Motherhood Is...

Being a mom means something different to everyone. Sometimes I read blog posts that talk about what being a mom is and I don't relate to it at all. "Being a mom means never being able to shower" (I may have to plan for that shower more than I used to, but gosh darn it, it's going to happen.) "Being a stay at home mom means wearing yoga pants all day" (I pretty much only wear yoga pants when I do yoga. I like (gasp, double parantheses) dressing up every day.) "Being a mom means never doing anything for yourself" (I'm a very selfish mother who practices my violin, reads books, and washes my hair.) So I wanted to write about some of the things motherhood is to me right now.

Motherhood is waving to the deer that crosses the road, because you are too tired to remember that deer aren't people.

Motherhood is believing you can get dinner in the crockpot, clean your bathroom, read a book, make bread, and shower during 1 1/2 hour nap time. Ha!

Motherhood is having 3 dozen board books memorized so you can read them to your child with your eyes closed, because you are so tired.

Motherhood is going to work with spit up on your shoulder. Oops, didn't notice that.

Motherhood is executing a 35 point turn to get out of the parking lot when your neighbor puts the garbage cans behind your car and realizing 45 minutes later you probably could have just moved the garbage cans.

Motherhood is patting yourself on the back when your child eats eggplant, peas, and zucchini for dinner and ignoring the fact they ate your brownie crumbs off the floor.

Motherhood is feeling successful that you kept a human being alive today! So, I didn't get anything else done today.

Motherhood is saying "that's gross!" every five minutes. Electrical sockets are gross! Books are gross! Mommy's car keys are gross! Garbage cans are gross! Please stop licking it!

I'm pretty sure this job is going to change every day, but it's fun to remember what motherhood is in October 2015.

Motherhood is taking your baby to your favorite national park and going on fun hikes. And saying "sand is nasty!" 100,000 times.

1600 Miles, 3 Babies, and 10 Crabs

Prepare yourself for a lengthy post, because it was a lengthy trip, at least by my standards, because I never go anywhere.

Two weeks later and I'm still catching up from the laundry. Sometimes I feel like you can measure how much fun you have by how awful the laundry is when you get home.

So, it almost looks romantic. But, it's my 12 year old brother, I'm holding his wrist, and we're running because the water. is. so. cold.

The water was so cold that Delaney built a wall for my nephew, M, so he wouldn't get wet. He loved it.

Until it failed anyway.

Chickadee was well behaved on this trip, you know for a baby. But this kid, this adorable kid, was perfect. He complained less than some of the adults.

One of our favorite things to do on the beach (other than stroll and bask in the sheer beauty of this place), was to go crab fishing. Crab hunting? Crabbing? We caught crabs, in a trap. My brother-in-law Bruce was definitely the best at it.

We had to throw most of them back because they were too small, but we did catch enough to feed the whole family. (As an appetizer to going out for fish and chips.)

We really enjoyed seeing the wildlife at the aquarium and taking as many selfies as possible. (Is it wildlife if it's in captivity? Or is it captured life? hmm...)

The tide pools when we went to visit Yaquina Head Lighthouse were incredible. On a side note; the house we stayed in had four stories. I know, crazy! But it was nice because it meant the babies could be separated and not wake everybody up. The not-so-nice part about it was that I had to climb three flights of stairs to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night (the one on our floor was broken, the next floor I would have had to wake up Brecklyn, Bruce, and babies M and G to use.) So, by the time I took the tour of Yaquina Head Lighthouse (the tallest in Oregon), the stair climb was no problem.

After we went to the Aquarium we explored Newport a little bit. It had some cute shops, but most of all it had sea lions really close to the dock. They were so loud. And they played king of the hill which was hilarious. It basically looks like a bunch of fat pieces of breakfast sausage pushing each other.

Not much to say here except that I love these two and their smiles. They made the trip 1000 times more fun.

One morning, Brad, Chickadee, and I struck out on our own to go on a hike. The fog was thick so we couldn't see very far, but oh it was beautiful. The forest looked like something out of a fairy tale. I was prepared to protect my family from a wolf disguised as a grandmother.

Most of the hike was wooded but at the very end it opened up into a grassy area. With all the fog it felt very Bronte-esque.

