Into the Woods

At Peekaboo Beans we are all about Play!   If you follow us on Social Media, you will see despite creating amazing collections (like this Fall 2014) we always try and take time to play at work!  

More importantly, with a world of endless distractions, we want to bring play back into our children's lives.  Just like the air we breathe, the sleep we need and the healthy food we eat, play is an essential part of healthy development! 

So today we celebrate the launch of another playful collection and provide a product that truly fosters a playful life.  “Into the Woods” is inspired by nature, and all the goodness it brings to the soul.   Check out Page 11 of the Catalogue (link below) to learn more about the collection inspiration.  

You will see a new an amazing feature - “Lets Talk Play” in our new catalogue!  Refer to Page 6 and 7, and meet our amazing Play Maven, Andrea Chatwin as she gives us her professional seal of approval on why PB features helps support the healthy development of your child.   

It is hard to pick out a favourite piece (so many to die for pieces)!  No doubt I love the Once Upon a time Coat and the Woodland coat!  Check out page 90 to see how you can get one of these amazing coats half price or free!

The girly girl in me loves the Enchanted Dress and the Whirl and Twirl (a throw back to the beloved Dreamy Dress of Fall 2010).  The tomboy in me loves the Stag your it tee ad the Ranger Pant - oh if I only had boys!!!  My Tween Bean fave, by far is The Be Brave Tunic and the new edition to the Heart Collection the Follow your Heart Hoodie!  Of course the baby playsuits would have me reconsider more babies!!!

Peekaboo Beans is all about family first - so our Social Selling model is an amazing way for us to support family first and share the joy of our product with you.  Find one of our knowledgeable and trained Play Stylists in your area and support local by shopping their Peekaboo-tique.  Click here to find a play stylist near you.

Your back to school shopping and fall wardrobe planning will be a breeze, no driving, no busy malls, no pushy sales people.  You can arrange a playdate, or an evening with your mommy friends to shop together and earn your new product for half price and free. 

If you are new to beans - you will fall in love.  It is designed by moms, for you and your children to be happy healthy and comfortable in everyday play so you never miss out on those play perfect moments.   If you are already a bean-aholic - continued to be wowed! 

Thank you for your loyal business - by supporting Peekaboo Beans, you are taking a stand for ethical manufacturing, elimination of harmful chemicals in your children's clothing, you are supporting local moms, and the building of Playgrounds in war torn countries.  To date in partnership with Playground Builders, you have helped provide safe places for over 200,000 children to play in some very dark places. 

Want to learn more about Joining our Vine (join for $99 right now!) and starting your own Peekaboo-tique, join our movement of Play!  Our amazing vine of Play Stylists is second to none.  A community like no other!!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I hope you love the exciting new collection!

Click to view our Fall 2014 Look Book

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What I did right (maybe)

What I Did Right (Maybe)

"Raising children is an uncertain thing. Success is reached only after a lifetime of battle and worry." - Democratus

"Like all parents, we just do the best we can and hold our breath and hope we've set aside enough money for our kid's therapy."  - Michelle Pfeiffer

"I just flew by the seat of my pants and hoped for the best." - Grandma Bean

I recently had the great pleasure of attending my daughter's work conference, Playtopia2014. This brings me to the portion of the year when people tell me what a wonderful daughter I have and how she must have been raised right, and which makes me feel wonderful and like a fraud all at the same time.

I have said before that I was an immature Mom and that I grew up alongside my children. I discussed this recently with a good friend and as I went over a laundry list of my perceived mistakes and shortcomings, she said, "Carole, look at your children. They weren't raised by wolves! You must have done something right." It's true; they are hard working, funny, loving, responsible and compassionate people, who are terrific partners to their spouses and the absolute best parents to their own kids. I decided instead of looking at what I think I did wrong, and how I could have done it a different way (and no doubt just made different mistakes) I would look at ways in which I might have made a positive difference in their lives. It is easy to sit down and make a list of what I might have done wrong.....much harder to reflect on what I maybe did right. But here goes:

It Takes a Village
It was wonderful listening to Debra McNamara speak at Playtopia. I so related to all that she had to say, especially about "bridging" where you turn your children over to other members of the family or care-givers who can fill in the area's where you might not be strong.

