Building a blog that promotes a healthy childhood

My name is Melissa, and I am a mom to three boys, ages 5, 7, and 21. I'm also an artist, a whole food plant-based cook, a registered nurse, and a health and wellness coach.

I've found there's lots of overlap between what my health coach clients are working on, what I am working on with my kiddos, and what I am (forever!) working on myself: mainly healthy eating, stress management, and prioritizing sleep!

My husband encouraged me to start a blog to keep track of everything we are trying out in all the different parts of our lives and what works for us and what doesn't. This blog will be a collection of my "experiments," as wellness coaches call them, as I try new things, work on different aspects of family life, and grow as a human, trying to stay sane in increasingly busy and complicated times.

The blog's name, Paradise of Childhood, is a nod to my grandparents' generation when kids walked miles to and from school (uphill BOTH ways) and played outside all day. It is also a nod to a German educator from the mid-1800s named Frederich Froebel - the person who actually invented kindergarten! His "gardens for children" constituted the first educational system for young children and were so hugely successful that even when they were banished from his homeland (more on that later!), his students fled to the rest of Europe, Japan, and the US and started their own schools.

His writings are so full of love and patience, and wisdom! And his kindergartens influenced some of the most important thinkers, educators, and artists of our time: Buckminster Fuller, Frank Lloyd Wright, Piet Mondrian, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner of Waldorf Education, and even the founder of the Reggio Emelia preschools in Italy.

I am excited to talk about Froebel's education philosophy and the methods he used for teaching and growing healthy kids – and to share how we are doing our version of a Froebel Kindergarten as we homeschool, including how we got started homeschooling.

And food! A huge part of raising (and being) healthy humans! But what to eat!? People have always asked me what we eat, ever since my 21-year-old was little – "what do vegans even eat?? Can you eat...peanut butter?" Many things have impacted my eating habits since my days of militant veganism (all 16 years as a vegan!), including health problems like thyroid disease and mood disorders. I've added some things to my diet for more of a plant-based Mediterranean diet, and I'm still asked today, primarily by coach clients, "What do you guys eat??" And I can't even remember what we had for lunch that day! :) I'll share our favorite recipes that I find or invent, including lots of low-to-no sugar recipes since that is where my focus is these days.

Media has been both a blessing (Sir David Attenborough) and a huge stressor (almost everything else!) for us as we try to figure out what is right for our kids to watch, experience, or read and when. Common Sense Media has been super helpful, but I've still had lots of trial (and LOTS of error!) when it comes to movies, books, and shows, so I will talk about those things as well, including a discussion about screen time in general. I'll share, too, some parenting books that are absolute must-reads!

We live in a midcentury modern home that has significantly impacted our lives the last four years since we bought it, so it might be fun to share what we've been up to there as well. We were recently featured on the 2022 Midwest Modern Home Tour, a big fundraiser for the Iowa Architecture Foundation, and over 250 people strolled through just about every inch of our place, so why not?! Our "school" room is a beautiful place to be, and I am excited to share that. And wow, we were renovating during 2019/2020/2021, and my kids were mesmerized by all the construction day in and day out. For months on end...

So, this isn't another hilarious take on raising kids blog, grab a bottle of wine and watch male backup dancers mommy blog (yep, it's a real thing!), or even a blog with a million jaw-dropping recipes. It's just a holistic take - our take - on family life.

Thanks for reading! xoxo