Happy Saturday everyone, I hope you’re having a great weekend. Today we’re finishing up celebrating Violet’s fourth birthday with a playdate with a couple of her friends from school. Man, I wish I had realized earlier on with Laurel how awesome small friend birthday gatherings are! Anyway, better late than never! Meanwhile, lots of interesting content around the web...enjoy this week’s edition of Hey Internet, Keep Being Awesome:

- Why I’m a public-school teacher but a private-school parent.

- The ghost children in the wake of China’s one-child law.

- Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants?

- Gender equality bake sale causes stir at Utah high school.

- A doctor discovers an important question patients should be asked.

- Why children need chores.

- And also, the four-part chore solution.

- My talented friend Gabrielle is coming to Boston as part of her book tour!

- Why the 9 to 5 life is hard for creative people.

- I couldn’t afford to lean in.

- Social media’s small, positive role in human relationships.

- How much (or little) the middle class makes in 30 U.S. cities.

Image credit: triple layer hot chocolate cake via Pinterest

Is it just me or does it totally feel like coming-out-of-hibernation time? And on that note, I’d love to meet you in Somerville next week (March 26, 6:30pm) at Mommybites Boston’s Ultimate Moms’ Night Out at Arts at the Armory in Somerville. I’m delighted and honored to be delivering a short keynote at the event (I'll also be signing copies of Minimalist Parenting) and then it will be time to relax and mingle and enjoy some hang out time with other rad mamas!

Are you in? Register now and use discount code BOSTONMAMAS to receive 50% off your ticket price! Sweet!

Today is Violet’s 4th birthday and I’m finding myself rather emotional. Her pregnancy was unexpected, the 58 hour labor remains vivid in my mind, the ride over the last 4 years has been crazy, and each exasperating moment with Vivy inevitably is counterbalanced by a sweet or hilarious one. I’ve also learned some things the second time around, and I’m grateful for the lessons, which I want to share with you today as part of the Lessons Learned series.

1. Don’t let pride get in the way of accepting (or asking for) help. Why was it so hard for us to accept or ask for help? While I’m certainly mindful not to take advantage, I’ve let go of any deferential pride issues in this department!

2. Individual differences are just as they should be. Parenting Violet has been a completely different ballgame than parenting Laurel. At first, it freaked me out, but I now know that their differences are just as they should be.

3. Having another kid helps your older kid(s) spread their wings. By necessity, we have needed to encourage Laurel towards more independence. It was a tough shift; after all, she was the focus of our attention for 6.5 years, but I know it has helped her grow immensely. She is so confident and capable now; it’s a joy to watch her tackle new challenges and help around the house.

4. Every decision impacts the family system. Whether it’s decisions about my travel, Jon’s client load, Laurel’s extracurriculars, or Vi’s playdates, every decision impacts the family system and we need to make choices accordingly. It’s really helped me evaluate my choices in a less (admittedly) self-centered way.

5. No is more important than ever. If you’ve read Minimalist Parenting you know I’m a big fan of people learning to say no. And it’s more important than ever as your family grows. There will always be more opportunities; don’t fear no!

6. Store-bought is totally fine. I do love baking from scratch, but, well, TIME. I’ve realized store-bought is totally fine, and in fact, when Vi asked for munchkins for her school birthday treat, I was relieved, given my workload this week. Best $7.99 I ever spent.

7. Letting your kids work it out is a gift. I have a low patience threshold when it comes to sibling squabbling. I quickly realized that whenever I tell Laurel and Violet to go work it out, I’m gifting them with practice in conflict resolution.

8. Reading together is still really, really important. Both of my girls love books and come to think of it, it’s really one of the few quiet, totally focused things we do together. I read a lot with Vi (she’s very forthright and will dump a pile of books in my lap) and I’ve also started reading with Laurel again. It does wonders for both of their moods.

9. Relationships matter more than ever. Whether it’s your spouse, immediate family, or friends, nurture your relationships. Go on a date. Go out for a meal (you do, after all, need to eat). Call someone on the phone. Nurturing your relationships will make you a happier parent. Trust me.

10. Your kids want you to do less. Ultimately, your kids want you and your undivided attention, not all the fancy trappings you’re trying to create for them (well intentioned as they are). It’s a win-win for everyone. JUST DO LESS. Vi and Laurel both are happier when we’re just hanging out together, and my phone has been stored accordingly.

Image credits: Christine Koh

Today’s Lessons Learned essay comes from Brittni, a dancer and visual artist from Grafton, MA. Brittni also works with preschoolers and in this moving essay, she shares lessons she has learned both from working with preschoolers and self-identifying as a highly sensitive child. And goodness, this piece definitely resonates with me, given that parenting my fiery sensitive Violet has taught me so much.

