A Magical Childhood Newsletter

Magical Childhood Newsletter
Volume 3
May 3, 2001

Hi moms! I hope your weather is getting as great as ours has been. The girls have been practically living outside and are loving it! Yum. :)

I hope you've been enjoying the newsletter. Feel free to write back and let me know any specific subjects or areas you'd like to see. Also, if there are any subjects you'd like tips on I could open it up to a sort of "Can you help?" section for anything from recommending bikes to advice on how on earth to get their teeth brushed without screams louder than the tornado sirens. If you'd like to send in any tips, sites, craft ideas, or musings, go for it!

Have a great week!
Alicia

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10 Fun, Free Places to go today

1. The park to feed the ducks
2. Art museum
3. The library (even better if you catch story time)
4. For a hike at a park or nature reserve
5. One of those half abandoned malls that nobody goes to, so the kids can run around and make noise and there's less stuff to call out "buy me!".
6. The humane society to see if there's volunteer work available for you and the kids (walking dogs, brushing animals, or even just loving on them).
7. Tour any local factories that allow the public in.
8. Go fishing (even without hooks-- kids don't care!).
9. Rock hunting-- anywhere with rocks counts. My husband finds petrified wood and agates in parking lot medians. Kids love finding neat rocks!
10. Play tourist in a nearby town. Stroll downtown and be sure to stop at any visitor's centers. Ask about attractions for the family. There may be some you don't even know about.

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In the same theme, the Dollar Stretcher web site has a list of free and low-cost places to visit, arranged by state. See what your state has to offer and leave a note with any recommendations you have....
http://www.stretcher.com/stories/970525a.cfm

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The other night a storm knocked our power out just as the girls and I were in the tub. Daryl scrambled for a candle and we finished our bath by candlelight and then all piled in bed and read stories by the flame. It was surprisingly fun! I think we might try a voluntary power outage sometime soon. It would be a great time to read books from the days before electricity like the Little House series or picture books from history. I'm going to look for some at the library so I'll let you know of any good ones I find!

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From Femail Creations:

<<<< Imagine a Mother >>>>

Imagine a mother who believes she belongs in the world.
A mother who celebrates her own life.
Who is glad to be alive.

Imagine a mother who celebrates the birth of her daughters.
A mother who believes in the goodness of her daughters.
Who nurtures their wisdom. Who cultivates their power.

Imagine a mother who celebrates the birth of her sons.
A mother who believes in the goodness of her sons.
Who nurtures their kindness. Who honors their tears.

Imagine a mother who turns toward herself with interest. A mother
who acknowledges her own feelings and thoughts. Whose capacity
to be available to her family deepens as she is available to herself.

Imagine a mother who is aware of her own needs and desires.
A mother who meets them with tenderness and grace.
Who enlists the support of respectful friends and chosen family.

Imagine a mother who live in harmony with her heart.
A mother who trusts her impulses to expand and contract.
Who knows that everything changes in the fullness of time.

Imagine a mother who embodies her spirituality. A mother
Who honors her body as the sacred temple of the spirit of life.
Who breathes deeply as a prayer of gratitude for life itself.

Imagine a mother who values the women in her life.
A mother who finds comfort in the company of women.
Who sets aside time to replenish her woman-spirit.

Imagine yourself as this mother.

Item #5421 Imagine a Mother
http://www.femailcreations.com/shopping/catalog/All/All/5421

(No affiliation with the company but I do shop there when things go low enough on clearance) :)

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Quick Fun! Have a tug of war! You only get to use one hand or have to play with a silly restriction.

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This is a wonderful movie review site for parents, where you can see detailed information on objectionable material in movies from scary scenes to drug use to whether it contains topics to talk about.
http://www.screenit.com/

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Magical mama Jen sent these quotes.......

All the masterpieces of art contain both light and shadow. A happy life is not one filled with only sunshine, but one which uses both light and shadow to produce beauty.
-Billy Graham

Laughter is inner jogging.
-Norman Cousins

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fear.
-Glenn Clark

Each day we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.
-Charles Swindoll

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There's a lot of fun stuff (love those scientific phrases) going on in the sky in the next month or so. With the warming weather it's a great time to start star-gazing. There are meteor showers hitting in the next couple of days, plus a comet is coming sometime soon too. Here are some sites magical mama Claire found and heartily recommends:
http://www.skypub.com
http://www.fourmilab.to/yoursky/
http://www.finderscope.com

By the way, an expert in an astrology magazine says he uses binoculars for his planetary snooping. He claims they're easier to just lie in the grass and look through and that he can get a good view with them. If you want to get a closer look and don't have a telescope, you might be able to get your hands on some binoculars and try those out.

