I went to a beautiful wedding this weekend at which a married couple served as the officiants. As they spoke to the bride and groom the one spoke of the need to keep a “soft eye,” a term he had heard on The Wire about the need to see the big picture rather than just focusing on the evidence in front of you.

“You know what you need at a crime scene? Soft eyes.” Detective Bunk

He instructed the bride and groom that in a marriage, it was necessary to keep a soft eye in order to keep seeing the whole scene. He told them not to focus on the one infraction or misspoken word but rather keep a soft eye on the love they had for each other.

I searched the term “soft eye” today and learned that it is a martial arts term, also used often in horseback riding, and means to take in the periphery of the scene – to take in everything but be distracted by nothing.  According to the Urban Dictionary a soft eye is “The ability to see the whole thing. If you have hard eyes, you’re just staring at the tree and missing the forest.”

In family life I can think of nothing more essential than to keep a soft eye.

What are we doing here all together? What is the essence of our family forest? Not what is happening right this minute but what is the overarching desire/feeling/emotion? What’s in our big picture?

How can we remember the joy, love and connection when there are harsh tones being used or piles of endless work to do or a child who won’t go to bed or seemingly incessant whining or hunger or fatigue on everyone’s part?

Keep a soft eye. Stay focused on the big picture.

I’m going to try it. I’ll let you know how it goes.

*Thank you Eric!

In our neck of the woods, spring break starts next week. While the actual dates of break vary from town to town and state to state, the fact is, the kids are about to be off from school for an entire week. In some households that brings great joy at being able to avoid the alarm clocks and settle into some unstructured fun. In others it brings a little panic at a week home with everyone. Some families will chill at home, others will go on vacation, in others camps are plotted, or childcare planned, schedules are reevaluated or carpools made, and it is determined who has what and who will bring who where.

Regardless of what you are doing, take a few minutes to ponder it all. Whether you are excited or anxious. Happy or worried. Scared or elated.

What will you do? Where will you go? What do you all want from this week? Are there people you want to see? Projects you want to do? Roadtrips you want to take? Do you want to explore? Make? Craft? Play?

No matter, what you decide, the one thing you can also figure out is what you want. How do you want to feel? Do you want to have fun? Be productive? Be social? Get time alone? Be still? Be active? All of the above? How do you feel right now when you think about it? Figure out how you feel and how you want to feel. Figure out what you fear and what you want.What you have and what you need. What is definite and what is flexible.

Make a list.  Ask your partner. Ask your kids. And then put everyone’s lists together and see what you can come up with. I really believe that with a little plotting and planning, and a little discussion around it all and time given to it, everyone really can get what they need.

My cousin, mother of twin girls, sent me an illustration last week of Baby Sleep position from How to Be a Dad. It was one of those funny-because-it’s-too-true kind of funnies. And my 5 year old’s belly laughs were just a little too heartfelt if you ask me. There are more on the website. If you relate. Which something tells me you probably will! My personal favorite is Booby Trap with Snow Angel being my son’s fave. Which one hits most closely to home for you? Which one makes you laugh…until you cry?

Baby Sleep Postions

USA Today had a big story yesterday about slowing things down for your family. They touched on some of the points such as cutting out some of the excess activities and really putting the connection in place now so that you can have connection down the road.

Read it yourself and let me know what you think…‘Slow
family’ movement focuses on fewer outside activities – USATODAY.com

I had a day with my kids the other day that was, well, shall we say, less than stellar. There was an air of teasing and picking on each other and not listening to anyone and some pretty incredible snarkiness in just about every direction.  By evening I had blown my top. They had blown theirs and we were all pretty spent.

Once all had cooled a bit, myself included, I called for a meet up in the back yard. We were going to try out some timed talking to bury the ugliness of this day once and for all.

We sat in a circle and with the phone’s timer set for 5 minutes we began. The only rules being that when someone was talking there were to be no interruptions at all. The talker was to talk. And the listeners were to listen.

