Mama Renew

It’s February.  Almost March, actually, but we just find out some nice history behind the word February and thought we’d share it before it’s too late.

February, the month that always seems a bit lost, or at least many people we know feel that way.  It’s not spring, but we can feel how close it is.  It’s still winter, but we’re over the novelty of snow.  If we made a new year’s resolution, by February we’ve often slipped considerably.

Apparently the root of February is the Roman word Forfebrua, meaning month of purification and offerings.  It seems appropriate to consider this as a way to shape our approach to this wonderful month of February, in gratitude for all we have received the winter, and cleansing ourselves for the new growth of Spring.   Here are a few ideas that probably are quite different from the origins of Forfebrua, but they work for us:

Purification

Our modern world doesn’t offer many opportunities for a ceremonial act of cleansing… We might consider a few diverse alternatives:

Nourish your body by drinking more water  – no juice or caffeine!

Is there a food you habitually crave that isn’t so good for you?  Give your body a break and perhaps set it aside for a few days or more – at least until March!

Take a really fabulous bubble bath every single night.

Offerings

An offering may be seen as either a symbolic or a practical gesture.  Consider the following as possibilities:

Call up a beloved friend let her know you’ll be bringing her family dinner one night this week, just because.

Offer childcare support or a play date to a friend who could really use a break, or so a couple can go on a date.

Sift through the piles of clothing and offer those your family has outgrown to a shelter or a friend.

Create a clear space on a corner table where you can light a candle offering gratitude.

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How do you feel in February?

What do you need to purify?  What would you like to offer?

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The kids are asleep.  The house is quiet.  What to do?

The options are many.  We could do the dishes, read a book, check emails and surf facebook, squeeze in a few extra hours of work.  We could hop in the hot tub.  Light a candle and enjoy our favourite music while we work on a craft project.  We could have sex. Sleep is an option too…

Many of us feel that urge to stay up just a little bit later to enjoy every bit of quiet down time possible.  After a busy day of parenting we crave the opportunity to focus on something uninterrupted.

In the Globe and Mail today there was an article exploring the “Dawn of the Raccoon Moms”, those of us who forgo sleep to “work, shop and instant-message in nocturnal peace and quiet.”

From a self-care perspective, we celebrate both the importance of sleep and the peace of a quiet home after the kids go to bed.  We understand the limited number of hours in the day and the need to get just one more thing done.  We know how seductive work, internet, television and a good book can be.

We can’t help but wonder, though, what happens after 2, 3, 4, 5 years of night time play.  It seems to us that the real issue here is that moms aren’t getting the space and time they need during the daylight hours.  In the desire to do it all, we’re grabbing hold of the only time we can find to ourselves.

Logically, we know the importance of sleep.  We know it keeps us healthier and gives us energy.  We Know we’re more patient with our children when we’re well rested.  Still, however, the call of the night owl can keep us up far beyond the time when our bodies and minds are ready for a rest.

Now sometimes a deadline is looming and night-time work is essential.  Or after a really hard day we just want to disappear into a good novel – and finish it that same night!  And there’s no harm in allowing yourself one or two nights a week when the raccoon mama can come out to forage and feast til the wee morning hours.  Maybe, just maybe, though, a sleeping mama bear might enjoy a chance as well.

This started out as a single blog entry, but the ideas are flowing so this will simply be part I on sleep.  Watch for Parts II and III over the next week, exploring ways to savour those glorious evening hours, and how to create more precious daylight hours for ourselves.

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Are you a raccoon mom?

How do you fill your evenings?  How do you feel the next day?

Please click here to comment…

by Sarah

I didn’t expect to get blown away on New Years day, 2008, but I was.  At a random community centre yoga class taught by a woman named Gemma in Northfield, Illinois while visiting my family.  Not only was her teaching filled with insight, but her soundtrack  lifted me into a whole new layer of awareness.  After the session she graciously gifted me with the CD.  Somehow that CD got set aside, and I did not listen to it again.  The fitness quest for 2008, by the way, was short-lived.

