The Paper Dart
An ode to creativity and distraction

8 Days of Giving – Our New Hanukkah Tradition

My kids are at the age where Hanukkah and Christmas are all about the presents. Every time my husband or I try to talk about the history of the holidays, M stops me in my tracks and says something along the lines of, “but we get presents right?”

While we will, indeed, be giving our kids presents on each night of Hanukkah, AND on Christmas, I also wanted to make sure that we take advantage of the opportunity for selflessness these holidays provide. I hope to teach my daughter, through encouraging her to take action, and by taking actions of my own, that the real joy of the holiday season comes from taking the time to give back to our loved ones, and our community.

My family doesn’t have a ton of giving-related Hanukkah traditions, so I decided to start one of my own this year. For each day of Hanukkah, my kids will be receiving a gift, but they will also be giving one–either in physical form, or through an act of service.

Below you will find an outline of this new tradition, which we have decided to call our “8 days of gratitude.” The goal is to complete one task during each of the 8 days of the Hanukkah, in no particular order. I will be coming back to this post throughout the week to update it with pictures of our projects and any helpful tips I’ve learned along the way. Let me know if you decide to join me in this lovely new tradition, and tag me in your projects if you end up being inspired by some of ours!

Day 1: Make a deliver home-made Menorahs to friends and family.

I discovered this activity through Marion of My Jewish Mommy Life. She featured it last week on her Instagram, and provides a full tutorial, including links to supplies on her Youtube channel. We plan on making two Menorahs, one for each of the other little girls in Margot’s preschool pod (both of whom also happen to celebrate Christmukkah).

Supplies:

Day 2: Deliver snacks to teachers at mom’s school

As many of you know, I was a middle school English teacher for 10 years, before the pandemic threw a wrench into my plans. When my kids’ school closed in March, and we started learning more about what the 2020-2021 school year would look like for me, my husband and I decided that it would be best for me to stay home with our kids and weather the storm as a family.

While I have really appreciated this time at home, there are a lot of things I miss about my job–my colleagues most of all. While teachers work their butts off every year, the challenges of teaching during a pandemic have really ratcheted it up a notch. I know that so many of my friends and colleagues in the classroom are feeling exhausted, underappreciated, and burnt out, and we’re not even half way through the year.

So, my daughter and I will be stopping by the middle school at which I used to teach with pre-made, individually-wrapped snacks in hand. While a surprise treat isn’t nearly enough of a thank-you for everything these truly incredible humans have been doing this year, it does let them know that they are seen, appreciated, and loved–even if it’s from afar.

Day 3: Banana Bread for Garbage Men and Mailman

We’ve all been making banana bread since March, right? So why not put it to good use? Both of my kids adore waving hello to the mailman and the garbage men (we have an alarm set to remind us of their impending arrival). And, even better, we’re lucky enough to be served my a mailman and garbage men who also love saying hello (with a honk and a wave) to the neighborhood kids.

While a lot of us had the opportunity to work from home at the beginning of this pandemic, our essential service men and women have been business as usual the entire time.

To say thank you for everything they do, and just for brightening our day, we plan on making them each a batch of this healthier Cookie and Kate banana bread. It’s a favorite in our house, and will hopefully be a welcome treat on a cold December day.

Day 4: Toy donation day!

Honestly guys, this is the one I’m most worried about. I have been frontloading my kids for a while now with the idea that Santa can only come deliver new toys if we make room by swapping out some of the old ones. My son is young enough that he doesn’t really care, but my daughter is at the perfect age to have a seriously problematic level of attachment to even the most broken, discarded, and unused of toys.

While the process is definitely going to be painful, I know that teaching my daughter how to let go, and experience the warm-and-fuzzy after-effects of generosity, will be more than worth it in the end. We plan on donating our used toys to Goodwill, as well as a local family in need.

Day 5: School supplies for M’s teacher (and Crayola menorah)

While neither of my kids have been to traditional school since the beginning of Covid, my daughter has been participating in a pre-school pod since the beginning of the school year. I feel truly blessed to have found this group of kids and parents, not to mention an out-of-this-world teacher.

