A Homey Home

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In this wintery time, it's easy to start feeling cooped up in your house. If you have toddlers, you're bound to feel cooped up! There are two things to do. The first is to make sure that children get outside-time every day, no matter what the weather. I'll write an article next week on how to approach that to make it feel feasible and enjoyable in snowy weather. In the meantime, the second thing to do is to work on making your house a welcoming and homey place.  When children are in a calmer space, they often respond with calmer energy.

Think about places or homes you've been to that feel warm and welcoming. Where were they? What were they like? What was it about them that made them feel especially homey? How could you make your home more like that?  I know that for myself, there are a few things that make a home feel really homey, and I use them all at Rainbow Bridge. Give these some thought and see if they apply for you, too.

Comfort, Beauty & Practicality
A home that feels really homey makes sure that each space is not only practical, but has both comfort and beauty as well. Beauty without comfort feels like a museum-space instead of a home; comfort without beauty can feel hectic and overwhelming. Do you spaces have both comfort and beauty?

Comfort—Think about comfort for yourself, and for your children. I love to use texture for comfort: lambskins are lovely for a cozy space, velvet curtains, silks, cushions and quilts are all in use all around Rainbow Bridge, and all help to make it feel comfortable. Also, make sure that your furniture is comfortable. I have a friend who has had the same couch for years. She had moved it around from house to house because it was light and easy to move, but it was so uncomfortable to sit on that nobody in her family used it. When she finally got a comfortable couch (from the thrift store; it wasn't expensive), it immediately expanded the usable space in her home and made her home more homey.  Having comfortable, usable spaces for your family can help you spread out and use your entire house, instead of only congrating in one spot.

Beauty—Make space in your home for beauty. Tacking a deep blue cloth with gold stars to the ceiling and walls over your child's bed is easy and quick, but changes the whole feel of the room. If your shelves are jammed full of stuff, try hanging an embroidered silk curtain over the whole thing; it will calm the space immediately. In book cases, make room here and there to showcase small, beautiful things that you love. Painting the walls can really change the feeling of a room. If painting a room feels overwhelming, try painting just one wall. This can often change the entire feeling, at only a fraction of the time and effort. Also, look at your child's toys and the things that are strewn around your house. Are they beautiful to look at? I love toys made out of wood, wool, silk or stone, that are beautiful in their own right.

Make it Practical—A home that is truly homey is not just beautiful, but also practical. This sometimes means giving up how we 'think' things should be, and figuring out what works, and how to do it gracefully. At Rainbow Bridge, I was convinced that I wanted a full-sized table for all of us to sit at, because I didn't like the idea of having a kid-table in my diningroom after the children left for the day. But getting a table to sit fourteen is not easy. Not only was it enormous, but I had to get three or four different kinds of chairs to fill it up. When I finally gave in to practicality and got a kid-friendly table, the space felt so much more spacious and open, I wondered why I hadn't done it earlier. Other practical ideas might include having a play-space near the kitchen, putting a low book case in the hallway for toys, etc. What would be a practical change for your house that would make your life easier, and your house more of a home?

De-Clutter
Perhaps the biggest thing you can do to make a space feel welcoming is to de-clutter. This can feel like quite a challenge with a busy life and toddlers in the house, but it makes an enormous difference in how a space feels, both for your and for your children. Here are some low-hanging fruit that can get you started de-cluttering:

Toys—Go through toys and weed out the ones that don't get used anymore. Then go through them again and put half of them into boxes so that you can rotate toys in and out of use. We do this at Rainbow Bridge, and children are always thrilled to see old 'friends' reappear. I often change toys when the seasons change, but you could also do it at a birthday time, or other holidays.

Use shelves—One great way to help keep clutter down is to have more shelf-space than you know what to do with. Have shelves by the back door with baskets for hats and mittens. Have shelves by the table to keep kid-bowls and kids-cups, and they can help set their place at the table. Have shelves in your study and put baskets on for mail, computer accessories, anything else that would normally be cluttering up your desk. If you can, get beautiful wooden book cases; to me, nothing says homey more than golden wood book cases!

Cover things up—Having twelve kids per day at Rainbow Bridge means that we have a lot of 'stuff' around. One of the ways we handle this is through the judicial use of curtains: velvet curtains cover up shelves filled with table-settings, dry goods, extra hats, you name it. We put curtains on the changing table to hide nine packs of diapers. Now when you look around, you see warm velvet instead of crowded shelves.

Hot Spots—Every house has 'hot spots': places that collect junk. Often this is near the door, or on a desk. The 'stuff' isn't likely to go away, but how can you make it feel warmer? Baskets to catch mail and papers? A beautiful iron hook for your purse? At Rainbow Bridge our cubby space was always a huge mess. I took cloth grocery-store bags and sewed a pocket on the outside of each one in beautiful cloth, and wrote each child's name on one. Now the cubbies are three neat rows of blue bags with beautiful pockets. What a different feeling! Not to mention that it's easier for parents to pack up and leave at the end of the day.

