Easter Basket Advice

Easter seems to be getting pretty big in terms of the gifting for the kids. As many parents, I opt for

getting them toys rather than candy. My kids don't eat a lot of candy, so what I buy ends up getting eaten by me. I am the sweet tooth in the house and the one that has no will power so I eat all the candy. What are my options?

This year, the candy only appears in the eggs we will hide for them. There is no candy in their baskets accept gummies in the shape of letters. Both girls are obsessed with letters. I chose some small Pringle cans, and little cookies. So what's in the basket?  I have 3 pieces of Easter basket filling advice. 

#1 Just the Basket

As I am also obsessed with our plenitude of stuff, I made a rule that all items must fit in the basket. No scooters. No giant dolls. No separately wrapped items. It makes it in the basket or it gets saved for another occasion. 

Following this advice will make you happy. It will remind you of your childhood before the 4 aisles of Easter junk at the store existed. It will also make the hiding of the basket easier if you are into that tradition. It will also keep things into perspective a bit, Easter isn't really about the bunny and the basket. Just saying. 

#2 Make, Take and Release

The girls enjoy doing hands on activities and lucky for me, the Target $1 or  $3 area has several options. I have been walking through the aisle for weeks picking up a thing here, another item there and that has been the bulk of the basket items. I like the idea that they can receive something, make it,  use it, display it and then recycle it. 

I am not one of those moms that saves every piece of art my children have ever created. I take pictures of it all. The plan is a digital photo book, when the time comes. This idea will provide instant family fun time, especially if your kids are still young. You will have a few silly easy activities to do with them and there won't be more junk in your house to stay forever and ever. 

#3 Select the Worthwhile

It all can't be devoid of candy and filled with disposable junk. I suppose if I had not invested years ago in substantial sized baskets for my girls, this wouldn't be a problem. A good hint may be pick a small basket to start, but I didn't. I have always made a habit if purchasing children's books when they are on sale, toys when they are on sale, art supplies, clothing and I store them in Tupperware containers that slide under our bed. Because of this thoughtful purchasing, I am prepared for birthdays and holidays such as Easter. 

This year the girls will receive pajamas, books and Disney classic dolls in their baskets. They also have umbrellas and galoshes. I bought this stuff over 3 months ago. I stuck it under by bed and before I ran out to fill their giant baskets, I took a look at what I had. Some of these items definitely have utility and they are going to love it. Know your kids. Get a couple of things they will love. Mine love books.

Basket building should be fun, not stressful. It shouldn't be a financial drain. Keep it simple. Make it fun. Celebrate the promise of hope in Christ through time with your families and the silly fun of Spring equinox with a playful basket that will make your child smile. 

Things to Remember as a Mom

1. It may seem fast in a couple of years, but today is still made up of hours and minutes to appreciate and enjoy. Like Walt Whitman, suck the marrow out of parenthood and take the good with the frustrating one step at a time. If you can take it in day by day, in 10 years when you look at your tween daughter and wonder where the time has gone, you can confidently say and feel that it was a well spent childhood filled with love and play.

2. These little people following you around have never been here, on Earth, before. They aren't trying to driving you nuts on purpose. They are just testing the waters just as you are trying to figure out how to be a parent. You are in this grand experiment together. Give yourself and them a little slack.

3. There is no perfect sock, or dinner or life. Relax. Do your best with the best of intentions. Sometimes you have to give up cleaning all the toys up for 20 minutes of playing on your cell phone at the end of the night. Things will always need to get done. The laundry basket in my entry way has been there for at least 2 days. I will not get a fine or lose my mom card because of it.

4. As a woman in the year 2015, you can work, be a good mom, have a strong marriage, have girls' nights out, make a soufflé and write the next best seller, but it's likely something is going to get slightly less attention. It's okay. The women's equality movement wasn't meant to be about doing it all, it was meant to be about choices. Too much work or too much kid time can lead to feeling overwhelmed and unappreciated. Balance seems to be the great key. Excess always leads down the wrong path.

5. Don't compare yourself or your children to other moms or other children. If there is one thing we can do for each other is hear the wise words of Tina Fey in Mean Girls, "We need to stop girl on girl violence." Put in your best effort and feel good about that. Kids grow differently, mature and learn at various rates, comparison fosters envy which will cloud our opportunities for feeling at peace and fulfilled.

