One of the biggest takeaways from my Montessori training course way back in 2004-05 was the concept of benign neglect. Benign neglect describes the moment when we are just hands-off enough to give our children the space, time and freedom necessary for exploration, curiosity and learning -  without it being unsafe in any way. Our lecturer gave an example of a little baby she had seen on the bus several days prior. The baby's mom was sitting with her baby on her lap, deep in thought staring out the window, and while the mother zoned out, her baby leaned forward and starting mouthing the pole just in front of their seat. Germophobes might not consider this benign neglect, but a baby's way of understanding the world is to put things in their mouth, something adults are always stopping them from doing. Most of the time, this is necessary and protects the child from choking or other harm. But in this case, without the mom's interference, the baby was able to explore and learn and it probably did not result in any harm later. Make sense?

For the last two or three months, I have had so many moms at work, or school pick-up, or at the park ask me which camps and activities we've signed our kids up for this summer. Without fail they all gasp when I reply that we haven't signed them up for any! Even other couples who are both in education and therefore are both home all summer long are amazed that we don't have our kids fully booked. "Everything is filling up!" they say, "August will be smoky and you don't want to be stuck at home entertaining your kids!" is another popular one. "Kids get so bored in the summer - save yourself!" is another common refrain.

Usually I keep my mouth shut, because I don't want to be that "Montessori mom" who deprives her children in other people's eyes, but finally I just said to a mom last week that I want my kids to be bored in the summer. She looked a little concerned, so I went on to explain that children need to have huge chunks of unstructured, unscheduled time during which adults are not facilitating and dictating their every move, or activity, or idea. This boredom is the only way a child human being can learn to listen to the whispers of intrinsic motivation inside their own brain and soul and begin to discover their own interests. Research on Theta brainwaves, the state that our minds enter into when we're meditating, or in flow, shows that children from 0-7 are almost constantly in a Theta state in their brains. That means this is the most powerful time in one's life to discover and learn and get to know oneself, a task made impossible by too much adult interference and direction.

In the photo above, J had taken Coco and Theo on a hike and set up the hammock. He lay in the hammock and read a book while Coco and Theo found themselves with nothing to do. As frequent recipients of benign neglect, they got down to business without prompting and concocted a game of sticks and twigs that, while incomprehensible to any adult within earshot, was riveting and compelling to them. They focused their full attention on their game and had a great time for nearly an hour until it was time to go and J snapped this photo.

In the article, "Why Free Play is the Best Summer School," from the June 2014 issue of The Atlantic, author Jessica Lahey writes,

Unscheduled, unsupervised, playtime is one of the most valuable educational opportunities we give our children. It is fertile ground; the place where children strengthen social bonds, build emotional maturity, develop cognitive skills, and shore up their physical health.

I could not agree more. In interviews, David Lynch often credits his early childhood in Spokane, which was filled with wandering around the Ponderosas, daydreaming, as a huge source of his creativity. And he has devoted himself to transcendental meditation, which mimics the Theta brain state of early childhood, boosting creativity and imagination. This is not a coincidence.

It's not always easy to provide this beneficial boredom for children. Sometimes on the weekends, once J and I are up and have turned off the television and confiscated the iPad (parents have got to sleep, you know?!;) Coco and Theo will whine and moan and gripe that they have nothing to do. We acknowledge that it's true that they have nothing to do and then suggest that they find something to do. Sometimes the whining goes on for a long time. It feels like forever because it's hard to listen to and really annoying. But we stay the course! It's a matter of staying consistent and forcing them to push through the boredom and into flow. They find flow in drawing and clay, puttering around the garden, Legos, and blocks. Theo is a huge fan of walking around the backyard singing and looking up at the trees. Coco gets completely absorbed in dollhouse play. And once, when she was a baby, she played with a single blade of grass with such intensity and focus for over half an hour.

This is not to say that we don't do things together, like bake cookies, or watch movies, or dye Easter eggs with our kids. We do. In those activities, we are the adults in charge, facilitating and directing our children. But I definitely do not see it as my job to do those things all the time, or to keep my children entertained. Quite the opposite! This summer, my children will be bored, and it will be good for them.

What's your approach to summer - free play and boredom, or scheduled and planned-out activities? Why do you do summer the way you do?

