What About Unschooling?

I had previously taken a brief interest in unschooling, after reading "Learning All the Time" by John Holt, pioneer of this educational movement.  But the teacher in me wouldn't allow me to see outside the box.  So I have dabbled here and there, in Montessori, Classical, Unit Studies, Charlotte Mason, Waldorf... I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to be merely holding school at home with my daughter.  And the alternative options all had something of value to offer.  Since Natalia is only 2, I had settled on a Montessori-inspired approach, though I most definitely am still solidly in the Ecclectic camp of home educators.

I started to have an inkling that I had begun to go down the wrong path when I bought my first set of flashcards for her - shapes and colors.  Or maybe it was once I finally typed up a proper lesson plan with all the various areas of study I wanted to cover on a daily basis?  Perhaps it was actually much earlier, when the alphabet went up on our wall? Regardless, I had finally been awakened to the fact that I was trying too hard when I began reading "Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery" by David H. Albert.

Again, my gut objections rose to the top.  The idea of child-led learning sounds reasonable, sounds like the ticket to a truly freedom- and passion-based education, one that can set my daughter on the path to a lifetime of enjoying learning.  But.  But I'm still a teacher.  A big reason I wanted to homeschool was because I wanted to teach.  Also, how can I just sort of let her pick what she wants to learn about without first exposing her to what's even out there for her to choose from?

In the most recent conversation I had about this with a friend, I remember myself saying that at this point I'm definitely on board with unschooling for the teenage years - middle school (which I've already become convinced, from my time learning about the Classical approach, can be skipped entirely), and most definitely high school.  But the elementary years?  She's got to have some basics, doesn't she?

Eeek!  What are these basics, exactly?  And who decides what's basic knowledge, what's basically important to know?  Certainly not the school board or textbook authors or curricula writers.  But was I really doing my daughter any favors by merely replacing these "authority figures" with myself?

Well, I actually think the answer to that question is, yes.  As her parent, it is my responsibility to decide what she "ought" to be learning - about life, values, habits, etc.  So as long as I stay away from dry academic subjects, I have every right - responsibility even - to come up with a flexible, child-led to-a-degree, values-based curriculum.

To satisfy my teacher instinct, I see my role as twofold.  One, I will set forth goals for my daughter's education, but they will not be anything that can be measured via a standardized test.  When she was born - or even before - I had said that my goal for her is that she be healthy, happy, and kind.  And that still stands.  So as a home educating parent, I simply need to translate this three-fold goal into more practical experiences that I believe will enable her to reach this ideal.

And two, I do not need to put away all lesson plans and curricula in order to unschool.  Rather, I will write these as we go, filling in the details after the fact.  Instead of "what WILL we do in the area of math/science/language arts.... on Monday".... our approach will be, "what DID we do in the area of math/science/language arts.... on Monday?"

This will not only satisfy the teacher in me, but will also serve as an assesment of sorts, making sure that we do get around to the various areas that Big Brother mandates of us in our state.  This way, if we've been away from an area for too long, I'll know to gently steer our experiences in that direction for a while.

Yesterday was the first day I consciously paid attention to Natalia's lead, rather than trying to reference my lesson plan (which to be honest I hadn't even followed for more than a week since writing it up).  After waking up (on her own, that's generally the rule in our home), she pulled out her foam letter puzzle and dragged it all into the bathroom before I was even finished getting ready for the day.  So we went and practiced her letters - her initiative, though I was there to guide her, name the letters and sounds for her as she asked, and light-heartedly said yay or nay when she matched letters incorrectly.  (She does this herself as well, in any puzzle, she seems to enjoy purposely making an incorrect match, saying "tutaj?  nieeee!"  (Polish for "here? nooo!") until finally she makes the correct match.)

Next, she had remembered a science experiment - turned art project and asked to play with the ice again.  So I dutifully took out the large frozen ice in a bowl with old food coloring, gave her salt and more food coloring and she proceeded to salt the ice to get it to melt, added food coloring, and finally used a brush to smear everything together.  We then dumped the ice on the balcony (the whole project was an outdoor activity - bonus points for fresh air!) and proceeded to chip away at the ice to see what would happen.  Before putting the ice back in the fridge for a future time, we dumped the colorful water that had melted at the bottom of the bowl onto the balcony for one of Natalia's favorite activities - jumping in puddles!  (She calls it "charcos" from the Spanish version of Peppa Pig that she watches at times.)