To thank her for providing our kids with this little slice of normalcy, Margot and I will be making her a little Crayola marker Menorah, paired with a Michael’s gift card. I’ll come back to this post later to post a picture of the final product, as well as some brief directions for how to make your own.

Day 6: Beach Cleanup

This one is pretty self-explanatory. I live in southern California, mere blocks from the majestic Pacific ocean. It’s beautiful, but it’s oftentimes covered in garbage. One morning next week, the kids and I going to glove-up, and hunt for some trash on the beach. We’ll probably reward ourselves with a cup of cocoa on the way home as well.

The kids will also be receiving the book One Plastic Bag by Miranda Paul on the 6th Night of Hanukkah, which will hopefully help them reflect on their work that day, and it’s potential impact on the world.

Day 7: Orange garland for friends

Claire Wiley, of Home With the Wileys, made orange garlands on her Instagram last week, and I could basically smell them through the screen. I plan on making one for a close friend of mine who I haven’t had the chance to see much lately. You can find directions and pictures on Claire’s Instagram, or on this blog post from Henstooth Homestead. I will be posting mine later next week (assuming I don’t burn it all to a crisp).

Day 8: Send a special package to family on the front lines.

While my family has been riding out the pandemic at home, my older brother has been working like a dog on the front lines. As an ER doctor, he was pulled into the Covid tent early on in the crisis, and has recently moved back to working exclusively with Covid patients, due to the fact that cases are currently skyrocketing in Chicago. While he’s pretty chill about it, I know that it’s incredibly draining and emotional work. So, the kids and I will be doing what we probably should have done in March, and putting together a little care package for him! (Hint: it will probably include vitamins and wine…)

Happy Giving!

If you would like to follow along with our “8 Days of Gratitude,” I will be posting updates on Instagram (and in stories), throughout Hanukkah (which starts on the night of December 10th). You can follow me @thepaperdart, or check back in here at the end of the holiday for more pictures and updates on our work.

Self-love in my third, first trimester

When I was pregnant with my son, I remember coming across an instagram post, written by a woman who had been discriminated against by her employer because she was pregnant. In the picture, she was holding a letter board that read, “pregnancy is not a disability.” She went on to talk about how, 8.5 months into her pregnancy, she could still do absolutely everything she did before she got pregnant, with the same degree of vigor and effectiveness. She talked about how employers shouldn’t see her as less capable when, in fact, she was even more capable of being successful at work than her non-pregnant peers.

Firstly, I want to say that this woman is absolutely correct on one point: discrimination against pregnant women is a travesty, and something that will ultimately only ever hurt employers, and our society as a whole. But I also remember reading this and thinking to myself, “yikes! If that’s true, then what the heck is wrong with me?” Because if I’m being real, pregnant me can’t do work, or even life, just as well as non-pregnant me. In fact, pregnant me does most things much, much worse.

I have always been a pretty competitive, high-strung, and perfectionist-leaning person by nature. I think that these traits have served me well in some ways (in school, for instance), and not in others (those aren’t always the first things we look for in a friend). When I (finally) got pregnant with my first, I quickly convinced myself that I would be successful at both pregnancy and motherhood, even if it was through sheer force of will.

I found out I was pregnant with my daughter in late May of 2016. I was in the final semester of my Master’s program, and was planning on spending the summer working essentially one-on-one with my boss as part of my field work requirement. At the end of the summer, when I finally felt comfortable sharing my pregnancy with the world, I “surprised” my boss, and my summer co-workers, with the news. They all responded with some version of, “we knew.”

While I truly believe that all of these people care about me, and have my best-interests at heart, this response stung a little. I was the kind of person who could push through anything. Even if I couldn’t hide the fact that I was eating plain toast for lunch every day, I could hide the bouts of extreme nausea, wear enough makeup to conceal the dark circles under my eyes, and sneak away to the bathroom whenever I felt a like I was going to faint. But, according to everyone around me, it was obvious that I wasn’t my “normal,” self. I was slower, and more forgetful, and much less efficient with my work. Yet despite this “setback,” I powered through the remainder of that year, and left for maternity leave with a glowingly positive performance review.

