I am blogging over at Ohio Moms Blog today

My post is about saying Yes to my kids more often. Below is a snipit from the post

……..As my kids and family size grew so did my impatience! “No” had become my knee jerk answer.  “Can I ……NO!”   “Will you….NO!” I started sounding much like a toddler with a new and powerful word and I imagine it was really irritating for my kids! Soon my predictable yet arbitrary NO had lost its power.

I think I am going to write more about this soon. Saying yes is just the begining, the start of so many possibilities.

You greeted me in the kitchen this morning at 6:50 AM with two of the seven kids you had spending the night for your 11th birthday party. The three of you had decided early into the party that you would  be staying up all night. And just like you-you met the challenge! Your drive and inner strength never ceases to amaze me. Yet I am sorry for the times when I expect this strength from you. It is easy to forget how young you still are. You have become quite a young lady in the past year. The pre teen years are not an easy time. I know it is both a public and internal struggle and I promise I will try to be more patient with you. You deserve that and so much more my middle child-and all the baggage that comes with that placement.

It is a beautiful sunny day today much like the day you were born. About this time 11 years ago Tanya, Nina and Kellie were rubbing my swollen feet with essential oils trying to help me relax and and encourage my labor. (this is after they made me drink caster oil and root beer shots but I really try to forget that awful part)  Mostly because at this point my water had been broken for 34 hrs and you still were not ready to come out! So stubborn!! We chatted as I drank tea (that tasted like dirt) and opened my mouth and lifted my tongue for tincture after tincture that burned holes in my gums. I was pretty tired because I had been running the steps the previous day (while rubbing my nipples  to try to jump start my labor). So now I was ready to be pampered a bit. Your Dad and I headed to the bath tub and sure enough around noon my contractions really started. You were by far the easiest of my three births. About 4 1/2 hours later you were born in our bed with  Jake cheering you on. By 7:00 that night we were all sitting on the couch eating Chinese food and watching the Disney movie (Fly Away Home, I think).  You were easy going and so beautiful-dare I say one of the most beautiful babies I had ever seen. And today you have certainly grown into that beauty. But not with out a fight-that red hair brings much fire with it but that is what makes you so special!! I keep reminding myself that fire will serve you well-it is what will drive you so far ahead of the rest. What may be a disadvantage to some, is to you a different and better way of doing things. Your creativity, individuality, spunk and drive are so astounding to me. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings for you!! I love you  Molly!!  Happy, Happy Birthday!

(I wish I had some baby photos to share-I need to learn to scan!!)

Sometimes I don’t even know what I need. I go looking for one thing and find another. Sometimes I cast that odd other thing aside thinking I don’t need it and sometimes I hold on to it for dear life, like a new treasure to add to my collection. But funny thing is, that collection has to start somewhere. Often times it begins with a second or third or fourth exposure  (because sometimes I am slow, stubborn or deaf)  to that odd other thing that I cast away earlier. It keeps popping up and continues to catch my eye and then fills my thoughts and I begin to obsess over it. Then I go back searching for those tidbits I tossed aside earlier. I sort through stuff trying to remember wear I saw it. I find other things along the way to add in and after some back tracking and hard work I have the beginnings of a wonderful collection.

For years I have  had this vision of what I wanted my family to be. It sort of looks like an old Kodachrome, or an 8mm movie camera playing a film of strawberry blond kids, happily running through a meadow. Ridiculous, I know. But I am a visual person and the part that sticks out in that picture for me is the happiness and joy part of the picture. The part that I feel is missing from my picture,  my family.

At the end of 2009 I told my friends that I was turning over a new leaf. I was going to be a nicer person. When really I meant I was going to find MY joy and happiness. I think I have been looking for it in all the wrong places. No one is going to bring it to me, it’s not in a book or off of a shelf. Recently I  realized it  has been with me all along. And I didn’t even know it. Happiness really is a choice, it is within my power to just Be Happy. Stepping outside of my normal response or mind set is just a beginning of bringing on that  happiness.

I am going to tie this all together I promise!

Last week we attended The Unschoolers Winter Water Park Gathering for 4  days. This is the third year we have attended but this is the longest we have stayed and the most actual conference sessions we have attended.  These speakers said exactly what I needed to hear. Not what I wanted mind you, but what I needed. We rehashed these conference discussions 12 billion times over the next several days and a funny thing happened-I went from being dumbfounded and even pissed off a little to questioning and  then more discussion and then to an openness that I didn’t anticipate in the least.  See, unschooling is about so much more than just not doing school. It’s even more than just letting your kids decide how they want to fill their time and how they want to dress or not cut their hair and dye it blue. I knew that, but I learned again that  it is so much more also.   This is not the first, second, third or even tenth time I have read or heard or even been exposed to Radical Unschooling but it is the first time I actually listened to it.

