the little travelers * travel blog

we made it!

Travel days are rough no matter how you slice them, but luckily that part is done for now.   It looks so simple on paper: L.A. to London to Berlin.   We traveled here with my brother, his wife and their three kids so there were 8 of us total, 5 under the age of 9.  The toughest part of the trip was trying to get a taxi back to their apartment from the airport.  Kids need carseats here up to age 12!!  Even though the airport in Berlin had at least 50 taxis lined up waiting- it took us a good 15 minutes of negotiation with them, outside in the freezing drizzle to let us into their cars!  We had two carseats for the 2 and 4 year olds but since the 3 older girls also needed one we ended up taking 3 taxis home because each taxi only had one 'babyseat.'  Finally it worked out and our 10 suitcases and 8 carry-ons were all dropped on the sidewalk outside of the apartment, which only required a windey trip down a gravel path and 2 flights of stairs left to negotiate before we were inside, toasty warm and ready for some real slumber.  zzzzz.....

the power of words

A few years ago the girls and I attended a workshop at our church by Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist who photographs frozen water crystals exposed to certain words or pictures that was featured in the movie What the #@$% do We Know.  During  his lecture he told of a Japanese teacher who wanted to try this theory out in her classroom in a way that was visible- as most people do not have high microscopic cameras on hand.  So she thought since cooked rice had a fair amount of water in it perhaps it would work to see if there was a measured effect on the rice.  

We were immediately intrigued and did the experiment ourselves and I was truly floored with the results.

We marked one jar with the words "I love you"  and the other "I hate you."  and we spoke those words into the jars each day.  Since my girls never really used the words "I hate you" before, they thought this was a real kick in the pants!  I have never seen such girls in absolute joy speaking the words "I hate you."  They would giggle like crazy and their energy was no where near 'hate.'  Therefor in my mind I reasoned that this experiment would clearly not work, because in my reality the energy behind the words were far more important than the words themselves.  Ha!  Was I ever wrong.  That first time the "I love you" jar fermented in to a golden yellow and did not mold at all.  The "I hate you" jar was full of black and blue mold.  Particularly dark were the areas where we would speak the words right into the rice.

  We have since done the experiment a few different times with different words with some varying results.  Last time we had Chinese take out and had some white rice leftover the girls wanted to try this version out.  One jar with the word "Love" on it, one with "Hate" and one with "Love Hate" on it.   Here are our results.  Since we're packing up for Germany we did not let it go quite as long as I like but the results still show.  

Below is the 'LOVE HATE' jar that has a medium amount of mold in it.  This was significant to me in that at least saying, "I love you" or giving an apology after using hurtful words towards another definitely seems to improve the condition.

You can see a small moldy spot on the front of the jar towards the bottom but the rest of the jar is mold free.

The reason I love this experiment so much is that the results are so visual and kids can really see, not just feel, the effects of their own words on something.  My girls are constantly saying to each other after one has said something not so nice, 'You better stop saying that or you'll mold your body.'  To me this is a great teacher that the one using the nasty words is also putting them self at risk for 'mold.'  Because really when we speak the word 'hate' don't we feel just like that first jar looks?  

This also poses so many interesting really esoteric questions.  If all sounds have an energy- what about other languages?  I mean we have all heard that in the beginning was sound and the word was spoken.  That first sound is thought to be 'ahhh.'  And that sound is found in nearly every word for God there is.  Allah, Jehovah, Krishna, Buddha, Jah, Yaweh, Mohammed.  It is the sound we make naturally when we view an adorable new baby.  It is the sound we make when our jaw is relaxed.  It is the sound that opens up our cervix in labor.  As a doula it is the sound I spent hours coaching women to make while rocking back and forth.  And it is often the sound we women moan when we are with someone we love.  But what about he !Kung bushmen that speak in clicking sounds- do they have the 'ah' sound in their language?  I don't know...  Are certain languages more prone towards health and wholeness?  My Korean yoga teacher would say yes and that's why they teach much of the class in Korean.  We count in Korean because the sounds are centered in the 2nd chakra and are more grounding than English which is up towards the head.  English is a language where the sounds come from the head and mouth rather than other languages that are more guttural.  So I wonder, does that make a difference?  Is that why we are prone to living more from our heads than our hearts?  Certainly western culture in general relates itself mostly to its own brain.  We are what we think.  Other cultures are different and anyone who has ever taken a martial arts class knows that in the East the center is the 'hara', right under the belly button.  Not only the center of gravity for the body but also our center emotionally.  My yoga teacher says this center is connected to the brainstem and therefor controls our thinking and emotions.  The degree to which we stay centered there we can remain centered and in control of our thoughts and emotions.  He says Western culture is cut off from this center and we are like brains running around with no connection to our heart or bodies.  But when we stay centered below our belly button our energy is pulled from our head, through our hearts and into our center.  Do the sounds we speak influence this?  It's certainly an interesting concept to ponder...   

