Today it feels like too little too late but I’m super excited to share with you the beautiful Crysta Bloom – The Kind Cocoa Mama – and her family and how they incorporate Montessori into their lives. Crysta lives with her husband, Ezra, her daughter, Epiphany (16 months), and their cat, Mala (3yrs old). They live in New York City but will be moving into an old home in Upstate New York.
I’m a new follower to their family and Crysta’s work and I enjoyed going back in their feed to read about how they consciously parent, how they create intentional play spaces, and a lot of wisdom about pregnancy and birth. I encourage you to also read “DEAR MAMA OF A WHITE CHILD” and “DEAR MAMA OF A BLACK OR BROWN CHILD” which Crysta speaks to here as well.
I hope you learn a lot from this interview and be sure to keep following along on Instagram.
1. How has Montessori helped you and your family?
2. What are some of your favourite Montessori activities to do with your child?
3. How do you set up your home to help apply Montessori at home?
4. As a parent, do you wish you would have done anything differently?
As a new parent I didn’t think that I was allowed to trust my own judgement. I thought “I’m new at this, I don’t have any experience, I should rely on the experts to tell me what to do”. I found myself out sourcing a lot of parenting decisions to the doctors, teachers, and elders. That was until my daughter was diagnosed with a Profound Hearing Loss at 6months old. “She’s deaf,” they told us. Immediately she was put on track to receive a permanent surgery that would allow her to hear using a Cochlear Implant device. This surgery would also erase any existing residual hearing that she had. I wasn’t devastated — being Deaf is just another way of moving through the world — but in my heart I knew that it wasn’t true. I sat in many Audiologists’ offices advocating for my daughter. I did not have the expertise of the professionals but I knew my child. My daughter is now 16months old. She talks, dances to music, and sings. She is not Deaf. I was chosen to be this child’s mother and I can trust my intuition.
5. Any daily, weekly, or seasonal rhythms you enjoy?
6. You wrote two beautiful posts on Instagram “Dear mama of a white child” and “Dear mama of a black or brown child.” What message would like to pass onto readers?
7. You have lot of wisdom from your work about pregnancy and birth. Can you share one piece of advice you would give to all mamas to be?
8. Anything you’d like to add?
Thank you Crysta for your beautiful words and being an inspiring family to us all. You can find Crysta here on Instagram.