6. One thing I figured out early on is that you can't always predict what your kids are going to do or say. This becomes more true with every passing day. The older Lydia gets, the more I know I can't dictate everything that comes out of her mouth. Though I wonder why we insist on socializing our kids because I assume the snotty remark that came out of their mouth was from another child in her class, because she would never get that from us at home (right?) I am reminded of the beauty and richness of relationships. It is the fabric of community, the village, that help us grow.

7. No one in the history of parenthood has ever said this was an easy gig, but many agree it was one of the most rewarding. Be thankful everyday. Appreciate the opportunity to be with these little people and to love them deeply. These little people will grow into bigger people that will be pretty incredible too.

My Top 7 Choices for Children's books with Black Characters

All of these books provide a positive images of racial differences, however not all the books address this directly. In The Color of Us the little girl is struggling with her own skin color and begins to notice that all her friends in the neighborhood are have different shades of skin. Whereas, Lola loves Stories is just about a little girl that goes to the library with her parents and becomes the characters in her books. There are millions of options these are just some of the ones in our bookcases. 

The Color of Us, Karen Katz 

The Skin You Live In, Michael Tyler

Lola loves Stories, Anna McQuinn

Please Baby Please, Spike Lee

I like Myself, Karen Beaumont

It’s Okay to be Different, Todd Parr

Chocolate Me, Taye Diggs

Children of minority groups rarely see main characters in books that look like them. According to the NYT, in over 3500 children written in 2013 only 3% were written by Latinos over 1/4 of the population of the United States is of Hispanic heritage. Out of the books written by Latinos not everyone has a Latino protagonist. Children of color doesn't see themselves as positive central characters in imaginary worlds, how must this translate to their realities? 

If the goal is for young white children to see these images as well, then there must be intentionality to the that mission. If we, as parents, believe in equity and inclusion for all people then we must make it a priority for our own children. We create the lens in which they see the world. 

3 Tips to Discussing Race with your Kids

Keeping the silence about racial issues is often the response of many white educated American families in genuine hopes that this alone will be teach our children that there is an inherent equality among all people. Parents have convinced themselves that by saying nothing to our children they will grow up in a colorblind world.  It turns out this is untrue. Studies have revealed that children make up their own understandings of race if parents aren't brave enough to have a conversation about racial differences. It's not easy to do. Race is a touchy subject. Adults can barely muster up the courage to discuss race with other adults. The idea of having to navigate these types of conversations with a 3 year old is mind-boggling. 

It turns out; it's not that hard. You are literally pointing out the obvious. Your child already knows that their friend is black. Chances are the friend knows she's black too.  Here are 3 tips to discussing, exposing and teaching your young children about race and racial differences.

1. After school or after a play date, on the way home ask your child if they had fun? What was the best part of playing with Camilla? Simply ask your child what is something different about their friend? They may say anything.  You can always just ask directly, what color is Camilla’s skin? Is that the same as yours? Is that okay? Your child will point out the differences and come to the conclusion on their own that they like Camilla and her skin color doesn't change that. At the core of what we want our children to learn is that people are good regardless of race. Walking them through those connections is the goal. 

2. Read books with your child that have people of color in them. On one hand just having protagonists of color will create the implicit message to kids that those stories are important too and that those stories are fun and funny too regardless of the color of the character. Reading to your child makes a difference, not just because it increases literacy, but it opens up new experiences and opportunities for your child. A universe were little girls can be the most powerful leaders in the world, where little black children play crochet and dislike basketball or a planet where no one is ever without food, or shelter or love. The idealism of childhood is reflected in board books and pictures books, as parents we can show our kids those stories with people of color. This will place people of color in roles of power, thus changing the traditional power paradigm.

3.  Be intentional about picking various experiences for your child. If your children are white, live in a mostly white neighborhood and attend a mostly white school, then consider when it’s time to pick a week of summer camp to pick one that may have a more diverse group of participants. Consider taking your kids to play at different parks around town in hopes to expose them to different communities. Attempt to expose your child to kids of other racial backgrounds. It will be through relationships that kids will experience equality in imaginative cooperative play. Young kids will become friends quickly and fiercely regardless of race.

