As of two weeks ago our chickens are laying eggs - or at least three of them are laying eggs? maybe more?

After I spent two months checking the nesting boxes twice a day and underneath the tractor and the parked trailer and behind the crepe myrtles on one side of the house and the nandena on the other side of the house to no avail, Jacob found the first egg. Which he of course left there for a baby to find, because it just so happened to be our baby's birthday.

The freshly minted two year old came in mighty proud of himself and his "burday ugg. iss my burday ugg, mom!" and we promptly cracked it into his cupcake batter.

Worn out on his big day:

So the baby isn't so much of a baby anymore. He's two and he's in mother's day out two mornings a week along with his big sister and the big man's in Kindergarten,

Look at this coolio.

I feel like - in the course of a week - I graduated to a whole new phase of parenting - like I have one leg firmly out of the trenches. I don't know what to do with myself truly. I get to make annoying administrative phone calls in the calm of a morning instead of in stolen moments while locked in the bathroom hoping it doesn't sound too echoey on the other end. I don't have to overthink every single errand that needs to be run. I get to stop in at a coffee shop, stand patiently in line, and nestle in with my laptop...and blog!

So far I've loved it. I love the hectic mornings of making the lunches and watching people toddle into school with their backpacks. I've loved how they run to me when I pick them up. I love the alternate mornings of being home with just the little ones who are still content to simply dig in the garden and splash the watering can around. I've loved having a schedule that I have to work around, and times when I have to be out the door, and a reason to get out of my proverbial or literal yoga pants.

We'll see how long the high lasts. I've struggled with a weird narrative that I don't "deserve" to get breaks like this - even if I'm spending my "breaks" catching up on our business accounting, freelancing little jobs, or doing otherwise "worky" type things. I've become so accustomed to always feeling frazzled and behind on things and listening to my broken record of the "poor poor overworked overtired little mama." Now I drop little kids off and then get back into the empty van with sunglasses on and skinny jeans and ankle boots and I don't even know myself.

Having a schedule and seeing the week in chunks of time has really helped me find space. A few hours of personal space. Space in my week for laundry or for meal-planning or for reading a chapter book to the six year old during the opportune nap.

And more space in my heart for the same old shenanigans.

With that I must go. I'm at my town's beautiful old library which typically smells of equal parts  musty books and children's story hour, but someone has put on some potent and vaguely peach-scented lotion which is my cue.

Happy day and happy week to you!

:)

Some Things that have been Working for Me

So...seems like I've been seeing a lot of people blogging about items/practices/hacks that are making a difference in their lives. I always read these types of posts. (I just typed "poasts.") Mostly because I'm a sucker for a good hack. Or at least reading about a good hack - I don't know how often I put new things into practice. But, know, that if you've got a title like: "5 Things That are Saving My Life Right Now", this lady will be clicking in a flash.

Despite how much I like to read posts like these, I don't tend to blog about them, but today that changes.

Here we go!

Rosewater and glycerin
I'm gonna lead with my strong suit here, because the rest of these aren't very original and it has an affiliate link. So you're welcome. (And thank you.)

I first bought rosewater and glycerin (this one) when I was trying to DIY some kind of face wash. I never made the face wash, but I use this as a quick moisturizer all the time. I spritz it on my face a lot, especially in the winter. Before make-up, after make-up, mixed with some emu oil if I'm extra dry. I spray it all over the kids after baths. And it literally smells like roses.

The sound machine app on my phone
Baby is really good at sleeping through noise because he has lived in a construction project his whole life, but when they're literally reroofing over his little sleeping head, a sound machine app saves the day. We don't have any actual sound machines because I'm allergic to stuff. (I know it's annoying when people are all "I'm a helpless minimalist," but trust me, my aversion to buying new things annoys me more than you, and my husband more than both of us.)

Here's the real reason this is on the list: This method necessarily decommissions my phone during nap time. I've found that pressing my phone into lullaby service has been really good for me and any hopes I have to do something meaningful during naps. I use the Relax Melodies app by Ipnos. (A trio of river, rain, and wind, if you must know.)

One on one outings with the kiddos
In the past, if Jacob was home and I needed to run an errand, I ran and didn't look back. That blessed freedom from car seat buckles!! Carefree meandering through the grocery store! Picking up hold books at the library without ending up with some twaddle involving ninja pigs!! Bringing a kid along, when I could be all by myself would have sounded crazy. I don't think it even occurred to me for years.

So if you're still there, I get you. Cheers!

But recently in that situation, I've taken to bringing one of the big kids with me. It's delightful. At three and five they're both still pretty much excited to come no matter what we're doing. We chat. They pick the music in the car. I don't have to deal with the anxiety of having multiple children in public. I feel less like a ruthless cattle herder and more...like a mom holding a kid's hand.

Tea time and other things I like
At the end of naps the kids and I have tea. Usually some kind of chai with honey and milk. They put a blanket down in their room, and I bring the tea in on a tray with some little cookies. Always the tray. Mutiny without the tray. It's a really sweet time.

This one started as part of a new year's resolution to do things with the kids that I like doing. Instead of waiting for the kids to ask me to do something I don't want to do, I ask them to do something with me that I do want to do. Little House on the Prairie before I get stuck under the weight of Mr. Scarry's pickle car. Uno before Chutes and Ladders. Etc.

