Our dear readers! We wish You a very happy new year!!!
We wish You the deepest silence and coolness of a wood lake within You, the changeable beauty of the World around, sunlight spots on Your pillow on Sunday morning, the smell of just made pastry when waiting for the guests, child’s amazement in Your soul and baby talk nearby (as these are the most wonderful sounds on Earth!).
Let children be always near You – Your children, Your children’s children or just someone’s children – as all the little ones on Earth are worthy of love and kindness
We wish You love and eternal childhood in the coming year!
Having put our little daughter to bed, I am hurrying to the kitchen to my husband who has recently come home for lunch. Already from the threshold of the room I am starting to tell him (as we all have very little time ), “The other mummies on the playground say… (I suddenly stand still seeing something on the table) how beautifully you have cut the cheese!”
On Friday evening, in joyful anticipation, I am going to the Art Store! There are so many things for art now! Wow! But this time I need some certain things – on Sunday children are gathering for the art meeting at our place…
Today our art-group consisted of 4 children: from 1,5 to 7,5 yr. At the beginning, traditionally, a meditation part: we are teaching the kids to work with their attention, to feel the vibrations. But all this – through beauty and joy! For every meeting we (Soniya takes an active part in this process try to decorate everything beautifully in our room. One of the elements which adds festive mood – flowers! 18-mo-old Soniya loves to visit the flower shop and choose flowers together with her mummy and then proudly carry them home. Vera with her two little ones also drops in at the flower shop and then Bazhena and Kirill hand tulips or chrysanthemums over to me when I open the front door for them In my opinion, the beauty of nature, even its small element, helps forming of the aesthetic perception of the world.
The calm part of the program gives place to games (Soniya’s toys attracts the elder kids ). And we also spontaneously turn on the video with the dance “Ranu Ranu” which causes real joy!
That was the dance we were trying to perform – watch the video
Both adults and children were dancing. Kids copy the movements so easily – one is just surprised looking at them! For the future, we decided to include some dancing element as a physical warm-up into all our art-meetings.
So what about art itself? Impressed by Natalie’s and Arseny’s experience , we also were making pen and pencil holders (but for us those were vases ).
The technique is very simple: to make balls from modeling clay, to roll them out with a rolling pin through a plastic bag on a piece of cardboard, to decorate them with some balls of food foil and then to roll the cardboard in a pipe. For little Soniya, I was making the balls myself, she only stuck them to the cardboard. For the elder kids, the task was more complicated: Read the rest of this entry »
I think we have found a perfect way both to improve our state when we feel tired or gloomy and the state of our little daughter when she starts misbehaving or crying.
It was in Sahaja Yoga that I first learn about the beneficial influence on the organism of baths for feet . Negative energies that we could “pick up” during the day go into the basin with water and salt. Peace sets within, negative thoughts and emotions leave us, sleep improves. And imagine how surprised I was when I found out that doctors also recommend keeping our feet in the water of comfortable temperature where some sea salt is added. Moreover, they advise to do it both for adults and kids.
Last month, the doctor who came to make a professional massage to our toddler told us something about footosoaking. Our little girl (17 mo) keeps her feet in the basin with water and salt two times a day since she turned 1 year old. She does it at the same time with us (in the morning and evening). The masseur explained to us the benefit of this activity from medical point of view:
the nervous system relaxes – the child becomes more peaceful;
the salt clears the body of chemical waste drawing it out from the organism through pores.
In fact, if our daughter is in a gloomy mood it is just enough to do the footsoaking together with her for her state to improve for the better.
And today the neurologist who we attended on a routine basis prescribed our little girl the same method for strengthening her legs. When I asked the doctor what the benefits salty water are, she answered that Read the rest of this entry »
All the children love construction sets. Many adults love them, too. In each of us, there is a fundamental desire for creation when Something appears from nothing and the Whole is always bigger than the sum of the details it consists of… a miracle!
However, a 18 mo old toddler is too little for all those tempting sets with details which his mother enjoys looking at in the stores (I did not have such sets in my childhood!)… The little one would like to run and make fun but the mother, for some reason, does not like to run… The father likes to run (is it so, dad?) but he is away from home all day long… Boring…
Once, having run after our toddler for the hundredth time, I also thought, “It’s really boring… And if there were a construction set!” And at that moment it dawned upon me: Read the rest of this entry »
My husband and I had bought bicycles two days before our daughter was born. By now I have cycled only three times (once on my bicycle and twice on my hubby’s one ). As for Valery, my husband, he rides his bicycle almost every day. Walking with our little daughter, I always pay attention to how other parents combine cycling and their parental duties.
