Better right now, today

from a discussion about preventing hitting

Something that makes the situation better right now, today should be the first step, for sure! Be nearer, be attentive, improve conditions, make sure kids aren't hungry.

SandraDodd.com/eating/monkeyplatter
photo by Sarah S.

Stock market and yoga poses

Renee Cabatic wrote, in 2013:

As Xander has been playing Grand Theft Auto 5, I've written down some of the things he's been learning:

1) choose your friends, co-workers carefully
2) how to buy and sell stocks
3) some yoga poses
4) new vocabulary

That's doesn't include the conversations brought up by the talk radio playing in the stolen vehicles.

—Renee Cabatic

Safe on the Couch
photo by Sandra Dodd (not of Xander, but of my husband, Keith)

Staying home in modern times

Below is something I wrote in December 2020.
I'm sharing it because it has been two years since the covid shut-down changed my plans. I was to have stayed with a grandson while his younger sibling was born. That little girl has turned two years old now. Because I have an undiagnosed chronic cough, I fear to become sick, so I stay home, still, usually.

---

I could be sad at home, or I can be happy. I have years of practice at conjuring and sharing happiness. Keith knows that sometimes I fail. I get scared, or have a bad dream, or feel sorry for myself, but I revive and recover and put out one more “Just Add Light and Stir,” where people can peek into moments in other families, viewpoints of other people, and sightings of birds or lizards on other continents, in other seasons. There are words and ideas people can take in for a moment, or an hour, or to keep. Then I feel better.

I hope next year is easier and sweeter for all of us. If it is, your memories of an expansive world should allow you to jump on and ride it.

SandraDodd.com/2020
photo by Sandra Dodd

Kind and safe

Parents get pretty good at noticing when a child is tired, hungry or frustrated. It's important to see those things in yourself. Keep your family safe from your more dangerous moods and states. If you're too hungry or too tired to be kind and safe, ask for help. Or admit you're feeling stressed, and be more careful. Don't use your mood as an excuse to be harsh or dangerous. Learn to do what you need to do to stay in a workable, safe zone.

SandraDodd.com/mentalhealth
photo by Destiny Dodd

Quoting "science"

"Scientists" say whatever they want to say. Scientists say the Grand Canyon was created suddenly by a flood. Scientists say the world is only 6,000 years old. Scientists say body fat is not bad. Scientists say it's terribly deadly. Scientists say a species is extinct, and then scientists say they were wrong.

Facts change.

SandraDodd.com/facts
photo by Cass Kotrba

---

The text aboved was part of a rant. Sometimes when I rant, it's fun to read later, but the context was (as usual) unschooling, within the world of homeschooling.

Learning is natural and personal

Meredith Novak wrote:

"Unschooling stems from the premise that learning is natural and personal - and as such it depends utterly on the individual's perceptions and perspectives. It is not something that can be given or created from the outside. There is no way to guarantee what another person will learn. From that perspective, teaching isn't so much bad as superstitious."

—Meredith

---

Learning, or maybe Curiosity
photo by Laura Zurro

Helping grown kids

Holly gets her firewood from our house. Her dad splits wood for fun and for exercise. He enjoys organizing his woodpile as a hobby. In addition to the split wood, she takes kindling, and I make "waxy wood" a time or two a year, by splitting short sections of straight cedar and dipping each stick in melted wax.

If Holly got cold, she could come to our house, or I would lend her blankets, or make corn bags for her to heat up in her microwave. We would pay her gas bill if she needed that sort of help. But for now, we share our fireplace know-how and the by-products of Keith's wood-processing hobby.

Share what you can share. Do what you can do.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Holly Dodd