I've been meaning to do this experiment with other languages and now I think I'm newly motivated to give it a try.   As soon as we're settled in Germany I think I'll do German and Japanese - the only other languages I know.  The Japanese teacher obviously did hers in Japanese and got the same results and the word she used was 'baka' which is really more like stupid than "I hate you."  But the paper we were given translated it as 'I hate you.'  I'd love to see other's experience with this so give it a try!

We've also done 'You're ugly." vs "You're beautiful" and "Stupid, dummy head"  vs. "You're so smart" with less dramatic results, yet still visible.

gal pals

I was sent this little video by an old friend a little while ago and it really sums up friendship nicely.  

I think so many of us can relate to this in the way of friendships coming and going over the years.  We've had best friends we couldn't wait to have kids at the same time with - until we did and discovered that we have completely different parenting styles.  There is no way to describe the feeling of watching a dear friend's child whack your own over the head with a toy and then laugh about it.  Or watch her hit her own child, or whatever else it may be that just does not sit well.  Women are complicated and small things hit us hard.  Our husbands might look at us confused and just brush it off- but it can stay with us for days when something happens.  I remember when I was extremely strict in my eating and went to a baby shower for a friend who ate artificially dyed frosting on a Costco cake while pregnant.  I actually cried on the way home because I couldn't believe someone that I knew and loved would 'do that' to her unborn child.  Luckily, I have since moved on from that level of fanaticism but I still feel the same on the hitting thing and yelling at kids.  

Sometimes it's hard to find our tribe in our local friends- particularly if we're in a small town- and that's the beauty of this whole blogging world.   Sometimes we can feel closer to someone who is 2000 miles away than someone we've been friends with for 20 years.  I loved the line in the video about those women who leave our lives and sometimes come back in and we remember both why we were friends and why they left.  That is so true.  Sometimes we outgrow friendships.  And then we make room in our lives for new ones.  

So, a bloggy friend I made about 6 months ago or so has two daughters the same age as mine, also a home/un/waldorfy kind of schooler and we've enjoyed emailing each other and peaking into each other's blogs.  Here's where the universe really shows its sense of humor- a few weeks ago she mentioned something about doula training in Phoenix years ago and next thing you know through a flurry of emails we realize we were actually partners for vaginal exams in doula training 10 years ago!!!!  Yup, she's been up in my privates with a latex glove before either of us ever had kids.  She had her period at the time so got out of having being prodded by an amateur.  This just goes to show how small the world is - she's in PA and I'm somewhere between AZ and CA, on my way to somewhere else and still our lives intersected once again.  She's moving to Mexico soon and we hope to visit while they're all down there.  So, here's to gal pals, both new and old

desperate times call for desperate measures

Ok, so I know opening a bunch of packages does not constitute cooking!  I know.  However, I'm in the midst of packing up 3 of us for the next 3 months covering two countries during that time and this is my version of fast food.  And I'm still counting it for one of our 52 meals for 52 weeks!  

Here's our (well, Trader Joe's) fast-food version of Indian chicken tika masala with naan.  We ate this with a salad.  And it took less than 5 minutes to prepare.   Sometimes we all have to give ourselves a break... though I got to tell you - the amount of packaging pictured here gives me a stomach ache!  At least it can be recycled, right?

