Virtue of the Month: Love

We have done lots of lovely activities this month. We have been reading "Love is the secret..." by 'Abdu'l-Baha during prayers each morning. We have made some gorgeous - if I do say so myself- love "letters" using wooden letters, scrapbooking paper and modge podge which we have displayed prominently in the dining room reminding us to focus on love.

We have read some beautiful stories based upon love.
We wrote little things that we love about each other on post it hearts that I found at Big W and stuck them up all through the kitchen.

We collected favorite quotes on love, wrote them on scrapbooking paper and stuck them up - banner style -around the dining room. (See the end of the post for some favorites.)Adding more quotes as we came accross them.

Till the dining room started looking like this:

The gigantic love hearts on the wall have the quote "Love is the secret..." by 'Abdu'l-Baha printed on them. One paragraph per heart. We had a Valentines / love craft day with friends and ate some love inspired snacks.

We recycled Soheila's old tissue can and made a love canister instead. We brainstormed ideas about how we can demonstrate that we love each other and wrote them on scrapbooking remnants. The kids took turns each morning pulling an activity out of the jar and we added it into what we were doing that day. Some of the ideas were really easy like give extra hugs and kisses to family members or read a story about love, while others required a bit of planning and special supplies, things like going to see someone that you love who you don't get to see very often or making love heart bath fizzies to give to friends.

My apologies for the quality of the above photo - they all came out like that. You get the idea.

I love having the reminder to love up on the wall.

I also found some blank, cardboard puzzles in the shape of a heart and the kids made picture puzzles of things that they loved.

I read a bit about love languages and how people feel loved and nurtured in different ways and tried to remember to "speak" to Mehran and the children in their different "languages." For instance Mehran doesn't like to say "I love you." He doesn't feel the need to hear it spoken but he sure feels loved when the counters are clear and the kitchen is cleaned...I'd better get moving.

I'll leave you with a few favorite quotes on love:

"Love does not make the world go round. It is what makes the ride worthwhile." Franklin P.

Jones

"Love is a given. Hatred is aquired." Doug Horton

"My most brilliant achievemnet was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me." Winston Churchill

"If you love somebody let them go, for if they return they were always yours. And if they don't they never were." Khalil Gibran

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people in a hostile world. Same world." Wayne Dyer

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into that action." Mother Teresa

"If you judge people you have no time to love them." Mother Teresa

"We can do no great things. Only small things with great love." Mother Teresa.

Love that Mother Teresa.

Enjoy

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why we call it the present."

While at summer school a lovely young lady bestowed upon me a random sticker. Throughout the day I saw a number of people walking around with similar stickers. I wore mine on my hand and it was an excellent reminder because I haven't been doing enough of it lately. Sure I try to look at the positive, but lately I have been letting some negatives get the better of me and it was great to have this one little word to focus on and draw my attention back to something that I have lost sight of, to something that I need to do more of. Enjoy. Enjoy the moment. The right now. Because that is really all that we have. Enjoy the sibling squabbles and the never ending laundry, enjoy scrubbing the regurgitated food off the floor and nagging the kids to do their math because I get to do it. I get to be here for it and there are people out there who might give just about anything to be able to be there and get to do the very things that I was (and sometimes still am) feeling burdened by. So instead of a New Year's Resolution, something that I have never really put much effort into, I am going to make this word my focus for the year. I am going to focus on the positive and just enjoy each moment for what it is. A simple gift that I am given. It may not be entirely pleasant but it may make me stronger or give me a chance to practice my own virtues. Life is a journey we may as well enjoy the ride.

Virtue of the Month: Gratitude

This month was pretty simple. We read some stories about gratitude and thankfulness and then made a big felt tree on the wall in the making area and cut out lots of colorful maple leaves. Each morning we wrote down something that we were grateful for and stuck our leaf on the tree. It was an easy, nice way to keep the virtue in mind, to build on it and have something beautiful to look at as well. (Mostly beautiful... it would have looked better if Maryam hadn't developed such a fetish with attempting to remove the trunk every time she was in the area.) Now if I could just find a picture...

Virtue of the Month: Organization

Lord knows I need help with this one.