And in the kitchen...
Boiled potatoes
I try to keep boiled potatoes in our fridge most of the time. I chop them up for a quick starch for the kids - who eat them with ketchup. Or I'll grate them and throw them in a pan with some brussels sprouts for me to eat with a soft boiled egg. Eh? Eh?

 

Roasted cauliflower
We eat a lot of vegetables here because we're enslaved to our weekly farm share till the summer (THIS ONE if you're in the Houston area.) And the kids are pretty good sports about the mountains of okra and chard. But one veggie that never fails us is cauliflower. I've mashed it, riced it, tried it as a pizza crust replacement, and all the trends, but we always end up back here:

Chopped up and tossed in some lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and salt and roasted on 400 until the edges begin to caramelize.

I make it as an appetizer 2-3 nights a week and throw it at the hangry children when dinner's not quite ready, and they eat it like popcorn.

So there you go. Maybe one of these will save your life! Or probably not, but I'm touched that you're still here and that counts for something.

As I was writing this post, I kept thinking about all the things (like this?) that "would probably be saving my life, if I had them" so I'll be debuting those sometime before my birthday next month.

Ciao!

Thinking about Detoxing

The two littlest are working their way through Roseola. Roman was a pretty high maintenance little invalid, but Lucy June is sweeter than sweet. She lies on the couch and every once in a while lets out a melodramatic sigh and says: "I'm shick." 

When Jake was a baby, he was so rarely sick. Now that we have three littles, it feels like someone always has something: a runny nose, a rash, a cut we're making sure doesn't get infected. Weirdly, this malady-train has taught me about living in the moment. I want my kids to be well. I try to keep them healthy, but ultimately I can't control whether or not they get sick, so I have to let go. I also can't wait for the moment when everyone is simultaneously OK to finally relax because that moment may never come. I have to learn how to hold a beautiful Sunday evening in one hand and a feverish toddler in the other. 

That said. All the little sickies have got me thinking about some kind of detox. 

I'll (roughly) follow Mark Hyman's 10 Day Detox which is a lot like the Whole 30, but only ten days and with lots of specifically detoxing foods. Hyman is the president of the Institute of Functional Medicine. I listened to a lecture of his about biological food addiction, and then I got his book from the library, and now I'm worried that I'm a little too dependent on high glycemic foods. His detox involves daily exercise and a powerhouse of a smoothie in the mornings and a lot of journaling and reflection and Epsom salt baths in the evening. It also discourages screens before bed. So it would have me commit to ten days of new routines that I might want to implement.

People swear by by low-glycemic protocols, and I want to see how mine does on one. I'm starting to have those lovely complaints like brain fog and dry eyes and puffiness and junk in my throat in the mornings. I'm starting to feel older. And instead I want to feel me some optimum wellness. 

I tend to turn my nose up at detoxes probably because I'm pretty bad at doing them. I'm really good at eating mostly healthfully: lots of veggies and salads and intentional this and that, but I'm terrible if I have to give up my coffee/cookie mornings and wine/chocolate evenings. Terrible. I can forgo the occasional kettle-cooked potato chip binge, ice cream, yogurt covered pretzels, strong margaritas, and big hamburgers, but if I mess with my coffee or my wine or their attendants, we're talking toddler levels of brain integration and mood management. Once I wrap my brain around that hurdle I'll be on my way.

So that's what I've been thinking about. Since yesterday anyway. I'm writing it here because - as Gretchen Rubin has convinced me - I'm one of those unfortunate people who needs external obligations to get stuff done. And since Jacob has zero desire to ever ever do anything like this with me, you, little blog, get the job.

 No commitments yet, though. Still just planning. [And Jacob's somewhere laughing.]

A Third Baby's First Week of Life

My, if it hasn't been a few months of totally unexplained if entirely explainable absence.

Three kids.

Three kids has me whooped. I'm pretty sure our fourth kid will be an accident.

We're gonna dive right in with a catch up post just in case little Romie ever wanders through the archives and asks if he had an infancy.

You did, Romes, a really jolly one.

Roman is remarkably good-natured. As I'm lugging all 22 pounds of him from room to room while I chastise a four year old and potty-train a two year old (her choice not mine), sometimes I remember to look into his face. He looks at me so adoringly. It kinda floors me. I do my best to stop and love those moments, but I'm not very good at it.

Ok. Here we go. Roman's first week of life.

When his brother and sister came to visit him in the hospital the first time, I was holding him in my lap, and when he heard their voices, he craned his head back and forth and his eyes searched the entire room. Meanwhile they were beelining for him: Lucy June couldn't contain her glee when she first saw him. It was magical.

Magical.

I'd never seen one of my newborns respond to voices so obviously.

He came just a little bit early - earlier than all the other kids. I had scheduled a loan closing on Tuesday, but he was born on Monday. Jacob went to the appointment and while he was signing a million documents I was watching all three kids by myself in the hospital room. With some help from Winnie the Pooh and Netflix Too, it went remarkably well. It was stressful though. I held my breath and waited for everything to devolve for the entire two hours.

Roman's early life has had many of those moments. Darker moments. Moments where his stubborn mother doesn't seek out the help she needs and puts too much on her plate until her stress and anxiety start to leak out all over her house and into her relationships.

