This year I did manage to spread the festivities out over a few days, but not by much.  I’m still feeling overwhelmed with homeschool some days and Candlemas just snuck up on me. But one thing I have learned is that it is merely the recognition of these special days year after year, and holding a place of mindfulness, that makes these festivals extraordinary.

We planted wheatgrass, which always amazes the children with its rapid growth.

We made beeswax candles, and this year I let the kids participate.  They loved it, and no one was hurt.  Here’s The Boy, threading a wick through a wick clip.

Since Brigid is the goddess of healing and birth, she is commonly associated with cows and ewes.  In honor of that, we made butter by hand, using only a jar and some organic heavy cream.  I remember doing this as a child in elementary school and I remember that it took forever.  It did not take as long as I thought and it was fun for the three of us to keep passing the jar around.

Its so magical and fun to see something so practical happen in such a humble way.  Jar + cream + shaking = butter.  And this stuff is amazing.  It’s a good thing there’s only a small amount.  This could be really bad for my waistline.

In the afternoon, I made a new Brigit’s cross, while the kids played outside.  Last year’s is awaiting our next outdoor fire, to be burned.  (Many wet days in a row have prevented us from having the fire I had planned.)

We started our day with oatmeal pancakes made with soaked whole grains.  We make them using soymilk instead of the yogurt and water, and substituting millet for the buckwheat. (Sadly, no one in my house shares my love for buckwheat pancakes.)  If you have the time, do watch the video.

Since Brigid is also the goddess of poetry, we read Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, always a hit with the kids. We also read last year’s favorites A Little Bit of Winter by Paul Stewart and The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss, and enjoyed “Saint Bridgit and The King’s Wolf” from The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts by Abbie Farwell Brown.

I now understand a bit better what it means to celebrate these festivals, no matter how small they may seem.  Now that we have celebrated every festival for a year, I more closely feel a sense of the cyclical nature of time, the seasonality of the year and the comfort of ritual.  I have a better sense of the seasons, which can be hard to accomplish here in the South where it feels like summer eight months out of the year.  I hope I have passed this on to my children.  Even if they may not be able to articulate it, it is now a part of who they are.  A part of their childhood experience.

I had been wanting to celebrate Michaelmas with the kids since I first read about it, thinking it would be a great fit for The Boy, who has always had a passion for all things knightly.  Since I learned my lesson to not try to cram it all into one day like I did with Candlemas, I planned on a week’s worth of activities leading up to Michaelmas, but we were ill yet again, so all those plans went out the back door.  I ended up keeping it pretty simple.

In the afternoon, I helped the kids dye some old playsilks in a bath of boiling water and ground turmeric.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoyed it.

While the playsilks dried in the wind, we had a simple picnic dinner in our backyard, relishing the cooler weather at last.  After dinner, we laid on a blanket in the backyard and I read this delightful story of St. Michael by a Waldorf kindergarten teacher.  I then read Saint George and the Dragon, by Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman, which has been a favorite in our home for many years.  If you have never seen it, the text is an adaptation of The Faerie Queen by Edward Spencer, and it is just about as perfect as a children’s book can get.  We love it.

After we read our stories, I tied the silks into capes, and presented them to the children with the words from the St. Michael story, “I give to you a cape of light, to give you courage, strength and might.”

I never expected what came next, but the story and cape resonated so strongly with The Boy that he went and changed into a yellow shirt and donned a sword, scabbard, shield and gold helmet, and called himself The Gold Knight. The game went on for the rest of the evening and through the next day.

What I am starting to learn about with the Waldorf Festivals is that it’s not too important to explain why we celebrate, but to celebrate anyway, and let it resonate however it will.  As an adult, I suppose that the symbolism of “taming your dragons” before the long winter is important this time of year when the days get shorter and cooler, and we begin to feel the pull to withdraw inward.  I didn’t over-think it or over-explain it, I just kept it short and sweet, and age-appropriate and it worked.

The Boy started first grade on Monday and it’s been a big adjustment for him, as well as for our family.  We are still struggling to find our rhythm, but I am certain it will come.  He did great at drop-off the first day.  I didn’t know what to expect, and there’s been some grumbling, but after a hard first day, he’s taking it better than I expected.