This morning a friend at work who is in an interracial marriage with two kids shared a story with me. She is biracial and her husband is white. They have two girls. One little girl is tan with coarse very curly dark locks, the other that is white with wavy blond hair. They don’t even look like sisters however they act like sisters. The girls were fighting with each other over a doll. The younger white sister yelled in anger to the older tan sister, “Well you are ugly! You have tan skin!” Everyone in the house halted. Froze in their steps. The parents immediately sat down and talked to the girls about how we treat one another. The situation settled and the girls continued to play. The parents sat in shock. Why did my kids just do that? They assumed that they know they are sisters. The same two people created them and yet one has systemically more social dominance than the other, even though they have been raised in the same communities and attend the same school.

My advice to her was the same. Talk to your kids about racial differences so it doesn’t stop everyone in their tracks, but rather it is an acknowledged nurtured part of who they are as a family. Become empowered to be the parent that has the tough conversations with your kids. If you start when they are young, it will get easier to be brave. Colorblindness does not exist, but ignorance does.

Lean In

Recently, I read an yet another parenting article where the author gave great practical doable advice about reducing your daily parenting stress and keeping up with the daily things like making dinner, getting the kids dressed and doing one daily chore around the house. As I skimmed it, I realized I already do all of those things and still I feel parenting stress. My two year has spent a week eating nothing but pretzels and pickles. Nothing works. No positive reinforcements, no negative reinforcements, and no bribe has been alluring enough to convince her otherwise. She has dug her heals in and pickles and pretzels are it. The parenting stress has peeked and I can chose to handle in two ways:

1. I can follow her around the house with a variety of food choices, fork in hand and pray for the miracle of her giving in and eating something slightly more nutritious.

                                                                                 or

2. I can let it go (you may add the Frozen tune here if you like or let that go too.) Chances are that my two year old will all on her own want to broaden her pallet and try something different.

I opt for #2. I call this Leaning In. My second child has given me the greatest gift of awareness and parenting skill I could ever imagine: learn to pick your battles. Most of us moms have already consider what the tween and teen years may bring and we have heard this idea of picking battles with hair styles or clothing styles with our future 15 year olds but the thought doesn't occur to us when juggling our preschoolers. If they want to wear dirty pajamas, why not? If they want to wear sandals with socks, why not? If they want to wear everything blue and pick out what character on their diaper, I say LEAN IN. These are not the fights.

My parenting goals are that our children grow up to be kind, respectful, hard working members of society. Lean in. Let things go. And do it often.

We are lucky enough to live close to the beach. Beach trips typically take a lot of preparation with kids. You must remember the sand toys, the snacks, the towels, the blanket, the sunscreen, the drinks, etc. Sometimes the idea of packing it all up is exhausting, instead I take them to the park which they love and requires no prep on my part. However, upon recent reflection I considered that perhaps the complications were mine. The kids love the beach. They won't care if I forget something. I threw some sand toys in a bag along with a couple of juice boxes, grabbed the sunscreen and a blanket and away we went. For two solid hours the kids played. They ran up and down the shoreline, hunted for shells, created castles and instantly smashed them. By the end of excursion, they had gotten a little more wet than I expected since the water was still freezing it didn't cross my mind they would want to get in to it. I didn't bring back up clothes. When we were ready to leave. I pulled off their shorts, wiped off their sandy feet with the sandy blanket and we trotted off to 7-11 to get a post beach slurpee.

I didn't worry about the sand in the car. I didn't worry about the pant-less children in the convenience store. I worried about making lasting memories with my kids and appreciating their childhoods as deeply and thoughtfully as I could that day. I say Lean In! Allow some chaos. Allow piles of dirty laundry or heck all piles of freshly folded laundry! Don't let your stress become their memories.

Thanks and Giving

It turns out that having two kids under 4, a successful career, wonderful family and friends near by makes the opportunity to blog hard; almost an unsurmountable obstacles. It occurs to me to take some pictures and I make a mental note to jot something down about the moment, and then just like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of lives.

November is time of year that we all should take the time to be thankful. Some folks post a daily thanks on Facebook or Twitter, add a hashtag and admittedly, that's sort of nice. I like seeing them, but some how I am not diligent enough to pull off such commitment for 30 days. At home with the girls we have a little tree that once a week we ask the girls what they are thankful for and we write it on a leaf and add it to a tree. On the coffee table in the living room we have pulled all the Thanksgiving children's books out and we've been reading them off and on.