I couldn't skip the closing even though I'd had a baby, so I was scheduled to sign my name a million times on Wednesday right before we planned to take two day old Roman to have his bilirubin checked. So I would go sift through papers for twenty minutes and then we'd take the baby to the pediatrician. I was not excited about this, but it would be OK. We could do it. It would be fine.

Then Lucy June fell off the top bunk. Right onto her head. My was it horrible. It started swelling immediately, and we were just a few minutes from leaving for the closing/pediatrician outing, so we figured we'd muscle through the closing and then get some eyes on the little girl's head at the doctor's office.

Jacob dropped me off at the closing, while he drove around the block a few times with the kiddos. Lucy was unhappy, but lucid with a lump. I shuffled into a swanky office and sat down in a leather chair at a conference table and signed and signed. I felt like such a body - a fragile body in a room designed for pantsuits. Then there was a knock on the door. It was Jacob carrying Lucy June, and both of them were covered in vomit.

So we expedited the pediatrician visit. We piled in the car. The newborn was crying, everything reeked of vomit, I was hyperventilating.

At the pediatrician's office I tried to settle the baby down and feed him in the newborn area. The triage nurse who was checking on our probably-concussed daughter came over to ask if a suspicious triangle-shaped indentation on Lucy June's forehead was normal. Through tears I shook my head that I couldn't tell. Had she fallen on a lego? She did have a widow's peak. Maybe that was it? The triage nurse patted my shoulder, told me we would probably need to have some imaging done on her, and left me to my tears and my newborn.

Things quickly got better. By the time we saw the doctor, Lucy June was playing with toys and sporting her black eye like a clumsy champion and was pretty much her normal self. He told us to go home and call if she vomited some more.

Jacob had a huge job starting the next day that he couldn't reschedule. So my mom descended on our house like an angel of mercy and took care of everything. My friends picked up Jake for playdates. Lucy June and her shiner hung out with my mom. I nursed my baby and my very bruised postpartum tailbone.

Then it was Sunday - Jacob's day off - and the toilet backed up into the bathtub, so Jacob got to spend the day digging a hole in the backyard to reveal a broken sewer line.

And that officially rounded out the baby's first week of life.

I don't write these things to complain or to elicit a rush of combox sympathy. I write them because I'll probably want to remember them.

Some of it is funny. Some not so funny. I want to write it down. I need me some catharsis or something.

Or probably should remember them. There's more craziness to add to this. This was just week one.

Life is exhausting right now.

But I'm learning how to settle into good moments.

Also, these are all pics from back in September. Roman now looks like this:

Perpetually flanked by siblings.

And like this when sausaged into a size newborn baptismal gown.

Working Caption: Husband leaves room for the Holy Spirit at Baptism

Scattered Thoughts on Mothering These Little People

Sometime in the last year Jake has grown up into like a real KID.

I'm not used to mothering a real KID. For a long time motherhood was very toddler-y. I could engage him in activities, plop his sister down to watch him, and go along my merry way of interrupted semi-productivity.

Then I got sick with baby 3, and when I came out of the haze, Jake was a kid. A kid who plays with real legos and goes to swim lessons.

This makes me a mom who steps on legos and drives her son to activities.

I was pretty suited to toddler motherhood. I don't really like going places, and so for those couple of summers when all my child needed was a bucket of water and a porch, and I could prop up my feet with some enriching chick lit, I was in a pretty good spot. That just can't happen everyday, now that Jake knows the word "boring."

He's found out so much about the world that I successfully obscured for a very long time. He knows about candy and toys and where to buy them and who has money to buy them. He knows that certain restaurants have playplaces and others don't.

Lucy June has settled into a phase of lovely high pitched screams when she doesn't get her way and wants to do everything herself. Buckling the car seat: "MINE DO IT!" Spreading butter on her toast: "MINE DO IT!" Putting on her pants: "MINE DO IT!" It's as...endearing as it sounds.

And I'm learning. I'm learning how to understand what our family rhythms will look like. I'm slow to adapt and little people change quickly. I mostly recognize "phases" only in the rearview mirror.

Jake will always be the one to break me in.

This hurts me for him. I've needed a lot of breaking in. And the more I tread down the path of parenthood, the more breaking in I need.

Motherhood seems like such a paradox: Enjoy the little things without being overwhelmed by all the little things. Slow down and embrace today, but be ready to change tomorrow because your kids are growing so fast.

There's a necessary fluidity to mothering littles, and that fluidity can drown you or it can buoy you up.

For the past six months, I've been drowning. We've overcommitted ourselves in a variety of ways. This whole pregnancy feels kinda like an overcommitment.

Honestly it only takes about one kid to feel overcommitted to this whole mothering gig.

I know from talking to many many mothers that preserving time for yourself and a sense of yourself is a constant struggle. But if I'm learning something in this 33+ week of pregnancy in Houston's summer glory: sometimes struggling isn't the answer.

I want to learn the strokes of motherhood. It's easy enough for me to swim when the time is right, but in the difficult seasons I'm still learning how to float.

We have a lot going on in these last six weeks of pregnancy: there are some pretty big waves on the horizon. But the thing about this pregnant body: it floats. It floats pretty darn well, if I let it.

Many thanks to this lovely little friend who let me use the images she took when her family came with us to our creek house in South Texas a couple weekends ago.

