parenting

Birth Stories Part I: My Older Son

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

birth-stories_-my-older-son

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.

It was three days after Sprout’s due date. My abdomen kept getting rock hard. The feeling was sporadic, but I had been more than a centimeter dilated a few days earlier. Just in case, I called my family.

“I think I might be going into labor,” I said. They must have heard, “I am going to have the baby right this minute,” because they traveled down to see us as fast as possible.

But when they arrived seven hours later, I wasn’t in labor. That night, I still wasn’t in labor. The next day, still not in labor.

Instead of greeting a beautiful baby, my parents, in-laws and sister-in-law were just sitting around, staring at my belly.

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The Biggest Challenge of Moving from One Kid to Two

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 9 Comments

The Hardest Challenge of Moving from One Kid to Two (Photo: A white three-year-old boy leaning over a white baby lying on the floor.)

“Stop poking your brother in the head. He’s eating,” I said through gritted teeth. It was the third time in a row I had said it. Clearly, my three-year-old was trying to get my attention. But I simply didn’t have it to give. I was in the middle of nursing his younger brother. The most I could provide him was my ears to listen and voice to speak, not the mama lap or arms he so desired.

Needless to say, that wasn’t enough.

That was only one of many, many times I’ve felt terribly split between my children.

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Six Months with Little Bird in Our Lives

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

six-months-with-little-bird-in-our-lives

Despite his nickname, Little Bird has always strived to be big. When he was inside me, he wouldn’t just kick, he’d stretch, his feet jamming into my organs. He arrived 3 1/2 weeks early, scrambling out into the world unexpectedly. Now he’s been with us for more than six months, a half-year full of so many changes.

When Little Bird arrived, he was a peanut, just over five pounds. As Sprout said, “He’s so teeny tiny!” Because he hadn’t gained most of the fat babies do in their last weeks in utero, his wrinkly face looked especially old-mannish.

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Why I Didn’t Make a Sign for My Son’s First Day of School

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

Why I Didn't Make a Sign for My Son's First Day of School (Photo: Young white boy closing the door of a house)

Two years ago, I made a controversial parenting decision. On the night before my son’s first day of preschool, I chose not to make him a “first day of school” sign. For that matter, I’m not making one for his first day of kindergarten next week either.

As I said on my personal Facebook page: “I was going to make a sign for [my son] to hold on his first day of preschool tomorrow. But I fell asleep in his room while trying to get him to sleep and woke up at 10:40. And now it’s 12:30 and it’s still not done. Maybe next year!”

My friends cleverly suggested a few work-arounds. “You can do it this week and say you forgot!” or “You can use Photoshop!”

But I didn’t take a single one of them.

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Outdoors Family Challenge: Days 4 and 5 Experience

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

Nature painting Outdoors Family Challenge.jpg

The artist at work.

Some days, everything just works. Other days, your three-year-old gets stung by a bee. As my mom’s friend used to say when they worked in an elementary school together, “The bus is going to hell and you’re driving it!”

Yesterday, we completed the Day 4 activity but I didn’t get to write about it because my children hate sleep. When I got home from work, we had a lovely time poking, smashing, smudging, and squishing leaves, weeds, and clover into finger paint. Sprout also used his fingers to create a lovely swirl of red and blue.

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Outdoors Family Challenge: Day 1 Experience

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

sunset-outdoors-family-challenge

In our part of the world, the first day of the Outdoors Family Challenge started damp but ended with a glowing sunset. (Read the Day 1 prompt or follow my page on Facebook to get ones throughout the week!)

In fact, the challenge has already gotten someone outside who wouldn’t have been otherwise – me! While the rain had stopped by the time I got out of work, it’s likely I wouldn’t have sat on our wet front steps. Instead, I grabbed Sprout and Little Bird and headed out the front door. Continue reading →

Outdoors Family Challenge: Day 1 – Use Your Senses

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

the-outdoors-family-challenge-day-1-prompt

Welcome to the Outdoors Family Challenge! This is a seven day challenge to help get you and your kids outside, living more sustainably, and connecting more with nature and each other. If you would like automatic updates each morning, sign up for the email list, follow check out the archives on the blog, or like my Facebook page.