Today, she started asking to watch Maya the Bee before she had a chance to get bored with any other activity, and I began to worry.  Feeling a little burned out anyway, I thought we had been good with limiting screen time and I could use the time to do some cleaning around the house.  She watched a bit of her favorite shows, in Polish and Spanish (so bonus points for language reinforcement), and about 45 minutes later just got up and found me to see what I was doing.  She took out some of her musical instruments and started playing.  She had naturally gotten bored with her shows and moved on to something else!

I took the opportunity to compensate for the screen time by taking the dogs for a walk.  We spent roughly the equivalent time she had watched her shows, outside.  Again, I had to remind myself to let her follow her curiosity, instead of insisting that she follow where I'm going and make no pit stops.  We ended up going by some tall dried up grass near a creek, she collected sticks and dried pine needles and piled them up for a "bonfire", and of course she shuffled her feet for a bit in a pile of fallen leaves.  She found a lone holly berry on a bush and asked about it.  When she gets older, we can take these lessons farther, actually looking up the answers to whatever we are curious about.

For now, for crying out loud, she's only 2!  Most of her peers will continue to wear diapers for another year, while she's been potty trained for six months, and going on the potty and/or toilet since 6 weeks old!  Let's count that as advanced learning already (and why not?  At this age, she learning the true basics of life!), instead of rushing to get to the next thing and never savoring the present moment.

I see already that the joy of home educating will be not so much that I get to teach my daughter, but that she gets to teach me!

Parenting Update

Still employing breastfeeding and cosleeping as part of my continued attachment parenting.  I feel very well connected to my daughter, and vice versa.  True, she does seem clingy at times and gets separation anxiety, but I resent the implication that (a) this is anything other than age-appropriate, and (b) that my parenting is "causing" it.  Some kids are more clingy than others, regardless of the style of parenting being employed.  If this is her natural tendency, then I'd be doing her a huge disservice by forcing premature independence on her.  I dread our separations as much as she does, but we do insist on them now and again.

Currently, we are working on incorporating more daddy-and-me time by easing into it.  Daddy has his own bucket of toys that only come out for when they play (yet to be implemented, really).  And we are trying to spend time on the floor playing all three of us, with he focus being on daddy interacting and me just being there to satisfy her attachment needs.  Once she becomes more and more comfortable playing with just daddy, I'll be able to start separating myself from the herd.  Currently, when I go take a shower, for instance, sometimes they play nice together, other times the only thing that soothes a tantrum is letting her watch Maya the Bee in Polish or Peppa Pig in Spanish.  I specify the languages because we specifically let her watch these two shows for a reason, but I'll go into that in a future multilingual/homeschooling update.

Gentle discipline has been going pretty well for the most part.  Primarily the idea is to prevent negative behaviors by anticipating Natalia's needs.  If she's already done something wrong, it's too late to then scold her for it.  Easier said than done.  One thing she does a lot if allowed to roam free is to dump the dogs' water bowl.  She loves water play and playing in the rain.  A gentle discipline approach is to anticipate that she will do this if we allow her unsupervised access to the water bowl, and keep the gate to the dogs' area closed when she's running around (as opposed to when we are playing in the bedroom/playroom, outside, etc.).

I've been frustrated that some of my tricks aren't doing the trick, so to speak.  I come down to her level and ask her directly to put away her blocks, for instance.  I suggest she choose if she wants to hand me the blocks and I put them in the box, or if I shall hand her the blocks and she put them in the box.  Sometimes this works, other times she lolligags anyway, or completely ignores me.  I find myself yelling when this happens, but this just makes her laugh for some reason.  So I'm rereading (for the third time, I believe) Elizabeth Pantley's "The No-Cry Discipline Solution" in an effort to add more options to my bag of tricks.

Finally, I am feeling a lot more comfortable about my role as a stay-at-home parent now that Natalia is getting bigger.  I see that it is taking a lot more planning and organizing to maximize her learning, fun, and socialization opportunities, plus juggle various household duties.  I do not feel like a mooch like I once did.  And I cannot imagine delegating this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of raising my daughter to someone else.  I don't care if this makes someone feel bad.  I'm tired of being made to feel bad for not working outside the home, so I'm just going to own it.  I don't necessarily advocate this lifestyle for all parents, as I know it's not an option for some, and for others the child actually would thrive more outside the home.  But for us, it's what works and is most fulfilling.