When I was pregnant with my second, I realized that the pregnancy I had had with my daughter was a walk in the park. The second time around, I spent less of my first trimester on summer vacation, and more of it running out of class at odd intervals in order to puke in the trash can outside my door. The cherry on top was that the pregnancy was also high-risk, and the emotional toll it took on me was almost as stressful as the physical one. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was disabled, but I definitely was not the employee, mom, spouse, or friend that I wanted to be. The second time around, the reviews weren’t quite as positive, and I’m pretty sure my co-workers were ready for me to be done having babies.

I’m not saying any of this to garner pity from anyone. In fact, you shouldn’t pity me at all. I desperately wanted to have children and, despite the challenges I faced, I had a much easier time than a lot of women (including a lot of women I know) do. What I’m trying to say is that I found it impossible for pregnant me to live up to non-pregnant me’s standards. And while part of that involved coming to terms with the fact that I would not be able to give the same level of energy and attention to my job as I did when I was not pregnant, this also applied to other areas of my life.

This pregnancy (my third) has been different for me in a lot of ways, but the number one difference is that I’m not working. I am a full-time mom, who has the luxury of sleeping in until 6:30am (that’s a full hour and a half later than my work-day wakeup time), and playing with my adorable kiddos all day.

When I found out I was pregnant this past summer, I knew that it would probably be sick and tired again, but that it would be so much easier because I was home.

SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t.

While I spent two pregnancies coming to terms with my perceived inadequacy as a pregnant woman at work, I now faced another 9 months of coming to terms with my inadequacy as a pregnant stay-at-home mom. For the first 13.5 weeks of this pregnancy (and yes, I count every day), I was pretty miserable. This time around, I wasn’t quite as sick as I was with my second, but I was nauseous all day and all night. I could stomach nothing but carbs, and I was totally exhausted. I experienced a few of the near-fainting spells that also plagued me during my previous pregnancy, and my moods were far from “stable.”

But this time around, as I lay on my son’s bedroom floor, cradling a sleeve of saltine crackers and wincing as my kids played “doctor” to me (this always involves a disproportionate amount of time spent investigating the health of my eardrums…) I realized that while I no longer felt like I was disappointing my students, or their families, or my colleagues, I did feel like I was disappointing my own kids, and myself. And honestly, this felt a little worse.

For some reason, my head kept going back to that original instagram post, and I kept berating myself for all the things not-pregnant me would have been doing, that pregnant me was too “lazy” (read: sick and tired) to even dream of accomplishing. I wasn’t meal prepping, or planning art projects and homeschool activities for my daughter. I wasn’t taking the kids on hikes, or to the beach as much as I should have. And I didn’t want to see my friends, or my kids’ friends, because I didn’t have the energy to hold down a conversation.

There was also the vain component of it all, wherein I felt like I was letting myself and my body down, since I have gained well beyond the suggested “5 pounds” of first trimester weight, largely thanks to my steady diet of crackers, mac and cheese, and ice cream.

One evening, as I was watching my daughter shriek the lyrics to the Frozen II soundtrack while wallowing in nausea and self-pity, I decided that I was sick and tired of allowing myself to feel feelings that I would never in a million years wish upon my own kids. I imagined my daughter, years from now, starting a family of her own, and complaining to me about how she felt less-than, and overwhelmed by the idea of “doing it all.” I imagined what I would tell her, and a quote that my therapist once told me came quickly to mind: “Your value is not determined by what you do. You are inherently valuable outside of your work.”

While there are some women who thrive in pregnancy, there are even more who don’t, and that doesn’t make one group of us better than the other. Just because I have floundered during the first trimesters of all three of my pregnancies, that does not make current me any less-than the past, much more productive versions of myself.

There’s a book that I love to read to my daughter, called I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont, and it’s all about a little girl repeatedly affirming her unconditional love for herself, weird bits and all. At one point in the book, the little girl says, “Even when I look a mess, I still don’t like me any less, ’cause nothing in this world you know, can change what’s deep inside, and so…”

I truly believe that sometimes these kid’s books are put in my life for a reason, and are meant more as a reminder for me, than a lesson for my daughter, because this little girl’s insistence on unconditional self-love is exactly what I need in my life right now.

