Happiest en Casa

I listened to Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon Self- Control, and My Other Experiments in Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin on audiobook from CharMeck Library last month as I continued my January intention to BE A READER. She’s got a series of podcasts as well as a blog and various daily/monthly email newsletter subscriptions if that’s of more interest to you.  In addition to sharing her opinion and experiences, she does her research on happiness. I appreciate when a writer cites so many diverse sources. I especially like this section of her blog where she positions herself against those with whom she does not agree regarding the topic of happiness.

Before I dig into the Happier at Home book, first I want to introduce the fundamentals of Gretchen Rubin’s “8 Splendid Truths of Happiness” that come from her prior happiness research for her Happiness Project and her blog.

“8 Splendid Truths of Happiness”

1. To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
2. One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy;
   One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
3. The days are long, but the years are short.
4. You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
5. I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.
6. The only person I can change is myself.
7. Happy people make people happy, but
   I can’t make someone be happy, and
   No one else can make me happy.
8. Now is now.

These 8 splendid truths are weaved throughout the Happier at Home book, as well. So it might be helpful to have them as a frame of reference.

In the Happier at Home book, Rubin specifically focuses on how to seek happiness at home. Essentially, she wanted to explore more clearly the question: what did she want from her home?

Her answer: A place that calmed her, and energized her. While Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she also wanted to appreciate how much happiness was already there.

In her website’s own words “starting in September (the new January), Gretchen dedicated a school year—from September through May—to concentrate on the factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, parenthood, body, neighborhood.” Rubin dedicated that time to make her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.

Here was her month-by-month focus:

• September- Possesions- Find a True Simplicity
  “We need to project ourselves into the things around us. My self is not confined to my body. It extends into all the things I have made and all the things around me. Without these things, I would not be myself.” —Carl Jung, C. G. Jung Speaking
• October- Marriage- Prove My Love
• November- Parenthood– Pay Attention
• December- Interior Design- Renovate Myself
• January- Time– Cram My Day with What I Love
• February- Body– Experience the Experience
• March- Family– Hold More Tightly
• April- Neighborhood– Embrace Here
• May- Now- Remember Now

Some of my favorite resolutions that Rubin creates out of her Happier at Home Happiness Project are:

• Make shrines in your home
• Outer order leads to inner calm
• Give warm greetings and farewells
• Suffer for 15 minutes a day
• Underreact to problems
• View your home like a tourist

I’d recommend this book. It’s not an intense read but it is an interesting one. Caveat: somewhat obvious but if you’re not interested in your home or in your happiness, then you’ll find it of little interest. Sometimes her writing seems to have a lot of platitudes (watch the trailer for the book. You’ll see what I mean. Also, trailers for books? I didn’t realize that was a thing). I do, however, appreciate how she balances those with storytelling and copious amounts of research on the topics she addresses. The book is a personal account from Gretchen Rubin but yet it is relatable and actionable for others.

This interview with the author touches on many of the ideas that stuck with me from listening to the audiobook.

I read this book at a crossroads moment of sorts in my life. During the first few weeks of January, I began to tell my boss and coworkers of my decision not to return to our school for the following school year. My job is not a bad one. Many would consider it a good one and by all conventional metrics, it is. I like going to work on most days. I learn, grow, and laugh each day. Of course, as there can be in any job, there are endless frustrating things about working in a high school setting but none of those things were exactly my reasons for wanting to move on to another, new professional chapter in my life.

When I read this quote from Happier at Home, it helped me bring some clarity to my decision and my ability to articulate it to others:

“I am living my real life, this is it. Now is now, and if I waited to be happier, waited to have fun, waited to do the things that I know I ought to do, I might never get the chance.” – Gretchen Rubin

Essentially I decided I was done waiting for later. My professional life now is good enough, but I needed to heed the call for what was next and do it now rather than continuing to stave it off until later. Simply put, I want to live my chosen life now. Now I will do the things that make me happy, the things that are fun, the things that I know I ought to do– whatever those things may be. Now was now now.

Therefore, my Happiness At Home Project, Happiest en Casa, is set to commence in June 2019. For teachers, June always brings a sense of renewal. It’s a chance to catch your breath, commit to yourself first again. These luxuries are seldom lived out in the hectic 180-day sprint of the school year. And this June, in particular, I am recommitting to me, to my family, to my life. Therefore, my Happiest en Casa project will be somewhat about my home and my physical space but it will also revolve around “being at home” as a first time stay-at-home mom.

Here is my current plan for my month-by-month focus:

• June- My Neighborhoods— Go On (local) Adventures
• July- Frugality— Go On A Budget for Living & Cooking (in particular)
• August- Community Connections— Go In Service to Others
• September- Health— Go Exercise & Rest
• October- Celebrations & Traditions— Go Celebrate & Keep it special, simple, & fun
• November- Gratitude— Go Give Thanks
• December- Mindfulness & Meditation — Go Be
• January- Parenthood — Go Play
• February- 2nd Career— Go Plan
• March- Our Marriage— Go Connect
• April- Our Food– Go Garden
• May- Our Things– Go Purge, Fix, Clean

“The true secret to happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of life.” — William Morris, “The Aims of Art”

I look forward to discovering all the details of daily life in this upcoming stage. I am eager to get started on this project but will have to temper that energy for a few more months.

Happier at Home’s last page includes a quote from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s work, Little House in the Big Woods, and the book ends with these words:

“As I turned the key and pushed open the front door, as I crossed the threshold, I thought how breathtaking, how fleeting, how precious was my ordinary day. Now is now. Here is my treasure.”

I hope that 365 days from June 1, 2019, I will reflect on my year at home and consider it, and my home– and everything and everyone in it, a treasure. Here’s to setting goals, tracking how it all turns out, and then telling the story.

Happiest en Casa. Stay tuned.

Let them eat cake!

On my first son’s 1st birthday, I decided to start the tradition of making fun (hopefully delicious) homemade birthday cakes. I’ve been hearing this distant call towards homemaking, something I’ve never been naturally drawn to but now am finally getting a slight interest in, and decided making homemade birthday cakes and inviting the grandparents and great grandmas over to start an at-home birthday tradition was a great way to get my feet wet.

