We decided to explore an entirely unknown part of our home forest today! We’ve been talking a bit of a break from traditional homeschooling and are leaning a bit on our unschooling/relaxed schooling at the moment. Little Maxwell was just getting so frustrated, overwhelmed, and downtrodden by it all and since we don’t usually do a summer vacation or many of the usual “off days” that the public school does, we figured it couldn’t hurt to give her some time. A day out in the forest was just what we needed and what luck! It was warm as could be: in the high sixties!
In January!
Not wholly unusual in our great state of Tennessee. The weather here is bonkers, yo.
Even in the depths of our woods there was evidence of man’s destructive impulses. 😞She stuck her finger in the mud. xDWe discovered a whole field we’d never been to before! I found what I believe may be a cat skull and bones but haven’t identified them for sure yet. They are unphotographed.A new plant I discovered!
Don’t mind my pinkie! This was Daddy Maxwell working on getting our Yule logs burning! We burned two, one that I actually put together and decorated with Holly, oranges, pine, dried apples, pennies, and inscribed runes on the wood, alongside my bestie! This year is her first celebrating Yule officially so many blessings to you, sister! We also had some of that delicious fizzy juice while we gathered and played around the fire because who doesn’t love a holiday classic, am I right? 😉Little Maxwell’s learning time for today! We practice our writing by writing a letter to Santa! I wrote the sentences out that she wanted to say and then she copied them down. This is often called copy work but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun! We even found an address in Finland where you could actually send your letters to Father Christmas. 🙂We also made Lego Dot friendship bracelets!
Yule for us is a day of joy, of family and of hygge. We share treats and we have lots of snuggling! We play games together, sing carols (paganized of course! XD), and enjoy time making handcrafted gifts for family members. We get to pick one gift from under our tree to open but the gift opening is very much secondary to the time spent together. I made us a wonderful lunch that we sat down at the table for and we did crafts like making a homemade Lego snow globe!
Of course there are special magical things that we do to honor the return of the Sun. Along with our sparklers, we ring bells to harald in the return of the light. We see the long night, not as a time of darkness but of necessary rest and recuperation, of reflection. We think on the trials of the year and of the new adventures spread out ahead. We remember those that left us but also rejoice that we can still keep them in our day to day as our Ancestors, our beloved dead who never truly leave us.
Clean crisp air, the child almost burning your lungs. The smell of smoke from the fire and the warmth of snuggling beneath a big blanket together while we watch a movie or play a game. Getting to feel your heart grow two sizes at the joyful exuberance of a little one when they bite into that tasty treat or unwrap a gift you made our picked out just for them.
Yule is the first day of the cold times, the lean times, but also a day of joy to share with those you love. That is what this season means to us. What does Yule mean to you? Do you have any traditions for this time of year, whatever way you may celebrate? Let us know in the comments!
So Little Maxwell is always asking if she can download this new game or that new app. I’m pretty particular about what kinds of games I won’t let her play. For example, I don’t let her play the “match-three” style of games like Bejeweled or Candy Crush. Is Bejeweled even still a thing?
She got an ad for another game in one of the apps she was playing one day and begged me to download it. I checked it out and agreed but under one stipulation: she only played with me. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the fact that it’s a sort of social game that doesn’t have the option of offline play. The game is called PK XD.
Hopping in to the game, I was blasted with the neon and sheer… Well. Childishness. It definitely is made with it’s target audience in mind. It’s bright and accentuated with catchy music and sound effects. There are regular community events and an arcade of mini games that allows each player the opportunity to collect in-game currencies without having to spend real money. In fact there are quite a few opportunities to do so which I was rather pleased with. The game has admins that regularly run my paces through the two floating islands that the PKXD universe consists of.
As for communicating with other players, there are predetermined, pre-selected scripts and responses, even Emojis with sound effects like laughing or crying, that the player can select but speaking freely with players one-on-one outside of that doesn’t seem like an option that is commonly used if even available. I found myself put at ease a little more by this realization. Little Maxwell isn’t really reading fluently yet but I doubt it will be a long. I like knowing that anyone she might become friendly with in-game is relegated to the many, though very PG, communications.