Dear Grown-ups,

First of all, thank you. Thank you for trying so hard. I know I am a handful. I know I am confusing. I know that sometimes I make you want to pull your hair out. I am not your average child and so most of the techniques and habits used successfully with other children do not apply to me. So please allow me to supply you with a few tips that will make both of our lives a little easier:

1. I apologize for my seemingly unexplained tantrums. I feel so much love, fear, wonder, anxiety, joy, frustration...It is often too much for my little heart to handle and I have to let it all out. I have yet to develop coping strategies or ways to express my intense feelings, so I resort to long, loud, and tearful meltdowns that probably make you feel quite helpless. Please try to be patient with me. I am just as confused as you are during these episodes. Long loving hugs and a soothing voice will bring me out of my object-throwing ear-splitting drama-fests.

2. It means the world to me when you validate my concerns. I do realize I have more concerns than the average child, but if you can make an effort to acknowledge them and make me feel understood, we are likely to skip right over a potential hurricane meltdown (see above).

3. Raising your voice three octaves just to speak to me is not necessary; I can hear you just fine at a normal pitch. Also, a little space please. Do you bring your face within centimeters of your fellow adults’ faces when asking them a question? I certainly hope not because it would probably make them feel just as claustrophobic and invaded as it makes me feel.

4. Please stop calling me shy. The more you call me “too shy” or “too quiet” the shyer and quieter I become. You express concern that I never talk, but when I do talk you look at me like I just performed a stunt, which makes me feel very self-conscious. I will talk when I want to talk, but mostly -- for now -- I just like to listen.

5. Please do not force me to do an activity that I don’t want to do. Picking me up and putting me on the swing against my will on the preschool playground, or telling me I must sing with the rest of the group makes me feel utterly powerless. I will do things on my own time. When I am ready, I will hoist myself onto the swing by myself thank you very much. And I will sing with the group once I have memorized all of the words in the song; that's just the way I operate.

6. Disciplining me with a loud voice, angry eyes, and assertive body language is overkill. When I have done something wrong, I know even before you say anything because I am so very sensitive to your mood and body language. When you are disappointed, I am flooded with guilt and have therefore been sufficiently punished. A few words explaining why what I did was wrong, or even just a moment of meaningful eye contact is often all it takes.

7. Let me create. All I need is a box of crayons and some paper and I am golden for the rest of the afternoon. I am at my happiest when given the freedom to explore my creativity.

8. Finally, I will always be this sensitive. I will always feel everything intensely and I will always be a handful to both myself and to my loved ones. My saving grace is that empathy, creativity, and compassion are traits that tend to come with being highly sensitive. So if you can hang in there and be patient with me now, I will try my best to return your efforts as I get a little older.

Sincerely,

A very small person in a very big world

Do you want to submit a Lessons Learned essay? See submission guidelines here.

Image credits: Christine Koh

As I watched my Facebook feed explode with outrage over today's school closing, one thing was crystal clear: a major concern involves the fact that many kids lack winter gear suitable for walking to school or waiting at bus stops in the frigid weather. So let's do something about that, shall we? Here are 8 ways to donate winter gear to kids in need, in Massachusetts and beyond. If you're home with your kids, take 15 minutes to gather items for donation!

And if your kids need winter gear, check out pickup details at the linked sites below. I'm so grateful to these organizations for the work they do to help so many.

1. Room to Grow. Probably one of the most well know agencies in the Boston area, the mission of Room to Grow is to build a strong foundation for babies in poverty. Focusing on children aged newborn through three years old, donations of all gently used or new clothing and baby gear is accepted at their main location in Boston, as well as other various donation locations. Tax receipts are provided.

2. Cradles to Crayon. Cradles to Crayons provides children from birth through age 12 living in homeless or low-income situations with essential items such coats, clothing, shoes, toys, books, and school supplies. All clothing types, including winter gear, are accepted and appreciated. The main donation location is in Brighton but there are many others around the state and the online tax receipt makes it easy to claim the donation come tax time.

3. Catie’s Closet. Catie’s Closet provides a unique solution to kids in need by setting up “stores/walk in closets” right in schools so children in pre-K through grade 12 have immediate access to what they need.  Catie’s Closet's drop off location in Dracut is open the first and third Saturdays of each month from 9am – 12pm. In addition to clothing and winter gear, they accept toiletry items. A most wanted items list is listed on their website.

4. Second Chances. With several drop off locations in Somerville, Cambridge and Watertown, Second Chances makes donating gently used clothing and winter gear really easy; as long as it is wearable, they’ll take it. The openings of their donation bins are only 2 x 2 so make sure to place your clothing, shoes, and accessories in a small or medium-sized plastic garbage bag (no hangers and no boxes). Second Chances does not provide tax receipts for items donated.