Now, full disclosure, I only have a hand mixer and vowed not to upgrade to any fancy kitchen appliances unnecessarily or prematurely. Therefore, when I say homemade, for me, at least for the foreseeable future, that likely still includes a boxed mix base and probably store bought icing too.

However, I’ve also found that there is still a lot of room for fun and creativity even if my homemade isn’t a Martha Stewart make-from-scratch caliber… yet (or ever).

So without further ado, here was my first homemade birthday cake for my first son’s 1st birthday:

I think this one, especially since it was a first attempt, turned out pretty well.

I used yellow cake with chocolate icing, raisinets for the campfire rocks and cake border, toothpicks with marshmallows for the “s’more-making” over the campfire, and birthday candles for the campfire flames. I cut up part of an old gift bag that had a red and black pattern and used toothpicks to make the camping tent. Now, I did go to a craft store to purchase the trees from the model-building section and the glittery #1 from the cake baking section. Neither were expensive and it was fun to use examples on Pinterest to decide how I wanted mine to look and then buy a few inexpensive essentials to pull the look together.

Since that inaugural birthday cake I’ve made various others with varying success. However, my bar for success is mostly: did people eat it? Yes! Great!

For my husband’s summer birthday, I tried a homemade ice cream cake borrowing from Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman:

Then there was a series of Dino cakes, including one for my first son’s 2nd birthday and my husband’s summer birthday a few months later as my first son has been into Dinos:

When it came time for my second son’s 1st birthday, I wanted to steer clear of the Dino theme, so I went with another current favorite– “working trucks”:

Again, the base is box chocolate cake mix and store-bought chocolate icing. Then I put a bunch of Oreos in a ziplock bag, first taking out the white icing center, and then hit them with the rolling pin until they were crushed up. I staged them at the bottom of the cake, on top and then tumbling down the side. The “working trucks” I purchased inexpensively off Amazon and my kids still enjoy playing with them.

Most recently, for my mom’s birthday this winter I wanted make something that she would really enjoy— that I could manage. And, for her, I knew that would include lots of chocolate and raspberry and less dinos and working trucks.

So, I decided on this chocolate raspberry layer cake from Giada since when I read the recipe it sounded like the perfect mix of homemade with a store-bought base for me. In all honesty, though, I modified it even more– which I’ll detail more later, but here’s my final product:

We’ve even started making cakes for other “holidays” besides birthdays (I used quotes here because jury is still out if Valentine’s Day is a holiday or not). Also TDB if we’re making too many cakes– or it it’s even possible to make too many cakes:

I’ll continue to chronicle my cakescapades here as long as I continue to enjoy it.

Becoming a Master (MATSL)

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller

This quote by Margaret Fuller pretty much sums up graduate school for me. I remember at graduation lamenting with my professors and my small cohort of co-Masters that besides their company what I would miss most about my time as a graduate student was the reading lists we received in the summer prior to a unit of study. So many books and resources on that list were not “required”  but in a sense, they were necessary to become a master and a leader in our graduate classroom and in the world language classroom as an educator. Again, I come across the truth that reading is essential to understanding the world around us and, thus, also essential in our efforts to teach others about the world around us.

I completed my master graduate studies in teaching a second language (MATSL-Spanish) in a low-residency program at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. I’d link you to the MATSL program directly but, sadly, it is no longer offered. However, their MFA program and post-bach pre-medical program are still robust as far as I know.

Regardless of the fact that the program is no longer offered, I still contend that it is one of the richest learning experiences of my life. And without a doubt, it included some of the highest quality, incredibly knowledgeable, progressive-thinking, and committed professors ever assembled for a now-defunct graduate program.

The idea was to spend an intensely, blissful 3-week summer residency living on Bennington’s beautiful campus immersed in studying Spanish literature and culture, language-learning pedagogy, second language acquisition theories, history, and the role of technology in language learning. Then, we would return to our work environments to complete action research in our classroom contexts with our students and throughout the school-year continue our graduate courses by participating in classes through distance-learning: online forums, Skype/Google Hangouts meetings, Go To Meeting lectures, collaborative Google Docs and Wikispaces projects and Today’s Meet chatrooms (also, ironically, Wikispaces and Today’s Meet are now both defunct platforms), etc.

It was intense. Looking back now, I honestly don’t know how I had time for the reading, the research, the transcripting of classes, the papers, and the classes while maintaining my full-time teaching load and my personal life. Well, on second thought, looking back now I am certain that I did not have much of a personal life in that era of rich learning.

Here are my courses and many of their materials. I wanted to compile these in a place where I could remember and revisit them easily (as the actual texts and materials are stored in boxes in my attic):

Action Research

• Doing Teacher Research: From Inquiry to Understanding  by Donald Freeman
• Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning by Courtney B. Cazden
• Exploring Talk in School edited by Niel Merce and Steve Hodgkinson
• Language and Politics by John E. Joseph

Technology and Digital Literacy

• Language Learning in the Digital Age by James Paul Gee & Elisabeth R. Hayes

Pedagogy

• Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
• + other resources integrated throughout our language, literature, culture classes

Second Language Acquisition Theory and History

• Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction edited by Bill Van Patten & Jessica Williams

Spanish Literature and Culture

Metaficción y Autoría

• Libros
• • El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
• • Niebla by Miguel de Unamuno
• • El cuarto de atrás by Carmen Martín Gaite
• Películas
• • También la lluvia by Icíar Bollaín
• • La mala educación by Pedro Almodóvar
• Otros recursos de clase:
• • Novelas ejemplares by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• • • “El casamiento engañoso”
• • • “El coloquio de los perros”
• • Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez
• • “Las Meninas” by Michel Foucault chapter from Las palabras y las cosas
• • “Of Witches and Bitches: Marginality and Discourse in El casamiento engañoso y Coloquio de los perros” by Carroll B. Johnson
• • “Magias parciales del Quijote” from Otras inquisiciones  by Jorge Luís Borges
• • “Unamuno’s Niebla: Existence and the Game of Fiction” by Carlos Blanco Aguinaga

