How do we connect with each other meaningfully?
In this celebratory 50th episode of the Learn With Less podcast AND the two year anniversary of the Learn With Less, Ayelet reflects upon the origins of why she created Learn With Less, why she sees the role of community playing so centrally in the resources created here, and what you can do to be part of that community!
She shares one thing we do to support the notion of shared experiences and shared insights inside the member area of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program, which is a member feature called “Community Connect,” and answers all the questions we ask of our community members when we feature them.
If you’ve been inspired by Learn With Less resources, we can continue to build community by sharing images, stories, and ideas through the #strengthinwords or #learnwithless hashtag! Share your stories on social media, or directly with Ayelet by emailing her at ayelet@strengthinwords.com.
Connect with us!
Use #learnwithless when you’re inspired by one of our resources or play activities, or when you have a new idea to share!
Instagram – tag us at @learnwithless for a repost!
Facebook – tag us at @learnwithless for a repost!
Inspire your community of friends, family and colleagues with infants and toddlers to engage in simple play activities that support early development (with little to no materials) – just as we’ve inspired you – by using the hashtag #learnwithless and help us spread the word, transform the world (and the baby industry!), building a worldwide community of families who can feel more assured they have what they need when it matters most!
Text transcript of this episode
Hi, everybody, it’s Ayelet from Learn With Less! Welcome back to the Learn With Less podcast. This is episode number 50, and I’m going to do something a little bit different today. Usually I have a set topic and a whole lot of stuff to present to you guys, specifically. But, today I am going to just reflect.
It’s been a crazy year, it’s been a crazy two years! I wanted to, first of all, acknowledge that this is essentially the two year anniversary of Learn With Less and the Learn With Less podcast, and I think it’s really amazing that we are 50 episodes in.
What started as just the need to communicate and share my experience of early learning, early parenthood, and knowledge that I know as a professional as well as a parent… it has become such an amazing, amazing project. That’s really all I can call it! It’s also a business for me, because now, two years in, I’ve created something that is very near and dear to my heart, which is the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program. That is a place that is really, what’s become something that’s gone full circle.
Learn With Less, for me, was something that started when I became a mom, when my son, who’s now four years old, was born. I was living across the ocean in a place that was not familiar to me with my husband, and I was 10 weeks pregnant when we moved. When my son was born, I really wanted to create community, to connect with other new moms, and to find a way to do that in a place where I didn’t have any built-in support.
And I did that by starting to host these wonderful, what I called, “family enrichment sessions.” And what those were? They were a chance for parents and caregivers and their new babies, and growing babies and toddlers, to connect with each other, to learn a little bit about what their babies were doing, to give those things names – as far as how they belonged within the realm of development, and to experiment with what we could do to support our babies in play. And, as you, if you are a long-term listener of the Learn With Less podcast know, that is essentially, how the Learn With Less podcast began!
When my husband and my son were starting to think about leaving London, which is where we were, and move back to the San Francisco Bay Area, which is where we are now, I thought about how I could create this and bring it with me, because it was such a special thing that I felt I was doing for myself and for other families who were giving me positive feedback. And so that’s how the podcast was born.
I was reaching one family at a time, really, through that, and I love that, and I love all the feedback that I’ve received from you over the years. And over time, I realized that I really wanted to connect with a group of other parents and caregivers again. And that chance to observe others, to connect with others in real-time was something that I really missed about what I was creating with Learn With Less.
That’s why I… birthed the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program! And that’s what it is! So, it’s a place where we can all connect in a virtual space, connecting with each other through information and experience, and by sharing what we have learned, what we are learning, what we are experimenting with – that’s why the member area is called the LAB – because this grand experiment of parenting is something we all share! So that’s what I’ve been working on lately. I would love to bring you guys into it, if you’re not already there.
Community Connect
One of the things that I wanted to share with you today is something that we’ve started doing within the member area of the Learn With Less® Curriculum which I like to call “Community Connect.” This is essentially like a member insight. We try to do this once a week or once every couple of weeks.
