Jessica Collaço's Blog

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Child Unplugged is evolving. Since starting this blog, I have begun an inspirational children's book publishing company called Shine Your Light Books. We create books that reinforce positive qualities in kids like love, unity, compassion, optimism and kindness. I have decided to take the concept of Child Unplugged and integrate it into our newsletters for Shine Your Light Books, that way you can get great books, activities and ideas in one place. To make sure you receive all the great activities that you can use to connect with your child and reconnect with positive values, use the form below to subscribe to our mailing list. Make sure to visit us at www.ShineYourLightBooks.com and connect with our community on Facebook.


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Shine On!
Jessica

Stay Plugged In

I had to take a leave of absence from my blog. Not just because I started to suffocate under my pile of beautiful children, but because I needed to get right with things.  I write a blog encouraging people to connect with their kids by unplugging. I write children's books that encourage kindness, compassion, gratitude and optimism. And for the past 4 months I have been embodying none of these things that I promote. How could I possibly encourage you to put down the phone and write holiday cards with your kids if I was eating chips in the bathroom (don't judge me) while refreshing my Facebook page every two minutes?  Was I getting some valuable uplifting motivation from all those status updates and inspirational quotes? Actually, if I saw one more list of things I need to stop doing or start doing so I don't ruin my kid I felt like I was going to punch someone in the throat. Overwhelmed, much???

Today, I am here to tell you that whatever you are doing, it's ok. There is so much posted on the internet to make us feel like we are not enough or that we are doing it wrong. If you need to sneak a glass of wine into a closet and check your email every 10 seconds for an hour---that's ok. If you need to go to Target in the middle of the day and stare at every color of nail polish for 20 minutes and not buy any of them....that's ok. If you need to sit your kids in front of the tv for an hour (or two) until you feel like you can handle all that is on your plate today...that's ok. Whatever you are doing....you are doing it right. This blog is just here to give you some other things to do once you are ready to reconnect.

I Could Have Just Handed Them an Iphone....

I have been really busy. I have heard myself tell my children to stop swarming me. I have heard myself tell others that life feels like I am walking through a car wash---and not the part where you would get sprinkled with pretty rainbow bubbles. No--the part where you would get slapped multiple times with those long wet strips of canvas and as soon as you escaped your face would get blown off by the drying fans at the end. It's been really hot. Too hot to go to the park. Our youngest is in a cast, so the pool is out. There is a major drought in Southern California, so sprinkler-running is a no go.

One day this week, we had the whole family in the van. Our kids are so wonderfully inquisitive, but darn if that doesn't make for a cacophany of question-asking every time we go somewhere. The busy, the heat and the noise finally got to me. I declared it QUIET TIME!!!! (no one ever declares it quietly), popped in a cd and rolled down all the windows. Something magical happened. First of all, we were actually able to go over 15 miles per hour in Los Angeles. Secondly, the fresh air and music mixed together, flowed through the car and that same can't-put-your-finger-on-it thing that happens to your sheets when you dry them on a clothesline happened to all of us. We were calmer, we were at ease, we looked out the window and contemplated all we saw and I would bet money that we smelled really good. There was also this hum of connection between us--that same blissed out feeling I get after a great concert or meditation was right there in our van. So I made it a practice this week to drive with the windows rolled down. It's especially great at dusk when the air is beginning to cool. My music of choice has been a 90's throwback "Rhythm of the Saints" by Paul Simon, but anything will do--even just the quiet. Give it a try this week---you just might feel like you were sprinkled with rainbow bubbles when you do.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Sometimes we parents have to press pause on our personal endeavors to facilitate those of our little ones. Sometimes it's easy to get resentful about that. Then something like this comes across our radar and it's really easy to return to gratitude and see that blog posts, book sales and self-time are just icing on the cake. 





5-year-old with terminal cancer just wants mail. Let’s overflow his P.O. box…July 21, 2014 | By Abraham Danny Nickerson is 5 years old, but not for long. He’s very excited to become a big 6-year-old this Friday. As happy as this birthday will be, however, it will be hard, too.

Danny has a virtually unbeatable cancer. Doctors have told his family that less than 10 percent of kids diagnosed with his type live longer than 18 months.
So the upcoming celebration will be an emotional day filled with far more highs and lows than a typical 6-year-old’s birthday. And what is he hoping to get for this extraordinary birthday?
Cards.

