What bugs children see

Totally amazes me how different children see the world.  They notice the smallest of things.

 

Here they stopped me to look and talk about the real big bee in the middle of an apple blossom.  A loooooong discussion about animals and honey making took place, and I cannot even begin to describe the excitement they experienced when they came across the green, weird looking bug to the right. 

Walk towards the light...

Anïas, Illïus, Xavier and me were trekking on our bikes through the woods next to the children's school (Fokusskolan i Nyköping) when the sun was setting.  We took this surreal photo with the iphone.  Walk towards the light children hehe... or alien abduction?

Happy mother’s day all!

I want to wish all great grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, sisters and daughters a happy mother's day.

(My son Xavier wanted to pick me all the flowers, but we decided on taking them home in a picture format.) 

One of the most beautiful blessings in life is the presence of a child.  No matter if the child is biological or not, being around a child as it grows up is amazing.  The funny thing about time (for many) is that time has the ability to soften memories of hardship and struggle while enhancing the cherished ones.

My husband and I have come to the agreement that our youngest boy Xavier will be the last child we have.  My eldest son Duncan is turning 18 this year, and it just goes to show that time stops for no one.

It is sometimes hard to choose to be present with people I love.  I might be there, but my thoughts and actions are elsewhere.  It is a bad habit that we should get rid of it post haste and treat like the bubonic plague.  I work on seeking out moments of joy with people I care about on a daily basis, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem at the moment.  As I have recorded them, these moments have become a large treasure combined.  It takes a lot of effort to include and invite people into activities and chores.  How many times do we get-to-it by ourselves because it seems faster, easier and better that way?

Well, I will continue to refuse to hop on the grind train, and will not allow people and time to pass through my life as if I was in drunken haze, only to come up for air and a memorable view every decade or so.

Our family were forced to start anew when we moved to Sweden.  All we previously knew came to a halt and was done away with.  We were given an opportunity to recalibrate our path through life.  Our family gained a focus on appreciating each other; deal with each other justly and with love and respect.  Jeffrey and I decided to care more for eachother and work more as a team.  When our children see us together, they know with certainty that we belong.  We are one.  All have a voice in our home, all are seen and heard. Our time best spent is with each other.  We chose to raise a family by being active examples; talk and preach less - actively interact more.  We live by the phrase "talk is cheap" and "walk the talk! Give it a try.  It is good stuff for all.



Happy mother’s day to all important examples out there!  Take a moment to write down and document a cherished memory and keep it safe.  You will not regret it.

Spring fixin' things

Jeffrey was keeping the boys busy today with fixing them for spring.  Tire changes, lube... you name it.  This brought some neighbors around with their bikes as well, and with them came their children.  In the end it was a bike shop on the lawn. 

 I stayed busy in our garden because I was finally able to direct sow some seeds.  Our rhubarb was ready for a picking which in turn became a very nice pie to to round off this busy family day.

Getting pumped up!

The kids got bored waiting for the school BBQ to start so they went crazy on a taxi toy for 30 minutes. People were gossiping about my kids as theirs were quiet and non-participating onlookers. It did not phase the boys, they did not even notice.

Hurray for happy and carefree moments.

The smallest things

My son Anïas asked me to come outside for a while to see what 'spring sign' he had found.  In the midst of a sea of grass, were 3 very tiny flowers.  It made me extremely happy to have him share this discovery with me.  It also made me appreciate and respect how truly wonderful he is.  He is doing what we are asked to do.  Find joy in the most simple and smallest of things.  Appreciate the creation of our Heavenly Father and life on earth.  Be kind and strong for those who are weaker.  Share your joy with others. 

Xavier has become an example with his flower friend

It is very apparent and humbling to me, to see in action how my actions affect people around me.  People tend to talk too much.  People pay lots of money to hear other people talk.  We read lots of books and print about talking the talk.  We go listen to inspirational pick-me-up- talks.  Many of our misfortunes and anxieties would end if we would just: do what has to be done; change what has to be changed;  stop looking at the life of others and live in ones own.

There are many people of ALL ages, that cruise past this one single flower.  Not ever seeing it, not stopping to appreciate it.  The norm of what I have noticed here is lack of respect for living lants and animals by many.

Xavier has not so much been told about flowers, animals and small things as shown by me and his father.  How we act now mimics his behavior towards the same. We can now see with full joy of our hearts, that our actions has had a very true impact in his young life and behaviors.  Here he crawls into thick flowery bushes to hop onto a rock so he can cradle this one spring tulip.



