Move it with Movitz!

I am loving this band, Movitz, a wonderful mix of hip hop, swing and Swedish.  You gotta hear it to believe it.  So, what's up?  I hope that everyone is well and enjoying this gorgeous month.  We've gone hiking, apple picking and jumped in leaves - among all the usual junk including working, making dinner, packing lunches and picking kids up only to drop them off on the other side of town a half hour later.  We love our two chillin's so much, but they are work.

Two books that I picked up recently to remind me not to lose my cool include: Listen (5 simple tools to meet your everyday parenting challenges) by Patty Wipfler and Tosha Schore, and Simplify your Life with Kids (100 Ways to Make Family Life Easier and More Fun) by Elaine St. James.  Listen is a lovely book that emphasises enjoying your child, playing with them and listening to them better by for example,"staylistening", which encourages children to express their feelings and get back in touch with you and themselves. (This is suprisingly effective with my teenager I've noticed,)  And Simpify gives some good practical advice like "plan a carpool" to help make life easier or "teach kids to put dishes in the dishwasher".  So obvious but somehow I sort of haven't done either of these!

No One is Alone (with Bernadette Peters by Stephen Sondheim from "Into the Woods") is a wonderful song to end this sort of bittersweet lament about children and how to best help them. Parenting is the most important job and one that we sometimes have the hardest time doing well. Remembering that there are good books out there, people to talk to, teachers to help, and family to guide you can help. You are not alone. And of course, living in Sweden wouldn't hurt to make it easier. ;-) Read more about that here.