tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50521950875317907622024-03-05T17:28:46.979-08:00Grown up TantrumsRants and Raves (but mostly rants) about all that's going on in the world.Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.comBlogger295125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-43010635297388266662020-06-18T13:17:00.002-07:002020-06-18T13:17:35.322-07:00First Birthdays are Big Birthdays<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-36b65cf1-7fff-21d0-c0b9-0efbe320036d" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">My son will be two tomorrow. We’re late to the baby game; most of the kids who have called me Auntie over the years are approaching double digits, about to be preteens. And since the first of them was born (15-ish years ago), I’ve had one Auntie Rule: I only attend first birthday parties. That’s it. There are so many kids in my family that if I attended everyone’s parties, all I’d ever do is sit at Wunderland and eat at Chuck E. Cheese – two places that make me want to drink copious amounts of alcohol and jump off the side of a building. So, you get me at your baby’s first birthday, where I’ll photograph cake smashes and bring fun presents; and then I don’t want to be invited to another birthday ever again. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Surprisingly to other people, but unsurprisingly to me, I feel the same about my own child. I was really excited to have a big, fun, themed and decorated first birthday party last year, and now I don’t want to be invited anymore.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Oh wait; he’s my kid…I have to do the inviting. Dammit.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="times"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatajDLgeUJK_bO8bXnEaCNu9uWQJSX_IFI9HVftjRQTlItsl3UceEADyr2jtPy2d_Lzsx0c1bN5WFOz0S5Nr7Hcc70O0vcp5mfZO21NtmZBXVq5Rfv3Z0gykXshu5420MUL_nEROXLr8/s749/g3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="749" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatajDLgeUJK_bO8bXnEaCNu9uWQJSX_IFI9HVftjRQTlItsl3UceEADyr2jtPy2d_Lzsx0c1bN5WFOz0S5Nr7Hcc70O0vcp5mfZO21NtmZBXVq5Rfv3Z0gykXshu5420MUL_nEROXLr8/s320/g3.jpg" width="320" /></a></font></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">For a planner like me, the actual planning of the big, crazy, themed first birthday wasn’t stressful; it was actually pretty fun. Grant was obsessed with Curious George at this time last year, so we went with that them and held the party at a local park that had space to fit our giant family and all of our friends. I ordered the perfect little smash cake, knowing full well he’s a neat and tidy kid who would never smash a cake in his pristine little fingers (spoiler: I was right; he used the monkey cake topper as a fork and didn't even need his face washed when he was done). I picked up balloons, ordered primary colored tablecloths and paper products; we even made goodie bags for the other kids, even though I hate goodie bags and think most other parents do too. Like, here, have a bag of crap I found at the Dollar Store (just kidding, it was from Amazon); don’t worry, it’s red & yellow so it’s themed! But it was his first birthday, and it was really important to me that he get the day all of his cousins got on previous years – all of them together, having fun, eating cake, playing at the park.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">The less fun part of planning a birthday party, is that your kid’s first birthday isn’t necessarily a priority to everyone, so much as it’s a priority for you. I was really disappointed by how many of Grant's cousins weren’t there, especially after all of my years of showing up to first birthday parties (sans child of my own) to celebrate with my own cousins and their kiddos. Don't get me wrong, we had a great party and a great First Birthday Week; there were lots of friends and family who were there to celebrate with us - but there were a handful of people who didn't show up, and I had some feelings about it. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I still have some feelings about it.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">That feeling left me wondering; are you really throwing the party for your one-year-old, if you’re going to be bummed out when people he doesn’t even really know don’t show up? Or are you throwing the obligatory event because you know that’s what moms are supposed to do, and then a year later, your feelings are still a bit hurt and your now almost-two-year-old doesn’t even remember he ever liked Curious George because now he only cares about horses and moo cows? Grant didn't know it was his birthday, didn't know why we were giving him cake, why we were singing to him or lighting a candle in his face, why we were opening a mountain of toys; he cared specifically about exactly one thing: the swings. He is not the one with memories of the cake topper or the "I'm one" tee shirt saved in his memory box; I am.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJw0Zkk5V9_pBoD2xGktaWZ2gj0xJ696HvEvzNHK9yapYUOboIwTuKDT15SuClQ8B4-1BpvCeeLotTeL42-r28-_JwuXAP9NW7ZAL2JOIsHcy7-aXTAWgiOvYNAvNwhmPJnjUcIuoL5Cc/s750/g5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJw0Zkk5V9_pBoD2xGktaWZ2gj0xJ696HvEvzNHK9yapYUOboIwTuKDT15SuClQ8B4-1BpvCeeLotTeL42-r28-_JwuXAP9NW7ZAL2JOIsHcy7-aXTAWgiOvYNAvNwhmPJnjUcIuoL5Cc/s320/g5.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I don't think I know anyone who didn't throw a party for their baby's first birthday, or who doesn't plan to throw one. I also don't know any child who now remembers turning one or having a party. But I am willing to bet that moms everywhere would think you were a total psychopath if you didn't through your baby a first birthday party. I've had numerous people ask why we aren't throwing him a second birthday party, in fact.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Well for one, we're in the middle of a global pandemic, and I am trying to not catch a Coronavirus, you lunatics. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">None of this is to say that birthdays after turning one are not a big deal. I am actually the queen of going all out for birthdays; I just think parties are not the way to go all out. I'd prefer Grant share his birthday with a small circle, on an adventure that he'll love. Besides, I have the First Birthday Rule, where only first birthdays get big themed, color coordinated parties. We do birthday adventures now. Tomorrow we are taking Grant tomorrow to a local, family-owned farm to have a tour and feed some animals, which will be the adventure of his lifetime at two years old. We'll go get a cupcake at Fat Cupcake too, and I'll probably shop online at Carters with his birthday coupon because he's a giant and growing like a freaking weed. I hung horse and moo cow streamers in the dining room windows last night, and he's thrilled by them - we may have to keep them up for the whole year, in fact. His grandparents & Uncle Tony are coming over tonight for cake - a cake which I decorated myself to look like a muddy barnyard - and ice cream with raspberries. We didn't even get him a present this year - he has too many toys already and really only plays with 3 things anyway: Grandma Horsey, one baby doll, and two green plastic cups from his play kitchen. What else is there, am I right?? </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhepIOYkMkk-VYb2NHtgqAniUvOrl7fO9pWFiKLRcWKZOqtav2Jw2YyEXbRSuOgUi_pDYvNmBHTrsQiWeDj5nnbiYNLc1KNXauE0oORVkBqMFj8chClw9gcSSFjSHdAMBvjiZpOXzd3W9c/s420/g2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="420" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhepIOYkMkk-VYb2NHtgqAniUvOrl7fO9pWFiKLRcWKZOqtav2Jw2YyEXbRSuOgUi_pDYvNmBHTrsQiWeDj5nnbiYNLc1KNXauE0oORVkBqMFj8chClw9gcSSFjSHdAMBvjiZpOXzd3W9c/s320/g2.jpg" /></a></div><font face="times"><br /></font><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Anyway. Have a birthday party. Don't have a birthday party. Risk Covid-19 to prove you're a good party mom, or maybe don't. Buy a six dollar chocolate cake and a bag of candy, and have at it; anyone can be a cake designer in 2020! This topic strays a bit from mom shame brought on by everyone else, and brings to light the fact that moms also tend to invite a lot of shame onto themselves. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">There is no reason to do that. Mom shame is unacceptable from other moms, unacceptable from other humans, and is also unacceptable from yourself.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">You're a good mom whether or not you throw parties, whether or not you remember to pick up a candle, whether or not you fail at cake design. No one year old knows who was at his birthday party; no two year old likes anyone enough for them to come over and have a birthday party. You're doing just fine, despite what Pinterest tells you about your lack of theme-ing for your parties. You're a good mom because you love your child, because you work hard every day to celebrate his existence, because you provide him with everything he needs to be happy and healthy in the world...even his own face mask, which he absolutely will not wear. You're a good mom because you go to sleep every night only after brushing his teeth, reading him a story, watching the same movie for the 87th time, giving him all of the snuggles and all of the smooches, and scooting yourself to the edge of the bed because he prefers to have his head and all of his hair on YOUR pillow, not his. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_KZijjrd992mQw_yOIkLt1ZDPnxgOTtORDU6EUhCun7F4N6-l1WyaCuJyzUi3HDLcOxznvIVQURkSv0rvfja2CuYc4qdAFS_iVwQCrpQQflijPUuZoWMBcSSf7sOHsJG8xOuuL0I76Wo/s640/g1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_KZijjrd992mQw_yOIkLt1ZDPnxgOTtORDU6EUhCun7F4N6-l1WyaCuJyzUi3HDLcOxznvIVQURkSv0rvfja2CuYc4qdAFS_iVwQCrpQQflijPUuZoWMBcSSf7sOHsJG8xOuuL0I76Wo/s320/g1.jpg" /></a></div><font face="times"><br /></font><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are my reasons; the reasons I know I am a good mom, even if we never have another birthday party in our lives. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think about it, and add your reasons to the list. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What makes you a good mom?? </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I promise you, it's not birthday cake and matching balloons. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">#endmomshaming </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-34080421109697364242020-06-17T12:36:00.005-07:002020-06-17T13:00:53.341-07:00Trying Not to Collide with a Car Seat Mom<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5b4596a5-7fff-9f62-1513-0a0267bf3e79" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before you throw me over a ledge, my son will be two in two days, and he weighs thirty pounds - that’s more than all three of the three-year-olds I polled, and nine pounds from max capacity for rear-facing in our car seat.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am now braced for my fall off the cliff.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We turned Grant’s car seat around.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before his 8th birthday?? What?! How dare I?!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Car Seat Moms are a real thing. So much of a real thing, that I avoid posting photos to social media of my son sitting in one - facing back, front, sideways, or upside down, in a vehicle coming or going.. If you scroll Instagram, photos of kids in car seats are always captioned “don’t worry, not moving yet,” and “not buckled yet, it’s ok” - #nocarseatshameyouguys! </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRE2LJiIROSaLC9EJjRNnrc3oWbbdcMbeX5U0Ub2cdyu52qQNz9SV-xh6EAoivG1LLXQ9K5CVAXYWB6ZpCrawDVaZPHTp-csGu4e_40udvz3SP0MOFMHdLEtOCJ45KR4OclY2FCpyBdJA/s300/v3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRE2LJiIROSaLC9EJjRNnrc3oWbbdcMbeX5U0Ub2cdyu52qQNz9SV-xh6EAoivG1LLXQ9K5CVAXYWB6ZpCrawDVaZPHTp-csGu4e_40udvz3SP0MOFMHdLEtOCJ45KR4OclY2FCpyBdJA/s300/v3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRE2LJiIROSaLC9EJjRNnrc3oWbbdcMbeX5U0Ub2cdyu52qQNz9SV-xh6EAoivG1LLXQ9K5CVAXYWB6ZpCrawDVaZPHTp-csGu4e_40udvz3SP0MOFMHdLEtOCJ45KR4OclY2FCpyBdJA/" /></a></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRE2LJiIROSaLC9EJjRNnrc3oWbbdcMbeX5U0Ub2cdyu52qQNz9SV-xh6EAoivG1LLXQ9K5CVAXYWB6ZpCrawDVaZPHTp-csGu4e_40udvz3SP0MOFMHdLEtOCJ45KR4OclY2FCpyBdJA/s300/v3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We turned Grant’s car seat around for several reasons.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One, because he’s two and that’s our only legal obligation here in Oregon. He doesn’t have to meet any legal height or weight threshold; he just has to be two.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two, he’s huge. Bigger than a three year old. Bigger than the three year olds who are currently facing forward in their car seats.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three, he started getting car sick and puking all over himself in the back seat. And this one was the real kicker. Toddler barf is truly disgusting; my car smelled like moldy cheese and rotten milk, and all because my poor nugget was reclined backwards in his car seat, unable to see out the window, watching the world zoom by in a mirror. The thought alone makes me queasy!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At his two year well check this week, I braved myself for the doctor to tell me that wasn’t a good idea. Car Seat Mom’s everywhere have convinced me it’s not a good idea (though I did it anyway); the internet would have you believe your kid should graduate from college still rear facing. Instead, our amazing doctor told me that actually it’s also super unsafe for a toddler to be laying down and puking all over himself while his mom tries to navigate off the freeway to clean him up. “It’s fine” was his conclusion. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exactly. It’s fine. He’s fine. It’s going to be fine. Whether your kid faces forward or backward, they’ll be fine. So stop being a judgy ass hat!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The doctor was far less interested in what way his car seat faced, and instead offered advice on how to reduce his motion sickness - no dairy or citrus before a car ride, try to give him a banana before hitting the road, give him the Dramamine on long trips, because IT IS FUCKING FINE.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUFBjb4CkVfJgrp1O0dgTiM6uCw6pAysXv8-GtsIj44z-BzRcvBVDl5xklO6Q3qkNT_XwA8waGEYXviVPb0udlGQeaNYAvG6xwUvwvIM61INRy6_EvUcd5A9z_GXTYDISAc5p_WM7hLc/s1102/v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUFBjb4CkVfJgrp1O0dgTiM6uCw6pAysXv8-GtsIj44z-BzRcvBVDl5xklO6Q3qkNT_XwA8waGEYXviVPb0udlGQeaNYAvG6xwUvwvIM61INRy6_EvUcd5A9z_GXTYDISAc5p_WM7hLc/s1102/v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUFBjb4CkVfJgrp1O0dgTiM6uCw6pAysXv8-GtsIj44z-BzRcvBVDl5xklO6Q3qkNT_XwA8waGEYXviVPb0udlGQeaNYAvG6xwUvwvIM61INRy6_EvUcd5A9z_GXTYDISAc5p_WM7hLc/s320/v2.jpg" /></a></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXUFBjb4CkVfJgrp1O0dgTiM6uCw6pAysXv8-GtsIj44z-BzRcvBVDl5xklO6Q3qkNT_XwA8waGEYXviVPb0udlGQeaNYAvG6xwUvwvIM61INRy6_EvUcd5A9z_GXTYDISAc5p_WM7hLc/s1102/v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It occurs to me as I type this that I could write a full post on the shaming behind medicating babies...stop letting your kid suffer in teething pain when they make children’s Tylonel to make them feel better. Ugh...next time you have a headache, don’t take anything and then reconsider why you’re making your baby suffer.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I literally gave Grant a dose of Tylonel on Monday because I thought he was getting shots at his well visit. No shots, just a fun little high and a longer nap. Oops. HE’S FINE. Our moms put booze on our gums to keep us from crying and we’re not dead; fill up that medicine dropper and stop being a pain in the ass.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, that’s for another day.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So. My doctor said turning the car seat around is fine. State law said turning the car seat around is fine. The car seat manufacturer said turning the car seat around is fine. His weight, height, and age all say it’s fine; his lack of curdled milk vomit in the past three weeks says it’s fine.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the Car Seat Moms know better, and it’s clearly not fine. He’s doomed. I’m the worst.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the past eight days, there has been a common theme to my posts: YOUR. BABY. IS. FINE. Everyone has an opinion on what you’re doing wrong, how you’re scarring your kid for life, how he’s in such danger, blah, blah, blah. Post a photo of your kid in their car seat and watch the mom groups collectively lose their minds; they absolutely will. They can’t help themselves. You’ll be so aware of the chest clip placement, your brain will turn to mush. And for what? Literally nothing - just to make you feel shitty about the way you are doing the mom thing. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4T4eX5XUiTrWc4ye23lMxJp5qTiBYJyWgZ220ko_hNjZtXfMrdVDm_Z5Nwja5kIxYK9aaXnkFKMeNPI1DveTiGF2I4DLE5S9CDQRpeSqEAk0Dk33ibXbuQxK-O8D_JfEeenVb0BFxndg/s1102/v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4T4eX5XUiTrWc4ye23lMxJp5qTiBYJyWgZ220ko_hNjZtXfMrdVDm_Z5Nwja5kIxYK9aaXnkFKMeNPI1DveTiGF2I4DLE5S9CDQRpeSqEAk0Dk33ibXbuQxK-O8D_JfEeenVb0BFxndg/s1102/v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4T4eX5XUiTrWc4ye23lMxJp5qTiBYJyWgZ220ko_hNjZtXfMrdVDm_Z5Nwja5kIxYK9aaXnkFKMeNPI1DveTiGF2I4DLE5S9CDQRpeSqEAk0Dk33ibXbuQxK-O8D_JfEeenVb0BFxndg/s320/v1.jpg" /></a></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4T4eX5XUiTrWc4ye23lMxJp5qTiBYJyWgZ220ko_hNjZtXfMrdVDm_Z5Nwja5kIxYK9aaXnkFKMeNPI1DveTiGF2I4DLE5S9CDQRpeSqEAk0Dk33ibXbuQxK-O8D_JfEeenVb0BFxndg/s1102/v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have never, in 728 days of being a mom, asked a stranger for help with something. I’m not trying to be shamed by the masses, and the internet is a place where strangers become experts in How to Keep You from Fucking Up Your Baby. I have, however, asked my friends for advice, opinions, and help. Before I flipped the car seat, I asked several friends who have kids slightly older than Grant. Not one of them told me he was going to die in a fiery collision from my decision to flip him around. Two of them said, their toddler got close to two and started getting car sick...apparently that’s a common occurrence. But no mom group will tell you that; they’ll all tell you why you have to drop them off to their wedding still rear facing in the car seat. