The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto

Taken from Brené Brown's website, www.brenebrown.com

The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto

Above all else, I want you to know that you are loved and lovable. You will learn this from my words and actions--the lessons on love are in how I treat you and how I treat myself.

I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness. You will learn that you are worthy of love, belonging, and joy every time you see me practice self-compassion and embrace my own imperfections.

We will practice courage in our family by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both.

We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.

You will learn accountability and respect by watching me make mistakes and make amends, and by watching how I ask for what I need and talk about how I feel.

I want you to know joy, so together we will practice gratitude.

I want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable.

When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.

Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.

We will laugh and sing and dance and create. We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. No matter what, you will always belong here.

As you begin your Wholehearted journey, the greatest gift that I can give to you is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly.

I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Truly, deeply, seeing you.

Happy Waffle Day!

March 25th is Sweden's National Waffle Day (Våffeldagen)!  So fire up your waffle irons and indulge in a sweet or savory waffle today!  It represents the start of Spring for Sweden, though there is still a lot of snow on the ground...


Here is a link to a Swedish waffle recipe, of course, serve with ligonberries:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/SWEDISH-WAFFLES-50182977

When made on a Scandinavian heart-shaped waffle iron, cardamom "vafler" are truly an expression of love.
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 10 Cardamom Waffles

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. freshly ground cardamom
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup melted butte

Preparation
Whisk together eggs, milk, and cardamom. Stir in sugar, flour, and baking powder until batter is well-combined. Stir in melted butter. If possible, allow batter to cool in refrigerator for 1/2 hour.

Lightly grease heart-shaped waffle iron. Drop batter in heaping tablespoons on iron, spreading with a knife into every crevice. Close iron and bake.

Serve with lingonberry jam. Waffles can be frozen and reheated.

Here comes the sun

The past two weeks have been joyfully filled with tons of SUNSHINE!  You have no idea how happy this makes me. I can handle cold weather (to a point) as long as there is sun.  It really makes a difference in mood, energy level and just plain enjoyment of the day.   Plus there is BLUE SKY!  No more gray blah dreariness.

So blue!

It was -10 this morning, so Calvin still has to be bundled up in 2 layers for everything -- 2 mittens, 2 socks, 2 pants, 2 shirts, 1 sweatshirt, snow pants and jacket.  I think he's a little tired of it all, as am I.  We've gotten our morning snow-clothes routine down to only 6 minutes as long as Calvin participates and helps me with all of the items.  Putting a pair of mittens on flailing hands is impossible, let alone 2 pairs of mittens!

Calvin's tired of all of the winter gear.  Me too buddy!

One tantrum-stopper that actually worked for me (no idea if it will ever work again), was that I gave him his time to freak out.  He really didn't want to put on his mittens and he kept flailing his hands and yelling.  I told him he had 5 more seconds to have his tantrum but after that, the mittens had to go on.  I counted to 5 with Calvin freaking out the entire time (not sure if he even heard me) and when I was done, he magically stopped and put his hand out to be properly "mittened."  Amazing! After those 5 seconds, he was a normal kid again and we went outside a few minutes later.

Spring can come anytime it wants...really spring - come on already!

Passport Update: A pasta/pizza tour through Rome

We knew this trip would include an excessive amount of calories, so when planning our trip to Rome, we adopted the mantra/mission, "Get fat and don't care."  This would prove handy to remind ourselves throughout the trip when the thought of eating yet another pizza would make me feel slightly guilty (and slightly ill).  No guilt!  We are here to get fat -- and get fat is exactly what we did.

We took a break from veganism for our trip since we knew avoiding eggs and dairy would be nearly impossible (we were right).  And we didn't want to miss out on all of the wonderful culinary delights Rome had to offer -- including their delicious pastries.  However, going off of our vegan lifestyle meant that I felt bloated and gross for 3 days.  It was a major switch to go from eating tons of veggies every day to eating nothing but

Uppsala's Isfestival - Ice sculpture festival

Swedes do snow and ice really well so it comes as no surprise that Swedish sculptors like to use a recyclable, eco-friendly, sustainable medium like ice during Sweden's long winters.  Uppsala was hosting their annual ice sculpture festival for one weekend only, so we made the great trek up north to check it out.

Calvin did a funny thing of being super active (and thereby super stressful) on all of our various public transportation transfers and then promptly falling asleep as soon as we arrived in Uppsala.  Jon and I were hungry and somewhat tired, so we headed to a cozy cafe, left Calvin asleep in his stroller in front of the window (shock, gasp! whatever, it's totally normal here) and enjoyed a delicious hot lunch with warm drinks.  Ahh, it was so relaxing to lounge in overstuffed Victorian-style arm chairs while sipping an oversized mug of hot chocolate.

When we finally got moving again, Calvin was up so we headed to the Ice Sculpture festival in the central park area of Uppsala.  Some artists made their sculptures kid-friendly and allowed children to climb, crawl and touch the sculptures.  The cutest one was a penguin with space for a child to sit/stand on its feet. Getting Calvin to balance on its feet without slipping off was a challenge but we managed.

Cute penguin sculpture

Of all of the things, Calvin loved sliding down an old rotten tree trunk the best.  Surprisingly he zoomed past the really cool tiger sculpture in favor of the large pirate ship on the playground.  I've never seen Calvin play so much than he did on that playground.  He was all over the place and Jon and I struggled to keep up with him on all of the snow and ice.  He spent the majority of his time just giggling/shrieking when he would "hide" from us within the bottom of the pirate ship.

Hollowed out trees are awesome!

"hiding"

Though it was freezing cold all day, we really enjoyed spending it outside and as always, we love Uppsala regardless of the weather.