Baby Unwise

Babywise, Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child, The Happiest Baby on the Block, the Ferber Method, co-sleeping vs. not co-sleeping, cloth diapers vs. disposable, medicated childbirth vs. all natural, vaccinated or not, formula vs. the boob-- what do you think I am getting at?

 If you are currently a Mom living in the 21st Century, I bet 90% of you have heard one of those terms or phrases. What do they mean? What in the heck is the Ferber method? Oh, just letting your baby cry for pre-determined amounts of time before giving him or her comfort? But wait, you let your baby cry?! Babywise-- baby WHAT? Scheduled naps and feedings, what in the Sam Hill  would you do that for? And disposable diapers? YOU ARE THE REASON THE EARTH IS ROTTING. You don't vaccinate your children because you know better than thousands of pediatricians? Your child is ten and still shares a bed with you?! No, that can't be right, or normal. You had an epidural during labor?! Do you even know how dangerous those are?? Breastfeeding- you let a tiny human suck on your nipple and chaff it?! OUCH!

Ladies, I'm kidding. Well, I'm kind of kidding. I have followed a lot of inspirational Mamas via Instagram for several years and honestly, I'm blown away by the things people say. Human beings, that is what we are, correct? Yet sometimes, we talk to one another or about someone, like they are anything but human. I've seen words like, "hate," "stupid," "ignorant," "abusive," and "idiotic" when reading responses to posts on how a mom chose to sleep train, feed, and raise their baby. We pick on each other for organic versus processed (yellow 5, are you kidding me?! You FEED your kids that?!) Have people always been so critical?

I follow the sweet and talented Hannah Carpenter on Instagram (if you don't, you need to!) and recently she had a post that made me laugh out loud: a cute picture of one of her daughters and youngest son with the caption, "they both still come to bed with me every night. I don't hate it," and the hashtag #babyunwise. I commented on it that I appreciated her humor, whether she was trying to be humorous or not; and that while my husband and I chose to actually do and use Babywise, I loved how different we all are and that we can still be a community! Hannah responded, "Agreed. Everybody's gotta do what works for them." Preach, sister.

I'm the mom who swore she never wanted kids of her own. And I was so disturbed by breastfeeding that even when I got pregnant, I claimed that I didn't really want to do it. Enter the birth of my first child, our son, and once he was here, breastfeeding became one of my greatest joys (chaffed and bloody nipples and all and yes, that did happen). Don't even get me started on how my milk supply dried up; I was in hysteria over the fact that I wasn't making the choice to stop breastfeeding when he was a mere six months old, I was being forced. I even used one of my best friend's breast milk that she donated until it ran out, I began supplementing with formula and he continued to grow and thrive into a perfectly healthy baby boy! I was also the Mom who thrived on a schedule and the thought of not having one for him greatly stressed me out. When friends mentioned Babywise, we read it, talked about it, prayed about it and did it. The day Pierson was born, it's like he said, "I've got you, Mom and Dad." He nursed every three hours on the clock, slept pretty great off the bat, and again, continued growing into a healthy and happy babe. I know we tweaked things along the way....Did he ever need to eat "off the clock," sure! I didn't starve him, I didn't neglect him, and I made sure that his needs always and foremost came above mine. We had our second child, our baby girl Reese, and knew that because Babywise was so successful with him, we would of course try with her. She threw us for some loops, especially when she turned eight weeks old; colic or belly aches or who knows really because I can't remember--but we didn't stick solely with that method. Things changed and she forced us to be a little more flexible and while being so, I realized that I was still a good mom.

My kids are now two and three and haven't slept in our bed since they were a week or two old. I tried with Pierson; we got him all cozy in the middle of our bed with his sweet blankets. He looked so peaceful and cuddly, but every dad blame noise he made, I was leaning over his face making sure he was alright. We decided having him sleep in his crib would allow all of us a better and more solid nights rest and having a video monitor gave me peace of mind. The same went for Reese; I learned that with Pierson, since he slept in his bed from his first week on, he was not flexible to sleeping in other places. I love that he loves his bed but at the same time, I am incredibly envious when I see pictures of sleeping kids in their parents bed. I was hopeful I could make Reese a little more flexible with her sleeping, but to no avail, she's the same way. I would give anything to cuddle in our king sized bed with both babies and sleep soundly all together but it's just not going to happen any time soon. I'm too high strung (and a terrible sleeper in general) and my kids are too used to their routine. Parent fail? Probably to some, but why does how we chose to sleep train our children have to be up for debate with anyone else? Oh, you didn't do co-sleeping? Cool, that's great. Whatever works for you! Or, your kids sleep with you? Awesome, I'm so glad that method works. Whichever you're for or against, I promise it's okay.

