Behind the Scenes of My Living Room Floor

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Behind the Scenes of My Living Room Floor (Photo: A somewhat messy living room with a couch, table, overturned chair, and several items on the floor)

I used to worry I’d be judged by the contents of my bookshelf. Now as a mom, I know better. Now I know I’ll be judged by the contents of our living room floor.

This state of being was rather inevitable. As a kid, my bedroom floor was littered with books, papers, toys and more books. These days, we have an 18-month-old whose main goal in life is to pull anything on a shelf off of it.

But like all messes, our disorganized living room tell a story about who we are. A story that’s about a lot more than our messiness. In the spirit of cultural anthropology, here’s what we see:

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How To Stay Sane When You Travel With Kids

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

How to Stay Sane When You Travel With Kids. (Photo of white mom holding a blond baby on her shoulders, walking down a path with trees.)

2014: Holding my one-year-old, I stared up at fireworks and started belting out Let It Go. Tears streamed down my face. It was the end of a week-long trip to Walt Disney World, during which I spent most of the time imagining my kid getting trampled. Earlier that week, my hands shook and mind went blank in the Tomorrowland snack bar as I had my first identifiable panic attack. That perfect girl is gone, indeed.

2017: Leaning over my four-year-old in his car seat in a parking lot in Nevada, I thought, “I hope he’s okay.” Right on cue, his cheeks filled, he leaned forward, and spewed out water and pretzel bits all over me. Touching my hand to my hair, it was wet and sticky. We were half-way through a three-hour car ride to Zion National Park. I breathed deep and said, “Hey honey, it’s going to be okay.” Then I got out the baby wipes and went to work cleaning up everything up.

What on earth happened in-between? In that three years, I had a second kid, started dealing with my anxiety, and grew so much as a parent. But I also learned a ton about traveling with kids. In-between the trip in 2014 and the one in 2017, we’ve been to Las Vegas, Cape Cod, multiple camping excursions, and so many day trips. While the anxiety still flairs, adjusting my expectations and my own behavior has helped me stay sane when we travel with kids.

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What I Learned About Perspective from a Bruise

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

What I Learned About Perspective from a Bruise. (Photo: Young white boy's head with a bruise in the middle of his forehead)

“What’s this? Is it a bruise?” my mother-in-law asked, looking at my eighteen-month-old’s forehead. She rubbed it with her hand, to get it off in case it was dirt. It wasn’t. It was in fact, a gray-yellow, very distinctive, bruise.

At first, it was hidden under his ragamuffin blond hair. But a haircut a few days later made it much more prominent. Like Ash Wednesday ashes that won’t wipe off.

“What will people think?” I worried. “Will they think we neglect him? Will they think I’m a bad mom? It’s right in the middle of his forehead!”

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How to Prevent Raising An Entitled Kid

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

How to Prevent Raising an Entitled Kid. Want to raise a respectful kid who doesn't think they deserve everything? Try these seven things our family is doing! (Picture: Victorian illustration of a little girl asleep on the floor, clutching a box of chocolates with a dog next to her)

“Why did he think he was better than everyone else?” my four year old asked as we were reading the picture book Little Blue Truck. In the story, a huge construction truck comes barreling through a farm, proclaiming, “I’ve got important things to do!” As a consequence of his pride, he slides into a mud puddle and his huge tires get stuck. In the world of trucks, he’s a bit of an entitled brat.

Answering my son’s question was tough. Why do some people think they’re better than others? Why do some people think they deserve more or better than other people do? As challenging it is to answer these, they’re essential questions to figure out if we’re going to raise kids who respect and value other people. In other words, to prevent raising entitled kids.

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Finding Peace in the “What’s Next?”

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Finding Peace After Miscarriage in the "What's Next?" Photo: White family of man, woman and one baby standing in front of red cliffs (top); White family of man, woman, and two kids blocking the woman standing in front of red cliffs (bottom)

The last time we visited Red Rocks National Monument, we were in mourning.

