Iran and Israel – Flashback Friday

In 2004, I had a vision - a dream, if you will.

I had a vision that the Rainbow Family Gathering could happen in the Middle East - in a place where both Israelis and Iranians (and Syrians and Lebanese and Jordanians and in fact all the world) could come and gather together in peace.

I shared my dream at the council at the World Rainbow Family Gathering in Costa Rica (this is the council where it will be decided in which country the next World Rainbow Gathering would be). I said Turkey (the country, not the bird).

A lot of people argued against me. A lot of people said I was crazy - they said you can't have a Rainbow Gathering in Turkey - Midnight Express, Muslims, Military state... They said there is no way any Middle Eastern people would come. They said it would be a disaster and that there was no way Israelis would be able to be at a festival peacefully with Iranians.

At that time, I didn't personally know any Iranians, but I held my vision, I spoke my dream. And some people caught on. The council reached consensus, and the gathering happened.

I got myself to the Middle East, I walked my talk and went to Turkey to help find the place for the Gathering to be held. I spread the word, I promoted it. And I went there, with Littletree – she was two at the time.

It was a beautiful place in the mountains of Southern Turkey. There was people from all over the world - Australians, Americans, Canadians, Germans, English, French, Italians, Kiwis, Turks... about 40 countries were represented, in fact. And lots of Israelis. We all had fun, we sang songs and at food together and camped out.

And then one day, about a week into the month-long festival, a big truck drove right up to the main fire area - we ran over to ask the truck driver to leave, because Rainbow Gatherings are car-free zones; there's a car-parking area a short walk away, but we had problems with locals driving in all the time.
But before we could say anything about the truck being in what we feel is a sacred space, people started pouring out.

Iranians.

Twenty-one Iranians, men and women. They'd heard about the gathering and come together, caravanning all the way from Teheran. They'd been travelling for a few days in trucks, and they'd brought a king's ransom of food to share (dried fruits and nuts from Iran, and spices to start a chai tent).

They poured out of that truck, and kissed the ground, and we crowded around them and hugged them, and cried "Welcome Home!" (because that's what you say to newly arriving people at Rainbow Gatherings.)

And before I knew it, there was a mob of Israelis hugging Iranians hugging Israelis. And Germans. And Aussies, and Dutch and South Africans and Turks and Danes and Swiss... And we were all just people.

In the days that came, the Iranians set up a camp and started hosting parties and serving food and chai (in Rainbow Gatherings, everything is shared freely; there is no commerce). And friendships were formed.

Someone called for a "talking circle" (basically a group meeting where people sit in a circle and take turns talking) to discuss Peace. It was mostly Israelis and Iranians that came.

Virtually every one in that circle - Iranians and Israelis alike said the same thing:
"I grew up thinking the others were evil people who just hate us and want to bomb us, and we only want peace, I had no idea that the others are people just like us, who also want peace."

So many tears were shed, so many hugs were shared, and so many deep friendships forged.

This was my vision, and it carries on today - the "Peace in the Middle East" Rainbow Family Gatherings are still happening every year, mostly in Turkey, and I now have many friends from Iran, and from Israel.

Let go of your politics, let go of fear, let go of assumptions and media scaremongering and hate. Let go of fear, and see that we are all just people who want Peace.

And I’m not the only one

http://youtu.be/mYjuUoEivbE

Trust

Littletree has gone on a self-imposed screen-free and sugar-free break, she asked me to hide her computer for a week and to put away her pocket-money so she can’t get sweets and asked me to get extra fruit and veggies.

All this came about while Purple was away in San Francisco for a couple of weeks earlier in the month. I think she just missed him a lot, and turned to spending a lot of time watching DVDs and eating “junk” food to fill in time. After about a week of watching rather a lot of movies, she announced that her head wasn’t feeling good and she was having trouble sleeping, and not feeling good in her body. She identified that it was because of spending too much time in front of a screen, and not eating well enough, and set about making a plan to get better.