Before I Had a Seven Year Old: Annie of Annery at Home

Back again with another interview for Before I Had a Seven Year Old, a series where I ask moms of older children about their experiences as new mothers. 

A few weeks into starting this series a reader reached out to me and asked if I was planning on having someone contribute who maybe...didn't have a bzillion children??? And I was totally pegged. So I thought she very much had a point and decided to remedy that! Today we have Annie of Annery at Home.

Annie is a wife of 10 years, mom of nine years, and an instructional designer.  That's a really fancy way of saying sometimes she designs training for companies instead of putting away the laundry.  She and her husband are foster parents and have struggled with secondary infertility for more than 8 years.

How many kids do you have?  How old are they?
Right now, we have three children living with us.  Our bio babies are LB, age 9 and SP, age 2.

We also had a foster daughter from July 18, 2011 to December 20, 2013 whom we raised from birth. Eight months after she was sent to a birth parent, we took another foster daughter, who is 3.

No face photos to protect her privacy, but trust me, she's a cutie!

What are the biggest differences in your home life now that you have slightly biggers running around and not just really littles?
My oldest was super colicky, super high strung, super stubborn (we're still working on a couple of those). The first five years with her were extraordinarily difficult in terms of emotional energy (especially since we were struggling with not being able to conceive). She was 6 when we got a foster placement for the first time and 7 when we had her younger sister.

She is very, very helpful. The single biggest difference between before 7 and after 7 (aside from going from one to three kiddos in a year) was the level of help she could provide. Right around 5, I noticed we turned the corner from needing to keep her busy so I could get something done to putting her to work next to me.

Now, life is busy, but so much easier in little ways that add up. LB can heat up a couple waffles or pour a bowl of cereal...not just for herself, for the littles too. I can finish getting my shoes on while she helps put little shoes on. I can grab snacks while she helps a toddler buckle in. So. Much. Helpfulness.

What's something you miss about that stage of only really littles?
Honestly, I like my kids more the older they get. If I had to pick something though, it would be that solid window of alone time in the afternoon during nap time (when she wasn't screaming and fighting it). Although, it's hard to say I miss that since that's now the time of day LB does chores and I really prefer having the help over the alone time.



If you could go back and tell your new mom self something, what would it be?
Don't feel guilty about napping.



How do/did you conquer nap strikes?
Napping just got a little more challenging around here with the arrival of a new toddler to share SP's room, and nap schedule. The most successful way we've conquered the goofing around at naptime is to sit in the room for about 5-10 minutes while the toddlers are falling asleep. I'm part of a book club and have a hard time finding the time to read the book, so I usually read for my book club book during this time.

I've taught the 3 y/o to sneak out while the 2 y/o stays asleep about another hour, then at night, the 3 y/o lays down about an hour earlier so they aren't up to nonsense all night long.

LB was an infamous nap striker. I found her sleeping half-standing leaned up against a chair or her bed as much as I found her in her bed at naptime. My strategy is to keep very little in the room, make them stay in the room and if they make a tornado, they'll be assisting in clean up AFTER naptime. When LB got old enough that she was only napping about half the time, I instituted a rule that she had to lay down for the length of one CD. We checked out a lot of children's books on CD from the library and she worked her way through a lot of them at naptime.  I think that's contributed to her love of literature now.

How has your marriage changed since having children?
It seems like all of our married life has been with kids. LB was born after 15 months of marriage, so most of the last 10 years, we've had company.

The biggest change has been in learning to conquer adversity and weather the storm together through sleepless nights, infertility, and loss. I couldn't have known how much we would need each other to just get through the day before kids.

It's also made it trickier to find alone time. We went to Germany for 10 days this summer for my work, and it was the first time we'd been alone for an extended period of time in years. I was surprised at how much I missed the kids, but it was nice having that time to reconnect.

Describe a moment where you definitely did not have it all together.
Recently? Our foster daughter's school had a child with lice. I absolutely lost my mind. I threw away everything they sent home for us to clean (it was our/her stuff), treated everyone in the family (even though she didn't actually have it, ergo none of us did), washed all bedding, all stuffed animals, sprayed down the house, generally went defcon 5 on it.

All the while I was doing it, I knew I was over-reacting, but I've never been so grateful for the super-hot sanitize function on my dryer. I'm still seriously considering taking all the clothes out of the closet and running them through the dryer.

In general? I almost always forget one thing I need. If someone is potty training, I probably do NOT have the emergency outfit in my purse. If someone is poopy, the wipes are probably in the other car.


How did you build community for yourself and your family?
This one has been tricky for me. When I had an only, especially when she was very young, it was really lonely. My best friend moved to Texas when my daughter was 8 months old (and finally moved back 8 years later - hooray!). I was alone with a young baby/toddler a lot.

When LB went to 3 y/o preschool, I still felt like it was hard to fit in. Everyone either had lots of kids, or was congratulating me on my "wise" decision to stick with one because they're just so much work. That was one of the hardest times in our infertility, because we weren't actively telling people. Now, when I get the questions about whether we're two and through, I always say that it took us seven years of trying to get our second, so we expect the third to be along for my 40th birthday. That joking way of telling them, "hey, it's not automatic for everyone!" seems to be the kindest way I've found of getting that point across.

