Bringing up toddlers with relevant books

Reading is what I do for a good part of my week. Partially because of my research, but also out of habit. If I don’t read daily, I feel a hunger for words and ideas.

However, I wouldn’t call last year the most nourishing reading-wise. I read far too many guides on how to be a better mum that made me actually feel confused and not up for the job. My child entered the ‘terrible twos’ a few months back. He became more demanding. Playtime needs more effort now. The titles that I read then were not giving me the guidance that I sought, simply because they were not practical enough.

I wanted to know more about how to play with a two-year old, how to organize our time together and I was in need of having a good range of games and entertainments up my sleeve that would be safe and appropriate for his age. I thought I was a fairly imaginative person, but the things that I was coming up with were not always enthusiastically received by my little and headstrong bundle of energy.

I’ve done some searching and have come across a few fabulous titles that both my husband and I are really taken with. We pick a few activities out of these books and it’s great to see how our son responds to them and plays along. The same happens when I try them out in one of the playgroups for small kids that I run every so often.

I know that some of you have children in a similar age group so I thought I should write a short series of posts with book recommendations. I am pretty sure that some of these titles you’ll be happy to have on your shelves too.

The first post in the Book Recommendations Series will appear at the beginning of next week.

A blank canvas to start the year

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

These photographs were taken during my stay in Poland. A day before our flight back to the UK snow began to fall. I was thrilled. I had what I waited for and I’ve captured our little walk around my dad’s orchard above. I think that it was in my childhood that I have somehow persuaded myself that the snow needs to fall for the new year to begin. It’s as if a blank sheet was put on my old scribbled paper and I am now allowed to start again…. with lungs full of refreshing air.

Receiving Presents: Does It Matter What’s Inside?

Reminder

A father once gave his child a beautifully wrapped box. It was red and gold with a large ribbon. The father said to the child, ‘Before you can open it, let’s imagine what might be inside’.

To start with the box contained only simple objects, but as they stared and wondered, the child’s imagination grew and the box started filling up with various fantastical ideas: a troupe of dancing fairies, a musical box containing a full orchestra of mice, a pair of magic shoes that makes you walk on clouds, a toy train full of chattering teddy bears, a miniature garden full of tiny roses, trees and monkeys…The ideas kept flowing. Towards the end of the evening, the father suggested, ‘Now you can open your present’. The child responded ‘No Daddy, I don’t want to open it. I’m happy with the box’.

Would you open the box?

What would be in your box that you would find most satisfying?

Is it possible that someone’s gratitude for the gift of imagination is stronger than their curiosity and appetite for the real life? How does it feel?

First published: December 2013

Peace is Needed for Renewal, Peace is Needed for Change

As much as I see situations when I would agree with the title of this post, I wouldn’t say that this is what I experience when I am in the process of creating something. I am often troubled and pressured by a guard in my head telling me that I am too slow, too quick, or that I really should be doing something else, and of course that there is a better, simpler, easier or a more sophisticated way of doing whatever I am doing. This internal judge can speak quite loudly, boldly discrediting or shaming whatever project I am working on. The voice is especially powerful at the end of the year when I am trying to catch up on some often self- or socially-imposed agreements.

This voice is a fairly competent time thief. Because really whatever I am doing I love doing and whatever project I dive into answers a craving of my heart and soul in some way, or answers some needs that the season and family life creates.

Life is too short to take yourself too seriously (yes Rachel, you’ve told me that). Too short to focus only on one piece of a jigsaw puzzle. One piece never builds a view. It never gives you a sense of completeness. Life is made of many pieces, many wonderful pieces that complete and complement one another.

I wish we were more forgiving towards ourselves. Less judgmental. More understanding. We are all trying as much as we can in the areas we find ourselves in. There is no need for additional pressures (external or internal) on top of those that are already present.

It doesn’t matter if we are quick or slow. If we do things in this manner or another way. If we make occasional mistakes. If we don’t do things as well as someone else. The important thing is that we have the willingness to do things, that we have the willingness to renew, change or just carry on. The willingness is often enough to move us forward and it is this willingness that I am today grateful for. The need to persevere.

Thankful Tuesday series was started by Life With The Crew. Pop over to her blog to read about her adventures.

Thankful Tuesday: Places and destinations

“I reread the Odyssey… which I had first read in school and remembered as a story of a homecoming. But it is not a story of a homecoming. How could the Greeks who knew that one never enters the same river twice, believe in homecoming? Odysseus does not return home to stay, but to set off again.” Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

Last week we just ate clementines. Well, we did other things too but it felt as if it was all that we did. When you have the flu, you want to eat citrus fruits all the time, don’t you? It is really lovely to see that no food is dismissed when its eating is preceded by having an opportunity to peel it, and garlic is no exception (at least not in my toddler’s case).

As our noses were running and temperatures went high, we had to say no to a few events and cancel one too. I must admit I have grown so fond of our little communities recently that I have found it quite painful to stay at home.

There are times however that we find it difficult to appreciate our back and forth travelling. Journeys to work, shops, schools and nurseries. But as much as we love home, as much as we find it easier to return than to set off, there is no doubt that we also meet ourselves in other places. These days even if my journeys are only to the nearest park, I am grateful for having them. For having opportunities to set off. To be in motion. In a physical or metaphorical sense.

They say that small children learn an awful lot while discussing with their mothers all the things that happen on the other side of the window. Quickly, they are drawn outside… they find their favourite places… just as adults do.

Today I am grateful for those places and our destinations that pull us out of bed every morning and make us meet ourselves and meet each other. We belong to the world that’s greater than our home. We must set off.