We are the Creators of our own Joy

WRITING PROMPT RESPONSE 7/15/20

It’s funny that my mom mind went straight to maintaining my family’s mental health and solidarity when the prompt asked about SELF care. I feel that I will be content with being able to stay home with my family as only a mom–not a teacher, coordinator, facilitator, tutor, coach–that I won’t want for anything. My brain won’t be stretched in a million directions, breaking into particles and tunneling through various blackholes, losing energies that I could not possibly hope to replenish.

I’ll get to do one thing well: be a mother.

For me, that means taking care of my family as a collective and the individuals. With the extremely joyous occasion of welcoming a newborn human into our family, I feel that I want to be able to look forward to things as a family. The birth of the baby and birthdays are our big ones right now, but the birthdays are done in October. Then what? Holidays? Ehh, certainly not as they are.

Self-care for me and for my family means that we will need to look forward to something. We love being part of a big family and creating one now, so how do we continue that big family vibe during a pandemic?

Similar to Kelsey’s form of self-care, we create a routine. While infants and toddlers force a daily one on you (that’s fine with me!). What I would l like to instate is something like our movie/game night. We always look forward to Fridays because we have Mexican food and pick a movie. I’m not saying that we need something every night of the week, but picking 3-4 mornings/nights per week might be achievable.

Some ideas:

• Marsh walks
• Hiking at Oakwoods Metropark ( we are so blessed to be near so many metroparks and preserves)
• Fires for s’mores and roasted apples
• Board games
• Cardboard Cutouts (we get lots of boxes, so we can make things out of them and then pretend)
• Racing games (balloons, cardboard cards, tissue boxes)
• Spooky story telling (they love scary things)
• Themed parties (costume/dress-up, food, games)
• Bring a book to life (play, movie making, story telling with a character)
• Planting seeds
• Painting various objects or their bodies (in the tub or basement

I am by no means a Pinterest mom, (never have been, never will be), but I do like to play and I’m not afraid of a mess. I recognize that my kids are not going to be able to explore through or with relationships with many people. What we can do is enjoy our time together: the little moments and the reserved ones. We’ve been enjoying making things for other people and then sending it to them or videochatting with them. It’s been fun to spend time together as a family and then share that happiness with others who can use some sunshine.

I’ve been trying to teach my kids that we are the creators of our own joy, and to then share that joy when your cup is full.

Dark Moon: A Character

Dark Moon and Runicron, her superhero dog.

When I went upstairs for Sacred Writing time, my partner let the kids watch She-Ra. Is it super age appropriate, meh, but it allows us to have so many conversations with them (“bad guys,” morality, who you are as a person, word choice, etc.) and the messaging is pretty darn fantastic.

Anyways, I sat down to start pre-writing my character for NaNoWriMo and realized I was 100% stuck. So, I asked Ivah about her superhero persona (lunchtime has been spent saving the world during the institute): Dark Moon. She was Dark Unicorn Shadow, but she’s loving Dark Moon now. That’s who she is and who she will be for Halloween (HUGE deal at our house).

Here are the results of interviewing a four-year-old about her superhero persona, Dark Moon.

• Dark Moon AKA Ivah
• Red and yellow eyes. Red in darkness and yellow during daylight
• Favorite outfit: black cape, sparkly flats, gems and sparkles on her sleeves with thumbholes, sparkly unicorn bracelet, pink skirt, black leggings, tie-dye shirt, blue sparkly lipstick
• Hair is long red/blue/purple pigtails
• Has a unicorn that has rainbow beams coming out of it. Her hands have this power too. Bad guys can’t handle the beams, and Dark Moon can use the rainbow beams like kits to help people fall out of the sky safely
• She is also an archer (like Bow)
• She does not like buses or trains
• She likes archery, Spider-Man (her friend), her super hero dog, candy, superhero music, fighting bad guys, climbing buildings
• Her favorite book is Mary Poppins
• Her favorite show is She-Ra
• She lives in the woods full of wolves. Her house is faraway, close to Disney World
• Superhero dog: Runicron is his name. He brown and red striped eyes. He runs super fast because of his rainbow wings. He has to catch the Joker
• Dark Moon is scary and likes to be alone. She just wants to help people.

Mind mapping Dark Moon.

I CANNOT WAIT TO START WRITING WITH DARK MOON.

Here is the NaNoWriMo resource we used to write Dark Moon.