Clean as you go—Make sure that you include clean-up as an integral part of each activity you do with your child. Not “something we have to do when the activity is done,” but as a real PART of the activity. This can include helping to clean up after meals, making their bed after naps, etc. Kids love helping to put things to rights and showing that they know where everything goes, so let it be an activity that has its own value, not something that you're trying to rush through. Take a moment after the clean-up is done to reflect on a job well-done.

So, those are a few of the ideas I have.  I hope this inpires you to look at your home with fresh eyes, and make some changes, however small. I've lived in many spaces in my life, and the ones where I take the time to create a beautiful, homey space are the ones where I've been the happiest. We're going to be inside for most of the time between now and spring. Let's make our homes as homey and as welcoming as we can.

Warmly,
Faith

Two Tall Trees

JOYFUL TODDLERS HAS MOVED!  GO TO OUR NEW LOCATION:  joyfultoddlers.com


Dear Readers,
I want to put in a shameless plug for my friend Jess Henry and her new online store, Two Tall Trees. Jess was a member of my LifeWays training six years ago in Wisconsin, and her mother was a Waldorf teacher at the school I went to as a child.  I remember her from then as a glamorous teenager!  Since that time, Jess has worked with children in many capacities: from the start of life as a Birth Doula, to nursery school teacher, after school art teacher, summer camp director, home childcare provider, and parent-child playgroup leader. She also has two lovely children of her own.

The inspiration for Two Tall Trees came from wishing there were a central place where LifeWays care providers could go to get supplies that have actually been tested by real kids and real adults. Slowly this idea began to take root, and expand. Wouldn't it be great if parents and home childcare providers also had a forum to talk about setting up childcare space, review products they've tried, and more? That vision is just now coming to birth in Two Tall Trees. There you can find child-sized work gloves, wooden hairbrushes for only $4 a piece, fleece-lined rain pants, grain grinders for turning wheat into flour, beeswax candles, old-fashioned egg beaters, kid-sized stainless steel cups, and much, much more!

Jess's entire family is part of the business, and her children enthusiastically test every item that she sells. I really can't enthuse enough about what a resource this will be for all of us who spend our days with young children. I know she is only getting started, and I can't wait to watch Two Tall Trees grow. Please tell all of your friends and your kids' teachers!
http://twotalltrees.com/

Warmly,
Faith

Changing Diapers

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Many parents and caregivers whose children actively dislike diaper-changing try to do it as fast as they can, and get it over with as quickly as possible. But in my experience, this merely accentuates all of the things kids dislike about getting their diaper changed, making it even more intensely unpleasant. On the other hand, you can spend all day trying to talk a child over to the changing table if he doesn't want to go, drawing out the unpleasantness indefinitely. What to do?

My views and practices on diaper changing were altered terrifically by my LifeWays training. Up until that time, I had just viewed diaper changing as a slightly unpleasant task that has to be done multiple times per day. But LifeWays suggests making times of bodily care into special times to bond with the child, and diapering is a very intimate piece of bodily care. Using this lens can completely transform your diapering experience, whether your child hates diapering or merely tolerates it. From the child's point of view, this changes the diapering experience from one of being torn away from play, manhandled, then put down again as quickly as possible, to a special time of connection with their adult. My second year of teaching, I was so inspired by these ideas and I made diaper changing such a special time that none of the children had any interest in potty training! But that's a post for another day.

Going to the Changing Table
Breaking kids away from their play can be difficult, especially if your child already has a negative association with diaper changing. Having a routine, for instance, always change their diaper right after they're done eating but before their play starts again, can help. Also, try diapering on the way to doing something they like. “Are you ready to go outside? Let's tidy up.” After tidying, you might say, “We're getting ready to go outside. First we'll get a fresh, dry diaper, then get on our shoes, jackets and hats, and then we'll be ready to play in the snow!” As we're going to the changing table, I'll talk about what we'll see outside, “Do you think Squirrel Pipkin will be running around in the Cottonwood tree when we get outside? I wonder if he's eaten all of the corn off of the cob we put out for him.”

If a child is playing and I can tell she's soiled her diaper, I'll let her know what's coming. “It smells like you have a poopy diaper. I'll finish wiping the table, and then I'll take you to get a new diaper.” When my table-wiping is done, I'll often give a choice: “Would you like to walk, or hop like a bunny?” Often, hopping like a bunny to the changing table is a fun enough activity to take a child's mind off where she's going; as she hops I'll sing, “Here comes Sarah Cottontail/Hopping down the bunny trail/Hippety hoppety, hippety hoppety, Sarah's on her way.” If I suspect that she won't walk or hop, I'll structure my offer so that one option involves me carrying her over: “Would you like to walk, or fly like an airplane?” Then I'll fly her here and there until she's laughing, and eventually land on the changing table.

