Conscious Family Journal

Walking Away from It All... and Somehow, Finding Everything

  

Sometimes it takes a career change to find real purpose in your life... and sometimes your best career has nothing to do with a job.

   

My first job out of college was with a highly successful high tech company. It was huge. It was solid. It was a coup, to be offered employment with them.

   

I was a systems programmer, supporting the large mainframe computers that serviced corporate headquarters.

   

Yup.

 

The CEO and Chairman of the Board could not function without me.

    

Well, sort of.

   

At that time, in our company at least, systems programmers were like rock stars. Highly paid. Respected. Kind of famous.

   

In charge of BIG THINGS.

The Importance of Family Vacations

 

Perhaps the best thing about family vacations – especially for conscious parenting – is that they provide an opportunity to be fully present with our children.

  

I was on the phone with my father the other day. He was teasing me (I hope), saying that since I was no longer “working”, I really shouldn’t need a vacation.

  

Hmm.

  

Perhaps it is a generational thing. Or a guy thing. Or just my dad.

  

At any rate, vacations are absolutely critical to my overall sense of well-being, even when they are the tour-five-countries-in-three-days-and-come-home-totally-exhausted kind of vacation.

  

Now that I am a parent, I do mainly “family vacations.” Which means, I try to limit myself to one (max two) countries per trip. And the purpose of my vacations has shifted a bit, as well.

   

I still vacation to reconnect with friends and family; to explore new places and cultures; and/or to simply get away from the daily stresses of work, home ownership and bill-paying.

The Things We Take for Granted

Sometimes, conscious parenting means paying attention to what’s not going on around us.

 

Our family vacation is over and we are on our way home to New England. Yup. Just jetting our way across the country.

   

On a scale of one to ten, my exhaustion level is a twenty-two.

     

We spent the last night of our vacation at a hotel near the airport in Portland, so we could make a morning flight without too much stress or strain.

Oh, sure.

 

We said goodnight and good-bye to our friends around 9:30 last night and set out for our hotel.

 

The moment I fired up the rental car, the madness began.

 

After a long, tiring day – coming at the end of a long, wonderful week – the boys had used up whatever reserves of good behavior they might have had available to them. They argued. They insulted. They wrestled as much as possible, within the confines of their seatbelts.

How to Get Your Kids Excited About Vegetables (Really!)

Conscious Parenting with Meg Brown for BodyEcology.com

Vegetables are an important part of the Body Ecology lifestyle and every healthy family’s diet. Here are four easy ways to get your kids to eat more veggies!

Do you know any children who actually enjoy eating vegetables? I am acquainted with a few. I have a niece who appears to love them – she eats almost any green leafy vegetable with a smile on her face.
 
One of my son’s best friends consumes baby carrots like they’re candy. And a brother-sister team from across the street routinely polish off their dinner salads before even looking at the cheeseburgers on their plates.
 
Perhaps they are just being polite.
 
Perhaps my own children, when dining at other people’s homes, also impress the resident adults by eating all the vegetables in sight. I will have to check on that.
 
In the meantime, vegetable consumption is sadly still a bit of an issue at our house. I have to be creative, persistent and sometimes downright sneaky to get a reasonable amount of veggies into the boys’ daily diet.
 

Reflections on the 4th of July

  

Or, why you might want to feed your children a little American History this summer.

     

  

I regret to report, the following was a real conversation, as best I can remember it.

   

Mom: “What do we celebrate on the 4^th of July?”

   

Son (doesn’t matter which one): “The end of slavery.”

   

Mom: “Uh, no.”

   

Other Son: “Abraham Lincoln’s birthday?”

  

“No.”

  

“The day Abraham Lincoln was assassinated?”

   

We watched National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets on DVD last night, in which President Lincoln was prominently featured. Apparently they had Lincoln on the brain.

20 Rainy Day Activities for Conscious Families

    

Been raining much in your neighborhood?

   

Kids going crazy from lack of exercise? Parents going crazy from the relentless grayness of it all??

   

Help.

   

I just sent the boys outside in what has been a constant drizzle since daybreak. I don’t care how wet, muddy or shrunken they become. They just need to be out of the house. Now.

   

Mommy needs a break.

   

We’ve had rain and thunderstorms off and on for about fourteen days now. The weather gnomes are predicting more for the next ten, at least. This is the beginning of July, for heaven’s sake. Where is my beach weather??

    

If you are like us, suffering from an over-abundance of rainy weather and a suffocating lack of sunshine, here are some rainy day activities to keep you and your family safe, sane and busy, despite it all.

   

   

20 Rainy Day Activities for Conscious Families