Tweaking Hodgepodge Parenting

I'd like to be more regular, though not monthly, in my updates on the various aspects of what brings me joy.  In looking over my introduction to the reinvention of Hodgepodge Parenting, I see a somewhat long list.  The spaces between the topics indicate how I envision grouping them, into four more manageable parts.  

attachment parenting
gentle discipline
stay-at-home parenting

raising a multilingual childhomeschooling

minimalism
green living


spirituality

General parenting encompasses my staying home, as this has a direct effect on how we parent, and our ability to reach various parenting goals.  Attachment parenting was the philosophy I heavily subscribed to throughout Natalia's first year of life and beyond.  But as she entered toddlerhood, gentle discipline began to seem more pertinent, though there are aspects of attachment parenting that I continue to ascribe to, especially breastfeeding and co-sleeping.

The educational aspect of our parenting warrants a separate section.  Raising a multilingual child and homeschooling both fall under this category.

Minimalism and green living sort of play off of each other.  I have to admit that my enthusiasm for this section and the next (spirituality) comes and goes.  But when it comes, I'm very into it.

The spirituality section started out having a non-religious label - spiritual independence/deism.  I have since gone on a Catholic women's retreat and decided, for the sake of not splitting hairs and to keep a consistency within the family, to embrace Catholicism once again.  As my confessor told me on retreat, God will meet me where I'm at.  Regardless of what I do and don't believe.

So with these four categories in mind, and without further ado, I shall get to updating!

Education and Language - update through August

Several months ago, we started having playdates with a neighborhood girl about Natalia's age.  Even though both her parents speak languages other than English, English is their native language and they are raising their daughter monolingual.  When the two girls were first hanging out together, I noticed that my daughter's friend was using two-word phrases already while Natalia was still in the single-word phase.  Of course, I knew not to compare the girls because Natalia was having to make sense of three oral languages with ASL thrown in for good measure, and I thought she was already well ahead of what I expected from what I had heard and braced myself for - namely that multilingual children are initially delayed in their language acquisition, though they catch up to their peers within a few years.  So I wasn't worried about Natalia, just noticing a difference in the girls' linguistic abilities. 

Then the little girl and her parents went on vacation for a few weeks, and by the time they got back three weeks later, Natalia had already caught up with her friend.  At 21 months, she uses two and even three word phrases, including "Mamusia cima" (Mamusia trzyma --> Mommy is holding), "Kalka pic miko" (Natalka pic mleko --> Natalia drink milk), and to various bugs, especially flies: "go away" (no translation or explanation needed!)  She also has started four-syllable words.  Her current favorite is "dinosaurio" (dinosaur).  As you can tell, there is a mix of Polish, English, and Spanish in her words.  She does not separate the languages yet, which is completely developmentally normal.  She understands requests, questions, and comments in all three languages, though the majority of her vocabulary is in Polish.  

Though I am glad that she uses a lot of Polish, since Polish is the language that is hardest to maintain in the United States, I do worry that her Spanish is not where we'd like it to be.  I stay home with her, so she hears Polish all day long, every day.  She only gets Spanish from her dad on the weekends and in the evenings for several hours.  But those times are actually diluted because when all three of us are together, Oscar and I speak English to each other.  

Furthermore, she has two tv shows that she watches on YouTube.  I am conflicted about this, since I know ideally she shouldn't be getting any screen time before age 2.  But she is very clingy and there are things I simply cannot get done unless she is enjoying her Maya the Bee or Peppa Pig  (like take a shower, for instance!).  The good thing is that she watches Maya the Bee in Polish, and Peppa Pig in Spanish, so we justify the shows because they reinforce the languages she hears from us.  She has learned various vocabulary from watching the shows that she may not have gotten from conversations with us.  Still, I am actively working on limiting her screen time nonetheless.

Finally, another concern I have is that since she speaks predominantly Polish, her dad sometimes asks me to translate what she's saying... though to be fair, I've had to ask Oscar what she's saying as well. One day she started stomping in a little puddle on our balcony and saying "charcos".  Well, I didn't know the word, and I was trying to figure out what it could be in Polish or English.  I asked Oscar, and then realized she was saying "puddle" in Spanish!  Then she expanded with "charcos de barro" (mud puddles), something she learned from watching Peppa Pig and her brother.