We loved the hike so much, the next day we convinced the rest of the family to come see it. Without the fog it was completely different. Turns out we had been right next to the ocean the entire time!

Delaney was the lucky one who got to ride in the back of our car and entertain Amelia for many, many hours. She was a pro at it. I tried to convince her to become my nanny (in exchange for room and board- sleeping on our secondhand couch and eating rice and beans). For some reason she didn't seem particularly interested in the gig.

We had fun.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I know this book came out years ago and everyone is pretty much over it,  but I just read it and want to tell everyone about it so be patient with me.

At the risk of people thinking that I am crazy I'll tell you that I loved this book. I think a lot of people missed the sarcasm in this book (or just read the excerpt that floated around the internet a few years ago.) I also think that many of the horrific anecdotes were exaggerated for dramatic and comic effect.

Yes, she is way too extreme but she has some good points about parenting. First,  that "nothing is fun until you're good at it." I often get prospective violin students who want to try violin for a week or a month to see if they like it. This hardly ever works. The first year (or two!) is very difficult and is not intrinsically fun. Once you get the basic technique,  then you can actually know if you like it. No one likes being bad at something. A lot of very valuable things take investments of time and hard work before they become enjoyable. There are some kids who like the challenge itself,  but not many,  and they shouldn't be the only kids who get the chance to play music at a high level.

Second, parents sometimes have to be the bad guys, so stop worrying about if your kids love you. This reminds me of when I was in high school and my mom would make me rewrite essays over and over until they were good enough. These weren't just the big, important term papers but the one page "My Goals for This Semester" essays as well. It drove me crazy. I thought she did it because she hated me or was punishing me or she thought that I was an idiot. (All of this reflects on my own teenage selfishness,  not the way my mother spoke to me.) Now I know that she just had high opinions of what I was capable of and wanted me to learn how to achieve that.

Which brings me to the next idea from the book that I really liked. Assume resilience and strength not weakness. I sometimes think that when we are overly concerned about someone's fragile self esteem they start worrying about it,  too, and start believing they are weak. Children and adults are often stronger than we think,  they can take justified criticism.  I actually think that constructive criticism can build self esteem more than empty praise

There are a few overarching ideas about Chinese parenting (as Amy Chua defines it) that I don't agree with. I think you can absolutely have high standards for your children without being cruel. Name-calling and shaming to get your child to practice are inappropriate. The kinder approach is harder, and takes more creativity, but is absolutely worth it.

There is also no room in this parenting model to deal with failure,  which is a huge problem. Adults fail constantly and if they don't learn to deal with it in childhood in healthy ways it can be devastating. I want my child to participate in activities she isn't naturally good at (for me this was sports) so she learns that a) she doesn't have to be the best at everything, b) how to handle failure emotionally, and c) how to work to improve.

The last thing I want to write about (bonus points if you are still reading), is how interesting I think the reaction to this book is. I read this book as someone who was admitting to a huge flaw (overreaction and anger) in a brave way. Why is it popular on the blogosphere to admit to being real by posting pictures of a dirty house,  pouting children,  and a face free of makeup but anything deeper is met with horror? This idea is enough for a whole post,  but think about it for awhile. Why are superficial flaws so appealing to talk about it and deep weaknesses are so uncomfortable?

Rant over. 

Exhaustion

I keep going back and forth on what I want to call baby girl on the blog. And whether it really even matters since in some ways privacy seems to be becoming a thing of the past. Ah, a conundrum for another day. Today I call her Chickadee.

I know a lot of people that sleep/slept with their baby in their bed, and in many ways it seems like a good idea. Ease of night time feedings, midnight comforting, and two a.m. breathing checks, to name a few. I'm really glad that it has worked well for them, but I knew even before Chickadee was born that it wouldn't work for me. As I contemplated all the times that Brad put his pillow on top of my face to sleep and I have wrapped myself so tightly in my sheets that I've had to ask for help to get out of bed, I realized that the family bed would not work out for us and the health of our child.

