Visiting the Park with a Toddler and Newborn: A Play in 3 Acts

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Visiting the Park with a Newborn and a Toddler: A Play in 3 Acts. (Photo: A sidewalk with shadows of an adult and child)

Ever feel like you’re stuck in an absurdist play as a parent? Waiting for Godot with diapers and sippy cups. Goodnight Moon come to life.

This was especially true when for some reason, I felt the need to go to the park with my newborn and toddler a week after the baby was born. I’m not sure if severe sleep deprivation was getting to me or the air in our house was just that stifling, but I must have been suffering from some delusions to think it was a good idea…

Characters

Shannon: an overconfident mom of two
Chris: Her husband
Sprout, Shannon and Chris’s almost three-year-old
Little Bird, Shannon and Chris’s week-old newborn
Fellow park-goers

Act 1: Getting to the Park

Shannon and Chris are sitting on the couch, with Shannon holding Little Bird. Sprout is lying on the floor.
Shannon: Let’s go to the park!
Sprout continues to lie on the floor.
Shannon: Don’t you want to go to the park? We’ll bring Little Bird!
Sprout pushes his toy school bus across the floor.
Sprout: Pee pee poo poo, mommy.
Shannon: We’re putting your shoes on in 5. 1-2-3-4-5.
Shannon walks over to Sprout, grabs his hands and tries to get him to stand up. He goes limp, then stands up very slowly and mosies over to the couch. Shannon hauls Sprout up on her lap and put his sneakers on. Chris straps Little Bird into his car seat, who immediately starts crying.
Shannon: Do you think he’s hungry? I fed him less than an hour ago.
Chris (carrying the car seat out the door and snapping it into the stroller): He’s fine. Just go.
Shannon and Sprout walk outside. Shannon begins to push the stroller.
Sprout: No no no no no!
Shannon: What’s wrong? Please use words.
Sprout: I WANT TO DO IT!
Shannon: Do what?
Sprout reaches for the stroller’s handle.
Sprout: Want to push!
Shannon: Ah. Thank you for being so helpful!
Sprout and Shannon push the stroller for two feet, then Sprout stops and pushes on the foot brake.
Shannon: The stroller can’t move if the brake is on.
Sprout runs to the side of the stroller and peers in. He then runs to the back, takes off the brake, pushes for another two feet, and puts the brake on again.
Shannon: Seriously, what are you doing?
Sprout (looks into the stroller): Hi, Little Bird!
Shannon: You want to see him, but can’t from the back, can you?
Sprout runs back, takes off the brake, pushes the stroller and then repeats the whole process.
Shannon: You aren’t going to do this every two feet, are you?

Continue reading →

Guest Post on Pregnant Chicken: The Seven Stages of Picking a Name for Your Baby

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

While the physical discomfort was bad, the most stressful thing for me about pregnancy was picking a freaking name for the baby. (Especially this time around, when Little Bird’s labor was bizarrely quick. But that’s a story for another time.) As I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with this, I wrote a guest post called the Seven Stages of Picking a Name for Your Baby for Pregnant Chicken.

Besides labor, picking a name is one of the hardest things about having a baby. It’s rumored that there are couples who have a name for each gender picked out before conception. But for the rest of us, it’s a process fraught with uncertainty, frustration and confusion. We also kind of hope those prepared parents’ kid changes their name during a quarter-life crisis. While not everyone goes through these, here are seven common stages of naming a baby:

Read the rest at Pregnant Chicken!

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
Sunrise March 17 2016

Sunrise of the week. (Taken the day before Little Bird was born!)

This week, I was obsessed with constantly feeding my new baby! Thankfully, nursing a newborn for multiple hours a day plus burping means that I have an incredible amount of time to read. While I archive-trawled blogs when Sprout was born, I prepared a bit more this time. I downloaded multiple books and caught up on the many, many tabs open on my phone. So here’s just a sample of what I’ve been reading, from fun stuff to deeper articles.

“Walked a mile to nearest road.”  Six words that broke the author’s heart when she adopted her son and will break yours too.

When things go drastically, horribly wrong, here is some excellent advice on how to parent during and after a crisis.

With a small child (and now two!), we hardly ever get to the movies. But when we really want to see one, we often go separately. Zootopia was one of those movies and it was totally worth it. This review from Vox is a great breakdown why it’s not just a fun movie, but important commentary on prejudice and intersectionality.

“Turning away is not an option for people who have committed to the spiritual practice of showing up…. Compassion is your pain in my heart and back out through my hands.”

