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Where is the three year old in this photo? Outside the frame, bawling because someone took her favorite fill_in_the_blank. Having a three year old girl, and this SweetPea with her particular temperament, feels so different than having had a three year old boy who is coming up on five in just a few days here (stop the sands of time!!!). His personality presented its own challenges, as does hers. I wrote about his challenges: Three steps to taming your tantruming toddler; Three & a half year old habits & mama bad habits; how I keep my kids from killing each other; and more in the archives under “kid.” In a way, I was prepared for the prefrontal cortex burgeoning and developing at a rapid, can’t-keep-up-with-the-spasm-de-jour pace. In many ways, I was not prepared for how sensitive to me and my moods she would be. Girl thing or her thing? Either way, I’ve learned the hard way about how to lovingly parent a sensitive three year old. So naturally, I thought I would foist my experience on to you! 1) Hear her out. When she starts freaking out, I try to take her aside and hear exactly what it is that’s bothering her, being sure to repeat it to her so she knows I get it//got it//good. Many times, this simple act of acknowledgment is a calming force. It may take 3-4 minutes to get it all out of her and restate it, but that could mean the difference between a relatively…
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Dads of the world, I salute you. You’re not mothers. You’re your own thing. Your own way of bonding, loving, disciplining, never-dressing-them-in-enough-layers of a thing. You make Saturday mornings the most sought-after real estate. You can make anything fun and everything safe. My own dad still makes life easier for his five kids. His neverending devotion to finding the right rug for our houses, the best Indian fare for dinner, the best baby holder in the hammock. I’m simply the mom so I don’t know how it feels to be the dad. I know you need the garden to make something right with your hands at the end of the day. I know you need to read a book with our fiercest firiest child, that second-born daughter. I know the baby’s open toothed kisses on your nose in the morning make you laugh. I know pitching and hitting with the big boy is your love language to each other. The days blur together but that underdog push on the swing at the park? The look on your daughter’s face? That’s never leaving your mind’s eye. That look when your son holds his cousin? These moments are forever. I think of the two men who are godfathers to my three kids, my brother being pressed for into service for both his nephews. I think on their spiritual fatherhood and the wonderful example of humility and strength they are. I think on the endless love lavished on our daughter by her…
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My quickie update! Oh, I have so many wonderful posts in draft. All kinds of interesting (only to my mother) things! But as I’ve been down with a stomach flu (good thing I’m such a pro at having all-pregnancy long morning sickness so vomiting doesn’t really phase me::no, not pregnant this vomit-sesh) and had family in town so twirly whirly and not lots of typing. But did you hear??? GRACE had her BABY!! And speaking of me not being pregnant, but apparently needing to work out, this happened today that I shared on Facebook: While nursing today, my daughter wandered over to point out my “big belly that might be growing a new baby.” I let her poke it, prod it, sniff it and then told her no new baby right now but that mamas whose babies grow in their bellies sometimes have extra love left in there. That’s what I’m going to call my post-baby bump. Positive body image starts young. They’re watching us! Your responses were so beautiful. And the number of folks whom it resonated with! I really want to show my daughter a healthy love of my body, even when I’m out of shape. Especially when I’m out of shape. Stitch? Did someone say bonnet? Okay, tttttotal non-sequitor but it’s that kinda day. These are piling up on my work table and I cannot *squeeeeeal* wait to do a release of about a dozen to my subscriber list first, and then the commoners. 😉 Have you…
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You know what they say . . . wisdom comes with age? You learn through experience? Your first child suffers from all your experimental parenting? Oh, maybe they don’t say the third. Maybe it’s just me. When people see the baby and I running errands, he is highly complimented on his blue eyes and sweet clutching chubby hands. I get knowing looks from older women, the look of oh, to have a baby again–so simple, so sweet. I want to assure them all that I’m no spring-chick mother. I have two older kids. I know all the unsolicited advice they’re wishing they could mombard me with because it’s along the same lines of what I’d harbor in my head seeing a new mom. What I’d really want to tell her, though, isn’t to make sure to air dry if he has a diaper rash before you slather all that stuff on his bottom. What I’d really want to tell her, in a clutching her shoulders, crazed sort of way, is to not repeat the mistakes I made when I was a first time mom. She’s probably smarter and wiser than I was, so perhaps she’s graduated to her own level of errors. 1) I was afraid to look like a first-time mom. Wiping toys and pacifiers that fell on the floor? Should I? I don’t want to look like a germaphobe, or worse, a first-time mom. Insistent he receive reassurance the second his toddler padded cloth diaper bum hit the ground after…
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We took a leap of faith and went on an 8 hour car trip to a cousin’s wedding. Three kids under five in the car for that long is not for the faint of heart. I was initially hesitant about being able to make it due to the fact the baby is almost 13 months old and still nurses for primary nutrition. That’s a lot of stopping to nurse. But what I didn’t factor in was the three year old girl. Three. The roughest and cutest age. She made every moment a possible tornado touch down. Living by the seat of our pants//how many cheddar bunnies she could stuff in her mouth. Let’s begin, shall we? On the drive down, she had to go potty. About 86 times. I offered her a diaper. She looked at me with the scorn of a thousand arrows. At the farmer’s market. She sees food. SHE WANTS IT ALLLLLLLLL. She also wants no one else to have any. Back at the hotel. She wants the baby’s pack & play. She wants not to eat the cold oatmeal. She wants desperately to be the baby. She was comforted by snuggling like a mummy in the queen size bed alongside her big brother. The two of them were like cocoon babies. At the wedding ceremony itself. More talking. Upon seeing another child eating a snack. MAMA I need to eat. No, I need what he is having. My stomach is telling me so. Upon seeing another…
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I’m not at my best. I look in the mirror and see the little kisses under my eyes called cosleepernumber3 and guiltily gave up sugar again as I was abusing it//turning to it for an afternoon pick up instead of a healthy snack//my clothing doesn’t fit like I’d like it to. But I can’t wait around for life to suddenly hand me a week of full-nights sleep, a personal trainer, and a chef. Instead, I’m determined to feel my best that I can be right now. And here are my seven areas of life that help me look & feel like I’m still rocking it. Wrinkles be d@mned. warning: selfies taken in the kids’ bathroom. Nell making solemn & goofy faces at herself. Again. Sorry. H A I R My hair needs to be colored. Sorry, ladies, I tried to go ombre. I tried to go natural. I hate the brown. I have lots of postpartum thick hair (hasn’t fallen out yet, except on the fringy sides) and want it to at least be blonde at the roots, even if it’s not going to be brushed or styled. So cheerfully I went to my hairdresser to “remind” it of its blonde roots, literally & figuratively. I can find ways to creatively make my hair look decent without much time & effort. Do you follow Kate on instagram? Because she has hair tutorials that are amaaaaaazing. Do something with your hair that makes you feel put together. Even when you’re coming undone. C L O…
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