I am not much in to  “the Secret” but that’s just me casting aside the odd thing for the second or third time now. But holy crap…I heard what I was searching for. Fate maybe? I do believe in fate. I didn’t consciously  put it out there, I wasn’t looking for joy at this conference. I was hoping to hear something other than Yes, your unschooler is learning all they need to know, Yes they can go to college, Yes, they will be functioning adults.  But not that I have the power to be happy and joyful right inside me-this whole time! I was there to hear about unschooling- Well I guess I  did put it out there that I wanted to talk about meatier subjects. I wanted a seasoned unschoolers discussion-even worse I helped lead that discussion. (But I am still not sure about “The Secret!”)

Of course I am living off the conference high since we returned but life feels easier and lighter.  Changing MY attitude goes a long way (about 90%) and simply realizing a few things:

*  Everything is a choice-I don’t have to do anything but I can choose to do it (the dishes, taking the dogs out for the 12th time in a row etc..)  Once I choose to do something it takes away the chore or dread and unpleasantness of it. I always thought this was stupid-just psycho babble-I have been humbled!

* Saying Yes  not my knee jerk No-OMG that makes life so much easier!!!!  HELL-O

*Simplifying and lowering expectations goes a long way in lowering stress levels and making everyone happier. -Duh

*My kids don’t care about the future (or the clean house or all the time it took me to plan, get, prepare and clean up food), they care about NOW (they want me NOW, not when I finish something else, to be present NOW,  not listening with one ear while multi-tasking) And they really want me-to spend time with them-what a huge compliment. I should  feel honored that they want to hang out with me!

*My family doesn’t have an agenda or pre meditated reasons for leaving their stuff around, It has nothing to do with me (detachment)so why be resentful??!

So much of this may seem obvious but it has really been a light bulb switching on for me. Some of it is just looking at things differently.  In a nutshell-I went looking for what I thought was Unschooling info and came home with so much more. So much information that I cast away as craziness  or just didn’t pay attention to while hearing it over and over again.  My collection is beginning to grow, so many new treasures and I plan to hold on to each new piece for dear life.

(My husband wants to know why it took me 1,000 words to say this! It was cathartic, honey!)

Today I am blogging at Ohio Moms Blog

Relating all of our adolescent antics and high school foolery in and around the Cleveland area made me a little sad that my kids were not going to experience some of these same stomping grounds. I love when our neighbors here in Clintonville tell tales of when they were kids; the local schools they attended; Whetstone, Watterson, IC. Or when they recreate our street into farmland and our house into “The Doctors” house.

We haven’t been too crafty around here-well Ginger and I haven’t been. Molly on the other hand decided to make a hat on Sunday so she sat down with a measuring tape and paper and pencil and started measuring her head in all different ways and then doubling some numbers and dividing some and even quadrupling some. Asking me what I thought and honestly I had no idea. It really didn’t make too much sense to me but she is touched in that creative,       “I can see things in 3D”, sort of way so I knew she didn’t really need help, just needed to say it all out loud. She was making the hat with several panels, hence all the math.  She used tissue paper to make sort of a pattern and then a quick trip to the fabric store with her money and coupon in hand. She remembered Lina had a hat shaped like the one she wanted to make and thought it might be a good idea to look at hers. That hat was made a little differently than she had patterned. About 30 minutes later she came upstairs wearing this!!! Complete with her first time using the  zig zag stitch for the  eyes. Well done!

As someone that barely sews-Can you tell how impressed I am????

And it fits perfectly! All that real math. She did not use a typical equation or traditional route to get her answers but obviously by the fit, her answers were correct. It’s moments like this that re-enforce my unschooling choices!

I have been spending lots of time reading unschoolers blogs and really wanting to learn more about unschooling. Although we have been unschoolers for a while I am feeling the need to learn more and the need for more support lately. Not because I doubt it but more because I want to embrace unschooling more fully. I feel as though I may have been just talking the talk so to speak. Like giving my kids freedom to make choices with their time, money etc… and then inserting my opinion or worse taking back the control. I am feeling the need for an unschooling boost. So I have been reading Swiss Army Wife,    An Unschooling Life,   Kelly Hogaboom,   The Expanding Life,  The Organic Sister,   Childs Play,  Radical Unschooling,    Joyfully Rejoicing, Organic Learning. Whew! That is a lot of reading!!