Even though my clothes don’t fit, and my house is a mess, and we’re having frozen pizza for dinner again, I am still valuable, and worthy, and a good mom. And as I emerge from the fog of this (hopefully) last, first trimester, I hope to continue to remind myself every day that the best I do that day, is good enough, and that even if I feel like I’ve failed at basically everything, the only thing that really matters is that I let it go, and continue to speak to myself with the love and understanding I always deserve.

Reflections of a Teacher Turned Stay-At-Home-Mom

The pandemic turned me into a stay-at-home-mom, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

This past week was hard. My son, now almost 19 months old, is still in the midst of a seemingly never-ending sleep regression. Not only was is he refusing to go to bed, but he has also figured out how to climb out of his crib—in his sleep-sack no less. For his own safety, and as something of a last-ditch effort to encourage him to sleep independently, we transitioned him from a crib, to a toddler bed. While we are now able to put him to bed, lock the baby gate, and enjoy a relatively quiet, child-free moment in the living room, he still putters around him room until about 9 p.m., “reading” books, and singing about trucks.

Had this scenario happened last year, I would probably have thrown in the towel around 7 p.m. I would have placed the squirmy toddler in Dan’s lap, grabbed my backpack and laptop and announced that I was off the clock. Last year, when I was teaching full-time, the post-bedtime evening hours were crucial. I had to make sure lessons were prepped, grading was finished, and my email inbox was cleared out. It was stressful, no doubt, and I didn’t always want to crack the computer back open, but it was also somewhat freeing. There was a clear line in the sand where my “mothering” duties ended, and my breadwinner responsibilities began. I could clock out of one job and into another without feeling guilty, and never (read: rarely) resented my husband, Dan, when he did the same.

During the years when I was a working mother, Dan and I engaged in many a crucial conversation concerning how we could carve out a relatively egalitarian division of responsibilities at home. While this may be an unpopular opinion, I believe that there are fundamental differences in the ways in which men’s and women’s brains work—especially when it comes to planning and preparing household tasks. Figuring out how to work around these differences, and make sure that we both felt appreciated and seen, was not easy, but I think we did pretty good job of it.

But when the roles suddenly shifted, I had a difficult time figuring out what needed to change, and what didn’t. Parenting small children is a full-time job. It’s also the kind of job where you can feel like you are racing from task to task all day, working harder than you ever worked at your “real” job, only to find that it’s 5 p.m., your child is crying, you never did get to that mounting pile of laundry, and the kitchen is definitely not clean enough to cook dinner in.

This week, as I lay on my son’s floor at 8 p.m. (because, having spent every hour of the last six months with “mama,” no one else would do), I thought a lot about the boundaries I used to have. While I am filled with absolute gratitude for the fact that Dan is able to support our family in this incredibly difficult time, and that I get to snuggle my baby to sleep at night without worrying about answering emails or grading papers, and that I don’t have to deal with the myriad of completely unreasonable demands being placed on classroom teachers right now, I also feel a little bit lost.

I miss being able to kiss my children goodbye, and know that they are going to be loved, challenged, and well-cared for by their daycare teachers. I miss stopping at the Starbucks drive-through on my way to work, and treating myself to a latte with money that I earned myself. I miss chatting with other adults in the teacher’s lounge while I make copies in the morning. I miss teaching, and putting my three, well-earned degrees to use. I miss picking my kids up at the end of the day, and smothering them with kisses, and feeling recharged enough to be truly engaged in their nonsense stories about things they may or may not have actually done that day.   

I don’t say any of this to romanticize what it’s like to be a working mother. In fact, some of the major differences I have noticed since not going back to work, are that I have a much better handle on my anxiety, I sleep better, and I feel like I have only one job (albeit one that never ends), as opposed to two. In many ways, I found being a working mother, especially in the field of education, totally unsustainable. But I still wish there was a middle ground: a place where I could do both, and not feel like I was constantly struggling to breathe.

I read an amazing book recently, called To Have And To Hold, by Molly Millwood, and would recommend it to any mother, but particularly those who are grappling with work-life balance, and the sharing of responsibilities at home. Millwood is a mother, and a therapist, who has spent her career working with couples, and new mothers. Her honesty about the reality of parenting and the effect it can have on a couple’s relationship is so refreshing, and made me feel validated in seen in so many of the experiences I have had over the past several years.