We feature one of our community members and get to know that person through some shared information. What I wanted to do today was give you some insight into one of our members, and that is me! Some of you already know a lot of this, but this is the first time I’ve shared all of this in one place!
So, basically, we start out with the question, “Who are you?” So, I am Ayelet Marinovich! I’m a pediatric speech-language pathologist, and I’m a mom. I’m a mom to two little boys, and at the time that I’m recording this, I have a 13-month old and I have a 4-year old.
I love working with infants, toddlers and their families, and I am the creator of Learn With Less. That is a comprehensive set of resources and a company that connects families with each other and with high-quality information to support infants and toddlers (and each other).
So, the next question that we ask is, “What was life like for you when you started a family?” My husband, as I said, and I were pretty freshly married. We moved from the San Francisco Bay Area, which is where we’re from, across the pond to London, England. I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know the health care system. I was waiting for my paperwork to transfer over so that I could work as a speech-language pathologist there. But, pretty much, I was alone with my thoughts for most of the days.
So, I did a lot of reading, a lot of exploring of what the city had to offer, and I started attending a wonderful pre-natal yoga class because I was, as I said, early in my pregnancy. So, that’s where I met a lot of other wonderful women who were also expecting their first babies, and that space really brought us together.
As we got to know each other, I started thinking about how I could keep our little circle together after our babies came. So, after our babies were born, and of course, after I was out of the initial depths – those deepest depths of postpartum days and weeks, I really craved a community and the opportunity to be with other families. So, as I said, I started inviting my new friends over for a bit of activity based around our babies, and an opportunity to chat and learn about our babies.
It was also an opportunity to chat and learn about each other! Really, I was creating a space where we felt comfortable learning and sharing and connecting, and I got to exist in that space every week. So, as an extrovert who really craves social interaction, and also as a child development nerd who loves to learn, I was in heaven!
So, the next question that we ask is, “Who has inspired you as a parent or caregiver?” My answer to that is my own mom. Especially when we were little, she always gave my sister and I the space to explore, the space to learn about who we were, and she has such a positive, loving presence.
She’s also one of the most caring people that I know, perhaps to a fault, but it’s just inspiring to see that, to be around that. And to see it reinvigorated through my own children – she’s an amazing grandma, and now that we’re back near family, it’s just so rewarding to be close to her and to watch that with my own children.
The next question that we ask is, “When was the first time that you held a baby?” This is kind of embarrassing! The first time that I think I can remember, I think I was about 7 years old, and that baby was the son of a family friend. I remember him wiggling around, and all of the sudden, I lost my grip on him. I was horrified, and he nearly fell, but his dad, with those crazy cat-like parent reflexes, caught him. So, it was not a great introduction to holding babies or to being around babies, but it was definitely a good lesson in how mindful one must be around babies and with babies!
The next question that we ask is, “When did you know you wanted to become a parent?” Of course, these answers vary so much – all of them, right? I think for some of us, we didn’t know that we wanted to become parents until we were with child! And for some, it’s something that we always wanted [and it happened easier for some than for others!].
For me, I think I always wanted to be a mom. My own mom, as I said, was such a great inspiration and such a great model of caregiving. I definitely knew I didn’t want to do it until I was “ready,” but it’s always such an interesting adventure when we get to that stage in life when readiness is sort of ready to be defined.
I can remember holding a baby when my now-husband and I were still dating. It was this crazy feeling. I must have been about 27 or 28 at the time. And all of the sudden, I felt this crazy rush and wave of emotion. It was like something wild was taking hold of me that I had never experienced before!
It was totally bizarre to me that I would suddenly have, what I can really only describe as this magnetic urge – some power or some force was drawing me to hold that baby, and I thought it was so strange. It also made me consider that, perhaps, that was my body suggesting that “readiness” was approaching!
