Well Mrs. Bossy Pants... how are you doing today? I can poke fun at Mrs. Bossy Pants, because she is my base temperament.  As I have gotten older, I have mellowed a LOT. However... back me up against the wall and I will become Mrs. Bossy Pants to protect myself!

Mrs. Bossy Pants generally likes to be in control... prefers complete control, but will settle for partial control if she must.  She doesn't often work well with other Mrs. Bossies unless the other ones are completely competent and know what they are doing.  Then this mama can kick back a bit because she can trust another leader.  Mrs. Bossy Pants probably started planning for the new school year at least six months early and if she didn't, she will make it a priority to take a weekend and get it done.  She knows how to get things done.  She is a doer.  Being a doer is a GREAT thing!  She loves check lists and gets glee in marking things finished.

Sometimes my parenting backfires.
Does that ever happen to you?
Do you ever just start talking and somehow the wrong words are coming out and you are not sure how to stop them? 
I don't need to be perfect to be a good mom. Neither do you.

An example of my resident phlegmatic, Super Sam. Asks for his piece of comfort. He would like a full belly and a good television show. (GASP! Yes, TV!) For the phlegmatic child, no amount of TV is generally enough. It isn't that they are lazy, it is that they seek comfort. Older phlegmatic children and adults will often want to curl up with a book or even a book on tape. As a mom with children of all temperaments, I have to say that the phlegmatic is probably the most calm, most pleasant, most even tempered child to parent. UNLESS. Unless you need to go somewhere. Unless you need them to hurry up. Unless you need them to eat their breakfast so you can get out the door. Unless you have to be across town in ten minutes and they can't find their shoes or worse they know where their shoes are but they haven't even started putting them on and you asked them to do it ten minutes ago and can't they see you are in a hurry?! Then they look up at you with the sweetest eyes and tears are...

In our series Crafting a Healthy Home Rhythm, I discussed mental health as an important aspect of  having a healthy rhythm and home life for your family.  Temperament is part of that mental health.  Temperament isn't something that Steiner invented, although today his work and the work that goes with Waldorf education is probably the most popular use of it.  When we read about temperament, we are usually reading about it for the children.  Most resources are written for the teacher to apply in the classroom and therefore have us as parents focusing our work completely on the child's temperament.  I believe this is very backward. My guess is that in Waldorf teacher training, they spend some time on this part of adult biography in their foundation studies, so the literature that is written, often assumes that the the adult has done this work for themselves or is at the very least working on it. Most parents are not in this position and generally only come...

Hopefully you have had a little time to contemplate how you want your home to feel.  Now lets talk a bit more about how to get it that way. One big hot button for me is the decline of morality in our society. Things that would have never been ok twenty years ago seem to be ok now and it spills over into our parenting.  

As our children are tiny (0-5) some of the best things we can do is just remove them from the situation - even if we don't want to leave.  I have left the store... restaurants... friend's homes... so many times, but I sent one message "your behavior isn't appropriate, we are leaving."  There is nothing more irritating than leaving a cart of groceries, lol... well there is something more irritating... a child that is out of control!  Sam  learned this lesson well, lol, he reminded the big kids as we walked into the grocery store "Mommy said I can have a pear on the way home, please don't get crazy or she won't buy the pear!" He was 5...

I remember the first time Erik met the big kids, a few months before we married. I just had Jacob and Ellie with me that day and they were 4 and 6 years old at the time.  Those two were a handful at those ages. I couldn't take my eyes off of them for a second, especially not Jacob and Ellie just followed him everywhere. The evening is still etched in my memory as if it were yesterday. Erik needed something at a big box store and then we had planned to take the children out to dinner at a pizza place that had one of those fun arcades. The entire dinner was contingent on me not needing to fight with the children or chasing them.  I made the rules very clear to them before walking into the big box store, I remember thinking in the back of my head that I loved this man and I really wanted him to see that the children were not nuts! lol. I was very nervous.  We entered the store and I gave my usual talk "if you walk by my side then you don't have to ride in the cart." Both...

The Fluff.  What exactly is the fluff?  The fluff is what draws a lot of mamas to Waldorf.  It is the cute stuff.  The stuff that makes us want to be a kid again.  The toys.  The sweet dinner time verses.  The bedtime rituals.  The birthday ring.  The play silks. The fairies.  The gnomes.  The fluff.  It is good stuff!  I love the fluff.  Through the years, the fluff has changed in my home, as it will in yours.  The one thing I came to realize in wrestling my own rhythm was that the fluff had to be secondary.  Steiner didn't talk about the fluff.  The fluff wasn't the soul changing element in our children.  The fluff wasn't what he said would help them live strong, healthy lives.  It is just fluff. Beautiful, awesome, wonderful, yummy fluff.  There are Pinterest boards and blogs dedicated to the fluff.  There are books dedicated to the fluff.  There is no shortage of ways...

Hopefully you have been keeping up with our series and by now you know that rhythm is much more than just painting on a certain day and going to the market on a certain day. Rhythm is the foundation for living. It defines who you are, how you respond to things and also how you are raising your children. Your rhythm will probably look pretty different than mine - it should - mine can be a guide as you get started, but over time you should create your own. This helps you to own it, love it and most of all uphold it! It will likely change as your family changes, this keeps it from getting stale but also helps you to tailor it to your family.

Today, I want you to grab a pen and paper. Better yet, get a pencil. Do you have one that you love? I am an office supply nerd. I love things that are just MINE :) Pretty paper. Awesome pen & pencil. Good stuff. 

First, make a list of all the chores you need to get done, big and small. I am here to tell you that you may NOT wait until your...

This one is tough.  Mental health.  What does that mean exactly?

Good mental health doesn't mean that you don't have bad days.  It doesn't mean you are the perfect mother.  It doesn't mean even than you are medication free. Good mental health starts with being a proactive participant in your own care.  It means knowing when to get help.  It means allowing yourself to feel pain.  It also means knowing how to not throw poo.  Let's talk about poo.  If you are new to our work then you might be pretty grossed out - stick with me.  Poo is gross.  If it gets on you then you can't wait to get it off.  It stinks.  It stains. It is the last thing that we want on us, our shoes, our clothes... what about our loved ones?  We don't like them to have poo on them either. Poo can come in many forms.  I am talking about emotional poo.  Emotional poo is the stuff that comes out when we aren't taking good mental care of...