Quotable Sunday

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age / The child is grown, and puts away childish things. / Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. / Nobody that matters, that is.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

More Good Reading

Every night around 9:30 my husband and I trek upstairs after watching our nightly Netflix documentary (right now we are watching this one) to enjoy a half hours worth of reading time together underneath a cozy down comforter. For over three years I nearly stopped reading. The challenges of mothering just made extinct my formerly voracious appetite for books. Funnily, though my book reading stopped, my book buying did not. Consequently I have an almost full bookshelf of never been read and barely even been touched books just waiting for me. I get so excited when I finish one book and get to go "shopping" on my shelf for another one. Really. I do so little shopping any more that this is sheer joy for me.
My latest "purchase" is David Elkind's Preschoolers At Risk.
. The book is a bit outdated (I believe it was published in the late eighties) but there is still much value in the author's argument. He thinks that in our efforts to create "superkids" (by sending our kids to skill-driven preschool programs, for example) that we are depriving them of their childhood, asking them to be too grown up too fast. Before reading this, I had thought much about how to ensure that my kids get to stay kids--now I am thinking about it even more.

Reorganizing Our Play Space

I have been doing some thinking lately about how to best organize the play area for the kids. We have so many toys that get forgotten--lost at the bottom of a basket or hidden in a corner. Our sunroom which serves as a playroom is a long narrow space where toys seem to spread out uncontrollably. In Sharifa Oppenheimer's book Heaven on Earth, she describes a number of essential elements for indoor play spaces, including having "homes" for all play things--baskets for doll clothes, for example. Children then know where to go when they want to dress their dolls, rather than sifting through an enormous basket filled with miscellaneous junk.
I decided to break up the room by dividing it with our long, low shelf. We now have two play spaces--one focused on "homey" play with a kitchen, table, doll bedroom, potty, etc.. and one focused more on "school" play with our books, games, an easel, a train set and other toys. I was worried that this might be too directive and limiting, but so far we have really enjoyed it. Not only have we seen a renaissance of the train set and the dollhouse, but we also have two "rooms"--one for each child when there is strife. A little more playing and a little less yelling--this makes for one happy mama.

Autumn in the Northeast

Before having children, I did not pay much attention to the seasons. I am sure part of this had something to do with growing up in Texas (where the seasons change less dramatically) and spending a great deal of time in California (where all of the seasons are mild). Pre-kiddos, many of my wakeful hours were spent indoors--in a classroom or an apartment building.

Much of my time is spent outdoors these days and I am quite literally astonished at the beauty of this season. Last weekend must have been peek foliage for Northern New Jersey and what a sight it was to behold. I saw yellows so luminescent that I quite literally felt as though I was closer to Heaven surrounded by their light.

Quotable Sunday

To raise children who, as young adults, can freely create their life as they envision it-- this is our task. We do this by fashioning a space in which, with a delicate balance of guidance and freedom, our children can discover who they really are.

Sharifa Oppenheimer
Heaven on Earth

Quotable Sunday

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Outdoors

We have been getting outside as much as possible lately. The weather is turning here; brown, yellow, orange, and red reminders that winter is not far behind. Each new season brings such wonder with it. Right now, I am loving the brilliance all around us. And I just can't stop loving acorns. In another life, I want to be one. In the meantime, I am going to make one of my kids be one for Halloween. Who my victim is going to be I am not sure yet...