read all the PLU numbers to me while i wrote them on our reusable containers in the bulk section. she helped me locate items, dish them out into containers and we discussed how much each thing would cost per pound. in general we took a more in-depth look at our food items, discussing how they smelled and looked and felt. this directly resulted in us purchasing some peaches that darla rubbed against her face. can you blame her? cause, gawd, peaches feel so good!

i think her favorite learning point was the ginger root bin. she had picked out some crystalized ginger in the bulk section earlier, so it was a nice dot-connector to find and examine it in the raw.

i’m thankful for these new unschooling outlooks to outings. this plan might just keep me more calm + collected.

praying that i keep up the practice.