We are trying to declutter as much as possible this month. Sort through closets and give a lot of things away. Clothes, toys, books (gasp... I know) but there just ins't space and it is so difficult to clean with all the things we have packed into our home. I really want to simplify. I need to be organized. And while we have cleaned out some closets, the pantry, reorganized the kitchen cabinets and part of the shed I don't feel like we have made much progress. I think we'll have to do this virtue again.

Virtue of the Month: Kindness

This month we have focused on kindness. Speaking in a kindly way and behaving kindly toward others. I was thinking to make paper bricks and put their kind deeds on bricks to make a "wall of kindness" but Anisa had a better idea, so we went with hers and created a castle of kindness instead. They wrote their names on the flags above each tower (and yes - Maryam had help) and we recorded their kindly deeds on the blocks of the castle wall. They were really sweet and did some heart melting things to wind up there on the wall, but the best things were the spontaneous things like Bayan offering Anisa his hand to help her into the car. It looked exactly like something you would have seen in the 1800's with a young man helping a lady into a carriage. So cute. Anisa was pleased as punch. It is certainly a lot more pleasant to be assisted into a vehicle than to have to climb over someone who has rushed into their seat first without considering the difficulty this presents to others. He now waits to make sure that both girls have gotten into the back before he climbs in himself. Love that.

We have read the book "The Value of Kindness The Story of Elizabeth Fry" about the kind and courageous young lady who helped bring the plight of prisoners to public attention and reform the way that prisons worked. We have been working on our own random acts of kindness like making cookies for the neighbours who live across the street, (this woman has left her job and is now caring for her sick mother full - time) and acknowledging the kindness that we see in others.

Virtue of the month: Kindness

"There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room. As you go on in life, cultivating this quality of empathy will become harder, not easier. There's no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You'll be free to live in neighborhoods with people who are exactly like yourself, and send your kids to the same schools, and narrow your concerns to what's going in your own little circle. Not only that - we live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. A culture where those in power too often encourage these selfish impulses.They will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because they're all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools can't learn and won't learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody else's problem to take care of. I hope you don't listen to this. I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern." ~ Barak Obama

Indeed. So, this month we have done a lot of activities that hopefully will cultivate empathy. We started with the quote above and talked about what it meant we then played a game that I call In his/ her shoes that I made by taking pictures of footwear from various strata of society around the world. The kids had to think about what it would be like to wear those shoes, what would it feel like, how would they feel inside, how might the owners of these shoes feel and why do they wear the shoes that they do. This would have worked much better using all actual shoes but I didn't have access to many of the styles or conditions. I used images of anything from mainstream style runners, to funky high heels, to snow shoes, to no shoes, to images of Chinese foot binding, to old coke bottles tied with string.

We played a fortune cookie game that I concocted after watching this slide show http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/where-children-sleep/ about where children sleep. After watching the same slideshow the kids got to choose a fortune cookie from a bowl and crack it open. They then read out who they were and where they got to live. We talked about fairness and was it right that one person got to sleep in a gorgeous four poster bed surrounded by tiaras and princess paraphernalia while another child slept with his entire family on a single mattress in a field. We talked about the luck of the draw (as they cracked a fortune cookie and about how some kids are born to wealthy parents and some to poor parents and about the different elements of wealth and poverty. We also talked about what we would want to have happen if we were in certain situations and have worked and saved some money to help a family living in poverty. (Oxfam Australia offers animals that can be bought on behalf of families in the third world and can be used by them to make money.)

The kids tested their knowledge of geography, Spanish and random English vocabulary words on the "Free Rice" website and helped earn free rice for those less fortunate. Go to http://www.freerice.com/ to play. It's fun, educational and it makes a difference.

We watched a news segment on the crisis in East Africa and talked about what was happening over there. I decided (though the girls agreed) that we would have an empathy dinner. So one night we had boiled rice for dinner. No trimmings. Just rice. Bayan cried. He really wanted some yogurt to go on top. But I stuck to my guns. I'm mean like that. Anisa explained to him, repeatedly, that 'other people, other children, didn't have any food to eat. They are starving. Dying. We are lucky. We have so much food and tomorrow you can wake up and have whatever you want to eat and those kids will still be starving.' We had a great discussion about what it would be like not to have money or food or to be able to meet your basic needs, we enjoyed our simple dinner knowing that we would get to eat more interesting things tomorrow and knowing that we were making an effort to experience things (in the smallest possible form) from another persons perspective and that we were putting the money that we would have spent on dinner towards helping a family who is currently living in poverty.

