I am becoming someone who believes :p

I found this on a discussion forum and while I still feel very uncomfortable believing something like this, emotionally it does make sense to me. I guess I worry that it becomes yet another ideal to inspire me, and thus frustrate me when I fall short.

Be Impeccable with Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Impeccable means “without sin” and a sin is something you do or believe that goes against yourself. It means not speaking against yourself, to yourself or to others. It means not rejecting yourself. To be impeccable means to take responsibility for yourself, to not participate in “the blame game.”

Regarding the word, the rules of “action-reaction” apply. What you put out energetically will return to you. Proper use of the word creates proper use of energy, putting out love and gratitude perpetuates the same in the universe. The converse is also true.

Impeccability starts at home. Be impeccable with yourself and that will reflect in your life and your relationships with others. This agreement can help change thousands of other agreements, especially ones that create fear instead of love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

We take things personally when we agree with what others have said. If we didn’t agree, the things that others say would not affect us emotionally. If we did not care about what others think about us, their words or behavior could not affect us.

Even if someone yells at you, gossips about you, harms you or yours, it still is not about you! Their actions and words are based on what they believe in their personal dream.

Our personal “Book of Law” and belief system makes us feel safe. When people have beliefs that are different from our own, we get scared, defend ourselves, and impose our point of view on others. If someone gets angry with us it is because our belief system is challenging their belief system and they get scared. They need to defend their point of view. Why become angry, create conflict, and expend energy arguing when you are aware of this?

Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

When we make assumptions it is because we believe we know what others are thinking and feeling. We believe we know their point of view, their dream. We forget that our beliefs are just our point of view based on our belief system and personal experiences and have nothing to do with what others think and feel.

We make the assumption that everybody judges us, abuses us, victimizes us, and blames us the way we do ourselves. As a result we reject ourselves before others have the chance to reject us. When we think this way, it becomes difficult to be ourselves in the world.

Take action and be clear to others about what you want or do not want; do not gossip and make assumptions about things others tell you. Respect other points of view and avoid arguing just to be right. Respect yourself and be honest with yourself. Stop expecting the people around you to know what is in your head.

Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Doing your best means enjoying the action without expecting a reward. The pleasure comes from doing what you like in life and having fun, not from how much you get paid. Enjoy the path traveled and the destination will take care of itself.

Living in the moment and releasing the past helps us to do the best we can in the moment. It allows us to be fully alive right now, enjoying what is present, not worrying about the past or the future.

Have patience with yourself. Take action. Practice forgiveness. If you do your best always, transformation will happen as a matter of course.

Sleep, glorious sleep

This is a bimba

It’s starting to work. DS falls asleep within 15 minutes of lights out, snuggled up with us until we creep out.

And DH and I have our evenings to be together, quietly, to be adults, with no interruptions.

I am keeping him waking up at 7am, napping from 12:30 – 2:30 and in bed by 8. I would prefer it to be earlier, but he doesn’t fall asleep before 8 – I just lie there for longer if we go to bed earlier

No more crying fits when the light goes out…. no more frustration at a toddler who won’t sleep. Although yesterday’s nap took closer to 45 minutes of me lying in bed waiting, and praying. I think I have found a tool that works for me in those moments when I just wish he would be asleep already.

Yesterday he was excited after a spontaneous meet up at the local park with two mums who I know through LLL. He loved it. Lots of kids, lots of toys, FUN. I had no idea there were that number of children not in kindy. (I’m talking about 5 children – but it’s more than we’ve had so far). He is so social, engaging other children in playing with a ball, smiling and very trusting of other adults there. He did get very possessive of his bimba when one of the twins tried it out – and started watching it very carefully to make sure no one took it.

I know he needs to be around other children. He adores them. And I have been quite hearbroken that I have not had more children in his immediate environment.

Slowly slowly. We’ll get there. And perhaps I won’t have to move out to an ecological village to meet mine and my DS’s needs.

I managed to resist until now

On two things.

One. screen time. DS has now seen the screen for about 15 mins two or three times. And he loves it. I put on a DVD (in our computer) I received from my brother.