Well, it’s been three weeks now, Purple is back, but Littletree is still avoiding sweets, and goes days at a time without turning her computer on. Today was the first time in ages she bought herself chocolates and sat down to watch a DVD.  Then she begged me to make a hearty veggie soup for dinner, with extra kale and garlic.

I’m so impressed with the way Littletree makes healthy choices for herself. She knows her body and is able to recognise what she needs, on her own. I firmly believe this is because she has a 100% unhindered, self-regulated diet. And most of all, because she is trusted.

Without going into the details of how it works, what it comes down to is having an intrinsic trust of the child. It's sub-consciously saying to the child: ‘Of course you'll make healthy choices and I absolutely trust you to do so’. From that, the child gets the message that she is trusted, and therefore trustworthy, and thus, can trust in herself to make the right choices - as all children will, given the right support.

I’ve been talking about this kind of trust all week, and struggling to really define it – it’s a kind of trust that’s bigger than ‘trust’; it’s something so intrinsic and whole-spirit. Then someone sent me this quote from Dr Jeremy Hayward:

"In order to communicate very openly with the world, you need to develop fundamental trust. This kind of trust is not trusting “in” something, but simply trusting. It is very much like your breath. You do not consciously hold on to your breath, or trust in your breath, yet breathing is your very nature. In the same way, to be trusting is your very nature. To be trusting means you are fundamentally free from doubt about your goodness and about the goodness of others."

While the prevailing cultural belief in our society is that children are inherently bad; that they won’t behave “properly” and that if given the slightest chance, they’ll only get up to no good, be spoiled, or worse. Children are treated based on the notion that they need to be trained, restricted and restrained to ensure that they can’t act on their inherent “badness”. Any parent or educator who isn’t constantly vigilant to reign in the inherent unruliness of children will be seen as negligent.

Trusting in children is about coming from an intrinsic belief that children are inherently good. And they *are*. Children truly are good, and they will behave in the manner they are expected to – not necessarily in the way we tell them to with words, but in they way we show them they are supposed to act. For the most part, we show them that they’re bad and going to get up to mischief. We show them that they are going to fall and hurt themselves, that they will eat nothing but sweets and junk if given half the chance.

But with true trust, in an environment that models respectful behaviour, children are perfectly wonderful, social beings. They do the right thing. They learn from their mistakes, rather than being protected from making them.

I trust Littletree. I trust her to go exploring in the candy aisle at the supermarket. I trust her to know how high she can safely climb. I trust her to behave like a sane, healthy, respectful human being. And she does.

(Littletree on a climbing wall)

Is it okay to get kiss-marks on a cell phone?

Littletree, awesome-saver that she is, has been saving up to get herself an MP3 player. The particular one she wanted was $75, and she’d worked really hard to save enough for it. Then we happened to notice in the Post Office one can get pre-pay cell phones with MP3 players built-in for much cheaper than just buying a simple MP3.

My goodness cell phones are ridonkulously cheap these days! And I discovered that if Littletree has a pre-pay phone on the same network as I’m on, I can transfer credit from my phone to hers in increments as little as $1, so if she’s out and about, I can give her some emergency call money without having to fork out for a whole recharge card (but if she wants to have credit for making calls or texting, she has to buy that herself). Littletree was ecstatic with the idea!

That sealed the deal and we went into the shop to get one! Well, after an evening of Purple and I discussing it – I had this mental block that went something along the lines of “but she’s only 8, that’s far too young for a cell phone. if she has a phone, she’ll look like a spoiled kid, and what does she even need a phone for”. Purple wisely pointed out that if she’s buying it herself with her own saved pocket money, then it’s not spoiling. And she is of an age to start going out with friends around the village; having an emergency phone to use is a wise idea. and it’s cheaper than the MP3 player she was going to buy anyway.

We went back into the Telstra shop to check out all the available models.