On New Years day 2009 I remembered Gemma and her music and went searching through itunes.   There it was, just waiting for me…  Out rolled the yoga mat, on went the music, and so it all began.  Once again, the music has carried me in so many beautiful ways.  Like a teenage girl in love (or in the midst of a breakup!), every song on there seems to be all about me.

The song that drives me back to the gym over and over again is Beautiful Flower by India Arie.  The whole song is stunning, but there is one line that resonates deeply with me:

This is the defining moment of our lives

It doesn’t really matter that I didn’t keep going in 2006, 2007, and 2008.  It doesn’t matter where I am a year from now.  This is it, this moment, right here, right now, this is all I have, and I have a choice in this dreary month of February when goals tend to get set by the wayside.  I have felt myself slipping a bit, letting busy schedules overrule my commitment to myself.  It is this line that draws me back, helps me know that every moment is a moment when i have a choice.

So enjoy this soulful acoustic performance, and I’ll leave you now to go do some yoga in the living room!

There is nothing in the world that you cannot do
When you believe in you, who are beautiful
Yeah, you, who are brilliant
Yeah, you, who are powerful
Yeah, you, who are resilient

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What helps you stay clear in your commitment to healthy living?

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Do you work from home in the greater Vancouver area?  A fantastic group of businesses supporting working mothers are conducting a survey to find out where we actually work when we say we work “from home,” and how we’re making it work for our children.

We have found ourselves working in places as diverse as cafes and restaurants, under a tree in a public park, the car in between appointments, and the waiting room of the dentist office.  How about you?

The survey will take about 10 minutes to complete and there are great prizes, including a package with Nannies on Call, an evening out with dinner, comedy and childcare, and a spa certificate from Som Visao.

Click Here to take survey

Sponsored by momcafe, Briefcase Moms, Connect Moms, and Nannies on Call

A dear friend recently changed her facebook relationship status.  Now any of you who do facebook will know the hub bub this usually brings about.  Couples who have married for a decade annnounce their status and get a flurry of congratulations.  Public breakups or  the dreaded “it’s complicated” status invoke our collective curiosity and a certain discomfort.  When someone announces out of the blue that they are “in a relationship” we all want to know more More MORE!

Now, this particular friend had been in a longterm relationship, then was listed as single, and then suddenly reemerged as “engaged.”  What?  A closer look revealed the following text just below:

Engaged…with myself.  It’s about time!

I can’t stop thinking about how marvelous that is.  What a gift to all of us who are in relationship with her through facebook.  With a simple status change, she announced to her community of friends that she is committed to loving herself.  We could all use a relationship like that….

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How’s your relationship with marvelous you?

Perhaps you could use a special date together to help rekindle the romance…

click here to comment!

Join our Mama Renew Community on Facebook

It’s February, friends, and that means we’ve been living the dream for over a month now.  Our new year’s resolutions have magically transformed our lives.  Right?  or not so much?

February is one of those in between months.  Still winter, but almost spring.  Still early in the year, but not the start of a new year.  This is the month when the best of intentions seem to slip away.  As resolutions slip, too often emotions of guilt, doubt, and frustration emerge.  Sadly, these emotions seem to notoriously compound upon one another, leaving resolutions in the dust…

This year we’d like to propose a new way to each of you:

We were struck by the writing of a well known parenting writer in early January as she responded to a reader’s new year’s resolution to no longer yell at her children.  Recognizing that this may represent a significant change in behaviour, her compassionate and practical suggestion was “How about if you don’t yell at your children in the morning?”

Now the ideal, of course, is for all of us to never yell at our children.  Reality?  Most parents slip.   Some days are harder than others.  We are all learning, creating new patterns as parents and human beings, and change is not easy.

