Tag Archives: peaceful mama

World Kindness Day

This is a guest post submitted by Alexandria Heinz from FTD Florist.  I feel that the three images she shared go well with our commitment to attachment  parenting. The third image speaks to me of self-love, a practice that allows time for the “me” that needs to be honored in order to find the Peaceful Mama that we love and adore in our home.

Wishing you a beautiful day as you spread kindness in your corner of the world <3
~Krystyna

World Kindness Day is a beautiful day each year where people around the world set aside their differences and go out of their way to be kind to one another. This a perfect time to show your family how much they mean to you. This can be by simply setting aside an extra hour of the day to spend time with them or giving them random compliments.

To help inspire ways that you can spread kindness this November 13th, our friends over at FTD have compiled 30 of the best kindness quotes around. They even included a printable card that you can write your own message on! Enjoy.

kindness-quote-4kindness-quote-5kindness-quote-6

Monday Musings: Living

If you have been following along the blog for a while, you know that 2016 was a huge year of shift for us.  We sold our two homes – both of which we loved – in preparation for a possible move across the country.  We also lost many family and friends as they moved on to the next journey after life.

Just when we thought we were through the woods of all this shift, another beloved mother in our circle passed away suddenly in December. I am still not clear if it was a stroke event or a heart attack – what ever it was, it was enough to invite her to move on – and she did, leaving behind a husband and four children.

I am devastated for her child that is Night Owl’s age – she was the surprise baby after their three older children had basically made them empty-nesters.  And also for her three older children that will now go through all their adult “firsts” without their mother, to say nothing of her husband who is now going to have to find his new normal as well. It is so much to process…and yet I realize that they are not alone and someone, somewhere, is holding vigil tonight for a beloved soul that will pass along before all the goodbye’s have been said.

This woman’s passing hit especially close to home since she was the same age as my beloved husband. I came home from her services and told Daddy Bruss that the first order of business in 2017 is for him to have a complete physical and catch up on any tests that he hasn’t had in a while and/or yet that are suggested for people his age.  I also realized that it’s time for me to admit that I am practically in my mid-40’s  and it’s time for me to take me own advice.

Her passing also made me recommit to my intention to Live Life Today.  There are things that are important and things that really don’t matter.  It has made me really motivated to get rid of the junk and clutter that we accumulate because There Is No Time To Waste on Small Stuff.

My new intention for our homeschool day is to only do “things” until noon, and then have lunch and go out and have experiences with our children.  I don’t know if we are going to finish our curriculum as I had planned before I had these revelations, quite frankly I don’t think I care anymore.  As long as the Sweet Peas do math, read, write, make music and dance every day I think we are going to meet the rest of any requirements on field trips.

I watched THIS TED Talk tonight and it is right on point to where I am in my life. Thankfully my revelations arrived through the course of reflection over all the grief we experienced as a family last year, and not a highly stressful experience like this speaker lived through.

Since deciding that my ultimate goal is being the best parent I am capable of being, I have not felt a huge struggle with the yelling.  I close my eyes, I take deep breaths, I remember Lisa Reinhardt’s voice guiding us “to be” at the pace of melting chocolate, and I count until I can open my eyes and answer calmly.

Quite frankly, if I die tomorrow, I have a very clear picture of what I want my children to remember, and it’s not Crazy Mama.  We all sent her on a long vacation.  I hope that the intention to be Peaceful Mama is strong enough this time to leave her there a good, long time.

Peaceful Mama has huge hopes and dreams. I want them to remember a mother who showed up for them.  I want them to remember that my deepest desire is for them is to find their passion in life and pursue it.  I want them to remember that my love for them was deeper than the oceans and I hope they will use it to soar higher than the stars, because I believe in their greatness and ability to do anything with their talents that they set their mind to achieving.  I want them to remember that I am one of their biggest fans and that they are very, very loved.

I want them to know that their father and I conceived them in love, brought them into the world in love, and that they are loved in such a way that nothing can separate them from us.  We will always strive do whatever is in our power to help them learn, grow, explore and invite them to take risks so that they can learn who they are meant to be and what their God-given gift is to use for the benefit of others.  I want them to remember that we made choices in our personal life to facilitate the pursuit of our dreams, and that creativity and helping others is an honorable pursuit.

If the way I live my life in whatever time I have left conveys this to them, then my work on this earth is complete. It’s so easy to take time for granted and put things off because There Are Things To Do.  The bottom line is that there will always be Things To Do.  The time to be in relationship is limited.

I don’t know how much time I have left, so I am doing a lot more snuggling and saying more I love you’s than I used to.  I continue to remind myself of their love languages so that they receive the love in actions as well as in words.  Much of my desire to speak more and do more as it relates to my passion for birth and breastfeeding and the childbearing year has taken a back seat to my desire to be someone they remember fondly and with love.

So now I am signing off to have a late night snuggle with none other than Night Owl.  Good night.  Wishing you all a day full of love <3

Doing it all…or not.

