the little travelers * travel blog

gone snow flake hunting

I know I have winners to announce, orders to send out and a meal for 52 meals to post, but instead I've gone to the mountains for a few days of snow flake hunting.  It is all at the fault of this post of the most amazing snowflakes I've ever seen.  I'll be back on Tuesday to play catch up.  

super cool giveaway!

It is not a secret that I am a HUGE fan and proponent of cooperative games (blogged here).  We  have this fantastic giveaway brought to us by Ken Kolsbun at Cooperative Games. 

Save the Whales is one of their most popular games with good reason.  

The board is beautiful and we learned a ton about whales while playing this.

The game pieces are a good solid quality metal and there are no plastic pieces in this game.  

That's all great.  I'm all for all of that but the thing about this game that really rocks my world is the cooperative aspect.  Cooperative games, for those new to the concept are games that require all players to play towards a common goal to win the game rather than competing against each other for an individual winner.  Last time I wrote on this subject I received this comment on my post: 

I like the idea of incorporating a few cooperative games, however, to limit all games to this type of "no one ever gets their feelings hurt" games would only do our children an injustice. Life isn't competitive, but it isn't alway fair. I think that more importantly, kids need to lean how to handle life's curve balls and unfairness. Why not teach your children to be good sports about winning and losing games? Such is life. Children don't need to deal with life's hardships, I agree. But to protect against any such ill-feelings, game playing included, might create an unrealistic expectation of always getting your way. I don't mean any disrespect...but what is so wrong with competition anyway? See, this is what drives people...not to be greedy, but to provide more....more jobs, more lots of things. In theory it sounds great, but in reality it won't work...this isn't candyland.

I love this comment for so many reasons!  First of all, I didn't say that we only play cooperative games in our home, but that we definitely incorporate some into our mix.  I feel very strongly that if every home in America had at least one of theses games our world would shift dramatically- I really do!  

But my next point here is really my favorite.  I love the ideas that some people have about our house and family- that we all sit around being so wonderfully cooperative with each other, squirrels pop out of the forest and greet us in the morning and birds bring us our morning buttercup nectar.  We've always  had cooperative games in our home and competition does not play a dominant role in our lives, true.  However, the reality of the situation is that it is often actually harder, or well, more complex, let's say- to work cooperatively than independently 'beating' your opponent.  

This game challenges kids in a way that win/loose does not at all.  Here's an example:  The little sister is rather phlegmatic in temperament (that is the Pooh character) so she loves nothing more than to collect things and hang on to things!  In this game all players are working together to save the whales so that they do not go into extinction.  Well, at one point we were wanting to pool our money to save one whale and she happened to have the most money- which she really wanted to keep!  She was pushed by her big sister to the near point of tears to giving up her lovely stash of money.  I in no way shape or form see my job as a parent as sheltering my children from things that  are difficult for them.  I see these as enormous growth and learning experiences for them.  I do not offer cooperative games to them to protect them from having 'hurt feelings.'  My criteria is that the lesson learned be of one of value.  The whale in question here that was being saved was not hers, but her sisters, but it was requiring her money to help save it.  Remember, this is a game of working together to save all the whales.  When we accomplish that we've all won the game together.  Even though we've played these types of games before it is not easy for her!  I would vouch to say far more difficult.  She really wanted to save her money to save her own whale.  And again, this is a child that has quite a bit of experience with these kinds of games.  We also played it with friends who are very competitive and 'proud of it.'  You want to watch the @#$% hit the fan- try this game!  Full blown tantrums from 9 year olds about how it isn't 'fair' that they should use their money to save some whale that isn't even theirs!  It's really intense.   But oh, so valuable!!

The biggest misconception about working cooperatively is that 'everyone gets their way."  It is quite the contrary.  No one is 'getting their way.'  Making each person's individual needs and desires equally important takes a lot of maturity, patience and willingness to compromise.  It changes the way one thinks, which is never an 'easy' task.  As the Rev recently said at a church service I attended,  "We are shifting from a getting economy to a giving economy."  The only thing that will 'save' this world is moving from a place of selfishly acquiring, which competitive games enforce (think Monopoly), to selflessly giving.  It is indeed the thing our current prez is asking us all to do.  We are discovering that in life, the one who has the most stuff at the end is not really the 'winner.'  Those who die fulfilled are the winners, and that always includes connecting with and supporting others.  Always.