He loves getting mail.
His mom says,

He can recognize his name now. When he saw his name on the package from magical fairies on Easter, he was so happy.

Since Easter, though, packages have slowed down. But now, for his birthday, it’s time to make sure he gets all the cards he could possibly want to read.

You can send birthday cards to Danny at P.O. Box 212, Foxboro, MA, 02035. Tell your friends to send one, too. As of Saturday, he’d received about 40 cards. There’s no reason that number shouldn’t be increased a hundred times over.
And in case you want some direction, his mom says he loves Lego and Super Mario.


Tomorrow, the girls and I are writing letters to this little guy. I most likely won't tell them all the details of what is ailing this child, but we can send them some love. We've go some extra around here.

Have a great week!

She's Crafty Yos

Out here in Los Angeles, we've had a few heat waves over the past month. Being from the Midwest where the heat is accompanied by humidity that makes it take 45 minutes to blow dry your hair, I should probably use proper punctuation and say "heat wave". However, when it hits 90 and you don't have air conditioning and your kids don't dare go outside because they say it would be preferable to have a dragon blow fire on their heads, I declare it a quote-free HEAT WAVE and start getting desperate for things to give them to do.

Growing up, heat meant summer and summer meant camp and at camp we made what were called "God's Eyes". A couple of sticks and some yarn were all they required and you had 20 campers occupied on a hot afternoon. My camp God's Eyes always ended up looking like a tangled mess, but both my 7 and 4 year old managed to get obsessed. How's this for L.A. style God's-Eyes---we didn't have a bunch of sticks we could gather from a yard, so we used chopsticks.


The roots of a "God's Eye" or Ojo de Dios lie in indigenous cultures as a meditative practice.

From Wikipedia:
"Traditional Ojos de Dios are frequently woven in solitude, as part of an extended meditation or prayer. In other settings, their construction is one aspect of longstanding communal engagement and connection. For centuries, young people in the mountains of New Mexico have made Ojos de Dios in learning circles (wisdom circles) with their elders."

Once I got the girls started, they really got engaged. For the next couple days, I would randomly find them huddled in a cool corner weaving the yarn over and under the sticks. I have always found there to be a meditative quality to knitting, and I do believe that they reaped some of the same benefits of the stillness and centering that happens once they found a rhythm. 

Here are the directions to make them.

I plan to string the 426 my kids made up across our patio. Have a great week!

I hope that someone gets my....

 
I took an unintentional month off from the blog. I've been finalizing my first children's book and things got really busy. I realized in midst of the busy-ness, I was imposing a lot of stress on myself and I needed to press pause on a few things. So I am back (for now) with a new activity to get you connected.

A few weeks ago, I told my kids about a story I heard on the radio about a man who found a 100 year-old message in a bottle on the Baltic Sea. As I told them the details, I could almost hear their little minds churning and one of them started rummaging through the recycling. The next hour involved note writing, foraging through trinkets and treasures and convincing my middle daughter that a Hot Wheels truck could not fit through the neck of a wine bottle. So when I wasn't looking, she opted for a 5 dollar bill instead. We have the benefit of living a little less than 2 miles from the Pacific, so their bottle hit the water later in the afternoon.

Share this idea with your kids. I think this could be fun to do with all ages. If you don't live near water, bury a time capsule instead. To preserve creativity, don't share what items you want to float/bury until it's time to load up the container. Even if somebody wants to send something off that won't fit, seeing what they would want to share with someone else (and why) can be really eye-opening, if not endearing.

Have a great week!

Mary Potter

After my daughter watched "Mary Poppins" 167 times, we decided to check the book out from the library. You know...change things up a little. After we read it, we discovered there are three books in the "Mary Poppins" series. While the books are not nearly as dramatic as, say, Harry Potter, Mary Poppins can be as magical as Dumbledore and as strict as Professor Umbridge.  She even has a few Snape-like moments that make you wonder just why those kids loved Mary Poppins so much in the first place. Anyhoo- we just started reading the third book, "Mary Poppins Opens the Door". In one of the first chapters, Mary and the kids encounter a man who has 7 wishes granted to him. I was curious what my kids would wish for if granted 7 wishes and they were curious about mine.  My four year old insisted she needed only one wish. Just one. I imagined she would wish for a lifetime supply of Disneyland tickets or an unlimited supply of wishes,  but no.....all she wanted with her one wish was.....a squirrel.