ASL was meant to be a bridge between all of the oral languages, however to be honest, it's been much harder to incorporate more and more signs since Oscar is the only one who actually uses it regularly at work.  Natalia does automatically sign certain words along with the oral words, which is a good sign, I suppose.  She is also open to learning new signs, but the baby signs books and videos I've found at the library so far have been mere review.  I think at this point, we need actual ASL.  Some of the signs are even not proper ASL but more like simplified home signs.  Most people don't intend to learn ASL when using baby signs with their kids.  Most people abandon signs altogether once the child starts to speak.  So we'll see if we'll be able to keep this up.

As a more general educational note, I've caught the inspiration bug for homeschooling again (it comes around every now and then), and have been planning a loose preschool structure to our days.  This is in its beginning stages, and I will share more in a future post.

Our Toddler's May

Here's our little one's May in photos....

At a restaurant restroom, found the plunger and proceeded to "clean" the toilet!

Swim classes have allowed her to start easing back into the bathtub, yay!

Every time.

Important phone call...

Finally!  Natalka has enough hair to put it up!

Our little global citizen.

Get your own pho!

Daddy helping Natalka love the water again.

Loving Tia Yoli's hammock

Notice lack of diaper under onsie.  Natalka is now completely diaper free at home!

She loved the beach this time.

walking with Dziadzio

You see correctly.  Natalka sitting on Bigos.  Bigos is like, "can I help you?"

I wasn't doing anything...

serious jock

Attachment and Discipline - January Update

In my introductory post about expanding Hodgepodge Parenting, I listed seven areas of interest that I hope to blog about.  After some reflection, I realized that this list could be narrowed down to five areas of interest by merging attachment parenting with gentle discipline, and by merging multilingualism and homeschooling.  The latter both deal with educating our daughter. The former both have to do with the underlying relationship Alex and I have with Natalia, and the overall parenting philosophy that determines what we do and how we do it when it comes to general daily care of our daughter.  So without further ado, here is how we are doing in this department as we kick off 2015.

Attachment parenting deals with several aspects of baby care that are ongoing: sleep, feeding, physical proximity, responding to baby's cries with love, being cautious of "baby trainers", and maintaining a balance in your life (ie. not overdoing it to the point of exhaustion or resentment). The seventh aspect of attachment parenting is actually the first, birth bonding, but since it is not ongoing, I won't be discussing it.

Physical proximity of parent and child is a key aspect of attachment parenting, as it involves several areas of life: breastfeeding on cue and extended (ie. past the one-year mark), cosleeping with baby (either sharing the same room or the same sleeping surface), and baby wearing.  The bottom line is that I want to be close to my daughter as much as she wants to be close to me.  It's really that simple. Yes, sometimes we have to put a little distance between us, but that's where the balance aspect comes in.  Overwhelmingly, my day and night is spent being close to her.

 Taking a nap with her dollies.

I choose to cosleep with Natalia for several reasons.  One, it makes nighttime parenting much easier. I never have to actually get out of bed when she wakes up, with the rare exceptions that I've had to get her some medicine, or back when I was overdoing it a little and practicing elimination communication at night and would get up to put her on the potty three times a night.  (The urge to pee would wake her up, and so her diaper stayed dry all night when I engaged in nighttime EC.)

But cosleeping is not just for mere convenience.  It's also been a wonderful bonding tool.  We get a lot more cuddles in this way.  It helps that we also breastfeed (Natalia is 14 months old, and the World Health Organization recommends nursing until at least age 2).  Because we keep our mattress (no bed frame) on the floor, she can engage her independence by getting off the bed in the morning to go get her favorite dolly, or at night to bring daddy a book to read before he goes to sleep in his room.

Which brings up a logistical consideration that perhaps some people may wonder about.  Alex doesn't cosleep with us.  There are several reasons for this.  One, he wakes up very early in the morning to go to work, and he is in charge of feeding and walking our dogs.  All of this can get quite noisy, and there is no reason to wake up Natalia before she is good and ready.

Two, sorry booboo - Alex snores, LOUDLY, and even I cannot tolerate the sound of his so-called "loud breathing" when I'm counting on silence to help me drift off to sleep.