That is why on the nights when Chickadee decides to have a party all night long instead of sleeping (seriously girl, you got one job), I often end up sleeping on the floor next to her crib. At some point, I am just too tired to walk back and forth from my room to hers and I grab a bunch of blankets from the basket underneath her crib and crash. Keep in mind that these are baby-sized blankets so one for my right leg, one for my left leg, one for my upper body, and three for my pillow.

Several weeks ago, I had a dream that I could not finish running a marathon because my hip was hurting too much. Very confused, mostly because I prefer the phrase "donut run" to "running a marathon," I woke up to discover that my hip was hurting because I had been sleeping on the floor all night. All night besides the times I fell asleep draped over the side of the crib holding Chickadee's hand or patting her stomach.

Last Sunday night was even worse because at midnight I woke up because Brad was shaking so hard it was making our entire bed quiver. I took his temperature (fever and chills), threw some Ibuprofen at him, and abandoned him to sleep on the couch. Then Chickadee kept waking up so I slept on her floor for a little while, then Brad woke up and needed help to get to the bathroom, so I fell asleep in our bed for a little while again, then he was shaking too much and I moved to the couch, then Chickadee woke up and I moved to her floor, and so on and so forth. I believe the vicious pattern ended with me in bed, but I don't even remember. The rest of the day was a blur.

So, dear husband and baby, I love you so. But I am too exhausted to make my mouth open and move to say those words today. Maybe after a nap. Or two.

And as a thank you for getting through all of that rambling, a picture of Chickadee in her Elvis pj's. Thank you, Thank you very much.

It never ends

I am rather accident and mistake prone. My friends from high school can attest to the fact that I fell on my face just walking down the halls at school than really seemed even possible. But alas it was.

In particular, my cooking mistakes are famous. Hence, the title of this blog and how it began.

I have made huge strides in the cooking department, but that does not mean that sometimes it just does not work out. 

Yesterday, I tried a new cookie recipe. The dough was delicious, but the cooking thereof had issues...

First off, they didn't rise at all. Perhaps because my baking soda has been expired for nine months. Hmm... Because they never got puffy, they were really hard to get off the cookie sheet, which means they looked like we had taken a bite out of each one. You know, for quality control.

While the first batch of cookies was in the oven I went in search of our second silicon baking sheet to put on the cookie sheet so I don't have to scrub dishes. Because I don't like doing that very much. I couldn't find it, so I just decided to use wax paper instead. Five minutes later we started to smell melting plastic coming from the oven and Brad discovered that the wax paper box said "Do not expose to direct heat of oven." What a waste of cookie dough.

I make a lot of bread. Usually it goes well, but the last several times, not so much. There was the time that it just decided not to rise in the oven at all and we had very short bread (hey, it fits in sandwich bags much easier), the time that I fell asleep while rocking baby girl and forgot about the bread in the oven for 20 minutes past the timer going off (we just cut off the burnt crust, preschool style), and the time that I totally forgot that I had started making bread and it rose so much it dribbled onto the counter. 

Speaking of baking distasters. Look what I found! I'm not the only one who has tried to make Blue Velvet cake. The question is, which looks less appetizing (picture at the bottom of the link)?

Baby's First Camping Trip

Pretty much everyone Brad and I have talked to about taking our baby camping either said, "Don't do it!" or snorted and smiled.

Well, guess what. She slept better in that tent than she usually does! I really don't know whether to be really pleased or really frustrated. Do you think anyone would call Child Protective Services if I made her start sleeping in a tent on our deck? (Just kidding. I promise.)

It was more fun than I thought that it could be, even though Brad convinced me to go to a camping spot without a bathroom nearby. Remind me why I listen to that guy?

 We went on a hike that baby girl pretty much slept through. But it was beautiful and fun and made me think we should hike more.

Family picture next to a tree that is more than 2,000 years old.

Since we were so far up Logan Canyon we were almost to Bear Lake, we decided to go to the beach, even though we didn't have swimming suits. Amelia did not so much love the temperature of the water.

 She didn't so much love sunglasses, either.

But being thrown in the air by Daddy? She was a fan.