And of course her last point being that it is not 'realistic.'  My favorite of all!  I offered my (rather long-winded) response to her as follows:

"I agree that a balance is what is desired. We do not only play cooperative games and shun all competitive games. However, I do think games that are entirely random like candyland and chutes and ladders do not serve anyone. Games like memory or card games that involve a certain level of skill are great. When a child loses there is incentive to want to do better next time. There is strategy involved and (gasp) thinking! With a random game it is simply dumb luck and I think dealing with the 'bad luck' that comes with a bad spin is not something that a preschool aged child benefits from 'dealing with.' Let them lose at tic tac toe so they can at least see where their error was in choosing where to place their X or O. The idea is to have at least one cooperative game in the mix of games so kids have a concept of working together for a greater good rather than looking at other people as opponents all the time. And I will respectfully disagree with you that working cooperatively 'just doesn't work' because this is 'real life.' Some of the most successful corporations are now incorporating a lot of cooperative tactics into their businesses. Have you seen the business deal that just went down with Danone and Muhammad Yunus- the Nobel Peace Prize winner? Check out what Grameen Bank is up to these days and tell me it's 'unrealistic.' And working cooperatively is not 'getting your way.' It is finding what works for EVERYONE and making your 'opponent's' desires/wants/needs as important as your own. I agree competition is what drives most of us in the west, but i don't think it needs to be that way. If you study other cultures you will see it does not drive all human beings, meaning it is a learned behavior, not innate. We can unlearn destructive behavior and replace it with something that works for everyone. Yes, it's an ideal, but one I certainly support and am working towards by the choices I make raising my own children. We are now reaping the benefits of a competitive model and all of the destruction that comes with it. There are other models. We just need to be open minded enough to choose them."

So, ya- HUGE fan of this game! I'll have this contest up for a week- ending Feb 14, love day. but here's what you have to do to enter. I always love finding out what works for other moms and that's where my best learning has come from, so tell me one thing that you do in your own home to promote cooperation or connection between family members. And please remember this lovely company next time you're needing to purchase a gift or looking for something to really add value to your family's life! Oh, and this particular game is for ages about 8 and up, but there are plenty in the preschool age as well.

ps- thanks for all the comments after my begging for them! haha. I really didn't mean for anyone to feel obligated to! I really do feel that getting an email of a personal story or someone telling me a post made them rethink something is far more valuable to me than 10 'how cute!' comments on a craft item. So, for all of you wanting to slink back into anonymity please feel free to do so! And thank you.

my mysterious blog

A quirky little aspect to my blog is my silent audience.  On a daily basis I typically receive more personal emails than I do 'comments.'  Even though my stats tell me that a few thousand of you show up on a daily basis- you are all very quiet.  My friend who gets around 300 hits a day regularly has 10-15 comments a day.  So, I think of you all as the quiet, introspective types.  But I get emails with personal stories and some pretty hefty questions daily.  I do not mind answering them publicly as I've always been a pretty out there laundry airer.  I think it gives others permission to do the same.  When we hear about someone else's humanness, it let's us all of the hook of perfection a bit I think.

So, the other day after my birthday reflections post I got an email asking me how I dealt with the hospital birth of my oldest daughter when I had planned a homebirth.  Not only had I planned a homebirth but I was quite involved in the homebirthing community and was working as a doula halfway through my pregnancy.  So, was I disappointed?  Embarrassed?   Did I feel like I let certain people down for having a hospital birth?  And how did I come to trust in another homebirth after having to have the hospital birth?

Lots of good questions here and since many of you are still in the birthing phase of life I'll share some of these answers here.

First of all this was my version of her birth:

Home, in water with soft music playing, lights dimmed and incense burning.  It would not really be painful, just 'intense" and my midwife would stand by while basically I instinctually did everything on my own.  Only myself, the father and midwife would be present.  ya.

Then I would carry her in a sling 24/7 and breastfeed until she was at least 2.

The reality:

Visit my midwife at 34 weeks while in hot and heavy labor.  Have her go to examine me and the minute I got up on the table have her scream, "Holy @#$! You're at 6cm with a huge bag of water bulging between your legs.  I'll get my stuff. Get in my car because if that water breaks you're having a baby in the car!"  ok.  A Hollywood style transport ensues complete with driving on the sidewalk and on the wrong side of the street.  Thank God for Jeeps.