The next question that we ask is “What is your greatest hope for your own child or children?” My answer to this is integrity. I hope that I can instill in them the values that allow them to be good, to be independent, respectful, decent human beings who think of other human beings, and who make decisions that take others into consideration.
It’s such a big question, and I think we all have a slightly different answer that riffs on the same theme. We all want what’s right and what’s good. We all want our children to be decent human beings. And I think that is, inherently, what the goal is in the members area of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program – is to find a place where we can all commune and learn to raise children in a setting that makes us feel more confident that we can do that!
The next question that we ask is, “Give us a day in the life!” So, for me, right now, and of course, this is an ever-changing, never static thing. My boys generally wake up around 6-6:30am. And lately, my husband has been doing that early shift since my little one is still waking up at least once in the night. He gets them up and dressed while I get, hopefully, at least another 20 minutes of sleep in (thank you, husband!).
I take over with the littles and we take turns showering and getting dressed, and we get breakfast on the table for the boys, and it’s all a bit of a team effort. My husband runs out the door around the same time that our babysitter arrives in the morning. Then, I disappear into my office to get my working hours in, and I cram as much work into the next 4 hours as possible! And then, at noon, I’m with the boys again.
I finish up lunchtime stuff, and then we take my big boy to preschool, we try to stay for circle time there, and then my little boy and I come home, hang out and play for a little while before a nap, and on a good day he naps. And then he wakes, we take a walk, we pick up his big brother, and then we all come home for a play. This is a great time to get outside if the weather’s nice, and otherwise we try to get some big movement in somehow.
So, we do that by maybe climbing on some specified furniture that’s ok to climb on, or maybe standing at an easel, or taking turns pushing each other down the hallway in the laundry basket. And then after a while, we try to mellow out, I put on some music, and we go into a more focused play time. Often times, right around now, my little guy plays with kitchen items or other things that are just interesting to him at the moment, and my big guy gets busy with his cars, which is something that he’s just loved forever. He does a lot of dramatic play with those, which is really fun to see. And then, I try to make dinner – and that works better some days than on others!
My husband gets home, we sit down together to eat, if we can, and then it’s bathtime, stories, and then bed. And we split the difference, I put the little one down while my husband does the more extended bedtime routine with the big boy, and they’re both out (knock on wood) by around 7:30pm or 8pm. And then, the two of us get some time to decompress!
So… ok, that actually means that I get some time to work on emails or work, and then we get to watch our favorite tv or maybe part of a movie, and then we try to turn off screens about 30 minutes before we go to bed. And then we go into the bedroom to read and hang out, and then we turn out the lights!
So, the next question is, “What’s been your most valuable quality, skill or ability in raising your baby or children so far?” I think, for me, I’m lucky to have the ability to connect with others. I reach out to my community and I build community as often as I can – and in as many ways as I can. And that’s how I feel supported. That’s how I feel that I’m not alone in this parenting adventure.
I think that it helps so much to have other people to help you synthesize information, to reflect, and to empathize. I don’t know, parenting in a vacuum can just be so isolating! But it also, I think, can be really unhelpful to have too much parenting advice. That’s why we need a place, or a number of places to share experiences, ideas, thoughts… and to me, that’s really what community is.
So, the next question that we ask is, “What’s been your greatest challenge in raising your baby or your children?” To me, my answer is balance. Finding balance between their needs, between my personal needs, the needs of my partnership, my own professional needs and desires, the needs of my home, and of my friendships. Yeah. It’s a hard balance. People like to say that it’s all about finding balance… and it is, of course. But I think that’s also an ever-changing thing. You’re never going to quite get it right. And maybe you will for a few minutes, for a few weeks, for a few months, if you’re lucky, and then it changes again!
I think another part of that balance piece is balancing and managing expectations – especially with two young kids. Oh my gosh. I have a good friend who likes to say, you know, “just lower your expectations.” And I totally agree with that! We can only do so much. We only have so much bandwidth before we lose it! So, taking a moment to take a deep breath and find a sense of balance for even just a second at a time is just necessary, and it’s hard.