In the chapter entitled “It Takes A Village to Raise a Mother,” Millwood talks about the system the U.S. government set up in 1945 to support mothers who had to go back to work while their husbands were at war. She talks about the “multipurpose centers” where women could drop off their children, AND THEIR LAUNDRY, on their way to work, and then return to pick up, not only their children and clean laundry, but also a home-cooked meal. To be totally honest, I cried when I read this. As most mothers know, working or not, this scenario is an absolute dream.

Millwood’s contention is that, as working motherhood has become more of a norm, our society has begun to view it as “normal,” and even “desirable.” Thus, we have also come to see working motherhood as something inherently sustainable: If so many other mothers do it, why can’t you?

However, Millwood also says that “there remains a significant discrepancy between mother and father in terms of how much the baby occupies mental and emotional space.” While mothers may find freedom and fulfillment in going to work, they aren’t necessarily letting go of a disproportionate level of responsibility for their children, and this can often lead to feelings of overwhelm and resentment.

Basically, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, and despite the fact that I read books about these issues, journal about them, and engage in deep conversations with my friends and family, I still don’t really know what the right answer is. At the current moment, I am filled with gratitude for this time with my children, but I also can’t really imagine not going back to work. A part of me wishes I was in the classroom, but an even bigger part knows that the stress of it would be (and was), detrimental to my physical and emotional health.

What I do know, however, is that something needs to change. Women run the world; honestly, and truly we do. Men may make more money, and are in more positions of power, but women do literally everything else. It’s about time that society, employers, our government, and all the people who depend on both the paid and unpaid work of women take a closer look at the current system and the ways in which it’s failing us, before this pandemic, and our culture in general, turns the conundrum of modern womanhood into an absolute crisis.

If you are feeling similarly, I am an open book, and am ALWAYS willing to chat. My DMs are open @thepaperdart, or you can leave a comment below. And if you are a mother, or know a mother who is struggling, I cannot recommend Millwood’s book enough. You can purchase it from the link below, or find it at my bookshop.org page.

Happy reading, happy mothering, and happy everything else you do.

XO, Katherine

The Book: Click to Purchase

The Paper Dart

Yosemite National Park With Toddlers

In mid-June of 2020, my family made the trek from Southern California to Yosemite National Park for a relatively short-notice family vacation. If you’re unfamiliar with it’s location, Yosemite is about 3 hours east of San Francisco, 5 hours north-east of Los Angles, and 3000 miles from anywhere when you have two toddlers in the car (JK! The drive wasn’t that bad).

Dan and I visited Yosemite a few times when we were in our 20’s, once during the summer, and once during the fall. I would highly recommend both, and would also love to visit in the winter to test out some of the incredible cross-country skiing trails and snow tubing runs.

We probably never would have done this trip had it not been for Covid (silver lining alert!), as we had to cancel our annual summer trip to my parent’s house in Chicago when it became apparent that flying was too risky. We still wanted to enjoy our time off, and Yosemite seemed like the perfect, socially-distant destination.

Despite all of the restaurants being closed, and the toddlers refusing to sleep in their own beds, it was a really incredible trip. The scenery in Yosemite is unlike anything else in the world, and the entertainment value my kids provided when they screamed at deer, or hugged giant sequoias for the first time can’t be beat.

In this post, I’m going to break down where we stayed, what we did, and how we scheduled our days during our most recent visit. I’m also going to write a bit about what we plan on doing next time (because we are definitely going back), and what we would have done had we not been in the midst of a global pandemic.

Where We Stayed:

We stayed at this Airbnb in Fish Camp, which is about an hour south of the Yosemite Valley. If you look on a map, the town might appear closer to the park than that, since the southern park entrance at Wawona is only about 7 minutes away. However, once you enter the park from the south end, you have another 50 minute’s drive to the valley itself, which is where you’ll find all the best hikes and vistas. We really loved this rental, as it was kid-friendly (equipped with a high-chair, toddler bed, lawn games, and baby gate for the stairs) and had a nice, recently-remodeled kitchen for us to cook breakfast and dinner in.