In such a way one of the mothers comes to the children’s playground with her little one:
I asked her why she preferred ”cloth” for the baby and not a child’s chair for the bicycle? She answered that Read the rest of this entry »
Having read Natalie’s story about how she was entertaining 1-year-old Arseny in a 24-hours trip by train, I thought that I should also start preparing for the forthcoming 11-hours travelling in our car (we were going to the International Sahaja Yoga Festival, from Nizhny Novgorod to Togliatti, Russia).
I borrowed some of Natalie’s ideas. The following things were bought in the nearest store “1000 Small Things”:
1. Cocktail Straws (75 cents).
2. 2 sheets with stickers (75 cents): vegetables and flowers (for us to study the variety of their kinds).
3. Large colourful paper clips (85 cents).
4. A plastic glass with a lid for washing the brushes (50 cents.)
Like Natalie, I cut each straw into two pieces and then put them into the jar left after Chinese tea. The paper clips were put into the glass for brushes which has a round hole in its lid. I also cut the poster with the Russian alphabet and pictures into squares (I did not buy it specially for the trip; when our daughter was 1-6 months old, the poster was hanging above the changing table). The printed out pictures of animals were put into a photo album (80 cents). I also took a developing toy-brick which was presented to Soniya by her grandfather and the pictures for lacing. So, let’s see whether our daughter will like my choice?
On the day of the departure, the alarm clock rings at 3:45 am. We wash our faces, meditate, put the rest of the bags into the boot. At 4:30 I take sleeping Soniya into my hands (immediately she opens her eyes and starts analyzing everything around her with much interest). 4:40 –we are starting off.
Our 1-year-old Soniya loves felt-tip pens – to take them out from the package, to take the caps off and then to try to put them on again, to push the felt pens into the package again. But she is interested in drawing itself only for a minute. And drawing is very useful for the development of image-bearing thinking, aesthetic perception, sense of colour and space…
Once, when we were in our village house waiting together with the daughter until the rain stops, I thought out the following (it was impossible to avoid drawing as I had taken neither toys nor books to the village house from the city and it was not wise to walk under the rain): I started describing our previous day for Soniya drawing the images-illustrtions with the felt-tip pens at the same time. Our daughter was obviously interested. Not only was she listening to me but she was also drawing something over my images, voiced the pictures as if remembering something, told me something in her own language… We were drawing in such a way for 10-15 minutes and even did not notice when the rain stopped.
“Do you remember the cock we saw in the morning? Yes, yes, it was going among the grass and flowers. We were near the river. Who lives in the river? The fish.And there was the sun above us…”
To bring up a one-year-old, to make art/creative things at the same time making a career and, in addition to it, to have time to help others – do you think it is real? Very much real and the experience of Kseniya Simonova, a 24-year-old mother from the Crimea, proves it.
This year Kseniya won in the Ukrainian Show “Ukraina Mae Talant!” having submitted the art of sand animation to the examination of the audience. For the first time in their life, many of the TV viewers saw a whole series of pictures skillfully created with sand on a glass platform and projected onto a screen. Yes, exactly, Kseniya enjoys sand art after she puts her 18-months-old son Dima to bed.
«And for what all this?» – some of you may have thought. First of all, for the sake of aesthetics, beauty and a feeling of content. When you create, you reach harmony with yourself and, thus, convey a part of it to your children. Second, as Kseniya says herself, “I decided to participate in the Competition “Ukraina Mae Talant” to help 9-months-old Nika – the little baby-girl who has been in coma for half a year already». The young artist is giving Nika’s family half of the won million of the Ukrainian national currency (Kseniya is even not acquainted with that family).
The summer season is at its height. It’s high time to leave the dusty city for the granny’s village house. But it takes exactly 24 hours by train for us to accomplish. How to entertain the little one when traveling?
Going into this issue, first of all I bought our 1-year-old son his favourite toy – a car. And hid it – until our departure. So, for the first half an hour the child will have what to do. But what will follow next? How many toys should be taken to spend 24 hours with comfort? Read the rest of this entry »
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