So, the next question is “What else would you like us to know about you and your family?” And for me, you know, I think I want people to know that we are full of love, we are full of life, and often, we are just trying to get through the day. Having two young kids, like I just said, is just insane. It’s baffling, it’s challenging, it’s incredible! In all the good ways and all the bad ways. And some days, I feel like a complete failure as a mom, and some days I have wins. And I’m hoping that it all evens out in the end, and that we just do the best we can. And I think that’s true for every family out there!
The last question that we ask each other is, “What do you want to learn from the members and events within the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program?” And my answer to this is that I get a real thrill from learning about the experience of others. And, you know, in a sense, it’s about being a voyeur… but really it’s just about getting a glimpse into the way that other people live their lives, and think about their lives, and think about their families, and fulfill their own desires and their own needs.
I think the conversations that we have inside the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Program are not unique, per se, but the space that we give each other, and the space that we continue to create together in there is very special.
Another program participant described it – and I love this – as “informally informative.” You know, it’s a place that we can go to seek out information and ideas, to compare experiences, and experiment with this experience and adventure of parenthood. So, I just want to continue doing that!
I want to want to say that as a celebration of what I’m calling my “Strengthinwordsaversary,” a two-year anniversary, I want to open up a challenge to you guys.
Number one, I’ve started a new hashtag, which is #learnwithless. This is another way to build community. Because, if there’s something that has inspired you, you know, a video that’s come from Strength In Words, or a podcast episode, or a blog post or a song, or anything that you’ve seen or heard from us, I would love it if you would share on social media, you know, if you’re on Instagram, just use #learnwithless, and tag something that you’ve done or you’re doing lately that’s inspired you and your family.
Let us know! Then we can all start to search for those things! And if you tag @learnwithless on Instagram or @learnwithless on Facebook and just let me know that you’ve done that, I can repost it for you and share with others!
One thing that I’m sort of struggling with is that I’ve become this sort of hub for content, and I think that of course there’s value in that, and with the knowledge and background that I have as an early learning professional, obviously there’s a lot of value, but there is also so much value in what you guys have, and what you guys have created, and what you guys have improvised with and changed and experimented with that maybe Learn With Less has introduced to you.
Or maybe you’ve gotten somewhere else that takes the values and mission of Strength In Words as, you know, fun, simple, easy, actionable ways that you are interacting with your baby through musical experiences, or through sensory experiences or through early literacy or movement, share those with me! Share those by emailing me at ayelet@strengthinwords.com, share those by using the hashtag #learnwithless, or however else you’d like!
And I would love to hear from you there. I would love also, if you are interested, I’m going to be doing as a two-year anniversary celebration, I am going to be offering two full lifetime memberships to two families to the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program!
So, if you will email me why you would like to become a member, why you feel that Learn With Less has been something that you have valued – what it’s done for you, go ahead and email me at ayelet@strengthinwords.com, and let me know why you would like a membership to the Learn With Less™ Curriculum.
Tell me your story – your family story. You can answer some of the questions that I’ve answered for you today, you can tell me how old your baby is, or if you’re still expecting a baby, that’s fine, too! I want to hear from you guys!
So, go ahead and do that, I’m going to be doing that through the end of February. So, we’ve got two weeks – today is mid-February, this is going to be going on until the end of February, which is what… February 28th, this year, I believe, 2018, for anyone who is listening in the future. But yeah! I can’t wait to hear from you guys!
And thank you. Thanks for listening, thanks for being a supporter of Learn With Less, thanks for helping us grow this community. And please, keep on sharing. And if you haven’t had a chance, please do leave a review on iTunes of the Learn With Less podcast, because that really helps other people find us, and enjoy the good work that we’re doing here at Learn With Less.
So, with that, I will end, as I always do, with a song, and we can say good-bye – and thanks for listening!