Our three year old has just learned the art of drawing people. A circle. Two arms. Two legs. Two eyes. And, for him who is obsessed with ears, two of those as well.

The 7 year old has moved onto chapter books and a whole new world awaits her.

The 10 year old is speed skating down the alley in his new roller blades. Olympic dreams in his head.

The 12 year old is drawing like crazy, doing portraits in black and white. In a style we’ve never seen in her drawings before.

These new skills sometimes present in a troubled way at first.  As they work toward the newness, the shift, the big idea, they take a step back. They protest things a little bigger and a little more. They forget things they used to know.

Sometimes I remember that in the shifting comes the discomfort and the agony. But I don’t always. And I ask, “what the heck is wrong with them? Why are they acting this way? Why are they yelling/fighting/resisting/etc.?” And then the newness. And I smack myself on the forehead in recognition of the learning curve.

And me? I’m trying on this new hat of public speaking and loving it. Readings of essays. Story telling. Talks on parenting and slow family and any other topic that hits me close to home. It was a push to my edge at first. Now it’s a new love of mine.

I love spring and all the possibilities it presents. All the newness and the challenges to live our lives more fully as ourselves.

And I love when struggles have an explanation.

You may remember another post here about another family who examined their busy schedule and realized that yes, this was what they wanted and so, in the midst of all the activities, they were going to find ways to slow down, connect and enjoy things as they were. Not quit things, just be conscious of how they were moving through them.

The point being every family has to find their own slow. It looks different in every household and even within each household it might look different every season. In order to find your family’s slow, ask yourself this question, “Is this working for us?” And if you need a little more guidance than that, you can download our slow family workbook. It has some simple tools for helping each family get where they want to be.

Slow Family Living is also  in Rhythm of the Home, an online quarterly magazine celebrating warmth, celebration, play and connection for happy, creative, connected family life. In addition to the article about the whys and ways of slowing down, connecting and enjoying family life, there is a super sweet picture of my husband and son taken on a family camp out a few years ago.

Our own Carrie Contey was one  of those speakers and spoke on the idea of allowing and appreciating the pauses in life. Starting with the explanation of the growth and development of the infant brain, she explained to us all that taking a pause isn’t just a nice idea, it’s necessary to the unfolding and integration of knowledge and understanding.  In less than 15 minutes she taught all in the room, a roomful of people no doubt highly plugged in to a variety of devices and people, that the pause isn’t wasting time. It’s crucial to our human development. When we’re infants and all the way through childhood and adulthood too. We can’t keep taking in, if there is no pause there to allow for integration of information. Well, we can but that is when there is overload and possible implosion. In order to find the balance we have to do. be. do. be. do. be. Always ending on the being.

I have found ways throughout the day to take these necessary pauses. Waiting at a stoplight I close my eyes and tell my children to alert me to a green. Standing at the kitchen sink I spread my feet shoulder width apart and slowly drink a glass of water. I have learned the art of the 20 minute nap. I know that turning off the phone on occasion connects me more to self and to my family. I have learned that time for conscious breathing can/should come as the first item on the list. Not the last. I have learned all of these things and yet I was both in need of and grateful for the scientific reminder from Slow Family’s own Dr. Carrie Contey.

Her message wrapped up at the end: Do less. Be More.

Stay tuned for the video of Carrie’s talk and, lucky us, of the entire day. In the meantime, how are you going to take a pause?

“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 our days, weeks, lives,
Whatever we see, hear, feel, read,
Allow it in.

And take a pause.

In the pause is the integration of all of life’s inspiration.

So, before you move on.
Before you react.
Before you continue to do, do, do…

Just be.

Allow the power of the pause.

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If you want to grasp this concept more fully, that childhood is fleeting and the people we raise will be adults for a whole lot longer than they are children, here’s a fun and simple exercise…

Write down the names and ages of all the people in your immediate family – the parents and the kids. Now add 20 years. That’s it. That’s the whole exercise. The point being that it really does go fast. And the connection we seek then can be put into place now in little and mindful chunks.

Take a day off. Play in the yard. Skip the chores one afternoon and lay around and read together. Greet each other in the morning as if you haven’t seen each other in months. Take ten minutes to listen to a kids’ story about the kid at school. Turn off your phone on occasion. Turn off the screens. Look at each other. Listen. Enjoy each other’s company.

What you put in now will come back to you later a thousand fold.

Over the past few months I have been pondering what this would look like for us – what would serve as sort of a Slow Family reminder – a reminder to all of us to slow down, connect and truly enjoy family life. Coming in from the outside world seems like a perfect time to have this reminder – to leave all the mess out there and bring in the connection that we all need and love and desire too. And, aside from the sentiment of it, I also knew whatever we used would have to be kind of rugged, and hold up to sometimes grimy fingers, rugged encounters, the elements and time.

When taking out our Christmas decorations this past month I found, hidden in the bottom of one of the boxes, an aluminum star – simply designed and stamped with the word: PEACE. I got out a nail and a hammer and affixed it smack dab in the middle of the door. Over the past month, ach time we enter, we touch it, and the kids ritual is to tap it three times. Even the other day as we were entering, and my 7 year old stood with her arms full of backpack and coat and other sundry items of a first grader, she looked back at me and said, “Can you tap that for me?” Already it has become ritual. Even if I don’t touch it with my hands, I touch it with my eyes and take in its message.

The dictionary describes a talisman as anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions. This is precisely what I hope our new star will do – have a powerful influence on our actions as we strive to connect as a family. It’s not always easy to live family life in the connected way we want to live it, but it sure is nice to have this physical reminder of our goal. And a reminder too that we are home. Not the building we live in but the people who dwell here.

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?

She got the list from a site called Simple Living. It seems like a great way to kick off the new year! Here it is for all of you to try in your own communities…

• Turn off your TV
• Leave your house
• Know your neighbors
• Look up when you are walking
• Greet people
• Sit on your front stoop
• Plant flowers
• Use your library
• Play together
• Buy local
• Share what you have
• Help a lost dog
• Take children to the park
• Garden together
• Support neighborhood schools
• Fix it even if you didn’t break it
• Have pot lucks
• Honor elders
• Pick up litter
• Read stories aloud
• Dance in the street
• Talk to the mail carrier
• Listen to the birds
• Put up a swing
• Help carry something heavy
• Barter for your goods and services
• Start a tradition
• Ask a question
• Hire young people for odd jobs
• Organize a block party
• Bake/Cook extra and share
• Ask for help when you need it
• Open your shades
• Sing together
• Share your skills
• Take back the night
• Turn up the music
• Turn down the music
• Listen before you react in anger
• Mediate a conflict
• Seek to understand
• Learn from new and uncomfortable angles
• Know that no one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this.

To this list I would add…

• Talk to the homeless
• Sweep the front sidewalk
• Park in your driveway instead of your garage
• Put free stuff on the curb
• Make and deliver collections for those less fortunate: canned goods, shoes, books, etc
• Have friends over for dinner
• Take a walk around the block
• Plan a nature hike with friends

What would you add to your list?