We chose to stay in Fish Camp since most of the lodging in the park was closed, and we were driving in from the south. There are three other entrances to the park, and you would most likely use a different one if you were driving in from San Francisco (Arch Rock Entrance or Big Oak Flat Entrance) or from somewhere to the east (Tioga Pass Entrance). If you’re visiting in the winter, it’s best to check for closures before you plan your drive, as some of these roads are seasonal.

On our next visit, we would consider staying at the Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite, which is also in Fish Camp, but was temporarily closed during our stay. Some of the locals we met gave this place rave reviews, and it offers more of a resort experience, with hotel room or cabin options, as well as a pool, spa and restaurant.

Must-See Attractions:

Bridalveil Fall Trail:

Hiking around this waterfall was probably my favorite experience of the trip. The trail-head begins right in the center of the valley, where Wawona Road and Southside Drive converge. You can park on the side of the road, and it’s a quick walk across the prairie to the base of the falls.

The whole trail is about .5 miles and is marked as “easy.” The trail was actually closed for maintenance when we arrived, so we spent the morning scrambling up the side of the lower falls (you might have to carry the littlest of littles, but it’s not very steep) to a relatively calm pool overlooking a slightly deeper one, into which some thrill-seeking teens were jumping (this is where you avert your child’s eyes so they don’t get any ideas).

My kids loved climbing around on the rocks and wading in the freezing water. From our perch, we could look up to the top of the falls and, when we got a good breeze, we were blanketed in mist. The experience was definitely supervision-heavy (you can’t exactly look away when your kids are playing in a waterfall), but totally worth it.

Lower Yosemite Fall Trail:

  • Lower Yosemite Falls

This is one of the most popular, and easily-accessible hikes in the park. It’s about a mile long, and stroller accessible. This hike is a little further into the park, just north of the Yosemite Valley Lodge. The trail was easy for my kids to walk, and they enjoyed stopping for a snack by the river. The view of the falls was incredible and its an amazing spot to stop for a family photo. (Which we would have done had we not been so scared of germs that we couldn’t bring ourselves to hand a phone over to a stranger…)

Since we were visiting during the pandemic, the park was nowhere near full capacity, and the shuttle bus wasn’t running. So, we were able to park at the bus stop and walk right in. However, if you plan on visiting during more normal times, it would probably be smarter to shuttle here, as there isn’t a lot of parking nearby. This map outlines where the shuttle runs in the park, as well as where you can park your car and hop on.

THE RIVER!

I knew there was a river running through the Yosemite Valley, because I had visited before. I also thought that the river was what had initially formed the valley, but a booklet I acquired at the gift shop (which was targeted at elementary-aged kids), informed me that the valley was actually formed by glacial activity.

Regardless, and despite my loose “knowledge” of said river, I didn’t really think about it as an “attraction,” when planning our trip. However, in typical family trip fashion, it ended up becoming THE attraction for my kids.

  • Sentinel Beach

On our first day, we stopped at Sentinel Beach for lunch, and ended up staying for hours. There was a sandy beach for resting, and the river was cool, and slow-flowing. We collected rocks, chased butterflies, and watched some fly-fishermen at work. We didn’t bring bathing suits, so we let the kids play in their birthday suits and the hubs and I tried our best not to get completely soaked.

  • Cathedral Beach

The next day, we came armed with towels and bathing suits and stopped at Cathedral Beach. The views at both spots were incredible, but this one really took the cake. Max and I took a nap on the beach while Dan and Margot forded the river, chased some ducks, and entered into an impromptu “log rolling” competition with some local kids. If I had to ask Margot what her favorite part of the trip was, this would definitely be it.

What We’d Do Differently:

River Tubing

The next time we visit Yosemite, I definitely plan on spending a day tubing down the river. During both afternoons that we spent at the beach, we saw tons of families floating by on tubes and rafts having what looked like one heck of a time.

When the kids are older (they have to each be over 50lbs), I plan on looking into the Curry Village Raft Rentals. Families can rent a raft, and schedule a driver to pick them up at the end of the run. The season to do this is short (only late June – August), and it’s best to call beforehand to make sure conditions are still good (when the snow pack is gone, so is the river).