We took the opportunity to catch a photo op at one of the murals during Pet Week! Both of us are supporting pets from the Halloween update. Little Maxwell has an Alibrije spirit cat and I have a spooky Ghost Horse! 👻
The more I played with her, the more I’ve come to really enjoy the game itself. What I love the most though is the fun and engaging quality time that I get to spend with my daughter now, doing something that we both really enjoy together! As a gaming family, we are all often enjoying the latest video game, table top or board game. But, though they may enter set with other family members like when I play Diablo with my sisters and Dad and Minecraft with my brother and bestie hetero life partner, those don’t always necessarily include little Maxwell or her dad. So it’s always nice when we have a game that we can play together especially when it’s one that she so adamantly enjoys.
It’s very easy to add each other 2 your friends list and once you are linked as friends, the game gives you the opportunity to jump in to the servers that your online friend is playing from so you can literally play together. We have had a very big time helping each other decorate our houses and bouncing around the parkour Pet Week course. Visiting other people’s homes to see how they’ve decorated as well. The game boasts a sort of trophy/achievement system by way of stickers that can be collected from literally anywhere and anything. Today, I unlocked a hidden sticker no I received by drinking milk 10 separate days. Another I got from adding items to my house or even finding hidden pets throughout the world.
While it isn’t the most graphically complex game I’ve ever played, I can definitely recommend PK XD or anyone looking for something to do with their kids that don’t be mind-numbingly dull. There is no end to different events, achievements, and fun things to do when you’re spending time with the people you love.
What do you think? Are you going to give PK XD a try with your little ones anytime soon? Let me know what you think in the comments!
My dad is going through radiation treatment for Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma right now. He just started to lose his hair and it’s been a really hard road for him this year. We’re Tennessee natives and it would really mean a lot for our community to show up for the good for him right now. Our family is very close and so my parents don’t have many wants so instead of raising money for them directly, I’d like to do this fundraiser my birthday this year. If you would like to donate to them directly for his treatments or needs, however, Venmo to @CMcRey. Thank you to everyone for your consideration and please be your most well. ♥️
In all of the turmoil, fear, and uncertainty, we are all facing some of our darkest days. Information is rampant and widespread, much of it helpful and some of it, unfortunately, not.
However, that’s actually not what I want to talk about today. Today, I don’t want to talk about what we need to do to keep ourselves safe and healthy no matter what the circumstance comes to. I want to talk about what we can do for each other. Obviously, I’m not saying going door-to-door. What I mean is, what we can do for each other here in this online space.
Something I hadn’t heard of yet was a support group for those not just affected by the COVID/Corona virus but for everyone. Everyone who’s dealing with this fear and uncertainty about what tomorrow might bring. I want to establish a place where anyone and everyone is free to go and talk about what their experience is. What they’re afraid of, what they’re dealing with and also a place that we can go to share this time with others and share support with our fellow human beings.
No matter where you’re from, what borders exist between us, or other lines that we may draw between people and places.
So, here on Little Journeys Everywhere, it’s my mission to create a place where all of this can come together. Where all of us can come together. Because right now, the situation is such that we need each other now more than ever before. We need to support, understand, and share with each other more than ever before, possibly in our history.
It’s my prayer that this sort of support group will help many of us, my own family included, get through the heartache, loneliness, depression, and isolation that can come from illness, distance, and quarantine. So we are going to be launching a social media network support system just for you so that we can all come to the other side of this together.
There is another side to this and we will get there.
Have no doubt about that.
Come join us as we launch the Before The Dawn: A Corona Virus Support Group and leave your stories, testimonials, or words of hope, comfort, and support. It will also be a place where we can put resources and stories of hope for those who need them. Before the Dawn is a community that will be open to all, unmonetized, free of politics, fingerpointing, or bullying. It will be a place that, despite quarantines or borders, everyone can come together no matter your level of affectedness.
I implore those of you who have counseling training or experience to reach out and offer your aid whether it is in Before the Dawn or anywhere else!