So we got a Sony Ericsson Cedar (I thought the model name was entirely appropriate for Littletree). Plusses of this phone were that it takes standard 3.5mm headphone jacks (so Littletree can use any headphones she likes and not have to fork out for specialised ones); it has expandable memory with a MicroSD slot that takes up to 16GB; It’s got great rural coverage (important where we live); a 2MP camera; and it’s partly made from recycled plastic… all for $59, with $10 included credit.

In our local Telstra Dealer they are having a special this week that includes a $30 recharge voucher in addition to the $10 that comes with the phone – since I needed to recharge my phone credit anyway and I usually buy a $30 voucher, that meant I could put the credit on my phone and Littletree could get the phone essentially for $19. Bargain!

So she’s all set up now with her own cell phone. Good Lord Love a Duck! I’ve become one of *those* mothers.

So far, this phone is perfect for a kid’s first phone, or for anyone wanting a cheap phone as a back-up or whatever. The MP3 player works well, the camera is better than I expected it to be. Two-thumbs-up. And Littletree’s literacy is improving now that she’s learning how to text, so it’s educational… right?

Well, she is learning how to use a cell phone, at least. And her first cell-phone-usage-related question?

“Mama, is it bad for my phone if I get spit on it?”

“What??? Why would you spit on your phone?”

“Well, I gave it a kiss, and there’s a kiss-mark on the screen now. Is it okay to kiss the phone?”

LOL

Rainbow Adventure

We’ve been out at the Australian Rainbow Gathering on and off for the last week and a half – well, to be more accurate, Purple was there on and off, Littletree was there for the whole time, and I just popped in for a day.

Purple and Littletree went out the weekend before last, just planning to stay two days. They had a great time (while I stayed home waiting on a client due to start her birthing process any day now).

But when it came time to go home, Littletree was having such a great time, she didn’t want to leave. Some very good friends of ours offered to take care of her for a few days till Purple and I could come back the following weekend to pick her up. The site is very conveniently located just a few minutes from a small village with a phone and only 2 hours drive from home, so it was agreed that if there’s any problem someone would call us to come out and get her immediately.

Pretty confronting! I missed my little girl; it was the first time she was without her parents for five days! She did call us twice to say hi and have a chat, both times I asked her if she wanted me to come and get her, both times she insisted she wanted to stay. I knew I could trust the people taking care of her, and there were a lot of parents with unschooled kids out there, as well as several women Littletree knows well from past gatherings and feels connected with, so I surrendered, knowing that she was safe and cared for, following her own path.

As parents, we all know there will come a time when our kids grow up, become more independent and start going out to parties and festivals without us. I knew that day would come… but I didn’t expect it this soon!

Littletree is simply confident and independent. She knows what she needs and can clearly communicate and express herself. I wonder what happened to all those people who said if I breastfeed too long or let her sleep in the bed with me or carry her in a sling all the time she’d end up never learning how to cope on her own and I’d have her clinging to my skirts forever? I guess that will kick in any day now.

In any case, I went out on Friday with Purple to pick her up, and still she wanted to stay, so Purple spent the weekend at rainbow with Littletree, I just spent a day out there and came home.

Twas lovely to see everyone, and feel the energy, however briefly.

And now Littletree is home again, we’re spending lots of time together, just hanging out. :)

New Article – Parenting Partnerships

A new article of mine was published on Essence of Life about having respectful partnerships, and how we as parents can work together to model open communication for our children. You can read the article HERE

The timing is quite apt, being that today is Purple and my anniversary – 8 years since we snuck off to an office in Cyprus for a “passport wedding”. It was a fun adventure, and the paper we got out of it certainly made life easier for a lot of bureaucratic dramas we’ve since had to navigate. We certainly don’t take the ‘legally wed’ part of it very seriously.

Our relationship might be somewhat unconventional, being polyamorous, and some what challenging, but through open communication, honest sharing of feelings and lots of patience, it works for us… well, most of the time.

New Article – Connected Communication

Essence of Life has published another of my natural parenting articles, this one is about communicating authentically with children, and supporting them respectfully in expressing their feelings in the way they need to.