Once at the hospital, my water breaks and drenches 3 nurses in the process (I had polyhydramnios- 4 times the amount of amniotic fluid).  The neonatologist comes to check the baby by reaching his hand up inside me and finds a spongy, soft thing where a head ought to be.  5 or 6 more dr.'s do the same and conclude that my baby will likely be born without a skull and die within 48 hours.  My husband is on a flight home from Japan and my mom and sister are staring at me at the foot of the hospital bed.  But my midwife has stayed and acts as my doula.  She is my anchor.  I am on my back and also have a bladder infection due to the polyhydramnios.  I have opted to go without the recommended c-section or epidural.  For those out there that have had a bladder infection while in labor you can attest to feeling nothing but an intense pulling on the bladder with each contraction.  No matter how bad any other area of your body feels it doesn't matter because all you feel is the most intense burning sensation in the bladder.

So anyway at this point I was completely overwhelmed on so many levels that I really needed to focus 100% of every possible ounce of strength I had to deal with this.  Luckily, I had really put in some good training ahead of time.  I'd done lots of mediation, hypnotherapy type stuff and even had a dental work done au natural in prep for birth.  So I left the hospital entirely and retreated to a hammock on a beach in Bora Bora.  There I called the spirit of my unborn to me and we had a chat.  I told her that I'd always seen myself as a mother who would not impose her own will onto her child.  I of course imagined that to be years down the road, but if it meant that she did not want to move into her physical body at this time and decided to leave, she had my support.  I knew in spirit we would always be together and I released any attachment I had to how this whole thing played out.

Back in the hospital a well formed pink baby girl emerged with a skull fully intact.  Due to her bowel obstruction (yet to be diagnosed) she could not process the amniotic fluid so her vernix built up into a huge superball like substance that was over an inch thick.  That was what the dr.'s thought was brain, rather than skull.  The neonatology TEAM (about 8) were waiting to whisk her off immediately.  But my midwife shouted at them, "Give her to the mom!  Her color is good and she's breathing."  So, I held her in my arms and just then a phone call came through from her dad on a plane that just received clearance to use the phone after take off and I held the phone to her ear as the first two voices she heard were her mother and father's.  Timing like that can only be divinely planned.  

When the dr.s did take her away to start the barrage of tests on her I recall my birthing instructor, who was a Sikh, telling us that whatever happens to our baby -we must not abandon them energetically.  Babies are still mostly in spirit form (which is why it's so important to keep them away from things like loud tvs and radios) and you can stay with them in spirit by staying connected to them.  The thing that absolutely breaks that connection is self pity.  The minute one moves into a state of, "I can't believe this happening to me!" or "Why me?" or "My poor baby is alone." that connection to you is broken.  I felt so 'with' her when she left it was hard for me to comprehend what my sister meant when she spoke the words to me, "Do you want me to go with her so she's not alone?"  Alone? I thought.  Not only am I with her, an entire field of angels is also with her- but sure come along if you  like.  I am forever grateful to the good teachers I've had.

Then came the next set of news - that something was  wrong and she needed to be transported to UCLA medical center for exploratory surgery.  The head of surgery was to do the job, who turned out to be a beautiful woman in her 30's her had just the day before gotten engaged.  She was an absolute angel.  When I met her she said, "I was born 6 weeks early and I turned out ok.  She'll be fine."  I was told I could probably not breatfeed since it's really hard to establish a good milk flow by pumping alone and it would be a few weeks before she could eat anything.  I became a pumping queen eating an El Polla Loco chicken bowl from the food court every few hours to ensure maximum calories in my milk.  Three weeks later when we were released, I had 178 bags of breastmilk in the freezer!  The thing about boobs is that they produce enough milk to keep up with consumption.  So if you constantly drain them with a pump, they keep making more!  I was getting 8 ounces per boob every few hours.  It was nuts.  I could've fed 6 babies easily.  And I never pumped again.

While in the hospital I realized a few things that really disturbed me.  For one, the absolute and complete total ignorance on behalf of the 'holistic' or 'alternative' community.  I was given more bad advice than I though  humanly possible.  The woman whom I bought my sling from told me I should "demand that they put breastmilk in her IV or they'll give her sugar water instead."  When you are in the midst of stress and it is still unclear at that point whether your baby lives or not is not the time to try to be polite to someone and say, "Um...well, you can't actually put milk into VEINS without killing someone!"  DUH.  Or the woman who told me I must insist on an accupuncturist coming into the NICU to put needles into her to help with her digestion.  Ok, people.  No amount of needles is going to remove a segment of bowels that is a string rather than a tube and sew it back together.  As much as I really believe in alternative methods, they have their place and western medicine has its place.  It is important to not loose your brain when traveling down the path of 'holistic.'  Particularly from that community, I received so much advice and so little support.  It was all my mainstream old pals that pulled through for me and it puzzled me on many levels.  Still does, quite frankly.