Sometimes, though, I know that no option will be attractive, and nothing will distract her; we've been through this many times before. In that case, I'll simply ask, “Would you like to walk, or shall I carry you?” At this point, a child will sometimes ignore me, hoping that the situation will disappear. However, I know that she has a soiled diaper, and my job as the caring adult is to clean her up. I also know that no amount of reasoning or cajoling is likely to work now. You can't change emotion through logic, and she DOESN'T WANT to. I acknowledge this: “You wish you could keep playing. I get that. But it's time to get a new diaper. Will you choose, or shall I choose for you?” If she still refuses to make a choice, I'll say, “OK, I'll choose this time,” and I pick her up. Often at that point she'll suddenly say, “I walk. I walk.” But I tell her compassionately, “I'm sorry, it's too late to choose now. You can choose to walk next time.” This may sound draconian to some parents, but my experience is that this rarely happens more than twice if you're consistent; after that children know to choose when the choice is offered, and things go much more smoothly all around. The key is to do it with compassion; you don't have to be mean in order to be firm.

On the Changing Table
Whew! You made it to the changing table! The hardest part is done!

How can this be? you might ask. You've had lots of trouble on the changing table, and you're girding your loins for battle. However, my experience is that the transition of leaving play is the hardest part, and once you're on the changing table, you can shape the experience into one where you're connecting with each other. And the counter-intuitive trick that will change your diapering experience is this: if your child hates having his diaper changed, slow it waaaaayyyy down. Instead of making this about changing the dirty diaper as quickly as possible, make it about having eye-to-eye face-time with your child. Make it a time of you loving on him and connecting with him. Make the diaper-changing aspect of it into a side note.

Here's how I do it: when a child is laying down on the changing table, I look down at him and smile into his eyes. Sometimes I'll stroke his hair and down both sides of his face while I do it. Then I'll grin a little and lift the bottom of his shirt, and play a belly-button game: “All around the haystack goes the little mouse,” I'll say, circling his belly-button with my finger. Then I'll start to 'walk' my fingers up his tummy. “One step, two step, into his little house!” And that mouse will run up into his armpit. I'll do this two or three or even four times in row, until he's relaxed and smiley. Sometimes I'll alternate the rhyme with this one: “All around the playground goes the teddy bear. One step, two step, tickly under there!”

Next, I'll take off his pants. If he starts to get anxious because he knows the diaper-changing is about to start, I'll pause again, and do a little game with his feet: clapping his feet together sole to sole, I'll chant, “Shoe a little horse! Shoe a little mare! But little Justin's feet go bare, bare bare!” Then I'll kiss the bottom of one foot while looking up at his face, then the bottom of the other. I'll alternate feet, kissing and kissing again until he's relaxed once more. Then I'll pull out one or two wipes and get the new diaper open and ready, talking about the mobile that's hanging above his head, or the mama-baby picture at the foot of the table. I'll open the soiled diaper very slowly, pull it away and put it in the diaper pail with one hand, holding my other warmly against his tummy.  Once I had a little boy in my care who hated diapering, and I was changing his diaper while his mom watched, so she could get some new ideas.  I opened his diaper and he began to writhe and buck.  So I put my face down into his neck and started giving him lots of loud kisses, making them much more attention-grabbing than the diaper coming off.  "I see," the mother said thoughtfully, "You just kiss him into submission!"  I had to laugh.

Now comes the part that many children dislike: being wiped with cold wet wipes. I once had a wipe-warmer that was like a low-grade hotplate that went under the container of wipes, but it would dry the pack out, so I got rid of it. Instead, I'll hold the wipe up and say in a silly voice, “It might be chilly.” Then I'll put the wipe against his bottom and hold it in one place for a moment until it warms up. “Brrrr! Oh, now it's not so bad.” Then I'll start wiping, but sooooo ssllloooowwwlllyyy. While this is happening, I'm looking at his face, not at his bottom. Depending on the child, at this point I might simply look silently into his eyes, or I might tell a little story, a longer nursery rhyme (I like the on that starts “There was an old woman thrown up in a basket/seventeen times as high as the moon”), or, if being wiped is a very intense experience for this little boy, I'll make sound effects as I slowly wipe: “Zzzzzzzooop! Zzzzzooop!” Then I might change the speed a little, changing the speed of my sounds as I do: “Zoop-zoop!” for two little dabs, then a longer stroke again, “Zzzzzzzzoooop.” We are both watching each other and concentrating on the sounds and the feeling of the wipe. I smile at him. “That's a strange feeling, huh? You're doing a great job. I'm proud of you.” I give him a kiss on the forehead. We put on his new diaper, and I open the tabs and let him help place them. I stand him up and have him give me a big hug as I pull up his pants. Then I hug him back, and nuzzle his neck, and swing him down from the changing table. “Come on, let's go wash our hands,” I'll say.

So, the main thing is, get them to the changing table fairly quickly, and then take it slow and make it into a time where you're connecting with each other.  The diaper will get changed, but that's not what he will remember from it.  If you're stuck in a rut of neither of you liking it, don't be discouraged if it takes some time for them to get over their negative associations.  Just keep at it.  Good luck!

Warmly,
Miss Faith