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re doing fine. Your baby is fine. Your baby is probably really hating staring at the ceiling in the car, and can’t wait to be old enough and big enough to turn around and look out the window. Grant is loving the new view - we are singing, dancing, and laughing all the way to the beach house, and without having to stop and change clothes on the way. But don’t let the Car Seat Mom tell you when it’s okay to turn the seat around (also don’t let me tell you, I’m not a fucking expert). Ask your doctor and your mom friend circle, read your car seat and vehicle manuals, and decide for your damn self. You know best anyway; you’re the one who instinctively knows not to kill the human who exited your own body!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#endmomshaming</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-8731691013842919652020-06-16T17:21:00.002-07:002020-06-16T17:21:40.767-07:00You Are Mom. That is All (Apparently).One of the most shameful things you can do as a mother, is try to have your own existence separate from your child.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGKUXG006C4O5dbupTDjW8q0dap9TbH5UOqUaoJPQHscAAioxxukWANfkfi0KINBCtfVCIvYClbGgpoJyIx-Cd_G-DBnWCJjrbSVrlcHYZIPr-DfJMhRsZpPOuOeld2zmhCXVFdUxzxDs/s749/v3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="749" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGKUXG006C4O5dbupTDjW8q0dap9TbH5UOqUaoJPQHscAAioxxukWANfkfi0KINBCtfVCIvYClbGgpoJyIx-Cd_G-DBnWCJjrbSVrlcHYZIPr-DfJMhRsZpPOuOeld2zmhCXVFdUxzxDs/s320/v3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Things you can't do when you're a mom, in no particular order:</div><div>Have friends</div><div>Date your husband</div><div>Get a massage, tattoo, hair cut, new pair of yoga pants</div><div>Leave your child with a babysitter</div><div>Sleep for 8 hours in a row</div><div>Drink coffee while it's still hot</div><div>Complete any uninterrupted phone call</div><div>Go 24 hours without talking about poop</div><div>Quit your job to stay home with your baby</div><div>Enjoy your maternity leave</div><div>Spend any money on yourself</div><div>Get a drink with your friend</div><div>Go to work</div><div><br /></div><div>Literally. The only thing that matters now, is the human life you created. You don't get to stay home or go back to work without someone jumping down your throat about how you're going to ruin your baby's life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Spoiler: whether you work full time, part time, or not at all; YOUR KID WILL BE JUST FUCKING FINE! </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcj76LUx2kXQn3rtLJWrB-vI6nI_TZ_xSniYcrJPgqUuAiCi3z-Cq_9Fsx5wHPSOv2xvuxN702O6i7wQy3lnNyFeDkqHu1LR200Tg9aqIXf1IPQblMBITkbubvEzt8qI42w3YnqN82P58/s500/v1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcj76LUx2kXQn3rtLJWrB-vI6nI_TZ_xSniYcrJPgqUuAiCi3z-Cq_9Fsx5wHPSOv2xvuxN702O6i7wQy3lnNyFeDkqHu1LR200Tg9aqIXf1IPQblMBITkbubvEzt8qI42w3YnqN82P58/s320/v1.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I changed my career path when I had Grant, because the idea of sitting at my desk for ten hours and then going home where I could, at any moment, get a phone call that someone's apartment was on fire or filling with water based on something stupid someone else did; made me want to roll over dead. But I did still decide to go to work and leave Grant in someone else's care. I was thrilled to find a position where I was able to work partially at home, and was even more thrilled that we were able to compromise some financial things so Matt could stay home. But that's just what we decided; it doesn't have to be what everyone decides.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you are a stay at home mom, good on you - you are working your ass off, and I appreciate you. Being stuck at home the past 100+ days (<i>thanks, Coronavirus</i>), I've watched Matt & Grant exist through the day, and it's exhausting. Toddlers are exhausting. Not encountering another human adult, is exhausting. Keeping the house even sort of clean, with a child who follows you around dumping toy bins you just picked up, is exhausting. So if you are at home, good on you. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you are at home and judging me for leaving home every morning, though...fuck you. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you are a working mom, hell yes girl; this shit is hard. Good on you for getting up, taking a shower, and prepping for your work day as your toddler is so cute in his jammies and all you want to do is scoop him up for snuggles. Good on you for driving away 5 mornings a week as your little one stands in the window waving, as your heart shatters into pieces wanting to run back in to play with him instead. Good on you for clocking out at 5:00 and trying to find your energy to get on the floor and play with your kid, when you want to have a glass of wine and read a raunchy memoir on the couch instead. And good on you for sitting at the dinner table asking your baby how his day was, getting eight hours of snuggles in all at once as you settle into bed with the toddler who "should be" sleeping in his own room (another mom shame moment: cosleeping). </div><div><br /></div><div>If you are a working mom and think stay at home moms are yoga-pant wearing lunatics, fuck you too. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif31bmMi-MdyEODBTNAeBeaho2IK9DqXAbeCY8CfcMuaehz7XwsjKPkBXXUM7Y4NSqWvwGpRgnkQyYnZgZvSIYAil6orKnxgQ4itlKsHe4mYyFbES_amodqdJe5S8c-4G3U4a7Mv_xI28/s746/v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif31bmMi-MdyEODBTNAeBeaho2IK9DqXAbeCY8CfcMuaehz7XwsjKPkBXXUM7Y4NSqWvwGpRgnkQyYnZgZvSIYAil6orKnxgQ4itlKsHe4mYyFbES_amodqdJe5S8c-4G3U4a7Mv_xI28/s320/v2.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I recognize that I am in a place of privilege, that allows me to leave Grant with his dad while I go to work; while this has definitely come with sacrifices - renting instead of buying, passing on vacations, holding off on enormous tattoos - for our family, it works. This isn't everyone's perfect scenario. Many, many people send their kids to daycare every day, and that's also just fine. It's what works for those families. Who are we to judge what works for someone else's family? Why do stay at home moms clutch their pearls at moms who work full time? And why do working moms think stay at home moms are giving up a real life? </div><div><br /></div><div>Why can't we all just open our eyes and realize, that whether we work full time or stay at home full time, we literally surrender our identity when we become MOM?? </div><div><br /></div><div>(kidding, mostly)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgcEQBYDZo6RitqN6SA_HE-xZ8sxCfKy4pmJZMW9OKbDn8ta_1llpfXEqYvPDHSICVWi_sG8ambwF7R75JEbOU5yLkU8PFtDnVB6TqVCDz7ARcwqgeFRoqJAWSPwyNNsed1uc8U5f6Rkw/s750/v4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgcEQBYDZo6RitqN6SA_HE-xZ8sxCfKy4pmJZMW9OKbDn8ta_1llpfXEqYvPDHSICVWi_sG8ambwF7R75JEbOU5yLkU8PFtDnVB6TqVCDz7ARcwqgeFRoqJAWSPwyNNsed1uc8U5f6Rkw/s320/v4.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The common denominator for all moms, is that there is never enough time. Never. We are constantly running on empty, trying to prioritize everyone else, attempting to lose baby weight but unable to sacrifice yet another hour of the day, struggling to maintain schedules, meet deadlines, make healthy meals, keep the laundry done, and wash our hair before anyone notices how long its been. There is no time leftover for shitting on each other's life, so just stop it! Find something better to do! Go get a coffee with a friend, see a movie with your husband, go get your damn hair cut just so someone will wash it...just stop wasting moments being a judgmental shit! I can assure you, the next time I have an accidental free chunk of time, I'll be getting ink needled into my back; I won't be wasting it telling my fellow moms how much they suck at life. </div><div><br /></div><div>#endmomshaming </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-79119170934985966252020-06-15T17:13:00.001-07:002020-06-15T17:14:37.601-07:00I'm Talking to You<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-ae055a0e-7fff-e875-2615-74f37426ea18" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Probably the most common question we get asked about our decision to teach Grant to communicate using sign language is, “won’t that delay his speech?”</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The short answer: no; it won’t.</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a ton of science behind why a baby’s verbal speech is not delayed based on using sign language in infancy. I already did my research and don’t need to review it; you can read all about it on Google. Or, even better, you can sign up to take the Parent/Caregiver Workshop we took when we had questions about ASL and babies, you’ll learn a ton, and as an added bonus will be supporting a local small business.</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><a href="https://tinytalkersportland.com/classes/baby-signing-101-workshop/" target="_blank">TINY TALKERS</a> << sign up here! </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We were hesitant with signing at first, but several of my cousins strongly encouraged it after using it with their kids...and their kids all seemed to make it out of toddlerhood in one piece, so we gave it a try. We took the two hour crash course for parents, where we learned a lot of science regarding baby brain development and speech, in addition to a packet full of signs I’d forget before we even got home. </span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grant, however, took to sign language as a helpful tool right sway; within a week or so, he was already signing milk and more, two key messages for your mom and dad when you’re ten months old. He would clap for himself wildly every time he did a new sign for the first time, and soon, he became some sort of sign language guru - he was learning several a week, if not a few at a time in a day. We stopped keeping track of his signs at 200, but he has since gone on to add colors, shapes, and numbers to that bag of tricks. He signs complete thoughts and sentences now, will sign along as I sing him songs, and signs his way though his bedtime stories while I read to him.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ryZUzN4yb8dUpHz4Rn-OMMrxqbzjyMjFw6E15srlGJ57DipatVLUPAnnCtOHh_dmd0ARjgOU3vStaUbaV2POt3_V2DYzDLcCh6JW04KXqnlcsmVUGpu4q92icEWWCV3VGUWMyc0gDA/s540/ASL1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ryZUzN4yb8dUpHz4Rn-OMMrxqbzjyMjFw6E15srlGJ57DipatVLUPAnnCtOHh_dmd0ARjgOU3vStaUbaV2POt3_V2DYzDLcCh6JW04KXqnlcsmVUGpu4q92icEWWCV3VGUWMyc0gDA/s540/ASL1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ryZUzN4yb8dUpHz4Rn-OMMrxqbzjyMjFw6E15srlGJ57DipatVLUPAnnCtOHh_dmd0ARjgOU3vStaUbaV2POt3_V2DYzDLcCh6JW04KXqnlcsmVUGpu4q92icEWWCV3VGUWMyc0gDA/s540/ASL1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ryZUzN4yb8dUpHz4Rn-OMMrxqbzjyMjFw6E15srlGJ57DipatVLUPAnnCtOHh_dmd0ARjgOU3vStaUbaV2POt3_V2DYzDLcCh6JW04KXqnlcsmVUGpu4q92icEWWCV3VGUWMyc0gDA/s320/ASL1.jpg" /></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I am a huge advocate for teaching sign language to babies, the point of this blog isn’t to convince anyone to agree with me. Teach it to your child or don’t; I’m not big into pressuring other moms into doing things. It works for us, and I’ll always recommend it to new parents as a tool, but I won’t think less of someone who declines.</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My point, rather, is to serve a general reminder that it is never okay to ask a mom if something is “wrong” with their kid. Among the same group of people who have wondered aloud whether sign language will delay a child’s verbal speech, are a small group of parents who have asked, implied, or suggested that my son “is delayed” or “has a delay.” </span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, no he doesn’t have a delay.*</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re reading this thinking <i>oh shit, I definitely asked her if Grant was okay</i>, you can be reassured by his doctor, his sign language instructor, my mom the Baby Whisperer, the Internet, and every reputable developmental chart out there; he’s just fine. </span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, MYOB. It is never - and I do mean never - acceptable to ask a parent what is wrong with their baby. It’s mean, and as if parents don’t have enough to stress about, adding the thought of groups of friends & family gossiping about them, is just shitty. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>*Side note; if Grant did have a speech delay, learning sign language would be an invaluable tool, which is another reason why I super-duper encourage it!</i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUy1TqoBCzdECd68ki3A7WucEf_Q3t1iI2emEfc81PDi_yH2uPJi-dIPzDmneZ_lGUne3JLQT6taRbWNbSu6SnHD1RWjzlUkKaSgM1EyMEhuATuLa0Rubg1bnknv9ZJ6bgNOTgLio_crU/s504/ASL3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUy1TqoBCzdECd68ki3A7WucEf_Q3t1iI2emEfc81PDi_yH2uPJi-dIPzDmneZ_lGUne3JLQT6taRbWNbSu6SnHD1RWjzlUkKaSgM1EyMEhuATuLa0Rubg1bnknv9ZJ6bgNOTgLio_crU/s504/ASL3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUy1TqoBCzdECd68ki3A7WucEf_Q3t1iI2emEfc81PDi_yH2uPJi-dIPzDmneZ_lGUne3JLQT6taRbWNbSu6SnHD1RWjzlUkKaSgM1EyMEhuATuLa0Rubg1bnknv9ZJ6bgNOTgLio_crU/s504/ASL3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="236" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUy1TqoBCzdECd68ki3A7WucEf_Q3t1iI2emEfc81PDi_yH2uPJi-dIPzDmneZ_lGUne3JLQT6taRbWNbSu6SnHD1RWjzlUkKaSgM1EyMEhuATuLa0Rubg1bnknv9ZJ6bgNOTgLio_crU/s320/ASL3.jpg" /></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parenting is hard. Being a new parent is hard. Being an experienced parent is also probably hard. Being responsible for raising successful, smart, kind little humans is daunting. We don’t need to make it harder for each other by passing cruel judgments, especially onto our babies.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My cousin had a similar experience, in which another family member decided her son was autistic. Bitch, you're not a doctor. You're barely even a caregiver and hardly know the kid at all. Not shockingly, my cousin's son was never diagnosed with autism - I'm fairly certain his real doctor (you know, the one who went to medical school) never even broached it as a possibility. Not all shy kids have autism, just so we're clear. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And again, so what if he was autistic? The point isn't to place any shame on a medical diagnosis in a child, but rather to remind people that asking a mom if something is wrong with their kid, is absolutely unacceptable. There is nothing "wrong" with a child diagnosed with autism, or who has a language delay, or who has any other medical need, and it's gross for us as adult humans to suggest otherwise. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Let this post serve as a reminder that being a parent is hard enough without feeling a lack of support from other parents around you. Don't ask parents if their kid is "okay;" it's rude as fuck.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9hE029sONKNR73Go9DMm_NV-h0ere7QtOTBLmBg4LWqq_rG07wd0ab2yzLaUrRb0iE6O2gIh914WE7X-lI_B3XFFmm5yooK23N35yFRILLQOIYNTuNxb7PRiei1Fx_qsHdsk2Sc4LG78/s854/ASL2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="570" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9hE029sONKNR73Go9DMm_NV-h0ere7QtOTBLmBg4LWqq_rG07wd0ab2yzLaUrRb0iE6O2gIh914WE7X-lI_B3XFFmm5yooK23N35yFRILLQOIYNTuNxb7PRiei1Fx_qsHdsk2Sc4LG78/s320/ASL2.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">PS: We took Grant to his two year well check this morning, and - as suspected - his doctor has no concerns whatsoever about his language development. He's a bright kid, and if you'd take an hour to learn some sign language yourself, you'd be able to engage in full conversations with him about animals, colors, shapes, the weather, his feelings, your feelings, food, our cat, his favorite toys, his grandma, his horse, the beach house, a farm...</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe there's something wrong with you.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">#endmomshaming </span></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-39855795030302611512020-06-14T09:03:00.000-07:002020-06-14T09:03:30.738-07:00If You Don't Wake Up with Random Bruises, You Aren't Cosleeping Right<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9071c17b-7fff-28e9-8e60-400e5d9639e0" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had every intention of my baby sleeping in a bassinet, and then eventually in his own crib; throughout my pregnancy, that was the plan. We bought and set up a bassinet in our bedroom, taking into account that I would be getting up to breastfeed, and would also be recovering from the c-section we’d already planned for. We set up a nursery, with a crib, fully anticipating his transition from said bassinet to said crib; baby monitors were purchased to make that transition manageable. </span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then he was born, and every plan went flying out the window. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcz-Lfql4i4e_8_bTqO04aSZkZY2supgXvDenlaX0lAH5nhQ6GEnWXfnPCHoqHJ530dB1rRG1u_yIqY0Cv_VWcOxqgQxZWWxyJEnPr2Lb12v-XO0gCIzp4cODBz2lvVQr1KODWSb0gK0/s556/co1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="556" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcz-Lfql4i4e_8_bTqO04aSZkZY2supgXvDenlaX0lAH5nhQ6GEnWXfnPCHoqHJ530dB1rRG1u_yIqY0Cv_VWcOxqgQxZWWxyJEnPr2Lb12v-XO0gCIzp4cODBz2lvVQr1KODWSb0gK0/s320/co1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, while recovering from my surgery, I wasn’t able to climb into our bed; I’d spend my first two weeks home, sleeping on the couch. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We didn’t move the bassinet to the living room, nor did I have a partner who left me on the couch to go to bed; instead, he created us a cocoon of pillows on the couch, and all three of us (four, if you count the cat) slept as a family while I healed. He would pile the pillows and set up blankets, and help me settle in for the night.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(He's the best.)</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also quit my feeble attempt at breastfeeding around the time that two weeks was up, so by the time we were back to sleeping in our room, I wasn’t nursing, and my amazing baby was sleeping in long, all-night stretches. (Because he’s also the best.)