Finally, when LB was 4, we decided (for a number of reasons) to homeschool. That is when I felt like I found my community. All these kids and moms who liked having their kids around all day. With an only child, I felt a heavy weight of needing to soak in her childhood, because her life/childhood might have been my only experience of that as a mother. I wanted to soak up every minute, to watch her learn and grow right in front of me.

It was hard for her to learn to read, but I was the one who got to see that click, and it was worth every hard day that came before it.

When we started homeschooling, suddenly, we were surrounded by a built-in network of all these other mothers and children who were around during the day, doing things with their kids, and generally enjoying themselves while doing it.

As an introvert, it's still an effort for me to make friends (and I'm learning to step up and make that effort more!), but having that surrounding network of ready-made community was a huge step towards finding my place in this world as a mother.

Blogging has also been a way I've built community, a community that is deeply personal and meaningful. I have built friendships with women who are struggling down the same road I'm on, who are new moms and trying to figure it out, who are veteran moms, all of them. We come together in faith and with a joint love for our families, and the common experience of trying to figure out how to be who God made us to be. My fellow bloggers are amazing, and one of the best "side effects" of telling my story in my own little corner of the blogosphere has been finding these other amazing women doing the same thing.

What was the hardest transition after having a newborn? 0 to 1? 1 to 2?
Zero to one was an especially difficult transition, but I think the hardest was one to two. There was a six year gap between LB and our first foster daughter.

When you only have a six-year old, you sleep in on Saturdays while they rummage for cereal and watch cartoons. They open their own car door and buckle themselves in. They can be trusted to walk next to a shopping cart without pulling items off a shelf. They can carry on conversations and roam relatively freely at play dates.

When you have an easy-going six year old, people will readily take your child places for extended periods of time. Aunts and uncles are happy to do sleepovers and take them to the zoo.

When you've been so softened by the easy life of just one well-behaved six year old, having a newborn with drug and alcohol exposure on two-hour's notice is kind of like running full speed into brick wall. But more painful, with much more crying and sleeplessness.

After we had been so used to sleeping well and sleeping in, we brought home a newborn. She didn't sleep for seven months. Every hour, she would be up and crying. With all the heartbreak we went through over losing her, I am so aware of how she needed us during that time. We changed her life forever by getting her through those first rough times.

I think the difficulty was compounded by having another baby 10 months after we brought our foster daughter home. I didn't get a full night's sleep for at least 2 years. I'm not one of those people who can perform well without sleep, so it was especially difficult. I never pulled all-nighter's in college, I'm always early to bed. That time was one of the most sleep-deprived, yet rewarding times in our lives.

A special note for moms of onlys or few

I felt such a pressure to imprint everything into my brain, to savor every moment.  Infertility magnified those feelings. As I look at my nine year old now, I'm reminded of those days when I felt such pressure that every day be so amazing and memorable. Now, I remember how much joy she brings me with each passing year. As tragically painful as getting rid of baby and toddler items is, I enjoy her more each year. There are so many that croak, "just wait until she's a teenager!", but I don't just love my girl, I like being around her. I don't buy into the myth that she must magically become a horrible human being for seven years. She'll still be her, just going through some things/hormones that might make her a crankier version.


Don't be afraid to let go of the baby or toddler to embrace the older kid in front of you. They're pretty awesome.

When you have to purge some stuff that makes you cry, send me a note and we'll cry about how awful it is together, because it seriously is. But, just know, every next step is something great. God will reward your openness to His plan, even if it doesn't include more babies, there will still be much fruit. Don't feel guilty that you might have an easier time of it as a mom because you're not feeling overwhelmed, God always gives us consolations in our suffering.

I'll still cry when I put away baby clothes, but greater times are still to come. Call me when you need to cry about it, I'll shed a tear with you.

Thanks so much to Annie for being here today! And you can find the whole lot of Before I Had a Seven Year Old posts here. 

Before I Had a Seven Year Old: A Series and a Link-Up

Let's start this out by clarifying: I don't have a seven year old. No magical three year olds turning into seven year olds over here, just me bending the ears of some mothers who DO in fact have seven year olds.

Three years ago, when I was a newly minted mother in Los Angeles, I had a baby shower. Schedules worked out in such a way that we had the shower when my little man was about eight weeks old. I was a new mother with a colicky two month old, and I was hurtin. I was in the trenches. I was drowning. I was in over my head. I was all the things. 

Jake cried pretty much incessantly from the time he was two weeks old to the time he was eight weeks old. I would sit in my room and nurse him, rock him, sing to him, walk him around, or any combination of those things. And I would wonder if he was ever going to stop crying. I mean this literally. In my sleep deprived state, I thought my baby might just cry forever, and I didn't even realize how absurd that thought was. I had to reason myself away from it. I told myself that I certainly didn't know any adults who cried all the time. Then I considered toddlers: I knew two and three year olds had tantrums, but I was pretty sure they didn't cry all the time either. And with this logic I was able to see some glimmer of hope out of the hole of "my baby spends every waking minute crying." You might think I'm exaggerating. But I'm not.

So this shower was right before I got some reprieve from all the crying, and the narrative was pretty set in my head: I didn't like this whole mothering gig and I was pretty bad at it.

