After that, I wrote my New Years resolution
down on a separate piece of seed paper, and we
used a small pink heart made of seed paper to
represent my baby girl’s sweet and loving self.
My son and I discussed how we had recently
planted “baby grass” in our yard and remembered how Mama had to water it
every day. We recounted how at first we
couldn’t see any grass at all, but after tak ing care of it for a while, we witnessed the
baby grass growing into strong and tall green
grass.
I compared the grass growing process to our
resolutions. We talked about how it can be a
lot of work to take care of something and how
amazing it is to see things grow. Although my
son may not have understood everything completely, I couldn’t help but think about how this
conversation would change and mature each
year, and how I’m sure I would always look back
on this first conversation with loving nostalgia.
I can’t wait until our seed paper blooms into
beautiful flowers, and I especially cannot wait to
see my son’s reactions as he learns to grow and
care for this small portion of our natural world. I
love the idea of paralleling our own actions with
that of nature’s and pairing our own life cycles
with the world’s smallest beauties as a teaching
tool for our children. It’s such a wonderful way
to pass down environmental values, encourage
compassion for all living things, and connect our
choices to the world at large. Nature is a powerful parenting guide, and I hope our nature based
New Years tradition brings us continuous inspiration each year.
Charise Rohm Nulsen is the proud mama of
one, with another on the way. Charise blogs at
I Thought I Knew Mama - a window into the
adventures of stay at home mamahood, natural
parenting, and green and healthy living.
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