Aren't you sick of toys???

We are constantly cleaning up toys... they accumulate like mad.  How many toys can one little kid have???  Multiply that one kid by four and you have armies of toys!  How can we adequately take over the world with our arms full of tangled jumbles of assorted play things that we are continuously, wearily putting away???

As much as we would like to bash American Girl Dolls and their generic stereotypical middle class smiles, we kind of love them.  As a business they have a lot of things right... one thing that we have noticed (beyond their awesome historically connected stories and girl affirming image) is that their toys are NOT cheap.  They are plastic, mass produced, China made dolls that sell as much as their Etsy, handmade counterparts.  Why is this good?  Well, we don't see them in Goodwill.  We don't see them at yard sales, in thrift stores, in (horror of all horrors) garbage bins waiting for collection.  American Girl Dolls are cherished.  Why?  Probably because Mom, or Dad, or Grandma paid a fortune for them.

Let's think about this.  If all toys were as 'valuable' as AG dolls, there would be lots of great consequences.  Parents would push their children to play with those toys, to get their money's worth.  Those toys would become beloved by their children because the children would naturally love the toys they were being encouraged to play with with and they would keep track of their 'friends' more readily, without as much prompting.  Toys would not be simply bought as spur of the moment, shut your kid up, purchases.  Landfills would see far less plastic.  There would be far fewer toys per capita and houses would become far less cluttered.

Children need toys to develop in a natural and healthy way... both mentally and physically.  Doll play, manipulatives, building toys, sports related toys- all of the different types of play that these toys encourage- make up the world of children and help facilitate their growth.

Don't get rid of toys all together.  Just be more deliberate in your choices. Have a vision for your child's environment!

* Here are some things that we have read that, though not talking about this specific topic, go hand in hand with the Philosophy.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

and also this guy, Mr. Money Mustache :)

Mr. Money Mustache Blog



 

Questions...

Playfulness and humor are as valuable as creativity. No?  Perhaps they are the sisters of creativity even?

  

The Man that Asks the Questions...

We're so smart... so very smart.  We can figure out how to do things by ourselves.  We can envision things and then make them appear, prototype after prototype.  We teach our children, think for play, and puzzle through each day, figuring out how to do all that we do better and more efficiently.  We are so smart, but we are not the smartest.  The smartest guys look around and simply know what questions they should ask.  It is amazing to be bright enough to come up with intelligent answers to intriguing questions.  Think about it though, isn't the real genius the man that asks the questions?
-Eppie 

Charles' Observation...

 Bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt. ~ Charles Bukowski

My brother is a writer. The kind of writer that can craft a story that makes his reader look really awkward sitting by herself in a quiet coffee shop. Because laughing out loud repeatedly is awkward when one is in public, yet alone.

My husband is a talented and artistic musician, an out-of-the-box kind of guy. He can create beautiful sounds with his guitar and join into a song with almost any instrument or thing lying around.

Both of these artists don't claim artistry. They demur. Because old Charles is so very, very correct.

Just a Sunday morning thought...

XOXO ~ Julie

Children + Devices = Bad Bad Bad (or does it?) ...and how does that make you feel? :-/

Frying their brains... or learning skills?

 When we were little the 'big deal' was television.  Too much TV rotted your brain, right?  What about all those people that grew up to be actors, producers, cinematographers, etc.?  Why was television, arguably, GOOD for some people and just a numbing, zombie making, box of brain death for others? This is what we think, some people were thinking... the whole time they were watching!  They were inspired by the images, music, story lines, SOMETHING.  They were creating later, with the information that they gathered.  Television was a springboard for them, not the end all.

From our experiences with our children, we see that there are different ways that different people 'do' different things.  One kid can watch a TV show and sink into a stupor of unthinking blobness while another kid can watch that exact same show and think about how the lighting bounces off the puppets, how the camera angle makes such a big difference in the 'feel' of the shot, and wonder the whole time how they can replicate the set to produce their own 'movie' of the same quality.  It makes us wonder if the activity (in this case TV watching) is bad for our children, or if there are WAYS to watch TV that are bad for our children.  It makes us wonder if a better question than 'how much screen time' might be 'how is each individual child handling screen time'.

Violently creative?  Or creatively violent?

Do our children really need to be fluent with technology?  Yes.  Won't there be enough people that are computer and device savvy that the world won't need OUR children turning into drones?  Well, the thing is, technology is a language and they will have to 'speak' it well.  (We see that we could be on our own screens far less if we had a better command of technology ourselves.  Ironic, isn't it?)  It makes us think though, that a healthy dose of technological know how is definitely very important for our children's futures.

