Thanksgiving

Today I am grateful for the many gifts in my life.  A holiday spent with My Heart's Desire, Babyface, my dad and stepmom is a wonderful day indeed.  And pie.

Today I am grateful for wonderful friends.

Simplicity Parenting

One of the books recommended in my hippie parenting class is Simplicity Parenting Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne and Lisa Ross.  While it's geared more to parents of older kids than toddlers, it had great lessons about keeping it simple and not overwhelming children. 

 

It is true that I am known as a toy Grinch and don't want a house cluttered with toys.  We went to a birthday party for one of Babyface's friends and I was shocked to see that the family had more toys than our daycare.  More isn't better. According to this book, more can be too much.  Which validated my choice to have a dozen or so age-appropriate toys out for Babyface to play with and swap them out from time to time with others.  He's perfectly happy and so am I.  Also, the book and I are in firm agreement about having passive rather than active toys. 

 

The most important message I got from the book was really simple: just pay attention to your child and believe what he is telling you.  Instead of trudging forward no matter what, parents are encouraged to watch for signs and then adjust accordingly.  Sometimes Babyface will make tired face or even lie down on the floor when it's not his usual sleep time, and instead of saying, "He can't be tired now," I think, "Oh, he must be tired" even when I don't understand why. My hippie parenting class always includes observation and I've been amazed and what I can learn just by watching Babyface. 

 

I also liked that this book had suggestions of different things to try, some easy, some more complicated, and the tone was of gentle inspiration and encouragement. I've been mulling over some things that I can do to make our home routines simple.

Today I am grateful for my sincere love of bargains, including the new-to-me Bread machine that I bought at my church's everything you can carry for $20 sale, having great colleagues, the ability to text photos of Babyface to grandparents who live far away, clean water, low-TV week (though I finished my 864 page book faster than I thought, so I'm off to the library tomorrow), fires that My Heart's Desire makes, and being a planner.

Today I got up after sunrise, gave Babyface his favorite breakfast, cleaned out my closet so that now everything in it fits and is the right season, found a pair of black work pants I forgot I had, created a big giveaway bag and a consignment bag, ate pizza with My Heart's Desire that he was taste testing, stunk up the house by making a fried egg for Babyface in rancid butter, took Babyface for a walk (to the store for more eggs) and saw deer, slow cooked homemade chicken stock, went on a movie date with My Heart's Desire, came home and had dinner, watched a few episodes of Weeds, finished reading The Hypnotist's Love Story, then went to bed.

Today I got up bright and early with Babyface, bundled him up and took him for a stroll, was happily surprised to see a lot of leaves still on trees, shopped at Whole Foods for five things and ended up spending double what I expected, read while Babyface napped, went to our last hippie parenting class of the term, hung out at home with Babyface, gave him a delicious dinner of veggies and lentils (I just learned how to make these in the rice cooker, a breeze), then a bath, cuddles in his fleece snowman pajamas, then his bedtime routine,  My Heart's Desire made the first fire of the fall, we watched The Mindy Project, ate chilaquiles with scrambled eggs for dinner, and lounged by the fire.