I started, not for any hierarchy but because nobody else really wanted to go first. For five minutes I talked about what I thought were the infractions I witnessed and felt and made. I talked about how I felt during and after and what we could have done differently. And I talked about what I hoped for in the future – future being from that point on. Until, ding! Time’s up. And around we went, each one of us, talking for our allotted 5 minutes.

There were long moments of silence. There was a little bit of blaming. There were some things stated that others didn’t agree with. But with timed talking, there was space for it all. There were no retorts or disagreements or arguments about anything that was said or felt or observed.

And by the end we were all feeling pretty good. And feeling too like the issues had been resolved.

We all felt truly  heard. And we all had been able to listen as well.

I love timed talking! As my kids age I can see how it’s going to really serve us as a valuable tool. It frees the speaker to speak without fear of interruption. And it frees the listener too. To really and truly listen without coming up with our own response or spinning into rejection of the words being said.

The timed talking let the storm pass so we could move on into a beautiful new next.

photo by Lucy Noll Anderson

Gever Tulley was here in Austin this weekend, as you may well know from me going on and on on my various blogs and sites. He is the founder of the Tinkering School, now a summer camp but one day soon perhaps a K-12. I was fortunate to share a stage with him and with Carrie Contey on Friday night and then participate in various workshops all weekend long.

He had a lot to say about working with kids, and how we can give them the reins a little bit more than we do. We can trust their skills and their knowledge and, when the actual facts may not be there just yet, we can trust their creativity and problem solving. In Tinkering School the elders are known as collaborators, not teachers. “They may have bigger hands that can tighten a nut a little tighter, but that doesn’t make them the authority.”

I am really going to try to take those words and that sentiment into my parenting. I am going to try to remember the collaborative part. Because really, since we’ve been around longer, we may know more about what already is, but we don’t know more about the ideas that have yet to be formed. (I am going to make this my new mantra.) I’m going to try to listen more and dictate less. I am going to trust that the mistakes are part of the process and that really, there is often more to be learned from the mistakes than from an easy success. So, though as parents we have a desire to “save” our kids from failing/falling/faltering,  perhaps the very best thing we can do is to let them experience it on their own and from there give them the tools and support they need to figure out the solution.

Gever wasn’t really speaking about parenting, but really he was.

When my oldest was born, I received a lot of advice around parenting. Some applied. Some did not. Some was for the moment. While still others were maybe delivered a little too early or too late.  The piece of advice I got though that really stuck, the one that has withstood the test of time and the one we have been able to apply to all aspects and ages of parenting was from my sister…

“It’s all a phase,” she said.  “So revel in the good ones and know that the bad ones shall pass.”

These words have brought me through the darkest times and at the same time allowed me to really see and appreciate the bright and shiny moments as well.What I have come to know as the ebb and flow of parenting.

Whether I was parenting an infant growing a tooth or falling asleep on my chest for an afternoon nap. Whether I was guiding a toddler through a tantrum or helping him examine a dead butterfly. Whether I was assisting a 7 year old learning the code of our written language, or a 10 year old finding just the right chapter book or a 12 year old navigating the social waters. In all of it I was able to strive for full presence either suffering it or celebrating it – depending on the circumstances. All because I knew that this too shall pass.

Where are you now? Up? Down? In the darkness? Or in the light?

Find a loving ear or a helping hand or a total stranger to share in your joy.

And know that this too shall pass.

Only one other piece of advice has withstood this test of time and this one came from my brother…

“Don’t sweep until the rice dries.”

That one’s useful too.

In the Huffington Post today there was an article about women and sleep – and whether getting more of it could help women rise to the top of their fields, professions, games. Motherlode author Lisa Belkin wrote about it too and pondered whether the issue was really a choice for women or whether they often really just had more to do on the homefront – i.e. nursing, waking to a child’s cries, domestic duties, hormonal insomnia, etc. and therefore couldn’t get more sleep even if they wanted to.