We spoke with our friend, Loreal, and some good points emerged.  People, we concluded, are individuals.  Rules for one child might not be exactly right for another child.  Life should be lived fluidly and if there are indications that too much internet, device, or digital entertainment time is happening we can simply stop allowing so much...  Maybe instead of spending so much time discussing and thinking about the damage that certain things do to our children's minds we might look at our children, in the moment, and efficiently diagnose the immediate, present situation and respond to that...

Our children can still hold pencils!

Does your child spend time on MineCraft and then build elaborate (or inspired) structures in the living room.  Do they draw box-like creatures on napkins and talk to you about them?  Is there evidence outside of device time that indicates they were thinking while they were staring at the screen?

Some of our children spend time on their screens and then produce all manners of artworks, music, writings and ideas around what they have watched or played.  Some of our children only complain about how bored they are when they are not allowed to play with their device.  Guess which ones we allow to spend more time in front of their screens?

...and are adept agents of espionage!

What do you guys think?  Do you think that we should worry about time constraints if our children are growing, or would they grow MORE without screens?  Also, do children need to be encouraged to be creative and be in the habit of creating FIRST, in order to respond to technological stimuli in a forward thinking, motivated way? What does screen time and the limiting of it mean for adults?  Is it bad for us to be glued to our devices so much, even if we are working?  Do we sometimes make all this more complicated by spending so much time thinking about it?  Would we all get along with less guilt and judgement if we did not have 'emblazoned burned on our hearts' opinions about these things? Thoughts?

-Epp

Please, We're in the Business of Making Friends...

You see, we don't consider ourselves toy makers... as a matter of fact it shook me up when I overheard my nephew once telling somebody that we were 'little dolly makers'. He wasn't saying it in a derogatory way, just saying it.  


The thing is, I have tried to communicate the same things for as long as I can remember... the overall idea, of which we just barely scratch the surface.  That we just barely connect here... I am often a frustrated artist running through the mediums, but I know that I am always looking for life, real life, filled with love and greatness.  I look for friends and I have always made them... with my own hands; drawings, paintings, multitudes of sculptures out of fabric, clay and debris.  My creations are real to me and they speak to me.  I have used them to connect with others like me.  The most boring looking soul at a craft fair can light up in our booth and talk about the life of his childhood sock monkey.  I love that!  


I want to be taken seriously.  I want to be a 'real artist'.  I want people to find life in my music, philosophies, writings... I want to be applauded and understood... and I am baffled as to why I am drawn to compulsively create things that tend to be so weird (and humorous) and perhaps even childish.  
Julie has joined me.  I don't think that she is any more or less of an artist if she makes baby booties, wall size paintings or simply writes a blog post.
Why does what an artist make always define them.  Maybe an artist is 'simply someone that creates art'.  Simply someone that creates...   

  

Love to you all,
Eppie   

When in Doubt, Be Human

We read a line in a post by Seth Godin, quite a few months ago, that I wrote down on my war room wall: When in doubt, be human.  I don't even remember the exact story he told to explain what he meant by that, but he spoke of how we often try to deal with work related things in ways that might be deemed 'professional' but might lack empathy or compassion or simply 'human-ness'.

 We were laughing today at how different mine and Julie's personalities are.  I tell EVERYTHING.  I am an open book and I ramble, complain, rejoice and inform.  Julie is more private.  She shares, but discretely and only what she wants to share.  The thing is, each of us are 'real' in own way and to force ourselves to be different would be somehow false.  I am learning to shut up and she is learning to speak up as we get to experience more and more business successes.  Best of all though (through this baby business and our relationship with all of you) we are learning what it means to be human.  We thought we would be so much more professional at this point.  We thought we would 'learn how to be successful'... It's funny to us that one of the biggest things that we are learning is, when in doubt, (simply) be human!

-Epp

Learning to say YES or (Grabbing Life by the Balls) or (Things I Say to My Kids but They Don’t Like to Hear Because I Use the Word ‘Balls’ and Tend to Be Very Long Winded)

***Disclaimer: This post is beneath a LOT of you... but for people like me, here goes... :)

It is so difficult, as an artist, a parent, or a human being, to learn to say ‘no’.  Generally people don’t like the confrontation, risk of rejection, or determination it takes to make their lips form that small, two lettered word.  I have found that for me it is equally difficult to say ‘yes’.  I don’t like plans, expectations placed upon me, or the responsibility a good ‘yes’ requires.  Frankly, many times I am outright fearful of not being able to deliver on that ‘yes’--- therefore turning it into a postponed and oftentimes excruciatingly more difficult to deliver ‘no’.   This little problem translates into a life of passive, live by the seat of your pants, take in the left overs sort of arrangement.