</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are what I like to call, accidental cosleepers. We put Grant to bed in his bassinet, swaddled tightly, every night. When he woke up to eat, we snuggled into bed with a bottle, and then in bed we stayed. </span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As time passed, he spent fewer hours at a time in the bassinet; I just wanted to snuggle him constantly. I could not set him down and walk the five feet to my own bed. I found myself actively missing him as I walked away from him in the bassinet; I would just lay in bed fighting the need to check on him. Not because I was particularly worried or paranoid, but more because I just simply couldn’t snuggle him enough.</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fast forward two years (minus a week), ans Grant still sleeps in our bed. We long gave up on moving him to a crib and got rid of it, and instead focused our attention on teaching him how to climb out of our king bed safely. He has a twin bed in his room, and he naps in it by himself without any problems...which probably means he would sleep overnight in it just fine too.</span></p><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just don’t want to move him yet.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SLGn5fyjw-RdcFdLyqVI3KQermwFq6z6KDaadtniB1hHsOn9WOIQ2C42GO02aPTGZFrLrcJHHVY1Fnr1FQY5VLLnDr0f2YHrTGQBccU-VRHOntCGyaNcNBmVm8Ngjb3PX16td0HtpoE/s564/co2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SLGn5fyjw-RdcFdLyqVI3KQermwFq6z6KDaadtniB1hHsOn9WOIQ2C42GO02aPTGZFrLrcJHHVY1Fnr1FQY5VLLnDr0f2YHrTGQBccU-VRHOntCGyaNcNBmVm8Ngjb3PX16td0HtpoE/s564/co2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SLGn5fyjw-RdcFdLyqVI3KQermwFq6z6KDaadtniB1hHsOn9WOIQ2C42GO02aPTGZFrLrcJHHVY1Fnr1FQY5VLLnDr0f2YHrTGQBccU-VRHOntCGyaNcNBmVm8Ngjb3PX16td0HtpoE/s320/co2.jpg" /></a></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7SLGn5fyjw-RdcFdLyqVI3KQermwFq6z6KDaadtniB1hHsOn9WOIQ2C42GO02aPTGZFrLrcJHHVY1Fnr1FQY5VLLnDr0f2YHrTGQBccU-VRHOntCGyaNcNBmVm8Ngjb3PX16td0HtpoE/s564/co2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love sleeping next to him. I love laying in bed after everyone else has fallen asleep, watching him chew on his bottom lip (we just took his binky away a few weeks ago and he still roots around for it at night), listening to his little breath. I love waking up in the morning to the sound of his feet plopping to the floor, then hearing them run out of the room, down the hall to find his dad. I love watching him roll the corner of the bed sheet around between his fingers as he fades to sleep. I love to lean over and give his sleeping face one more smooch before I fall asleep, and I love to feel him scoot closer to me as the night goes on. It's my favorite. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcdEfgWbxBp-SRfqnKx0slmwWp5VXX5UoRctOWNaBFw_XVakNN0sMMYdsJcxNf_bRY3xJ8lzxlOTvIMR7bAUWtpRooeeKYwnkw-6FZiPdvIBvhGi2f559gQ0nXfsGmNX2T8g-3oC8tJ0/s700/co3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcdEfgWbxBp-SRfqnKx0slmwWp5VXX5UoRctOWNaBFw_XVakNN0sMMYdsJcxNf_bRY3xJ8lzxlOTvIMR7bAUWtpRooeeKYwnkw-6FZiPdvIBvhGi2f559gQ0nXfsGmNX2T8g-3oC8tJ0/s320/co3.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mom shame over cosleeping doesn't come from our generation; our generation cosleeps. We got it right in the sleep department. Where mom shame comes with regard to cosleeping, is from our parents' generation and their parents' generation. Grandparents are really annoyed by cosleeping. A friend of my MIL suggested Grant would be sleeping with us until he's 15 if I don't knock that shit off.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: comfortaa; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I really doubt it lady, but okay.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">It's the middle aged white ladies who like to clutch their pearls over a cosleeping family. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">(<i>To be fair, it's also the women my age who don't have sex with their husbands but pretend they're humping like monkeys who ask aloud at parties "but how do you ever have sex?!"</i>)</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">But it's mostly the middle aged white ladies. Because in other cultures, as in my generation of white moms, cosleeping is how it's done.</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">"He'll be too attached to you." </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">Umm, that isn't a thing.</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">"He'll never be able to sleep alone."</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">He'll be just fine.</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">"He'll suffocate."</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">You tried to slam his tiny face into my huge boobs to make him nurse, and you weren't scared of him suffocating then...why are you on this soap box? </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">"He'll be in your bed til he's 30."</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">I mean, really though, fuck off. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODWP46i1e2OEdAzSjMQ4u9s2EqocisFR5KKnVKqT89mJDTJtsjchNYu30pgC5AQkmA0lkjjeueS0DBpz4ZK9HZR5Eci1d3iRALt-AdBwiss2xbhLfW2AgWZqBgtGfRIXnafcxn8wPLDE/s394/co4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="372" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODWP46i1e2OEdAzSjMQ4u9s2EqocisFR5KKnVKqT89mJDTJtsjchNYu30pgC5AQkmA0lkjjeueS0DBpz4ZK9HZR5Eci1d3iRALt-AdBwiss2xbhLfW2AgWZqBgtGfRIXnafcxn8wPLDE/s320/co4.jpg" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">In my reality, sleep is sleep - whether I got it because my baby snuggled me all night, or because he could lay in bed next to me and drink a bottle, or because we cuddled up for an hour and watched a movie every night, it's all still what lets me sleep. Sleep training a baby is not easy, no matter how you do it. For us, sleeping with him in our bed gets us all the best night sleep, which allows us all to be productive, happy, thriving humans.</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">And in 25 years, if Grant still sleeps in my bed, you can shame me about it; it'll be June of 2025. Until then, get bent. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">#endmomshaming</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-69356142820666200822020-06-13T10:50:00.000-07:002020-06-13T10:50:20.490-07:00Just Feed the Baby, Dammit<br /><div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">The lowest low of mom-ing for me came when Grant was only a few weeks old, and I found myself telling Matt I was dreading him waking up, because I didn’t want to feed him. It was 1:30 in the morning when he next opened his eyes. We were all on the couch; I was trying to get my hungry, screaming, flailing, tiny baby to latch, and we were both just unable to make it happen. I was sobbing, and as Matt brought me a bottle of pumped milk from the fridge, he asked me why I thought I had to keep doing something Grant and I both hated so much.</font></span></p><font face="times"><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">That was the end of my breastfeeding journey.</font></span></p><font face="times"><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Technically, I pumped for a couple more weeks, but soon my baby was chugging bottles so fast, I just didn’t care to try and keep up. I wanted to snuggle him, lay on the floor and play with him, take him out to the park...all things I wasn’t able to do with my boobs literally plugged into the wall.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkMwg7F4mS-QhtgbAGHMQv1GSPwRect3mGWeQKuLetJXsR6ty7o9-Jvk8Tjn_ibcEF6x7L9O_Oz5bfw0btDjR9nzJhVWO2gblnX1vYC8HlA4T3MM546xUVBCjGMYVIAy5ocbElVmrV19Q/s750/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkMwg7F4mS-QhtgbAGHMQv1GSPwRect3mGWeQKuLetJXsR6ty7o9-Jvk8Tjn_ibcEF6x7L9O_Oz5bfw0btDjR9nzJhVWO2gblnX1vYC8HlA4T3MM546xUVBCjGMYVIAy5ocbElVmrV19Q/s320/4.jpg" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Moms can't get it right when it comes to feeding their babies, though.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you breastfeed in public, you're shamed for exposing yourself.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you breastfeed covered in public, you're shamed for covering up "for societal pressure."</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you bottle feed in public, nursing moms look at you with sad puppy eyes because you should be nursing.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you exclusively pump, you're shamed for taking too many breaks at work to keep your boobs from exploding all over a room.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you nurse in front of someone, you're inappropriate...never mind they're at your house.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you leave the room to nurse, you're antisocial and rude to your visitors.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you ask a visitor to leave so you can pump, you're rude.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you pack formula and ask wait staff for cold water to mix it with, you're FEEDING THE BABY COLD WATER??!!? (<i>this one happened to me...often...yes, my fucking baby prefers cold milk, fill up the mother fucking cup please!</i>)</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">There is literally no way to feed an infant without someone being mad about it. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="times"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Ojo16_BoSC-Vv8RIoRDlmm43afvibFPjF9tW2IiCkv63yUjhDS8NDBSvSq6cRSfTWdy41Qt5UlSYO_E9Lkq4w_B22F4WM8EgMW8uNXmkkSvFEyEAgi01Vv4X-mjgOEHd1spNReeUMvM/s750/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Ojo16_BoSC-Vv8RIoRDlmm43afvibFPjF9tW2IiCkv63yUjhDS8NDBSvSq6cRSfTWdy41Qt5UlSYO_E9Lkq4w_B22F4WM8EgMW8uNXmkkSvFEyEAgi01Vv4X-mjgOEHd1spNReeUMvM/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></font></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">At my six week visit with my OB, I told him I felt like I had failed, and that I was doing Grant a disservice, because basically everyone on the planet expects you to breastfeed your infant until they turn 25 and graduate college. He looked at me and assured me that Grant was doing just fine; he told me that formula is no longer evaporated milk like it used to be. "It is literally, practically breast milk, and he's fine" was exactly what he told me. I was so grateful in that moment, to hear someone (other than my partner, who was a constant reassurance) tell me I was not a failure. I cried. He told me that it is actually quite normal for moms who deliver via csection before going into labor - and thus actually never going into labor - to not release enough of the hormone needed to produce enough milk for their baby, and that it also makes it harder for the baby to know how to root around, latch, and nurse successfully.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">^^ Information that Nurse Eyeliner must have missed in nursing school, by the way. ^^ </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I went home, armed with the support of my OB, ready to tell anyone who questioned me to fuck off. I could feed my baby formula if I wanted, and he could drink it cold if he wanted, and he would not die from lack of breast milk. Not nursing would have no effect on the bond Grant and I should have, nor would breast milk turn him into a serial killer. I could spend $20 a week on formula for the next 50 weeks, and everyone could just shut up about it.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRNkdznu1KAEa5pyvC_Lwxfwha4OQNUF2oUJszbtZU11KKxYy3qRCCT2hx7L42OGVNFSXQRQGLb5HoZk7vo03KHPTvhwNQf6Si0JGKPq-KhvSV4vW1xp2vorbORfS0UhUGMtj-UfSybYY/s750/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRNkdznu1KAEa5pyvC_Lwxfwha4OQNUF2oUJszbtZU11KKxYy3qRCCT2hx7L42OGVNFSXQRQGLb5HoZk7vo03KHPTvhwNQf6Si0JGKPq-KhvSV4vW1xp2vorbORfS0UhUGMtj-UfSybYY/s320/3.jpg" /></a></div><font face="times"><br /></font><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I am lucky in that I didn't run into a lot of shame around feeding Grant. My circle of support was still a circle of support around formula feeding - even my friends who breastfed for what seemed like years, were encouraging and supportive, and I wasn't as bothered by sad puppy stares by crunchy moms at restaurants who were clearly worried I was poisoning the baby. However, that is not the case for everyone. There is a huge pressure to breastfeed in society, in mom groups, online, and even in the freaking hospital. When Grant was losing weight from not nursing because I had a csection and my body was blissfully unaware that we weren't pregnant anymore, Nurse Eyeliner and Crew used donor milk as a threat. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Night One: "If you can't do it, we'll have to supplement with donor milk." </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Okay. Do that then, you fucking ass hole. I don't give a shit. Just don't give him a beer. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Night Two: "If he loses 4 more ounces tonight, we'll have to supplement with formula."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Bitch. Give him whatever you want...just don't come in here and wake me up about it. In fact, give him the beer if you want.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Before letting me go home, they made me make an appointment for the following day with this Lactation Quack, who basically felt me up for an hour while watching Grant struggle to breath as she shoved his nose into my boobs, which were bigger than his head. She wanted to see me every 3 days or something insane, and had a whole plan about nursing and pumping and stimulating and boob grabbing. I never saw her again. Again, someone in the medical profession who missed the class on csections and hormones, who just wanted me to do it The Right Way. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2oMW6V2XZO8sI1JsGEjL6eDk3nipm6PV0e8Hxz3OZBe90scslrulQXnPSLxTovzaVZGjT_D73F3jcFs29pUS5TapqoYWilaR6oFsvBYXAY-01dqLhRmt-ddlkNaH_zO6HuNI7Q-2PM3M/s640/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2oMW6V2XZO8sI1JsGEjL6eDk3nipm6PV0e8Hxz3OZBe90scslrulQXnPSLxTovzaVZGjT_D73F3jcFs29pUS5TapqoYWilaR6oFsvBYXAY-01dqLhRmt-ddlkNaH_zO6HuNI7Q-2PM3M/s320/2.jpg" /></a></div><font face="times"><br /></font><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">So, as it turns out The Right Way for us was formula. And what do you know, it was fine. Grant didn't die. In fact, at two years old he outweighs most three year olds we know, drinks 2% milk from a cup, and - like his mama - has a bowl of dry Cheerios with chocolate chips for breakfast in the morning. Because we share a bond just by existing, that we didn't need to nurse to form. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">#endmomshaming</font></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-68597956236987679572020-06-12T13:32:00.003-07:002020-06-12T13:55:36.029-07:00Birthing Your Baby is Beautiful<div class="separator"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">As I type this, my son is 7 days from turning two years old; for the past 723 days since I gave birth to him, I’ve had lower back and hip pain. While I was pregnant, I suffered some seriously killer sciatica, so you could say I’ve been in some sort of dull pain for the past 1,000 or so days. It isn’t debilitating, I don’t have to medicate (though I do see a chiropractor and sometimes wear an abdominal splint), and there are days where I barely feel it. But it’s always there, a dull ache in the lower part of my back; it flares up on the days I spend deep cleaning, swinging my son around like a monkey, or playing on the floor for too many hours. There is a consistent “tug” feeling deep in my pelvis, reminding me that my spine is carrying all of the load, because my abdomen was sliced open to remove a human, and that takes more than two years to piece back together.</font></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">This dull ache, is the reason I want to punch people in the face who refer to vaginal deliveries as “traditional” and cesarean section deliveries as “the easy way out.”</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="times"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQju5BiYhp4VrZo_woSMVfDPpCAg09sfpE5KyoD940ER0Y-9FyKf0-RFfqxCXhJpcNrZstoWVijRiSsMztNqmH4Ub-h1AeKJvPVqN1XzlSDV1BdmbWnXHPE58d55elHzJzn7tXHSXwbTM/s1102/v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQju5BiYhp4VrZo_woSMVfDPpCAg09sfpE5KyoD940ER0Y-9FyKf0-RFfqxCXhJpcNrZstoWVijRiSsMztNqmH4Ub-h1AeKJvPVqN1XzlSDV1BdmbWnXHPE58d55elHzJzn7tXHSXwbTM/s320/v1.jpg" /></a></font></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Let me preface this story with, Grant is my only kid, and thus my only birth experience. His elective, planned-in-advance c-section is my only delivery. My pregnancy with him, which was already 16 weeks along before I found out about it, has been the only pregnancy. I have waited hours in a hospital for babies to be born to other people, and have stood at the head of the bead to witness the vaginal birth of one other.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I am, by no means, an expert.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">However, expert or not, I am smart enough to know that a human being exiting the body cavity of another human being, does not have an “easy way out.”</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I chose to have a cesarean for several reasons; the most important being that I have endometriosis, which can increase the risk of complications during labor and vaginal delivery. I did a lot of research and weighed the pros and cons, but ultimately, I wanted to be able to have more control over my risk, and an elective c-section seemed like my best option for that. I was fortunate in that I had an OBGYN who was supportive and encouraging of whatever choice I arrived at; he didn’t pressure me or even really ever give me his opinion aside from confirming that endometriosis can lead to risks in delivery, but also that vaginal deliveries can lead to your body expelling any existing endometriosis. Ultimately the decision was mine, and I didn’t feel he or his team tried to sway me in any way other than my own.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">(Side note, he also allowed Matt and I to choose Grant’s birthday, as opposed to just slapping my surgery on his schedule, which I loved and am still grateful for.)