I have this gorgeous photo of Zurich as the wallpaper on my monitors at work. My two favorite parts about it are the archway in the pink building, lower right, that I've walked through so many times. And the little tiny dock on the river in front of the large salmon colored building on the opposite bank, more or less in the center of the photo. The other day, my friend Kate posted a photo in her stories taken from that dock, showing the church towers from which this photo was taken. It made me laugh to think that I was up in the church tower waving down to her since I’ve grown so accustomed to looking at this view every day. ;) Lately I've been missing Zurich terribly. I'm enjoying Spokane and springtime and lilacs (and the lack of hayfever!) but I still miss Zurich. I really did leave my heart there.

Do you have any big plans this weekend? An outdoor pizza party we were invited to has been rescheduled due to the insane rainstorm that came through yesterday. I have never seen rain like that in the Northwest! It was on the same level as rains that caused flash flooding the summer I was in Maryland finishing up my Masters before I moved to Switzerland the first time. So, in the absence of a pizza party, I think we're going to clean all day tomorrow and make Pavlova and do a movie night!

I hope you have a brilliant weekend, and here are some links for you.

Please vote for Swiss Lark in this blog contest! And thank you to whoever nominated me. :)

A comical look at the flooding down the hill from our house. Ha!! (I love it when I see the Spokane Boat Car;)

The perfect rainy weekend recipe.

I tried this exfoliating treatment mask last night and loved it! More in my Insta stories.

Such sad news for the climbing world, and Spokane.

Although houseplants grow and require care, they are neither as demanding nor as costly as pets or children.

Motherhood. (Read her original caption - link might transport you to the middle of the comments:)

This.

I kinda think we might need to do this...

LOL!

See you back here next week!

but you also probably over-share a teensy bit less. Also you probably have slightly better taste in music. To know what you narrowly escaped on either side, embark on this sensory reproduction of the life of Gen X and read true millennial Caity Weaver's experience of living in 1994.

As much as I do not like being called a Millennial (let alone a really old Millennial), I am totally fine with what the New York Times dubs an Xennial. They explain that "Like water on the rock," life has worn us Xennials down. We're not fully mired in existential angst like the Gen-Xers, but this also isn't our first rodeo. Caustic and ironic both sound good to me! As does being "a smidge more practical and a smidge less idealistic." I would say I "over-share a teensy bit less" and "have slightly better taste in music." Key word being slightly. We'll get to that;)

I know so many people born in 1978 and 1979 who are so boastful and proud of not being Millennials. But I'm over here writing my blog and doing tons of Instagram stories, and saying things like "totes" and I cannot deny that I am really, unabashedly in love with many a Justin Bieber (and Katy Perry) song. So how can I deny that I am an Xennial - or just a really old Millennial?! Oof.

Since posting the photo of my computer screen (seems like more of a Gen-X move than Millennial move to take a photo of a screen, don't you think?) on my Instagram stories (definitely a Millennial move!) I got a bunch of DMs from proud friends who scored as Gen-X adjacent, not Xennial. I felt a tinge of jealousy. I mean, come on! I had the cK one ad I had torn from a magazine hanging on my bedroom wall in the 90s. I actually still have that Sony phone that was used in the first photo of the quiz! I had The Bangles "Eternal Flame" on a cassingle, and I still love Temple of the Dog. I went to Lollapalooza for goodness sake!

Naturally, I did what any anxiety-ridden Millennial would do, and I went back and re-took the quiz, changing the one answer that I was on the fence about. Did they mean my parent's and my childhood best friend's current phone numbers? Or, did they mean do I remember my childhood best friend's number from childhood?! Because I do remember Katie and Sinead's childhood numbers. I'm pretty sure Kate's parents (she gave up Katie after college;) still have that number. If they still have a landline, which maybe they do - or don't. Hmmm, they did move a couple years ago...But! The point is that that one answer pushed me into Gen-X Adjacent territory and I was free to wave the Gen-X flag loud and proud!

Except that I wasn't. Because I do not, and never did, have the number for Poison Control memorized. Does remembering Mr. Yuck stickers count?! Can you young Millennials remember those?! Take a look - and while you're there, notice how easy that Poison Control number is. Also, apparently it's Mr. Yuk (no c) and should I be concerned that we're not using these with our own kids?! Hashtag Xennial.

Sigh. There's no denying that I really am just an old Millennial. Have you taken the quiz? Share your results in the comments below. And by all means, feel free to boast and brag. I'll console myself by double-screening, doing Instagram stories in front of Seinfeld on Hulu later. I would call them Seinfeld re-runs except I never saw the first run! It's all new to me. LOL! Like I said to my sister at the very beginning, the struggle is real.

