Hello everyone.
I posted over at Steady Mom today: Learning Flexibility Together. I’d appreciate it if you’d check it out and leave your thoughts.
Hope your day is as sunny as ours is today.
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I’ve realized that I talk a lot about our do-it-yourself enthusiasm more than I show any tangible results.
Why?
Well, I’m a bit self-conscious about our learning curve as homeowners and our self-proclaimed notion of diy sustainability. I read a few super crafty diy home blogs and when our projects get put together it can feel so… er… anti-climatic. I’ve decided to give a bit of our back story and offer a disclaimer which will hopefully allow me to feel more comfortable sharing our journey as diy, sustainably-minded homeowners.
Disclaimer
Neither Stone or I grew up in a DIY atmosphere. There are of course a few hazy memories of wall paper being hung and I think I remember my Dad changing the oil in his car once.
(And actually as I’m writing this I’m realizing Stone’s father provided all his family’s heat by collecting and splitting his own firewood and his mother is quite crafty.)
But tools and house projects–ooof. They scare the crap out of us.
We don’t want to feel this way which is why we’ve adopted a new attitude. We want our kids to have the confidence to figure out home projects and understand how to maintain their home. Even if they don’t know how to do something we want to model a certain, “Hey, I can learn and try!” type of attitude. We think it’s incredibly important to feel comfortable and familiar using simple tools. This of course comes from our own experience of NOT feeling comfortable around tools.
We’ve come a long way. It’s our learning curve and I try my best to be okay with it. I envision us more like the couple from Young House Love but in the meantime our reality is more like breaking down walls to expose the chimney only to realize we have no idea how to finish the project. Or we ripped up old wall-to-wall carpet without checking to see what kind of condition the old- school wooden floors are in (and without the planned funds to replace or deal with them once we realize they are in horrible shape covered with an ancient, eco-scary varnish).
I try to be gentle with us. It’s an area of our life we are trying to stretch and grow through, even though it can be frustrating and uncomfortable and I’d like to share more of our journey, but I had to get this out first.
In short, we are DIY wanna-be’s with a few projects under our belts, a half-dozen half-cooked projects and big, crazy visions of how we want to live and what we want our life to look like as a result.
And that, my friends, feels okay.
A successful outdoor project from last summer.
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As we all know I am not a morning person, but I do put an effort into starting my mornings off right.
I had the pleasure of learning (through experiential education of course) that simply putting my shoes on first thing in the morning radically alters my day in productive and feel good ways.
This is one of those examples where I’ve heard this before. Fly lady swore it was true along with dozens of other organized type mom advisors, but I naively scoffed at them all. After all, isn’t that a major perk of staying at home with my kids? I relish that fact that I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and get dressed. I love pajama days.
This one morning I came downstairs and Stone was already in the kitchen with the boys. I heard them clomping around in shoes and was forewarned that a glass had broken and I should go put some shoes on. I put on socks, laced up my sneakers and went on to have a million dollar day.
I felt like I was about to teach a yoga class or go take a run or….I’m not really sure, but it added a bit of spunk to my usual breakfast and clean-up routine. I felt like supermom and every time I have one of those moments I try to stretch those feelings as far as possible.
So I’ll admit it, Fly Lady was right: lacing up your shoes first thing in the morning does kick start your day into fabulousness. But of course, like most things in life, I needed to learn this lesson myself.
(This makes me wonder what other Super Mom tricks are out there that I’ve been missing.)
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Yesterday’s Photo-Friday post was not supposed to go out until today and it wasn’t even finished, but I was called out to a birth and in the rush of things I scheduled the post instead of saving it as a draft. Sorry about that!
WAIT….back up. Did I just say I got called out to a birth? Yes, I did! I spent all day Wednesday with an awesome couple birthing their first baby. I want to nominate these people for fantastic parents of the year already because they worked so hard to get informed and created a network of support around themselves that (in my mind) almost guaranteed a great birth experience. Even if there had been physical complications, they were so prepared and so well supported in all areas that I think they still had themselves in the best case scenario all around. They did have a great experience and I did too.
She was a really independent birther and mostly needed the midwives and me (the doula) there for reassurance during some strong moments, but mostly I just stood Witness. A couple of times I doubted that I was even needed and became self-conscious that I wasn’t doing enough, but when I checked in internally to be guided I heard, “Witness”.
Sometimes being a witness is the most you are able to do and yet, it can be a very powerful place. Holding space for someone and mindfully keeping your ego checked at the door, you help hold an open space where everyone is better able to act intuitively and authentically as they explore emotions and find their way.
I was reminded of how empowering and powerful it can be to stand witness to someone else’s experience or emotions. I thought of my children, struggling to work out an emotion and how sometimes my first reaction is to try to fix it, but maybe they just needed me to witness and help hold space for them to work it out.
I thought about times where Stone is working out his own emotions around something and because our lives are so intertwined, I too easily add myself into the mix turning the situation into a big mix-up of emotional debacle. Maybe he just needed me to witness his experience.
We’re in the middle of a huge snowstorm (it’s amazing!) and my parents are in town to visit. I’m going to try and stay really mindful of this reminder to allow people their experiences and do my best to hold space for them. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Have a super weekend.
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Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of
strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something
infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature— the assurance
that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
- Rachel Carson
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Interesting.
Now let it go.
I used to be an attachment parenting, naturally minded mama who homebirthed, used cloth diapers and swore my kid would never use a pacifier (or watch tv-ha!).
Now maybe I still do all those things. (Maybe, maybe not?–doesn’t really matter.) But what I’ve learned on my journey into this wild world of parenting is that self-identifying with certain labels and movements can at first be inspiring in a “wow-a guide to live by! sort of way, but in reality they limit our potential of finding our fantastic flow.
I’ve had so many discussions with friends who were staunch APers, but guiltily whisper (we cried it out, used a pacifier, signed his soul to the devil etc.) delving into the world of the all too familiar self-guilt that riddles every parent’s heart.
I say-so what. Sure you would’ve liked a natural birth, a baby who slept so soundly you could dreamily relay what a fantastic night’s sleep you got snuggled up to them, or a child who didn’t have acid-reflux or car sickness in which a pacifier helped soothe those rough times. But that wasn’t what happened and we found our own way (even if we had to break some of the “rules”).
The more we free ourselves up from the very constraints we place ourselves in– the easier it is to find a unique flow that works for our family. I think every family could write a book. It would be called “The Jones’ Guide to a Happy, Healthy Family” or maybe “The Guilmett-Clancy Guide to Family Living”.
We all take the little pieces of wisdom we find and work them into our lives and most of the time applying them into our family actually changes the original game plan. Why? Because there are no parents who are exactly like you and no children who are just like your children.
Throw it all together and you get a one-of-a-kind, mixed-up, bejazzled, completely fantastic and uniquely amazing family. And your family deserves a style all of its own.
Free yourself: give up parenting dogma.
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