If, by chance, your resolution has already slipped by the wayside, we invite you to be gentle on yourself.  Is your resolution perhaps a bit grand?  Rather than feel guilty, how about modifying it to be a bit more manageable?  Leave yourself room for a hard day, or a hard week for that matter.  Create small successes, and you might just find they start making room for bigger change around the corner.

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Where are you in your grand vision of change for the new year?

Share your small successes here!

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This week we are hosting a special contest together with Babyvibe.

Enter now for your chance to win a free group with Mama Renew!

New Mother? We are offering one registration for a six week Mothers Unfolding group for you and baby (pre-crawling).   Visit our website to learn more.
Seasoned Mother? We are offering one registration for a six month Mama Renew group starting February 16th in Vancouver (must have a child between the ages of 1 and 18 years).   Visit our website to learn more.

How to enter

1.  Enjoy reading our Mama Renew blog

2. Then, go to the Babyvibe Contest Page and tell us which blog entry is your favourite and why.  Be sure to note whether you want to win the Mothers Unfolding or the Mama Renew group.

3.  Want to double your chances of winning?  Leave a comment on one of our Mama Renew blog postings.

4.  Triple your chances? Join the Mama Renew Facebook Group and let us know why you’d like to join Mothers Unfolding or Mama Renew.

Posted recently by a weatherman in Baltimore, here is the picture drawn by a girl in Maryland and her mother’s letter to the teacher that followed.   As we raise our little ones we all hope they will grow up to be good people, and admit it – it brings a smile of pride when your child says “I want to be just like you when I grow up.”  Here’s a girl who wants to be like her mommy:

Dear (Teacher),

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn’t show me dancing around a pole. It’s supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely, Mrs. …(Mother)

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Ok, we can’t resist this one. If you’re anything like most of the mamas we know, you probably feel like you play countless roles within a single day. Let’s see if we can name a few: mother, partner, lover, professional, cook, maid, chauffer, financial consultant, friend, the list goes on…

If you think that’s a challenge, try being 8 divas in 44 minutes. A woman named Tracey Bell has created a show featuring her uncanny ability to impersonate a selection of the following divas:

Janis Joplin, Cher, Julie Andrews, Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minelli, Tina Turner, Madonna, Celine Dion, Dolly Parton and Shania Twain.

We all have at least a little bit of Janis rumbling inside of us. Goodness knows we occasionally wish we could channel Julie Andrews as Maria on a challenging afternoon. We should all get a little more in touch with our Marilyn and Madonna. Tina? Absolutely! Celine, Cher and Shania? You tell us… She seems to pull them all off with style:

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We invite you to have a (loud) listen to your favourite diva today and do your own diva show.

The kids will think you’re really cool

(and probably a wee bit outrageous, which we think is a good thing).

Click here to share your favourite diva…

At the beginning of each Mama Renew group we witness a circle of mothers curious to see where the group will take them.  It would be fair to say that many have high hopes and are ready for change.

We came across a fabulous quote today on the White Hot Truth website of Style Statement co-author, Danielle LaPorte:

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it,

then what you are undergoes a transformation

- J. Krishnamurti

The journey to personal renewal is a slow one.  There are no easy answers.  At the very core of it is the exchange of ideas and perspectives within the group that allow us to begin to understand what and where we are.  We begin to see more clearly the patterns we reenact over and over again without stopping to take a closer look to understand why.

Allowing ourselves to be fully present where we Are rather the focusing on where we Wish were were is not easy.  There is a nice parallel here to be drawn with our use of the labyrinth in Birthing From Within prenatal classes. Through the symbolism of the “laborinth” we begin to understand that the key to birthing in awareness is to be fully present in the moment as it is.

Having a clear picture of where we are headed (healthy birth, balanced life, better nutrition, love rekindled…each of us has our own path to walk) is of course important.  Even more important, however, is the gift of a deeper understanding of where we are, thereby transforming our experience of the terrain we are on, and making room for us to take the next step and discover a new way of being right around the next bend.

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At this particular bend in the path, what is happening for you?

Take a close look at the terrain you are on.

What do you need in this moment?

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