However, our goals as mentioned in my epic last post is to give and minimize our stuff. So we have been working on that. For our church service project we put together a few boxes for Operation Christmas Child. We had the girls pick out items at Target. They colored pictures. I also had been hoarding shoeboxes, so I sent those to church too. We packed up 2 boxes designated for girls ages 2-4 and 1 for a boy age 2-4.

We gleaned the playroom with the girls again and took the items to Metropolitan Ministries. We arrived on the day that Met Ministries was breaking the world's record on the most food ever collected. News fans were present and volunteers were gathered around a giant thermometer. The excited was palpable and Tampa Bay beat the record. It was amazing!

Our last contribution over the last few weeks was with the help of the boy scouts in our neighborhood that are collecting food for the hungry. They dropped off a bag at the door asking for canned food. We simply put in a few cans that we had on hand. It couldn't have been easier.

When I was taking pictures and conceiving of this blog entry, I wondered about potential boastfulness of blogging about our family giving. It occurs to me that I am proud to be working on serving others. To be more conscience of the needs of others and the abundance of advantage that I have. I am proud that we are hoping to teach our girls by example. And I do believe if you are able you should care for others in the world in whatever way you can. If you share about your service to others, perhaps someone will feel moved to do that same. Thus to accusations of boastfulness, I say NEH! Join us in trying out best to help those in need.

My Own Mutiny Against Excess: 7 Goals for 7 Living

It drives me crazy to think that my stuff is weighing me down. I worry that my girls’ stuff is too abundant. I worry that others may think that they have too much and that they will be spoiled and that they will grow up to not appreciate things. I worry that the girls will be those people that believe they are entitled to things or jobs or to a certain status. That may kill me. I find myself making excuses about their toys to our closest friends that don’t really care that the girls have a lot of toys to begin with. I lose sleep over it. I also lose sleep over being sure that my girls are thoughtful and thankful always. Both Eliot and I have parents that have always worked really hard. We both had the things we wanted when we were young and neither of us ever felt like we wanted something and didn’t get it. And some how, we managed to walk away with an understanding of the importance of hard work, the importance of valuing people; our relationships, more than any thing that we could have; possess.

As I pondered these ideas, I was watching HGTV. This is not to say that I need a bigger home or fancier home. I just like HGTV. I like seeing hard work turn into something cool, particularly if it’s got some sort of vintage flare. Vintage may be a cool new word for old but to me it says homey. I digress; I was watching a show with the Hatmaker family. These Texans were so fun and easy going I did something I rarely do, I googled them. Turns out the Hatmakers are professional Christian authors and ministers. So I downloaded Jen Hatmaker’s book “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.” I read it. I had to slow myself down as I read it because I wanted it to seep into my skin. I was looking for an awakening, to be transformed in some way and I got it.

In the book, Jen Hatmaker systemically tries to addresses issues of excess for her and her family. For example, one month she focuses on the excess of their possessions so as they reduce the amount of clothes and other things they have around the house she commits to only wearing 7 items of clothing for the month. Another month, they decided to go green, so they identify 7 new behaviors such as recycling, gardening, and composting. There were 7 but I can’t remember them all. What I go out of it was a perfect segue way to into my own mutiny, as I read I was inspired. It shifted they way I want to live myself.

1. I want to be part of a church community that focuses on service. The image of the typical Christian from the outside looking in, sadly has increasingly become narrow minded, conservative and greedy. I struggle sometimes to defend the institution when the loudest of voices are arrogant and instead of caring for others are pushing them out of sight whether it’s a politically charged controversy of immigration or the regulations in towns on the homeless. The Jesus I know would likely have not been a modern day Christian. The Jesus I believe was the example I want to follow is that of an individual that was comfortable with those in society that were the most oppressed and casted aside.

To that vain, I want to be a part of a community of faith that seeks to care for those that need it the most. I want to spend less time in conversation about big giant Trunk or Treat party and more time in providing food to families without it in my community. Currently we are in process of building a “foot washing church” at least I would like to hope that we are. My church campus has suspended Sunday morning services every second Sunday to serve the community. We have service goals through February, which will be family and visitor friendly. We planning on being a true community church where the doors are always open, and so are our hearts.