Also, I counted his words. I am ashamed to say it, but the chatter of word counting I have seen online in parenting forums in the USA finally got to me.

moom – moon

zun- sun

meem – cat

xla-xla – dog (sounds like a clopping horse)

mimi – doll, or car with eyes

vavo – avo

nine – tomato (in Hebrew it is agvaniyah)

chee(se)

nca-da – food (pronounced as is it is Zulu)

bizz – piece

more

down

mummy

daddy

boh – come, in Hebrew

come

mayim – water, in Hebrew

tea

r – a hebrew ‘r’. means light, ‘or’ in Hebrew (this is for a candle, a light bulb or a match)

bye bye

hi

karti – kaki

bee-bee – pee-pee

cham – hot, in Hebrew

num num – breasts (as in breastfeeding)

eye

chin

ear

bum

pupi(k) – bellybutton in Hebrew

knee

nana – banana

na-na – chicken

puh-ta – open or close

car

bimba – his little bike (Hebrew word)

bibi-numnum – magazine (from the Motheirng magazines in my bathroom, full of babies in nappies and breastfeeding)

boo(k)

zeh/et zeh – this in Hebrew

zang – song

ram – a close approximation of his grandfather’s name – and every motorbike he sees, as  ‘ram’ rides a tustus (a moped)

ein – none, in Hebrew

na(d) ne(d) – see saw or swing in Hebrew

He loves to command us, as in “Mummy boh” “Daddy down” and “meem boh”. “down”, which often means, he wants his food on the tray of his highchair for him to feed himself.

And he has become a hitting, throwing, angry little boy. I am not sure if he is upset by me insisting he goes to sleep at regular hours now, or if it is just a co-incidence. But it has been becoming more and more prevalent for him to hit and throw. I am still gathering my thoughts on the issue, as I try to figure out the best approach for him and me.

Second guessing myself

Seconds into motherhood - I just had no idea what it all meant yet

As I expected my first child, I knew I would breastfeed exclusively, I knew I would give birth outside of a hospital, I knew I would not use TV and that my child would be clothed in cotton and playing with open ended, preferably wooden toys.

I also was pretty sure I would not fall into the ‘trap’ of letting my child control my life to the extent that my sleep would be disturbed for years, or that my breasts were on demand for years (horrors!). Or that my social life came to an end. I had an unexplored belief that children had the potential to be nasty little terrors who manipulated their parents.

It rocked my world to discover that my baby was not trying to manipulate me. He really needed me. If he was crying he was in pain, hungry or tired. He really did not have an agenda to destroy my life, even though it felt like it at times. And being told that I was too weak to resist his manipulation only p*ssed me off.

He would only sleep next to me and only fall asleep on my breast. Weeks became months, (which has almost become two years) and this has become my daily reality. I would have shuddered in pure horror if someone would have told me my almost 2 year old would still be breastfeeding and in our bed. I would have sworn to make sure it would never happen, under any circumstances. I remember listening to a friend who gave birth months before me sharing her woes of having a baby in bed and feeding on demand, and how that really upset many people in her extended family. I kinda agreed with them in my heart. Being pregnant I had to know all about it already…. (not!).

And I have learnt so much in these two years.

My baby fed on demand. He sleeps in our bed and I do my best to meet his needs, while also allowing for him to understand I have needs as he grows in his understanding of human relationships.

In many ways this seriously rocked my world. I did a dramatic about turn in my thinking. And it has unsettled me in a certain way. I feel a little less confident and certain of myself. (I also feel very satisfied as a mother parenting in tune with both my childs’ needs, and mine) I have had to reassess my beliefs and expectations on so many things through the heart of a mother. I am a little cautious when it comes to embracing anything to the extent that it closes off other options. The mind set of having it all ’sorted’ and relying on an external authority or a philosophy for guiding my choices did not play out well for me. There is still a small part of me still wonders about me changing my philosophy on infant care so dramatically. Of course it suits me better to parent as I am parenting now. But what does it say about all the assumptions I have made in my life? How do I trust myself to know what is best?

I long for that experience of having the peace of knowing that there are no existential questions to be asked. That on a fundamental level I am at peace with myself and my choices and the questions that I pose myself are of a more practical nature and less of an existential one. I am slowing down in my use of disussion boards. I no longer feel the need to check myself and make sure that I am not missing something in how I go about making my choices in my life.

I’m getting there.

My path into a rhythm at home

The 2nd batch

I have been struggling with this, well, since I became a mother. Having grown up in an anthroposophical home and knowing how central rhythm is for growing children, and adults alike – I did not need much convincing that this would indeed be important.