Each morning, I’ll post a prompt for you to do and then the afternoon or evening, I’ll post about our experiences.

We encourage you to post about your experience on your blog and social media using the hashtag #outdoorsfamilychallenge. (It would be even better if you could include a link to my blog or Facebook page so other people can find out how to participate!). At the end of the week, I’ll be giving away a copy of Richard Louv’s Vitamin N to a random participant that uses the hashtag.

If you can’t do the activity that day, that’s okay! Do it the next day and don’t worry about following it exactly.

For even more outdoors fun, check out the Children and Nature Network’s Vitamin N Challenge.  Jen Mendez at PERMIE KIDs,  Sandi Schwartz at Happy Science Mom, and Aditi Wardhan Singh at Silver Linings are also participating in the Challenge, so be sure to check out their posts as well!

We can’t wait to see your photos and read about your experiences!

Day 1 Challenge: Use your senses to take in nature.

Spend 15 minutes (or more) outside with your kids, just paying attention to what is going on around you. Encourage your kids to use all five senses. Sit on the ground, if possible.

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Weddings, Threenagers, and Grace

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

weddings-threenagers-and-grace

The bride walked down the aisle, a flowered headband in her short, black hair. As everyone watched expectantly, I shhhhed my yammering three-year-old son. While the readers recited statements from the couple’s grandmothers, I struggled to hold him on my lap. As a member of the wedding party read a passage by astronomer Carl Sagan, I finally hauled my kid down the aisle. The two of us spent the rest of my friends’ wedding in the back of the building. I alternated between trying to catch bits of the ceremony, grabbing him as he sprinted out the door, and whispering to him about how disappointed I was. It was a pretty low moment in my parenting career.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

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What We’ve Learned about Love in a Decade of Marriage

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

What We've Learned about Love in a Decade of Marriage (Photo: Young white man and woman in sepia-tone standing in front of a giant wine barrel)

Looking up the aisle, I swallowed and blinked to hold back tears. There stood my husband-to-be, my best friend, the person I had spent the last five years of my young life loving. He seemed to be shaking just a little in his tux, his hazel eyes looking back at me.

Walking down the hallway in work today, I hummed Billy Joel’s “You’re My Home” to myself. “Wherever we’re together, that’s my home.” I thought of my husband’s smile and smiled back to myself.

On the day you get married, people say you have your whole life ahead of you. What they don’t tell you is that life is made up of a series of years, months and days, each with their own rhythm. Even though ten years sounds like a long time on your wedding day, it doesn’t feel that way when it rolls around.

Instead, it feels like a collection of the ordinary and extraordinary, the good and the bad, the hard and the easy, with both of you together at the center. At least that’s how it felt to me, when my husband, Chris, and I celebrated our tenth anniversary.

In that decade, Chris and I learned a lot about each other and marriage. We’ve been through hospital stays, international travel, crummy work hours, living in multiple places, graduate school, and having two kids.

Here are a few things we’ve picked up along the way:

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Growing Through the Seasons

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Growing Through the Seasons

My years are measured in seasons now, not months or years. Each brings a flurry of activity and opportunity for growth.

Fall:

Roaming the local pumpkin patch, we find the most perfect bumpy, little pumpkin for our little boy. Around campfires and hay bales, we breathe in the cooling air.

The leaves shift colors and drift down. As much as my two-year-old loves jumping on the bed, he’s never jumped in leaves before. We start with a slow-motion fall, easing our way down with giggles and flailing. After a few jumps, he piles the leaves into the wheelbarrow by the armful.

The week before, we had stripped the garden, pulling out monstrous tomato plants and prickly squash. Now, we empty the composter, scraping the sides of the dark sludge and shreds of newspaper caught there. We break down the straw bale that held our Jack o’lantern, layering it in with the compost and leaves. The pile nearly comes up to my son’s head.

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