WKND

Our Father's Day was low key. With my father out of state and Travis being called in to tattoo it kind of felt just like any other Sunday. I had given Travis his gift on Friday after giving him the choice of waiting till Sunday or opening it now. It was no surprise, it was exactly what he asked for, another pair of boots. Only I bought the wrong version, and the size ran small, and in the five minutes of trying them on in the living room he decided he wanted a different pair altogether. OK then, its your holiday, whatever you want. Wife fail. We went to our tiny crowded diner for breakfast, then ran some errands. By the time we got home I had such a headache and felt really nauseous. I joked about being pregnant but I honestly think it was the two cups of coffee, no water, crowded department store combination. I got both girls to nap and crashed on the couch just as Travis was running out the door. Apparently there were quite a few Father's Day folks waiting for him and he would never turn down a tattoo. I only rested for a few minutes before getting up to be productive. I cleaned the kitchen and folded some laundry (surprise!). It was great that the girls slept for two and four hours, I needed that break and enjoyed some alone time with Luna while Dakota just kept on napping.

Travis was able to scoot out of the shop later and meet us for dinner at his parents house. It was nice to recover from feeling so crappy and enjoy a nice dinner with family. I really enjoyed spending the extra time with Travis, we never get to eat dinner together or with his family - it's usually just me alone with the girls or me and his mom with the girls. It was even better to come home together last night. I had an extra set of hands to brush teeth and read bedtime stories. I laughed so hard while bouncing Dakota and listening to Travis ad-lib Luna's bedtime books.

Sorry, just two boring photos from Instagram...I didn't reach for my camera all weekend actually. Today we're just hanging out, getting a late start on the morning. Right now though I'm running up to the deli to grab Travis an egg sandwich and quick over to my in-laws to print something. I love not having the clutter of a printer but the few times a year I need to actually print something at home, blech. I am forever forgetting things at the grocery store so we'll head there yet again today at some point. I'm hoping the humidity passes and the breeze kicks up so we can do something nice outside today too before I start another work week tomorrow.

THE SLING DIARIES, VOL III : L O V E

a guest entry by Travis, for Father's Day.

Bear with me as I'm a man of few words. I'm soft spoken. I hate crowds. My palms sweat over bridges. But the thing I never thought I would fear most is a teeny tiny baby. So little and wobbly. How do I hold her, I can't feed her like Brooke, and what on earth does she need if she is crying? How would I provide for her enough if she deserved everything the world? What would we do after maternity leave? With Luna I tossed and turned most nights leading up to Brooke's return to the office. We had decided I would put my career as a tattoo artist on hold - momentarily halting any progress I was making in my industry - and I would stay home. I could still work nights + weekends, but my days would be filled with bouncing a newborn baby and spilling milk storage bags. I hated the very idea of it but when you love someone...when you love someone so much, you do anything to provide for them. Even if it means sacrificing your dreams.

That first year was rough. My days were filled with with the stress of early motherhood. When should she nap, how much she should eat. Does she have a fever? Poop explosions and spitup all over my favorite t-shirts. I busted my ass into the wee hours of the night only to come home catch an hour (or three) of sleep before I'd have to wake up and do it all over again. Brooke and I were like passing ships in the night. I'm surprised we ever found time to conceive Dakota! But with the bad comes some good and I look back on that year and feel lucky to have that time with Luna. She's a daddy's girl at heart for sure. And here just another year later and I've continued my career and even opened my own tattoo shop. I set my own hours and work for myself so that I can be there whenever Brooke and the girls need me. I had sacrificed what I wanted, to give them what they needed and was greatly rewarded.

With Dakota, Brooke returned only part-time. I miss my girls so much when I am away from them and I thank the ghost of Steve Jobs for Facetime each night. I still make special time for Luna one morning a week and we have breakfast out together - just us. With Dakota breastfeeding and at only four months old I don't get as much one on one time with her. I prefer to hold a baby once they stop that wiggle bobbing backwards trick. Wearing her like this is great. She is so close to me, so calm and content and I feel secure again that I too can be there for her. 