And yet, almost 2 years later, I am still struggling.

DS’s sleep has been all over the place – and I wrote about my poorly managed sleep fiasco recently. I KNOW that if his sleeping and eating times were predictable, much of the angst and frustration could be resolved. On paper/screen it looks so damn easy. You just wake up and the day flows.

Mine does not. I aim for general eating and sleeping times and structure outings to accommodate that. However, in practice it just doesn’t always work. And I end up with a toddler who is overtired and me being strung out.

Apart from now consistently getting into bed by 7:30 in the evening and waking up at 6:30 in the morning, I have made sourdough each Tuesday for the last 3 weeks. I make 3 loves, enough for our family for a week. I like it that it took a week to start the sourdough starter, and I just keep it going for a week each time. Each time the bread has come out tastier and more bread like. This is my  anchor in my weekly rhythm. No matter what happens, we will have fresh bread on Tuesdays. Oh, and clean laundry on Sundays. Sunday has become washing day. I like having a day where I know that I will wash all the laundry – and not just wait for the dirty laundry to be full.

I remember reading in a LLL magazine about the difficulty of transitioning to being at home. One mum advised that it takes 2 years to make that transition. And I think that might be true for me. In a month I will have been home 2 years. And only now do I feel like I am starting to get a handle on the situation.

I know that once I get beyond preparing wholesome food, I need to get it right with regards to serving said wholesome food at a regular time, and not just when it is ready – usually an hour later than DS needs in order to nap/sleep on time.

I’m getting there.

I miss the recognition

I had a really sh*t morning.

DS would not go to sleep. After closing the shutters (to make a dark and restful room) and reading a story (to relax him and prepare him for sleep) and nursing him in bed (further relaxation and sleep preparation) he was jumping on the bed and threw a complete wobbly when I switched the light off. Which ended with him slapping me in the face.

I did not handle that at all well.

I lost it.

I jumped off the bed and shouted something at him, slammed the door, and in the process broke the door handle. I had to break through the shutters to get back into the bedroom.

All of this of course was not conducive to sleep. I was still shaking with rage when I got back into bed with him, calling my husband for support. And to my absolute horror, shouted at my son again when he showed no signs of going to sleep.

I am mortified that I shouted at him twice, that he was locked in a room for about 20 seconds and that I have such a poor control over my responses to frustration.

And yet it is bigger than that. It always is.

No one likes to be slapped in the face, even if it is by a toddler, and you know they don’t know better.

Being slapped in the face on a day where I am questioning the wisdom of my staying home to be with my child for both our good, his and mine, was perhaps a bit more of a challenge than I was up to.

I hate it that I have lost respect in the eyes of people around me. Staying home and preparing healthful food and creating a warm and loving home environment seems to be regarded as menial work – for the brainless and those with no ambition. I used to think I was intelligent and that I had ambition. Perhaps I need to accept that that is not so.

I really miss the days where I got positive feedback for a job well done. Where a grandparent would introduce me by giving the name of the hospital I worked at and my accomplishments with learning a new language and building a life for myself in a foreign country. I no longer have that. I am ‘just a mum, who cooks, cleans and tidies up after a toddler’. Anybody can do that. Nothing special about it at all.

I try to make myself feel better about my choices, by reading up on food preparation and food in general. Making choices that makes sense to me for social and physical health. I work hard to clean our home with ecological cleaners, to model cleaning for my son, and to keep a safer environment for him. And to not be polluting the earth. I have begun to avidly read labels on pretty much everything I buy, as I decode the names and what they could mean for our health.

I devour chat threads on health and healing, on how nutrition is the basis for good health. I want what I am doing to count, to matter – and I want to be recognised for my outstanding choices and effort.

And yet, I know that there is an equally passionate mother, making totally different choices than I am. I touched on this in a previous post on vaccines. People make very different choices. I just haven’t yet made peace with my choice within the variety of choices available.

Last night my professor FIL felt the need to share his wisdom by commenting on our mistake of not letting DS find himself in the world alone by leaving him to fall asleep without his mother or father. Why? Apparently we are making a mistake to not leave DS alone in the evenings while we go out to dinner, movies, theatre, whatever. That we leave DS during the day to have our fun, while still being with him at night is, well, obviously pathological.

