"The Zoo"

"The Zoo"

Cydney B.

Age 2

This is a painting that one of my daughter's painted when she was 2 years old. We had taken a trip to the zoo the day before and the next day I decided to let her paint. Her father is a painter so we had a canvas and some acrylic paints, I put some paint on a plate gave her a few brushes and sat back and watched. This was the result.

That was three and a half years ago and she is still painting, she says she is an artist.

Today has been very stressful. I am not sure why, nothing has really happened, I have just had a very uneasy feeling all day. I happened to look up at this painting and remembered the day that we decided to start her on her artistic journey and it brought on a sense of calm.

There have been many more paintings that she has done, I may post them later. My youngest has also started showing interest so we may see those as well.

At the time she painted this everyone around thought I was crazy to let a 2 year old paint with "real" paint, but she loved it. Still to this day she loves it, I never force her to do it, nor do I help *I do not have to much talent in this field*, but when she wants to paint I let her. The result, we have paintings all over our house between the children and my husband *all very talented* we never have to buy art.

Thankful Anyway Thursday

Azure put on a puppet show for us.

Two of the characters, the cat and the skunk.

And here is the puppet master herself!

Azure has always loved puppets, someone gave her one as a gift when she was a baby, and it was love at first sight. She has always had a very vivid imagination, which she loves to express with her puppets.

   

These were pics I took earlier in the week, as I was downloading them to the computer I paused and found myself looking at these for quite some time.

Things have been quite tough for our family for quite sometime, not something I really think about very often. As I sat there staring at these pictures I could not help but be thankful. I am thankful that I do have such a wonderful family. Each day I watch my children at play and it is almost as if I can see them growing up right in front of my eyes. They are turning into amazing human beings, I always knew they would be. Through all of life's ups and downs I can always look at them and know why we do the things that we do, even when it seems like it would be easier to just give up, I just look at these beautiful faces and I know that they are the reason I am here.

I must admit that it would be great if things were better financially, but we can only work with what we have now, no need to stress about it, Stress does not make any situation better, only worse. I just breathe.

When my husband is stressed because he feels that he is not doing enough, when he thinks he should be doing more in order to fill his obligation as the "provider", I just breathe, and remind him to do the same.

When my children are feeling frustrated at something that is going on, I just breathe, and remind them to do the same.

There is always something to be thankful for, it is usually right in front of you.

Just breathe, the hard times will pass. Focus on the positive.

Taking Care of Babies

She says that her babies are sick. I say oh no, you better take good care of them, and give them lots of love.

She had all of her babies all tucked in and covered up, had plenty of tissues for their little noses, she will make a good mommy one day!

Witchy Fun

The girls had just finished watching a movie about witches and decided that they wanted to fly around the house on a broom. This kept them entertained for quite a while.

And they even got along while they were witches!

I could not have been happier!












They are sooooo excited for Halloween! As am I, I must admit. Most of the things they play are centered around Halloween, witches, ghosts, and that sort of thing.

All Snug in the Bed

Before A goes to bed she must make sure all of her animals are tucked in and asleep. Last night she put some of them to bed in mommy and daddy's bed she said, I went in to check and this is what I found. I found myself thinking what a wonderful child she is and is becoming, I could just see her taking her time to make sure they were all tucked in and she would not leave the room until they were asleep. I hope that this is a reflection of our parenting her and that she knows she is loved and she wants to show others that love.

One Proud Mama!

Creativity, even when it is raining outside she can always find something to do!

The finished masterpiece.


My kids have always loved using their imaginations. If you give them a choice of things to play with most of the time they will choose the one that seems like nothing over the actual toy. They seem to have the best time when they have to use their brains and be creative. Boxes, cups, sticks, leaves it really makes no difference it is just a matter of whatever strikes their fancy on that particular day.

It makes me unbelievably proud to have children like this, children who appreciate the little things.

I am one proud mama!

Reflections From The Weekend

What a weekend!
It was full of the usual things of course, but there were also many other things.
My life lately has been chaotic, I have been fine with that but, the other members of my family have not been dealing as well. About a month ago my husband lost his job and now in an attempt to make ends meet is now working 2 part-time jobs, still less money but I think that it is enough. I really do not give much thought to money, but I suppose that to some extent we do need it. My dear hubs however is having quite the hard time dealing with all of this, although I do not think that it has much to do with the current situation, I think that there are many underlying things that he needs to deal with and let go of, then he will be able to be able to move on and be happy.

My darling middle child, who has just started kindergarten, is having a difficult time right now. I am trying to get to the bottom of all of the issues but she tends to put up a wall and can be hard to break through, she has been that way since birth. Deep down I know I wanted to homeschool/unschool, but it just does not seem like the right time. Where we live tends to have a very focused thought when it comes to religion and spirituality and part of that thought is that if you do not believe exactly what "everyone" else does then you are wrong and will "burn in hell". Well, my poor child had her first dealings with this, only in kindergarten mind you and it is a public school (separation of church and state...ha). She is such a sensitive child so it has affected her deeply. We are a spiritual family I am not sure what label we would fit under because I am not a big believer in labels, but she should not have to feel bad about our beliefs. She is out of school for the next couple of days so I hope I can come up with a way to give her some peace with the situation.

I also met with a dear friend who I have not seen in years, who has recently moved back here. It was wonderful to begin to catch up with her. She is also an astrologer so we decided to do some looking into the charts of the members of my family to see if there was anything that may help. It was very enlightening, of course most of it I knew already, but I did get some insight into how to deal with some of the difficulties that have been happening.

I know things are on there way to getting better, even if the rest of my family cannot see it yet, I can see it and things are going to be wonderful we just all have to finish learning this life lesson that is being presented to us.