This was a truly humbling experience for me on so many levels.  I did, as I still do, believe that western medicine is out of control and often misused.  But I had become very cynical and quite elitist in my views towards the western dr.  This experience shifted my views dramatically and I have profound respect for surgeons and people who dedicate their lives to this field.  But it also really showed me that when someone is in a place of distress it is NOT THE TIME FOR GIVING ADVICE!!!  It is simply the time to offer support.  My friends who had time but not children offered to do nothing for me.  My friends who had themselves just had a baby went out of their way to bring me food, bras, pads, whatever I needed.  Mothers are different from women.  Once initiated into that group we are never the same.  There is nothing in the world more comforting than coming home after 18 hours in the hospital every day and finding a really good home cooked meal in a warming bag on the kitchen counter with a little note inside.

I have never forgotten that feeling and even mere acquaintances receive a good meal from me after giving birth.  Friends of friends, I don't care- cook and give and leave quickly.  If I open my mouth I make sure it is to say, "What else can I do for you?" and nothing else unless asked.

My first born has been my greatest teacher all along.  Whenever there is something I have 'decided' is best as a parent, she has questioned and proved otherwise.  I wanted a homebirth, she required a hospital birth.  I wanted to 'sling' her.  Due to her surgery, she required no movement.  I wanted to unschool her, she choose to go to school and loves it (though is not in it right now for travel reasons, she hopes to go back as soon as possible).  I thought by being so 'alternative' in my choices a kid would go along with it!  But nope.  She's come to teach me to tune into my child before making my own decisions based on reading, or looking at other people's lives.  They really have little to do with individuals.  Real 'holistic' parenting comes from tuning in and following that rather than some form of dogma.  It's really about looking at the 'whole' picture, the whole person and really realizing that it's quite arrogant to think we know what's best for any other person.

I had no hesitation in having a homebirth after this experience because I trusted in the process and in my midwife.  She drove me to the hospital when necessary.  That was the appropriate place to head to under the circumstances.  I knew her judgement would be equally good the 2nd time around.  My family of course was mortified because of 'what happened last time.'  But those are the same family members that were mortified of my last trip to Iran.  The most important thing we can have is a strong spiritual connection and an intact sense of intuition.  When we get quiet and ask for direction we will receive it and then no amount of outside disturbance can distract us.  Sure, someone can tell me it's dangerous to have a homebirth, to travel to Iran as a female with children, to not vaccinate, to homeschool and on and on, and yet by trusting in something greater than myself and not living life being terrified of death, I continue on my path.  Learning along the way and adjusting as I go, I just move forward one step at a time.  A life lived without passion is so much more frightening to me than dying.

the little window shoppe

Is currently doing a Little Travelers giveaway as well.  So get on over there and enter to win!  She has lots of adorable stuff always going on over there!

And a quick reminder to remember to ask your local library to order all The Little Travelers dvds so even those without extra $$$ on hand can do some traveling!  Thanks!!

photo contest winners

For the Global Activities and Crafts comes this really lovely photo by BettyW!  It was inspired by this post about Japanese snow bunnies.

I really don't know why we typically don't get a little more creative with snow and just stick with snow men and snow angels.  The bunnies, mice and little creatures are so much easier for small children especially.

And in the Family Travel category we have this lovely one taken by Michelle & Co. in the UAE!  If this is not a kids' paradise!  My girls would never leave this place.  

Both chose to receive the Japan dvd.  Congratulations!  Keep the photos coming.

a week after turning 40

I finally have a moment to reflect.  On my birthday I always like to write down the highlights of the past year and look towards my goals for my next year.  But on the big decades I like to write down all the highlights from the past decade.    

My 20's were very full and fun years that included graduating form college, living Japan for 3 years, getting married and finishing grad school.  I had some crazy jobs and did the majority of my life's travels.  

So standing newly in my 40's I look back at my 30's.  On my 30th birthday I was going to retire my birth control.  I did and by Valentine's day I was knocked up.  The following September the big sister was born.  She was a planned homebirth and I had worked as a doula until about half way through my pregnancy.  I was fully immersed in the LA homebirthing scene.  I went to Gurmukh's prenatal  yoga classes at The Golden Bridge yoga center.  I shared a midwife with Cindy Crawford (which made my hubby quite interested in going to prenatal appts.) and attended Pam England's Birthing from Within doula training as a 'tester mom' for the doulas to train on and was really feeling ready and prepared for my own waterbirth at home.  But 6 weeks prior to my due date I was in hot and heavy labor.  Hubby was in Japan and I had an emergency hospital delivery.  I gave birth to a daughter with a life threatening condition that required 'exploratory surgery' to figure out what was wrong with her insides.  It turned out that part of her bowels did not develop properly and needed to be cut out of her and then re-sewn together.   My midwife acted as my doula and I was able to avert a c-section, which would not have happened otherwise.  After 3 weeks in the NICU we were home.  She was on heavy drugs and it was a challenging first few months.  