5. Boston Medical Center Grow Clinic. The Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center in Boston depends on donations in order to assist their clients. Food, supplements, toys, and clothing for children ages 3 – 8 years old is highly needed and appreciated. Call a few days before your anticipated drop off, or if you’d like a tour of the location, a few weeks before.

6. Burlington Coat Factory. Until January 19, families can donate coats for men, women, or children at most Burlington Coat Factory locations via BCF's Warm Coats & Warm Hearts Drive. Drop off boxes are found at each location and once your coats are dropped off a greater will present you with a 10% off store coupon. Coats do not need to be dry cleaned beforehand but should be in good condition.

7. Gifts to Give. Gifts to Give is housed in a former golf ball factory and focuses its giving primarily to the south coast of MA. They accept most gently used clothing and toy items for newborns through school aged children, though there are some things they don’t take, so be sure to check this list before heading to their main Acushnet drop off location or any of their other locations.

8. One Warm Coat. One Warm Coat is an aggregate site that lists donation locations by state (just pop in your zip code to find donation locations). While it may take a bit more digging, you’ll surely find a coat donation location somewhere close to you.

UPDATED 1/8/15 TO ADD #9. There are likely options right in your neighborhood! Check with schools in your town about donation/pickup options. Also, sometimes police/fire stations or other community organizations will host donation drives.

Image credit: Christine Koh

Few things exemplify the wrestling with abundance concept Asha and I discuss in Minimalist Parenting like the holidays. Too many things to do, too many things to buy, too many crazy people to deal with...the list goes on. And I'm by no means immune. Thanksgiving break offered a very clear reminder of what fills me with happiness and also what causes immense stress. So I decided that I wanted to create a minimalist holiday manifesto, and invite you to do the same. Intention setting is powerful stuff!

First, to clarify, as Asha and I discuss in our book, "minimalizing" is not about deprivation. I'm not asking you to give up shopping or family traditions. What I am asking you to do is to not be driven by "shoulds" and comparison...to prioritize, to become more mindful about your choices and intentions, to make choices based on what rings true for you and your family. Ultimately, the goal is to do more of what lights you up and less of what drags you down.

Over the coming weeks I'll share editorial geared towards making your holidays easier (while still being fun, beautiful, tasty, and generous in spirit!), but meanwhile, on this first day of December I wanted to share the 6 items on my manifesto. I hope you'll create your own as well. I'd love to hear what you come up with.

1. Address what is causing the most stress as early as possible. It's very clear to me what I'm most stressed out about this year. And when Jon asked how he could help me with it, I realized that it would be helpful to address the issue as early as possible so I won't sit with the anxiety for the entire month of December. (Also, as I was thinking about this issue, I was reminded of two really great back posts: Jane's on 8 ways to reduce holiday stress and Jules's on 10 tips for preserving holiday mental health. Definitely worth a read!)

2. Continue to recalibrate gifting. This is a big one. Though I do love giving gifts, I really don't love the pressure and volume around the holidays. I want to continue to recalibrate traditional gifting by either doing nothing (sometimes nothing can be a gift), focusing on giving one lovingly procured gift per person (rather than scurrying around trying to fulfill some sort of quota), giving small handmade treats (e.g., to neighbors and friends), and continuing my charitable giving efforts (for ideas, see these wonderful back posts by Isabel Kallman and Jennifer James).

3. Make togetherness part of the process. Though I love being able to set Laurel loose on kid-friendly DIY projects, I have also realized how powerful it is to make togetherness part of the holiday process. Laurel is someone who truly treasures together time, so I plan on focusing gifting efforts around easy projects we can work on together. I'll be sharing more editorial about easy DIY gifts soon.

4. Embrace the little (potentially quirky) things that bring joy. Everyone's priorities are different and that's part of the power in creating your own manifesto. This weekend when I ordered my holiday cards, it seemed totally crazy not to opt-in to Minted's free recipient addressing but I reminded myself that hand addressing is one of the ways I foster connection. It may seem weird, but I like to think of the recipient and send them good juju as I address their envelope. I decided to keep this task on my to-do list and pay for return address printing (since I definitely don't enjoy printing labels or writing my own address 150 times).

5. Make sure there is plenty of opportunity for laughter. A few weeks ago we hosted a last minute dinner party with neighborhood friends and it was a good reminder of how incredibly powerful laughter is as a mood elevator. I want to prioritize gatherings with people who make me laugh!

6. Edit the to-do list. Continually. One of my best life lessons has been about prioritizing and letting go. For Violet's first birthday, Laurel and I prioritized our to-do lists in order of fun and gave ourself permission to let items at the bottom of the list fall off. I'm already getting her to do this for the holidays (her original to-do list was tightly written, two-sided...), and will follow suit. The other bonus about editing? It will give you breathing room to put yourself first from time to time. So important.