Not too long ago, I needed to take the kids to the grocery by myself. We have those annoying car shopping carts and when they spotted them near the entrance, Reese screamed, "Blue car!" Pierson yelled, "Red car!" I grabbed the closest one: the red one. Enter my two year's old tantrum: Reese starts hysterically sobbing, screaming, actually going red in the face. She's our hitter and she smacked my chest in a quick angry outburst. Customers passed by me, I stood quiet, in between the roses and avocados. I gently took her hands and put my mouth to her ear, "Reese Elisabeth, you will not hit me, you will not throw a fit and yell and get your way. You will now ride in the shopping cart, not the car, until you are calm." More crying.

Photo by Jana Glass

A manager came over and said, "Would it help if I gave her a sucker?" What world do you live in?!  A sucker to reward her hitting me and screaming because she didn't get her way?!I I thought. "No thank you, she will be just fine." We continued moving. "I. want. to. ride. in. the. blue. car," she cried. Down the milk aisle, her still crying, me still quietly reminding her of the expectations. "Enjoy these moments," a man said as he smiled at me. This? Right here? Enjoy this? He continued, "...it only gets harder from here." I stopped the noisy and giant cart. "That's the piece of advice you want to give me right now?" He laughed, "Oh I'm kidding," he continued shopping in another aisle, away from my hellions yelling.. A lady with giant puppy dog eyes looked at Reese. "Poor baby," she sighed. Poor baby, yes, the two-year-old throwing the fit over the color of the gigantic car shopping cart I have to navigate through diapers and wipes. 

Reese suddenly had her epiphany and let out a heavy sigh. Her body stilled, her shoulders loosened and her big hazel eyes looked into mine. "I'm sorry," she said. I hugged her and thanked her for using her words. Reese, you can ride in the car if you can do it without yelling and if you keep your hands to yourself." There was Pierson, riding quiet as a mouse this trip. I gently sat her beside him in the god-awful blue car and tiredly approached the check-out counter. No sooner did I get half way through paying did the two of them start bickering. A lady behind me touched my shoulder as she started loading her groceries on to the scanner. "I just wanted to say, we have been in the same aisles a lot today and I've been watching you." Uhoh, I thought. "From one parent to another, you are a fudging rock star of a Mom."  Except she didn't say fudge, she said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word! "Oh gosh, thank you," I smiled and to myself thought, this has been okay.

That, that comment right there-One mom to another, she didn't roll her eyes at my noisy children, she didn't scold me for not parenting differently; she just gave me a pat on the back. She doesn't know if we did co-sleeping or not, if I birthed them naturally or not or whether I bought cloth or disposable diapers. And she didn't need to- she saw a mom; a tired mom, an embarrassed mom, a mom who could use some serious encouragement, and she gave it! That's all it took to turn my afternoon around and her one line has stuck with me ever since.

From one mom to another, from me to you, however you parent, whichever way you want to raise your children: YOU are a fudging rock star and I applaud YOU! I hope and pray that instead of being a community of competitors, judges, one-uppers, and negative Nancy's, we can instead put arms around each other, look one another in the eye and say "Your babies are lucky to have YOU!" 

I would love to hear from you! What are your favorite parenting tips? What is your go-to book for Motherhood? Share a piece of advice you would give a fellow Mama and let's encourage one another today!

I Am Here

I hear the 'drip...drip...drip' and the beep of the coffee maker. The candles are glowing and giving off a faint vanilla and lavender scent. Standing up from my little white desk in my tiny dining room nook, I wrap my cardigan tighter around me. Slowly, I pour a warm cup of decaffeinated coffee and add my favorite hazelnut cream. The house is dark and I can hear the faint hum of the heater, soon to kick back on. Our fat black house cat hops in my lap, his favorite place, while I sit and write. I close my eyes before I begin putting my pen to the paper, and I breathe deeply. I can feel it encompassing my shoulders, I can smell it down to the bones of our one hundred year old home. I can sense it in the squeaks and creaks of these aging wooden floors- it is love. It is here. It is home.

I have always struggled with love. In high school I dated a handsome and Godly young man who I truly believed that I would marry. We met when we were fifteen and stayed together until I was eighteen and preparing to leave Michigan for Kentucky. That summer, I began to panic. I feared change and in my heart, I was convinced that I would end up being the one who got hurt in the relationship. So kissing another guy made total sense in my still very young mind, when in reality it ruined our relationship, making me emotionally miserable for many months of my freshman year of college.