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Here's some fun books we found at the library that I suggest checking out...

10 Minutes Till Bedtime (Peggy Rathman I think? The same author who "wrote" the wordless "Goodnight Gorilla" book)
This is another book with almost no words and it's delightful! A little boy has ten minutes till bedtime, and his father shouts out the countdown every page or so (also great for teaching numbers). The whole time he gets ready for bed, hordes and hordes of hamsters are arriving for the bedtime tour. Don't ask! It's darling though. These little guys join him in the bath by the hundreds, complete with little hamster floats and slides. They brush their babies' "toofs" when he brushes his.... all the while the head hamster is leading this magical tour of them in little buses and all. It's cute stuff, with so many wonderful, goofy details to find as you read. A winner.

But Not the Hippopotamus (by Sandra Boynton) Like all of Boynton's board books, this one is just cute. The illustrations are always such fun, and the rhyme is funny enough that Daryl chuckles when he reads it to the girls. It's a nice little lesson about including everybody too, without beating kids over the head with preaching. :)

Silly Sally (by Audrey Wood) The Woods are pretty good at creating wonderful books (other than "Bright and Early Tuesday Evening" which I find creepy! G). Silly Sally is my favorite of theirs! We check out the board book every time it's at the library! This sunny yellow, darling book is quirky and fun. It's a rhyme about Silly Sally, who goes to town walking backwards upside down. Along the way she runs into characters who make her journey even harder. Good fun. Daryl knows it by heart and recites it to Victoria when she's cranky in the car. ;)

Mice Squeak, We Speak (Tomie DePaola) This big, colorful book is really good for the younger set, especially as they're learning their animals and animal noises. There are few words, just brightly colored animals with their accompanying noises. Every few pages it comes back to some children, and says "But I speak!" or talk or whatever rhymes with the current set of noises.

When Sophie Gets Angry -- Really, Really Angry (by Molly Bang)
A good book about emotions and anger, which shows what happens when one little girl gets angry and how she gets happy again. It's realistic without being preachy, plus it makes it okay to be angry. It's a little old for Victoria, who doesn't have the option of running out of the house to climb a tree to get calm, but it still shows anger in a healthy way and shows how to deal with it. Best of all, it validates Sophie's anger and doesn't encourage kids to bury their negative emotions. I'm not sure she's a role model as much as just a normal kid. Victoria is mesmerized by the book and Annalee (15 months) is starting to learn about anger from it too (believe me, she knows about anger on her own already). ;)

(We interrupt this newsletter to tickle the baby's tummy and make her giggle lots! Okay, we now resume our regularly broadcast yapping......)

I remember the first time I went shopping for baby clothes and actually held a tiny baby sock. I had just found out I was pregnant and I stood in the department store with this minuscule pink baby sock in my hand, in absolute giddy amazement that I would have my own tiny person who could fit in that sock!

Unfortunately, that was the first of many miscarriages for me and it was almost ten years later when I finally had my own little newborn perfect feet to fit in those socks. Yes, I kept them. My box of baby clothes and blankets moved with me from apartment to apartment, miscarriage to miscarriage. I couldn't look at it for years but I kept it. Someday my baby was going to wear those precious pink and blue and white socks.

Both of my babies have feet that are too big for those tiny little things now, but I still get a giddy thrill from looking -- really looking -- at their tiny little parts. They're not going to be small forever. I relish their chubby, soft little hands and feet and cheeks.

Next time your children are within reach, take a few minutes to really truly look at their little hands and feet. Even if they're teenagers, pull them onto your lap and hold their hands and think back to how far these hands have come. Think of the tiny little buds they were inside you (or whoever carried them). Remember the sight and feel of those precious fingers wrapped around your huge thumb.

Hold their hands in yours and look at the beautiful, tiny lines that criss cross all over them, like maps of their futures. Feel how soft they still are. If ever you want something to make you forget the whining and challenges, holding this little person's perfect little hand and really looking at it will do it.

With a little luck, someday these hands are going to grow up to hold their own babies, dance with their loved ones and help people up. They'll be as big as ours or bigger. They'll get tough from hard work and get character from those little scars and bumps life brings us.

For now, hold that darling little hand in yours that is growing with that miracle child you were blessed with. Give it a kiss and a squeeze and be thankful for how amazingly lucky you are. What an amazing journey we're on with them and how neat that we get to help lead the way. :)

Till next time,
Alicia

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