I wasn't a "playing mom" and felt inadequate in many areas. I am told by my Mom that I was an "Old Soul" from a very early age and although I grew up with a terrific work ethic, I don't think I learned how to be playful. So as a Mom I swallowed my ego, and I exposed my children to people who were positive role models, and who could give them what I couldn't. This was difficult.....sometimes I had to swallow my pride on a daily basis to give them what they needed. I sent my children all summer, every summer, to stay with my parents at their Lake home. My son and his grandfather had a particularly close relationship. They spent many hours together, sitting in a boat on a lake, fishing and passing the time. (I found out later that my father also taught my son some very specific cuss words, but never mind.) My parents helped me give them what they needed and from this time my children also learned how to get along with a different generation and how to relate to older people. Today at family gatherings there doesn't seem to be the same generational interaction. All the children are on devices and seldom connect with the seniors in the family. One of the things I am most proud of is how kind my children are to the elderly.

Accountability
There are two stories I tell about this. The first is when my son was about 13, and he borrowed my Mom's bike one evening to ride around the lake to see his friend. Instead of riding the bike home, he and his friends rowed a boat across the lake, leaving the bike behind. I was very upset about this and sent him on foot, in the dark, back to his friend's house to retrieve his Nana's bike. Every ounce of my being wanted to drive him to pick it up because he was afraid of the dark....but I didn't. He needed a lesson in being responsible. (Did I feel guilty? Hell yes! I still feel guilty! But he can't remember the incident, so it was either not a big deal or it is buried deeply in his psyche and one day he will snap and beat on me with a bicycle.) The second story involves my daughter. (I'm not going to say which daughter, but um, here's a hint.....I only have one. Sorry Baby!) When she was about 16, she once came home shall we say, a little intoxicated. (In much the same way as a fluffy kitty is a "little cute".) I put her in the bath, put her to bed, woke her up every hour through the night to make sure she was okay, then at 6am I woke her up and made her go to work at her weekend job at KFC. Oh yes, I did. She spent a day frying chicken in hot grease and came home very sick. I thought about this many years later when I was working in an ER and a young girl was brought in unconscious from an overdose of alcohol. She had a party at her house while her parents were away and it got out of control. The home was trashed, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. When the girl regained consciousness her family didn't want to take her back to her home because "she will be upset when she sees the mess." I can tell you, if that had been my child, not only would she have been taken home to be upset by the mess, but she would have been handed a broom on the way in, and would not have left again until the mess was cleaned up. Consequences.....they will learn it eventually, better they learn at your knee. I did that.

Flexibility
I was a working mother. Not only that, but I worked shifts and stat holidays. We had to fit in family celebrations around my shifts. As well, they had a mother that worked in a field where she often had sad stories to tell. They learned compassion and how to think of others. I taught them that if they were going to compare themselves to people who had everything, then they also had to compare themselves to people who had nothing.

Resilience
Because I was immature, not all of the decisions I made were based on, shall we say, good common sense. My children were there during one of the worst times of my life. For a period of time, they were the only reason I got up in the morning. They held me together while I set out on a different path in life and they were the reason I stayed on the path. They saw me and they stood by me, on my darkest days. They witnessed first hand that a person can fall apart completely, but move through the pain and come out the other side, stronger for the bending. In my mind, resilience is the single most important quality to instill in a child. I provided the catalyst for that.

So there you have it. I did the best with what I knew and to quote Maya Angelou, when I knew better, I did better. So for now, I will join in on the praise of my great kids.......because no Mom could be prouder.

On resiliency

On Resiliency

"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo~far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance."  - Jodi Picoult

'If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces."  - Shane Koyczon

"Childhood is a training ground for resiliency.  But you need to get out of the way."  - Grandma Bean

The other day my Grand-daughter, Cici, was telling me about a terrible disappointment that she had experienced which broke her heart (and mine, for her.)  She had a solo narrative part in her Choir recital that she had been rehearsing for months.  The night of the recital something went wrong and they skipped over her part.  She told me the next day that her eyes were sore from crying.  It got me to thinking about resiliency and how important it is in our lives, and how vital it is to learn when we are children. 