Umbrales de Identidad: Migración y literature de la España comtemporánea

• Libros
• • Nada by Carmen Laforet
• Películas
• • El viaje de Carol by Imanol Ver Uribe
• • Flores de otro mundo by Icíar Ver Bollaín
• Otros recursos de clase:
• • “Los inmigrantes” by Mario Vargas Llosa from El País
• • Réquiem por un campesino español by Ramón J. Sender
• • Madre mía que estás en los infiernos by Carmen Jiménez
• • “Naranjas rojas y amargas” by NIeves García Benito
• • “Mujer extranjera: una doble exclusión. Influencia de la Ley Extranjería sobre las mujeres inmigrantes” by María Helena Bedoya from Papers

Mitos y Arquetipos: La creación de la imagen de España

• Libros:
• • Cantar de mío Cid 
• • Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla
• • Reivindicación del Conde don Julián by Juan Goytisolo
• Películas
• • Carmen (Vicente Aranda)
• • Carmen (Carlos Saura)
• • Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall (Luis García Berlanga)
• • Camarón (Jaime Chávarri)
• • Lost in La Mancha (Terry Gilliam)
• Otros recursos de clase:
• • Romances de La Cava Florinda y del Conde Julián
• • “Ghostly Returns” from The Return of the Moor by Daniela Flesler
• • “Memorias del futuro: Ideología y ficción en el símbolo de Santiago Apóstol by Javier Dominguez García

Media vida: Borges y la realidad posterior de lo fantástico hispanoamericano

• Libros
• • El Aleph
• • Ficciones
• Películas:
• • Strangers on a Train Alfred Hitchcock
• • L’année dernière à Marenbad by Alain Resnais
• • El sueño de los héroes by Sergio Renán
• • Caballos salvajes by Marcelo Piñeyro
• • Despair by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• • Name of the Rose by Jean-Jacques Annaud
• • Rouge Krzysztof Kieslowski
• • Inland Empire David Lynch
• • Men in Black by Barry Sonnenfeld
• • Being John Malkovich by Soike Jonze
• • Abre los ojos by Alejandro Amenábar
• • The Matrix by Larry & Andy Wachowski
• • Memento by Christopher Nolan
• • The One by James Wong
• • Un amor de Borges by Javier Torre
• • Solid Geometry by Denis Lawson
• • Le tigre et la neige by Roberto Benigni
• • El laberinto de fauno by Guillermo de Toro
• • The Da Vinci Code by Ron Howard
• • Double Take by Johan Grimonprez
• • Borges and I by Jonathan Bentovim & Emily Harris
• • Atonement by Joe Wright
• • El secreto de sus ojos by Juan José Campanella
• • Inception by Christopher Nolan
• Otros recursos de clase:
• • Tlön: A Misty Story
• • hlör u fang axaxaxas mlö by Diego Vega
• • “Prisoners of Uqbaristan” by Chris Nakashima-Brown
• • “Introduction: History, Politics, and Literature in Borges” Out of Context: Historical Reference and the Representation of Reality in Borges by Daniel Balderston
• • “Nueva refutación del tiempo” by Jorge Luís Borges
• • “La estatua casera” by Adolfo Bioy Casares
• • Reseña by Jorge Luís Borges
• • “Las islas nuevas” by María Luisa Bombal
• • “Kafka y sus precursores” by Jorge Luís Borges
• • “Un pacto con el diablo” Juan José Arreola
• • “Autobiografía de Irene” de Cuentos Completos by Silvina Ocampo
• • “Everything and Nothing” Jorge Luís Borges
• • “Cartas a Mamá” by Julio Cortázar
• • “Prólogo” by Jorge Luís Borges
• • “Poema indio” by Julio Cortázar
• • “La lotería en Babilonia”
• • “The Balloon” by Donald Barthelme
• • “El idioma analítico de John Wilkins” de Jorge Luís Borges
• • “Prefacio” de Las palabras y las cosas: una arqueología de las ciencias humanas by Michel Foucault
• • “La biblioteca de Babel”
• • “Cacería para un solo enamorado” de Condición de mujer by Cristina Peri Rossi
• • “El museo de los esfuerzos inúntiles”
• • “The Encyclopedia of the Dead” by Danilo Kis
• • Cultura y simulacro by Jean Baudrillard
• • “Del rigor en la ciencia by Jorge Luís Borges
• • “El inmortal”
• • “The Immortals” by Martin Amis
• Recursos de pedagogía:
• • Language Testing in Practice: Designing and Developing Useful Language Texts by Lyle F. Bachman & Adrian S. Palmer
• • “Issues in Testing Comprehension and in Evaluating Writing” in Making
• • “Testing Communicative Language Teaching Happen  by James F. Lee and Bill VanPatten
• • Rafael Salaberry “Testing Spanish” de The Art of Teaching Spanish: Second Language Acquisition from Research to Praxis
• • Andrew D. Cohen “Teaching and Assessing L2 Pragmatics: What Can We Expect from Learners?” en Language Teaching: Surveys and Studies
• • Tim McNamara “Principles of Testing and Assessment” in Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning 
• • Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices by Douglas H. Brown & Priyanvada Abeywickrama
• • ” Macedonia”, “Es ud. uruguayo don Jorge?”, “Una vez en la rambla de Montevideo” de Discursos de sobremesa by Nicanor Parra
• • “El Sur”
• • “El gaucho insufrible”, “El bibliotecario valiente”, “Borges y lo cuervos” de Entre pareéntsis by Roberto Bolaño