The Girl and I are enjoying time alone, and I am enjoying getting my house really clean for the first time in three months.

It’s been raining practically non-stop for the the last three days, which is pretty unusual, but it’s been nice hunkering down at home, pretending it’s Fall.  Which is still at least five weeks away.  Sigh.

What better way to pretend it’s Fall than to make soup? Nevermind the fact that it’s 77 degrees outside (which is actually pretty low).  So crustless quiche and tomato alphabet soup it was.  The Farm is finally open again, which means glorious, bright-orange-yoked eggs, which don’t even compare to the organic supermarket ones.

In an effort to eat less meat, more locally, and to save money on the ever-growing food budget, I’ve been trying to cook at least one or two vegetarian meals a week.  I’ve also been trying to buy what looks good, what’s affordable, and what’s local, rather than going to the store with a dead-set menu plan.  I went shopping today, but I didn’t know what I was going to make for dinner tonight.

The gray and drizzly day made me want soup.   Bear in mind these are more formula than recipe, but for those of you who need it:

ROSE’S CRUSTLESS QUICHE FOR TWO (WITH LEFTOVERS)

1 small head broccoli

1/2 small onion, chopped

olive oil

1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 1/2 teaspoons all purpose flour

2 eggs

3/4 cups half and half (or light cream)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

pinch nutmeg

pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Butter an eight-inch skillet or pan. Cut broccoli into florets and blanch.  Drain and chop.  Saute onion in olive oil until soft. Toss the cheese with the flour and set aside.  Meanwhile, whisk eggs with half and half, salt, nutmeg and pepper, until well mixed. Add broccoli, onion, and cheese to the egg mixture. Pour into pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes, until slightly browned, and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool 15 minutes in the pan, cut into wedges, and serve.  Also good as leftovers, hot, cold, or room temp.

ROSE’S TOMATO (ALPHABET) SOUP

1 small onion, chopped

olive oil

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

1 small zucchini, scrubbed and grated

1 clove garlic, put through a garlic press

1  26 ounce box Pomi strained tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon sugar (or agave)

salt and pepper to taste

handful of alphabet pasta

Heat a large pot over medium heat.  Saute onion in olive oil.  Add carrot when onion is soft.  Add zucchini when carrot softens.  Add garlic when all is soft and beginning to brown.  Add tomatoes, and fill the empty tomato box with water. Add water to soup with bay leaf, salt, pepper, and sugar.  Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, for approximately 40 minutes. Fish out bay leaf and discard.  Using an immersion blender, puree the soup right in the pot.  Meanwhile, bring a smallish pot of water to a boil, then cook pasta and drain.  I like the add the pasta as I serve it because it tends to get mushy as leftovers.  I prefer the soup without pasta, but The Boy loves it.

I love this book.  No other parenting book has ever spoken to me in a way that so completely embodies the kind of parent I want to be.  I read through it, marking many, many pages, and I plan to go through it again with a fine tooth comb, so to speak.

I don’t really read a lot of parenting manuals anymore.  Lately I try to just follow my instincts.  This book filled me with ideas on how to create more tranquility in our home.  And every family could use more of that, especially those with a boisterous boy like mine.

I knew I was onto something big when I got to chapter four: Rhythm. No kidding.  After all the talk in my life about finding my rhythm, there is a whole chapter on it in this book.

The whole concept of the book is well, simple.  Simplifying toys, schedules, diet, information, choices.  I’ve already pulled out a bunch of toys from the kids’ room, and they weren’t even missed.  We didn’t really have a lot to begin with because our children share a very small room, and we have to keep it pared down in there.  I have always fought tooth and nail to keep out the plastic, the flashing, and the beeping toys.

I’m already seeing how when children are offered too many choices, it can be overwhelming.  We have a drawer full of cheap crayons.  There are hundreds of them in there, all broken and half-peeled.  The Girl received a nice set of Lyra beeswax crayons for christmas, and they are gorgeous.  The colors are intense, they feel velvety smooth on paper, and they are simply a delight to use and hold.  And there are only ten of them.  These crayons sit in the art bin, on a shelf accessible by the kids.  But these crayons are treated with a little more respect because they have a special place, they are used with loving intention, and they are not just thrown in a drawer with hundreds of others.  I think this is a good example of what Kim John Payne is trying to say in his book.  A hundred broken crayons in a drawer aren’t important.  Ten beautiful crayons in a beautiful oak box are.