As a woman who was recently pregnant, all of the laws criminalizing behavior while pregnant are really terrifying. Even though I would never take any non-prescribed drugs while pregnant, my heart went out to the women described in this Mother Jones article arrested under chemical-endangerment laws.

On a happier note, profiles of ex-convicts that received training from one of my favorite charities, DC Central Kitchen, and now cook in local restaurants.

A Prayer for Mr. Trump, the Rage-Maker Whom We Do Not Like Very Much, and Also for Us, Who Could Use a Little Wisdom and Some Kindness and the Reminder That Hope, Who’s Been Hiding, Is Not Gone. We could use a Little Help.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most compelling and thoughtful writers on race and breaks down how the justice system has failed black families.

How Oxfam is shaking up international development, from investing locally to changing global policy.

Today’s News from Ilana Wiles’ husband is one of the cleverest things I’ve seen in a long time.

Climate change and mosquito bites covered in a funny and depressingly informative open letter.

Writing emails to certain co-workers that lack reading comprehension is something I don’t miss while on maternity leave. I’d love to send this article to help them translate what I really mean.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Third Trimester

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Note: I started this essay before Little Bird was born, but thought I’d finish it off even though the third trimester is now thoroughly over! Content note: pregnancy loss / miscarriage, pregnancy complications

The Agony and Ecstasy of the Third Trimester

The most dreaded era of pregnancy: the third trimester. But even though it could be a slog at times, my third trimester was also the best part of my whole pregnancy.

Of course, I dealt with a variety of physical discomfort. From retaining enough fluid that my wedding ring hadn’t fit for months to the baby being in possibly the least comfortable positions possible, it was damn painful. I think he enjoyed sitting on my kidneys and doing upside down push-ups on my hip bones. The Braxton hicks contractions – oh, the Braxton Hicks! The “irritable uterus,” where it gets ineffably hard for long periods at a time, made its return. The lack of sleep was a killer, especially the fact that I woke up every time I tried to turn over.

But despite all that, my mental and emotional health was much more solid than it was any other time in my pregnancy.

Continue reading →

Easter: Candy, Eggs and Grace

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Easter_ Candy, Eggs and GraceThis Easter is a little different from usual, as we’ve never had a week-old baby around while celebrating it. Sprout was almost a year old by the time of his first Easter, so he had a bit more comprehension of the world by then.  At this point, Little Bird is strictly interested in eating, sleeping, and pooping. He’s hardly awake enough to register anything else.

But we still have a near three-year-old who is more than aware of the idea of candy, even if the concept of the Christian resurrection is beyond him. Fortunately, both we and the grandparents were more than willing to oblige his interest in sweets. He’s also old enough to do crafts, especially after a successful color-mixing activity during the blizzard, so egg-dyeing was a definite must.

Continue reading →

Guest Post at Good Mother Project: Unexpected Complications

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Trigger Warning: Miscarriage, pregnancy loss, pregnancy complications

As I mentioned a few months ago, I had some significant complications with my pregnancy. In my tenth week, I had substantial bleeding – enough to go to the emergency room.  I recount this experience in a guest post called Unexpected Complications at the Good Mother Project, from the initial discovery to the lifting of the restrictions.  (This essay was originally written over a month ago, so we now know that the true resolution was actually wonderful.)

At the ten-week mark in my pregnancy, I was lying on the living room couch, still recovering from putting my toddler son to bed. Suddenly, I felt a bubble and then wetness. Running to the bathroom, I saw blood. My breath faltered and then emerged in gasps.

Read the rest of the post at the Good Mother Project.

Welcome to the World, Little Bird

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

Babies are incredible at beautifully mucking up whatever plans you have for them. While his brother was five days late, our new munchkin arrived on Friday, a full three and a half weeks early! (I had been telling everyone, “Well, even if he’s earlier than his brother, he’ll still just be on time.” Ha!) Of course, I had been telling Sprout that his brother would arrive in spring, “when the flowers start blooming and the trees get their buds.” I thought with unseasonably warm weather, that the baby would be late weeks in comparison, but he turned out to be right on time.

Welcome to the World, Little Bird!

Despite him arriving much earlier than planned and faster than anticipated, both of us are doing well. (His birth was actually a bit dramatic, but I’ll tell that story later.) He was a little on the small side, but is eating fairly regularly. He’s a lot more sleepy than his brother was, but that’s common for early babies and Sprout slept very little for a newborn anyway. Sprout stayed with a friend during the delivery, but was thrilled when Chris’s parents arrived and showed him the picture of his brother and I. I was worried he would be negative – and there’s still plenty of time for mixed feelings – but it was a good sign.

