What a month, friends. We had so much going on between kids’ commitments, out-of-town family, home to-do’s and travel planning–and ending the month with a bout of pinkeye for 3/5 of us–that I feel like I blinked and it’s May! School will be wrapping up soon, and then we’ll have a couple of weeks free before summer activities start.
While I’m ready for summer, I’m also enjoying that we’re getting a real spring this year instead of skipping straight from snow to 90 degrees. I loveee rainy days and we’ve had a bunch of them lately (including this morning). Obviously I don’t live in the right place for that, most of the time… but I’ve been channeling my inner Sydney/Bay Area/temperate region girl and enjoying the in-between season this year 🙂
Favorite reads: I got a little bogged down by Deep Nutrition (while it’s fascinating, it’s also very dense) so I started The Montessori Child and I’m really enjoying it. Before kids, I wanted to be a teacher–until I found out how badly we treat and pay teachers here in the US. The whole education system is screwed up here (I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir).
Anyways, I’m still very interested in pedagogy and child development, especially when it’s applicable to my own children. The Montessori Child is accessible and simple yet raises a lot of questions about standard parenting practices. I love a book that challenges me!
Favorite recipes: I’ve been incorporating some more vegetarian meals into our weekly meal plans. Just feeling like lighter fare with the warm weather, I guess! Roasted vegetable baked ziti, cheesy quinoa stuffed mushrooms and our favorite lentil soup have been hits with the adults (and the mushrooms and soup were enjoyed by the 4-year-old, too).
Favorite parenting move: You know when your kids get bored? Like, they have a bajillion and one toys and somehow it’s still “mama mama mama” every other second? We did a declutter of our toy bins and kids’ bedrooms and pulled out several grocery bags of broken toys, actual trash, and things the kids said they didn’t like (puzzles, games, stuffies, etc). Did a whole-house toy rotation. And now everyone is entertained once more, and the storage room isn’t overflowing.
People have asked me how I “get” my kids to willingly give up toys–the answer is, nothing special. I always let them decide what to keep and get rid of. They understand that at a point, we won’t be bringing anything new into the house if we don’t let go of old things, and they are always more than happy to create space by removing stuff they don’t care for. I think pushing people to give up things they don’t want to, probably creates people who won’t let go of anything.
So even if it’s something that seems useless to me, like a broken plastic Easter egg or collection of not-sticky stickers from the grocery store… if a child wants it (and it isn’t dangerously broken), it stays!
Favorite self-care practice: One 1-2 hour session at the library every week to work on stuff without noise in the background 🙂 I realized I hadn’t been out of the house except to the doctor/dentist in a month at some point in April. I definitely need more time than that to recharge and be a pleasant human!
Looking forward to lately: We found an absolute steal on Sydney tickets for early next year so we bought them! It ended up being ~60% of the price I had budgeted for which is fantastic. More money to adventure, eat out, and not stress about hotel prices 😛
What was one of your favorite things or moments in April?
xx Claire