Here’s how Kim John Payne describes it in Chapter one, “Why Simplify?”

What we “see,” what we bring our attention and presence to, is at the heart of who we are.  And for our children, it is at the heart of who they are becoming.  Why simplify?  Because by simplifying our children’s lives we can remove some of the stresses of too-much and too-fast that obstruct their focus and interfere with an emotional baseline of calm and security.  A little grace is needed, after all, for them to develop in to the people they’re meant to be, especially in a world that is so constantly bombarding them (and us) with the distractions of so many things, so much information, speed, and urgency.  These stresses distract from the focus or “task” of childhood: an emerging, developing sense of self.

I really cannot say enough wonderful things about this book.  It sits on a shelf next to my copy of Buddhism for Mothers.

Since writing about sleep and rest yesterday, I have been thinking about napping.  We are big nappers in our house.  The Boy napped until age four, and I can still get him to occasionally take a nap with me.  The Girl still naps every day, and I hope she will continue to nap for as long as her brother did.

When the Boy was a baby, he was a terrible sleeper, so I usually napped with him, at least once a day, sometimes twice.  When I became pregnant with The Girl, all I wanted was sleep.  I couldn’t believe how tired I was all the time.  Absolutely tired, all the way down to my bones.  I had to sleep, so I napped with The Boy.  When The Girl was born, I would take both of them to bed with me, and we would all nap together.

I still nap with The Girl on occasion.  If I am feeling tired or run-down, I will nap with her in the afternoon.  I still feel like I am tired often, and feeling run-down and fatigued from tending children and a home all day.  I know I am so fortunate to be able to nap in the afternoons if I need it.  But I feel that my health and energy are worth it.

Sometimes I choose to have quiet time for myself during nap time, but I try to take that time for myself to do some quiet work of my own, usually knitting, reading, or blogging.  I find it really helps me deal with the high energy of the kids, if I can have even twenty minutes of quiet time for myself.  Yes, there is always work to do, but my peace of mind depends on a little break in the middle of the day.

So every day, around one o’clock (or after lunch) we have quiet time in our house.  Even if The Boy opts not to have a nap (and these days he chooses not to), we still have an hour or two of quiet time, where everyone is expected to have some quiet, alone time.  I think in the ebb and flow of the day’s energy, it’s important to have some quiet down-time in the midst of a busy and playful day.

I think Shea Darian says it best in her book Seven Times the Sun:

One helpful tool when creating daily rhythm for your family is to think of it as a “breathing” exercise.  “Breathing in” is a time when one can focus inwardly and privately.  This might include such activities as reading by oneself, stringing beads, resting, etc.  “Breathing out” is a time of moving out to interact with the external environment.  Such activities might include free-play with others, making a craft project together, visiting friends, etc.  After an out-breath, an in-breath is natural and necessary.  As in any relationship, a balance of intimacy and privacy, as well as activity and rest, is important.  Remember to give both yourself and your child some “breathing room.”

I find that after everyone has had some quiet time, that we are all ready to have some together time afterwards.  I never realized it until recently, but quiet time has always been an important part of our day, since the very beginning.

Last year, I made balance my word of the year, and it was in my thoughts every day.  I made great strides in finding the right way to balance my needs with those of my children and husband.  The Boy started going to school after five years at home with me, and The Girl is now weaned and sleeping in her own bedroom.  I really started making an effort to take care of myself more.  I’m really proud of all of it.

By seeking rhythm this year, I hope to find the right time and the right place for everything.  To be more steady in my movements and thoughts, and to try to slow down a bit, knowing that every idea’s time will come eventually.  I don’t have to try to do everything at once. I’m also working towards finding more rhythm with the kids.  We’ve got a lot of our daily rhythms in place, but I feel there is always room for improvement.  It became clear from the very start that rhythm and routine were what worked for The Boy, and it’s what works for me, too.

There have been several “road signs” along the way that have shown me that I’m on the right path this year, and we’re only a few weeks in.  The few steps I have taken already have really resonated with the kids, especially The Boy.

I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us.