This is the second month we sat in a circle for the singing. We let our English-speaking neighbors join, and for Theo Vilje, this was really when he started to look at other children and understand some principles about sharing. Luckily there where older children around too, and when we placed the children in a circle, we could have the older children show how to share the box where we keep our songs. For the children they also got to train on waiting their turn because we were singing about everyone that attended the circle.

Sharing

October is usually a very calm month for us. It is in between the celebration of St. Martin and St. Michael, and that gives us the energy to practice sharing. And you know what? Adults also need to train on this to. My incredible Cambodian neighbors share everything with us, and Simen is also really good at this. I confess I need some training in this. Believe me, they will share everything until it is empty or gone. Western culture has so much to learn from this. Sharing is an incredible source of inclusion. If everyone brings something, whether it be food, a song, a story, a skill, or something else, it brings us closer together. I truly believe that having this habit is also one path to happiness. We cannot know or learn everything, but together we can help each other with our strengths.

Togetherness

At the end of October, Halloween arrives, coinciding with our preparations for the Lantern Festival, making the timing quite fitting. While we don’t have a strong tradition of celebrating Halloween in our family, we’ve come to appreciate the sense of community and togetherness it fosters. We’re grateful to have a few more years before needing to decide how we’ll engage with this festive occasion, but hopefully we can keep enjoying the togetherness.

The Fox

In Norway, we have a story called “Hakkebakkeskogen” (Claus Climbermouse and the Other Animals in the Huckybucky Forest) that we introduced to Theo Vilje at this time. I will tell you this was way too early and totally not on purpose, and the consequence was that we really had to use quite a lot of time on this story. He looked for the fox and the mouse in the story—in his bed, under the couch, in the garden, up in the trees—and we really could not focus on anything else during the second year of his life in October. Therefore, when our neighbors had a fox costume to lend us for Halloween, he was ecstatic.