The Strawberry Girl is Five Months Old

Our Sunshine Girl is five months old:

• She has rolled over a handful of times throughout the last month but never when her Daddy is home.
• She is really close to sitting up, but doesn't have great balance. She also loves standing so much that I think she will probably pull herself up fairly early.
• She has discovered consonants. Babababa, Dadada, etc. all day long.
• Is really good at grabbing- paper, noses, glasses, toys...
• Has started staring at food when I eat. I think she's excited to start trying things soon.
• Really loves her new bouncy toy that we got at a garage sale.
• Loves music. Occasionally I can stop tears in their tracks by singing, pulling out my violin, or turning on the radio. Yesterday we discovered her love for the marimba. Who knew.

Go here for her four month update.

And of course I know you want to see more pictures:

My aunt gave us a strawberry costume that one of her children wore as a Halloween costume, but it was a 3/6 months size. Because strawberries have been my traditional birthday food since I was old enough to express a preference, we dressed her up as a strawberry to attend my birthday party. My dad was kind enough to take pictures.

Netflix: My Greatest Foe

Moderation is not one of my strong suits. I'm not very good at doing things a little bit, which is why Netflix is my kryptonite. It's so easy to see that another season (or five) is available and just watch it all. Especially when you're home all day with a baby and you're stuck on the couch nursing. (I know, what's wrong with me. I should be staring at her gorgeous face, but instead after the umpteen millionth feeding, you get a little bored.)

At the beginning of the month, my parents decided to cancel their Netflix for the summer because my two younger siblings aren't so good at the moderation thing either. In the last month my reading (which is usually on the high side) has shot way up and it pleases me greatly.

This month I have read/listened to some books I didn't particularly care for, Matched and Three Cups of Tea for example, that I know a lot of other people have loved. I have discovered some other new favorites: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Kite Runner, and Mary Poppins. And I always love to reread some of my lifetime loves: Harry Potter and The Hero and the Crown. (And no, this is not a complete list of what I've read this month.)

I am so excited about what I will discover next month.  Thank you so much, Netflix, for stepping out of the ring and letting books take up all my free time once more.

Four Months

I've done a really miserable job at posting monthly pictures of my little Chickadee, but I have been taking the pictures.

I can't believe how quickly she is changing! I love all of her new rolls but at the same time I don't want her to get any bigger.

I especially love this 4 month picture.

It looks like she's blaming her dolly for her latest shenanigans.

Some updates for our four month old girl:

• 14 pounds, 24 inches long
• Rolled over today! (About a week after turning four months.)
• Laughs (but you really have to work for it.)
• Reaches for toys.
• Likes to pull out her pacifier and put it back in, pull out, back in, over and over.
• Loves books. Even turns pages of board books herself.
• Ticklish.
• Extremely social. She loves to "talk" to people and will smile at every stranger she comes across.

And the Perfect Mom Award Goes to...Not Me

Is it cliche to talk about motherhood on mother's day? Well, too bad.

I know that a lot of mothers hate Mother's Day (including my own mother), but here on this blog that celebrates imperfection, I choose to celebrate it. Imperfection is an unavoidable characteristic of motherhood, and should be embraced.

As I now have a tiny baby of my own, I've though a lot lately about what makes a "good mom." Sometimes I hear, "good moms have a natural childbirth," or "good moms breastfeed,"  or "good moms stick to nap schedules," or "good moms feed their children organic vegetables." But the reverse of all of those are also true, "good moms have C-sections," "good moms use formula," "good moms feed their children fruit snacks they found in the couch cushions," etc.

Which brings me to my constant question:

How the heck do I know if I'm being a good mom????

I've found myself skipping naps when I could have slept, ignoring my violin because I'm afraid to leave a happy baby in a play pen, and getting up when I could have made my husband have a turn in the middle of the night; all to earn that elusive title of "good mom."

If I just try a little harder, do a little bit more, lose a little more sleep I can be a "good mom," right?

I've learned that there is no prize for the mom who sacrificed the most. Motherhood requires a lot of sacrifices, but giving up more than someone else does not make you a better mother. There is much more to it. It is not that simple.

With the four months of motherhood experience I have I've learned that I am a good mom when I practice forgiveness.  