El Silencio y La Voz

• Libros:
• • Solados de Salamina by Javier Cercas
• • La casa de Bernarda  de Alba by Federico García Lorca
• Películas
• • El espíritu de la colmena by Víctor Erice
• • La voz dormida by Benito Zambrano
• • Ay, Carmela! by Carlos Saura
• • Te doy mis ojos by Icíar Bollaín
• Otros recursos de clase:
• • Poesía: “Me gustas cuando callas” by Neruda
• • Ensayo:  Fuerte es el silencio by Poniatowska
• • Ensayo: The Power of Silence: Social and Pragmatic Perspectives by Jaworski
• • “El lenguaje del silencio en el teatro de García Lorca” by Dru Dogherty
• • “The ‘Austere Abode’: Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba”‘ by Brian Morris
• • “Spirits and secrets: four films about childhood” by Paul Julian Smith
• • “Between Metaphysics and Scientism: Rehistoricizing Víctor Erice’s El espíritu de la colmena
• • “Mostrous Ambiguities in El espíritu de la colmena” by Dominique Russell
• • “La niña extranjera” by Rossetti
• • “Memory, Masculinity, and Mourning in Javier Cerca’s Soldados de Salamina” by Richmond Ellis Robert
• • “Hijos de silencio: Intertextualidad, paratextualidad, y postmemoria en La voz dormida de Dulce Chacón” by Edurne Portela
• • Cuento corto: “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote” by Borges
• • “Whose Words?: Text and Authorship in ‘Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote'” by Brandon Moores
• • Cuento Corto: “Syllabus” by Benet
• • Poesía: “Blas de Otero, Postmodern Poet” by Sylvia Sherno
• • Cuento Corto: “Aniversario” by Romero
• • Ensayo: “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldúa
• • “Gloria y yo: Writing silence and the search for the fronteriza voice” by Zulma Y. Méndez
• • “Ay, Carmela, Reivindicación de la República, reivindicación de la mujer” by José- Vicente Saval
• • “Can the Subaltern Speak?” by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
• Recursos de pedagogía:
• • “What is understanding?” by David Perkins from Teaching for Understanding: Linking research with practice edited by Martha Stone Wiske
• • “The Dreaded Discussion: Ten Ways to Start” by Frederick
• • “Minimal Marking” by Haswell
• • “Meaningful Writing for Beginners” by Stokes
• • In search of understanding: the case for constructivist classrooms by Grennon and Brooks
• • The Development of Higher Psychological Process by Vygotsky
• • Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Freire
• • Teaching with Your Mouth Shut by Finkel
• • Teaching foreign-language skills by Rivers
• • Exploring Talk in Schools by Mercer and Hodgkinson
• • “Content-based Instruction in the Foreign Language Classroom: A Discourse Perspective” by Pessoa et al
• • Language and Culture by Kramsch
• • “La retroalimentación implicita por medio de <<contraejemplos>> en una clase de español como lengua extranjera.” by Toth, P.D. and A Garritano

There are more resources from our Winter study cycles, which were collaborative between the French and Spanish programs based on a unifying theme in a language-specific context, that I’ll have to detail at another time.

This graduate program challenged me to read. It challenged me to think. It challenged my teaching and to consider how I ever knew that I had actually taught my students any language– or better stated how I knew that my students had actually learned any language from my teaching.

One should not engage in leading without ample reading.

Wild Things – The Art of Nurturing my 2 “Explorers”

 

In their book, Wild Things- the Art of Nurturing Boys, Stephen James & David Thomas contend that boys go through a journey of development that is unique from that of girls. At times this book could be seen to have strong sexist and religious undertones, but if you don’t get caught up in those loaded words and concepts, I hope you will appreciate it for its honest look at boyhood and their practical advice given in response to the unique challenges that rearing/nurturing boys can present to a parent.

Here’s the author, David Thomas, giving an intro for how to read and digest his book. Again, the author’s Christian values are an underpinning of his perspective. Even if that isn’t your faith background or belief, I think there are interesting ideas and some helpful advice here. In the book, the authors also draw from their careers working in counseling and with youth and from their personal lives of raising boys.

At different stages of my boys’ development, I plan to revisit this book as a guide or manual for me to better understand and support them in their various boy stages. Having spent 14 years at an all-girls school, I certainly am well-versed in the uniqueness of girls. So it stands to reason that boys, in turn, are unique too. Yin and Yang and all. But now that I am blessed to be a #boymom, as they say these days, it’s time to seek some wisdom for understanding how to nurture these sweet and determined little boys into strong, caring, self-directed young men.

My boys are only 18 months apart, so they will often be in a similar stage of development at the same time— not to say that will manifest in the same way. I can tell you that the infant and toddler stages have already proved to be both similar and radically different between the two boys. With that in mind, let’s do a deeper dive into their current stage: the Explorers stage of boyhood.

Explorers: age 2-4 years old

Q: What does an Explorer look like?

A: Explorers are active, aggressive, curious, and self-determined.

• Active: these boys can be described as bundles of energy and stubborn learners when it comes to discipline.
• Aggressive: At this explorer stage, love and affection can often be demonstrated through aggression such as hitting, for example. Aggression can also signal overstimulation in an explorer.
• Curious: Explorers are kinesthetic. Their favorite questions are: Why? and I see it? They explore their world with their hands and bodies. They need to touch, feel, do.
• Self-Determined: Explorers need to be given the opportunity to do tasks independently. This gives them power and control over their small world– which exists within a much bigger one where they lack control.

Q: What do Explorers need?

A: Space & Structure

• Boundaries = #1 need because the truth is that at this stage we cannot expect a high level of self-control from our boys.
• • Redirect hitting behavior you don’t want! What can he hit?
• Open Space= Giving boys access to open spaces each day can head off potential problems by providing them with lots of it on a daily basis.
• • Room to run and let them be wild.
• Consistency = For explorers, ritual brings inner peace.
• • The attention span of an explorer is realistically 8-15 minutes.
• • When talking to an explorer, make tactile contact, visual contact is key. Use your son’s name when addressing and redirecting him. Keep your requests short and digestible.
• Understanding = Boys’ brains are chemically different than girls’.
• • Communication needs to be concrete and specific. Give a command rather than ask a question.
• • Think if training an explorer like training a dog.

Q: How can I, as the parent, put this into practice?

A: Specific Strategies

1. Don’t confuse him. Be concrete and specific.
2. Limit his choices but give him choice.
3. Anticipate changes and announce transitions in the daily routine.
4. Set a few straightforward rules that everyone can follow.
5. Demonstrate how you want him to behave: “look how gently I turn the pages of the book” or “let’s see how gently we can love on baby brother”
6. Have discipline make sense: Throws a ball in the house, remind him where he can throw balls and then take the balls away for a period of time.
7. Give him space to roam: prioritize time outside EVERY DAY.
8. Model self-control in your speech and actions when you are mad or frustrated.
9. Keep it short and simple: Do not give instructions in the form of a question. Do not end your sentence or request with “ok.”
10. Praise the positive: It’s more helpful for him to be reminded of what TO DO rather than what NOT TO DO.

