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Life is a roller coaster, right? The high highs, the low lows. Children punctuate those highs and lows, lending a deeper height and depth. Whole Parenting is all about familyhood, developing the whole person of your child, and living the challenges and joys of parenthood. So how do I achieve this? Some days it’s just about survival. I’ve swapped lawyering for home life, etsy, & blogging. Here’s a little sample day in our lives. 6am: AA up & out the door. Nursing SweetPea in our bed. Morning: SuperBoy up and at ’em. Attempt to nurse SweetPea back down in bed, and hoping she doesn’t awaken just yet. Try to convince him to sleep more. Try to convince him to go potty on the toilet. Change out of PJs. Try to convince him to come downstairs. Probably snuggle in bed with him for another half hour, reading books, saying morning prayers, and counting all his buddies. Make him oatmeal, yogurt, & fruit dish {Toddler Breakfast Delight}. Convince him to eat while sitting in his chair. Listen periodically for SweetPea on the monitor, and checking her actual little face. Start laundry. Read books. Listen to music. Have a dance party. SweetPea awakens at some point. Nurse her, change her, put her in her chair so she can watch her brother and maybe have a little banana & rice cereal. Clean up after everyone. Try to eat breakfast myself. SuperBoy goes for quiet time on his bed reading while SweetPea is nursed & rocked…
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My sister Bridget is a fan of home canning. If you can seal it into a glass container with a lid, she’ll do it. I photo blogged our latest raspberry jam exploits. Two ladies, good music, delicious snacks, and an afternoon jamming. Her supplies: a Ball canning recipe, lemons, apples, raspberries, and lots of patience and sugar. She doesn’t use commercial pectin because it’s the devil, well, almost. It’s really bitter, so you have to use a lot more sugar in the jam. If you use a high pectin fruit as the base, you can use less sugar. If you start with homemade apple sauce as the base, you won’t have such a problem for it to “set.” The speediest ingredient is commercial pectin, though it’s not ideal because with it, you must add a ton more sugar to the recipe. Jam already has a ton of sugar. Better to not add more if you don’t have to. Especially if you’re going to feed it to a little one like SuperBoy. Setting is jam-like and goopy. The old test is if it will stick to the back of the spoon. Bridget prefers the test of dropping jam on a cold plate, and then assess whether it’s still runny or it sets up well. You can make jam with just the raspberries and no apples. But it might take an extra HOUR of stirring. “We are not crazy people. We did not actually buy a survival sack of sugar. Our friend did.…
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Any parent will tell you what any moderately with-it person knows: don’t borrow trouble. And when you’re living and parenting a child around, or slightly over, the age of 2, we know it doubly. Little people are prone to suggestions, quick to assert their rights of issuing a “no,” and generally should be given two options, both of which are agreeable to the parent. Like, do you want to bring your baseball bat or your elephant with you to cheer for you while you try to go potty on the toilet? Instead of “do you want to try to go potty on the toilet?” 1) Pick your battles. Certain battles are worth it with a 2+ year old: trying one bite of food, not saying “no!” {no, thank you and yes, mama are acceptable responses}, always trying to go potty, even if you don’t go, staying in your room during quiet time, and saying excuse me. (That actually sounds like a lot of battles, now that I list them all.) Certain battles are not worth it: what music we listen to (music loves in our house here), what games we play, what he wears, which books he reads, which food he eats (remember his limited healthy options here), and sleeping with a pacifier {Ridding Yourself of the Pacifier}. For example, mealtime. Meals for us consist of lots of options for food. But if SuperBoy doesn’t want any of it, we shift to bargaining mode: “Well, your carrots and humus need…
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We lost our big Great Dane, Nina, to old age a few months back. I hadn’t written about it in part because we missed her so much it hurt to say aloud, and in part because other things kept arising. She was 9 years old, old for a Dane, and had to be put to sleep based on her old age and pain levels. One morning she was just continuously yelping while laying on the patio out back. When we took her in, the docs knew she was in great pain and couldn’t (shouldn’t) keep going. SuperBoy misses her and asks about her frequently. “Is she in Heaven with St. George? Is she fighting the dragon with him?” Yes, of course she is, buddy. She played with him every day, and loved loved loved to play tug of war, complete with a big treat at the end of it for her for being so gentle with him. She slobbered on everyone who came to the door, and barked her face off too. She was a fierce watch dog. We have so many photos and videos of the two of them playing. She was 130 pounds, but as gentle as a kitten with him. Poor Kazzie is all alone without her, and misses her greatly. Well, she likes all the attention on her, actually. She’s a bit heartless for all her cuteness. Emily Rumsey Photography She loved sitting in the backyard, watching all the traffic, moderating and letting people know to…
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This is part 19 in our Birth & Parenting Series where mamas & papas share either about their birthing experience or parenting perspective. Please let us know if you’d like to join in the conversation. All our series can be found on the sidebar, or at this link, here. This incredibly brave family endured a horrifically difficult entry into the world of their second daughter, but with grace and amazing heart, their sweet little girl makes it. Thank God for great doctors and nurses and miracles. ————— I had dreamed about Harper’s birth story since the day I found out she existed. After all, my firstborn, Elle, came into this world with a vengeance at 36 weeks. (I’ll spare the details but the story of Elle and I began with many unpleasant things, i.e., HELLP syndrome, sunny-side up, post partum hemorrhage, transfusion, retained placenta, D&C). So, I naturally I believed that things were guaranteed to be comparatively smoother the second time around. I could not wait to meet weeks 37, 38, 39, and even week 40; to pack my own hospital bag; to count and time contractions; to possibly try an all natural birth (ok, I would have for sure ended up with an epidural but I liked they idea of having a choice in the matter) – all experiences I had been swiftly robbed of via Elle’s emergency induction. I was blissfully pregnant with baby #2 at 29 weeks, still working, feeling as well as one can. I had…
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It’s Halloween. Happy Halloween! If SuperBoy could be something of my choosing for Halloween (you guessed it: he’s Babe Ruth dressed up as SuperMan), it would be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That’s right. The Robert Louis Stevenson novel character wherein one person can is simultaneously wonderful and terrible. I know every little child is like this, and I’m not alone, but let me fill all of you in who have adorable babies (tormenters in the making) or no kids yet. Those of you who are childfree by choice probably know all this. You’ve heard it all before. From the dual working household it’s this: Mom or dad of child X says, “Oh, staying home would be so challenging. Sometimes I’m just relieved to go into the office on Monday.” Parent of child Y remarks at a party, “I love our childcare. They provide great structure and wonderful learning opportunities for our beloved little Y. Y loves to socialize with the other children. It’s a great fit.” From the stay at home household it’s this: Parent at home of child Z says, “This is the hardest job of my life. One of us is going to die, me, or the kid. I’m fantasy job hunting outside the home.” Parent also says, “I wouldn’t give this up for the world because I see my children all day long and I get to bond so closely with them.” Mommy wars ensure: which is harder? Newsflash: parenting is hard no matter what. Yeah,…
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