The little sister was not at all little at birth weighing in at 10lbs, but born into that water tub at home and all was well.  I was in labor for days with my water broken, which again would've landed me a c-section in the hospital, but I put on a Depends pad and headed to the beach to do lots and lots of stair climbing, fluid gushing into my pad with each step.  When she was ready I stepped into the tub and 2 contractions later with no pushing my baby moose was born at 10pm.  By 11pm, I was showered, in my jammies and in bed with my hubby and 2 daughters and we slept through the night.  Since she was already 10 lbs I did not need to fuss about feeding her every 4 hours as with a typical newborn.  Now, 7 years later she still sleeps soundly for 12 hours at night.  

My 30's were definitely focused around the girls - giving birth, nursing, washing diapers and wearing bra pads (I was a notorious leaker!), making baby blankets, and generally figuring out my parenting style.  When the little sister was 9 months old I co-founded a school, we started and stopped a whole lot of play groups, book groups and co-ops while I was trying to 'find my tribe' and figure out my parenting methods.  Some friendships went sour when parenting styles clashed and new friendships were formed based on commonalities in parenting.  Our weekends were spent mostly at birthday parties.  

Then the girls turned 3 and 5 and we set off traveling again.  In between I was working as a Waldorf-methods preschool teacher while having at least one child homeschooling at any given time.  They had the choice to attend school or not and it seemed they never decided at the same time, so one was always home.  This is the first year both are not in school.  There were many things to balance and a dissolution of marriage that happened in the middle of the decade.  In hind sight it was certainly the decade of fluids for me!  Lots of blood, sweat and tears, amniotic fluid, leaking boobs, night sweats, baby born in water, the man fluid that gets one preggers, menstrual blood that takes on a whole new dimension while trying to get pregnant,  turning solid food in puree, pumping and storing milk, getting peed on, pooped on and barfed on- a lot.  Not only by my own children but lots of others as well.  My sister and I even did a mini triathlon- involving more sweat and water.  Maybe all of life can really be summed up into stages of bodily fluids.

We are definitely right in the middle of the easy years right now and I feel it.  I haven't been peed on for years now!  We are in between the neediness of the young years and the challenges of the teen years.  Those ahead of me told me about these years and they are in fact easy.  On our trip to Iran they packed all there own clothes, managed their luggage entirely on their own and actually did a good job it.  When they packed their own bags at 3 I'd have to check and sure enough- no undies, one pair of socks for 3 months, etc- but now they are capable little girls.  They actually can cook on their own on the stove, ride their bikes to the park, run to the store for me, do their own laundry well, bathe themselves, dress themselves, get into the car and strap their own seat belt, they no longer require car seats, they can hike all the way up and down (!) a small mountain and they help carry in groceries.  All those things that seemed so far away when I was trying to pull a sleeping infant and toddler out of car seats simultaneously, plus groceries and my purse while it's raining- and then  realize that poop has just leaked out of one of the diapers and is now on everything.  We've all had those moments and wonder if it will ever be easier.  It is and I'm there.  

As I stand on the brink of my 40's now looking towards my 50's it is with some trepidation that I realize on my next decade marker my job of raising my children will be finished.  They will be 17 and 19 when I turn 50.  My duties as mother will always continue but before I hit 51 they will both be legal adults.  It's a sobering thought.  I've been watching some of my nieces working their way through their teens and feel like I really ought to start storing up my energies now for the task ahead.  

My hopes for myself as a mother I travel through my 40's is that my relationship with my girls remain intact and continue on as one of connection rather than domination.  I hope to be available to them physically as well as emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  I hope as they turn into young women that I can let them move through that process without my own stuff getting in their way.  As they begin their interest in seeking romantic partners I hope they are smart about it and responsible.  It will be an entirely different kind of parenting role that takes place as I will attempt to be enough of a friend to have them want to talk to me but yet enough of a parent that our parent/child boundaries do not becomes entwined.  Toasting together with champaign on New Year's to me is different than 'partying' together.  I've worked with teen moms professionally and hope that mine choose a different path but hope my heart will not close to them if they do choose that path.  I hope to support them in whatever dream they have even if it remains as the little sister's currently is and she becomes a hair dresser.  I hope that through all of their choices I am able to come back and stand in love and support of them for who they are, independent of their choices.  I am also looking forward to seeing them turn into young women and eager to see what choices they make.  Not too eager though!  I'm definitely in no rush here.