The next stage of boyhood is the Lover, ages 5-8 years old.

• For this stage, I will, obviously, revisit the next chapter in Wild Things- the Art of Nurturing Boys, Stephen James & David Thomas
• AND also, read Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline & Jim Fay
• I love that the author thinks that this is one of the sweet spots of a boy’s life and his relationship with his mom and family.

Then, comes the Individual stage of boyhood, ages 9-12 years old.

This is followed by the Wanderer stage of boyhood, ages 13-17 years old– the adolescence, the most complicated, some say “worst” stage of boyhood.

And last but not least the Warrior stage of boyhood, which is essentially the age of young adulthood.

 

Enter Being + 29 Other Reminders for being the Awakened Family

When you become a parent no one gives you a manual. Therefore, you tend to parent through instinct. Sometimes instinct serves, but often instinct, or ego, compounds the parenting problem.

In her book, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting, Dr. Shefali encourages and teaches us to be in the moment of parenting, to embrace who our child is rather than constantly trying to form him into what we want him to be, and to be conscious of our own parenting biases which are based in our own personal struggles and, in fact, have little to do with our son. We have to acknowledge the rise of the parent ego in order to be the best parent for our sons.

Ego, according to Dr. Shefali, is the picture of ourselves we carry around in our head. It’s not just about supremacy. It’s about a false idea of who we, ourselves, are. It’s far from who we are in our essential being. This self-image, the ego, is not the true self. It is a falsehood. We begin to form this image as a young kid based much in how our parents see and treat and interact with us.

Her website eloquently introduces The Awakened Family in this way:

“All parents have aspirations for their children. But often these turn into crushing expectations that cause real harm and disillusionment at the most important time in a child’s development. Parenting should not be a competition with winners and losers. Parents need to recognize their children for who they actually are, and in her groundbreaking new book, Dr. Shefali Tsabary challenges the modern myths of parenting that define how a child is “supposed to be.” Instead of holding our children to society’s impossible ideals, Dr. Shefali teaches us how to control our expectations, embrace the present moment, and let go of the anxiety surrounding how best to parent our children. Written in the style of her New York Times bestseller, The Conscious Parent, The Awakened Family draws from Eastern philosophy as well as Western psychology to offer enlightened advice and a clear program for raising confident, conscious children who are true to themselves.”

Dr. Shefali believes deeply in transforming our own and our children’s lives. She is committed to walking alongside us on this journey. Here is a series of live-stream, international book club sessions she did with her readers:

• The Awakened Family Book Club Session One
• Book Club Session Two for The Awakened Family
• Book Club Session Three for The Awakened Family
• The Awakened Family Global Book Club Session 4
• Book Club Session Five for The Awakened Family
• The Awakened Family Book Club Session 6
• The Awakened Family Book Club Session 7
• The Awakened Family Book Club Session 8
• The Awakened Family Book Club: Facebook Live Session 9
• The Awakened Family Book Club: Facebook Live Session 10
• TAF Global Book Club Session 11
• Etc. there are MANY more you can find on her YouTube Channel

From reading her book, one of the helpful takeaways was her list of 30 daily reminders to build consciousness. Now, I certainly fall completely short of doing all 30 every day but I’m hopeful that by having them written out here to reference, I can revisit them often to reinvigorate my practice and desire to be a conscious parent. I want my boys to be their best, true selves.

30 Daily Reminders to Build Consciousness

1. Chant the Welcome Prayer- “I welcome all that is involved in the madness of parenting. Aware that I invited this journey to transform me. I welcome its wildness. Its chaos and confusion. Its dirt and distractions. Its sulks and strife. Its unknowns and unpredictability. Its helplessness and havoc. Its anxiety and anger. Its tedium and tension. I welcome all that is involved in the madness of parenting. Knowing that when I truly embrace it in the now I am left in awe of its magnificence and bejeweled beauty.”
2. Honor Essense– Focus on who your child is today not what they do.
3. Open the Heart– Remember when your kid was sleeping or was sick, remember his sweet, softness. Connect with your child from this place. Remember they are children for only a short time.
4. Create Connections– Touch your child’s face and tell them what they mean to you.
5. Enter Presence– Simply observe and follow their lead. Create space for your child to simply be today.
6. Enter a No Judgement Zone– No matter what the triggers
7. Express Feelings Safely– Open conversations with questions, not judgments. Validate them to feel how they feel at any given moment.
8. Accept Imperfections– Create humility, encourage them to embrace imperfections not change them.
9. Allow Pain– Soothe them. Allow tears. Normalize fears.
10. Enter Forgiveness– Invite your child to tell you ways you can be a better parent.
11. Create Memory– Seize the moment. What simple thing can you do today that they’ll remember always?
12. Activate the Inner Guide– Tune in and tap into their inner knowing. Help them explore their own path.
13. Use Antidotal Energy– If kids are loud, you be soft. If they are angry, you be still. Through shifts in your energy, they change.
14. Practice Conscious Asking & Receiving– Ask for what you truly desire and create gratitude for blessings.
15. Take a Spin– Into the positive. Kid is rude, ask what they’re going through. Kid acting crazy, appreciate all their energy. Highlight the positive.
16. Stop the Nagging– Use your presence. Ask for cooperation.
17. Let them Lead– Empower them to create their own schedule and you assist.
18. Be the Mirror, Look in the Mirror– What does how they are acting show about me? I reflect their essence.
19. Teach Awareness– Being Aware of feelings is as important as their academics.
20. End the Complaints– Channel your complaints into action. How can you change the dynamic?
21. Correct Limiting Beliefs– Beware of your choice to see lack of abundance. Which thoughts help? And which thoughts don’t?
22. Be Spontaneous in Play- Drop what you are doing and join them in whatever they are doing. Enter their world.
23. Make time: me-time, we-time, play-time, work-time– Value alone time, family time, fun time, and work time so that your kid does, too.
24. Practice Daily Self-Care– Prioritize it in your own life. Wonder & Gratitude.
25. Own your Choice– You/they always have the choice to solve your problems if you/they wish to.
26. Create Sacred Boundaries– Create buy-in, ways of living as a family.
27. Find Zen in the Conflict– Authenticity often looks like conflict. Power sharing.
28. Make Peace With the As-is– Accept your kid and you as you are in this moment. Let go of the fantasy you think you should be.
29. Embrace Today– Resolve to create change right here, right now, not in the past. Enter what is.
30. Enter Being– Flow. Interfere little. Engage in the essential. Drop all that isn’t essential.