Before the Dawn will be on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, and will be linked on our Little Journeys pages. Look for those in the next 24 to 48 hours. The Facebook page can already be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/539367610029409/ .
Here on the blog main, I will also be posting ways for you and your families (especially our poor kids) to get through times of quarantine as well as other resources to offer all of us hope and just a little bit of security until we can reach that other side.
Hello my fellow wanderers, explorers, and Journeyers!
Today is a sort of follow-up to my piece on the amazing book titled The Danish Way of Parenting by Jessica Alexander and Iben Dissing Sandahl. The book centers around the idea that the hidden secret that makes the Danes the happiest people in the world (evaluated by two independent international studies) for the last 40 years almost in a row, actually lies in the way they bring up their children.
As human beings, we tend to stick with what we know and that proves especially true in how we parent. We tend to default to raising our kids the way we were raised. The book address is this first and foremost and gives us the task of “evaluating our default settings”.
However, the rest of the Danish Way of Parenting urges us to stop parenting and start P.A.R.E.N.T.ing. What the hell does that mean? Allow me explain it to you and while I do I’ll give you my P.A.R.E.N.T. Plan so you can have a good example for how to build and frame your own!
That all sounds excellent and wonderful but what does it all mean in practice? Well hang on to your diaper bags and hydroflasks because I am going to walk you through what each of these terms means and then what it looks like in our home. Maybe you can find something in these that you may want to emulate or use for your own household! Let’s begin!
P means to PLAY!
That’s right! Play! That sounds so disastrously simple, doesn’t it? I have news for you then, dear parent. It is!
Get down on the ground, on their level! Meet them as an equal in play! This helps kids to feel more secure. Can you imagine being so small and to have this other human, one who holds so much power over you, just towering over you every time they talk or order or shout? Play should be entirely free of stress or power plays. Get down on their level. If they’re doing a puzzle, sit on the floor and do it too. Coloring at the kids table? Pull up a little kid-sized chair and channel your inner artiste! And you know what? That’s exactly what we do too!
Little Mawell’s favorite things that we do together: *Dollhouse/Toy figure imaginative play *Hide and Seek *Painting or crafting *Digging in the dirt, “excavating for dinosaur bones” as she calls it.
A is all about Authenticity
This point is referring to honesty with our children. Honesty also includes not giving false praise. For example, say that your small child makes you a sculpture that looks less like anything recognizable and more like someone crafted the 3-D bastard lovechild of a Picasso and a Salvador Dalí. Instead of grinning through your teeth and giving an obligatory “It’s a masterpiece! I love it!”, chose an interested “I see you worked really hard on that sculpture! Why don’t you tell me about it?” or “Oh, I see you added in some beads with the clay! That’s a very popular art method called ‘mixed media’!”.
Honesty can be hard with our children. We want to protect them from all things that may make them sad or confused. But it’s being exposed to these things that gives them the chance to learn how to cope with them. Nothing demonstrates this more than explaining a family death to a child. With Little Maxwell, when my grandmother and when a family dog died, we explained to her that when people and animals get old, then it comes their time to die.
Everything has its season. Flowers, weather, toys, even people. Everything breaks down, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t keep those people we love in our lives. We put little clay figures we made and pictures of those we loved up on our pantry-top and give them places with us during holidays. Little Maxwell even tells them about her day sometimes.
R is for REFRAMING.
Reframing is a term that means changing the way you look at a problem or misfortune to see it in a positive light. This can be really easy to do in every part of your life!
*Raining when they wanted to play outside? Have a board game tournament or jump in mud puddles! *Dropped the birthday cake? Salvage what you can and make birthday cake shakes with the ice cream! *Friends can’t come to visit? We can still hang out over a phone call, online, or spend some extra special hygge time with our family instead! *Money was stolen? Then maybe it went to someone who needed it so much more at that time. After all, we are so use to the many blessings we have every day that it’s easy to forget that many people end up driven by desperation just to feed themselves or their families. Try to think of it that way instead, something I’ve done before too!