They strategy now is to go for the big countries to fill in the map faster.  I'm seeing borsht coming in our near future... and I think I'm behind a week with no access to a kitchen in the coming week...  We'll just do our best to keep up. 

hooray!!!

We've been awarded a Mom's Choice Award for each of the 3 DVDs honoring excellence in family entertainment!  woohoo!!!

We're packing like crazy around right now.  Tomorrow is our departure from AZ and its beautiful blue skies and rugged landscape.

Then we'll be going back to Cali for a week.  Then we're off to Germany for some gray skies for 3 months.  

And thank you to The Toby Show for posting adorable pix on their blog after winning one of the dress-up sets last week.  These are so cute!

little knitted wallet, i mean purse...

 

The big sister is a knitting fool these days.  She's fast and furious and decided to make herself a wallet.  This was her first attempt at felting wool after knitting though.

She measured it out to fit dollar bills flat without folding.  I mentioned to her the shrink factor but we were not sure just how much it would shrink.

After washing in baking soda and it came out tiny so she scrapped the wallet idea and made a little bitty purse for her 2 year old cousin.  

She's got a new one on her needles already- her big needles and it's nearly 2 feet long!  I have a feeling this one is going to be a big handbag for grandma when it's done.  Maybe on her third try it'll come out as a wallet...?

save the whales

Congratulations to Kim our winner for the cooperative game Save the Whales.  Thank all of you for your fantastic ideas!  I love real life mommy ideas that just open up new ways of thinking or simple things to do- whether that's calling getting your hair brushed "girl time" and making is special to sending each other love notes.  I've found over the years it is really the connecting we do with family members that brings a higher level of cooperation.  I loved the mom that wrote just spending time in the same room connects them- absolutely!  

I have a friend right now whose girls are 6 and 8 and she complains often to me that her girls are so competitive and are constantly trying to out-do each other.  Yet, at the same time she had these girls in sports at age 2.  And each time it was time to clean up their toys she'd say, "Let's see who can pick up 10 things first!"  She thought she was making it fun for them and turning it into a game, but at the time she was setting them up from the beginning to make life competitive.  When you look at the contrast to instead singing a clean-up song all together and working together until all items are back in their place.  This is a relaxing activity of bringing order to a room.  Outer order that fosters inner order- all family members working together to bring order in a relaxed manner.  That's very different than the mom watching the two girls running all over the place trying to 'beat' each other.  Some things like this seem so simple and I find are so easy to fall into a trap of 'great mommy tricks.'  We have always had a rule at our house that everyone cleans up together at the end of a playdate leaving the room in order.  We do it at other people's house and I have the same expectation that it happens at our house as well.  And let's say this does not always go over well with a rushed parent wanting to leave when their child throws a fit because they don't want to clean up.  "We all clean up together." is all I say.  Often the other mom would move into bribery, threats and this particular friend always turned it into a race.  And in her house the playroom was never left in order because she thought 10 items was reasonable.  So it was always 10 items all thrown into a communal toybox rather than the 'everything in its place, and a place for everything.'  Chaos breeds chaos.  These girls fight more than any other siblings I know and now that they're getting older she calls to complain about it regularly.  Yet at the same time she has never been willing to make small changes to her parenting style that would foster a greater sense of cooperation, yet that word is used constantly- often in shouting form- Girls!  You need to cooperate!"  yikes.

I like to always ask myself, "Will this foster a greater sense of connection?" when choosing not only activities but also sometimes handling discipline.  Of course my girls sometimes fight with each other but I do not have the same issues of competitive behavior between them.  This friend's girls are already comparing who's prettier and thinner- at 6 and 8!  Of course they're immersed in pop culture, which contributes to all of that- but I would be mortified if I heard that from my girls!  