Fast forward to my fifth year of marriage, when I was twenty-five and figuring out how to be Mom to two babies, fifteen months apart from each other. My hormones were a mess, I had Postpartum Thyroditis for almost two years straight and my emotions were all out of whack. It made total sense to start toying with an emotional attachment to someone else then, right? My once God-centered marriage, the one I naively believed was immune to wrong-doing, was shaken to its' core. I was so scared because everything seemed so good and so safe- Our jobs, two happy and healthy children, a beautiful home in the heart of the city; I began to consider sabotaging it, just like eighteen-year-old me.

What resulted was the worst storm our family has ever seen, a summer spent of guilt, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. The words 'I choose you' tattooed on our arms, are a daily reminder that my husband chose me, in spite of my failures; and that I so humbly, choose him in return.

The wick on the candle pops loudly. The coffee maker beeps again, this time letting me know that it has been almost two hours since it brewed. My cat stretches and yawns, looking up at me almost as if saying, “Aren't you ready for bed yet?” No, not yet. I want to write a little more. I want my heart to be reminded of how far it has stretched and grown, how it has been rebuilt from the tiny shatters along the way. I want to appreciate this life, this love. And then I want to close my tired eyes as I climb into bed, slipping my hand into his as I drift off.

Our children are so happy. Sweet Pierson and spunky Reese. Three and two, they are not anything I could have planned for, nor could my heart have ever realized the bittersweet pain it would endure by loving them. They have been spared, by the grace of God, from when I was digging my heels into figuring out how to accept grace and forgiveness. They never witnessed my husband's hurt and anger and they never heard me say that I thought about leaving. Thank God for this, for growth and for mercy—that we want our children to grow to know their Creator and that because of that, we strive to be better.

Life is leveling out, our routine now just flows, they love their nightly bath and bedtime. They are learning how to love each other as well as how to manage their feelings when they don't. He asks a million questions a day and he radiates love everywhere he goes. She speaks up a storm, and spends her day being Mommy to her baby dolls. She is absolutely the best cuddler in the entire universe. Together, they complete me.

Here I am, mother of two, wife of seven years and I have grown so much. I remember sobbing my eyes out (as well as shamefully spewing out some not-so-nice words) when I read 'pregnant' on that stick. He was seven months old; I had been nursing and taking a birth control pill safe for breastfeeding mothers. My cycle never started, I woke up on Martin Luther King Jr. Day three years ago feeling funny, and I just knew. Every single ounce of me doubted my capability of raising two tiny humans. “How am I going to go to the grocery store?” I thought. “How will I get out of the car and up the gazillion (ten...) steps to our home?” “How can I carry two children on my hips?” All of these trivial questions entered my brain and sadly stuck there for months on end, until learning she was a girl and when I started to embrace my journey with her. They play tag, running in circles around the open spaces of our first floor. Play-doh creations and Hotwheel races, dressing up like Batman and Princesses, experimenting with nail polish and Spiderman tattoos. And I just want to freeze time. Every single night before I climb into bed, I can't not quietly go into their rooms. It never fails that he is cuddling Lion and she is holding her Bitty Baby's hand, their fuzzy blankets warmly comforting their still baby cheeks.

My legs are beginning to fall asleep. I need to stretch them out and he jumps down. “Sorry, Sam,” I whisper. I close the cover to my journal which reads, “Let it Be.” I rest my head on the back of my hands and my eyes happily close. The words that have been said here, the memories that are embedded in this place; let them stay. I am so far from having it all together. I have screwed up, I have had to ask for complete forgiveness in more ways than one and I have cried into my husband's chest as he reminds me why I am loved. It doesn't come easily for me, sometimes it has even made me want to run. But the place that I am in, the “You are Here” dot that grounds me; it is their love. It is in the safety of his arms, the soothing tones of his voice. It is the contagious laughter that bursts from my children and in the warmth of their perfect embrace. The road to get here hasn't been easy but I am here now and that's all that matters.

Just Us

We have been blessed to have really happy and obedient kids, you know, the whopping three years total that we've been parents. But if you're one of those who may think transitioning from one to two kids has been simple for me, well it's honestly been nothing but a giant learning curve.

Pierson was our summer baby. The one we spent three months trying to get pregnant with, the babe we had an entire summer with, just the three of us and our pets, in our new-to-us home; relaxing, cuddling, napping, walking, and oohing and ahhing over single move he made. I documented every single stage, including the time he rolled off the changing pad and we made a trip to the ER (#firstimeparents).

