To help incorporate imaginative play we like to offer the kids a song called We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by the Kiboomers. We will put the audio on for the song and walk around with them while singing the song together.
During the course of the song we have to walk through tall wavy grass, swim through a big river, go through the mud, go into a cave and when we find the bear in the cave we run back out of the cave, through the mud, across the river, and through the tall grass to our home (usually screaming like banshees).
To add to the fun you can setup a lite obstacle course to act as the grass, river, mud, cave and home – or you can just use your imagination to its full! You could also do this game in your own backyard, which could be real fun, unless you ran into a real bear!
One of our favorite things about this game is that it builds on a sequence and then reverses it, helps spark imagination, and can be an active game to get energy out. At some level is also builds an understanding of acceptance – i.e. this obstacle is in front of me, what can I do about? Nothing – OK, well, then I need to go through it.
One of our favorite ways to get the kids energy out is to queue up The Kiboomers on YouTube or via Alexa and play The Floor is Lava kids dance song. The song instructs the children to dance, wiggle, tip-toe, and crawl before counting down for them to get off the floor before it turns into lava.
As you can imagine, this is great fun for the kids and it produces a lot of silliness and running around. When the alert is sounding during the refrain we typically all wave our hands in the air like crazy people. Even “Bacon” gets in on that action, and he’s only a year and half old.
Another thing we’ve done to make this more fun is to add in foam balance rocks that we have to stand on to avoid the lava. It takes a bit more balance and can add to the fun.
When we are all tired from the Floor is Lava we will switch to the Freeze Dance, also by The Kiboomers and try to get stuck in as many funny positions and faces as possible when frozen.
Both games are very active and require following directions – so the kids gain some skillsets too. Adding in the foam balance rocks gives the added fun of balancing while escaping the lava or being frozen!
Wind got your trash and recycling barrels? Does it blow them down the street? Send your recycling into the air and across the road? Well, look no further than this hack – buy a child safety cabinet lock and strap it onto your barrel. This hack does not require any drilling into the barrel or a complicated bungee system. It’s easy to use, cheap, and effective. We like the Munchkin Xtraguard Dual Action Multi Use Latches which are around $9 on Amazon. They unclip completely so on trash day you and take off the strap. No more running around at night in the snow, ice, rain or wind to gather back all of your household trash and recycling! And it will even help keep out animals or nosy neighbors!
I love how easy this is! All you need is 2 TBSP of dish soap, 1/4 cup of water, some food coloring, and a hand mixer! (If you need more you can always double or triple the recipe – the original amount I would say is good for 1 child in a small bin)
This is a great sensory activity for any time of the year, but I especially like it when I can coordinate it with something within the season (i.e. Valentine’s Day to make pink foam, St. Patrick’s Day to make green foam, etc.).
Add 2 TBSP of dish soap to a bowl, pour in 1/4 cup of water, and add 1 drop of whatever food coloring you prefer (I always start with 1 drop and go from there because a little food coloring goes a long way!), and then beat it with the mixer until light, fluffy and foamy 🙂
My kids love this activity, and they will literally play with this for at least an hour (the foam does start turning back into water after about 35 to 40 minutes, so you may need to blend it again – or it’s an easy way to say, “Activity is over!” 😉
Happy foaming! I hope your children enjoy it as much as mine do!
It’s 2022, yet still no flying cars. Who would have thought?
This year we are hoping to focus much of our time, effort, and money on hygge and health. We are excited about this focus because we feel it’s something we need in our lives to help combat our chronic stress. You see, much chronic stress has developed for us over the years because we have feverishly and compulsively reacted to the demands of each thought. This had led to packed schedules and an overactive focus on ‘getting stuff done’ to return to a place of peace in our lives. The problem with this approach, however, is that the more we get done the more there is to do. Thoughts are never ending.
Reflecting back on our lives over the past decade and a half we have always felt the need to have space to process, to think, to be. We have lost this in recent time and since our thoughts are never ending, and we cannot create more time, the best thing we can do is create space. In creating space, we want to create space that is cozy, relaxing, intimate. There is a word for this type of experience, it’s called hygge (pronounced hoo-ga).
Naturally, we did what any crazy person who is trying to learn to relax does – we grabbed books from the library and researched hygge a bit. We then crafted a list (see below) of both indoor and outdoor activities we could look to when we have space created and want to break out of constant churn of to-do’s and settle into something like reading a book out loud to the children while drinking a hot beverage or lowering the lights, putting the fireplace on, and building a blanket fort. This list would serve to function not as a to-do list but as an ‘at-a-glance’ worksheet to help us think differently since our brains are so stuck in automatic thought patterns that focus on action.
In order to build space into our routine, we deflected some of the items on our schedule that normally take up that space, let go of the guilt that accompanied by not doing those things, and adopted a mindset of flexibility (i.e. it’s late, but let’s let the kids be up another 30 minutes and not feel so much pressure about bedtime since we’re doing this thing as a family right now).
With regards to health, I have decided to alter my diet this year and adopt the diet the family has, which is gluten free, dairy free, and egg free. I have also decided to eliminate beer, go off coffee, cut back significantly on eating out (think greasy, non-quality food) and late-night snacking, and to focus more strategically on eating a diet that could assist my autoimmune disorder. I went through the cabinets, got rid of the food that did not align and began aligning the shopping list with my new go-to’s which includes items like fermented foods and drinks, chicken breast, bone broths, paleo granolas, tuna, salad, and yogurt.