Going back to that last example, we could all admit that we could use a little more empathy in life. Not just for strangers, but for our own children and loved ones. For ourselves too, perhaps. I know that I’m guilty of getting irritable or tired and then just not giving a damn about anything else until I can get some desperately needed rest or quiet.
When I’m that tired, something that happens a little more often than I will admit, I can be quick to irritation, sickness, pain, and thinking less kindly of others than they deserve. Can you say the same or something similar? Are you in a position that it makes it hard to see the good in the world anymore?
It’s okay. You’re not alone.
It makes us feel…ashamed. Guilty. That’s another emotional stress that presses down on the internal pressures you may already be under. It perpetuates the cycle. The best way to end that cycle?
Empathy.
Have empathy for others and for yourself. Even if you don’t feel that you or they deserve it. After all, empathizing with others isn’t about being deserving or having done something to earn it. It’s about not having earned it at all but being able to give and receive it anyways.
N is for No Ultimatums/Fear-Based Discipline
If you, like me, were raised with a no-nonsense, ‘My-Way-or-the-Highway’, ‘Because-I-Said-So’ approach to parenting, then it’s likely that’s what you started out with while raising your own children. It’s our default setting after all. It’s what we were raised with so it’s how we know to do things. That’s not saying that our parents were abusive or cruel, it’s just that those were also likely their default settings too.
It’s human nature, after all. “Stick to what you know”, as the saying goes. But just because that’s what we know, doesn’t mean that those authoritarian practices are what we HAVE to stick to.
The important thing to do, regardless of your views on spanking or timeouts, is to allow them to be heard and understood. They need to feel that they have a voice in their life and home and that you are willing to listen to them, not just hear them talk.
Choose to find out, to ask them, why they behaved a certain way. You may find out, like me, that your little is so crazy before bed because they are trying to stave off sleep for as long as possible. Why? Because they’ve been having nightmares and are afraid to fall asleep. Instead of spanking or isolating them from you or others for a very real and understandable fear, a good approach would be to spend soe quality snuggle time before they go to sleep. Perhaps a security item or a nightlight or checking under the bed before sleep to put them at ease.
These are simple things that can not only increase your bond with your child but lessen blood pressure, stress, and bedtime battles! I know it does for us because we use these exactly same examples just last night!
Now if I could only find out where she saw a ‘scary policeman’…
I implore you to read this section of the Danish Way of Parenting, even go on the website for more information if anything. I believe that in our American culture, this concept is the hardest for us to incorporate. It is difficult. But isn’t the whole point of it all that giving our kids a better outlook on life, preparing them emotionally and intellectually, is the whole point?
T is for Togetherness!
Tender and loving and comfortable. Togetherness feeds the bond that you share with your entire family, your partners, and your friends. A plant cannot grow without sunlight and a relationship, no matter who it’s with, cannot grow without connection time.
A word used freely in the Danish Way of Parenting, for very good reason, is hygge, pronounced ‘hoo-gah’. Hygge may be an unfamiliar term to many of you but it’s a Danish word that translates loosely into “cozy togetherness with loved ones”.
It’s the feeling you get when it’s a snowy day out and you’re snuggled up on the couch with your sweetie, a warm gooey chocolate chip in hand and a bright glow in your chest. Inspiring. Beautiful. It’s living and loving in the moment, being present with the ones you care for.
The main way you can do this, is by spending time together! No together equals no hygge. Even if you aren’t necessarily doing the same thing, you can still have togetherness.
Boardgames, puzzles, or video games together. Candles lit while you watch a movie with your favorite snuggle buddy. Reading time with your little. Trying to make a new recipe together, the whole family contributing an ingredient one at a time and then tasting it after a cozy dinner all together at the table.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I used the word ‘together’ lately!
So that is the P.A.R.E.N.T. Plan that I’ve been using! I hope that it could bring a few ideas into your own practices with your children. Once again, I would highly, highly suggest reading this book if you haven’t already! It’s my favorite of all of the books I’ve read on parenting, period, and that is making quite the statement! Also don’t forget to drop us a follow and share Little Journeys Everywhere! A follow will let you know when our next post drops so you never have to miss a single post!
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