You can read it HERE

Incidentally, Littletree also wanted to show off her new sparkle hair-spray

New Article – Love is its Own Reward

Another natural parenting article of mine was published on Essence of Life last month, it’s called Love is its Own Reward, which you can read HERE. It’s about raising children without bribes and rewards, but connecting with them through love and respect. The article goes as a partner with my previous article, Respect Not Punishment which you can read HERE.

Littletree Gets Political

Littletree has been taking her role as wildlife warrior quite seriously lately, constantly on the lookout for animals that need rescuing, especially since she rescued a turtle crossing the road when we were on the way to the Australian Unschooling Conference.

This week at the village market there was a stall set up for people to write letters to government members protesting the Repco Rally – a motor race that goes through national parks and wildlife areas in our region.

Littletree was most disturbed about the race, as it goes through areas where there are threatened and endangered marsupial species and the race is held during their breeding season. This means that the stress from the noise alone could cause the animals to miss their breeding season or even die from stress in some cases.

So Littletree wrote a letter to the Minister, in her own words “I don’t want the rally because it is killing animals”.

I felt really proud of her for standing up for something she believes in; writing letters to politicians is a huge deal, and she felt really great to do it. I haven’t seen her motivated to do so much writing all in one sitting before. :)

Then we had a long talk about how our political system works and how laws are made, and lobbying and how people putting pressure on politicians can make a real difference.

Day Out of Time

Today is the “Day out of Time” for adherents to the Cult of Dreamspell (AKA the Mayan Calendar). Being that I tend to move in alternative hippie circles, there seems to be a lot of folk around me who follow this cult. I don’t have a problem with it, but the sheer numbers of people around, especially in Rainbow Gatherings, who are partying today, in preparation for the “end of the world” in 18 months’ time, is somewhat irritating.

Let’s be honest: The Dreamspell has noting directly to do with Mayan people – it was made up by a guy called José Argüelles in the mid-80s. Real Mayan people have their own calendar – several of them in fact, which is very different from the Dreamspell. When I was in Guatemala and Mexico, there were a whole lot of real Mayan people who were decidedly angry about the advent of this Cult, which uses their name and bastardises their symbols, and even use their name for the calendar, Tzolkin.

I admit, as cults go, the Dreamspell is a nice one. It’s all about peace and getting in synch with nature, and the calendar certainly has pretty pictures.

I just wish people would follow the cult with a little more information, rather than blindly believing in nonsense, and I wish people would stop evangelising about it.

The vast majority of people I know who are followers don’t even realise it is a cult. Most of them have no idea that the Dreamspell was made up by Argüelles in 1986; I keep hearing people insist that the calendar is an ancient time-keeping system developed by Mayan people 5000 years ago. Though if you go to the thirteen moon website page on the origins of the Dreamspell, it says “Awaiting galactic transmission… Page coming soon…”

The calendar itself isn’t even mathematically correct. It runs on the idea of a 28-day lunar month, though there is no such thing as a 28-day lunar month. The length of a moon cycle is 29.53059 days, whereas the orbital period is 27.32166 days. According to the thirteen moon website, they arrive at a “28 day month” by averaging these two numbers, even though doing so makes no sense regarding moon cycles, and even still, that comes out to 28.426125 days, not 28 days.

If you take a 28.426125 day cycle (or 28.3 according to the thirteen moon website) and call it a 28-day cycle, what you get is .4 of a day left over every “month”. No biggie, right? But over the course of a 13-month year, you’ll be five days out of whack from the actual moon. Which means roughly every five years, you lose a whole moon cycle (talking about cycles of the actual moon and not “moon cycles” according to the Dreamspell).

Of course, then you have 13 months of 28 days, which adds up to 364 days, so the Day out of Time comes in – it is a celebration day that doesn’t belong to any month. Nice; I can get behind that. But there’s still a problem: There aren’t 365 days in a year.