 2.   I want to develop a habit of giving to others for our entire family. From the little things like donating used toys and used clothes to gathering food for Metropolitan Ministries to participating in family service activities.  

i.    I believe that giving is better than receiving. Empathy and compassion fulfill our lives in a way that envy and greed could never. It is part of that living by example that I believe children really see. As a child my mother opened her door to many in need, she was always trying to care for others, give to others whether it was a meal or a pair of socks, her heart is still one that focuses on giving. To this end, I want to be sure that we are doing our best to be giving people as well and talk to our girls about the importance of doing so. It’s a little holding hands and singing “Kubaya” –ish but there is value in generosity for all.

3.   I want to pick a day of the week where Eliot and I unplug together and connect to each other. I can’t completely disconnect, partly because I hardly watch television and vegging out to an hour of TV after the girls go to bed gives me great joy. But on the other hand, my incessant need to check email on the weekends or the evenings needs to be curved. Some things can wait, actually most things can wait. Life gets so busy and tiresome that Eliot and I will lay next together on our cell phones. He looks at soccer stats and I look at vintage furniture. An absolutely needed downtime, but once a week I want us to connect together together, rather than together separate. It is a tad counterintuitive perhaps to disconnect in order to connect possibly in another tech sort of way. Eliot and I may choose to watch a movie together or a show or a game, but at least we are engaged with one another; focused on the same thing.

     We disconnect with the girls often. We go to the park, or play games or do crafts without any tech oriented sort of thing, however, in Hatmaker’s 7, she had the entire family observe the Sabbath. They shared in a family meal and stayed home, stayed away from outside influences like phones, computers and ignored the host of household duties like laundry, mowing the lawn and simply just were together. Sometimes they ate popcorn and watched a movie, other times they played games, but I like the idea. Our lives are so busy that I would like to claim the Sabbath back. Ideally we would do this every week, but chances are that we won’t pull that off. I am trying to create habits of attainable goal setting so as of January I will schedule us one Saturday night a month as Sabbath night. We will wake up in the morning and go to church too.

4. Stuff is crowding my drawers, my closets, my garage thus I want us to reduce the amount of things we have. Now I should be specific because I am not claiming that we will give away everything and live in a state of asceticism. However, there is no reason we need 3 blenders. True story. I rarely blend as it is. So why 3 blenders? One doesn’t even work, but because it says magic on the side I shove it in a corner thinking that perhaps it’s inherent magical nature will revive it. It’s unlikely. We have likely 20 pots and pans, if not more and I am certain we use only 4.

So what I hope to accomplish is to evaluate the things we have. Things we do not need or no longer use we either sell or donate. This way we have things that we actually have a reason for and otherwise we let go of it. I am sentimental about photographs and a small handful of things, otherwise I have the tendency to let it go, the goal here is get it out of the house and into the hands of someone that needs it.

5. This past weekend we went to a local fruit and vegetable stand. We bought I think good quality items and I think a little less than we normally do. I want to be sure that we aren’t wasting food. We have definitely gotten better at this over the last few months. We have been trying to eat everything in our, 2 refrigerators instead of buying more things and forgetting we have it stored. One of the ways we have been doing this is menu planning.

Over the weekend, we try to talk through what we could have for dinner during the week and then purchase additional food as needed. Maybe everyone does this, but don’t really. I used to go to the store and just buy things that may strike my fancy on that day. So we ended up with 7 pounds of chicken or 12 bags of frozen vegetables. As we plan for the week, we consider at least one leftover day, and a day that my parents will make us dinner and a day that we may eat out.

6. At the risk of being redundant, I want us to evaluate our closets and pass things along to people that we have out grown or are out of style. I have been pretty good at doing this with the girls’ clothes because they out grow things so quickly, but Eliot and I have too much clothes. There is no reason I need 50 skirts in my closet.

h    There is also no reason that every drawer in my dresser doesn’t closed completely because there are so filled items get partly stuck at the back of the drawer and stop them from closing. I also have lots of clothes pre-pregnancy that do not fit because my body changed significantly.


      7. An item on the list of most Americans is spending. Addressing and evaluating where most of your money goes will determine what you value in life. I want to be thoughtful about our spending and to use our financial resources for experiences rather then the acquisition of more things.

Of course there are things that I want and there are things that I need, but there is balance. We also have a love for travel and a desire to feel financial secure as we enter our 40’s, 50’s and beyond. This is the time to figure that out the plan.

**I haven't blogged since June. It's hard to believe that life has gone so fast and that I have let go of something I love to because time has gone too fast. I will add writing to my list of goals.