Encouragement

The other day I had a conversation with a friend who had just had a baby two days earlier, and she wanted to know how I had lost all of my baby weight.  She had literally just come home from the hospital and was already allowing herself to feel shameful about her body.  It broke my heart to hear her express her feelings of unworthiness and insecurity, but it brought back the feelings that I experienced shortly after giving birth. Immediately after my second son, Ben, was born, I felt insecure and ashamed of my body and the 70 pounds I had amassed during my pregnancy.  And even though this was not my first child and I knew that it would take a...

I’ve been a mom for roughly eight months. My husband and I are hooked—we love being parents. Sam is awesome. He makes the cutest faces and has found his loud voice and adorably shovels food into his toothless mouth. We quickly acclimated to poop and exhaustion and bath time and breastfeeding and naps. Or no naps. We’d even venture to say that it’s not so hard after all. We’re absolutely in love. But I have a confession. There is one aspect of parenting that I haven’t quite mastered yet.  Other people’s kids--I’m mildly terrified of them. When you have a kid, you also get a load of other people’s kids. Birthday parties. Volunteering for childcare. Play dates. People assume that when you...

I have a pretty physically intensive job. There are days where I don't stop from the moment I get there to the minute I leave. Between cleaning the gym, picking up behind big lugs who leave their weights laying around, & climbing on equipment to fix it, I can usually count a day's work as an extra work out. I should add that I'm also fiercely independent (read: headstrong and stubborn), and like to do things myself, thankyouverymuch. But when lower back and sciatic pain kicked in insanely early on in my pregnancy (like 12 weeks pregnant early) many of the normal things I did during my day became nearly impossible. And I was pissed. I was completely unprepared for...

Pumping at work. It’s a pain. A gift. A lot of parts to wash. Monotonous at the least. Sometimes I feel like I’m a slave to my pumping bag and schedule. And, heaven forbid I forget to put my day’s harvest into the fridge after work (like I did the other day).  Right now, I pump three times a day, roughly every three hours, and I usually get enough for three 4 oz bottles, give or take a couple of ounces. Here are some things I’ve learned about pumping at work: 1. Try to see pumping as a nice break from work rather than a daily chore.  I've come to enjoy my 15-20 minutes of pumping, three times a day, because...

Yup, it's true, this homeschooling momma has taken off her homeschool hat and put on the public school hat (I live a life of extremes.) Like many, many, oh so many, mommas before me I ventured into the parenting journey scared and clueless, yet somewhere along the way I learned that the only one in charge of this is me! Could I have continued homeschooling this year? Yes. Do I still believe homeschooling is ultimately the best option for my kids? Yes. But, for my own reasons, I decided to pack up my kids, move to a completely different house so I could enroll them in a good public school, and do something completely different this year (and if...