Finding Wonder in the Smallest of Creatures

Finding Wonder in the Smallest of Creatures; A squirrel standing on the trunk of a tree, ready to jump

Processing the name tag of the person standing at my table at the local book festival, I had an ah-ha moment. “I think my kids are going to go to see you talk later today!” I exclaimed to her,. “You wrote the elephant book, right?”

She smiled and nodded. “That’s why I stopped by your table – the elephant sign,” she said, gesturing at the sign that said “Protect Elephants from Climate Change” sitting next to a stack of my books. My younger son had made it a few weeks before for a climate change rally. It seemed like an appropriate decoration to accompany an environmental parenting advice book.

“But you know what?” she added, leaning in conspiratorially. “Everyone thinks elephants are my favorite animal because I wrote a book about them. But they’re not. Squirrels are.”

Continue reading

Letting Go of Control So Our Kids Can Have It

Letting Go of Control So Our Kids Can Have It; Photo of a young boy running along a stone walkway towards a stone arch with trees over it

“I can’t get the bike lock open!” My older son came up to me with the keys to my bike lock in his hand. He was supposed to be unlocking his bike from the rack at school.

“Uh, just make sure you put it in carefully. It’s kind of fussy. Why don’t you try again?” I said.

“Hahaha, I was just tricking you!” he said. I sighed. He went back to the bike.

A couple minutes later, he was back again. “I really can’t open it. It’s really stuck.”

“Uh, okay, I can help then.”

As I started walking towards the bike, he laughed and said, “I got you again!”

Cue me looking at the non-existent camera in my life, like I’m a sitcom character.

“Ha ha. Yep, you definitely got me. Go unlock your bike, please.”

Continue reading

Being a Good Parent Means Relying on Community

Being a Good Parent Means Relying on Community; photo of a white boy looking at a museum display labeled "The A B Cs of Abolitionists"

“Hey, where are you going?” my friend Randi called after my younger son. My kid was wandering away without telling anyone, as he has a tendency to do.

My head jerked that way, suddenly realizing that she was the only one who had eyes on him. I had been absorbed in conversation with her husband, Drew, one of my oldest friends and someone I hadn’t seen in person in years.

Shame and fear flooded my brain. What if she hadn’t been watching? How far would he have gotten? We were at the National Museum of American History, so it would have been easy for him to just disappear. I should have seen him before she did! Wouldn’t have a good mom noticed that earlier?

Continue reading

How My Kids and I Connected Over Video Game Music

How My Kids and I Connected Over Video Game Music; logo of the 8-Bit Big Band, which is written in retro video-game font with controller icons on the sides

My kids love video games. Really, really love them. In particular, my older son is intensely into Mario Bros games. Classic, new – if it’s Mario, he loves it.

I like video games. I enjoy them and was hard-core into a couple of computer games as a kid, but I’d usually prefer to read a book or watch a movie.

But one thing my kids and I all have in common is a love of music. In fact, a need for music. None of us do well with silence. If things are too quiet, the kids will drive each other (and me) to despair by competing to make noises or sing loudly.

Continue reading

The Challenges and Necessity of Positive Parenting

The Challenges and Necessity of Positive Parenting; photo of a man in a red winter coat next to a kid with a blue winter coat and hat standing next to a stream with a small waterfall with bare trees in the background

Positive parenting – or gentle parenting or conscious parenting – is hard.

It’s hard being patient and kind and demonstrating good listening skills. It’s hard relating to these little people who have such different perspectives as us but also remind us of the characteristics that we ourselves struggle with the most. It’s hard having positive healthy relationships with the people you love the most that you’re also responsible for guiding towards adulthood. It’s hard when you have to push back against what so much of society labels as “good kids” or “good parenting.” It’s hard when the world takes so much out of us and leaves so little left for our children.

Continue reading

What Our Rabbit Reminded Me About Connection

Photo of a white rabbit with brown spots sitting on a blue couch arm; text: What our rabbit reminded me about connection

I felt a nipping at my jeans and looked down. “Hey, stop that!” I chided our pet rabbit Hoppity. I frowned. “You have plenty of hay, water…do you want attention?” Softening, I sat down criss-cross on my son’s floor. The bunny hopped over and started licking my jeans. I petted him, running my hand over his soft ears and back. He hopped onto my leg and started licking my other one. I smiled, realizing that this is the first time he had hopped into my lap that didn’t involve food.

What was first a moment of annoyance turned into a moment of connection.

Continue reading

The Blurred Clarity of Memory

Photo of two children and a woman in hiking clothes hiking down a trail covered in leaves; text: The Blurred Clarity of Memory

“First we took the orange trail and then red and we came down the green,” my older son said from the backseat of the car. I stared at the phone in my hand, where I had pulled up a map of hiking trails. No, he couldn’t have remembered it that clearly. We hiked it two years ago. This is a kid who forgets things minutes after I say them. I looked again. He was right – that was exactly what we had done.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I said.

Memory makes things strange.

Continue reading

On Flowers and Children and Unplanned Beauty

Photo of a bumblebee on a marigold flower; On Flowers and Children and Unexpected Beauty

A small brown haired head with flecks of blond leans down. My son’s nose is almost touching a bright orange flower, its torn pedals sprouting from a huge green stem. In the middle of the flower, there’s a fuzzy yellow and black bumblebee butt sticking out. It has its whole face immersed in the flower, guzzling down nectar. My son watches it in wonder, occasionally speaking to it.

Continue reading