The kids collected cans and bottles and took them to a recycling plant. They added the money that they collected to what we had saved with dinner and bought a bunch of chickens for families in Sri Lanka. Most of our activities were centered around people. But not this one. For one week I left this quote on the wall “Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless. Christmas dinner's dark and blue. When you stop and try to see it From the turkey's point of view. Sunday dinner isn't sunny. Easter feasts are just bad luck. When you see it from the viewpoint of a chicken or a duck. Oh how I once loved tuna salad, Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too Till I stopped and looked at dinner From the dinner's point of view.” ~ Shel Silverstein. We talked about what that passage meant and we practiced empathy for animals by focusing on vegetarian foods for the week. This was not always easy, as Mehran is on a high protein diet, but here are some of our star dishes for the week: Falafel salad and Mexican bean wraps... yummmm.I made a large grid in the carport (some 70 odd squares) and challenged the children to navigate their way from one end to the other. There was a catch however. Beneath some of the squares fictitious landmines were buried and the children must avoid these, but just like in real life there is no way to be certain exactly where they are. They were instructed to do their best and see what happens. So they traversed the grid, back and forth sometimes managing to avoid the hidden dangers and sometimes not. They had to imagine that they were living in Cambodia (a country notorious for the number of landmines) and that they had to get from one place to another while everyday living with the very real threat of landmines. How would they feel? How would they act? What would they do?

One day the girls each wore a makeshift burqa. Bayan had no interest in trying it out. We talked about being able to see through it and play through it. It certainly presented some challenges when it came to hula hooping and badminton but we talked about its advantages as well. Anonymity, being comfortable that you could see out but that others could not see in, perhaps it gives people a sense of safety and security. We talked about fairness and why only the girls had to wear them. Anisa was most offended. She thought it was highly unjust that she should have to wear one while Bayan did not.

Imagine having poor eyesight. That is Mehran at the moment. He is going to undergo surgery soon. So we did a lesson in empathy for those whose eyes work differently than ours. I stuck layers of tape on the kids' swimming goggles until they had very blurry vision when looking through them and sent them off to play (carefully - I might add) in the back yard. They found that it presented a few challenges but they were still able to do what they wanted they just had to be extra careful about how and where they moved.

Because, after all, it was kinda hard to see. But then that was the whole point of learning to be more empathetic, of being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see the world from their perspective.

Virtue: Independence

Did you know that the early American settlers would often place a candle in their windows on the 4th of July as a symbol of their support for the new democracy? I only recently learned this myself. Across the United States communities gather for parades and picnics, barbecues and bonfires, for speeches and fireworks and all sorts of family fun, much as they did 200 years ago. But how many of us put a candle in our windows now? I think it is lovely. In Australia we don't celebrate the fourth of July (obviously). There are no parades or picnics no gathering for speeches. It is winter. It is dark and cold. The perfect time to light candles and enjoy the flame and fragrance as well as the symbolism that this simple act holds. While many people have lost faith with governments and their ability to govern (and frankly with some good reasons - but I won't go there) I love what the founding fathers and early patriots fought for, for their vision of what America could and should become. I love the Declaration of Independence and I love what the fourth of July stands for: Freedom and Independence for all.

And that brings us to our Virtue of the month (I don't seem to be organized enough to do them on a weekly basis): Independence. This is something that I want the kids to develop more of. To begin with I wrote the word Independence on a balloon and stuck it to the ceiling using static electricity (rubbing it quickly on your hair) the kids read the virtue on the balloon and we talked about what Independence meant. They were then challenged (youngest to oldest) to get the balloon down by themselves and to do it in their own unique way (meaning they can't just copy someone else). We talked about how sometimes things might seem out of reach but that doesn't mean that we can't attain them. Sometimes our goals may seem difficult to achieve but that if we believe in ourselves and our abilities we can do amazing things.

And sure enough they all got it down. Bayan employed a chair and a bag, Anisa took off her sweater and waved it around and Ruhi fanned the balloon down with a handy packet of x-rays. We talked about what things they can do to demonstrate independence and they put together a little list of things like: cook dinner by myself, make food for everyone, make phone calls on my own, bring everyone water at mealtimes and go shopping. Over the next few weeks they'll be working on improving their independence in these areas.