But I am so interested in learning all I can about unschooling. I have even been listening to a few podcasts.  So between reading, writing, listening to and discussing unschooling, I have really immersed my self in learning all I can about it. I seem to do that often.  For awhile I will eat, sleep and breath recipes and cooking or raw food or photography or running. I seem to devote all my time to my current passions and then when I feel I have mastered the subject or exhausted all there is to know about soup, or I lose interest and find something else to investigate, I move on.  Often times I come back to the things that interest me although sometimes not.  Sometimes I have learned all I need to on say, how to make my own laundry soap but not really interested in the chemical make up of it. Leave that to the scientists, the people that are interested.

I see my kids acting quite the same way. They fill their time getting their questions answered or their activity, level, or project mastered whether that takes an hour or several days.   Once their needs are met they feel satisfied to move on.  They are setting internal goals and following their own timetable. How appropriate! And how real.  As Molly demonstrated it often involves math and reading or science and history and all those school subjects that seem to continually creep back into our lives as a measure of competency.   Can’t it just be what it is. Can’t it just be Wow-Molly made a great hat without all the educational baggage that comes with it.( For Molly it was this way-she didn’t know she was “doing math” she was just figuring out how to make the hat fit her head.)

I say educational for lack of a better term, school curriculum? I am constantly learning and educating myself as is everyone else in the world every second of every day-yet it often goes unnoticed when it occurs outside of formal school. The term “self taught”  usually comes with a wow factor or a a sense  of  “can you believe he/she learned that on their own?”   Really??? We are all self taught when it comes down to it. Even those who went to school for umpteen years-you didn’t learn everything in school. Some stuff we learned on our own, by following directions, looking on the internet, watching other people and by doing it ourselves.  It is those that earn that self taught label that followed their passions far enough to be accomplished publicly or are making a living at something they loved enough to practice and perfect.

The way that I am pursuing my interests isn’t any different from the way my kids are living their lives-yet no one is looking at me funny. Giving my kids the freedom to learn all the time in their own way, whether it be all crazy, and mixed up front to back or back to front or for two weeks or two minutes is huge. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine if you could spend your time learning  what ever you wanted. In the way that best suits you-reading up on the subject, joining a group, watching movies about it, talking to others that have knowledge on the subject. Really immersing yourself in that topic. Well our kids are doing that every day. And not just in one area because as so often times it  happens that one thing leads to another. So many things are related to another and learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in life. And in real life math is not separated from english from science from history. Only in school.

This project from Family Fun takes a little bit of time so plan ahead!

T-shirts were buy one get one free the day I was at the store so instead of trying my luck at the thrift store I bought new shirts for this project. But they didn’t have white shirts in my kids sizes so I went with black and a sparkly blue fabric paint. I like the way it tuned out but you can use whatever color shirts or paint you choose.

You will need

black marker, paper,cardboard,  newspaper, cotton t shirt, tacky glue, sponge brush, fabric paint

1. Use a black marker to draw a thick lined snowflake template on the paper or download one at Family Fun

2. Place template over the cardboard and slip both inside shirt. You should be able to see the template through the shirt. Because we used a dark shirt we just used the glue tip and drew ours free hand using the template as a reference.

3. Using a thin line of tacky glue-about 1/4 inch wide-trace your snowflake design. Let it dry for 10 mins then fill in any gaps with additionl glue. Let the glue dry completely until it is transparent. We left ours overnight

4. Dip the sponge brush in the fabric paint and dab around the snowflake, completely covering the entire area. Use less paint towards the outer edge. Let the paint dry overnight.

5. Soak the tee in warm water for about 10 mins to soften the glue. Peel off the glue and let the shirt dry. Follow package directions to set the paint.

I swear to heaven above that these really do taste like Sour Patch Kids. Only they are a little more healthy!

I saw this recipe on local, Columbus blogger Rachel’s,  Hounds in the Kitchen. I knew right away that I would love this sweet and Oh, so sour concoction!! And boy was I right! I barely have any enamel left on my teeth after eating almost a whole bag of these sugary, sour goodies.

You will need to mix :

2 T of honey with 2 T of hot water in a bowl. To that add grated orange peel, 1/2 t cinnamon (more or less)  and 1 teaspoon (more or less)  vanilla extract.

Rinse a bag of cranberries and add to the bowl, mixing to coat.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment and pour a mix of 1 to 2 cups of powder sugar and granulated sugar.

With a slotted spoon, add cranberries to the sugar mix and coat well.  Let sit about 30 minutes or until sugar hardens. Store in a jar for 3 to 4 days. I didn’t use a slotted spoon so  mine are still drying since this morning. But that didn’t stop me from eating them all day!!!