Two of my earliest LA buddies - and now blogging buddies - were at the shower: Blythe, one of the shower hosts, and Kendra, who'd sewn Jake a yellow and black quilt with honey bees on it. Kendra was pregnant with her sixth at the time, and at some point as we were opening presents, someone asked her what item she recommended most for newborns and she said: "A seven year old."

I've thought back to the moment many times over the last three years, and already, even though I have more to deal with now that I have two, it's getting easier. That's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot: "It gets easier." I've spoken with mothers who have struggled with the transition from one to two, or mothers whose struggles peaked at three under four. And then of course, others like me who had rocky rocky initial transitions to motherhood. We cling to that truth: "It gets easier." But we cling to it guiltily because we know we shouldn't wish the time away.

Some of my favorite moments in blogs of mothers who have older (but still little) kids are the "throwback" moments when they talk about what it was like when they only had babies and toddlers at home. So I reached out to a few of my blogger friends and asked them some questions about what life was like when they only had very little children in the home, and over the next few weeks I'll be publishing their responses in a series called "Before I Had a Seven Year Old." We'll kick it off tomorrow.

I hope this little series will encourage new moms who have very recently had their lives turned upside down by motherhood and could really benefit from a seasoned mother's perspective.

If you're a mother of not just babies and toddlers and would like to write/have written your own "throwback" post about what life was like when you were still adjusting to motherhood, I encourage you to link it up here.

An InLinkz Link-up

#Edel14

Edel Edel Edel. (For the half dozen of you non Catholic mommy bloggers: I went to a Catholic women's conference called the Edel Gathering over the weekend. This post is shaking down to be my recap.)

               Hallie   Jen                Bonnie                                Christy       Kelly   Haley      mygirlAdrienne

Edel was kind of a blur. An awesome awesome blur. The kids and Jacob were with me since we were all en route to a wedding Saturday night. I knew going into Edel that I would miss the Saturday evening festivities because a dear friend was getting married that night. I also knew the conference would not be the relaxing and rejuvenating experience it was meant to be because I would be dodging back to the hotel room between sessions to nurse a clingy nine month old.

We stayed at the La Quinta up the street from the Omni, and after we arrived on Friday, Jacob took Jake for a swim in the hotel pool so I could get ready for the evening's cocktail party. I fidgeted and fidgeted with my hair, mad at myself for the mop of neglect it has become, put it up, combed it down, considered taking a shower, felt guilty about not just growing up already and paying good money for a good hair cut. I eventually managed a lackluster braid and slumped down on the bed to check the interwebs for some #edel14 love. Jacob got back from the pool with the toddler, looked at Lucy June on the floor of the hotel room chewing on a remote control, and then helped me through my minor meltdown concerning an old stain on the only dress I'd brought (prepared who?).

Jacob helped get the stain out and gave me a pep talk. Then I pulled on my cowboy boots and moseyed over to the Omni for the cocktail party. I wondered if I would see anyone I recognized in the lobby, but as soon as I walked through the glass doors I got so nervous I just stared at the ground and basically 007ed it to the elevators. After waiting six minutes (a lifetime!) for the elevator, I finally made it to Adrienne's room. Adrienne is one of my blogfriends turned real life friend, and we'd already decided to walk into this gig holding hands. I was nervous. So was she.

I couldn't make sense of the nerves I had. Or maybe I could. Over the years, this community of bloggers has become so important to me - it's helped carry me through these tough early parenting years. I'd thought about the possibility of a gathering like this for a long time, but it'd seemed so impossible. But thankfully Hallie and Jen are a little bit insane and a little bit magical because they made it happen.

I knew I didn't have the time to be nervous: I had so many people I wanted to connect with, that the connecting had to happen ASAP and I had to squelch any desire to appear cool in favor of marching right up to people and introducing myself. So Adrienne and I kicked back our first glass of wine and before I knew it, we were laughing with a five minute old friend about armpit stains.

Edel was electric.

Friday and Saturday were full of intros and little conversations and seeking out people that I wanted to say hello to. On Saturday afternoon, I was watching the countdown for when I had to leave for my friend's wedding. 1 hour. 45 minutes. 10 minutes. Soon I was giving Adrienne one last hug and running out to the street where my husband had been playing in the car for the past two hours with the baby while the toddler napped in his car seat.

We headed west out of town on 290; we headed west away from Edel.

Rushing to my hometown in the rural Texas Hill Country for this wedding, I could only think about how I was leaving this vibrant vibrant space that had collected women from so many places.

Two hours later and I was sitting on a white wooden chair in a crowd of people full of expectation - many of the faces in the crowd I recognized and even the faces I didn't recognize were familiar because of our common purpose. We were all about to witness something important. The buzz of Edel faded as I watched this friend walk the aisle in the most beautiful wedding dress I'd ever seen. The same wedding dress her mother and grandmother had worn before her. And I heard Hallie's words from the conference anew: "It is good that you are here."

Shamelessly stolen from facebook. 

Since that moment, those words have become like a song stuck in my head. Sitting at the breakfast table with my gentlemen and my little lady: "It is good that you are here." Nursing a baby to sleep and telling story after story to a drowsy toddler: "It is good that you are here." At book club with my dear Houston community as a dozen children run around in costumes and fight over toys and Jake spits on everyone: in a space beyond the din of the new five year old's harmonica, "It is good that you are here."