At the Wilson Carnival, Theo won a fish! Well, he didn’t really win a fish, but he tried so hard - twice! - to win a fish that a girl who did win a fish and felt sorry for him gave him her fish. (Later I learned that was a very smart move on her part, but for the moment, we were so excited to have a new fish!) We got that fish home, aptly named “Goldie” by Theo, and for the first couple of nights, put him in a big wide water pitcher. He seemed happy enough and the kids fed him a little pinch of the goldfish food he had come with each morning. Friends assured me that having a filtered tank was a must given the level of muck and yuck and goldfish produce, and they were right! So the kids and I took off to Petco one day and got a little tiny tank. We also bought more goldfish food; and a little net for catching the fish; and gravel for the bottom; and a rock decoration thingy with fake plants attached. And by the time we had gotten out of there, we had spent way more money than seems reasonable on a two-inch fish. But, sigh. Such is life.

No sooner did we get Goldie into his (her? Coco was convinced Goldie was a girl) tank than Goldie died. Okay, it took about a day, during which Goldie was acting very strange and basically just sitting on the bottom of the tank. The day she died, we found her sucked up against the filter, not moving. I had noticed that her skin looked fuzzy the day before. It seemed odd for her skin to be fuzzy and I knew she was going south, but I hoped for the best anyway. It did not end well. Rather than replace her before the kids could notice, J and I opted to embrace the teachable moment. Coco was excited about burying or flushing her and was not one bit phased. The lesson for her was to be compassionate and sympathetic toward Theo, who was crestfallen. Theo wept and cried and even worried that perhaps Goldie had died because he had given her/him too much food. What?! Never mind, I just let that go in the moment and hugged him. He would burst into tears at random moments and literally sob for a few seconds. It was at once touching, endearing, and so so sad to see him so upset.

Following Goldie’s watery burial down the toilet, I replaced all the water in the tank and left it to filter for a few days before Coco and I went to get more fish last weekend. Can I just take a moment to say that the people who work in Petco are ridiculously knowledgeable and passionate about fish? We decided against a betta (they just sit there) and also against another goldfish (they get humongous and produce way too much yuck) and we got a couple of guppies instead! Guppies are darling little fish who swim about actively and are brightly colored and don’t get any larger than an inch or two. Theo named his guppy Seashell and Coco named hers Violet. Guppies don’t produce a ton of gunk, which makes them easy to care for, and best of all, they eat goldfish food. At that point, we had a big container of goldfish food of which we had only used a pinch or two. Perfect!

Except that Seashell and Violet died too! They went to same way Goldie did. It took about two days, starting first with fuzzy skin, then acting weird and hanging out at the bottom of the tank. Then we found them both sucked up against the filter intake this morning. Theo and Coco were a little bummed out, but then went about their usual games. “I guess we can just get a dog now!” chirped Theo as he ran off to the basement to play camping. But I was ticked off. What a ripoff! I rifled through the car console and house looking for the receipt for the tank and all the accoutrements, but I never found it. I put the tank with the dead fish down in the utility sink and decided that this time we’ll bury them after school in the backyard.

I honestly don’t know what to do. Should I buy more guppies and ask the Petco people what’s wrong with the tank set up? Or just go back in there, receipt be damned, and get my money back and forget the idea of having a pet for now? Or should we just fill the tank with water, but not have any fish? During the days between Goldie and the guppies, I noticed that it’s actually pretty cute and decorative all on its own.

I consoled Theo when he was distraught over Goldie by telling him all about my own Goldie. When I was in kindergarten, I also won a goldfish (or maybe was given one) at the Wilson carnival! My Goldie also only lived for two or three days. I remember feeding Goldie and then using a spoon to stir her round and round and round in her fish bowl! Watching her spin around in the whirlpool I created never got old. I can only imagine how miserable life was for my Goldie. Honestly, it was probably a relief for her when she passed on.

There was just one last thing I was curious about - how had Theo managed “to pet” his own Goldie? I overheard him telling Coco about Goldie’s slippery skin and how he missed petting her. Oh dear! But, in the end, considering Seashell and Violet went the same way, I think we can rest assured it was not Theo’s fault.

Have you had fish die on you? Any secrets or insights to share? Please let me know in the comments below.