Creating
I just love Gabby over at Design Mom. Who doesn’t? She’s a great writer, manages a big household with lots of kiddos, and shares her eye for beauty and design with the rest of us. Her series on Living with Kids is one of my favorites and a while back I contacted her timidly, seeing if she’d be interested in including us in her series. She has been gracious, kind, and everything lovely about the process, despite my ineptitude at getting her photos that were the right size–for a very long time. Without further ado . . . our crazy commune: Come see Whole Parenting Family at Design Mom! And no, baby is not here yet. I’m regaining my zen after our false fluid leakage. Full story coming, promise!
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The ultimate mommy blogger, Grace over at Camp Patton, is giving away a new mama package–and a little sweet skirt from yours truly’s etsy shop is included. Come and visit Grace, and see what’s giving. I love her blog, and if you don’t subscribe, you’re missing out. We’re pregnant along the same lines–due around the same time! She’s with her fourth and I’m with my third. I have no idea how she keeps keeping on, if you know what I mean. I’m dying and I only have two kids!!!!! On the only having two kids so far, we had a quiet romantic weekend away from the kids to celebrate our almost-five-years of marriage. My ah-mazing family played with the kids and held down the fort while we did absolutely nothing. But eat ice cream for lunch. Eat pizza for dinner. And lay around. The quiet was deafening!! I also revealed to AA his birthday surprise that will unfurl next weekend . . . will tell you all once it’s happened. As an aside, if you run a shoppe or know someone who does and would like to talk retail with me about my products, drop me a line! wholeparenting (a) gmail.com. Giftsets of Bandit Bib & Contour Cloths are my most popular retail item. This set was a giveaway with Grace a while back! Pretty sure this is all the kiddos did all weekend:
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I’m no pro, having only had my little shop for two years, but I’ve picked up a thing or three along the way. While my children unhappily have succumbed to sleep, I thought I’d share my small semi-precious (costume jewelry?) stones with you. My shop, Whole Parenting Goods, is a source of fun, creativity, and sometimes a little side of stress for me. My shop has a number of sections: Bandit Bibs, Contour Cloths, Very Large Blankets, Large Blankets, Lightweight Blankets, Knits & Crochets, Little Girl Skirts, and my girlfriend Cynthia’s beautiful work under her label, Interior Castles. 1) Why Should I Start an Etsy Shop? If you are an artisan and love creating, do it. Whether or not anything sells, if the process is enjoyable for you, it’s worth it. You have to love making what you’re making, and feel compelled to share it with others. 2) Why Shouldn’t I Start an Etsy Shop? If you’re expecting to make a lot of money. There is no steady stream of income. People order 10 things one month, and 1 the next. There’s no predicting it. Also, often people want custom items so they like that blanket you made, but they want it in a different fabric, bigger, smaller, oh, and then after you’ve corresponded for weeks on the specifics, they don’t actually want to buy it from you. It’s a bizarre blend of custom work and then the quick outright purchaser. 3) Who Buys From You? I get asked this…
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When I was out of town for the weekend, I indulged myself at the airport bookstore. Twice. Once on the way there, and once on the way back. The first time I was prudent, and bought The Power of Habit, just the one book. On the way home, after several delays, I bought two books for me and two for the kids! I bought How Children Succeed by Paul tough and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. For the kiddos, Go, Dog. GO! by P.D. Eastman & The Big Book of Words by Richard Scarry. I love Eastman and Scarry. Such great writers! In the past few months, I’ve also read The Whole Brain Child and am working on To Learn with Love. The Whole Brain Child offers dum dums like me insight into how children’s brains develop and how to approach the terrible brain purges of the two-three-four year old from a scientifically pragmatic perspective. It was a quick read (as are all of them) and well worth it. To Learn with Love I’m still working on. I am a very fast reader, but that sometimes means I skip and skim and this one I really want to digest. It’s about a large family’s experience as Suzuki teachers, and watching their children grow in the method. I talked a little about the Habit book when purging my closet of dresses, but in more depth, I want to share a few things I gleaned. Our habits are ingrained, and the neuropathways get set…
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I’m on a kick. A cleaning kick. No, not like I’m actually scrubbing the bathrooms, silly, but more like organizing and purging. That closet at the end of the hallway? Done. Those dozens and dozens of unused hangers? Gotten rid of. My clothing from college that I literally had in a plastic bag called “college favs”? Done. The mounds and mounds of children’s toys? Purged. Even the ones I like. We just don’t need 17 wooden puzzles for the same age & skill set. Now it’s on to clothing. This is tough. I have accumulated a beautiful lawyer wardrobe. Suits, skirts, blouses, lovely, lovely. I’m not ready to give those up as they were pricey and well-fitted. But when will I wear them again? Those ones are on hold. The real kicker are the dresses. College dresses {were they that short? were they that tight?}, the intermittent print phase {mostly designer hand-me-downs from my glamorous new yorker of a sister}, and then living in Vegas. Ah, the Vegas phase! When I clerked for a federal judge in Vegas for a year, many many moons ago now, I was living out there alone–with just two new girlfriends to my name {Love you, E & S!}. So aside from eating Twizzlers and watching cable TV for the first time in my life, a lot, in the early evening, I shopped. Designer Fashion Clearance was its name, and wow. Couture affordable! I picked up a few Manolo shoes, Jimmy Choos, and a few…
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Someone asked me over the wedding weekend what it meant that I wrote a “parenting blog.” Do you write your blog everyday? Do you chronicle your parenting? Does it include how-to youtube videos? were a few of the followups. It took a few minutes to sort through my own mind of what it is I’m doing here, and why, and how to answer this polite person who was genuinely interested in unearthing what on earth I meant by “parenting blog.” Or sometimes I respond to the question And what do you do? with the answer that’s simplest: I’m a stay-at-home mom, expecting my third. Or I do the whole: I’m an attorney who’s on hiatus home with our children (which begs the question of when this hiatus will end). Or sometimes if they really seem to want to know what I do, I say all three: I’m a stay-at-home lawyer mom taking a break from legal practice who runs a natural parenting blog and organic goods etsy shop. It’s so convoluted, they usually have only one follow up question: what’s etsy? In response to this person’s question, and my own that I pose in the title, I had to eat a bowl of mint chip ice cream (hey, Fat Tuesday is tomorrow. Our Jesus-induced diet of Lenten no sweets is coming up in just mere hours), survey my very dirty studio floor, the insane amount of indoor seedlings my husband is growing right next to my computer and practically on top…
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