Cultivating Confidence

This is an issue that I've been working on since before my kids were born, and I'm so grateful to my boss (and friend) for making me aware of it. How do we inspire our kids to be confident, competent, fulfilled, and successful? Studies consistently show that praising a child's effort, NOT their intelligence is the best way to support their future success. For me, it's been hard to wrap my head around the idea that praising a child's intelligence can be counterproductive. I mean, that's what we're supposed to do for our kids, right? "Honey, you're amazing! You are so smart!" And I find that almost everyone I meet does fall into this trap. It is SO important to focus on the effort your child puts into a task, and the feelings of accomplishment they get from working hard and conquering something that was difficult for them. I'm working on it...

Here's a great article summarizing one of these studies:
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

A Quick Summary

I thought a good way to kick this off would be with a quick summary of who I am and what I do. And you need photos. Being a photographer, I refuse to leave you visually un-stimulated. Is there a better word for that?

This is me:

I am a mother, of course, but I'll get to that in a minute. For money, I am a nanny 30 hours per week, 10 of which are daytime, and 20 of which are overnight "hopefully sleeping" shifts. I have cared for the same family for the past 7 years now (WOW!), and their boys are almost as important to me as my own kids. When I first started with them, I worked 90 hours per week! One of their boys has autism, so his sleep is easily disrupted. They hire help for overnights so that he can get the attention he deserves if he wakes up at night, and they can still function as parents and at their jobs during the day!

I am also a photographer, who hopes to someday have the time and energy to pursue a full business. For now, I take friends and family as clients, and their referrals, and save money on portraits of my kids. Ha!

I tend to make non-traditional choices for myself and my family, and probably annoy everyone around me who doesn't understand why I can't just be satisfied with "normal" living. Whatever that is. I'm just a "questioner", and that's not changing anytime soon. Most notably, I've recently gone vegan, and am trying to reduce my son's consumption of animal products, too. (My daughter is too young for that junk, anyway. hehe) My motivations for eating plants instead of animals are different from those of most vegans, I think. While I don't like the way animals are treated, I'm more concerned with the health of the environment, my health, and the health of the people I care about. Without starting a sermon on the subject, the best diet for US, doesn't include eating THEM.

Now, on to my favorite subject ever, in the whole world: my family!

I'm married to my highschool sweetheart. I'm having trouble finding the words to explain how wonderful he is... I guess I'll just leave it at "he touches my heart and soul." He puts up with my crazy ideals, too, and that's really saying something. On top of that, he's given me the two most amazing children that have ever been born. Period.

This is my Wigglebug. I am undecided whether to share their names or not, so I'll stick to nicknames for now. He is 3 1/2, and so full of life! His imagination is astounding, and I can't wait to watch what he does with school. Scratch that. I can wait. My baby is disappearing so fast... He is very sweet and empathetic, outgoing, and energetic! His personality is a lot like mine, in that he is a bit afraid of failure, and seems to set too high a standard for himself, so I do worry about that...

And our sweet little Snugglebug is now 10 months old... She is a challenge! She has been a much fussier baby than her brother was, and if possible, a MUCH worse sleeper, but she is also much more physically affectionate. Her personality is starting to blossom, and what I see so far is determination with a capital D! When she is learning a new skill, she will practice it over and over and over and over and over and over until it's easy for her. I predict that she will grow up to have a fantastic work ethic! Development-wise, she is cruising around the furniture, and starting to let go while standing (though she still falls immediately), crawls up on hands and knees almost all the time instead of army crawling, waves hi/bye, signs "milk", says "Mama," "nom nom," and possibly "Bub Bub." She's not very interested in solid food yet, but is breastfed, so I'm not worried yet. She is eating a little better, slowly, as the weeks go by.

And now, my tiny one is calling/screaming for me, so must run! You can expect lots of my posts to end this way...

Here we go!

I've wanted to do some personal blogging for a while now. I'm not sure what has possessed me with that desire, given the neglected state of my business blog (and my business), but what the hey.

I have found that as I get older, and hopefully wiser, that it's much more difficult to find simple solutions to ANYTHING. Why??? So frustrating. It doesn't help that I'm an over-analyzing, over-planning, wannabe perfectionist. I have a hard time these days figuring out who I am, what I want, and how to make the best choices for myself and my family. It may be that this blog may help me figure some of those things out, and share a bit more of myself with those around me, near and far. I can't promise to blog every day, or every week, or every month... but I will promise to share some thoughts, some photos, and, I hope, some laughs!

I'll be back soon to throw some photos on here, but right now, I've got the Snugglebug sleeping, the Wigglebug watching a movie, and probably 10 free minutes in which I can take a shower. It's the freaking weekend, but yeah, even on Saturday, it's complicated.