Rainy Days!

The best part of rain is when it slows you get to play in the puddles. Sometimes unfortunate things happen that make it not quite as much fun.

Kids

I have been giving a lot of thought lately on my kids and what is right for them. I will admit it there are times when I really feel on edge, there are times when I know I screw up with them, it probably happens more often than I would like to admit, but then I always think about it later. I always try to figure out what I could do better next time. I have never thought spanking was really the answer, it just does not make any sense. I have found myself giving a little pop on the hand from time to time, but to be honest I always feel bad for it, I tell myself that it is not a big deal, but then I think *how would I feel if every time I did something that someone else did not like they popped my hand* I would not like it at all. If you try and think about it that way, then it really never makes sense to even give a little pop. I do not know any adults who please everyone all of the time, so why do we expect our children to be capable of that.

I have tried time-out, not really a big fan. It sounds great at first, there is nothing physical so it should be alright. In my experience with my children it was simply a waste of time, they had no idea why they were there and they would usually repeat the behavior later. It seemed like a never ending cycle. My kids also have amazing imaginations so they would just sit there and play with nothing, so if you believe what time-out says that it is all about that would seem to be self-defeating. In essence, time-outs do not work from me, and for some very sensitive children this could really hurt emotionally.

I have also tried various reward based systems, they sound great at first however, they may have led to the biggest disasters. For one thing they were getting the impression that they deserved something material, there inevitably came a time when verbal praise was not good enough. I also began to feel that they were beginning to look for approval from everyone else, they were not thinking about what was important to them as individuals, definitely not the message I want my children to learn.

The most important thing to your child, or any child is LOVE, unconditional love. This the most basic fundamental need for all humans. All actions should stem from LOVE, and ONLY LOVE.

I am not going to tell you that I have it all figured out, because believe me I definitely do not, but I think we should go back to something we all learned when we were young *Treat others the way you want to be treated* some call this the golden rule. Before you do any action, stop and think to yourself *how would I feel if this were done to me*, answer honestly and then proceed accordingly. This way of thinking applies to all aspects of life, not just to children, although they may need more of our attention than others. Remember we are shaping future generations. When it comes to your own children, when you are feeling frustrated take a minute and remind yourself why you had your beautiful little munchkins in the first place.

These are thoughts that I have been having here lately, things have been difficult but this is what I am trying to focus on, regardless of what else goes on in the world I know that I can make a difference to at least a few future world changers, and in turn they will do the same.

For helpful info visit http://www.naturalchild.org

My Beautiful Gifts

My dear baby girl has a fairy who watches over her and protects her, her name is Woosa. She is small and her clothes are purple and green, she ha a wand, and she almost glows. This is the description that my 4 year old gave me. She says that she has always been there for her, there is nothing anyone is going to say to convince her that this is untrue. I love it, C her older sister tried to tell her that there was no such thing as fairies, all A could say was, well I have one. Of course this drove C crazy, then one day C asked me why she did not have a fairy, all I could think of to tell her was that it was because she did not believe.

A has always had a wonderful gift for observation. She is very intuitive, which I remember being just like that from a very young age. I do not want her to ever lose this, I want her to embrace it.

I think C has similar gifts, but somehow even though she is only 5 she thinks it is wrong and I have no idea where she got that from. I am trying to teach her basic meditation techniques to help her relax, she is so tense. She is only 5 years old but she seems to have the weight of the world on her shoulders, I wish there was more I could do for her. She started school this year, and it seems to be making her worse, and this is only kindergarten.

My son, J, who is now 15, also is incredibly intuitive, always has been. He has an amazing memory, he remembers things that I do not even remember happening, sometimes I wonder if it is something from a long ago past, there is no way anyone will ever convince him that it never happened. Even though he does not have to many people around him that are very supportive of anything metaphysical deep down he believes that there has got to be more. I know that he is truly destined for great things.

I think my one of my purposes here on this earth is to try and help my lovelies develop to their fullest, no matter how difficult it may be at times.

Crazy BUsy Day

Today is going to be insane. Now I am running dishwasher, about to go and hang clothes out on the line, I just finished making lots of lists of things that need to be done while I am gone for the day, and I just used Google Maps to find directions to somewhere I need to go later. Whew!!!!

Next I have to get ready to go to work, them when I am done with that so much running around to do.

Well DH had another interview yesterday, it was actually kind of an interview for 2 different jobs, but anyway, it seems that everybody wants to hire him, but they all only want part-time. Of course they all say that he is a great candidate for management but they just do not have anything open at this time. So it seems that he will be working multiple part- time jobs until something opens up. Which that is fine with me, I am just glad he has something to do. The couple of days that he was at home he looked like a lost puppy. He has got to stay busy at all times, he is not very good at relaxing.

So today/tonight after I get off work I get to go celebrate my BFF's birthday. It should be a blast, she has been kind of down lately, so I hope that all of us girls can snap her out of it.

My son (15) has been doing MMA stuff for a little while and really seems to enjoy it. I really hate violence and fighting, but he loves it and is good at it, and they teach them not to use it on the streets, it is only for use within the ring. He firmly believes this so I guess it is OK. All of his life he has never asked for much so he should be allowed to do something he enjoys.

My dear middle child (5) got to go to a book fair at school yesterday and brought home more books for us to read at night. She brought home a "chapter" book about fairies that we started reading last night. There I was reading a story to all 3 lovely children, yes even my 15 year old son, I guess there are some things that you never grow out of. My baby girl (4) says she has a fairy of her own who protects her, her name is Woosa. So, needless to say she was very into a story about a girl who gets her own fairy.

Well, i have got to continue on my mad rush to start this day. Hope it is full of great things.