I'm not kidding, I feel calmer and happier about the holidays just writing this! What elements speak to you? What do you want more of? What do you want less of?

Image credits: Christine Koh

About 8,171 unexpected things have happened in the 8 years since starting this blog and one of the big ones was writing Minimalist Parenting. Another one was being nominated for two Iris Awards in the categories of Game Changer (O.M.G.) and Philanthropic Work (for our #HelpWomenAtRisk campaign). To attend the award ceremony this past weekend, see the company in which we were nominated (see the images below...again, O.M.G.), and celebrate among our industry was such an incredible honor.

Asha and I feel so much love and gratitude, and as a follow up to the Iris Awards and in honor of Mother's Day we wanted to offer a token of our appreciation via giving away 5 copies of Minimalist Parenting. Because part of the minimalist parenting journey involves reorienting your life so that you are in the lens again and we'd love to help a few of you get there!

All you need to do is enter via Rafflecopter below and all that's involved is commenting on this blog post. Easy peasy. Just make sure you fill out the Rafflecopter widget since we're using it for easy admin to collect entries on both Boston Mamas and Parent Hacks.

Thank you so much for supporting us on this journey. We wouldn't be here without you. Truly.

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Happy Saturday, everyone, what a beautiful day! I'm currently recovering from the insanity that was waiting at the post office to process Laurel's passport (if you need to do this, do yourself a favor and go on a weekday if you can swing it) and happy to be sitting in a sunbeam with a cup of coffee! Anyway, kick back and enjoy this edition of Hey Internet, Keep Being Awesome!

- I guest posted about 6 ways to make parenting easier over at the Care.com blog. Go on and make your life easier!

- 15 things to give up if you want to be happy.

- O.M.G. Minimalist Parenting is available as an audio book!

- Books about women who changed history.

- Crazy amazing interior design ideas.

- I am, admittedly, the least shocking part of this shocking show via Dadsaster.

- Healthy 5-ingredient granola bars.

- Journalists at Sochi are live tweeting their hilarious and gross hotel experiences.

- A conference call in real life.

- On the trouble with the “do what you love” mantra.

- The bread that will change your whole world.

- How to take better smartphone pictures.

- An open letter to my kids about their lunch.

Image credit: Pinterest

It's sort of crazy how things come full circle. Two years ago at BlissDom (incidentally, where I'm headed off to shortly), I had several people tell me I should write a book -- a huge compliment. And at that conference, I actually thought of a book idea -- I was so excited about the idea that I drafted an outline on the plane ride home. But then I couldn't quite take the idea forward. It was a busy year -- I was traveling a lot, I got distracted by another book idea later that year (again, I outlined the concept during the ride home). And then I unexpectedly got pregnant. Which meant another busy year followed.
But then this past fall, one of the cofounders of Bibliomotion -- a Boston-based publishing house -- approached me after Pivot (apparently my co-host Whitney Johnson told Jill Friedlander to come talk to me). Jill and I had a very friendly chat but I honestly didn't think much of it -- that night I was truly in pure help-other-people-connect-to-one-another mode, not advance-my-own-agenda mode. Until Jill emailed me a week later asking to talk on the phone. We chatted about my book ideas and I was tasked with deciding which book I wanted to formally propose. After some mulling, I felt very much that I wanted to start with the book idea I had hatched first (at BlissDom 2010), but I wanted a co-pilot on the adventure. And as I prepared to depart for Camp Mighty in November, I realized that I had the utterly perfect potential partner in my brilliant friend Asha Dornfest, and I was thrilled that during our time together at Camp Mighty, she agreed to be my co-author. I returned home, dusted off my nearly two year old book outline, and within a mind-numbingly short amount of time, Asha and I edited and submitted the proposal, received an offer, signed with an amazing agent (OMG I feel like such a grownup...I have a literary agent!), and as of this morning, our book deal is official. I almost cannot believe this is really and truly happening!

But it is. And I am beyond excited. To collaborate with an amazing friend (incidentally, one of the very first bloggers I "met" on the internet) on a topic about which we feel immense collective passion. To be represented by a wonderful agent. To work with a fantastic, forward thinking publishing house. To be on my way to fulfilling a life list item. I'm so very grateful.

Asha and I will be sharing more about the book soon, but in a nutshell, the tentative title is Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More By Doing Less and we are viewing it as a "MacGyver's guide for modern parents" -- including advice to help overwhelmed and guilt-ridden parents shed the pressure to constantly "do" and instead make more mindful choices for their family time and resources. Incidentally, the title of my talk tomorrow at BlissDom is DO LESS as a Life Strategy. Clearly, I think about this stuff pretty much all the time.

Asha and I have some ideas about how we hope to integrate the community into the process. I hope you will come along for the ride!

Image credit: vintage typewriter illustration by Bear & Robot via Etsy