 

“Do you want this last piece of pizza?”

“Ummmm, well, does anybody else want it?  Uh, I really am kind of full… I don’t think I should.  I’m not going to eat again for a long time though.  Hmmmm.”

“Hey!  Do you want this job?  It’s awesome and it will make you a bundle?”

“Ummmm, I’m not sure my schedule will work out there… I, uh, think that I should probably research that position a little deeper.  I’m kind of trying to figure out what direction I want to go…”

“Do you want to do this thing that you have dreamed about doing from the day you were born and are clearly capable of doing and have told everybody every day of your life you are going to do?”

“Ummmmm…”

What in the world???  How can you go from being a ‘hide under the bed when friends come over’ to a ‘grab life by the balls’ person?  You have to start by saying ‘yes’!

An important step in that direction is to realize that you have as much power as anybody.  You might immediately think that you don’t have as much power as the president, or the queen of England but seriously, they can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.  They can punish you or withhold from you things if you don’t follow their rules, but they can’t make you do anything.  This point can be taken further if you narrow it down to just them, and their personal ‘as one human being’ power.  If they were sitting across the table from you without their armies and organizations and money they would have the same amount of power as you.  Most people are not born into great power.  They either find their power, work for their power, or steal their power.  All people though have some power, the power they need to go through life and continually grow.  Powerless people, people that always insist everything that ‘happens’ to them is somebody else’s fault, are simply people that have not claimed their power.  Most people that cannot give a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when life demands it of them are people that have denied their power.   Stop it!  You are entitled to an opinion.  You are definitely capable of making simple, daily decisions.  Why don’t you?

Well, I have avoided making decisions and having opinions in the past because I never ask for further information.  I will lack knowledge and simply won’t ask for it.  I am powerless to stand in front of somebody and question their question.  What exactly does everybody else think about this last piece of pizza and me having it?  What kind of job is it and what kind of work environment is it?  Can you clarify what you mean by ‘my dream’ so I can align your idea of ‘my dream’ against my idea of ‘my dream’ and get back to you?  A person that is used to making decisions is full of questions from the moment they are approached.  The person in the family that controls the planning of meals has a lot of questions when somebody asks them if they want to buy a tomato… or they had a lot of questions and answered them in their mind before they were even approached.  I know this because, for a long time, my husband was the decision maker by default.  He had to make all the decisions because I would not and if he had to rely on me to do something he had questions.  He would ask me how I chose a specific camera, or ketchup, or insurance.  Generally I would answer him that ___________ (fill in the blank with some decision making, powerful person’s name) told me that that is what he/she bought/used/chose and so that is what I got.  What in the world???  Know things.

 Another main obstacle to power, for me, is pride.  That might, on the surface, sound irrational.  You have to have pride in yourself to have power.  I’m talking about the kind of pride that has prevented me from acting because to do so would indicate that I was taking advice, doing something contrary to what I have professed to support in the past, or would simply be embarrassing to me, were I to fail.   Pride has been a main contributor to ‘power killing’ in my life.  Pride is also the reason that I have refused to ask questions.  It is difficult to convince everybody that you know everything when you are caught asking questions! 

Alright, and I guess it must be mentioned because, even though it is so obvious, it is a biggy: FEAR, FEAR, FEAR.  As I have already mentioned, I am fearful.  I am afraid of failing and equally afraid of succeeding.  I am afraid of any decision that I make turning out terribly wrong.  I am afraid, and this leaves me powerless.  Don’t be afraid!  I am losing my fear in (successful) leaps and bounds.  …and I am becoming increasingly more a ‘force to be reckoned with’.  Become your own ‘force to be reckoned with’!

Another stride toward learning to say ‘yes’ is to hang out with people that say ‘yes’.  We honestly don’t know that new experiences can infuse us with power and that we can catapult forward through life simply by stepping out into the unknown.  We don’t know that new experiences can give us courage and wisdom and can help us connect with people and community.  We don’t know the benefit of ‘yes’ unless we can see it intimately in our own lives or the lives of people close to us.  Make friends with people that are comfortable saying ‘yes’!  Don’t be afraid!  Remember, you are just as awesome as the next guy… you just have to learn to say YES!

Sincerely Yours, 
Eppie

15 Hours, 11 People, One Big Honkin' Van

Yesterday we packed 4 adults and 7 children and a bunch of stuff into a 15 passenger van and made a 15 hour trip from TN to PA. We are crazy. Just for the record.