Hi.  I'm Rebecca.  I'm an otter mom.

Earlier this year in a personal development class, we were challenged to consider how we would be living, if our lives were successful.  What would you be doing?  How would you be being?  How would you KNOW? 

For once, I eschewed going all philosophical on everyone, and ended up with a simple image and a simple principle that has made a world of difference for me in many areas of my life.  I would be acting a lot more like an otter.  

Let's face it.  Otters have more fun than just about anyone.  They don't play emotional games, they don't have a lot of drama.  Float on your back, crack an oyster with a rock, hold hands with your tankmate, slide down a mudslide next to a river.  Another otter irritates you?  You bite it, maybe, and then get back to what you were doing.   

When I read about the concept of the Tiger Mom and Wolf Dad, all kinds of things rise up in me, but at their core is absolute happiness that I've instinctively, long before I recognized what it was, brought this otterness to my parenting. 

And with this blog, I hope to give some gentle nips and mudslides to what I realize may be a very different approach to parenting -- being the otter mom.