But the baby’s entrance threw me for a loop, planning wise. Thankfully, we have most of the essentials for him – crib, mattress, sheets, clothes, car seat, changing pad – although we’re still waiting on his rocking chair to be delivered. But there are a couple of items at work I really wanted to wrap up before leaving for 10 weeks. And I had a whole schedule of blog posts that I intended to write and have here at the ready. So much for that idea.

Considering all that, it’s going to be a bit quiet around here for a while, even though it won’t be so quiet in our house.

Most importantly, welcome to the world, my beautiful baby boy, my Little Bird.

Green Kids: A Toddler’s Guide to Starting Seeds

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 14 Comments

A Toddler's Guide to Seed Starting

Our yard would be mostly vegetable garden if its topography and Chris’s aesthetic preferences allowed me to do so. As it is, we have a modest but productive 10X15 garden in the back. While I could fill it with seedlings from the farmers’ market, my thriftiness and DIY-aesthetic motivated me to learn how to start everything from seed a few years ago. So every spring, I flip through the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog, order too much, and start the long process of bringing up seedlings. Except this year, I have a helper. Sprout – true to his nickname – joined me to start planting this past weekend.

Sprout also “helped” start seeds last year, although that was more about introducing him to gardening than him actually being useful. This year, I still could have done it faster and with less of a mess by myself, but he did actually contribute.

Continue reading →

Exploring Wonder at the Renwick Gallery

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

I’m a fan of “big art” – sculptures that fill entire rooms, take up your entire scope of vision, and make you lose yourself inside of.  So when I heard about the Renwick Gallery’s  Wonder exhibition, I knew we had to go. Nine rooms, each featuring a thematically and physically large piece designed to provoke wonder, hit all of my aesthetic buttons. While bringing a little kid to an art museum is always a bit of a crapshoot, I hoped that Sprout would enjoy it as well.

Arriving at the museum on Saturday, we found that we were in luck – we happened to come on the Smithsonian art museums’ Family Fun Day. While people have generally been welcoming when we’ve brought him to art museums in the past, this just added an extra layer of normalcy and acceptance.

Sculpture made of sticks

From the museum’s formal lobby, we entered the first room, filled with sculptures crafted out of sticks collected from the forest floor. Weaving our way around, it evoked the feeling of being somewhere ancient, hidden and enchanted. It was a fairy tale wonderland, a place where gnomes or huge, intelligent birds might make their home. In fact, we actually used children’s stories to relate it to Sprout. We remarked, “This is what Big Bird’s nest might be like!” and “Doesn’t this remind you of the second house in the Three Little Pigs?” (Although he might not have fully understood the point of that story – he said he would like to live in a house made of sticks. Of course, if they were this lovely, perhaps I would too.)

Continue reading →

What I’m Reading This Week

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

This week, I was a little obsessed with the foibles of small children, the terror that is Donald Trump, smart growth, and black history.

Sprout has his baffling moments in terms of eating – he oddly turned down pasta the other night! – but he’s nothing on Designer Daddy’s kid, who’s managed to eat toenails, sleeves, bathwater, and 16 other things since the last time he ate a vegetable.

With a second kid coming, I’m concerned about being overwhelmed by the number of toys we have. My friend Heather at A Walking Mama, who has three kids, has some nifty tips for keeping toys manageable: Part I and Part II.

Because the weather has been so warm, we’ve been trying to get outside as much as possible. While it’s actually hard for us to stargaze because of the city lights, this article from the Children and Nature Network has some great tips about star watching with kids.

Donald Trump as President scares the crap out of me. Besides his policies, even his rhetoric is poisoning our schools and children’s perspectives (Washington Post).

But when I’m scared of something, I’d rather laugh at it rather than cower in the corner. Lunarbaboon’s cartoon makes me chuckle, but what really cracks me up is Sprout saying, “Donald Grump has all the garbage.” (Okay, yes, it’s definitely because I’ve let him watch this clip from Sesame Street multiple times. No less funny.)

One of the best weapons against hatred is celebrating both what makes us the same and what makes us different. While Black History Month was in February, I was catching up with reading a “lost” Martin Luther King Jr. speech from 1964 (Democracy Now). I also watched a showing of the great play The Meeting about an imagined meeting between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

How we design our cities has a huge effect on how we live. Requiring businesses install a certain amount of parking hurts everyone who doesn’t drive, including our neighbors with the lowest incomes (Washington Post). Momentum Magazine has a breakdown of the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking’s impressive benchmark report, with lots of information on who bikes and walks and where.

And A Letter to You reminds us all that we’re fabulous (Five Kids is a Lot of Kids).