The transition to adopt the GF, DF, EF diet wasn’t as hard as I’d assumed. I mostly ate that way at dinner because it was a family meal, I just had to adapt my breakfast and lunch staples and what I snacked on. Cutting the beer was emotionally difficult because I enjoyed it, but I didn’t always feel the best after drinking it anyways – I typically felt lethargic and tired. Learning to ‘want’ fermented foods has been more difficult, but with time I know these things will help my gut health and help me feel my best.
We’re also focusing throughout the year on making our own fermented foods, crackers, breads, etc. because it’s cheaper and healthier. We even tried making our own yogurt, but that didn’t turn out so hot. In addition to changing diet and making more of our own foods, we also are added more supplements into our routine – taking cell salts, apple cider vinegar, probiotics, and upping the kids’ daily vitamins. I even decided to get a manual treadmill for the basement (which was cheaper than my gym membership and gave me greater flexibility). In a truly hygge-esque moment that treadmill box has now become a fort for the kids and takes up 1/8th of our bedroom!
We’re excited for 2022. We know we won’t accomplish all this overnight and it’ll be a year long pursuit of making small changes regularly but having the focus on hygge and health helps to keep us focused as we make decisions each day.
We hope your year is full of anticipation and promise!
“It takes a village to raise a child,” right? We’ve all heard the African proverb, whether relating it directly to raising a child or otherwise. However, in today’s culture we scarcely find a consistent villager let alone a whole village!
This proved to be the case for us when after college we moved out of state leaving behind the initial community we had forged in our first years as a young married couple. After a few hops between states as we sought to find a place to take root, we once again began that work of building out our community.
The loss of community can be quite devastating. The relationships you relied on can significantly change in the blink of an eye. To have community, true community, is to not only have digital connections but to also have geographically close friends whom you can rely on. It’s about having mutual connections to support each other as you navigate life, raise children, and to give each other the much needed reprieve in often busy, chaotic, and stressful lives.
In our experience the foundation of community has been through shared mutual interests. When seeking to build community we have followed the steps below to guide us:
Plan
If you know something is on the horizon that will change your community life, such as you’re planning to make a move, first consider the impact. Consider whether the change will improve your community life overall or if it will it be detrimental. If its going to be detrimental, is the change necessary? If it is, then plan ahead and get engaged, for example, with local groups or individuals who have shared interests. Social media helps a great deal here because you can begin connecting with other communities ahead of time to get a sense of what opportunities exist for “plugging in.”
Fortunately, for us, our last move we had a couple of connections in the area already through mutual shared interests. When moving that was immensely helpful because they helped organize people to assist with unloading our moving truck, they brought us food when we arrived, and they actively checked in on us early on while we were settling in. We quickly became friends with these individuals through this experience and have since only strengthened those bonds.
Get Involved
Get out and get involved with the local community by volunteering or joining local shared interest groups, whether it’s a gardening club, an exercise club, a hiking group, or a local church. For us, we are Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) Catholics, so when getting involved in the community we looked for TLM parishes and were able to connect with families of similar age groups. Because of the array of TLM communities and traditional monasteries in our area we were able to connect not only with the chapel we attend weekly, but also with other TLM communities and monastic communities. This has helped us find our “place” in the community and gave us a diverse resource pool to access, including sourcing us when we recently sought a “Mothers’ Helper” to assist us around the house during the week.
Host Events/Groups
Beyond getting involved with already existing local shared interest groups, think about what interests you have and what you could offer others. The interests may overlap with existing groups or events and from there you can share an invite with that audience. Or your interest may be a niche interest. If so, that gives you the opportunity to offer something new to the community. When thinking about where to post flyers about your event, think about places where you are most comfortable and where you think you’d connect well with others in that community.
If you were able to connect with other families in the area through getting involved (the previous step) you could then also host events for those individuals/families to gather together. Offer up your home for a girls’ night or guys’ night, crafting, seasonal holiday events, or play dates. Outside the home offer up outings for fall cleanups, going to the park, playground, museum or brewery. Cast a wide net and don’t be discouraged if everyone cannot make it.
In the past I have hosted a monthly hiking group and as a family we have hosted book clubs, girls’ nights, countless playdates, and celebrations for anything – including annual Halloween movie-a-thons and a “Pie Friendsgiving” event for our friends where we all brought pie to share the week prior to Thanksgiving. Any event can bring you together with community if you find a way to celebrate it!
Next Steps to Consider
List out all your interests, even the most benign mundane crazy niche interests. Get them written down.
Think about the local volunteer opportunities, groups, or events that correspond to your interest. You can check social media or any number of local meetups, coffee shops, parishes, etc for information on local groups as well.
Consider if you would like to host events or groups related to your interests. If so, consider:
Which interests you want to pursue first. If you have various interests, prioritize them and start small with one or two as your focus
Decide what the format or agenda of the event or group would be
Decide where the group would meet
Decide on your target audience (young families? fathers? mothers? Catholics?)
Offer enticements (cocktails, coffee, tea, an activity)
Decide on a cadence for meeting
Promote your new event or group online, with your social network, at coffee shops or libraries, or at your parish!
pickles and bacon 