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.