Today

Wow, it's been so long and fb has become such an easy way to spread the Clan Barnas propaganda that I have lost my blog groove.  Those quick and easy posts from my BB are so easy, just like on fb, that well, I guess nothing.
I digress.
Today I spent the morning with some of the most fabulous families I could hope to know.  Mamas, papas, little ones, infants, toddlers, big guys, babies in the bellies...and more love and kindness and good will that one knows what to do with!  Oh do let me gush on, please.
Seven years ago around when Magdalena was four months old I co-founded an API group with four other mamas.  (API you ask?  Check it out here.)  The group in Cruces was like a (not to be cheesy) warm green ocean of love and support for this brand-new-didn't-have-a-community-mama and I loved and still love all the families/mamas/children/midwives/doulas that I met and that sustained me in my wild and random ride of early motherhood.  

Today I was at our regular second Tuesday of the month API meeting and there it was again, that warm green ocean of love and support.  The listening, even over the din of children playing, babies cooing, Augustus demanding (noooooo!) and general parenting going on amongst 15 families with various numbers of children, 40-ish folks at least, the quality of listening is profound.  Throughout the din, the parents are heard, and heard with love and respect and offered suggestions and solutions.  Oh how I do cherish the community that is growing here, and thriving.
Like I said, do let me gush on.  This is where we grow.  This is where we thrive.  This is where we learn to surrender expectations, to open our hearts and stretch them all out of proportion to allow more love in so we can let more love out, this is where I connect my heart to my brain to my instincts to my nature and learn to filter out the noise that says our children do not deserve our respect, and in turn, that we do not deserve theirs.  This is where I see the evidence of the success of attachment style parenting.  Listen, if something I'm doing as a parent doesn't work, it's not the fault of my child, nor necessarily my fault, but if it doesn't work, I am certainly not going to do it over and over and over, let alone try to enroll other families in a failing philosophy.  The beauty of attachment parenting - besides the payoff of loving it! - is that it is effective parenting.  It works!  I respond well when I am respectfully asked to do something, not barked at.  Big fat hairy surprise, it's the same for my children.  Shocking, I know.
Oh how I could ramble and ramble and ramble on about the lovefest that is my family and my community, but if you don't know them or me, you probably won't believe me.  And if you do know them or me, then you know.
All this to say that a 2  1/2 hour meeting and lunch at Costco (so random) turned out to be one of the loveliest days around, and I'll take that anytime.