Four simple, not obvious things that make parenting easier for me.
A Kitchen Closet
Carrie Bradshaw kept sweaters in her oven, and we keep the kids’ clothes in two kitchen drawers. Why?! If you live with a child, you know transitions are brutal. Having to journey from the breakfast nook to a bedroom to get dressed for the day is more than anyone can handle before 8am. When everyday clothes live in the kitchen, the entire morning process is way more peaceful.
Bath Before Dinner.
Somewhere along the way, we parents got gaslit into thinking the evening sequence is definitively dinner, bath, bedtime.
But bath, dinner, bedtime IS WAY BETTER.
Especially if you’re doing family dinner- which I highly recommend. Yes, it has to be early (we do 6pm). And yes, it’s hectic, if, like us, you start around age 2. But it becomes a cozy, consistent, phone-free time to talk, laugh, argue, and hear each other’s “announcements.” Which compounds into a real family culture.
It’s also the best way to introduce different foods to children. You can bypass the American conspiracy of “kids’ food” entirely. And it’s great for implementing simple chores- setting the table (youngers can fold napkins), clearing up, all of it.
Depending on the day, our babysitter or I handle bath time while Pali starts cooking at 5:20. We’re eating by 6:10, which leaves a little time to play together before bedtime rituals (negotiations) begin around 7:15pm.
Everything we eat at home is quick, healthy, and delicious- and catalogued in the MAKING section of the Doing Well membership.
Light Candles
IY(Waldorf)YK that lighting a candle is a surefire way to settle and center a child. It signals something special is happening, and the energy shifts from scattered to sacred very quickly. A soft, glowy flame is also a simple way to foster reverence, evoking the wonder and appreciation that children have readily available and we all could use more of.
Learning to use matches as young as 3 or 4 (under adult supervision) reframes a “forbidden” item as a respected tool. We use the coveted job of lighting the dinner candles to motivate the much-resisted chore of setting the table. Blowing them out is also very exciting, and can be leveraged.
“It will pass”
When my kid falls, gets hurt, or has a violent encounter with his brother, it used to be my reflex to jump in and say, “You’re ok” or “It’s ok.” Reflexive, but it never felt right. I want to encourage my boys to actually experience and learn the feeling world. So jumping in and insisting they’re not feeling what they’re clearly feeling felt weird. You with me?
I noticed that my Brazilian husband, Pali, always responds by saying, “Vai passar.” I quickly appropriated it. “It will pass” is true and truly comforting. So now, when my child falls, I take a breath (to delay projecting my panic), embrace him, and say, “It will pass.” And it does.
