The Exasperation of a Blank Baby Book

Photo: Baby book titled "Baby's First Year" on a tabletop; Text: "The Exasperation of a Blank Baby Book / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So"

Blank. Just blank. The empty page after empty page of my eight-month-old’s baby book stared at me in accusation. Even his name wasn’t filled in. Really? Crap.

I specifically bought this book because it was supposed to be “easy.” Just a page a month for the first year. How much time could that take? Apparently too much.

Was it that I didn’t love Little Bird enough to bother chronicling his important moments? While the guilt that beats at my brain wanted that to be the right answer, I know in my heart it’s not true. I adore my children. And I’ve spent a ton of time and effort capturing their childhood. I probably have hundreds of photos of Little Bird alone, much less those with his brother.

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What Worked and What Didn’t For My Parenting in 2016

Text: "What Worked and What Didn't for my Parenting in 2016 / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So" Picture of a calendar by Freepic from FlatIcon.com

Before we can look forward to our New Years resolutions, it’s useful to reflect back, examining what worked and what didn’t this year. In the best case scenario, you know what to continue; at worst, you know what to stop doing. For us, we had such big changes this year that we had to learn a lot just to keep up.

Here’s what worked for us and totally failed this year in parenting. Hopefully, some our lessons learned will help you too!

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The “But Why?” Phase

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I have to be the only parent in history looking forward to my kid’s “Why?” stage. I imagined a whole universe of learning lying ahead of us. I’d answer questions until I ran out of answers and then we’d look it up together, snuggled up in the light of the computer screen. When we didn’t have time, we’d write them down to investigate later. When I’d ask him what he thought, he’d come up with a brilliant but age-appropriate answer, showing equal parts creativity and insight.

Like any parenting fantasy, it didn’t work out that way.

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Unexpected Skills I’ve Learned As a Parent

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Changing diapers, chasing after toddlers, tolerating loud nonsensical singing from the never-ending musical from hell – all expertise one can expect to pick up as a parent. But there’s a specific subset of skills that my pre-child mind would have never dreamed up until I needed to do them. Here’s some of the things I’ve learned how to do in my three years as a mom that I would have never predicted:

Be okay with handling my breasts in public and exposing my nipples in front of my parents

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What Dressing as a Wild Thing Taught Me About Being Authentic

What Dressing as a Wild Thing Taught Me About Being Authentic. (Photo: White family dressed in costume as Wild Things from Where the Wild Things Are in front of a house)

Some moms worry what the other parents will think of them showing up at the preschool drop-off in leggings or even pajamas. But this day, ripped yellow leggings were the most normal part of my outfit. More eye-catchingly, I had a furry brown dress and giant red-tinged wig. Sure, it was Halloween. But that didn’t mean I felt self-assured at all dressed as a real-life Wild Thing, from the book Where the Wild Things Are.

We were at my older son’s preschool to march in the Halloween parade with him. As my husband, I, my kids, and my parents walked across the parking lot, I tried to hold my head high.

“You know, Shannon, you may be the only parents in costume,” my mom said.

I swallowed. “Then they just don’t have enough Halloween spirit,” I declared, my voice trembling. What if we were the only ones? What would they think of us? I figured our costumes would be the most elaborate, but what if no one else was in costume at all?

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Homemade Halloween Costumes and A Mother’s Love

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The pattern books spread across the long, white, slanted table. Spotting the orange and black tab, I grabbed it and flipped to the back. My eyes ran over the photos on each page, imagining what I would look like in each costume. My mind danced with images of spiderwebs and princesses, Renaissance ladies and mermaids. Near Halloween, I always loved going to the fabric store with my mom, where we would pick out the patterns and the fabrics for the costume she made me each year.

No matter how absurd or complicated, my mom took on my requests with aplomb. She cultivated both my imagination and love of elaborate dress-up. Now that I’m making costumes for my own children, I realize how much a labor of love all of it was.

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Parenting Fail: When I Don’t Like My Kid Very Much

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I am not the mom just standing behind the kid thinking, “Oh that’s rather mean. Lalalala.”

There are times I simply don’t like my three-year-old.

Fellow parents of three-year-olds may be gasping in mock surprise.

However, I really thought I could avoid this feeling. Child psychologists say that toddlers can tap into some of our deepest insecurities. Or as Chris jauntily sang to me the other day, “Toddlers are emotionally abusive.”

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Birth Stories Part II: My Younger Son

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This week, I’m going to be telling the stories of how Sprout and Little Bird were born. For two babies born in the same place in the same way, the births of my two sons could not have been more different.

No one was ready for my second son’s arrival.

Three and a half weeks before my due date, I told my doctor, “I’m having some pains.” I didn’t think much of it because I had some face-twisting Braxton Hicks false contractions earlier. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to take any chances. I was going to travel New Jersey to attend my grandmother’s funeral that weekend, and didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks.

Looking up between my legs after checking me, the doctor said, “You shouldn’t travel. You’re already four centimeters dilated.”

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