I agree that when the wee ones are truly wee, the ball often lands in the mom’s court as far as sleep is concerned. Biologically it’s the deal and there isn’t a whole lot to do about it short of extra work at some other point in the day in regards to pumping and bottling, etc. But I think that after that, when the kids actually do sleep through the night, it’s about choice: Will I get everything done, myself, my way, every night, and suffer the fatigue? Will I solicit some help from the family in regards to domestic duties? Will I turn off the computer and head to bed? Will I even occasionally leave things undone and go for the extra sleep even though the laundry, dishes, paperwork or more is left for another day? I know for myself, there has to be the turn-off point. And whether I do it at 10:00 or midnight, there is never a point of everything being done. And that’s with a partner who does A LOT.

Last fall I was lucky enough to have a consult with a local herbalist, Ginger Webb of Texas Medicinals. I went to her for problems of memory loss. After talking for a while she said, “You’re not suffering memory issues, you’re suffering overwhelm.” She prescribed “profound sleep” (more than 9 hours at a stretch) and an herb tincture called ashwaganda. I love the term profound sleep and I use it now as a guiding force making sure that at least one night a week I get my recommended 9 or more hours. Other nights too I try to cash it in a little earlier than I was leaving my night owl tendencies behind on nights where the morning comes at 6:20 a.m.. And I take the tincture nightly as a way for entering calmly into deep and restful sleep. Both have made a profound difference in how I feel and communicate and go about my days.

Just this past week, in an effort to lighten the work load on both my partner and myself, we reinstituted our family job chart. We had it going for a while, a while back, and then, somehow it just kind of stopped. For nearly a year we’ve been without it – instead randomly assigning jobs and more often too, just deciding to do the jobs ourselves instead. For many of the tasks, somehow we decided it was easier to just do it ourselves – which is only true for the time being, definitely not for the long run. Not that we didn’t have the kids doing things but it was way more random and way more special occasion too. And now, daily tasks are back. With it’s sleek new design and added bonus jobs, and older kids at the helm, I can already see it’s impact on the house. Regularly things get done. With a lot less nagging too because, well, it’s there on the chart.

So, to the sleep challenge presented by Arianna Huffington, in a roundabout way, the job chart is going to allow me to get more sleep. Because there really is less to do. And even if it’s not done that night, it’ll get done the next day and it doesn’t all have to be done by me, or by my husband either. Do you want to take the more sleep challenge? And if so, how would you go about it?

Parenting for a Peaceful World, written by Robin Grille, is a book for parents who want to learn to get inside their parenting with true compassion and understanding of both their children and of themselves. It is for child health professionals who want to gain insight into every infant and child, and even adult, they encounter. It is for adults who want to gain insight into their whole selves again and indeed, the whole self of every person they meet.

This book is nothing short of a manifesto for policy-makers, teachers, community leaders, and anyone who wants to deepen their connection to themselves and humanity as a whole. If the findings outlined in these pages are put into practice, the result may be a revolution of peace, humanity, and a world beyond our imagining.  And it can all begin in ourselves and in our very own families.

During our time together we will:
* Examine the whys of who we are
* Discuss the book
* Explore how our own early experiences influence what we believe about ourselves and how we parent
* Share some of the messiness and joys of parenting today
* Learn and practice mindfulness techniques that will help reduce stress and model good emotional health and regulation to partners and children

Time: 7-9pm
Dates: Every Wednesday for six classes starting July 29th
Cost: $250/person or $450/couple
Location: 919B Cardinal Lane Austin TX 78704

This is for mothers and fathers with children of all ages who are ready to explore and create new understandings of themselves, their children and their world in general.

Click here if you are registering as an individual.

Click here if you are registering as a couple.

Please contact Carrie at carrie@earlyparenting.com or 512-694-7794 if you have any questions.

Check out the interview I did with Jennifer Hill Robenalt for her Blog Talk Radio show Soul Lab. Jennifer is a writer, mother, publicist, blogger, spiritual seeker and all around fabulous woman. During our time together we explored the link between parenting and spirituality. Good stuff.