I would do anything for my girls. Sometimes I smile so hard, I feel like my chest will burst. Being a father is the easiest, and at the same time, the hardest thing I do everyday.  But I wouldn't trade it for anything else in this world.

This post is a bonus installment of the Sakura Bloom Sling Diaries Volume III.  

Travis is wearing the Pure Linen Baby Sling in Mint. 

You can find my previous entries here.

THE SLING DIARIES, VOL III : J O Y

Sometimes I think my vocabulary can become repetitive and I can lose sight of a words specific definition. I can no longer see every bit + piece of the puzzle but just one big fuzzy picture. I know joy is in the same realm of happiness, but I just had to look it up out of curiosity for the more intricate definition. What I found in definition was the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires. Sounds beautifully right on to me. 

Well-being, success, and good fortune. The prospect of possessing what one desires. These words echo through my head like the ringing of dream like bells. Sometimes, my life does feel like a dream. In my last entry I spoke of memory and being a little girl on the waters of a small town. Seems as though I only blinked, and here I am today. I am a healthy woman. I have found and married my soul mate. I have made a successful career. I was lucky to have given birth to two beautiful babies. I possess all of the non material things I had dreamed of as a girl. 

I have now seen first hand how fast time passes us by. An invisible freight train moving from one milestone to the next. When we stop and really look around at where we are, who we are, who we are with, and what we have, I hope there is joy for all of us. To step outside and feel the sun. To watch my family grow in numbers and in solidarity. To feel accomplished and of value. To be at peace, to give and feel love... that is my joy. 

This post is my third installment of the Sakura Bloom Sling Diaries Volume III.  

I am wearing the Pure Linen Baby Sling in Wheat. 

You can find my previous entries here.

THE GUILT CHIP

she said WHAT?

I wasn't necessarily looking for help on tantrums but I'll take some. Just like anything else on the interwebs my stumble went like this: Click to read an article, click again to another interesting headline, click to another, and then there it was catching my eye and intriguing me to click and read more. THIS article from the Huffington Post on a common tactic I personally employ and will nickname "the mommy guilt maneuver". If you're not familiar (AS A MOM OF A TODDLER I KNOW YOU ARE), it's when your child is throwing a DEFCON 1  tantrum over a dropped grape, a stuck toy, or the notion that you told them they cannot have cookies for breakfast. You try to stay calm and in an effort to avoid yelling you take what you think is a reasonable last ditch route and sadly say "please don't baby, you're making mommy sad". And don't be fooled, it's not just for mamas - I'm pretty sure I heard my husband say it twice this morning while I was in the bathroom trying to flatiron my hair at a supersonic speed. 

Now even though I'm staying calm and trying to deflect the tantrum the article goes on to explain how I may not be setting the best precedent for my daughter:

For one thing, think about the undertones of that sentence, the message hidden in-between the seemingly innocuous words. What I'm really telling her when I say something like that is that, above all else, she needs to make me happy. That she needs to put aside her own wants and desires to please me and to be sure that my emotional needs are met. And, more broadly, that she needs to put aside her emotional needs to please whomever it is that she thinks she loves. Which isn't terrible when her emotional needs are for more chocolate. But it's pretty terrible when her emotional needs are for respect and boundaries but she puts that aside to please an over-reaching new love interest. Or when her emotional needs are for freedom and safety but she puts that aside to keep the peace with an abusive husband.

WOW. Hi. I'll be hiding over here in the bad mom cave eating gluten free oreos. How much damage have I done so far? Where's my toddler right now so I can rectify this giant oops on my part. Let me text my husband and interrupt his day to let him know yet again I've found a flaw in our parenting by perusing the great information super highway from my kitchen table.