When I was a teenager, my mom and I had an argument. We had a lot in those years because I was, I completely admit, selfish, lazy, and hot-headed.  (Okay, I still am all of those things, but I'm a little better.) A few hours later, I found a note from my mom apologizing for her part in the fight. She told me how much she loved and admired me and asked me to forgive her for getting angry. Though the cause of that fight is long forgotten, I am 99.999% sure that it was all my fault. She didn't have to apologize, but her humility meant the world to me.

I still have that note. I read it several times a year on those days that I need to remember the importance of asking for forgiveness.

Good mothers are not perfect. We all mess up, make mistakes, and adjust how we do things for our own abilities and experiences.

Good mothers forgive. They forgive their children. They forgive themselves.

Sometimes good mothers forget to forgive themselves for their imperfections. They get lost in the circular maze of guilt and the steep trail of their own expectations. That is why celebrating Mother's Day is important. It's a day to look past the imperfections.

Today, I turn to my mother and remind her  of the depth of my love for her and that I am so grateful to her for everything she has taught and done for me.

Today, I look at my baby and apologize for feeling frustration when she woke up for the fifth time last night and for letting her fuss for a minute last week while I finished that chapter.

Today, I take a moment and remember that all these mothers I idealize (my mom, my mother-in-law, my Aunt Denise, my sister Brecklyn, my grandmothers, and many more) probably had bad days, too.

Stop wondering if you're a good mom (or a good dad, or a good sister, or a good friend.)

Forgive yourself. Forgive others.

And move on.

Moving Up In the World

Sometimes I get a little giddy thinking about how great our apartment is. The big windows, the washer and dryer, the luxury! It is just so much better than what we had before.

Some problems our last apartment had:

Low ceilings. The ceilings were so low that I practiced my violin either sitting down or kneeling. We couldn't invite anyone to visit that was over 6'. Not if they valued their heads anyway.

No counter tops. Our kitchen had very little counter space. What little we had was taken up by the dish rack and the toaster. I often put a cookie sheet over the stove to prepare food.

The windows. The windows were teeny tiny, which meant very little sunlight. Also they were a fire hazard because most of them didn't open. Even if they had opened,  I could barely fit my hips through and Brad had no hope of even trying.

The cold. Because we were in the basement of an older home that wasn't very well insulated, we were always freezing. I carried our space heater (whom we affectionately called Hubert) from room to room. I actually had to put our bread dough on top of the space heater because our apartment was too cold for it to rise (even in May). During the winter,  the windows had frost on the outside and the inside.

Carpet in the kitchen. We had to vacuum, oh, about every 30 seconds,  and we didn't even have children.

No disposal. It seemed like every pea or grain of rice clogged the sink.

Still, it was better than our first apartment that was so small that we had to stand on the bed to look in our closet and when we knelt at the foot at the bed to pray together our feet were in the bathroom. We are slowly moving up in the world. Maybe our next apartment will have a dishwasher or a bathroom with a real door and not just an accordion closet door!

Anyone else have fun stories of their crappy first apartments?

Black Bean Burgers and Homemade Buns

This is probably going to make some of you question my sanity, but I don't always like meat all that much. I kind of have to be in the right mood. Sometimes, nothing sounds better than a greasy hamburger but sometimes, it just sounds so heavy and greasy and bleck.

I like vegetarian burgers, I really do. I think they taste fantastic. But they can also be kind of pricey, so I tried to make my own and I love them. I've already made them twice in the last month. And on top of a homemade bun (I think store bought hamburger buns are dry and super bland), there just is not anything better.

You can get the recipes I used here and here.

Ode to a Sister

When I was little, my sister, Lauren, woke up because she couldn't hear me breathing in the bed next to her. She ran upstairs to get my parents who hurried me to a hospital. After that she trained herself to sleep to the sound of my breathing so she could always wake up if I was struggling.

This is the earliest example I can think of her saving my bacon, but it most certainly was not the last.

In junior high she knew I was lonely because I was painfully shy. She invited younger siblings of good friends to hang out with us, dialed phone numbers of friends and shoved the phone in my face at the last second so I couldn't chicken out, and often invited me to hang out with her and her friends.

When she moved to college she spent many hours on the phone with me and drove home nearly every weekend to just spend time with me when I needed a friend.

When I moved to Utah State, I spent more time in her apartment than in my own.