</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Grant was born at 12:18pm on June 19, 2018; my surgery was scheduled for 12:00pm, and I believe we had to be at the hospital for check in around 8:00 in the morning. The hardest parts of the actual surgery, to be completely transparent, were fasting the 12 hours prior, and the nurse having trouble locating a vein for my IV. I’d be lying if I said the surgery itself was physically hard – and I have seen women in labor, so I do understand the initial reasoning for referring to a c-section as “easy.” But the “easy way out” ends there. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSySDCATijaAgoqzyImp9Oi7CGCTu45ZTNBmQSmX2DURj0l_VtaqcpZ59tQw4I41EzgF_w-j4IvTxAghvofkP765xXJrh0bd_a06XluG3X7TMx5jSY6GKTOxoE_I8rYzYYDmu2l4mHimM/s500/v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSySDCATijaAgoqzyImp9Oi7CGCTu45ZTNBmQSmX2DURj0l_VtaqcpZ59tQw4I41EzgF_w-j4IvTxAghvofkP765xXJrh0bd_a06XluG3X7TMx5jSY6GKTOxoE_I8rYzYYDmu2l4mHimM/s500/v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSySDCATijaAgoqzyImp9Oi7CGCTu45ZTNBmQSmX2DURj0l_VtaqcpZ59tQw4I41EzgF_w-j4IvTxAghvofkP765xXJrh0bd_a06XluG3X7TMx5jSY6GKTOxoE_I8rYzYYDmu2l4mHimM/s500/v2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><font face="times"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSySDCATijaAgoqzyImp9Oi7CGCTu45ZTNBmQSmX2DURj0l_VtaqcpZ59tQw4I41EzgF_w-j4IvTxAghvofkP765xXJrh0bd_a06XluG3X7TMx5jSY6GKTOxoE_I8rYzYYDmu2l4mHimM/w200-h200/v2.jpg" width="200" /></font></a></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">For one, a cesarean is major surgery. That means, surgery prep; I had to fast, get IVs, be on all sorts of monitors, get poked and prodded by nurses, and try to regulate my blood pressure while suffering the nerves of both bringing a baby into the world and having to be cut open to do so. Additionally, there is that enormous needle to the back that you hear urban legends about, that they don’t even let you look at ahead of time because that’s how big and scary it really is.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">After waiting in pre-op with Matt and my mom for a few hours, a nurse excused my mom to the waiting room and it was time for Matt and I to head into the operating room. While he waited in the hallway, I got the joy of having an anesthesiologist and a few nurses massage my back and shoulders, rub my temples, and slide an enormous needle into my back (easy??) while I tried to not cry or admit how scared I was…though I’m certain my heart rate monitor was giving away my secret.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">As I mentioned, this was at noon and Grant was born at 12:18, so the rest was obviously pretty quick; they brought Matt in and sat him next to my head, made sure we couldn’t see over the drape (our request), and got to work cutting my guts open and rearranging my organs to remove our 7 pound 11 ounce bundle – who peed all over the surgeon on exit, making everyone laugh as I burst into tears from fear, excitement, and relief.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"> </font></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="times"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLU97SxXaqCU8Tvu4IyEzTTQBR1A4ob8gnH8B3hY_Jlnpr37V93U1GERVVvuVEc80fid0boZG1-5RNwqK5LDVi9hT005kmf5qWuQC88tmomTFbmUtmIEHHmnqtv2VGocPg4WrkEVyMj68/s796/v4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLU97SxXaqCU8Tvu4IyEzTTQBR1A4ob8gnH8B3hY_Jlnpr37V93U1GERVVvuVEc80fid0boZG1-5RNwqK5LDVi9hT005kmf5qWuQC88tmomTFbmUtmIEHHmnqtv2VGocPg4WrkEVyMj68/w258-h320/v4.jpg" width="258" /></a></font></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Again, I’ve seen one baby exit vaginally in my time, and I’ve no doubt that I suffered less immediate pain than someone in active labor. But I also know my friend whose delivery I watched, does not still see a chiropractor for back and hip pain 2 years later, and does not feel a pull on her insides every time she exercises. Every “c-section mama” I’ve asked, does. </font></span></p><font face="times"><br style="text-size-adjust: auto;" /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">There is no easy way to evacuate a human from your insides. If you refer to a vaginal delivery as easy, fuck off. Similarly if you refer to a Cesarean delivery - planned or emergency - as easy, fuck off. If you refer to existing a human from the inside of another human, swallow a watermelon and then try to birth it, you ass hole. More so, if you are a female, and especially if you are a mother, and you’ve deemed one or the other as The Easy Way Out, you’re truly a disgrace to our gender.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">No matter how you decide to give birth to your baby, the process and experience are immensely rewarding and beautiful and amazing, and no one should ever make you feel bad about the way you brought life to the world (especially not other mothers). We all go through pregnancy thinking about delivery - there is fear, anxiety, nervousness, excitement, thrill...you name it, we feel it. And we also have a vision of what our delivery looks like; we have a plan and a goal, and whatever that is, IT'S FINE!! I knew from about week 20 that my son was coming via c-section...not because my OB said he "should," but because I felt, in my soul, that it was what was in the plan for us. My OB never made me feel bad for leaning that way. My partner never made me feel bad; my mom, my closest circle of friends, never made me feel bad. But the internet made me feel bad; mom blogs made me feel bad. Magazines and pamphlets and websites and conversations with other women in my outer circle, all made me feel bad. And for what? Because I didn't plan for the same birth story as them? GTFOH with that judgmental bull shit. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="times"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcflwFf9mgLDg0AV2r1e6k0ali6CFiTiYsi7SyFzVa-fJvzDaAhgPQWDZH77EwEgdqpiBHFFsTC635gAwSspK2yTBGJ_Q8ZBNBVHsJZDmtA7sdoojB-VY42GrbO2EH01NB6dcR9VEYS0M/s736/v3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="736" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcflwFf9mgLDg0AV2r1e6k0ali6CFiTiYsi7SyFzVa-fJvzDaAhgPQWDZH77EwEgdqpiBHFFsTC635gAwSspK2yTBGJ_Q8ZBNBVHsJZDmtA7sdoojB-VY42GrbO2EH01NB6dcR9VEYS0M/w200-h198/v3.jpg" width="200" /></a></font></div><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bringing a human into the world is a beautiful, awesome, terrifying, painful experience - no matter how you slice it (ya see what I did there). </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there is no shame in any birth experience. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">#endmomshaming</span></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-37985957331939777122020-06-11T10:56:00.020-07:002020-06-11T11:10:02.766-07:00Nurse Eyeliner, At Your Service<div class="separator"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you came to meet Grant at the hospital, I have almost no memory of your visit. I know that Blake watched my catheter bag fill up with pee, and I remember Kattie brought me the best Jamba Juice I’d ever tasted. That’s about it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Sweet, sweet postpartum medications.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Grant was born at 12:18pm on June 19th, and we were back in our room by about 1:30; I know I had visitors that afternoon and evening, and the next day as well - my mom and dad, my brother, Karen, Stacey & Blake, my MIL and FIL, and my BIL and SIL - but I don’t really remember anyone being there. I was so uncomfortable, so scared, so excited, so in love, and in so much pain. I had a catheter and was trying to get my baby to latch and wanted to get up and was terrified of accidentally seeing my own incision. I was starving and numb and my arms hurt; I was swollen and cold and shaky and sweaty. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I had a new baby! I had to take care of him and keep him alive on the exterior of my body now...holy shit!</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">To say I had a few things on my mind, is an understatement. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">My overnight nurse was a real bitch; the epitome of mom shame. She was a nurse who should have never become a nurse; she lacked empathy, had terrible bedside manner, and wore far too much winged eyeliner for 3:00 in the morning. I hated her so much that I begged to go home a day early, just to avoid having to experience her being a crappy nurse through one more night. Look, I appreciate nurses as much as the next person, but if you are unable to look at a woman whose body just endured serious trauma and avoid yelling at her, you should drop out of nursing school, immediately. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">She was extremely judgmental about my lack of milk production, among other things. Did you know that it’s your fault if your tits don’t immediately turn into udders after you never even go into labor because you chose to have a c-section? It’s not that your body still thinks it’s pregnant because you haven’t released any labor hormones, no; it’s because you’re a bad mom.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Just ask that nurse and her eyeliner.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Anyway. I’ll get into the shame surrounding breastfeeding versus bottle feeding in another post, I promise. Today, I’m talking about the judgment you can expect when creating your birth plan and arranging hospital visitors. Because remember, while you’re bringing new life into the world, it’s not about you or your comfort...it’s about the people who want to be able to say they met your baby first.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6oU9BCRU6tWTLVNRx4rPSvcytI7HiAHFVhdeFYrnL38UgmvVaBpVWYcNnBfY6DXzUkMQIB6etq_gbMiDKHNyFLRTK9hbMXomXvQ0CSe4icP-CuGkgk0OxsloI5CyPJlymxGxro5Z53m4/s974/v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><font face="times"><img border="0" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6oU9BCRU6tWTLVNRx4rPSvcytI7HiAHFVhdeFYrnL38UgmvVaBpVWYcNnBfY6DXzUkMQIB6etq_gbMiDKHNyFLRTK9hbMXomXvQ0CSe4icP-CuGkgk0OxsloI5CyPJlymxGxro5Z53m4/s320/v1.jpg" /></font></a></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times"><br /></font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">If I were to have another baby (and we won’t), I’d do the hospital thing much differently. Just us. Well, us and my mom - my mom was very helpful getting us prepped and scrubbed up for surgery, took some great photos, and quite frankly, adult or not I wanted my mommy as I was prepping for surgery. But as far as visitors, I think I’d just say no, and use the time to sleep and stare at my baby. Hospital visits are awkward in the first place; everything is one paper gown away from being exposed, no one is sleeping or showering, a nurse is coming in every three seconds to touch something or check something or look at something; they want you to try and feed the baby while your in-laws are sitting there. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Add to it that you’re already being actively judged, and it’s a recipe for disaster.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">I somehow talked the hospital staff into releasing me a day early, and managed to escape a third night with Nurse Eyeliner. We packed our bags as got a ride home, and on the way, I found myself suddenly terrified. I could barely stand up by myself, needed help buckling my seatbelt, and was being allowed to take another human home with me. My BIL drove us home, and I was nervous and jumpy every time he changed lanes, accelerated, decelerated, stepped on the gas or the brake. We made it home, and moments after I settled in on the couch to hold (and admire) my perfect little nugget, Grant choked on what we later determined to be amniotic fluid. He flailed his arms, made that awful choking baby gasping noise, and I swear my life flashed before my eyes as Karen flipped him over and swatted him til he literally slimed all over her. The contents of his tiny belly covered her shirt and arms, and she just kept patting his back and cooing at him. Clearly not her first day.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">He took a deep breath and started to cry. As I exhaled for the first time in minutes, I also started to cry. I didn’t know what I needed to do, and asked if I needed to call a doctor, or 911 or something...I was clearly terrified. For the record, this is the only time I’ve suggested calling 911 in the past two years.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Karen, still holding my baby, still covered in his slimy vomit, leaned into me and assured me he was okay; that I was okay.</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">My SIL laughed at me for “overreacting.”</font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">Instantly, I learned that mom shame comes even from those closest to you; from those who know you’re unsure of yourself, those who are supposed to support you, those who should be the most helpful. It was this day - Grant’s third day on the planet - that I started a mental list of the people I knew I’d never be able to count on to help me grow as a confident mother, versus those who would lift me up, offer sound advice, and help me raise my awesome kid.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-size-adjust: auto;"><font face="times"><br /></font></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">There is nothing wrong with your birth plan, nor with your plans for visitors. It’s okay for you to welcome guests right away, just as it’s okay for you to want them to wait. If you want your mom to hold your hand before you deliver, that’s okay. It’s also okay for you to ask a friend to bring you a smoothie, if only so you can muster the energy to demand your nurses treat you like a human as opposed to a milking machine. It’s also okay to find your voice and demand a new nurse - you don’t have to convince yourself to go home before you’re really ready, just because you hate the one you have. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">It’s also totally okay to send a letter to the hospital admin staff once you’re home and recovering, letting them know what a nasty bitch they have ruining the nights of new moms in the maternity wing. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">That’s what I did. </font></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="times">#endmomshaming </font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-9947998918767696782020-06-10T09:51:00.000-07:002020-06-10T09:51:41.626-07:00Many Happy Returns (to Target)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5c5a59cf-7fff-caf4-670c-d2c6c7f718b8" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let it be known that I hate baby showers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also hate gender reveal parties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While we’re in this super negative head space, I also hate bridal showers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(That’s neither here nor there, though.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is something incredibly awkward about opening gifts in front of a bazillion people, especially when you’re huge pregnant and uncomfortable, feeling unlike yourself, worried about every photo being taken…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh god please don’t post that on the internet, I’m as big as a house. I’m also hot and sweaty, and also I’m drinking a mimosa, so lord knows I’ll get dragged through the mud for drinking while I’m pregnant. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Side note: if you want to have a fucking mimosa at your baby shower, DO IT. Anyone who is potentially judging you for that, you literally shouldn’t even be friends with anymore. Uninvite them immediately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it was time to plan my baby shower, I had one request: no opening presents. I didn’t want to sit in front of 50+ women and unwrap 50+ gifts for 50+ hours. It’s weird and antiquated, and I’d just as soon play another silly game. More than one person gave me shit about that decision. The more I looked into it though, the more commonplace I found it was becoming with moms in 2018. And so, I demanded it. I asked that people not wrap their gifts; instead, add a card and bring it unwrapped to the shower, and add it to the table at the front of the house - this way everyone can see the cute baby stuff, without my having to awkwardly open any of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a reminder, mom shame is everywhere. You can’t escape it, you guys. I didn’t do my baby shower right, if you can believe that (I didn’t even host my own shower, but I still managed to be wrong). In addition to not opening gifts, I had a mimosa and played Pictionary instead of Smell the Melted Chocolate in a Diaper. I also had a food truck, because my cousin hosted and her neighbor owns a food truck...HOW COULD ANYONE BITCH ABOUT A BABY SHOWER WITH A FOOD TRUCK?!?!!! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As new parents do, I created a baby registry based on what my then-boyfriend and I wanted for our son. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also did that wrong, apparently. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted to wear my baby, so I registered for an expensive baby carrier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also didn’t want to lug around a 20 pound infant car seat, so I registered for a convertible seat that was good for a baby weighing 5-65 pounds. It was expensive, but it was the only seat we’d need.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I took a lot of backlash for these two items. I literally had no idea you could be shamed over a fucking gift registry, but you sure can!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I got home from my shower and started to unpack gifts and put things away, I found that one person in particular had given me a ton of gifts, but none from my registry. Only later did someone else tell me that this person had said my registry was “ridiculous,” so she bought what she believed I needed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be clear, all this did was create extra work for me, as I returned ALL. OF. IT. I took a cart full of stuff I didn’t ask for, back to Target the day after my shower, and exchanged it for the rest of the items I had registered for...since that’s what I actually wanted. I don’t feel bad about it; especially after learning she did it on purpose. Like, why?? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tearing apart a new mom’s baby registry means one of three things. One, you’re an insensitive ass hole. Two, you’re an absolute moron. Three, you think you just know better than she does, how to be a mom, how to raise a human, how to be prepared for a baby. Likely it’s a combination of at least two of these three things, but for sure it’s shamey and mean. A mom-to-be puts effort into a registry beyond just clicking ‘add item to list’ - she has done her new-mom research. Which car seat is safest? Which carrier is best for a postpartum back recovery? Which monitor can I travel with easily? Which crib sheets match the nursery I’m creating on Pinterest, and how do I plan to balance nursing, pumping, and bottle feeding? What is the best binky, which stroller will take us on the greatest adventures? A mom’s registry is well thought-out; it’s a packet of things she’s thought a lot about and read a lot of information on, and likely she’s had a lot of conversations with other mom friends to make her decisions. Your choosing to “know better” and making a purchase contradictory to her registry, is a clear message that you know better than her, and that her instincts are wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone has favorite baby items. And experienced moms are a great resource for new moms as to items that are amazing, items that are useless, items they love and hate. It’s all in the way experienced moms present information: just be nice! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And when a new mom doesn’t immediately drop her own thoughts to follow your exact path, don’t decide she’s a fucking idiot - trust her to trust herself, and then buy her a present she actually asked for. You can always tell her “I told you so” in a year, when she still hasn’t even opened the baby spa tub she wanted because the baby likes the kitchen sink just fine.</span></div>
Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-43958989485015800292020-06-09T13:30:00.000-07:002020-06-09T13:30:48.813-07:00(Mom) Shame on You!<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-2994084a-7fff-f1ac-a76e-a18e4fec94f6" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, I found myself in a Facebook argument over an incident of public mom shaming. The argument started when I vocalized my frustration over yet another outside observer, blasting a mom on social media for not disciplining her “bratty” kid The Right Way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone is such an armchair expert these days. Everyone knows how to do parenting right; how to make a child behave, how to limit screen time, how to discipline in public, how to make a kid eat vegetables. Everyone knows better than you do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The people who know the actual best, for the record, are perhaps not the Baby Boomers, who raised a generation of people now trying to do it entirely different and in our collective opinion better than the Baby Boomers. Just saying. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway. So I got myself into this argument, and I felt so wildly defensive of this other mom - a perfect stranger to me - that it got me thinking. Why am I so mad? Why am I so protective of this mom I don’t even know? Why can I literally not remove myself from this argument? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was mad because it could just as easily have been ME that this Boomer was dragging through the mud; it could have been ME he reprimanded in public, shaming me in front of an entire audience. It could have been me, as easily as it was her; because everyone knows how to mom better than moms do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Except for you don’t. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You especially don’t if you’re a man, because being a mom is not in your wheelhouse. So please, just sit down and shut up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mom shaming is certainly not a new phenomenon; mothers in law have been shaming the mothers of their grandbabies for generations, shitting on them behind their backs for every misstep. Moms have told their daughters “that’s not the right way to do that” for years, I’m sure. But social media has allowed for an entire new audience - you can now be mom shamed by complete strangers, for posting the wrong photo. You can have a friend of a friend criticize you for choosing formula or using disposable diapers. Strangers can rip you to shreds for not perfectly aligning the car seat chest clip, or for taking too long to pull away from the school drop off. You can (and will) be dubbed the worst mom in the universe, at any time, by anyone, for anything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Congrats, New Mom, and good fucking luck!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mom shame doesn’t even wait to kick off until you have given birth, by the way; it starts long before that. Again, thanks to social media, mommy blogs, and online mom groups, you can be shamed all throughout your pregnancy for eating the wrong thing, not giving into your cravings, drinking caffeine, working out too much, working out too little, dressing too casually, wearing heels, going on maternity leave before baby’s arrival, working too close to your due date...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You name it, someone will give you a fucking hard time about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it isn’t just your frenemies or overreaching aunties either; you’ll likely run into at least one nurse, OBGYN, lactation consultant, or pediatrician in your 40 week pregnancy, who thinks you are the World’s Shittiest Mom-to-Be...and they’ll be sure to convey that memo to you as professionally as they can muster! You’ll be pressured into breastfeeding, questioned about your birth plan, yelled at when your baby doesn’t latch or if you don’t wake up the second he cries; you’ll be cringed at for packing a binky in your hospital bag, you MONSTER. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As my son approaches two years old - still somehow in one piece despite having never been spanked and refusing to drink enough water while watching YouTube and napping with the cat - I find myself eager to speak my piece on the perils of mom-ing in the age of social media and public mom shaming. Being a mom is really hard; really rewarding and amazing and special, but really fucking hard. And as I count down the final ten days with my one year old before celebrating his leap into year three, I wanted to share some of this journey with the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "playfair display"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So with this I give you, Grownup Tantrums: New Mom Edition. For the next ten days, I’ll walk you through a new mom milestone (a new one each day) - how I celebrated it, how I was judged for it, and how I came out of it still knowing I’m a damn good mom. </span></div>
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Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-61467262244342042812018-11-03T22:35:00.002-07:002018-11-03T22:35:50.612-07:00It's a Beautiful Day in the NeighborhoodI am a reader; I always have been a reader. I was reading books all on my own by the time I was three years old, and I've never stopped reading.<br />
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Except for that I haven't really read any books not intended for babies, since June.<br />
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Day three of thirty: <b>A Favorite Book</b></div>
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One of the best things about being a new mom, is experiencing all of the nostalgia. I find myself wrapped up in Sesame Street and Mister Rogers, and reading the books I loved as a little kid. I buy vintage Fisher Price toys instead of newfangled plastic crap. I asked for used books at my baby shower and have read old Care Bear stories all summer long. I love that my baby's toys are in my grandma's toy box, and that I can cuddle Grant on the couch and watch Jungle Book to my heart's content.<br />
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From almost the first day home with Grant, I've made sure to take a few minutes during bedtime to read him a story. And it has been my absolute favorite. I love to pick out a book among my favorite oldie but goodies, snuggle up on the couch, and read out loud - Grant likes to look at the pictures and turn the pages, and I like to make silly voices and attempt not to stumble over crazy Dr. Seuss rhymes.<br />
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I love books, and I love that Grant already loves books. I love that I can take him to Powell's, sit on the floor with him, and thumb through a Curious George adventure before picking out some of my old favorites to buy and take home to add to his bookshelf. I love that I'm the one who reads to him - whether I have to get up early or go to work or take him somewhere or leave him home, at the end of the day, I get to put him in his jammies, snuggle him up, and read our bedtime story.<br />
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And I am fairly confident that a time will come that after he falls asleep, I will be awake enough to curl back up and read my own book.<br />
An adult sized one.<br />
One with chapters.<br />
And big words.<br />
And no pictures.<br />
<br />
I'm pretty sure someday that will come again. <br />
<br />
Until then, though, for today my heart is thankful for my favorite time of the day, snuggling up to read a story to my baby.<br />
<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-8192869329202180672018-11-02T16:12:00.000-07:002018-11-02T16:12:00.690-07:00#adventureswithmynuggetI don't know if it qualifies as a freedom if you don't earn any income the whole time and so technically you're too broke to do anything, but I am really, really grateful that I was able to take 18 full weeks off of work for maternity leave...<br />
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Day two of thirty: <b>A Freedom You Have</b></div>
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Not everyone is able to take 18 weeks off work without pay.<br />
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In fact, most people are not able to take 18 weeks off work without pay.<br />
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And in all reality, I should probably not have taken 18 weeks off work without pay.<br />
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But I did.<br />
Because I could.<br />
And because I wanted to.<br />
And because my parents were able to help me do so.<br />
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I think what it boiled down to, was that I was able to pay my rent and car payment in advance and save up some money in the months leading up to my maternity leave, so that Matt only had to earn enough with his summer gig to pay for our more minor expenses - groceries, cell phones, etc. And I knew ahead of time that as long as I could save that extra, pay ahead on rent, and be smart with saving what I could ahead of time, that I would be free to take an extended maternity leave and not have to go back to work the very moment I could roll my mangled body out of bed.<br />
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My maternity leave was not free.<br />
It wasn't paid.<br />
In fact, we just did the math - before insurance, if we include the absence of income, it cost well over $50,000 to carry and deliver Grant, and then for me to stay home until October.<br />
<br />Was it difficult? Oh yes, very.<br />
Was it worth it? Oh yes, very.<br />
<br />
We will take two years to fiscally recover from my four-month "vacation" as someone called it today. Two years. To recover our savings, pay back my parents, and see my gross income and taxes back to "normal."<br />
<br />
And yet, it was worth every hardship to come, to spend those 18 weeks at home with my new baby.<br />
<br />
I have watched far too many of my friends go back to work only six weeks postpartum. Six weeks?! At six weeks, I could literally barely walk to the mailbox, let alone come back to work. At six weeks, Grant was still snuggling through every nap, eating every five seconds, peeing through diapers in between each of those five seconds. More importantly, he was still making a new sound, a new movement, a new face, every time I looked at him. And my hormones were OUT. OF. CONTROL. I could never have just missed one of his new noises; I'd have likely died.<br />
<br />
Six weeks is not even remotely enough time to heal - physically or hormone-wise - and go back to an office 40-50 hours a week. I can't even imagine. I had a hard time coming back at 18 weeks.<br />
<br />
But six weeks is the sad reality in America, because our employers don't pay for our time off to bond with our babies. The second your vagina is sort of back in place, they want you back at a desk. It took a lot of planning, scrimping, and compulsive list-making for Matt and I to get a plan in place so I could take the time off. It was certainly not "free" by any stretch. But today, my heart is definitely thankful for the freedom to take an extended leave, so I could be home to adventure with my nugget.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-3955041582927821612018-11-02T15:14:00.001-07:002018-11-02T15:14:46.962-07:00And Then I Puked on the Floor at Chevron<br />
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I located this graphic online while searching for just the right 30 day Instagram photo challenge, and felt it would make for a great 30 day BLOG challenge - and since I am clearly a blog failure these days, a bit of competitive motivation may just be the ticket to get my wheels turning again.<br />
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So with that, here we go...<br />
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Day one of thirty: <b>Someone You Love </b></div>
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It is hard to narrow this down to just one person I love for whom I am grateful...which is of course, not a bad problem to have. At this point in my life, I am simply surrounded by love - one decision I feel that came instinctively the moment Grant was born, was the decision to only surround him with love. The fact that this means I too am only surrounded with love, is a happy result of the decision I made on Grant's behalf.<br />
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I am, of course, especially grateful for Matt, with whom I now share my home, my life, my before-bed ice cream, and my baby boy. He has definitely demonstrated to me that at the moment in your life that you are ready for someone or something, life has a way of delivering. I wasn't looking for Matt. I wasn't looking for anything or anyone; I was existing happily in my world, working my ass off, starting fresh with a new job and a new apartment, in a new city...technically even a new state. And what was intended to be a casual, friendly plus one to a wedding, has turned into 14 months of complete transformation, and what I can literally only describe as bliss.<br />
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I think that part of the experience of real love is someone providing for you what you didn't know you needed. I have always been fiercely independent, and I would never have been consciously aware that I would be in need of something that I couldn't get for myself. I never would have thought that by escorting me to a wedding as a family friend, Matt would change everything about my life, and all for the better.<br />
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I am still the same fiercely independent person, with a pretty strong desire to do what I want, how I want, where I want - but the past year has taught me that being with someone who loves you, doesn't actually take away from that. Matt helps me make decisions, but he never tells me what to do. He weighs in, but supports my choices. He is considerate, thoughtful, engaging, and ultimately helps calm my brain as it spins off its top.<br />
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Most importantly, though, Matt is right by my side - always - as we successfully raise our tiny human. And so today because it is my blog topic (but every other day because he's awesome), my heart is thankful for Matt.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-46878010640941414942018-03-19T14:23:00.002-07:002018-03-19T14:23:37.115-07:00Why I'm the Reason Doctors Can't Say "One Hundred Percent Sure"Five years ago today, I had an endometrial surgery, after which I was told I would not likely be able to conceive a baby on my own (yes, I know no one can conceive a baby alone - that isn't what I meant). I had the surgery thinking that I had a cyst on my ovaries, which is actually a pretty simple procedure. But mid-surgery, my mom was notified that I actually had a large amount of endometriosis that needed removed. Also, what they believed from my ultrasound to be a cyst on my ovary, was actually a leftover part of what would have developed into my male reproductive organs, had I been a boy, and it was wrapped fully around my fallopian tube.<br />
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WHAT??! Yes, I am dead serious, and here's a science lesson: When a fetus is still developing, they have what is necessary to be either male or female, depending on the surge of testosterone that either does (makes baby a boy) or does not (makes baby a girl) enter the system sometime late in the first trimester. Prior to that, basically the fetus has all that's needed to be either male or female, and once the testosterone makes that decision for the fetus, the cells become either male or female, and the baby's sex is determined.<br />
<br />
Aaaaand here I was, 29 years old, undergoing surgery to remove what actually ended up being cells that would have formed part of my penis, had my body flooded with testosterone while I was still an embryo. Instead, my body was not flooded with testosterone, so I became a girl...and then my body held on to some of the boy parts, and in turn, was essentially making me sterile.<br />
<br />
Yea, I know. WHAT. THE. FUCK.<br />
<br />
Anyway, so they were somehow able to remove all this gross crap and in turn salvage my fallopian tube, because science is amazing. However at this point I was told I would likely need the intervention of science and technology, should I happen to change my NEVER, NO WAY, NOT ME stance on becoming a mother. And because I didn't want to be a mother, I was mostly okay with that. I had a bit of trouble accepting that the decision was now being made <i>for</i> me by my put-together-wrong body, instead of made <i>by </i>me mentally, but in the end I was glad it was me and not a woman who was desperate to bear children. Better me than someone else, ended up pacifying me, and I moved on with a few short chats with my therapist.<br />