As I embark on a season as a stay-at-home mom prioritizing her family while searching for what career step is next, I want to visit these reminders often.

How do I teach my kids to THINK?

From its own website, this book takes the stance that:

This generation of children and teens has grown up with very little need to wait for anything. Not only do they expect instant solutions to their challenges, but they are also increasingly dependent on adults. Parents are doing more for their children than ever before, and technology has advanced in such a way that conveniences are no longer the exception but the rule.

We use our experience as child and family psychologists to help parents counter the culture of immediate gratification. Teaching Kids to Think directly addresses issues such as education, video games, cell phones, sports, and substance use. We show parents how to identify 5 parent traps that support children’s need for instant gratification and each chapter offers tip-friendly solutions for problems relevant for raising children of all

ages. 

…”we see children and teens becoming easily frustrated and even panicked when asked to solve a simple social dilemma or deal with a problem on their own.”

Parents are eager to provide their children with the best opportunities, but this has resulted in parents who rescue their children from making typical, developmentally expected mistakes. Even the most well-meaning parents are falling into five clear traps that prevent children from learning to solve problems and think critically. We identify those five parent traps and offer ways to do it differently.

 

Therefore the authors of this book, Darlene Sweetland and Ron Stolberg, state clearly for us why they have written this book:

We wrote this book because we have seen a significant change in the issues that we address in therapy over the past five to seven years. There has been a dramatic increase in the intense reliance in instant gratification with so many of the kids we see. Many children have always desired instant gratification, but we are seeing kids panic, meltdown, and become very anxious when their needs are not met immediately. In addition, they look to others to meet these needs for them, rather than solving problems on their own. We are seeing a trend of children and teens who are becoming more dependent on adults and technology to solve their problems.

We identified why this is happening, what the differences are for kids in this generation, and what parents can do to change the trend.

We have both been in the field of psychology more than twenty years working with children, adolescents, and their families. We are on the campus of 30 to 50 schools per year talking with teachers, coaches, and administrators. Therefore, we have a unique perspective from those who are mentoring and educating children in the Instant Gratification Generation. We identified why this is happening, what the differences are for kids in this generation, and what parents can do to change the trend. Ultimately, kids in the Instant Gratification Generation are being taught not to think. We wrote this book to show parents how to change that.

 

Want a 10-minute radio podcast to glean some ideas before digging into the full book text (which I’d still recommend)?

Start here: San Diego Psychologists Explain How To Teach Kids To Solve Problems

From the book, here are the 5 positive parenting strategies that I continue to re-visit as a parent to help train my kids to be thinkers and problem-solvers:

1. Celebrate the opportunity for challenges
2. Integrate waiting at each age
3. Help children see they are a part of the family unit at any/all ages
4. Focus on the process over the product
5. Teach them to work for it

None of these 5 positive parenting strategies are easy, but that’s the point. Parenting isn’t easy and a parent’s goal should not be to make life easier for themselves or for their kids. Life isn’t easy and if I want my boys to be able to tackle life’s challenges, enjoy their successes, and learn from their failures, an essential part of my job as the parent is to teach them how to do just that— sometimes by just getting out of the way and doing less for them. It seems ironic but if you think about it for a moment it does make logical sense: doing less for my kids can help them learn to do more.

And in the end, who doesn’t want an employee, a friend, a spouse who can do more? I’m raising young men who, hopefully, will grow up to be successful in all of those roles in their futures.

10 Steps for a Year of Less

The Year of Less by Cait Flanders

According to Cait Flanders, below are the essential steps needed to commit to living a Year of Less. For her, the Year of Less essentially started with a commitment to a one-year shopping ban but it blossomed into so much more as you will see in her book.

The Year of Less Steps

1. Declutter your home.
   • Get rid of what doesn’t SERVE a PURPOSE in your life.
2. Take Inventory.
   • What items do I own the most of?
   • In each room of your home, what are the top 5 items and many do you have in “stock”?
   • Once you know the inventory, don’t buy more until you run out.
3. Write 3 Shopping Lists.
   • Essentials Lists (buy from this list when you run out of items in stock)
   • Non-Essentials List/No-Buy List
   • Approved Shopping List
4. Unsubscribe from all mail/email lists.
   • I’ve used unroll.me to help declutter and unsubscribe in my email inbox
   • Here are a couple of options I will look into for my snail mail: Stop Junk Mail Ecocycle and from the Federal Trade Commission Consumer Information.
5. Create a Shopping Ban Savings Account.
   • Deposit money you make from selling items you’ve purged from your decluttering phase.
   • Deposit money you’ve “saved” by not buying items you normally would have purchased– consider creating an Amazon wish list where save items you plan to or would have bought were it not for your commitment to less this year.
6. Tell everyone you know about your plans to live less this year.
   • This creates both accountability and support in your daily interactions.
7. Replace costly habits with cheap or free alternatives.
   • For example, turning off or suspending your Audible account and instead frequenting the local library and it’s online/app resources.
8. Pay attention to your triggers and change your reactions.
   • A key element here is mindfulness. Break bad spending habits by paying attention and choosing to react differently. Practice, practice, practice. It’s hard to stop a bad habit, but it’s easier to practice replacing the habit.
9. Learn to live without or become more resourceful.
   • If you are feeling the “need” to buy something, note it– write it down, save it to your Amazon wish list, etc.– and wait 30 days. See if the need is still there.
   • Can you borrow or share the item? The more we share, the less goes into the landfill in the end.
10. Appreciate what you have.
    • Once you’ve decluttered and taken an inventory making yourself acutely aware of what you really own, take time to appreciate and use those items.
    • Be grateful for everything in your life. To live with such abundance, an abundance unfathomable to our great and great-great grandparents is a true blessing.
    • Use everything around you.
    • With less, you can appreciate the people around you more and make them top priority over your things.