The dictionary defines resiliency as:

1.         The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

2.         The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

I've always been fascinated by this subject and why some of us bounce back while others break from the bending.  When my children were young I remember a time when something went terribly wrong for Traci and I had trouble dealing with the pain she was experiencing.  It was excruciating to watch my daughter suffer and I would have done anything to take away her pain.  Then someone in my life, who was very wise, gave me some advice which I have never forgotten.  She told me that my children's pain was THEIR pain, not mine and that no matter how much it hurt me to see them suffer, I had to get out of the way.   "Indeed," she told me, "You have no RIGHT to try to take it away.  It is not your business.  This is how they will become resilient and to be able to move on through pain when you are no longer around.  Guide, but do not take away!" 

Forever after, I allowed my children to experience their own disappointments.  When my daughter was a teen-ager, I would get her to make lists after a disappointment or a hurt.  She wrote down her feelings about the experience and what was the best and the worst things that could result from it.  Invariably something would happen later to make her glad she had had that particular disappointment. It helped her to identify her emotions and later she could see how it all worked out for the best.

These were very necessary lessons for my child and the training ground for adult problems.   After marrying and trying for many years to conceive, Traci became pregnant. She and Brad had about a week to experience their happiness when it became apparent that she had suffered a tubal pregnancy and they lost the child they had wanted so badly.  My heart broke for her, but I knew that she would ultimately be okay, because she had learned the resilient lesson when she was young.  The loss of that baby put into motion the events that later resulted in the birth of her two beautiful girls, Cailin and Colbie, who none of us can even imagine our lives without.

I think of my Father's generation - A child of the Depression, and then a World War, my father had a brutal childhood, full of deprivation and even neglect.  He told me a story of how when he was about eight, he was pulling a wagon full of winter supplies home to the homestead.  During the trip, the kerosene that they needed for lighting spilled onto the flour they would use for their bread....maybe the only food they would have for the long winter. There was no money to buy more, so they had to live on Kerosene-flavored bread for the whole winter.  The resilience that he developed through these years made it possible for him to move on and raise a family of his own.  When he spoke about these experiences later, he often related them with humor.  (In fact, I think it was his sense of humor that allowed him to survive his childhood.)

I am certainly not suggesting that our children should suffer deprivation to learn resiliency, but I fear that we are so busy absorbing our children's pain that we are raising a generation of children that do not know how to cope without us.

So in this vein, I have put together a little quiz to determine how resilient you are.

1.  Your plans for the evening fall through.  You:

a.         Pour a glass of wine and sit down with a good book.

b.         Pour a bottle of wine into a vase.  Drink the wine and then sob quietly into a book.

2.  Your babysitter develops Norovirus on a day you had planned to shop.  You:

a.         Pack up the kids and go for a picnic in the park.

b.         Drop the children off on your babysitter's doorstep with a roll of toilet paper and a bucket, and then head for H&M.

3.  You are laid off from a job you just started a week ago.  You:

a.         Cry a little, eat a carton of Baskin Robbins Pistachio Almond Ice Cream, go home and revamp your resume.  Then you feed your children and put them to bed.

b.         Ugly cry, stop at the liquor store and pick up a Box O' Wine, go home and throw a tin of soup and a can-opener at your children, go to your room, drink your Box O' Wine and then drunk text all your friends until morning.

4.  Your child doesn't get accepted on to the Cheerleading Squad after she has told you that her life will be ruined if she is rejected.  You:

a.         Feed her a tub of Baskin Robbins Pistachio Almond Ice Cream, dry her tears, and keeping your cool, matter of factly assure her that better things await.

b.         Immediately put a contract out on the Bee-atch that is in charge of the squad because she obviously does not recognize real talent when she sees it.

Now if you answered mostly A's, then you are probably pretty resilient.  If however, you answered mostly B's, well don't worry  At one time in my life I answered mostly B's, and well, my children turned out to be pretty resilient in spite of it. (Um....or maybe BECAUSE of it)  Oh well, never mind. 