We went shopping, the kids each had some money to put towards a special snack night and the ingredients for making a cake. They chose and bought their items and came home to bake this Independence Day cake.

Ruhi read the directions, gathered the ingredients and supervised while Anisa and Bayan took turns adding the ingredients, scraping the bowl and licking their fingers.

We read the Declaration of Independence, well I read and they ate. The document is heavy, beautiful, but heavy, and I find that food helps them listen. So while they noshed I read and paraphrased and explained. We used examples and then played a little game called King George (I was the king and they were the colonists and they chose cards with statements on them like I want to buy land to build a house, I want to start a farm so that I can feed my family and have some left over food to sell, I want to organize a library so that people can borrow books, I want to open a shop so that people will have somewhere to buy what they need, etc. There were a couple of mystery cards, which had the info on the back and these were taken from the Declaration itself, from the listing some of the injustices they endured at the hands of the king. They took turns choosing cards and had to ask permission from the King (who, sometimes took a long time to reach decisions and very often said "No.") without the kings permission they were stuck and could not achieve what they needed to. This gave them an idea about how most of the colonists were feeling. We talked about what Independence would have meant for a young country starting out and how it would have taken a lot of courage to do what they did. In a show of support for their courage we made this tri-color candle to put in the window. It was supposed to be red, white and blue but due to circumstances beyond my control we wound up with red, white and lavender instead.

Oh well, it's the effort that counts.

Happy Independence Day everyone.

Meet Virtue Man

OK, so he looks a little haggard and he really needs a cape but he is fantastic at finding virtues. Which is just what he did this morning. I, on the spur of the moment, cut out about 12 fish shapes (Anisa drew eyes, lips and scales for me) and I wrote the virtue Respect (something that some of us seriously need to work on at the moment) on the back of one of the fish. The rest remained blank. After morning prayers I made a "lake" with some blue cloth and placed the fish in the "water." The children took turns assisting virtue man to locate the fish with the special word. Once it was found we talked about what it means to be respectful and the ways that we can practice showing respect.

I am planning to do a virtue of the week again, something that I did with the kids ages ago but then... well, you know how it is. I am planning to do different activities with each virtue including treasure hunts, guessing games and physical challenges. (God help me.) This will tie in really nicely with our virtue cards. I may even copy the virtue tree from Nurturing the Tender Years, but one thing at a time. I was impressed by how much they all enjoyed the fishing game, continuing to play with it long after we had finished, but more importantly taking turns and sharing, thus demonstrating respect in action. Hopefully their enthusiasm continues.

Be Grateful

When your four-year -old uses a permanent blue sharpie to secretly decorate her sister's sheets and then attempts to sign someone else's name in an effort to cover up her dastardly deed. Be grateful for the memory that you will one day be able to look back upon and laugh about. (Albeit not today.)

When your two- year- old paints the entire underside of your craft table with gooey, vanilla yogurt. Be grateful that he is both industrious and creative. Be grateful that the table is glass and that the unusual medium washes swiftly away.

When you hurriedly try to wrap a plate of cookies with plastic wrap and the box springs apart, unravelling 10 meters of cling film which quickly attaches itself to your person leaving you tangled and tethered in a wild plastic mess. Be grateful for cling film and the convenience it affords, even while you are still muttering under your breath.

When your little one removes his nappy to poo on the floor (not on the toilet - on the floor.) Be grateful that he does not suffer from raging constipation and that you are amply supplied with disinfectants.

When the house is so crazy and crowded that you can never find what you need when you need it. Be grateful for a house and for the people who share it. Every day is a gift, even when you can't find the wrapping paper.

For the children who insist upon stopping every few moments (especially when you are in a frightful hurry) to examine a flower or notice a cat. Be grateful that they share with you all the wonders that you would miss in your frenzied race to be on time. Just for once.

For health. Even though your memory is fading and you now require a specialized team of physical therapists to help hoist you of the floor, when only a year earlier you would have leaped to your feet in no time at all. Be grateful that you and your family are well.

For friends who tell you that you are not doing enough, even though it would take a time alternator or some further fangled clone technology to make it possible to do much more. Remember that you are raising children. Remember that there is no greater deed, no more worthwhile service than this. Remember that these friends mean well and that it doesn't matter what other people see, but rather what God sees that is truly important. He knows what you do and loves you because of and inspite of it. Remember to be grateful. Always.