I am so honored to have been invited to do a homeschool mom feature on the Homegrown Adventures blog – I am so inspired by that mama on a weekly basis! While I work on completing the interview questions Irina sent me, one in particular really stood out.

Her question that really got me thinking, and I want to write about it today…”How do you do it all?”

My answer is…I don’t.

Number 1: My husband is incredibly supportive of the homeschool journey. Although he isn’t doing any instruction (yet!), he gets the value of what we are providing our children, as well as the importance of activities outside of our home. He makes it possible for us to offer our children individualized instruction, while also providing them with the opportunity to interact with larger peer groups.

Number 2: We are blessed with outside help. The only thing I really have to do in our school day is teach our children. We have ladies that come in 4x/week for a few hours to help with the housework and meals. The days they are not at our home, our Sweet Peas are old enough to help out now. They take turns helping to prepare meals and clean the kitchen, and we have a chore system that works when we use it – LOL.

Number 3: My daily priorities are flexible, and evolving!! This has been a learning curve for me – actually relinquishing the standard of “doing it all” and taking more of a “wait and see” attitude. My “all” meant that I tried to instruct our children and do every activity every day, keep up with all the groups I was in, establish myself as a blogger, and also take the lead in event organization…it was too much. Crazy Mama was showing up far too often. Suffice it to say I do not like her. She yells too much and she forgets that the people in front of her are children. She is also a very short-tempered wife – none of us like her very much.

Once I adjusted my expectations, Peaceful Mama was free to show up and remain present. I took a day to myself to make a list of what was really important to me. No surprise: my family came out on top.

As far as the school day, I had to decide what my absolutes were…what did I **have** to get done every day in order for our children to progress in their learning and growth? And then, what was the fluff…the subjects that are nice to have in our schedule, yet no one is going to fall completely behind if we do not do not complete them every day? And, beyond that, recognizing that we homeschool…so we can be flexible. If it didn’t get done today, we can catch up later in the week.

The best thing I learned to do a few years ago was to plan “catch-up” weeks into the year. I also schedule “reading weeks” every five weeks. A “reading week” means that all our children have to do is keep up the math and reading schedule…everything else takes a break. It is nice to have a week with less pressure and more playtime – it helps keep the focus consistent throughout the whole year, instead of taking 2-3 week breaks because we are all brain-fried, and then taking another week or so to ramp back up to our full schedule. Our consistency has been hugely improved since I adjusted my expectations for our school days.

What about the rest of the day? Ideally, schooling is only 6 hours per day for the five children I homeschool. Sleeping, so that I can make room for Peaceful Mama, is my top priority. Next, I try to prepare our school day before our Sweet Peas wake up. If we can start early, we finish early. They get to play and I can take care of emails and writing/editing during the day so that I am not up late at night.

The third part of that was figuring out that I don’t have what it takes to be a top blogger. I am not willing to “bleed on the page”, so to speak, and reveal all my dirty secrets and/or private life on the internet, I don’t have the time or energy to court sponsors and deal with the paperwork/taxes, nor will I spend the time it takes to interact with a large audience because our children hate it when I am on the phone or computer instead of interacting with them. Besides, it’s part of practicing what I preach. If I am limiting them to two hours a day of screen time, then during their waking hours, I want to hold myself to the same standards. Releasing that freed me from the pressure of “I have to post daily”. So what if I miss a day when I usually post?? No one is going to complain about it…so no big deal.

And finally, I made the decision to step back from so many birth groups. I have the desire to be at every meeting every month, and attend groups in other areas so that I can stay connected and be a force for change in the birth community. I had to come to terms with stepping back…realizing and accepting that the world is not going to end if I missed a meeting. Yes, I do miss seeing some of my favorite people. However, being present for our children is my strongest desire: they are only in our homes for such a short period when you consider the length of a lifetime.

I stopped attending one group altogether, and adjusted my expectations so that I didn’t fret about missing a meeting here or there. What a huge relief it was to focus on attending only two consistently, and then leave the others to a “wait and see” outcome. If all the stars line up for me to attend, I go…if not, then I don’t and I enjoy the time with our Sweet Peas.

Since our children are onto a new season of greater independence, I am able to do volunteer work again. They attend classes for two-hour stretches; they don’t particularly care if I am sitting outside the door waiting for them. Their father is able to do it, so he does. Doing volunteer work fills my cup just as much as attending birth-related groups, and I can do that without the Sweet Peas feeling like I am cheating them on time when I go out at night.

Now comes the task of compacting all of these sentiments into a shorter answer for Irina’s blog feature. For today, I figured that writing it out and sharing my journey with our crew of faithful readers was a good first step to finding a shorter answer.

I do want to take a minute to thank all of you that are regular readers. It has happened a couple of times…just when I think about giving it all up, one of you will send me an email that encourages me…so here I am – still – three years later for our family blog. I appreciate those of you that take the time to read and interact…it’s great to know I am not writing into the great void. Thank you.