He is so excited and loves how big, bold and beautiful it is.  Xavier gently pets the flowerpetals for a while and tries to cradle it like an old friend.  He talks to it and we visit this one flower for a couple of weeks until it's life came to a rest.  Xavier and I wished the flower a good sleep, and we hope to see it again next year.

Fishing with a 'fish stick'

Xavier hopped off his bike as we were coming home from his great grandmother Mary-Ann's house.  We biked along side Nyköping's river when he suddenly stopped and climbed down the river bank.  I was at first impatient but decided to park my bike next to his and go down to sit with him.


-Xavier, you don't just hop down next to the water.  You can fall in.  You have to wait for me.
-Sorry mom
-What are you doing?
-I am fishing...
-Fishing?
-Yes, I am fishing.  This is my 'fish stick'.
-Oh, maybe we should go home and get some worms for the fish to eat.
-Ok... but I can fish sticks (and he reaches over to snag some bypassing sticks)

You are good at many things

My son Anïas is a very empathetic and sensible 10 year old.  By some, he is considered childish, but to others he is viewed for what he is;  a very young, kind, helpful, caring and innocent boy.  I am proud of the fact that he prefers to play with legos, Plus Plus and sticks in the woods .

His school Fokusskolan, Nyköping gave all students grade 1 - 6th a choice of 'proud to be me' buttons (that all had positive self reinforcement messages) as a treat after a completed day of track and field.

He still has his button and it reads:

"I am good at many things.

Especially with being myself."

It takes guts, inner strength and conviction to dare to be oneself.  We can learn a lot from children like  Anïas.  How many times do we fall short in being good at being oneself, and to accept who we are,  and dare to be different in today's society?  Grownups seem to have a knack for saying one thing and being another.

Choose the right... uhm, or the right timing

So Anïas, Illïus and Xavier are sitting for a group photo they want to have of their newly made Choose-the-Right badges.  We had been talking and reading a bit about examples of things one can do to choose the right.  In short, be good to oneself and others.  If one looks around today, it is becoming increasingly evident that people are more unaware and less kind to others.

 They worked hard on these badges, cutting, painting, threading.

So this picture below is the 3rd try of getting a picture when all are looking at me.  Xavier decides to eat his banana AND look at me, and Illïus decides to make a RANDOM infomercial WHILE looking at me, and Anïas is just reveling in his crazy little brother's ingenious pranks (Their elder brothers Duncan and Liam are such goofballs that this is probably to be expected).

Anïas tries to sort the brothers out.

Illïus is now ready, but oh that sweeeeeeheeeeeet banana.... muuust ....haaaaave  ..... 

Anïas is trying his best to keep it in.

Then, the unthinkable happens (or does it?) Xavier rips a fart and it is all over with as you could imagine.

... and time goes by

... and goes by

In the end, they all sat there admiring their good works, and Xavier got to finish his banana.  I got a bunch of pictures that could not be more perfect.

Xavier is learning about family

At Xavier's school there is a family project ongoing.  Pretty much all last month was dedicated to talk about what a family is.  It is amazing how broad or narrow a concept family can be.  It depends on who is speaking and what values one has.  Xavier has painted many portraits and this is his toilet paper portrait.

My middle son Anïas is getting real interested in genealogy and family history.  So we will see how far back we can get in our family history of Granström to start.  We have about 500 identified Granström members at this moment in time.  Not all relations have been figured out of course.

Xavier and Illïus

Beautiful spring, welcome

Spring is officially here!  No green grass or leaves, but flowers, butterflies, ants, and bugs all over the place.  Nature is full of movement. 

We have had a couple of real long days of warm weather and sun.  Kablammo, the hillside and forest floor are covered with spring. 

Tussilago with a Påfågelöga butterfly.  Caught one on camera, they flutter away when disturbed, but we were wading in both flowers and butterflies here.

Krokusar

Krokusar

Snow drops.  They have such a lovely scent and are adorable to look inside.  Xavier is petting them since we do not pick flowers to bring in.  They are much nicer to enjoy each day as we bike to school.  It also allows for others to see them and have joy in spring as well.

Tussilago close up.  They are soo cute. 

I only gave a few clementines... or was it much more?

Today, I went to the market.  A head of me in the checkout lin stood a timid Somalian woman.  She placed her meager products on the conveyerbelt,  a few packages of halal bread, bananas, onions and clementines.  Her bill rang about 115 swedish crowns, 12 bucks.  She looked into her purse and asked the cashier with body language and the word 'orange', to deduct and return the clementines.

Me and my husband don't have much and we live a truly humble and meak life, but at this moment knew we have so much of worth.  I asked the cashier to please ring up the fruit and pass it onto the woman's side of the conveyer belt, and place the rest towards my side.