He was sweet and simple; not a crier, an excellent sleeper and a very giggly, happy baby. When he was seven months old, my world was rocked when we found out I was again pregnant. I sobbed my eyes out, knowing that my then napping baby had no idea what his mother just found out and that he would have no idea that it ever used to be 'just us.' I know this has the potential to sound terrible to those reading, but I don't mean it that way. I don't hate our second child (duh, look at her!) and things turned around later in my pregnancy with her-- but there was heartache for me thinking that I wasn't given enough time. I was just figuring out this whole Motherhood thing, I was recovering from Thyroiditis and plain and simple; I felt guilty. "He didn't ask for this!" I cried to my own mom. "He didn't say he wanted a sibling!" The trivial nonsense I bothered myself with is surreal. (What child asks for a sibling? And what about the kids who are second and third and fourth children?)

My daughter Reese was born, almost fifteen months to the day that he was. I was released two days later and it's like when the nurses and doctors were discharging me, they were patting me on the back saying, "Here you go, Mama. Now you have two babies to raise. You have two tiny humans you're in charge of. You'll be fine." My role as Mom to Pierson changed drastically. Before she came, I was his everything. Not that my husband wasn't present (because he is, immensely); but that no other child relied on me. Now I had a tiny baby girl, who needed me for all of her meals, every three hours , no matter what we all may be doing. Pierson had to learn how to play independently, was shushed when I was scared he would wake her, or scolded if he tried to crawl into my lap while I re-learned how to breastfeed. Over time I got better and I learned how to live as a mom of two. But still he was immediately 'the older child' and was required to step it up a notch or two, or twenty by being so.

My husband would often play with him while I nursed or bathed her. It wasn't until she got to be quite a bit older that it became easier to parent together again, instead of mostly apart. Life started to slow down after her first birthday- well, slow isn't the right word. Nothing is slow with toddlers. But we have our routine and thanks to Babywise working for our kids, they love and thrive on them.  I can again intentionally focus on being Mom to Pierson. Some days we use the phrase "divide and conquer" and to us this means that we need to separate the kids. They are together all day, every day, and they literally do not know life apart from one another. To Pierson, Reese has been with him forever and for Reese, well, that's actually the case. She loves to grocery shop with her Dad and the photo above represents Pierson's most current mom and son hobby: baking.

I am learning so much about him and his three and a half-year-old self.  Cooking is my husband's thing and baking is mine, so when at ten o'clock in the morning this Saturday Pierson said, "Mommy, I want to make chocolate chip cookies with you," that's what we did. Reese went to the store and Pierson sat on our yellow step-stool, helping me measure brown sugar and flour and turning the standing mixer to the right speeds to mix. We scooped the dough on to the cookie sheets and set the timer; he sat on the kitchen floor for a few seconds and watched as their shape started to change. They began to warm and spread out, fall a little and then rise. I stopped rinsing the measuring cups and paused to take him in. The once newborn baby, my once only child. The big brother and the incredibly loving and gentle soul that started our family. I didn't know that he would become a big brother so soon and while I adore being Mom to both my children, my heart very much skips a beat when it's just us.

Thank you, Pierson, for helping me bake these cookies. Thank you for your grace, forgiveness and love. Three years sounds so short to many, but in Mom Time, it's much longer. They have been slow at times but fleeting overall; to think that in three more you will be six, well, I can't even imagine. Your helpful heart and eagerness to learn make me swell with pride. I am so thankful for every single ounce of you, even and especially when I am not strong enough to show it.

Valentines Goodies Brought to You by Shari's Berries©

I can't believe Valentine's Day is in just a couple weeks! I was so excited to partner with Shari's Berries this month because now I can show you the perfect gift to send your boo- (or kids, or bestie, or mom, or whoever!) I don't know about YOU, but gourmet dipped strawberries are right up my love language alley. There is such a huge selection to choose from; from hand-dipped football berries, hand-dipped caramel apples and classic dipped cherries! I got these delectable berries in the mail and photographed (and ate!) them a day later- they were still as fresh as can be! 

Paired with some sparkling cider, (champagne would of course work too), talk about YUMMY. The kids requested 'pink milk' so that's what they got. As they were finishing their berries, they looked at one another and said, "Cheers!" (Reese's favorite thing to say thanks to our many tea parties). These two and three year olds definitely approved!

Run, don't walk, to your computer or phone or whatever device you want to use and place your order for Valentine's Day! I promise you won't regret it!