It takes 365.242199 days for the Earth to make a circuit around the Sun. That’s why we have Leap Years in the Gregorian calendar. The Dreamspell has no leap years, which means every time the Gregorian calendar marks the 29th of February, the Dreamspell calendar just sits on its hands and whistles innocently.

Truly! They just pretend that day isn’t happening – some adherents take the “Kin” or day of the 28th of February and make it last for 48 hours, some divide the 29th of February into two parts – before noon being a part of the day before, and after noon being part of the 1st of March.

There is also the “Planet Holon”, a geographically-incorrect projection of the 20 “solar seals” on the Earth. No one seems to mind that the Earth is a sphere, and therefore this cute diagram is laughable.

Here’s what the Dreamspell folk have to say about the Planet Holon:

The base holon unit is the 'perfect fifth:' a tetrahedron (four-sided pyramid) and its invisible center point, the g-force core. G-force is the 'mysterious' fifth force; its core is always in the now. The holon-tetrahedron forms the underlying structure of the 13-tone wavespell. The 13-tone wavespell is the living cosmology of the fourth-dimension.

So how does this cult suck people in? Well, it does have very pretty pictures – each day has a “galactic signature, which has it’s own little pictogram and they have catchy names like “yellow self-existing seed” or “white crystal mirror”.

The Dreamspell propaganda is written in a kind of dreamy, hypnotic language, with phrases like “The 13 Moon 28-day synchronometer is a harmonic timespace matrix”:

“The Planetary Service Wavespell utilizes the 13-unit architecture of the adventure wavespell to create its annual program. The adventure wavespell has two gates, two towers and three sets of chambers. The adventure wavespell can be used to plot action over any cycle of time operating by the wavespell: 13 days, 13 moons, 13 years, etc.”

“The Law of Time states that: Energy factored by time equals art. In this equation, (E) refers to all phenomena in their processes of unfoldment; (T) is the present moment functioning according to the ratio constant 13:20. Everything shaped by time is art"

There is a lot of emphasis on the “Time equals Art” mantra, even though this doesn’t really mean anything. Apparently, the Gregorian calendar runs on a 12:60 timing frequency, which is “ruled by the clock and mind”, whereas the Dreamspell runs on a 13:20 frequency, in which “people are ruled by their heart, nature and art and guided by dreams and synchronicity”.

No one seems to mind that the 12:60 thing refers to 12 months in a year and 60 minutes in an hour, whereas 13:20 refers to 13 months of 20 days in a 260-day Tzolkin. These two units of reference aren’t even corresponding and as far as I can tell, followers of the Dreamspell still use the standard clock with 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds. Yes, the Gregorian calendar system is artificial and arbitrary, but so is this one.

Honestly, I don’t mind if people want to follow this cult. It is very pretty, but when they want to re-arrange dates for Rainbow Gatherings based on the appropriate Dreamspell Tzolkin kin, I get very irritated. International rainbow gatherings have traditionally been held according to the phase of the moon – something that can be plainly seen by anyone, regardless of their cult or religious tendencies, no matter which calendrical system they use. I do wish people actually knew what beliefs it is they are espousing before they go on evangelising.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Littletree’s kin is Self-Raising White Flower.

Telstra’s Escort Service

We had a problem with our phone bill this month – Telstra had charged us $17 extra, so we called them up to complain.

Anyone who lives in Australia and has ever called Telstra will have encountered their calling system; one of those voice-recognition thingies, where instead of giving you options to “Dial 1 for faults, Dial 2 for billing, etc” it has a computer generated voice that asks you to tell it what you’re calling about, which it then tries to interpret.

It’s hugely frustrating. I can never manage to get this computer to understand me, and this time, after talking to it for a few minutes, I lost my patience and screamed into the phone (knowing that I’m talking to a computer who wont take offence) “I JUST WANT TO SPEAK TO A @#$%ING PERSON %$&#$!!!!”

To my shock, this actually worked, and we were immediately connected!

A woman at the customer service centre took the call, Purple explained the problem to her, and she replied that she needed to put us through to another consultant to handle the problem.

