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It’s Christmas. For us that means lots of religious customs. We’re religious folk, AA and I. Our sense of spirituality is bizarrely similar, given that we were raised with fairly different approaches to it. We love tradition. We love dark churches lit by candles. We love Latin chanting. We love a quiet session in the Adoration Chapel. We love private prayer. We love our parish {see article I wrote on it here}, the same one I was born into, and now the same one our children were! Spirituality and religion are so profoundly personal. And not everyone wants a sense of either. And many of us are still on our journey of either/both/one. Given that each person has a particular journey, why start religious instruction early for children? Why not let them choose their own path when they are old enough to be interested in it? Why foist your views, or lack thereof, on an impressionable young mind? We have opted to start religion for our kiddos from the get-go for five basic reasons: 1) Give a baseline for later and more nice people in their lives for now. I hope our children always feel and think their faith and beliefs, but even if they change their course or adopt different beliefs, they have our heritage as a baseline. Even if only for cultural references. The gift of access to faith, encouragement in faith, and exposure to people who believe in things (that takes a leap!) is a beautiful example.…
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Obviously my child is unattended. Seen here about to be eaten by our 6 pound Siamese cat. Did everyone see this HuffPo article out yesterday? It was viral in my newsfeed on Facebook. Of course, that’s probably because of all the mom groups I’m part of (yes, I’m that mom on Facebook). It’s by Amy Morrison, blogger at Pregnant Chicken, entitled “Why You’re Never Failing as a Mother.” See it here. She’s clever and funny. She talks about all the insanely over-the-top things you’re supposed to be an expert in/amazing at as a mother, while mothering, and probably while working. Two things hit me from the article: 1) How much our family culture has changed: “If you think about it, if you had a baby thousands, if not hundreds of years ago, you would have had your mother, all your sisters (all of whom were probably lactating) and your nieces all taking care of your baby. They would help with food preparation, show you how to manage and make sure your baby wasn’t eaten by a bear. Your kid’s feet probably wouldn’t have touched the ground until they themselves would be able to carry around an infant.” Where are our families? Where’s the intergenerational help? We have smaller families now-a-days, to be sure, and autonomy is number one! I want to live in my own house without anyone telling me what to do, or commenting on how I do it. (It meaning eat, raise kids, do laundry, practice or fail…
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Every December starts with a whoooosh. Thanksgiving pies settle in our stomachs and before you know it, it’s the beginning of Advent, the Catholic’s celebration of starting a new liturgical calendar and prepping for the celebration of Christ’s birth. Then it’s holiday shopping, holiday baking, holiday parties, and the actual holidays, and then New Year’s, and then recovering from all the goodies you wolfed down and resolving to work off all those calories. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. But, I’m resolved to follow these five steps to prepare better to truly enjoy and celebrate the holidays this year. 1) Shop ahead of time. Go local, go artisan, go upcycled. Buy the same thing you can get at a big chain from a mom& pop shop (i.e., Smart Wool socks). Visit Etsy where individual artisans hand make their products. Visit the antique & thrift shops around. Support your own local economy. Handmade your gifts. Go simple. If possible, plan throughout the year who you want to give to, and look for good deals on your items. Remember that giving should be enjoyable for you and for your recipient and not a huge last minute run to the store headache. Try to plan ahead. Our big family has decided to go handmade this year for our holiday celebration of Christmas. We’ve done gift exchanges in the past, but as we all love to give gifts, feel that this year, we can do gifts for every person but on a smaller scale than…
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My sister and I with her little girl when she was 7-ish months and me pregnant with SweetPea. Giving birth radically changes your body in so many ways, on the surface of your skin, and inside on a cellular level. And to top it all off, you have a new human being as the biggest change of all. My body bounced back more quickly after SuperBoy, and still isn’t quite normal 8 months after SweetPea. (Of course, the caramels and real cream in our mashed potatoes doesn’t help.) This is my little guide to loving your post-baby body. 1) Remember that you share(d) your body with another person–with that comes many changes. Your child grew inside you. What you ate affected them. The sounds around you when they were in utero affected them. Your stress levels affected them. It wasn’t just your body during pregnancy. It encompassed both of you. That alone is mind blowing. And worthy of just saying wow. And then after all this growing inside, you delivered them into this world. So, keep all this in mind as you run through the litany of physical changes to your body because of your child inside. It’s a real privilege and a gift to be able to conceive and carry to term a baby. Not to be taken for granted. Love your body. Love it for its lumps and bumps. Its pouches and pooches. Its veins and stripes. Its balloons and leaks. It’s the only body you get for this…
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This is a common developmental occurrence. Child prefers one parent to the other. It can vacillate, or it can seem like a perpetual stream of “dadadadadadadadada” or “mamamamamamama” to infinity and beyond. Here’s how this plays out in our life, and how we handle it. 1) Encourage love of the other parent. I’m with SuperBoy and SweetPea all day long. When AA comes home, I want to encourage them to be excited, clap, hug, go wrestle him/leap into his arms. I practice saying “da da da da da” all day long with our almost 8 month old daughter. I’d be delighted if it was her first parental address, as it was SuperBoy’s. It’s not a competition. Conversely, AA encourages SuperBoy to take a break during their evening playtime to come give me a hug, talks up how much he loves me, hugs me in front of him, and always backs me up when I issue an executive maternal order (No, you may not eat the lotion.). 2) Don’t take it personally. SuperBoy adores his father. A-DOR-ES him. The world stops when he comes home at night, and he wants him to put him down, look at his baseball cards, help him eat dinner, brush his teeth, and read him a story. Yes, there is a little daylight’s worth of room for me in there, and it’s not as though he expressly shuns my company (sometimes), but the majority of it all is dada-centric. It’s been this way for about a…
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We are thankful, and grateful, for so much. For our families, for our friends, for our food, for our faith, and for the wonderful ability to share with our journey of familyhood with you all. Yesterday I roasted & pureed 4 butternut squash for soup & some of our “pumpkin” pies–which actually are a great paring with real pumpkin. Somehow SuperBoy and I made the dough for 10 pies–we’re serious about pie for Thanksgiving. I brined the turkey. I cleaned up the junk around the kitchen, and I finished the order email for a new retail spot for the Sig Items. (!!!!!!) Oh, and we had homemade pizza for dinner. Because after all that flour and water in the bowls, on the counter top, and crusting over my fav wooden spoon, why not quick make a little dough. And I’ve been craving it lately. Easiest homemade dinner for me! Last year I just photoblogged our Thanksgiving feast. This year, I will include photos & links again. Some amazing bloggers and chefs publish their recipes & shopping lists ahead of time (do you follow Wellness Mama? Because you should). I’m not that fabulous in the kitchen, nor ambitious that you all be inspired by our feast. I do think I’ll post on pie crust from scratch before Christmas because although it sounds daunting and like too much work, you will never ever buy a store bought crust again. Same goes for roasting your own squash/pumpkin for the innards of a pie.…
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