This last point, #10, paired with #1 and #2 were the most impactful for me. I was already a follower of Joshua Becker’s minimalist blog and books, and my husband and I semi-annually go through a decluttering of our house as the seasons change and the kids outgrow another set of clothes, toys, etc. I do not have a shopping addiction but also the idea of waiting 30 days before an “essential” purchase in this day of Amazon Prime same-day delivery this was key for me.

I have not yet committed to a year-long shopping ban, but I have begun to think thoroughly through almost every purchase and always consider buying used or sharing or making-do before committing to buying new.

Stay tuned to see if there is an update on a more thorough shopping ban. For now, I simply commit to focusing on family and friends over things.

168 Hours: How do I spend them VS How do I want to spend them?

“You can choose how to spend your 168 hours, and you have more time than you think.”
― Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think

Let’s break this down…

There are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week. Therefore, when looking at the clean-slate week ahead I have 168 hours to (in theory) fill however I desire. Just like everyone else.

But before I start dreaming about what I will do with all that time… first, let’s tackle the absolute non-negotiables on the week: sleep & work.

If there are 168 hours in a week and you prioritize sleeping 8 hours a night, which I must do if other humans are going to enjoy interacting with me the next day, then I am sleeping 56 hours/week leaving me still 112 hours in my week.

I work roughly 8 hours/day at school teaching, planning, grading, meeting with students and colleagues, etc. for 5 days/week and then probably (at least) another 3-4 hours somewhere in the week grading papers and planning lessons. So, in a given week I work roughly 45 hours leaving me still 67 “free” hours in my week.

67 hours! That’s a lot of time!

Vanderkam’s next big argument asks us to honestly dig into the questions:  What am I doing with all that time? How do I spend the hours of my day?

Other (banal but some are perhaps required, life-sustaining) activities that fill my time:

• grocery shopping
• meal prepping/cooking
• doing dishes
• doing laundry
• cleaning the house
• commuting
• watching TV
• scrolling social media
• bathing, myself and kids
• emailing
• exercising

When looking at this remaining 60+ hours in our week, Laura Vanderkam urges us to consider our top priorities and core competencies–what can be done only by you every week?– when deciding how to intentionally fill the remaining “free” time in our week.

My Top Priorities:

• playing with my kids
• spending quality, non-screen, non-kid time with my spouse
• exercising
• reading
• getting outside, sauntering, exploring our parks and greenways
• spending time with friends and family: time in person with moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, great grandmas who live locally and time on the phone/social media/chats with sisters, brothers, dad, grandpas, cousins, friends who live spread out around the country and the globe.
• blogging (perhaps better stated, taking time to process what I read)
• traveling/adventuring (be it near or be it far, be it small or be it great)

My (household) Core Competencies (i.e. things I wouldn’t be willing to pay someone else to do):

• Laundry (I don’t go full Marie Kondo here but her lessons and my one-in-one-out minimalist mantra help make this necessary chore more manageable and enjoyable.)
• Dishes (This has always been my “role” at family functions and I have grown to enjoy the mindlessness of it and how my mind can wander to interesting, creative places while washing.)
• Cooking (This is a budding hobby of mine and my almost 3-year-old son enjoys helping to cook with us in the kitchen, too. Currently, I’m working on creating an “Our Family Recipes” cookbook to help make cooking a family priority now and in coming years. Cooking for themselves is a life-skill I want my boys to have and something I want us to enjoy as a family.)
• Grocery shopping (another one of my son’s favorite hobbies)

NOT My (household) Core Competencies (i.e. things I WOULD be willing to pay someone else to do, but because my dad indoctrinated me to the Dave Ramsey mindset, I’m still unlikely to pay someone else):

• doing lawn maintenance (luckily my husband is always willing to pitch in here– and sometimes I do, too)
• cleaning the house (there is a part of me that does enjoy the fruits of my labors of this activity but I would happily have a cleaning service deep clean my house on a semi-regular basis)

What I’d like to intentionally do less of with my time:

• watching TV
• commuting
• scrolling social media without a purpose
• checking my phone
• grading papers

This book also opened up for me some key insights regarding how we, as humans, perceive time. Essentially Vanderkam proposes that when we do “nothing” with our time, thoughtlessly scroll the internet or mindlessly watch TV or hang around the house without prioritizing time together,  time condenses. That’s how when on Monday a coworker may ask you “how was your weeked?” and if you did “nothing” you have a hard time recalling how you spent all those precious weekend hours. On the other hand, if you and your family schedule and plan special quality time or outings, say hiking at the local state park on Saturday or a board game session at home, the weekends stand out over time and you have active memories of your time together as a family.

How we perceive time should then inform how we plan for it and spend it. Therefore, while I do want to reserve time for us to do “nothing” at home together, I also want to be proactive and purposeful for how we spend our time together as a family throughout my kids’ childhood. I consistently hear how childhood goes by in the blink of an eye and according to Vanderkam, that childhood time will only speed up if we let it condense onto itself. Instead, I want to punctuate my sons’ childhood and our family time with meaningful and memorable times that we create and execute together. I do not want to be “busy” or a slave to a schedule, but I want to look back and be able to reflect together sweetly, warmly, and specifically on where all the time went.

Bottom line, what rung truest for me in this book reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Annie Dillard

 

Only I can control how I spend my hours, days, and life. I will not be mindlessly “busy.” I will use my 168 hours doing what I love with whom I love and then suffer for 15+ minutes a day doing what needs to be done to get back to living my chosen life in a way that I will remember it.