The phone clicked, and rang again, and was answered not by another Telstra representative (I assume) but by a perky woman’s voice on an answering machine, saying:

“Thank you for calling Sydney’s Hottest Escort Service, we are unable to take your call right now, so please leave your name and number and we’ll get right back to you”

Thank you Telstra!

Education Dissemination

My last post was about school. And more to the point, my being against it.

I’m glad, in the end, that I didn’t just jump up and enrol Littletree in school the minute she said she wanted to go. It didn’t take her long to change her mind about that.

For the record, I would like to point out that the OOSH (after-school care) at our village school is awesome. There’s quite a few kids who go regularly of their own accord. Homeschooled kids, kids from other schools, kids who have parents at home and no reason to stay after school, but they like it because the OOSH is great. The have huge amounts of resources available to the kids, they have some optional activities (last term they had weekly circus skills workshops, this term it’s creative dance), they have a huge room full of games and toys and art supplies. They get healthy snacks. I realise that not all schools have such a nice OOSH as we have – apparently the one in town is basically a shelter shed that the kids sit under, with nothing much to do.

Anyway, I’ve come to a point where I do believe school is damaging. I believe the main purpose for institutionalised education is the homogenising and dumbing down of minds. Children are taught to be bored, to be obedient, that they can’t learn on their own, and most of all, that learning is a chore to be endured. Children’s inherent thirst for learning and creative thinking processes are quashed.

I offer this article as a brief explanation, this as a very long, deep read, and this book which you can read entirely free online, as insights into my philosophy, just for starters.

I don’t for a second go around judging people whose kids are in school. I don’t look at school kids and think their parents are abusive. Though for some reason, that’s how some people take it when I say I don’t want my kid at school.

I’m doing what I believe is best for my family. I don’t trust the government for a single second to uphold the integrity of my child’s emotional and mental wellbeing. And they’re not even pretending to try.

Meanwhile, we’ve been learning a lot about local fruitbats, since they’re hanging around our place a lot :)

NVC Workshop

This week’s home school group was a lot of fun – there was a Non-Violent Communication workshop for all the kids

A huge number of families came, including a big group from a new homeschool group that’s formed about 45 minutes north of us – I’d love to go check it out, but they meet at the same time as my life drawing class.

The kids enjoyed doing the little NVC dialogues; the woman was leading the kids in different situations, teaching them how to say how they feel without blaming and criticising. Then Littletree piped up, “Excuse me, I feel like I’d like to have a turn of the hand puppets”

I thought it was pretty funny that this woman was trying to teach all the kids to communicate in the way that they usually do anyway.

It was nice to catch up with everyone again; I’ve been a bit of a hermit lately.

The Great Firewall of China is Coming to Australia!

You might notice my blog was blacked out when it first loads – I’m participating in the Great Australian Internet Blackout, which is protesting against the Australian government’s plan to introduce a mandatory internet filter.

This basically means that Australia will join countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which impose centralised Internet censorship. The internet filter will force internet service providers to block access to a website blacklist or “Restricted Content” (RC), created by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). However this list is confidential and not available to the public.

And might I point out that *this* website – my blog, is blocked in China.

While Communications minister Stephen Conroy thinks the filter will "the risk of Australians being inadvertently exposed to RC-rated material when they are online", the lists have been widely criticised for being too broad in scope.

What’s more, trials of the filter were largely considered to be ineffective. Yet, the government is still spending millions of dollars on this plot to rob Australians of their right to freedom of information.

Ostensibly, Conroy insists that the net-filter is for blocking out child pornography, and sites that would endanger our children, but the reality is that the RC list also includes sites that contain “politically sensitive” information, like pro-euthanasia sites.

Does this remind anyone else of the Aussie government’s plan to rob Australian women of the right to choose where they give birth?