I would also consider buying my own river tubes (like these ones from Amazon) and floating without a guide or ride. Several families we met had taken this route, largely due to the fact that raft rentals and shuttle buses were in short supply. Some of the families we chatted with had left their bikes at the end of the float, hiked up-river all day, and then spent the afternoon floating back. Another group had been dropped off up-river by grandpa, and he planned on meeting them with the car several miles away. Floating on your own definitely takes some planning and creativity, but it’s also pretty idyllic.

Lodging Options

It’s a dream of mine to one day stay at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley. This hotel is a historic landmark, and is absolutely stunning. It is rustic and elegant and the views are unreal. The rooms are a little pricey (starting in the $300s), but you get what you pay for in terms of location and accessibility. But a word of warning: this hotel needs to be booked way in advance, as it tends to fill up for the summer pretty quickly, oftentimes with repeat visitors.

If you’re looking for more rustic lodgings, there are a ton of interesting camping options in the valley as well. On one of our hikes, we passed through Curry Village, which offers some basic hotel rooms, cabins, or platform tent rentals. I think we’re going to look into a cabin here for our next trip, and would consider the tents, had a family of campers not let us know that the village can get a little noisy at night, and the tent’s walls are made of, well, canvas. (Prices start in the high $100s.)

Biking:

I didn’t realize how bike-friendly the Yosemite Valley really is until I visited this time around. This was probably because we didn’t bring a stroller, and my kids complained about walking A LOT, so I was very envious of all the biking families whose kids were tucked safely (and quietly) into trailers.

There’s a 12-mile paved trail that runs up and down the center of the valley, as well as Exchequer Mountain Bike Park (for mountain bikers, obviously) and Stockton Creek Preserve Bike trails.

We were gifted the Burley Bee bike trailer by some friends a while back, and it would have been perfect for this trip. If we make it back before the kids outgrow this trailer, we will definitely be bringing it, along with our bikes, and maybe some headphones.

Take A Look, It’s In A Book!

If you can’t make it to Yosemite anytime soon, but still want to bask in it’s beauty or learn about it’s historic and ecological significance, I’ve linked a few books (all of which we own and love) about Yosemite, and the people and animals who call(ed) it home.

As always, thanks for reading and let me know in the comments which national park we should visit next!

The Books (Click to Purchase):

What My Kids Are Reading: Seeds and Trees

Seeds and Trees by Brandon Walden is about a young prince who receives “seeds” from all of the people he speaks to in a day. Sometimes the seeds are green, and sometimes they are black, depending on whether the words exchanged were kind or not.

Every day, the prince goes into his forest, plants his seeds and tends to his trees. Since he doesn’t know that he has the power to do otherwise, the prince cares for the good and bad trees equally. Eventually, the young prince grows into a man, and his seeds grow into a forest of beautiful green trees, and ominous dark trees. The more he tends to them both, the more the prince begins to realize that the dark trees seem to be having a deleterious effect on the others.

When I taught 8th grade (I now teach 7th), my class always read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson, which is a story about dual identities, as well as the essential roles good and evil play in our everyday lives. Before I taught this book, I always thought of Jekyll as an “evil” character who chose to turn himself into a monster. However, in the novel, Stevenson’s Jekyll is actually a pretty sympathetic guy. He, like of all us, is just trying to figure out how to temper the evil impulses he recognizes, and dislikes, in himself. In the novel, he hates the fact that he feels the temptation to be bad, so he separates that part of himself from the good, only to find that the two can’t exist untethered to one another.

When introducing this book, we always read the Cherokee Legend of “The Two Wolves.” In this story, a grandfather tells his grandson that everyone has “two wolves” inside of him/her: a good one, and a bad one. There is no avoiding this fact, and no way to get rid of the bad one entirely. However, the grandfather says we can control which wolf has more power over our lives by deciding who to “feed” with our attention, and daily actions.