This week, ask your family for their list of 7 wishes. It opens up an avenue for all kinds of interesting conversations and provides insights that you might not have expected. Like the importance of squirrels.

To Your Health

As a parent to young kids, it's ridiculously easy to completely forget about myself and sacrifice my needs for the needs of my children. This would explain why I've been wearing the same sweater for six years and am guilty of wearing flip-flops without a proper pedicure. While fashion (or lack of it) and chipped nail polish are things I won't lose sleep over (why would I even use this idiom when I don't sleep anyway?), I've been a little stressed lately over some things I have let slide.

Over the holidays, our youngest was about to turn 1. In her first year, I had taken her to half a dozen "well-baby" appointments, taken her sisters for their medical AND dental checkups and I'd hardly managed to visit my bed when I had a cold. I hadn't seen anyone in regards to my own wellness since the day my daughter was born. I made it my New Year's resolution to take better care of myself for my own sake and for the sake of my kids. I would start by making an appointment for a physical RIGHT AWA---the baby's crying I have to go nurse her where is my phone it has no battery do I even have a doctor what was I doing again?......

Ok--so it took me 3 months. It was "that thing" that got transferred from to-do list to to-do list and got out-prioritized by dance class, diaper changes and showering. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I locked myself in the bathroom and made the call. Next week, I am off to have my own "well-parent" appointment, plus I painted my toes while I was on hold so I can shamelessly wear sandals now.

Give yourself and your family the gift of your wellness this week. Take the time to make an appointment for a health or dental checkup. After my doctor's appointment next week, I am going to move on to getting to the dentist. At the rate I make appointments, I figure I'll go in August. Guess I won't have to bother upgrading my ratty sweater after all....

Have a great week!

49 Cent Connection

As I sat writing an email to a co-worker tonight, I asked my husband "What did we do before we had email to get in touch with all these people?!!!" Oh yeah, we actually called or wrote them letters . Back when we were in college, my husband and I spent the first summer we were dating apart. I have a shoebox full of love letters and cards that we mailed each other. While I like to think that one day my children will solemnly revere these romantic letters that tell of their history, it's more likely they will gag over our googly-eyed attempts at poetry and metaphors (but his eyes really ARE the color of honey gleaming in the lazy Sunday morning pancake sunshine!).

This week, use the postal system. While it may seem more like the Pony Express than an efficient way of communication, there is something wonderfully tangible about sending and receiving mail. Pick a recipient that could really use an unsuspecting pick-me-up. Have your kids write something about their day, color some pictures or draft a story. Then pop it in an envelope and send it out knowing it will brighten someone's day. If you want to use a couple more stamps, write a note to your child and mail it to them. If they are like mine, they will jump up and down with excitement when there is more than junk mail and grocery fliers in the mailbox.

Have a great week!

8 Ways to "Once Upon a Time"

 We have been reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series at our house. I find it ironic how often I envy the simplicity of their lifestyle to the busy-ness of all our activities and errands. It seems strange that I would be willing to trade my dishwasher and air conditioning for outhouses and plucking chickens, but the idea of not having to get up and go anywhere seems so nice.....and well....corn bread.  (Yeah, but you have to get up and make a fire.......but no traffic.......yeah, but your mattress is stuffed with hay......but it's so quiet.....yeah, but wolves and bears....................................yeah, but corn bread!).


What I have noticed from reading about the life of pioneers is that without tvs or computers, they entertained themselves with songs and stories. Everything from hunting adventures to wedding romances were passed down for generations around a fire on cold nights. It made me realize what a lost art storytelling is becoming and how little our kids know of our history. This week, tell your child a story about yourself. If you really want to have your audience riveted, tell your kids a story about a time you made a mistake. Here are some ideas to get you started:

-a scary moment you had as a child.

-something you feel proud of.

-how you met your significant other, best friend, or a special person in your life.

-the story of your child being born.

-a time you took a big risk.

-how you learned to drive, decided what career path to follow, how you started a hobby, discovered something you love.

-a time you would have made a different choice.

-a trip you went on or a person you met who made a difference in your life.

Trade a story or two with you kids and I guarantee they will have a few to tell you too. Have a great week!