Will this mean in the near future pro-homebirth sites will also be blocked? after all, the proposed maternity care laws state that anyone inciting a woman to homebirth would be illegal. What about websites about freebirthing, or unschooling, or natural healing. What about freedom of speech. What about freedom of THOUGHT!?

you can read more about the internet censorship here:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-filter-protesters-set-to-fade-websites-to-black-on-australia-day/story-e6frfro0-1225821477370

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/21/the-swift-takedown-of-stephenconroy-com-au/

http://www.prisonplanet.com/australia-to-enforce-mandatory-chinese-style-internet-censorship.html

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24568137-2862,00.html

Tomatoes… inconceivable!

Littletree started reciting lines from a cartoon she’s been watching, Charlie and Lola.

She’s got all the lines down pat, accents and all. So accurately that at first, I thought she was watching the cartoon!

At first I might jump on the thought that she watches Charlie and Lola too much, but the reality is that she doesn’t watch it all that often, and I myself have a tendency to memorise quotes from films after only one or two viewings. Then I sit around for hours with my friends quoting and reciting endless quotes from Monty Python or The Princess Bride.

Littletree got the idea that perhaps since she’s so good at doing voices she could be an actor in movies. We talked a bit about what that entails; as soon as I mentioned having to always do exactly what the director says, she changed her mind!

Still, it’s a useful skill to have :)

Strangers in the Night

This evening I saw a car drive up our street and stop just past our driveway. I saw the brake lights flash on the car, and then it reversed as if it was backing into our driveway. I figured it was someone who had taken a wrong turn and was trying to turn around.

Only the car had missed our driveway and fallen into the drainage ditch! We could hear the car's tyres spinning out as the driver tried to get out. We grabbed a torch and went out to see if we could help.

The car was clearly stuck; no way he could drive out - the ditch is deeper than the clearance on the car. The other interesting point was that the right side of the car was smashed - both doors ripped apart and windows smashed!

The driver got out and had a look. He was an elderly man, who seemed to be very confused. We pointed out that it would be impossible to drive his car out of there, and he said that he'd left his wallet back at the pub, and asked me if I could give him a lift down to get it!

He didn't seem entirely sure where he was, and he couldn't quite remember the name of the town he lives in (which is about 12km away from here). He said he'd been in our village to have dinner at the pub.

It was all very strange, in a comical way, and he kept fretting about his wallet. Then I noticed a wallet half out of his pocket, and asked him if that was it. It was.

I offered to call the man a tow-truck, and went into the house to make the call. Purple invited the man inside for a cup of tea while he waited for the tow; about ten minutes.

The tow truck operator said to call the police, as it sounded like the man might have been drinking, not to mention his car most definitely should not have been on the road, and in any case, the man's car was totally blocking our road.

When the tow truck came we all went out side. The tow truck operator was having a hard time getting a straight story from the man, since he was quite befuddled, but it turned out that the damage had been done by a semi-trailer smashing into him a couple of days before, and apparently it was covered by insurance and would be repaired on Monday by Max in town.

The tow truck guy, who is also a smash repairer said that there was no smash repairer called Max, and he personally took all the work from the man's insurance company. His name was Matt. So they arranged that Matt would drop the man at his home, and take the car straight to the smash repair lot to be fixed on Monday. Small world!

A couple of minutes later, Littletree came running out to tell me the police had called. Twice. Assuming they were waiting on the phone, I went running inside, only to see that the phone had been hung up. After questioning Littletree a bit, it turned out that the phone had rung, she'd answered it. The police officer had said "can you please get your mummy" and Littletree said "sure" and hung up to get me. Then he called right back, and the same thing happened! I explained to her about putting the phone down, but not hanging it up in such instances.

Anyway, the neighbours also came home just after the police arrived (congratulating Littletree on her phone skills), and since they couldn't get past, we all milled around watching as the tow truck pulled the car out of the ditch.

In the end, the show was over and we all went home. And who ever said living in small towns is boring!

Faerie Good Mothering ~ Honest Communication

My latest natural parenting article was published on Essence of Life; it's an article that uses fairy tales to illustrate the importance of honest communication with children.