Two and a half years ago, my husband and I were reeling from a doctor’s appointment the week before as we were visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Las Vegas. At that appointment, we found out that the child-to-be I thought I was pregnant with had stopped developing. I was supposed to be ten weeks pregnant; the child-to-be’s heart seemed to have stopped at seven weeks. Rather than delaying our vacation, I chose to wait to get the D&C.

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How Being a Mom Changed My Perspective on Family Vacations

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How Being a Mom Changed My Perspective on Family Vacations (Photo: Man holding a child in his arms and one by the hand in front of a giant mountain)

Nothing makes you feel more like “The Parent” than bringing your kids somewhere your parents brought you as a kid. Last week, we visited Zion National Park with our four-year-old and 18-month-old. The last time I was there, I was 17 years old on a trip with my own parents.

Needless to say, there was a world of difference between the two trips. The last time, the trip had gorgeous scenery, tough hikes, and lots of driving. This time, the scenery was pretty much the only similarity. Here’s what was different then and now:

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Why I Love Our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm Box

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Why I Love Our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm Box. (Photo: Box saying "Fresh Vegetables" with vegetables in front of it)

Poking at his dinner, my son eats around his vegetables, going straight for the tortellini. Examining the colorful array on my plate, I ask my husband, “Is everything here from the garden or farm box?”

“Yeah, except for the sun-dried tomatoes,” he responds.

Pointing out the vegetables to my son with my fork, I say, “It’s zucchini from our garden and mushrooms and peppers from the farm box.”

He hestitates, then stabs a mushroom and puts it in his mouth. “It’s good,” he says with a full mouth.

“Isn’t it?” I say and smile.

The “farm box” is the weekly delivery we get from our community supported agriculture (otherwise known as CSA) program. For those not familiar with it, a CSA involves pre-paying at the beginning of a season for produce and sometimes other farm goods, like meat and eggs. Throughout the season, you pick up a box of food each week that the farm delivers to a specific location. LocalHarvest has a list of CSAs around the country.

While I love local food, I had stayed away from CSAs for years. The last time we subscribed to one, I was in graduate school ten years ago. Because we lived in England, it was full of root vegetables that we had no idea what to do with. Sometimes that was great. I did learn to love parsnips and still use them. Other times it was disastrous. When I tried to use up the beets, I ended up burning a borscht soup that was already pretty bad. Despite pretending “it wasn’t that bad,” it was one of the worst things I have ever eaten in my life.

This year, we thought it might be time to try a CSA again. While we love how locally-grown is fresher and connects you to the farmers, we were finding it harder and harder to get to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings.  Here’s why I’m glad that we subscribed to Bending Bridge Farm’s community supported agriculture program:

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Learning to Love My Son Exactly Where He’s Standing

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

Learning to Love My Son Exactly Where He's Standing. What happens when your music loving kid doesn't want to go up front to a concert? (Photo: Kids standing on stage with a musician with the words "Mister G" in balloon letters above them.)

The crowd of kids in front of the concert stage were singing, jumping, and dancing, frenzied and joyful. At the edge of the crowd, next to the chairs for the parents, stood my four-year-old son. He watched and occasionally bounced his head a little, like a kid at homecoming who feels uncomfortable dancing. Other times he wandered to me in the back, seemingly missing the music altogether.

“Who is this kid?” I wondered.

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What is Sustainability?

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What is Sustainability? Sustainability is about a lot more than what we buy - it's about community. (Photo: A tree with red berries)

Pushing my son on the biggest tree swing I’ve ever seen, he declared, “This is fun!” As I half-listened to a talk on medicinal plants, I had to agree. We were at the second annual Paw Paw Festival at Long Creek Homestead, the home of a local family who grows much of their own food based on ecological principles. While we go to these events because they’re fun, it’s much more than that. I bring my family to these events so we can have a little glimpse into a possible potential, beautiful future. That’s because these kind of community events embody social and environmental sustainability to me.

Sustainability has become such a buzzword it’s easy to lose the true meaning. Companies sell us “green living” via labels on products that promise they will be safer for your family. (Never mind anyone else’s family.) But to create a just world that offers opportunities to all people in a way that’s environmentally sound, we have to go deeper.

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