A mistake I made when the girls were little was at the end of the day during our night time routine I would ask them, "What was your favorite thing today?"   I had a very dear mentor of mine point out that that was also fostering that competitive spirit of one thing being better than the next.  Particularly at a young age, kids do not think like this naturally.  I did notice that the girls were hardly ever able to answer the question, yet it didn't stop me from asking it every night!   Even now at ages 7 and 9 they don't really like that question.  After a trip of ours -it is the most asked question to them,  "What did you like best about the trip?"  And well meaning people often ask, "Which country did you like best?"  They are very irritated by this question and usually say, "I don't know."  Then in private they'll say, "Why do people always ask us that?  It's not like Japan was funner than Ireland- they're just different."  Yes, exactly.  Most of us parents do not want to foster that sense in our children of constantly comparing themselves to others, yet doesn't the question, "What's your favorite..." really instill that.  So many 'kids activities' - even on menus in restaurants are constantly asking for favorite ice-cream, number, color- and on and on.  I don't know about you, but I have never truly had a favorite color- it depends on my mood.  A favorite number has always been a completely bizarre concept to me and also ice-cream.  I LOVE variety so if I got Jamoca Almond Fudge last time then I'll pick Butter Pecan the next, which actually sounds really good right now!  mmm.   Anyway, the point being it is so easy to have little bits of competition - in an unhealthy sense- sneak into our everyday lives without even being aware of it.

I know many of you have young children at home and are 'storing' ideas for the future.  One idea that I stored for over 10 years comes from Stephen Covey from a book I had to read in grad school.  He wrote about his family having group bowling scores.  The whole family would play for a combined score that they would try to beat the next time they played it.  This can be modified into lots of games that are typically competitive.  Now my girls are finally old enough to bowl and we're loving this idea!

happy valentine's day

The girls thought baking was in order for the day.  They have this little cookie book that was a gift and are constantly oogling over it.  Let's just say that every single recipe requires white flower, white sugar and many things like vegetable shortening and food coloring.  I don't really say things to them about it- like, "Well, we don't really eat those things."  I just say, "Oh, those would be fun to make on a holiday."  I really believe in moderation where food is concerned and have seen many kids become obsessed with junk food when it is forbidden.  At the same time we do not generally have white flour or sugar in our pantry as a regular staple.  

So here was their chance to bake these sugar cookies that have been earmarked in this book since last August- specially for Valentine's.  The book came with a tiny heart cutter and boy were they eager to put it to use!

The big sister is sporting a new apron I got for Christmas this year that I'm completely in love with.

By the time the last batch went in the oven it seems we'd all lost track of cookies...  Um... these are not chocolate, let's put it that way.  oops!  We wish you all a Valentine's full of love and joy and better luck in the cookie department than we had!

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And a reminder that today is the last day to enter the drawing for the Save the Whales game- (scroll down).  There have been so many great ideas generated!!  It's been really inspiring to read them all. 

Iran trailer

So, I finally finished the Iran trailer.  We've been working feverishly around here trying to wrap up the Iran dvd before we leave for Germany- next week!  It doesn't look promising at this point.  The girls are working on voice over and get burned out easily.  There really is no rushing that aspect of post production.  When they're not in the mood it definitely shows up in their voices, so I go at their pace.  

So here is a taste of Iran in very poor quality.  I don't get how to upload a higher quality to youtube as is 'loads' for over 18 hours and still doesn't complete it.  The windows media player is also better quality but for some reason cuts my videos down to 30 seconds- every time.  The mp4s upload in no time but the quality is so awful I can barely stand to look at it.  So after pulling my hair out the last 2 days, I'm moving on and leaving it in 'fuzzy vision!'

living in the wild, wild west

The fun thing about Arizona in winter is that the girls went horseback riding with their dad on Saturday in short sleeve shirts with cactus scenery and Sunday we were in snow.  The local mountains to Phoenix are only an hour away.

And the girls finally remembered to make a little snow bunny.  I thought I'd label it since it wasn't quite apparent to me either when I first saw it.

We had great fun looking for individual snowflakes that I found nearly impossible to photograph- even with a macro lens.  They just melted so darn fast I couldn't focus my camera fast enough.   This blurry one was our best shot but we really had a good time doing it.  I had never looked that closely at an individual snowflake before.  I wonder how many other stunningly beautiful, intricate little jewels are around me that I've just never looked closely enough at to notice.  Today on our walk we're taking our magnifying glasses with us to see what other tiny surprises are right under our noses. 

 

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Congratulations to Anne, Jonah and Britany as winners of the dress-up sets!