I finally did it! I had my slow, fruit filled, heart-connected morning! An inspiration from my Home School-Parenting Mentor group and some old health books!
I was recently inspired by my Home School-Parenting Mentor group and some old health books I had revisited, to enjoy a slow, fruit-filled summer morning with my younger children.
One of the main things that my homeschool mentor, Chana Rus Cohen, keeps trying to instill in us Mammas is to slow… down. There will always be distractions and other things we prefer to do but at some point — we have to put the to-do lists down and connect with our children’s hearts, just us and them in the comfort and security of home.
As far as fruit goes, it feels so right when I feed my children fruit. They thrive on it in so many ways. Fruit delivers easily assimilated amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes necessary for powerful development and play-hard energy. Fruit is cleansing and supplies the body with lots of water, keeping the digestive tract clean and moving.
And so, I finally did it! I had my slow, fruit filled, heart-connected morning.
After doing a short version of my Fly Lady morning routine, then davening together, we began the morning in the comfort of home by eating watermelon at our kitchen island. There was nowhere to run to or anything to be on time for. We just watched each other eat. I love seeing those little people devour the watermelon with the juice coming down their mouth!
At some point — we have to put the to-do lists down and connect with our children’s hearts, just us and them in the comfort and security of home.
Next, we retreated to the dining room table where I laid out drawing pads, watercolors, markers, and colored pencils. I sat with them, totally present while they drew and painted. I watched them, describing what they were doing from time to time. “You are really concentrating on coloring every bit of that sky!” “Your apple tree has both green and red apples I see.” About an hour into this, I took out ice grapes to munch on, which are simply grapes that I wash, stem, and put in the freezer. This snack is a favorite around here – you should try it!
Around 11:00 we took a break for exercise! We put music on and took turns dancing, jumping on the trampoline and lifting small weights. It was a power workout with everyone showing off their skills – they definitely had more fun than I did – LOL!
The rest of the morning was filled with fresh cantaloupe juice, and banana-peach smoothie popsicles, of which I made a bunch to enjoy throughout the day. Around noon we sat down on our living room poofs to discuss what kind of other fun summer days they would like to have. Plenty of ideas were hollered out: “Beach! Park day in Jerusalem! Bowling! Ceramics!” I wrote them all down and posted on the fridge. “And should we have more fruit & paint mornings?” I asked. “Yes!!” was the resounding reply. We then went on to prepare together a pineapple and mango fruit platter and a bowl of guacamole.
To summarize my recent inspiration from my homeschool group and accompanying reading: as mothers, we must always be nurturing, protective of and heart-centered with our children. Our God-given mothering instincts are ALWAYS there, though at times diminished by a culture that normalizes mothers being away from their children for most of the day, to defend the rights of our small children, and develop their heart intelligence.
Our presence for our children, the information we relay to them, and the example we set for them are our grand opportunity to be for them what no one else will ever be – someone who listens to them and looks at them from her heart and takes action with a feminine touch. When we are there for our children in this way, we heal the world while firewalling our children.
Our God-given mothering instincts are ALWAYS there!
Where else will our children see such a real and close up example of compassion and humanity?
How do I know that all is not lost with the world? Because I keep seeing more and more ladies like the ones in my homeschool-parenting group who are showing for mothering with an intense desire to mother their children according to their heart’s calling.
“The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is the Hand the Rules the World” is a poem by William Ross Wallace that applauds motherhood as the dominant force to invoke change in the world. Yes, of course Torah learning is the ultimate force of change for the good in the world, but who inspires, energizes, and propels those Torah learners in the first place?
We can continue to rock the cradle in whatever way is possible for us; it’s not too late to use our Divine feminine power to heal ourselves, our children and the world, creating heart-centered, unique, self-motivated, creatively thinking people and Torah learners. Let’s start one morning at a time.