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I then spent the next five years convinced that - as I was told by my doctors - I wasn't going to be able to get pregnant. I was relatively routine with my birth control, but not as careful as a single woman should be. The more time that passed that I didn't have a pregnancy scare, the more solidified I becae in the fact that it wasn't going to happen - after all, if I <i>could </i>get pregnant, certainly at some point of forgetting my pill for days at a time, I <i>would </i>get pregnant. And I never, ever did. So the not being able to have a baby thing, just firmed up in my mind as I moved through my single adulthood.<br />
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Which of course I now understand is not super responsible.<br />
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Anyway, so with that bit of back story, let's fast forward to September, 2017, shall we?<br />
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My BFF Kattie was getting married, and my other BFF Rachel and I were both in the wedding. Since we knew we would have lots of bridesmaid duties to attend to throughout the day, and since I was as single as ever at this point, we decided I should take Rachel's brother in law as my date, so that her husband had company to hang out with at the wedding. It was basically a brilliant plan devised by Rachel and I, adhered to by Josh and his brother Matt, because they tend to just go with the flow of what's asked of them.<br />
<br />
Matt was the best wedding date ever.<br />
<br />
Clearly.<br />
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Because as I type this - six months after the wedding - I am five-and-some-change months pregnant with our baby boy.<br />
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Now may be a good time to include the fact that Matt, too, was told by qualified medical personnel that he would not be able to conceive children. And in case you were thinking that we decided to try to have a baby anyway, let me just stop you right there. There was no efforts made, no plan in place, no hopes, no discussions, not even any fleeting thought. There were, however, several consecutive days and nights of two consensual single adults enjoying each other's company.<br />
<br />
And at least one of them developing quite a crush on the other one of them (fortunately this crush has both been mutual and continued to develop over the last five months).<br />
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As time went on and we continued hanging out more, I was finding myself sick at all hours of the day. Really sick. Puke sick. Miserable. But for me, this is also a quite normal side effect of stress, and working at the building I was working at, was causing some stress. I thought literally nothing of this constant nausea. It mimicked a similar episode from a couple of years prior, where I was eventually regurgitating everything I ingested; at that time I had spent a lot of time and a lot of money for a diagnosis of "carries stress in the tummy, try to chill out." I had no intention of repeating the same expensive routine I had already, and wrote my symptoms off as stress.<br />
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So did my mom, for the record.<br />
<br />
Every day, she was sending me Yoga apps and calming articles, reminding me to shut off my phone at night and to get more sleep.<br />
<br />
Anyway, so Matt and I continued to hang out, I continued to throw up constantly, and I continued to think it was really weird. I failed to take into account other symptoms, like the fact that I was gaining weight even though I wasn't holding any food down, or the fact that I was exhausted. I didn't notice the increased chin acne or the fact that my boobs were bigger, nor did it ever cross my mind that I had not had a period in several months. Literally you guys, I am not exaggerating even remotely - my body was physically screaming that I was pregnant, and I was as oblivious as any human could ever be.<br />
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Finally, on Christmas morning, I sent a Snap to Rachel letting her know I was on my way to her house after Christmas breakfast. I was annoyed because I had just thrown up my breakfast. I had scheduled a doctor's appointment for like, March 12th and was frustrated about waiting such a long time when I was literally barfing non stop. She snapped back that maaaaaybe just to be safe, I should pick up a pregnancy test.<br />
<br />
"To rule it out," we said.<br />
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I texted Matt and let him know I was taking one, and we literally both thought nothing of it. I was 1,000% certain the result would be negative, and that I was wasting six dollars on a two pack of Clear Blue tests on Christmas morning...where surely the cashier had judged the fuck out of me.<br />
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I get to Rachel's, and no one is home - Matt had tagged along with Josh to pick up Rachel's mom and brother for Christmas dinner. Rachel is in the kitchen, so I run up to the upstairs bathroom to pee on the waste-of-money stick. I go to set it down on the counter - because you know, they take two minutes to process or whatever - and the damn thing is already blue.<br />
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Not a little bit blue you guys. SOLID. FUCKING. BLUE.<br />
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Like, holy shit you are reeeeeeally pregnant, blue.<br />
No Doubt About it Blue, as I will now refer to the shade of that solid bold blue line.<br />
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And all I can do in this moment is yell down the stairs for Rachel, while still having the wits about me to wash my hands. As she comes up the stairs, she's sighing and telling me that it hasn't been two minutes, and what do I possibly need from her. I hand her the stick (because apparently if it's a pregnancy test, no one cares that it's still your pee) and we have a shared heart attack before she gets the words out that we're both thinking: well, you are pregnant as fuck!<br />
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And that I was!<br />
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And that I am!<br />
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I called the doctor immediately on the 26th, and scheduled an ultrasound for as soon as humanly possible - which for them was January 3rd. Matt and I waited the eight day eternity for the appointment, where an ultrasound tech confirmed that I was, in fact, 16 weeks pregnant. The ultrasound image was not that of a kidney bean like most first ultrasounds, but rather of a human body, waving at us on the screen. He seemed to be saying, "it's about time, you morons," but in a cute baby way. We left the doctor, got back to my apartment, and shared the news to Facebook (news we had already divulged to parents and immediate family members): miracle baby on the way - don't listen to doctors who tell you that you cannot make a baby.<br />
<br />
Because as it turns out, you maybe can.<br />
<br />
Just don't think about it, ponder it, wonder about it, be curious over it. Don't worry or stress about it. Accept it as not happening, ever. Move past it and then don't be careful with your birth control, because why would you be? It's not like you can get pregnant. Oh and also choose a partner who can't get you pregnant; don't waste time with some Fertile Mertile.<br />
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Fully embrace that getting pregnant is impossible. Apparently that is the secret.<br />
<br />
And of course, it makes total sense that I am having a boy...since my story started with my fallopian tube being essentially crushed and almost destroyed by my own leftover embryonic boy parts!<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-37427999258387554032017-12-18T20:31:00.000-08:002017-12-18T20:31:30.688-08:00My Cousin, My Friend, My Soulmate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometimes I think the zodiac is a completely made up hoax, with no evidence that it is even remotely true.<br />
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And then I remember that my cousin Karen and I were born on the same day, six years apart, and I am reminded that in fact, the zodiac is real. Because despite being born in different times and different places, being raised by very different people, and having very different life experiences, Karen and I are literally the exact same soul in two different bodies.<br />
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Post Two of Fifty: <b>Who are you closest to in your family?</b><br />
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I went back and forth with this one for quite some time, because I am very close to most of my Stacey family. I would say Stacey is my best friend, and that Blake is my number one kid. I do believe my nephew Archer is my spirit animal, and I have a close relationship with all 13 of my cousins. My cousin's son Grant is my mini-me, I believe my cousin DeLaina will be the one we all grow old with because she's the caretaker, and my aunt Michelle is the one I like to text with when I'm curled up at the beach house.<br />
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That said, the question isn't who is my favorite, or who do I like best, nor is it who I spend the most quality time with. The question is, who am I closest to.<br />
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And I have to answer that one undoubtedly, my cousin Karen. Because Karen is my soulmate.<br />
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Karen and I are exactly the same.<br />
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The Leo woman in each of us is strong.<br />
We handle love, heartache, disappointment, pride, and hurt the same.<br />
We care passionately about the same things, and we're sensitive about the same things.<br />
We are both unabashedly snarky and sarcastic, and neither of us is ever prepared for that to get us into trouble (even though it always does).<br />
We have the same drive and determination, and the same self doubts and frustrations.<br />
We both feel at home at the beach more than anywhere else, and we each keep a care bear with us to keep us happy all the time.<br />
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We also have the same toothy grin and the same Whitmore dark circles under our eyes.<br />
We have the same narrow upper lip when we smile, and the same forehead and nose.<br />
We have the same wild and unruly curly hair.<br />
We make the same cheese face in every selfie.<br />
We both have a favorite nephew who we love fiercely, more than anything.<br />
We both love hard, we both hurt hard, and we both feel every emotion very loudly.<br />
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We're the same.<br />
She is me, six years in the future.<br />
I am her, six years later.<br />
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I was born on Karen's 6th birthday, in August of 1983. Whenever it's our birthday, she tells me that 34 years ago, she knew I was hers. "<i>I felt like you were mine.</i>" She says it every year. And every year it makes my heart happy.<br />
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Karen is always the person I go to first, whether it be to laugh, cry, gush over a new boy, talk shit about other people, gossip, brag, or seek comfort. Whether she was living in Portland like me, freezing her face off living too far away in Minnesota, or now living in my paradise, Bend, she is - and always has been - a phone call away.<br />
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In fact, we call each other from the grocery store all the time, because that's the only time she can escape her children yelling for her attention just because she is on the phone, or her youngest chasing her through the kitchen with the "fuck it" button (which, while her husband finds appalling, she and I think is hilarious - yet another thing we have in common). She goes to Fred Meyer and wanders aimlessly up and down the aisles while we catch up, and then a week later I keep her on the phone in the parking lot at the gym while I wander around Target gushing to her about a boy.<br />
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Karen is always the first to tell me she's proud of me or happy for me, just like she's always the first one to empathize when I'm hurting. She's my soulmate, she feels my feelings with me. I always cry when she cries, and I get mad on her behalf - especially when I don't think she is mad enough. She always pushes and encourages me, gives me advice, and then doesn't judge me when I turn around and do the opposite.<br />
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I tell her she's too old when she wants to go to bed at 10:00 after we watch a scary movie, and she tells me I'm too young when I want to spend $30 on a mimosa breakfast we have to wait in line for while standing outside in the snow. But we both wholeheartedly agree on smoothies for breakfast sitting on the roof, and a weed-induced nap on the porch in a sunbeam. We also both agree with the scary movies and mimosa breakfasts, despite the lines and early bedtimes.<br />
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Because we're the same.<br />
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In the past couple years, there has definitely been a shift in Karen seeing me as her baby cousin, and I now get the street cred for being an adult she can discuss all adult topics with. My favorite is when she calls and vents about something for an hour and then as we're hanging up says, "oh and how are you?? Your life matters too!"<br />
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Because she's snarky.<br />
Because we're the same.<br />
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I am close to all of my Stacey family. Karen is just about the only Whitmore I have (also, that's because we're the same...I'm pretty much the only Whitmore she has too). But she's the only one I need. She understands my feelings about our family better than anyone; she knows how much I love my grandma, and how long it took me to accept things as they are. She lets me vent, listens to me get mad and sad and raging mad and devastated - and then she tells me it'll be okay. Not because she doesn't want to listen, but because shes been there and because she knows me best. And she's always right - it always is okay. Because just like her grandma and grandpa loved her no matter what, my grandma loves me no matter what.<br />
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Because in spite of (and often because of) our sarcasm, our boldness, our chaos, our energy that other people don't understand, Karen and I are still incredibly lovable people. Just ask my mom; she loves us both.<br />
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When asked who in my family I am closest to, not much thought was required. I have a huge family, full of fun, loud, crazy, opinionated people who I love dearly. Full of cousins I call my best friends. Full of aunts who take care of me and uncle who pick on me. Full of toddlers I love to spoil rotten and laugh with. My family is amazing. And in the midst of all the amazing, I am lucky enough to have a twin, in all senses of the word.<br />
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She's my cousin.<br />
My friend.<br />
My confidant.<br />
My soulmate.<br />
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And I bet you all a thousand dollars she started crying in paragraph two of this post. #twinning<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-37889239766558650182017-12-18T15:54:00.000-08:002017-12-18T15:54:54.484-08:00A New Challenge for a New Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I did not exactly succeed at the November blog challenge with Mary, but I also did not exactly fail. I did write. I wrote like 50% of the days I was supposed to. And I learned from my sorta success slash sorta failure, a few lessons for my next writing challenge.<br />
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I learned that I do enjoy writing in line with a blog challenge.<br />
I learned that I like writing more, knowing that Mary is also writing and going to post something really funny.<br />
I learned that I do not have time to write every single day.<br />
I learned that I don't always feel like writing.<br />
I learned that on the weekends, I'd rather cuddle than write a blog post.<br />
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With that, I have found a new writing challenge to take on: 50 Questions to Ask a Girl if You Really Want to Know Her.<br />
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50 Questions, 50 topics.<br />
This time, though...no 50 day deadline to answer all 50. Because I know I don't like to write on the weekends and because I know I have days where I give no fucks, I'm setting my goal to answer these 50 questions over the next 100 days. That's much more manageable and realistic.<br />
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So, moving right along.<br />
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Day One: <b>When you were younger, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?</b><br />
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When I was really little, like five-year-old little, <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2014/10/whatever-fuck-you-want.html">I thought I could be Clyde Drexler</a>. I mean, sure, I was a tiny little white girl...what could possibly stop me from being a six-plus foot tall black man?? Dream big, as they say.<br />
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I wanted to be Clyde Drexler after meeting him at school. My kindergarden class won a reading contest that the Blazers were involved in, and because we won, he came to school. This was my first dose of stardom and part of me remembers it being a huge deal.<br />
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Get it, huge, because he is huge?<br />
<br />Anyway, my first moment of hero worship, and at five, that clearly became a dream to BE him.<br />
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After my mom shot me down on that dream, I decided I wanted to be an <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-just-try-to-live-like-barbie-doll.html">elementary school librarian</a>. Why? Because I love books, especially children's books.<br />