9 essential things about life según Rabbi Kushner

Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned about Life by Harold Kushner

“As always, Rabbi Kushner writes in a way that makes deep religious thought accessible to the casual reader while giving the more sophisticated reader a great deal to ponder. . . . This is a book that will stimulate your mind and encourage you to examine what are the lasting lessons in your life.” —The Jewish Book Council

Chapter Titles:

• Chapter One: Lessons Learned Along the Way
• Chapter Two: God Is Not a Man Who Lives in the Sky
• Chapter Three: God Does Not Send the Problem. God Sends Us the Strength to Deal with the Problem
• Chapter Four: Forgiveness Is a Favor You Do Yourself
• Chapter Five: Some Things Are Just Wrong. Knowing That Makes Us Human
• Chapter Six: Religion Is What You Do, Not What You Believe
• Chapter Seven: Leave Room for Doubt and Anger in Your Faith
• Chapter Eight: To Feel Better About Yourself, Find Someone to Help
• Chapter Nine: Give God the Benefit of the Doubt

Rabbi Kushner’s essential things & my thoughts:

1. Lessons learned along the way—
   • I am still learning these in my life. I seek more wisdom and reflection with life lived.
2. God is indefinable—

   • “I believe in the reality of God the way scientists believe in the reality of electrons. I see things happening that would not happen unless there is a God.” — Harold Kushner

   • Exodus 3:13-14: “But,” said Moses to God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what do I tell them?” God replied to Moses: I am who I am. Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

3. God doesn’t create the problems, but if sought, God will provide the strength to get through them—

   • “God does not send the problem; genetics, chance, and bad luck do that. And God cannot make the problem go away, no matter how many prayers and good deeds we offer. What God does is promise us, I will be with you; you will feel burdened but you will never feel abandoned.”  — Harold Kushner

   • “I find God not in the tests that life imposes on us but in the ability of ordinary people to rise to the challenge, to find within themselves qualities of soul, qualities of courage they did not know they had until the day they needed them. God does not send the problem, the illness, the accident, the hurricane, and God does not take them away when we find the right words and rituals with which to beseech Him. Rather, God sends us strength and determination of which we did not believe ourselves capable, so that we can deal with, or live with, problems that no one can make go away.”  — Harold Kushner

4. Forgiveness is a favor you do for yourself—

   • “Resentment is like drinking/taking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies” — hotly debated to whom this can be attributed 

5. Some things are wrong. Having a conscience is what makes us human. It is innate and seemingly God-given—
   • – ??
6. Religion isn’t what you believe. It is what you do—
   • Mission work, bible study, active participation in worship and fellowship are religion.
7. Leave room for anger and doubt in your relationship with God—
   • We are not supposed to understand it all. We are creation. We are not God.
8. If you want to feel better, help others—
   • There is a Chinese saying that goes:
     

     “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.”

   • For it is in giving that we receive — Saint Francis of Assisi

   • The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity — Leo Tolstoy

   • We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give — Winston Churchill

9. Judaism is a religion of “not yet”. The world isn’t yet what it could or should be, but we are to keep moving forward in order to make the world better. Living a life of ethical and righteous behavior will serve as an example to others and hopefully assist in making the world better— This reminds me of the Bible verse from Matthew 5:14-16:

   • “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

 

 

The Library = The Learner’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Life

“The world was hers for the reading” — Betty Smith

This is one of my favorite quotes for two key reasons.

First, I spent 14 glorious years as a learner at The Hockaday School, an all-girls school with a long history of educating young girls and women in Dallas, TX. The school rolled out its new mission statement in 2015:

“Believing in the limitless potential of girls, Hockaday develops resilient, confident women who are educated and inspired to lead lives of purpose and impact.”

Although this mission statement is new, to me it perfectly embodies my personal experience in its hallowed halls and also what has always been the mission since the school’s inception in 1913 by its founder, Miss Ela Hockaday.

As a result of this female-focused educational upbringing, I always appreciate when a quote or comment uses the female gendered, hers, rather than the more commonly used male gendered, his.

Second, I firmly believe that we learn mostly through experience. You can see this if you closely observe any toddler or pre-school age child playing. Recently, my 15-month-old son has learned how to open doors. Last night I observed him opening and closing the door over and over and over in sequence too many times to count. I never explicitly taught him how to open a door. He learned through observing and doing, through experience.

However, we will never live long enough nor have enough disposable income or free time, nor, perhaps, always the insatiable desire or youth to experience all things possible in life. Therefore, I propose that reading is the next best way to experience our world– both across various centuries and across various countries, communities, and cultures. Inside the pages of a book, you can accompany Odysseus through his epic trials and tribulations on his Odysseyan journey home after the fall of Troy. You can experience the depths of fear and darkness alongside 33 trapped Chilean miners and bear witness to the heroic lengths others went to in order to free them. You can experience life through the eyes of others in pretty much any (auto)biography or memoir of your choosing. Books open up almost any and all experience to us. Experiences that might otherwise be out of our reach or literally impossible for us to experience first hand. In this way, the quote “The world was hers for the reading” is an absolute truth for me.

This is where the library comes in. The library gives us access to human experience. It allows us to experience for ourselves– in a small way– all human experience.

So, although I do still appreciate Audible, I canceled my membership for now and committed, instead, to exploring my local Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. In addition to visiting local branches, I downloaded the mobile apps OverDrive, Hoopla, Libby, and Kindle in order to access Ebooks and Audiobooks more directly and easily.

Since beginning my January 2019 Intention to “BE a READER” I have read, courtesy of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, the following titles (* indicates titles not yet finished):

• The More of Less by Joshua Becker
• The Self-Driven Child The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives by William Stixrud & Ned Johnson
• The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming of Age Crisis- and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance by Ben Sasse
• The Most Important Year: Pre-Kindergarten and the Future of Our Children by Suzanne Bouffard
• Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World by Brooke McAlary
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
• Sitting Still Like a Frog: Mindfulness Exercises for Kids by Eline Snel
• Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin
• The Road to Character by David Brooks
• *How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough
• * Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
• * I am Malala by Christina Lamb & Malala Yousafzai

Prior to that 2019 New Year Intention, I had now and again used Char-Meck Library to dabble with getting back into a rhythm of reading. Some titles I enjoyed were:

• You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap): How One Woman Radically Simplified Her Life and How You Can Too) by Tammy Strobel
• Montessori From the Start: The Child at Home, From Brith to Age Three by Paul Polk Lillard & Lynn Lillard Jessen
• 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam
• Toddlers are A**holes (It’s Not Your Fault) by Bunmi Laditan
• You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero
• The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
• Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life by Harold S. Kushner
• Teaching Kids to Think: Raising Confident, Independent, & Thoughtful Children in an Age of Instant Gratification by Darlene Sweetland & Rob Stolberg
• The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting by Shefali Tsabary
• Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys by Stephen James & David Thomas