I stood next to this woman while packing my groceries.  When at last she only had the 'oranges' left to pack she turned towards me and could not find words.  Eventually the words that slipped across her lips was a swedish 'no, please'.  I just smiled and said with a silent firm 'please'. 

There was more silence and she uttered a humble thank you, also in swedish. I just smiled, and took my grocery bags and left the store.  I acted on an impulse, and I am very glad I did.  A bunch of fruit is nothing for me to give, however;  the gesture of caring is worth so much more.  I truly believe we all have a right to this earth.  We all are worth knowing, and we all truly come from the same family.  We all belong and have a place, no matter what country one has exiled to.

Two small and helpful hands

Xavier has found a new thing to do.  For the past week, he has picked up the school's random garbage bag they put outside of the entry hallway.  He finds it odd to see it there, and have for about a week now picked it up and tossed it outside of the school into its' proper disposal bin.  I let him go at it.  It is a kind gesture to help out, and I am sure to let him know.

Xavier sort of gets disapointed if no garbage bag is 'waiting' for him the days he is at preschool.

Here he is, wrestling with a huge garbage bin that had been blown to the ground by the wind.  We live on the east coast and it is real windy at times.

That nagging feeling... act on it

You know that nagging feeling or thought that pops into your head.  The 'call home', stop by so and so's house, send a card to someone or find that person and so forth.  Act on it.  Drop all and act on it.  I cannot tell you how many times it has been of utmost meaning when I just drop all and follow this type of promptings.

I'll write about some of them later.  I have already posted two similar experiences in this blog.

Take care

When you look for the good, you find it in all things

I have learned, that when one stops nagging about bad things, compare one to others, or whine in silence or out loud, one quickly allows small happy moments to enter one’s life. I have learned, that when one decides to ACT on NOT ALLOWING gleeful thoughts, unhappy annoyances and other behaviors enter into one’s mind and actions, one quickly tune into finding inspirational sources of mental and heartfelt happiness.

When one is filled with good thoughts, how can ones actions be other than good? Then in turn, how can people around oneself not get affected by this in a positive way? If one press forward with what one is given in life without whining or negative thoughts, the burden of everyday life becomes half as heavy. I LOOK ACTIVELY for those cheerful and positive influences that lift me up and I choose to stay away from those that drag me down (whatever that may be).

Love yourself and safeguard those downer thoughts. They often lead into a downward spiral of actions and direction in life!

As I was biking up a steep hill with my 4 year old in the bicycle trailer, I saw this face form at the top.  Cheering me on.  What do you see?

Drinking in Nature

How greatful I am for the majestic creations of wonder. I love the beauty and solace one can find in the utmost simple things. It takes training, but the first step is to be at one place at one time. Still ones mind and halt ones feet, with a single thought. Now and here.

Spring was in full swing last week and this morning, frost came with cold weather.  The whooooole town is covered in crystals and frost.  I wish I had a real camera but feel so incredibly blessed to have this iPhone.  We are so fortunate to be able to bike or walk to our school and place of employment.  How many experiences we would have missed if riding by car or other means.

The children wanted to get to school 30 min or so before school start to play with friends. When we began to bike we all had to stop the whole way to school to look at the amazing crystals and shapes.  All trees, bushes and grass were completely crystalized. Needless to say, we were busy 'Drinking in Nature' and got to school right before bell time. 

This is taken on the ground outside the childrens school.  Lush gras and a peeping pine tree. 

Last week, the moss had turned green again from the humidity of spring and evaporating water.  This week, it was covered in beautiful diamond sparkles.  The small berry bush was completely covered in huge spiky icicles.

We have lots of Rosehip bushes growing all over the place in Sweden.  They looked amazing, completely surrounded by white crystal shavings.

 Patches of coastal grass made me so happy.  All the birch trees looked like they were covered by yards of spagetti.

Icicle, icicle where ever one looks.  What a wonderous marvel.

As I have much, I must give

This past weekend, I was in Stockholm Sweden, attending the Waldorf preschool teacher program.  In my heart and mind, this weekend, I felt especially blessed.  My loving husband Jeffrey works so hard to provide me with the means to travel there, stay there for a whole weekend and paying for this course episode.  How much I appreciate the sacrifice he makes for me is for me immeasurable.

I have had as a focus this past February to think about charity.  What I have come to learn, is that charity are all those small things and acts of self-sacrifice and can be as simple as exercising ones awareness of others.  When one is more aware of people around oneself, one tends to not crowd others, have more patience in thoughts and actions.  Most of all, one really starts to see people.  After a while, one notices their faces and expressions.  Then, one starts to care about them and begins to say hello.  Seeking, noticing people that perhaps have gone unseen for so long they have lost themselves on the way.
I stepped off the subway at Bromma central outside of Stockholm.  The incredible stress from people running past me, hitting me with their bags as they do – the perverted language use against one another when bumped into, cut off or having had a door slammed in their face.  I was happy.  I was really happy.  For to me this was a perfect place to see what the opposite of charity is.  This was also the perfect place to seek out faces and find those people that needed a smile, an acknowledgement, a vocal ‘hello’.