She spent more time planning my wedding than I did.

She once made my husband dinner for his birthday because we both had late classes (so did she.)

She watched my baby once a week this semester, even though she was busy with classes, her thesis, and student teaching.

There are so many other examples of how she has looked out for me. Whenever she heard of a problem in my life she did everything she could to fix it,  even at times in our lives when I didn't treat her very well. She would drop everything to help a friend.

Now, she is applying for jobs all over the country and it is breaking my heart. The only other times we've been more than  an hour drive apart is when she served two performing missions to Nauvoo, Illinois. And I, extremely selfishly, didn't like it very much. I like her close to me. This is going to be rough.

Today she graduates with her master’s. She worked so hard. She is passionate about what she does and incredibly good at it. This March she won an award at a conference in her field for the research she did for her master’s thesis. People, she ain't just a pretty face. She's a smarty pants.

But most importantly, she will always, always, be my best friend.

Rookie Mistakes: Baby Edition

While I was pregnant I had repeated dreams that I had my baby, I did something stupid, and my mother called Child Protective Services and ended up raising my baby girl.

Luckily, that hasn't happened. My mother loves me too much. But I've done some stupid things thus far. 

When Squeaky girl was 3 days old we took her to the doctor's office for the first time. Did you know that you have to strip your child completely naked so they can weigh her? Yup, that happens. Do you know what happens when a three day old child feels a cool breeze on her bare behind? Yes, she pees. She pees everywhere, all over the table and her pajamas and her mother's hands. It was the very first time we had taken her anywhere and in my foolishness, I didn't think that I needed an extra outfit for a 15 minute doctor's appointment. Brad arranged her swaddling blanket around her like a toga and we took her home. I took my three day old baby home, in a Logan January, with no more clothing than a Greek Goddess.

She was not impressed. 

In general, we have learned that we need to be careful when there is not a diaper on her behind. There was that time in the first week that she managed to spray so hard she hit the closet door from the changing table.

She thinks she's hilarious. A sneaky one, this girl of mine.

About a month ago we were at church with my family. I stood up carrying Squeaky, Brad grabbed the car seat, and my sister, Lauren, offered to carry the diaper bag for us. She left with the bag and told us she'd meet us at home. That's when we realized there was poop all over Squeaky's back, and we had nothing to fix it. Luckily, my sister Brecklyn was still there and loaned us her two year old's diaper. It may have covered more than her swaddle toga.

We have also recently found out what her kryptonite is.

Wind.


We took her on a picnic and she screamed and screamed and screamed. We spent a half an hour changing her diaper, feeding her, offering her pacifiers, books, blankets, and toys until we realized that all she wanted was to be in her stroller out of the gentle breeze. I guess when you're about 2 feet long it doesn't take much to take your breath away.

Anyway, we are starting to figure things out. Everyone always asks us, "Is she sleeping through the night yet?" To which I always want to answer, "Of course not. She's a baby! Babies are not capable of a full night! They like to remind their parents that they are not actually in control of their lives." But, in reality, she's doing pretty good. Sometimes, she only wakes up once during the whole night! Of course, sometimes she wakes up 10-12 times, but you know. Progress. Mostly progress. Sometimes progress. We hope.

I told Brad before Squeaky was born that I wanted her to sleep in our room for the first four months. After all, that's what my parents always did. It would be easy to get to her for midnight feedings, and I would be able to listen to her breathing. It sounded sweet, idyllic, picturesque.

That is until we realized that she cries, laughs, snores, coughs, hiccups, and makes any noise imaginable in her sleep, (this is why we call her Squeaky) and it is impossible to sleep through. One night when she was about three weeks old, after a particularly amazing 1 1/2 hour of sleep, I got up to feed Amelia, and her bassinet wasn't there. After going through several terrifying scenarios in my head, I found her in her bassinet in the hallway. Brad couldn't take it anymore and had moved her far enough away that we wouldn't hear every grunt and squeak and close enough to hear her cry. It changed our lives. We finally started sleeping for two, three hours at a time. A week later, she was in her own room. Not what we imagined, but it's working.

Well, I guess that's it for now, but I have a feeling there will be many more rookie mistakes to come.