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Looking back now, my overall disdain for small children was probably a hindrance here, but what did I know about all that way back then? Now, I cannot fathom the thought of being a teacher - my cousin is a teacher, and just standing next to her makes me tired. What a thankless and underpaid profession, where you are way too responsible for the well-being of a new generation of humans.<br />
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Too. Much. Pressure.<br />
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And so, like everyone else in property management, I got into property management on accident.<br />
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And the joke is on me, because it is literally the equivalent of being responsible for small children.<br />
Except the children are adults.<br />
Who instead of refusing to eat their lunch, are refusing to pay their rent.<br />
And instead of being thankless and underpaid...oh wait, no, that's the same.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-15043332690874483632017-11-16T12:47:00.001-08:002017-11-16T12:47:39.006-08:00Only 39 Days Until Christmas. But Who's Counting?I would say I am literally failing at this blog challenge, except that I am still on track to have covered all 30 topics in 30 days - I just technically am also covering multiple topics each day...because there have definitely been some days this month where I just do not have time to sit down and write a post.<br />
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And also a day or two where I was totally uninspired and had nothing of relevance to say.<br />
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Mostly it has been the latter.<br />
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Day 14: <b>One thing you're excited for</b></div>
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Day 15: <b>Your family</b></div>
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Day 16: <b>Something you're nervous about</b></div>
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The past few years, I have lacked in holiday excitement. Just not feeling it. Things with my family were not great and therefore a lot of my beloved traditions were changing - or not happening in any capacity. I was learning how to live alone and navigate budgeting myself to live and eat while paying $1100 a month in Portland area rents, so the added holiday expenses were stressful, and I just struggled to get into the holiday mindset.<br />
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This year I have made a true conscious effort to find that excitement I have been missing. It started with a shopping trip to Home Goods with my best friend, in which I was forced to purchase Christmas cat hand towels.<br />
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It's the little things sometimes.<br />
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I am looking forward to both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. One could say I was almost even excited about it.<br />
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<a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2016/12/when-i-grow-up-and-get-married-im.html">My (Stacey) Family Thanksgiving</a> is early in the day next Thursday, and I am certainly excited for that; we only have that every other year, and I miss it every "off" year. It's such chaos - loud, a million people, tons of kids running around, loud crazy Bingo games with terrible prizes. It's a few hours where my whole family is together, laughing and enjoying each other's company. I love it, it's my favorite holiday tradition.<br />
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I am also spending Thanksgiving afternoon/evening with my best friend and her family, which I love and have done for a few years now - long enough that I am actually assigned to the food list this year. With it this year comes a new level of excitement, and also some nerves. It's not at Rachel's house, where it always is, but instead at her in-law's house - for some reason, this is making me a little nervous. I like familiarity in my life; I like to know where I am and where I'm going. I'm also just a little nervous about the recent changes in my dynamic in this family, and how that will play out over the course of a holiday.<br />
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<a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2017/01/2017-coming-to-you-live-on-january-9th.html">But I am embracing it</a>. All of it, in fact.<br />
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Nervous doesn't mean bad; I have definitely learned this lesson recently - nervous is not a bad thing. Nerves simply mean I'm feeling my genuine feelings. Nervous because I'm happy, nervous because things are different, nervous because I'm nervous.<br />
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I'm also actually, for the first time in several years, <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2013/11/dear-santai-tried.html">feeling a bit excited</a> about Christmas. I have even started my Christmas shopping - the last few years I've been all Amazon-at-the-last-possible-second. I helped my mom get out all of her Santa collection last week, and she gave me a tote full of them - and I have every intention of actually getting a baby tree and decorating my apartment.<br />
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WHAT?!?!<br />
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I know. Seriously though.<br />
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I don't know yet what this Christmas will look like for me or how exactly it'll play out. I do know that Stacey Christmas is the Sunday before, and it's one of my favorite days even when I'm not in the Christmas mood. I know that I will see my grandma at some point during the day, whether that be at church or at my aunt's house, or even both - who really knows. I know I'll eat bacon and eggs for breakfast at my mom and dad's, and then we'll do Santa presents. I don't know what else I'll do, but I'm feeling good about it either way.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-3852027944383296052017-11-13T15:51:00.001-08:002017-11-13T15:51:54.512-08:00Dancing Through the Morning<div style="text-align: center;">
Day 12: <b>Your morning routine</b></div>
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Day 13: <b>Put your music player on shuffle and write the first three songs that play</b></div>
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I turn my music on in the morning as soon as I finish hitting snooze four times and drag my ass out of bed. I set the phone on the bathroom counter, select shuffle - or sometimes a specific album if I happen to know what I'm in the mood for at the ass crack of dawn, which I generally do not, and let it play as I wipe sleep from my eyes and start my day. </div>
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It should be noted that I spend more time in the morning trying to convince myself I can go one more day without washing my hair, than I do doing the rest of my "routine" combined.</div>
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I hate to wash my hair.</div>
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No, I don't hate to wash it. I hate all of the steps that follow the washing. If I wash my hair in the morning, it requires that I get up a full 45 minutes earlier than if I don't - because then I have to drown myself in detangler, comb through a million knots, decide if I want to go curly or straight, select appropriate product based on that decision, use said product, and then blow dry and/or flat iron. It's a lot of work! </div>
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And I'd just as soon just have dirty hair and do nothing but spray some dry shampoo.</div>
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I like routine, and I don't like to stray too far from it. It's always when I start dating someone or stay at other people's houses that I realize how much I dislike straying from routine. My morning routine is definitely one of those routines I don't like to stray far from. I do my morning in a specific order:</div>
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* Feed the cat before she chews a hole in my phone charger and electrocutes herself and burns down my apartment. Juno lets me know I need to get up and feed her by chewing on the phone or laptop charger. She's insane.</div>
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* Open the blinds</div>
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* Remember how badly I have to pee</div>
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* Pee</div>
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* Brush my chompers. I cannot stand the taste of dirty teeth or morning breath. Also I think people who brush their teeth in the shower are likely serial killers.</div>
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* Shower. I also shower in a certain order - wash my face first, then shave and wash myself...and if I absolutely cannot convince myself my week-old unwashed hair is clean, I was and condition my hair first.</div>
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* Get out of the shower, get dry and use all those girly products like deodorant and perfume and coconut oil, plus all the face stuff that keeps my skin baby soft.</div>
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* Sit on the bedroom floor in my towel and do my makeup. And yes, I also do my makeup in a specific order. IAMSOWEIRD.</div>
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* Do my hair. Either by way of all of those insane and time consuming clean-hair steps, or by spritzing dry shampoo and running a flat iron through the ends (usually the latter).</div>
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* Get dressed (more commonly known as standing in my underwear debating between leggings & boots or slacks & flats).</div>
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* Try to coax Juno out from under the bed, where she hides whenever she sees me getting ready - she either hates my obsessive routine, or she thinks I'm going to make her get a job and go to work. Talk to her in baby cat talk, give up on getting her out from under the bed, spend 10 minutes searching for my keys, forget my lunch in the fridge, and head to work.</div>
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I continue to listen to music all day at work, and when I put my phone on shuffle to write this post, these are the first three songs that played. </div>
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1. Bulletproof Weeks - Matt Nathanson</div>
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I have so much Matt Nathanson on my iPhone that it is only logical the first song would be one of his. Every. Single. Time. I am, after all, a Matt Nathanson groupie.</div>
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2. All My Life - KC and JoJo</div>
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This makes sense. I like to kick it old school. </div>
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3. Hallelujah - Pentatonix</div>
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This makes sense too. I love this song - no matter who sings it, I love (and have on my phone) practically every version ever played. And my phone must know I am working on locating my holiday spirit. </div>
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Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-21670072297441371652017-11-11T15:50:00.001-08:002017-11-11T15:50:19.381-08:00I Like My Potatoes in Vodka FormI find that I do much better at blogging if I write first thing in the morning, and I totally fail on the weekends. I now owe my blog partner, Mary, Day 9, Day 10, and Day 11.<div>
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Dammit! </div>
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I'm going to attempt to combine these three topics into one post, and hope that it doesn't end up a a jumbled hot mess:</div>
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Day 9: <b>A family member you dislike</b></div>
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Day 10: <b>Something you miss</b></div>
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Day 11: <b>Your feelings on ageism</b></div>
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Ready, set...here we go. </div>
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Until recently, I was taking my grandma to church two Sundays a month. I would pick her up in Vancouver, and we'd take 45 minutes to drive south on 205, to St. Johns in Milwaukie, where she has always gone to Sunday mass. We would spend the 30 minutes before mass started at the front door, greeting all of her friends, and then we'd sit in the same pew each week. After church, we would either have donuts and coffee with her friends, or we'd stop by to visit my parents, and then I would take her back home. </div>
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While <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2016/08/500wordsaday-maybe-next-time-ill-wear.html">I do not miss getting up early on Sunday mornings</a> to go to church, I do miss spending those hours with my grandma twice a month. I loved the car rides back and forth from Vancouver to Milwaukie because I could always get her to talk about my grandpa - where and how they met, how she always got out of bed to make him dinner when he worked late, the way their 9 kids drove him crazy and she let him hide outside from them to have a cigarette. She was most alert on our way into Milwaukie - she would comment on my driving, or the landscape, always pointing out how many cars were on the road and how many more houses there were these days.</div>
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As I write this, I realize I am speaking in past tense, and the logical reader would have to assume that I quit taking my grandma to church because she passed away. But that isn't the case. Instead, after an argument with my aunt (her daughter), my aunt told me I was no longer allowed to come to the house to pick up my grandma. I was also told that my grandma has never loved me, and that pretending to care about me was exhausting her.</div>
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Uh huh. That happened. </div>
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I think the entire situation is heartbreaking and sad, but the saddest part may just be the way that these people are holding my grandma hostage, not allowing certain people to visit her, feeding her elderly mind full of horse shit about why we aren't around. My grandma is 89 - her memory and alertness is slipping, and sometimes she doesn't know who we are. But I would hope that in this vulnerable, almost child-like state, that the family - even though we hate each other - would be able to put everything aside to care for her and put her first. </div>
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But apparently we cannot do that. </div>
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My grandma is an elderly woman who can no longer make decisions for herself, and can no longer make her own choice to get in the car and drive somewhere. And sadly, the people in charge of getting her places, providing her a safe place to live, are three people who hate me and won't allow me anywhere near her. I think that's a sad and disturbing abuse of power, quite frankly. And so yesterday, I took a little bit of that power back. We were all at a funeral, and my grandma was seated at a table with my aunts. They got up to get her a plate of food for lunch, and I seized my moment - mind you, I've gone from seeing my grandma every other Sunday, to having not seen her in six months. I all but leaped from my own seat at a table across the room to sit down in the chair next to her while she was momentarily unsupervised (the previous hour, she'd been flanked on either side by one of these bitches, like she needed a body guard from her own family. I sat down and then so did my mom and dad, and we sat with her for the rest of the afternoon, eating lunch, laughing and talking. No one else approached the table even once. I made my power move, because despite the vile garbage they will sling in an email, these women are actually chicken shit bitches when faced with potential confrontation. They won't dare come near me, even to join their own mother for lunch.</div>
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I let go of wanting a relationship with any of these people a long time ago, but I will admit that they got to me when they cut off my tie to my grandma. I love my grandma; I remember countless things about being in her house as a kid, playing with my cousins while she pumped us full of ice cream. I have memories of her clothes, her Christmas aprons (which she gave me recently and I have hanging on a hook in my own kitchen, by the way - a clear sign she doesn't love me), her baking dishes. She used to babysit me every Wednesday evening, and she made potatoes a different way every week (I hate potatoes), and she would say, <i>oh just try them, maybe you'll like them this way</i>. I also remember calling her a few years back to tell her a joke that I finally found a way I did like potatoes - in vodka. I miss getting to see her and hang out with her, enjoying her on holidays, spending three hours with her on Sundays. </div>
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And I very much dislike the three women in my family who have taken that away from me. For their own selfish and disgusting reasons, they are holding me from my own grandma in what are likely her final years of life. I dislike them for the things they have said about me, about my mom, for the things they believe in their own minds to be true. I dislike that they will read this post because they stalk me on the internet, and that they will probably twist it in a way that makes me the bad guy - though after you tell your niece her grandma doesn't love her, I don't think you get to come back from that. </div>