Three, and this is a minor consideration but works to our advantage, its a space saver and budget helper that we do not need to live in a home with an extra room where we would "keep" Natalia at night.  Minimalism does play into this quite a bit.  I have no need for my "own" bedroom, since all I do in a bedroom is sleep.  I have a few drawers with my clothes, some more clothes hang in the walk-in closet that also serves as overflow for Natalia's toys that get rotated in, and that's it.  We have our laundry in the bathroom, and that's where I get ready in the morning.  We do our "TV watching" (generally on our laptop, or via the Roku player) in Alex's room.  There is absolutely no need for me to have my "own" bedroom, or for Natalia to have her own room. When she gets older, yes.  But not yet. (And for the uber curious, spousal intimacy does not require sharing sleeping quarters.)

Ok, so in addition to cosleeping and breastfeeding, I also like to wear Natalia in a carrier sometimes. Most days, she is running around free as a bird, especially around the house, ever since she became mobile at 8 months and started walking at 11.5 months.  Depending on circumstances, when we go out, she also walks around a lot.  But there are times when it just makes more sense for her to be up close and personal, right under my nose, so to speak.  When I'm vacuuming, or sometimes doing other chores that keep me on my feet, and Natalia either feels left out and wants up, or I simply want to make sure she doesn't get into anything while my attention is diverted, that's a great time for her to snuggle up to me in a carrier.  It comes with the added bonus of her getting an adult's eye view of what's going on in big people land.

Daddy is melting snow.  You gotta see that up close and personal!

 When we go on walks, I like to wear her instead of pushing her in a stroller.  For one thing, it's a pain to try to get the stroller set up, either by dragging it down a flight of stairs from our apartment, or by unfolding it after getting it out of the back of our car.  It's just much simpler and less hazardous to get her situated in a carrier before we leave. During the colder months, I also feel better about keeping her bundled up against me, with a big jacket zipped up around both of us, instead of trying to keep the wind off her face as she's bundled up in a stroller.  (I have had to do that when walking to the farmer's market for groceries, but it's not my preferred mode of transporting her!)

I will say that there is an additional benefit to wearing Natalia.  When we are in a social situation with a lot of strangers, people are less likely to touch her if her face is near my boob (though make no mistake, people still do, even as they feel me up in the process!).  Even better, people don't tend to ask if they can hold her if they see that she is attached to me!  The reason this is important is that we do not push her to go to total strangers before she is comfortable in their presence.  I don't care if it's a relative, if she doesn't know the person very well, she won't feel ok about being held by them, and we won't force her.   It's important for her to know that her primary attachment is and should be to her parents, and that all other relationships must be filtered through this trusted primary relationship with mom and dad.  Once she sees us interacting with the new person, with time she warms up to them and often is fine with a short visit in their arms.  But keeping her in a carrier prevents the awkwardness of having to say - even to little kids, maybe especially to little kids - "no, you can't hold her, no you can't carry her, she's not a doll!  She's a little person with her own likes and dislikes, her own personality, and you need to respect that!"  If she's in a carrier, we can just skip this exchange.

During naptime

Aside from physical closeness that comes with baby wearing, breastfeeding, and cosleeping, we have also begun the arduous task of figuring out the best way to start disciplining Natalia.  While we love her to pieces and she is the center of our universe, we do not want her to come to believe that she is the center of everyone's universe!  It is not healthy for a person to feel entitled.  Not only is it not nice, but it also sets the person up for disappointment when life proves to treat them like it does everyone else.  It has been difficult for me to know the boundaries between being loving and being permissive.  I am working on this.  That said, I need to clarify what I mean by discipline.  I do NOT mean punishment, as that is already too late in the game.  We shouldn't just wait for kids to mess up and then "teach" them not to do it again by punishing them.  That should be a last resort, if at all.

Instead, discipline at its core simply means guidance, teaching a child what is the right thing to do, how to do things, when, why.  Essentially, discipline is setting and enforcing boundaries.  So for example, while I love to give Natalia freedom to explore various activities, including drawing with crayons or even a pen, it is never going to be OK for her to experiment with this activity on the wall, on the furniture, on the floor.... In other words, we are in charge of maintaining boundaries to her freedom until she has developed sufficient self-discipline to stay within the boundaries on her own. If I don't want her to write with a pen on her dolly's face, then I need to not allow her to walk around the house with a pen in hand.  I can't just tell her once (or even repeatedly at this point) to only write on the paper and then punish her when she forgets or doesn't understand.  She is not mature enough to stay within the boundaries, and so it is my job to prevent problems from happening.