And now I must go to bed before I'm tempted to use another word like "din." Goodnight, friends.

How to Let Go of Your Standards and Feel Right Good About It

Did you read Blythe's post about simplifying her life?? It rang so true for me. Between that and The Nesting Place tucked in my carry on, I'm spending a lot of our current vacation mentally at home: ordering and redecorating our house, painting the gross highchair, actually printing some pictures.

In my home, I've struggled both to create workable systems and maintain the systems I create. Surprisingly, however, this has gotten a little better since I've become a mother. I'm better at it because I have more to keep track of, so I don't have the option to let everything slide. But, mostly, I'm better at it because being a mother has taught me that it's okay to be deliberate about systems that aren't perfect...that sometimes the only real problem with my system is that I just haven't embraced it as a system.

For example:

When Jake was a baby, we had a few bibs that we got here and there that didn't work very well. So when Lucy June started solids, I thought we needed a better system. Some people have those bibs that are bulky and plastic and basically end in a bowl, and those seem like they'd work. Or Zulilly had some bibs that I'd seen them on Shark Tank and thought they looked handy. After researching all the bibs and all the options and the mom blogs and the amazon customer reviews and feeling just overwhelmed at all the ways of managing this issue, I began to wonder just how we'd done this with Jake. I had already done this once without any of those fancy bibs, and somehow my baby grew up into a three year old. I thought back and remembered that I'd done it by feeding him shirtless. Strip baby. Watch baby "eat." And then tackle the whole kit and kaboodle with a washcloth. Or plunk the baby in the tub and call it a "bedtime routine." Point being: it had worked. So there I was staring at all the tabs in my browser with all these great bib options, and I slowly began closing them and deciding that I was ok with doing it that way again. 

Now I'm at peace with my bibless baby feeding. We are as messy as ever, but I'm no longer anxious about it.

I often hear new mothers lament about how they've let go of their standards. It makes me sad when I hear it. This post is a gesture to rebrand the flexing and stretching of motherhood that looks and feels a little like lowered standards. Of course, maybe your standards are lowering and you need to fight the good fight and turn yourself around. But maybe you're just learning how to be more at peace with chaos.

The End.

Cue image of my nephew's enormous mouth. This child is awesome. And his mouth is awesomer.

Sunday Sunday

Tuesday has us leaving on a pretty epic trip which involves multiples destinations, relatives, old friends, and...Oahu, so posting may be a little infrequent at the Good Ole R Log over the next few weeks.

It's been an unusual Sunday. We woke up this morning and decided to hit up the 7:30 Mass at a parish close to us so we could free up the late morning to go watch my brother preach at the historic First Presbyterian Church here in Houston. He's been their college minister for over two years and it was his first time preaching in the main service.

We left the kiddos in the nursery. And true to form, Jake ran gleefully away from his parents to play in the three year old classroom - absolutely no hint of anxiety despite being in a brand new place full of strangers - while Lucy June started fussing the second I dropped her in the "crawling nursery" and managed to get herself expelled by the third song in the worship service. I went back to get her and after hurling her horribly distraught self into my arms, she sniffed twice, exhaled and then was completely fine. Separation anxiety diva if there ever was one.

Jake wasn't like that at all as a baby. He didn't care much who he was with so long as he was they were helping him do whatever he wanted. Lucy June doesn't care so much what she's doing so long as she's with the right person. Me. Me. or um. Me. UNLESS there's a kiddie pool or a power cord involved. She'd probably trade me for constant access to kiddie pool or a good teething session on a power cord. Or maybe not, but it would be a hard decision.

Fifteen minutes of blogging brought to you by constant contact with mom's shins and full access to contraband mega blocks while big brother toy hoarder naps.

Where were we?


Right. First Pres. My big brother preached today and he did. so. well. During the "greet your neighbors" time, I told everyone around me that I was his little sister, and it was everything I could do not to let out a whoop when he was finished. He then came over to our house, and we very ecumenically drank alcohol together.

I hope you've had a lovely Sunday. I'm about to forgive myself for not completing half of my to do list for the day - which included, but was not limited to, finishing up this project, sandal-worthying my toenails, folding two weeks worth of laundry, packing, booking a rental car, loading up our devices with books for my beaching and Jake's airplaning - and continue my rewatch of Band of Brothers with my husband.

Celebrating as Young Parents

Jacob took several days off over the weekend so we could enjoy our anniversary. On Friday we went to Herman Park to ride the kiddy train. Jake insisted that we ride in the very last car, and as soon as the train started to move he yelled: "It's my first train ride EVER!!"

We then got off and had a picnic lunch, before getting back on the train, and Jake yelled: "It's my first train ride ever...AGAIN!!!"

We then migrated to a little staycation at The Houstonian. For some reason, Friday night was the cheapest night to go, so we went. We checked in early, brought the kids, and let them splash around at the club pool. We ordered poolside margaritas and enjoyed periodic slugs of them as Jacob waded after the toddler and I kept the baby upright as she flung both arms relentlessly into the water over and over and over again.

Would I have liked to drink my cocktail and read uninterrupted in a lounge chair? Umm....yes. But Lucy June's undaunted attempts to grab the spraying water in the kiddie pool fountain were funnier for a lot longer than you'd think. And Jake is SO! EXCITED! about life that taking him to do special fun things kinda makes me feel like a hero.