In all of these stories, the first thing that sticks out to me is the inevitability of “evil”: in the world, in ourselves, and in the actions of others. In Seeds and Trees, preventing the seeds from being handed out in the first place is never an option. These characters seem to know full well how futile it would be to try and control what other people choose to contribute to the world. I also like to think of this story, not just in terms of the battle between “good” and “evil,” but in terms of all of the “helpful” and “harmful” habits we all develop when learning how to interact with the world, and other people.

For example, I have always lived with a pretty high level of anxiety. I have spent a lot of my life feeding into my fears and living the worst case scenarios before they ever happen. At times, I have let anxiety take a toll on my friendships, my work, and even my health.

As I mentioned in a previous post, when my son, Max, was five weeks old, he came down with a bad virus, which turned into meningitis and landed us in the PICU. At the time, I was already in the throes of my “normal” postpartum anxiety, so Max’s illness, and the resulting total lack of sleep, really put me over the edge. I told myself that the only way to keep him safe, was to keep “feeding” the anxiety. I thought that I could only be the best advocate for my son if I stayed hyper-alert and on-edge. I had to watch everyone, and everything, even in the middle of the night. If I let my guard down, the worst would surely happen.

After Max recovered, the effects of this mentality still lingered. A few weeks later, I was sitting in my therapist’s office, telling her that I just couldn’t shake the lingering fear. It had been two weeks since our hospital stay, and I had pulled my daughter out of school, committed to an insane daily cleaning regimen and avoided other people like the plague. I felt like I had failed my son once by letting him get sick, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again.

My therapist considered this and replied with something along these lines: She told me that I could choose to view the future with fear, or I could choose to use the past to empower me going forward. Instead of being afraid that it would happen again, I could look at Max’s illness as the success story that it was. I could give myself credit for facing the problem head on, dealing with it, and coming out on top. I could tell myself that we had survived it once, and now knew, for sure, that we could survive it again.

At this point, I was so accustomed to feeding into my fears and anxieties that I hadn’t even considered the alternative: that, instead of fear, I could feed hope instead.

In Walden’s book, the prince doesn’t realize what he’s doing when he wanders around his forest, tending to his evil trees. He thinks he has to accept both types of seeds (the good and the bad) and give his heart to them equally. He doesn’t see how insidious the bad seeds are, because its their roots that are doing the real damage, strangling the good trees in secret, from below.

In Jeckyll and Hyde, Jekyll thinks that, if he separates his “bad” self from his “good” one, the good will be allowed to thrive on its own. However, in doing so, he ends up spending so much time in his evil persona that he almost entirely forgets to feed his “good,” allowing it to whither, die, and trap him in the bad.

Today, we are all living through a time where it is easy to allow ourselves to constantly give in to feeding our fears and anxieties. This past week, I have been looking into childcare options for when I go back to work in the fall, and all of them feel scary. Many days, I have found myself back in the same self-destructive patterns of imagining the worst case scenarios, and how they would all be my fault if, and when, they came into fruition.

At the end of Seeds and Trees, the prince’s friend (strong female hero alert!), open’s the prince’s eyes to the error of his ways, and brings him the tools he needs to start combating the negativity that he has allowed himself to sow in his own life. This friend helps the prince cut down the bad trees, dig their roots out of the earth, and throw any remaining seeds of negativity out into the ocean where they belong.

So I guess the lesson here is that, to be as successful as the prince was in the end, I need to be aware of how I am tending to my own garden. I need to be conscious of what I read, who I listen to, and what feelings I hold on to. But this book also reminds me that I can’t really do all this alone.

In times of anxiety, especially ones which require us to be so isolated from one another (like right now, for example), it is so important for us to reach out (to friends, family, professionals, etc). When we get trapped in our own heads, we are sometimes blind to the ways in which the thoughts we think are protecting us, are actually harming us. It was not until the prince in Seeds and Trees saw himself through his friend’s eyes that he realized how crazy he had been to water his bad seeds, and what he had to do to fix it.

Even in this time when we can’t be with each other in person, we need to be there for each other as best we can. We need to help each other weed out the negativity and fear we are being bombarded with on a daily basis, and try our best to grow something beautiful in spite of it.

Let me know in the comments what you guys are doing these days to “tend to your gardens,” and check out the links below to find the books.

The Books (Click to Purchase):

Where to next?