So this has been an overview, really, of where we are with attachment and discipline.  Starting next month I hope to keep it short and specific to any new developments since this writing.

Above we see Natalia helping mommy with dinner.

Hodgepodge Parenting is Branching Out!

I have decided to open up our family blog to the wider blogosphere.  After keeping the first year of this endeavor private and focusing on maintaining what's essentially been a virtual scrapbook of photos and videos, I've decided that I want to focus more of my time on a long-standing passion of mine - writing.  There have been a few written posts here over the past year, but with a limited audience, I tried to keep those to a minimum.  However, I'm ready to join the blogosphere of mommy bloggers as I share my thoughts on some of my favorite topics, especially as they influence my parenting in some way.  Here's what you can expect:

attachment parenting
gentle discipline
green living
raising a multilingual child
stay-at-home parenting
minimalism
homeschooling
spiritual independence/deism

That last one is a relatively new development that I finally feel ready to be open about.  I am a spiritual seeker, and I've spent years mulling over big existential questions.  It took motherhood to finally show me what's really important in life, what adds to authentic living and what doesn't, and that belief in God need not be limited to membership in an organized religion.

Homeschooling doesn't technically apply to us just yet, but since I take a long time to get used to anything (I'm a spirited adult, an outgrowth of a spirited child), I have begun to incorporate preschool activities into our daily routine.

Minimalism has been something I wish I had discovered years ago!  For me, it helps to have a label for things in order to better incorporate them into my psyche.  As it turns out, my mom has been a minimalist for years, but it wasn't until I discovered the term and concept online that I - and Alex - got on board.

Stay-at-home parenting didn't seem like much of a topic for me until I recently realized that it's going to take more effort for both me and Natalia to make friends.  If she were in daycare and I were employed outside the home, our social lives would not be an issue.  But since our domain is the home, I see that it is an issue worth considering.

Raising a multilingual child was a no-brainer for Alex and me.  For years we've said that any children we have will grow up knowing our respective native languages.  Luckily, I've since discovered an online presence of like-minded parents who are making an effort to raise their children as multilingual, seeing the benefits and embracing the challenges.  Natalia is learning Polish, Spanish, and English simultaneously, plus we use some signs with her to help us communicate.  If you're wondering, no, she is not "talking" yet, but this is a very fluid milestone, not something she just wakes up doing one day.  She does, however, communicate with us both through signs and a few proto-words, as well as gestures.

Green living has sadly taken a bit of a backseat since we downsized to an apartment, mainly because we stopped composting.  However, it is still an issue near and dear to my heart, and it gives me great pleasure when I can do something in an environmentally conscious way.  We use cloth diapers and elimination communication along with organic disposable diapers, as an example.  And as the blog title states - hodgepodge is my approach.  No extremes.  There are ideals, yes, but there's also real life.  No guilt, just ongoing effort and education.

Gentle discipline is something I'm learning about as Natalia has moved from the relatively "easy" phase of infant into toddlerhood.  Coming from attachment parenting, where a baby's cry is understood to indicate a need and not a mere whim, I'm having to learn new strategies as I lovingly set limits for Natalia while allowing her as much independence as possible.

And speaking of attachment parenting, it was a rough start (there are a few posts on the subject in the archives), but both Alex and I are now starting to reap the benefits of forming a secure attachment with our daughter.  For anyone interested, we are extended breastfeeding since Natalia is nearly 14 months old and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing "only" to the first birthday.  However, the World Health Organization recommends nursing up to the second birthday, and that is the goal I have undertaken.  Natalia and I also cosleep, which is absolute bliss and I'm so sad for babies (and parents!) who don't or can't embrace this type of nighttime parenting.  Finally, I wear Natalia in a carrier on walks and while vacuuming as a matter of course.  As she's become more mobile, she prefers to be running around instead.  (She started walking at 11.5 months old.)

So there you have it, an overview of my parenting strategy.  I hope over the coming months and posts, I'm able to share who we are and why we do what we do with anyone interested.  I know I've gained a lot of insight by reading about how other parents do what they do, and I just want to keep that synergy going!