Check it out here

Parenting With Love

Yesterday, Littletree started hitting me.

We had to go home after spending most of the day with a friend, but Littletree  doesn't really handle goodbyes very well. So after about an hour of trying to gently separate the girls and get in the car, I just gave up.

I said to Littletree, "I really want to go home now, and I want to get to the post office before it shuts on the way, and I'd really like you to come with me." and I started walking.

Of course she followed me, shouting that she didn't want to leave, and tried to make me come back to the friend. I took a deep breath, and said to her again, calmly, "I'm going home now and I'd be really happy if you come with me, I'm sorry it's hard for you to say goodbye to your friend"

Littletree responded by hitting me. My first reaction, which is learned from my childhood, would be to hit back. Thankfully I don't act on that response; I reminded myself to remain calm.

After the third hit, I took another deep breath, and said calmly, "I feel bad when you hit me"

Littletree hit me a fourth time, and I looked at her and said "I love you."

She sobbed once, and took my hand and walked with me to the car, and then she said she was sorry.

In that moment, I could have followed my "instincts" and smacked her, or shouted or lost my temper. It was a test of myself to look at her, with her face scrunched up angrily, reaching out to hit me, and see that she is the child I love, and she needs to feel that.

In the instant I said "I love you", it felt like someone had flicked a switch and changed the entire universe. The quality of the light changed, Littletree's face cleared, and she walked with me to the car willingly.

Now I can clearly see that when I tell her it's time to go, and she doesn't want to, she feels that I don't love her, because I'm doing something that makes her unhappy. Of course, that makes her act out, and then I react to her acting out, and it confirms her feeling unloved.

I put myself in her shoes. My mother is not letting me do something that makes me happy, and she's shouting and angry at me.

That simple action; saying "I love you", showed her that I do love her, even when she hits me, and that I'm on her side, even when we have to do things that aren't what she really wants.

Littletree was able to let go of her battling with me, because you can't fight against someone who is working with you and supporting you with love. She was able to relax, and feel sorry for hitting me, and tell me so.

We got to the car and had a nice cuddle before driving home :)

Unschooled Communication

Last week Littletree saw a show about dinosaurs, and since then has been really interested in learning about them, On Friday we went to storytime at the library as usual, planning to get some books about dinos.

Of course, by co-incidence, the librarian had a dinosaur theme to storytime - two dinosaur stories and the craft project was making a cardboard dinosaur!

Littletree usually goes to her friend Fairy's house after Library to play, only since we've been away, we hadn't confirmed that for this week, and meanwhile, M had arranged to play over there.

Since M felt like playing with more than one other kid would be too much for her, Littletree wasn't invited. Of course, she was pretty sad about that, but the three girls sat around a table and had a talk about it.

Fairy's mum and I just sat back and watched while the girls had a really great round table talk. They all shared how they were feeling, and listened to each other, and offered ideas and suggestions.

After going around for a while, and talking about the situation, coming up with lots of good solutions, Littletree suddenly said "lets play with our dinosaurs!" so they all grabbed their cardboard dinos and had a quick play before getting back to the discussion at hand. I was so impressed with how they could all communicate.

At the end though, M still didn't want to play with more than one kid, so we agreed to bring Littletree over for a play later.

Sadly, Littletree didn't take it too well, and Purple and I spent most of an hour just being with her while she cried. We talked about it a lot, and in the end she decided to sent a text message to the girls to let them know how she felt.

She wrote: "Dear Fairy & M, I feel bad & its not fair when u go when i want to go with u & i dont want to say bye.& its not fair that u dont let me play too.from Littletree"

The girls replied that they were sorry and wanted to play with her another day. I just love how all these kids are so clear with how they feel and what they want, and able to communicate that. :)

In the end it was fine, since Littletree met another little girl on the street, Acrobat. They were drawn to each other like a pair of magnets, and Acrobat taught Littletree to climb up a pole. In the evening we went for dinner at the local cafe with Acrobat's family so the girls could play longer too :)