Next to a shopping plaza sat a very poor woman in her 50s on the ground.  She was poorly clad with a tattered and worn wool blanket wrapped around her.  To the immediate right was the line for the bank.  About 10 or so people stood there, looking in another direction, avoiding her gaze.  She had a small cardboard box, and was accepting donations.  I had nothing to give.  No money, no food or fruit.  As I rolled past her and a train of 20 or so preschool children with their 5 teachers, I spun around and came to a complete stop.  I looked at the woman again.  I had a very real sense of urgency to do something.  I just could not ignore this prompting in my heart.  I knew immediately what I had to do.  I walked up to her, rolling my loud luggage behind me.  I took off my very large shawl.  A shawl I hold so dear, that has been with me for a very long time.  I wrapped it around this woman and the gratitude lit a spark in her eyes and her face warmed up with a lasting smile.  Seeing this, it was easy to depart from the sorrow of departing from the finest shawl I have.

This was all a very small moment of 40 seconds.  But this woman’s face and thankfulness will carry with me always.  The children were asking their teachers how come I gave my ‘scarf’ away.  The people in the bank line saw… and hopefully one of them will have a small change of heart.  I kissed this woman’s right cheek and looked deep into her eyes with a smile.  To me, she is beautiful, and blessed me immensely with the feelings of gladness that came over me.

Charity is compassion, for oneself and others.  Through compassion one becomes a person that all of a sudden has countless family members to love.

All people we meet are our neighbors

All people around us are of worth. All people we meet are our neighbors.

Today, I decided for the first time in a years time now, to go downstairs to our laundry room that exist in our house to do some laundry.  We have been blessed with having a washer/dryer combo in our house, but for some reason I chose to use the landlords laundry facility.

Fokusskolans valentine's wall.

To my surprise, there was an opening first thing this morning although I knew I have my 'booking pin' in the first day/last laundry pass, of each month as a safeguard.  I got the laundry started and it was happily washing and drying itself while I got wrapped up in Indexing history work from the US 1800s.  Saving the records from the past.

This is what my son Anïas and I now love to do together.

 

I looked at the time and realized that I had gone past my allotted laundry time with 5 minutes and hurried down into the laundry room.  Outside of the door stood a beautiful, very colorful young woman in classic Muslim attire.  Next to her on the floor stood her detergents and a neatly sheet-wrapped bundle of clothes to wash. I came up next to her and smiled as I apologized for being tardy.  I gave an honest account for what I had been doing and picked up her detergents as I followed her inside.  She stopped for a moment and placed her things on the floor and smiled.  In a very broken Swedish she told me 'all is well' -- Ai-Shallah.

 We were both very cheerful that all is well and went on with our laundry, but as it turns out there was a third person in this drama.  Sitting far to the wall was another young Swedish woman.  She was noticeable frustrated at my laundry, and halted my company to stop with her laundry.

 The women sort out who is supposed to do the wash.  This Swedish woman spoke with a loud and stressed voice so the other woman had a hard time to follow her directions and understand what was going on.  This made this woman more frustrated and she spoke more feverishly and with arms and fingers articulating what was going on while the other woman shrunk down and backed off.

I calmly walked up behind the two, staring at the board.  Explaining that all is well, as I took out my ‘booking pin’ that had so selfishly been ‘pinned’ in a spot all these months but never used.

This other woman could take the spot over and wash her family’s clothes today as she had planned.  She did not know about the leap year, thus her time was yesterday.  She labored intensively in forming questions related to the booking board and laundry room.  I patiently waited for her to finish all she wanted to say and answered in a way which she would feel comfortable.
 As we were leaving, once again smiling, we both offered up our apologies to this other flustered woman.  We helped each other out of the laundry room and before we parted ways, she tugged me gently at the sleeve of my arm.
-Thank you, she said and tipped her head a bit.  Do you live here?
-I smiled back and nodded, pointing up at the ceiling with my finger. -On the first floor.

And there we were.  She is waiting for the elevator, me walking up the stairs.  All was well.

All the irritations in the world are unable to withstand acts of genuine friendliness and kind patience.  It undoubtedly spreads a feeling of cheer and awakes patience in those who partake of it.  All people around us are of worth. All people we meet are our neighbors.