- Grandma Bean

#MyDadRocksBecause

At Peekaboo Beans, we often celebrate the awesome mama's out there, but with Father's Day just around the corner this Sunday, we wanted to take a moment to thank all the amazing Dad's out there!

Dad's play such a vital role in a Bean's life growing up. From teaching us to ride a bike, practicing our first sport, to scooping us up when we've fallen down and hurt ourselves, Dad's are always there for us. And as you'll see in the video, they are often someone in our life who continuously makes us laugh and love to be silly.

So, to celebrate we asked 6 boy Bean's what they love most about their Dad and their answers couldn't have been any more adorable. Check out their responses in the #MyDadRocksBecause video below.

Happy Father's Day!

Peekaboo Beans Pop Up Playdates: Come Play With Us!

Peekaboo Beans Pop Up Playdates are back! This summer, Peekaboo Beans will be popping up at parks across the lower mainland and we want you to join us!

Anxiety & depression in children has quadrupled since the 1950’s due to what researchers are calling a PLAY DEFICIT.

Our children today are playing less than any other generation, leading to a decrease in creativity, imagination, and vital skills that include curiosity, social skills, and the ability to assess risk. Peekaboo Beans has introduced the Pop Up Playdates to help aid parents in bringing back the simple act of play into the lives of our children.

The Pop Up Playdates spread the message of Peekaboo Beans’ Play Revolution and the need for free, unstructured play for our children to develop into happy, healthy human Beans!

So bring your Beans and join us for some good ol’ fashion play at one of our upcoming playdates below!

For more info & to stay up to date with all of our upcoming Pop Up Playdates click here.

Super Beans - Ella's Story

Ella was welcomed into her family in the early summer days of 2009.  She came with some resistance but with her chin up – a reoccurring theme in the years to come for Ella and her family. 

The first time Krista held Ella she was overcome with joy but had a lingering concern for her beautiful new child.  Her motherly intuition had been tipped off when she first gazed at Ella’s gorgeous almond eyes.  Doctors and nurses continually told the family that Ella was a perfectly healthy newborn but her struggles couldn’t help but be noticed that she was showing signs of Down Sydrome. 

Finally on day three of their prolonged hospital stay, Ella’s doctor admitted to believing there was a possibility of Down Syndrome and referred them to a specialist for further testing.

As a parent it breaks your heart when your doubts about your child are confirmed.  All you want is somebody to tell you that there is nothing to worry about and that your child is perfectly healthy.  For Ella’s family, their hearts were heavy when the doctor started talking about specialist appointments, possibilities of heart abnormalities, trips to Children’s Hospital, and everything that comes along with a diagnosis.

A visit to Children’s Hospital was not the answer.  The genetic specialist told the family that usually after the physical examination there is a 90% yes or no confirmation but Ella’s case still left the doctors uncertain.  Ella had the typical folded over ears, palmer crease, and of course, her eyes but she had better muscle tone, was more alert, and there was no history of genetic disorders in the family.  Ella had to undergo chromosome testing, which finally confirmed that she had an extra chromosome resulting in Down Sydnrome or Trisomy 21. Since children with Trisomy 21 carry an extra copy of the 21st chromosome, it means that they have an excess of any genetic material contained in it. For this reason, children often have a flattened bridge, congenital heart defects, physical and intellectual developmental delays, along with many other potential health risks. It was discovered very early in Ella’s life that she had a hole in her heart. Thankfully, it was not too debilitating and would most likely close on its own (which it did).

It hasn’t been easy, but four-year-old Ella carries the courage many of us can only hope for in her healed little heart. She has the resilience that only comes through a determination to overcome adversity and stereotypes. She has people who believe in her, give her the opportunity to fulfill her potential, and who not only want her to succeed but who know she will succeed. And when you have a child with special needs they are not to be taken for granted. They are a rarity in the world that focuses on the ability instead of the disability. It is because of encouragement from her cheerleaders and her own hard work that Ella is able to live a very full life. She goes to preschool, has friends, dances, runs, makes art, sings, laughs and fights with her older brother.  She never stops playing in the midst of her struggles.  In September, Ella will start kindergarten – at a French Immersion school.

Ella is one amazingly inspiring Super Bean that we can all learn from!

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