Eventually Jake went home for the night to watch youtube videos of tractors with his uncles, and we grabbed sushi and went back to the hotel where we sat on the couch in our room and watched Lucy June maneuver on the floor. It wasn't exactly a hip, late night bar with deep set lounge chairs, but she is in that phase where she can only scoot backwards and thus for all her efforts just ends up farther and farther away from the object she wants. So...pretty great in its own right.

If you follow me on instagram, you know that Lucy June was raking in wrong gender compliments all weekend. One sweet lady in the line at Marshall's raved in Spanish about my sweet little boys. I smiled and nodded and thanked her, but she wasn't done. She told me we had to try for a girl, and while we were at it we should really go for two girls to balance out the family. At that point, I was just too far in.

But thankfully there was no such confusion at the pool, her cousin's hand me down swimsuit left nothing to the imagination.

So that was our weekend and it was awesome.

One Hot Mess: a Link Up

Blythe is hosting her inaugural link up entitled One Hot Mess, and since Blythe is one of my faves online and off, and since I'm a mother of very little people, I'm pretty much in the Hot Mess Years, so I thought I'd just link up the happenings of this very exact moment.

Here is my baby who will not sleep. She has been temporarily banished from my hip to the yard



to be entertained by her brother's mildly dangerous antics.







I am hiding from both of them so I can please God eat something ANYTHING in peace.

But mothers don't get to eat alone.

ever.

We are now and - but for grace - ever and always One Hot Mess.

Five Favorites: Jake Jake Jakeboy

Joining Hallie and memorializing the words of my offspring today.

- 1 -

Jake: Can I play with a chopper?
Me: You mean like a knife? You're too young to play with knives.
Jake: A chopper's not a knife. I think it's just a machete. 

- 2 -

At the splashpad:
Jake: Can you turn the water off?

- 3 -

After hearing the baby cry:
Jake: Lucy Juney is awake! (starts running to her) I want to nibble on her! I want to nibble nibble nibble on her!

- 4 -

Me: Remember that you can't jump and be crazy on the furniture when we have guests.

Jake (looking at me strangely):
Me: Say "OK, mama"
Jake: OK, mama.

Ten minutes later:
Jake (gleefully climbing on the furniture): No being crazy on the furniture when I have gas! 

- 5 -

After I left the littles alone in Jake's room and an obviously wounded Lucy June starts crying:

Me: What's going on in there?

Jake: We were just playing a game and she was the tree and I was the woodpecker.

Such is my life starring these two.

Such is my life.

See Hallie for more favorites!!

7QT: Weather, Coffee, Child-Rearing, Broken Records

- 1 -

The older child has been running me hard this week. The terrible twos have overall been pretty great, but I hope the business of this week isn't a harbinger of what the threes have in store. The worst moment was when I had to pop his balloon as a consequence for running away from me in the library parking lot. (He was running on the walkway next to the parking lot and not in the parking lot itself, but still...) I popped a little boy's balloon, and it was the saddest thing. We both cried. 

- 2 -

Weather here in Houston has been amazing. It's almost like...we're living in Los Angeles again.

But unlike Los Angeles, this weather won't last, and while Houston only has an excuse for a winter, it certainly has a grueling summer that will probably start sometime next week. So we will carpe our mild sunshine and picturesque evenings for the next five days or so.

- 3 -

I keep running into posts about laundry recently. Laundry is pretty close to my heart and, unlike cleaning the toilet or mopping, is actually something I enjoy. I grew up folding a lot of our family's laundry. I spent many an hour with Anne of Green Gables beside a mountain of towels, gym shorts, and T-shirts. My mother used to tell me how good I was at folding. I was pretty proud. Now of course she had major ulterior motives for that encouragement, but she was right. I am a badass folder. And it's a competency that will probably be more consistently valuable to me than my master's degree.

- 4 -

Speaking of master's degrees, I love staying home with my kids.

I'm nervous to say that out loud. I'm nervous that the joy I'm experiencing will magically pop as soon as I admit to the world that - at least for now - I'm more than happy to be home with my kids.

With a big fat caveat: WHEN THEY NAP.

The mornings are so full of hope, you know?? And then that afternoon nap strike makes the whole rest of the day a big poopstorm. (SO sorry about that word. It's just that I'd already used my colorful word for this post, and that was all I could think to swap it with. I'm a first time potty trainer, you'll remember...and it's amazing how much literal and metaphorical excrement I have to filter while blogging about our life. Shocking really.)

- 5 -

Someone's being too quiet, so I'm going to run see if today was a naptime win.

Oh, most definitely a win.

- 6 -

Lucy June is still the awesomest baby. I'm experiencing her babyhood so differently than Jake's. Every time I try to write a post about the difference I start crying.

But it boils down to this:

Jake's infancy = emotionally tough
Lucy June's infancy = sugar and spice.

Except that she's recently become uber attached to me. When she's cranky - so in the evenings when there are finally other arms that can hold her - she wants me and only me. I find it endearing, and I love it, and I want her to outgrow it immediately.

- 7 -

Next weekend Jacob goes from working half days on Sunday to not working on Sundays at all. An (almost) real weekend!! I'm so excited for him. And for me. And for our kids. And for me.

Off to Jen's for more Quick Takes.