Of course, it's important to teach our children that their behaviors affect other people. That other people also have emotions that we must respect. But respecting someone else and being a caretaker for someone else -- responsible for their happiness -- are worlds apart.

But there's an even more insidious problem with this method of discipline. If I try to stop the tantrums by telling my daughter that she's making me unhappy, the not-so-subtle message is that I am not in control of my own happiness. And nothing could be more dangerous.

WHOOO! Girl I am sweating over here.

You see, to the extent to which she thinks she needs to make me (and others) happy, she'll also expect others to make her happy. If trying to make other people happy is a recipe for making bad decisions that don't adequately reflect what you as an individual really need, then expecting other people to make you happy is a recipe for a lifetime of unhappiness. Which, in the end, is much worse.

PARENTING. OMFG.

Because the truth is this: Every single person is completely and unconditionally responsible for his or her own happiness. Other people, external circumstances, our kids, our parents, even the weather can make us feel up or down. But how we choose to react to that is always just that -- our own choice.

I don't want to teach my daughter that she should always be looking to someone else to make her happy. I don't want her to think that there is some magical external circumstance that will make her life complete. I don't want her constantly striving to find whatever that is, and losing her life in the pursuit.

OKAY - so that's the meat & potatoes of this article and WOW, I hear you loud and clear lady. Agreed, yes, sign me up, I'm on your side here. To be honest when I have used the mommy guilt maneuver if I can catch myself in the moment - it doesn't feel good. I feel fake. I'm not really upset that my toddler is freaking out over something that is obviously upsetting her more than it's upsetting me. Even worse, knowing that my feelings I am portraying to her are fake and her feelings are real - OOF - that really feels uncomfortable. I know that her tantrums are physiological. I expect them, but that doesn't mean I know how to handle them every time. I was slightly disappointed to reach the end and not see a finite solution on how I should be reacting. I have a tendency to expect the solution to come as fast as the notification of the problem on most issues and I realize this is a personal flaw. I would have loved to see a reaction to tantrums that wouldn't possibly be setting up my kid for a life of needing to please others - but not one such solution exists. I realize that's parenting. The appropriate solution to a tantrum will be specific to each toy flung, each screaming shriek, and every situation will be different. I need to stay flexible and keep my options open. I can keep reading articles like the above and broadening my horizons on how to solve the very normal common problem of the toddler tantrum. I like the idea of trying to distract away from sadness and anger and towards something happy and pleasant. I'd like to think I can walk a fine line of letting my toddler experience and communicate her not so pleasant feelings and in the next breath help her get somewhere brighter. 

I'm pretty sure absolutely sure there will be a tantrum in the very near future and instead of dipping into my old bag of tricks and possible pulling out the guilt chip I'm going to try some new directions and see what it yields instead. I won't tolerate hitting or any other abuses without consequence. I will however try to be vigilant of what I use as a consequence because guilt from me should not be one of them. Parenting is an ever evolving walking on eggshells journey. Just when you've figured a phase out, the next one is in full swing. But just as the author also expressed in her last sentence, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, tantrums included. 

Have any advice for us? What works for you? Would love your comments please!

PLEASE CLICK HERE

FIRST CSA

We joined a CSA for the first time and our first pickup was this past Saturday. We chose to pickup not from the farm directly but from our local farmers market so we could snag some local cheese, fruit, and eggs as we desired in addition to our biweekly vegetable share. We also signed up for a monthly meat share that yields local grass fed beef cuts. With this weeks share we got bok choy, mesclun greens, radishes, asparagus, arugula, broccoli raab, and fresh mint. The meat share yielded liver, ground beef, and a rib steak. So far I've only made the ground beef (in a gluten free meat ziti) and it was delicious. The vegetables have been a great addition to our fridge and its forcing me to cook outside my comfort zone, always a plus. In addition we picked up some fresh organic strawberries, honey, and an amazing cheddar. OH...and a knit hat for Dakota because I felt inclined to purchase after the nice knitting lady placed it on my babies head as I walked by...