Apart from not being recognised as a competent and intelligent, I actually enjoy being at home. But the not being recognised part does my head in. I hate being thought of as inferior (aha…. I believe I have touched the core of the issue, and hence my outrageous outburst earlier today). I think my choice can say a lot about me and who I am. I just wish it didn’t say to some people, that I lack ambition, intelligence or competence.

And life moves forward

I miss her

have slowly been getting used to the idea that my mother is no longer with me. I have been fretting about our second child (still to be conceived) and worrying about how I will handle a new born together with DS and alone, without my mother. Our plan had been for her to come out for a period of time after the birth. I had hoped that it would be up to 3 months, but we had not spoken on the duration of the time.

So, I need to do this without her.

Add to that, my father has met a woman. A woman who makes him so happy, I can just hear the happiness bubbling out of his throat.

This woman sounds very special, and certainly worthy (!) of my fathers love.

I had imagined him finding a different partner at some time. In my fantasy, it would be a woman for him to go travelling the world, to see theatre, movies and concerts. To share the good life he was supposed to be able to share with my mother in their older years.

This woman is herself a mother to young girls (12 and 14, I think). She is 8 years older than me and significantly younger than my father. Which I don’t really have a problem with, her being younger. It’s more that it means she is in a different stage of her life from my father and by being with her, he becomes part of another family raising children. I am very confused about him becoming a part of a totally different family. I feel like I will loose him. And I feel like I am loosing any semblance of my family life that was left after my mother died.

My brother assures me that dad is much happier and has come back to life, so to speak. He was just going through the motions and not finding much point to life. So, for that, this new woman certainly has an important role to play in my fathers happiness.

Her and I are in touch via email. And she is amazingly open and honest with me, and I really do feel like there is a wonderful potential not only in her relationship with my father, but also with me.

Just right now, knowing that she and her girls are away in the mountains with my father, as both ’sides’ get to know each other hiking, braaing (BBQ) and lounging in the pool makes me accutely unhappy. I do not know if I am ready to let go of the image of our family together as it was when my mother was alive. I do not think I have even fully accepted that my mother is dead. And now I am being forced to.

My parents honoured each other for 34 years and kept their fidelity. While that is not being threatened just yet, it is so hard for me to think of the family unit that I grew up with falling apart. It is just my memory of it for now, but that is shaken knowing that in the future, my father will no doubt join his life with this woman’s. And a new family dynamic will start.

And together in all of this, is my deeper questioning of my relationship with my mother. My trying to fathom who she was as a person. And in some ways being intensly angry at her for dying and leaving us with such a gaping hole.

Our last hike together up behind my parents home

Chanukka

Not your average looking sufganiyah, but it was super tasty with blueberry jam centre. Yum

I tried these sufganiyot, only with whole spelt flour rather than regular flour and I left it to rise over 6 hours, not half an hour.

We also made these latkes.

I loved watching DS’s face glow in the candle light as his grandfather lit the candles and we sang the bracha (blessing) and Chanukka songs. Oddly, DH thought DS looked uncomfortable. I really enjoyed the evening and DH felt awkward singing songs and lighting candles. It is not something he grew up with. And yet I am so happy his 2nd dad is there to pass on the tradition to DS. It is something I want DS growing up with as part of his his life experience and identity.

Pancakes

I have been wanting to get into grinding my own flour at home. Mostly as I am sure that freshly ground flour is ore nutritious than flour that has been packaged and sitting around for months.

Anyway, a friend (thanks E) has lent me her hand mill, and DH and I rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

The mill in action

And went on to make buckwheat pancakes. They were super yummy

The pancakes

I have also ground wheat (much harder) to make a pie crust for a sweet potatoe pie. It was a little nutty, but deliciously scrumptious.

Now I just need to source a mill here in Israel – or figure out how to get one here from the USA.

A meander down the road

I have been meaning to take my camera with me when I go out for our walks together.

Off I go

Water please (Mayim)

Squishing berries

It’s finally chilly enough for me to put DS into the handspun/hand dyed jersey I knitted him. I think he looks just gorgeous.

DS found another little boy this morning who is also at home, with a nanny. They had great fun splashing in puddles and see sawing together. DS also has learnt to climb the ladder on the jungle gym. He really is becoming more and more his own person.