zen motherhood

I am in Google+ and Facebook to keep up with my friends. I use Skype with my daughter each week to call my parents. I work from home and connect with my team through conference calls and chat. I rarely connect physically with a human being except for an occasional meet up with friends and well my husband who sits about 5 feet away. We are a virtual family in the extreme sense. Naomi has become so accustomed to seeing her extended family through the computer that whenever I boot up the laptop that we use for Skype she asks 'we calling bachi'? (bachi is short for Obaachan which is Japanese for grandma). And I wonder many times whether or not this is the best thing for her. I never lived close to my grandparents or any of my extended family growing up. I always felt remiss every holiday when all of my friends would gather up with their cousins and grandparents for dinner. With my daughter too, I always think that I should try to plan a trip each year so she can see her grandpare...

I am a big fan of John J Muth, and one of the children's books that he has published is called Zen Shorts. If you haven't read it, even if you don't have kids, you should. He takes 3 common zen stories and puts them into children's context that I find great. I also believe children really can teach us a lot about being zen. So sometimes if I can't sit, it's nice to just really focus on my daughter and learn from her. So I thought I would share one of those moments with you John Muth style :-) Naomi's Flowers In the corner of a big backyard, surrounding a garden, a clump of flowers grew. Purple and white and yellow, they were the biggest flowers Naomi had ever seen. Whenever she could, she would wade through this sea of purple and pick the very best, and prettiest flowers. She then would tour the yard for other flowers; big white puffy ones, and yellow daisy-like ones. One day, however, Naomi went to pick the pretty flowers, and they were gone. She rush...