And for myself aside from being a mother I hope that my own sense of self remains intact and that I have an idea of who I am when my role of 'raising' has been complete.  I hope I can move gracefully into releasing that role and confidently stand in my role as woman.  So many women write about turning 50 and finally feeling like they've 'arrived.'  They are now mature and no longer bound by things that ruled them in the past- worries about weight, looks, what other's think and such fall away and they move towards the thing that drives their lives.  I hope not to wait until I'm 50 to feel like that!   I'm ready to now move enthusiastically towards that halfway mark and let the good times roll.   And the continuing saga of the changes of bodily fluids!  As the night sweats and tears turn back up and other fluids dry up, please may my sense of humor stay intact and my heart stay open.  

AND A REMINDER THAT THERE ARE STILL A FEW DAYS LEFT ON THE DRESS UP SETS BDAY GIVE-AWAY. (scroll down)  IT ENDS FEB 7th.  good luck!

Story Book International

As we watch virtually no TV, I'm always on the look out for good movies for our Saturday night movie night- besides our own!  Actually, the bummer of producing the series is that it is not something my girls would watch!  After doing voice over they've seen it more times than they'd like, so I need to look elsewhere for our entertainment.  

Santa brought this one and I guess he knows what he's doing because we love it!

I've finally gotten around to watching some of the stories in this great set and can't say enough about it!  First of all is has 65 stories!!  Yes, 10 discs with 65 stories and costs around $20.  The value is extraordinary in my book.  They are all folk or fairy tales, stories and fables from all over the world.  The production cost must have  been out of this world because they are all live action and take place in the actual country where the story takes place.  The other thing I love is what others have a bit of issue with, is that the stories are all narrated so the actors do not speak.  I love it because the integrity of the written story remains intact.  The actors are all native of the region as well, so it gives a really accurate cultural setting for each story.

Stories from countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia as well as the Americas are included.

As stated in this blog many times before, I am a huge fan of folk tales and old fairy tales.  I think it quite unfortunate that they have gone out of style in modern times and been transformed by Disney and others and simplified them and stripped them of their true meaning.  So many modern 'woman's rights' advocates have belittled the fairy tale calling them out of date. Of course I do not think women need to wait for their prince charming to be happy, but that is only the surface story.   I think it is so unfortunate  that as a culture we have forgotten the idea of metaphor and have lost the ability to see deeply into a story.  All old fairy tales and folk tales represent one person- it's about marrying the two sides of ourselves, feminine and masculine, sprit (God) and physical (human selves), yin and yang- however you want to phrase it- the only way any one of us will ever live happily ever after is if we as individuals come to that place of union within ourselves, not with another person.  

In this set lies 65 brilliant examples of lessons learned through story.  Not all end in marriage- actually few in this set do, but all have a fantastic 'lesson' imbedded in the story.  Each story is usually just under 15 minutes so they are perfect little bites for children and parents who'd like to minimize screen time.  

I love...

February's nature table!

Happy February.  As those who follow me know I like to have some sort of gratitude project going with the kids each month.  So in fall it looks like this.

But this is the month to celebrate LOVE!  So this is our "I love...tree."  Each day we write things on little hearts that we love and put them on the branches.

She is the Love Mother.   She is needle felted with from wool roving.  And the cat is recycled from the scary Halloween table.

The house is a simple embroidery project that the girls did most of.  We used a scrap of flour sack for the fabric and a piece of felt for the bottom and roof.

Seedpod and leaf sailboat.  The mast is secured with a piece of beeswax.

And from above.  I like to have a living element (fresh flowers) a wood element, fire element and water element to my nature tables.

I saw this little video on teaching children gratitude and must say my immediate reaction from seeing the title was, "Well, you can't teach children gratitude, you must model it."  and I had a bit of a  chip on me ol' shoulder.  But HA, they proved me wrong!  According to research it sure can be taught!  I really loved watching this because in a lot of ways let me off the hook on days when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and not really in the mood to be grateful - just doing the simple action is in fact beneficial.  And being grateful can be learned!  Good news for Mr. Scrooge!