Simplifying with kids

A few weekends ago, I decided it was time to pair down some of JP's toys.
We do not buy him that many toys as experience as shown me that we would buy them mostly for ourselves but still, there are always toys coming inside the house, courtesy of the grandparents or friends, and they easily add up.

We don't have a playroom, his toys are scattered through the house: in his bedroom, the living room, the office and the kitchen, roughly contained in baskets or boxes. This may sound silly, and I certainly understand the appeal of confining the toys in one room, but it's what makes sense to our family as we try to integrate play into our home and into our lives and spend time together.

It also makes it easier for me to see what toys he plays the most, and I was noticing there were a lot of untouched toys for a while, so I told him we would go through his toys and choose some to pass  on to other kids.
I've briefly  considered doing this without him, worried that it would take forever with lame results but it felt wrong, so and I decided to at least try and see how it would go.

Well, the kid is a tidying pro. I followed kondo's advice of making him touch the toys and he had a great pleasure to hold all his plush toys. In the end, he decided to give them ALL. He was so keen to let go of most of his toys, that I myself was feeling a little scared he was not fully aware of what was happening and started to question him a lot about his choices. The most common answer was: "I don´t play with it anymore" but there were some other valuable arguments mentioned:

On playing tools, which he has two sets (wooden/plastic):
 - I don't need two of each and these (from the wooden set)  will last longer I think. Let us keep this one.

On playing sword:
I don't need this (you won't play pirates anymore?) Of course I will, but a have lots of swords outside! (please read sticks that serve like swords...)

On car with a broken wheel:
- I like the car but it doesn't work anymore... if daddy can't fix them I think we can put it in the garbage.

He felt very strongly about toys to keep (lego, train track, cars, puzzles, piano, animal masks, art supplies) and resolved his doubts in a lovely way:

Play kitchen
- I don't play with it anymore, but it holds toys and S (daughter of friends who visits us at times) loves to play with it when she comes, so I guess it's better to keep it here for now.

Plain / M&M's chocolate dispenser:
- I'll keep this one because I'm hoping it will grow M&M again...

8 comments simple life lessons from a child, simple parenting

Changes and parenting with simplicity

I'm slowly noting how much things changed from when I as a child myself. There's a lot about today's kids dynamics that I'm still learning. And honestly, I can't help wondering: how do things get so complicated?

In my son's day care, they allow a small party in the child birthday. They ask for a home-made cake, and parents are allowed to join the party. We are all pretty excited his upcoming birthday!

Since September, When he joined, there were a few birthday parties, and on all of them, the birthday-child (parents) offered a small gift to the others (keepsake).

I honestly don't know where this comes from, and lapse to see the point. But I know that it has nothing to do with us, so I was debating whether I should do it or not. At the very least, I wanted it to make sense.

What can you give as a keepsake to two-to-three-year-old babies that makes sense? One of the parents gave a small bag with home-made cookies, and I remember thinking that it was a good way to do it. "I could do something like this", I thought at the time.

But then I came up with (what it seems to me) an even better idea: What if I would give them something for them to play together? One gift, to all of them, and that could be used for years to come by so many other kids? I talked with the school and they approved.

So, for now, I'm quite content with the way I unravelled this, but I anticipate many of these small dilemmas for years to come. If you have any solution or insight on this, please do share! I Know I will need all the help possible!

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On being a mother & a women

I often hear that when you are a mother, your life will change completely and you won´t have time for yourself anymore, hence becoming less feminine, less woman. I do agree with the first part, but can’t fully understand the second part of the statement. I mean, I get that you have less time to do the things you used to do, pampering yourself and all of that, but I feel more woman now than before I was a mother… 

I feel more feminine, more seductive, more powerful now than ever before. 

And yes, there were days when I struggle just to get a bath, but I never felt less feminine by that. Motherhood means a new level of womanhood, different for every woman, for sure, but not necessarily less.

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What does a baby really need?

When I was expecting, I felt overwhelmed about how much stuff I needed to welcome my baby. Of course I wanted to give him all the best, and everything seemed absolutelly needed... 

I´m not a consumer person, but before I noticed it, I was buying lots and lots of things. 

But the truth is, baby and toddlers don´t really need that much. They just need us, our time and a few things to be comfortable and happy. 

Most of the stuff, we buy for ourselves, we want to give them everything, because somehow giving things is a sign of love this days…

And it is, right? We like to give gifts to the ones we love. And if we can, why not splurge in those beautiful lovely tiny things that make us happy?

After a while we start feeling that we are not enough if we don’t have that paraphernalia of things our child “needs”. 

This was where I stopped feeding the machine. I am enough and my son is happy, even if we don´t have it all.

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