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Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-63756875409967533732017-11-08T11:06:00.002-08:002017-11-08T11:06:49.500-08:00My Tattoo Means I Like Tattoos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2QNxGHl7pPjmbd3mNwDcjvuojOu8rZtCeZAqg2s_HxdT0pcIP5lMrhAhS1tZpPXvUpp8pj2VTwGf9NSTmWYli8ggwm2dez0qO-hyFxNdrxN08dehmpaSCLDZgxmRNdB7WYZz5WNy1Ik/s1600/20597209_10212211890006894_267645458887005344_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2QNxGHl7pPjmbd3mNwDcjvuojOu8rZtCeZAqg2s_HxdT0pcIP5lMrhAhS1tZpPXvUpp8pj2VTwGf9NSTmWYli8ggwm2dez0qO-hyFxNdrxN08dehmpaSCLDZgxmRNdB7WYZz5WNy1Ik/s320/20597209_10212211890006894_267645458887005344_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Day Eight: <b>What tattoos do you have, and do they have meaning?</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaf_H_ReoMO9s7XnQMinnL3yqjjxh80mjTFWqfslgzfr81r68QdoBk2bCj0d3HREr24aZL7_E0b7YYHYsIq4GIOlg5Qg3Z0G_0Ba8AaZuMyJ5I4O5hdCT94H-mzOEa3qGQ2cybuIEh6RU/s1600/bb420966454600d10bb29798f452c988.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaf_H_ReoMO9s7XnQMinnL3yqjjxh80mjTFWqfslgzfr81r68QdoBk2bCj0d3HREr24aZL7_E0b7YYHYsIq4GIOlg5Qg3Z0G_0Ba8AaZuMyJ5I4O5hdCT94H-mzOEa3qGQ2cybuIEh6RU/s320/bb420966454600d10bb29798f452c988.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I am definitely not one to think that all tattoos must have significant meaning - I mean, I think it's totally fine if the meaning behind a piece of work on your body is, <i>I was kinda bored and this was really pretty</i>. <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-either-big-tattoo-or-you-got.html">I love tattoos</a>. I really love beautiful, well-done tattoos. And yes, I love the ones that are meaningful - I just don't think it's a requirement.<br />
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I have a lot of ink in my skin, so I suppose this blog post may get a little lengthy...I suppose I shall start from the ground up.<br />
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1. On the inside of my left ankle, I have a Juno Cat tattoo. This one, of course, has meaning. Everyone in my life knows how important Juno is, and the fact that I believe with my whole heart that my Grandma Stacey sent her to me to rescue me from my horrible relationship - yes I know that sounds insane, and yes, I do actually believe it. Ironically, although it is one of my smallest tattoos that only took 45 minutes to get, it's by far my favorite. Travis (my amazing tattoo artist) did such a great job capturing her round belly and extra long whiskers - somehow even though it's basically just an outline, it looks just like her.<br />
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2. On my right calf, I have a rose and sparrow - this is the first tattoo Travis did for me, and is a cover up of a terribly done crescent moon and shooting star. The terribly done tattoo did have meaning - I got it when a friend died - but I think the fact that it was so hideous, makes covering it up forgivable. Plus, it's still there. Something pretty just happens to be on top of it now.<br />
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3. On my right hip, I have the words <i>carpe diem</i> in bold, black, not-great-looking script. I got it in New York City, while on vacation with Jenny in 2008. It's not a good tattoo. In fact it's a pretty bad tattoo. But it definitely reminds me of a really fun trip I took to the east coast with my best friend. The most vivid memory of <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2014/10/tattoos-just-make-you-better.html">getting the tattoo itself</a> was that Jenny snapped a photo and the artist literally yelled at her (not a great sign). It's not one I can cover up since it's big ugly black lettering, but it has a good story behind it.<br />
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4. On my left side, lower back, is my very first tattoo - a small little Tinkerbell that a friend sketched for me and I had branded to my body in 2001 when I turned 18. It is also very poorly done, and is in the cover up process.<br />
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5. On my left side, right under my armpit on my ribs, I have two honey bees and their hive. The bees are singing and happily playing music, and <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2014/02/i-never-want-to-live-in-house-without.html">this is my most meaningful tattoo for sure</a>. I got it when my grandparents died. I picked honey bees because one of my most favorite memories from being a kid, is climbing the honey tree in their front yard. Travis made them musical bees because my family has a very musical background, and my mom always talks about how their was constant music in their home. And the hive is there to show how they were always there with us, with their "hive." I'd like to add to this one eventually and have it cover my full left side.<br />
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6. On my right wrist, I have my Zodiac sign, just small and simple outline. This one is meaningful in that I am a Leo - and I pretty much operate in line with that sign.<br />
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7. <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-think-i-hear-life-calling.html">On my right forearm</a>, I have a hot air balloon, which I got when I finally felt like I was free of a bunch of shit going on in my life. I also got the word <i>free </i>on my left forearm on the same day. I'll likely add to the balloon on my right arm at some point and finish my forearm - who knows?<br />
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8. My left arm started with the word <i>free</i>, as mentioned, and is now a full sleeve. I told Travis I was ready for a sleeve, and that I wanted it to be feminine - that was the only insight I gave him, and I let him run with it. That's what I love about Travis, is that he loves to take the creative freedom, so when I say something like, I want a sleeve that's pretty and feminine, he just works my arm into art. I love the finished product, and we worked on it for over a year, with I believe six total sessions when all was said and done. It's a queen bee, with two bluebirds, some gorgeous bright flowers and a tree, and a honey comb tucked behind it all.<br />
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9. After a lot of thought (and some convincing from Travis), I have finally started my back and am two sessions in to probably another 18 months of work. He's doing a full back piece - a peacock and some roses - from my neck to my ass. I love it so far. The peacock outline is done, but not the roses yet, and I got about five hours of color completed this spring before a wedding I was in. I am so excited to keep going on this one!<br />
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Not all tattoos have meaning. Not even all of my tattoos have meaning. But I think all tattoos are gorgeous - and I think that is meaning enough.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-3182182914510507292017-11-07T15:21:00.003-08:002017-11-07T15:21:56.280-08:00Just Delete Your Facebook Immediately<div style="text-align: center;">
Day Seven: <b>Five Problems with Social Media</b></div>
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1. <u>It is a time suck</u>.<br />
Social media can take up a lot of our time. Consider the last time you were at home alone, bored, no plans and nothing going on, and instead of scrolling through hours and hours and hours of Facebook news feed, you picked up a book or the newspaper.<br />
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I'll wait.<br />
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It never happens!<br />
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Social media is designed to suck us in. You can literally scroll down on Facebook and Instagram, and also Twitter, for eternity. Like, there is no end. Keep scrolling and scrolling, you will never get to the bottom of the page. And they do that on purpose to keep you trapped! I mean literally, you can spend an entire day online and get to the end of the day, wondering how you just spent the day.<br />
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Time. Suck.<br />
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2. <u>It is an attention whore</u>.<br />
My mom always says she hates when we are on our phones when we're over for dinner. And 9 times out of 10, we aren't talking to anyone or do anything.<br />
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We're just scrolling forever and ever into oblivion.<br />
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Social media take a lot of time and attention away from our face to face interactions. When we're together, we still have our noses buried in our phones. We go out to eat with our friends and we're too busy taking #foodporn photos to have an uninterrupted conversation. I feel like something could be said about isolation and "selfies," if I wanted to put a lot of extra thought into it.<br />
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3. <u>It puts unnecessary pressure on your relationships</u>.<br />
I read a meme recently that said the biggest sign of a healthy relationship is no mention of it on Facebook. And I believe that may be very close to true.<br />
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Should you share photos of you and your partner doing something fun or on some adventure, or snuggled up in front of the TV on a Sunday night? Sure. There is a huge difference between hiding your relationship, versus oversharing every detail to the point where I feel like I am the third party in your relationship. Don't hide. Just don't disclose everything.<br />
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I don't need to know when you're in a fight, or when you've made up. It's weird. And I think it probably makes things worse in the long run.<br />
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Now don't get me wrong. I actually am a sentimental dork, and I like to see a friend's Facebook status change from <i>Single</i>, to <i>In a Relationship</i>. And from <i>In a Relationship</i> to <i>Engaged</i>. And then from <i>Engaged </i>to <i>Married</i>. And I like to see their last name's change - even though I think that changing your last name is a super archaic and weird thing to do. BUT, I do hate to see someone change their relationship status back and forth between <i>Single </i>and <i>In a Relationship</i>, and there is no worse status than <i>It's Complicated</i>.<br />
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Get out of here with all that drama! Why are you telling the world that you are having relationship problems?!!<br />
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Also please stop with the overemotional sad quotes that you literally never post except for the times when you are in a fight with your partner. Gross. You need to stop that right now.<br />
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4. <u>It spreads a lot of wildly untrue information</u>.<br />
I mean, chances are if you are reading this blog post, you don't actually get your news from Twitter or Facebook - because I like to believe I am friends with people who are more intelligent than that. And I haaaaaate to use really ANY word used by our piece of shit garbage hep president, but there is soooo much fake news on the internet!! Like, just because it was a meme, does not mean it's real!<br />
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Please, please I beg of you, people. Read REAL news. Locate a legit news source. Support the media, especially locally.<br />
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Just remember that Fox News is the Twitter of the media, and don't believe anything you read.<br />
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5. <u>It portrays people through unrealistic filters</u>.<br />
I dare you to try and locate the most recent photo you have taken of yourself, in which you have not applied one single filter. No funny faces or bunny ears from Snap Chat, no make-you-tanner-than-you-really-are filter from Instagram. Just a regular photo of yourself. That you both took and then posted on social media.<br />
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I bet you have a hard time finding one. Because we now filter our whole life before we post it.<br />
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It's funny...writing this post makes me sort of want to log in and delete my Facebook account immediately.<br />
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I mean, I won't. I can't. I'm clearly as addicted as everyone else, and am guilty of setting aside the new book I am desperate to read (Trevor Noah's "Born a Crime") to scroll through nonsense for eternity instead...which is ridiculous, since I have been DYING to read his book!<br />
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Un-gluing yourself from social media is challenging, for sure. But the days that I make a strong commitment to not log in, are really always great days! It seems like a ridiculous thing to have to do, but one of my resolutions for 2018 (because yes, I do think about those for a long time in advance, and yes I do make them every year) will be to select a social media free day every week. One day a week, no social media. How pathetic that I think it'll be hard and will seriously take an effort!<br />
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And now, off I go to link this blog to my social media accounts to make sure people read it...<br />
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#ironic<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-66226770109300858872017-11-06T13:49:00.001-08:002017-11-06T13:49:14.415-08:00Yes, I am Still Scared of Monkeys<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day Five and Day Six</b>: </div>
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What am I afraid of, and What do I need to surrender to the universe? </div>
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First, I feel like these two can combine into one post, which works out well since I failed to post a day five post yesterday.<br />
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Turns out I spent the entire day on the couch, snuggling, napping, and watching about ten straight hours of Weeds, which is precisely what I needed. There was no room for complete sentences, let alone a written blog.<br />
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I have written about fears before - my fears of silly things, and <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2013/10/nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself.html">my fears of real things</a>. The thing about things that scare us, though, are that they do change. So I don't feel like I am necessarily repeating myself in speaking to fears.<br />
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One. <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2016/09/for-your-next-craptastic-day.html">I am afraid of outhouses</a>. That will never change.<br />
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Also. I am afraid of spiders, and mosquito eaters, and stink bugs. And also monkeys.<br />
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And b<a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2017/10/i-cant-help-it-im-leo.html">ecause I am a Leo</a>, I am afraid of loving someone more than they love me. It's not my fault, the zodiac is to blame for this one. See? It's a meme and everything!<br />
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<br />
Fears like this one are irrational, and I think they do generally fade with time. I only recognize it as a present fear when something is new and in that undefined, unsure stage. I don't tend to carry this fear over into a relationship - or at least I don't notice that I do. Once things work themselves out beyond that initial new, just started dating thing, this is a fear that certainly subsides. But before I know where I stand, it's definitely something I notice.<br />
<br />
I think that this goes hand in hand with what I need to just surrender to the universe because being fearful of the way people think and/or feel about you, usually just ends up causing problems. I've been mindful and aware of this fear, and in recent experience have also been up front about it - I'm afraid to love harder than you. Part of facing a fear is to acknowledge it - even if vocalizing it to someone can be a challenge.<br />
<br />
The way people feel about each other, however, is not something to be forced. I've only recently learned that the best way to know if something will work out with someone - whether or not they really care about you, how they feel, how ready they are for you - is to just spend time with them. Take the pressure of dating out of the equation, stop reading into bull shit, go with the flow, and just see what happens. I tried this recently, and what I learned was, this guy was simply not ready to date. He was flaky, and he never called when he said he was going to, and then would call days later wanting to take me to dinner like, right then.<br />
<br />
No thanks, I'm not into that.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to a time where someone shows a genuine interest in spending time with me - tells me good morning every day, cooks me dinner, puts away my dishes while I'm at work - and suddenly that worry is not quite as present. I don't find myself anxious about whether someone is going to call me or if I'm bugging this person by sending a meme that I think is funny. I don't find myself worried about who likes who more, or who cares more, or who is more invested - because I quite simply feel like I do matter.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I am likely always going to be a girl who feels anxious and a little scared when something is new - new makes me nervous (and that spans all realms of life, by the way, not just romance). But I am also learning to be someone who can let go of the insane pressure that the world puts on two people in a new relationship - give that to the universe and just enjoy seeing where things go.<br />
<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-1578304519927209752017-11-03T17:23:00.000-07:002017-11-03T17:23:07.935-07:00Exhale the Bad Shit, Let it Go, and Other Cliche Phrases<div style="text-align: center;">
Day Four: <b>What do I need to let go of?</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
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<br />
Probably a lot of things.<br />
<br />
Definitely some things.<br />
<br />
For sure some things I am not going to write about.<br />
<br />
The number one topic that comes to mind is that <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/search?q=let+it+go">I need to let go</a> of the shitty people in my family. They are shitty. They are not going to get better. They do, however, continue to get worse. And sometimes I really have a hard time with that. Other times, I am reminded that other people in my family are great, and that it's fine. But I have already written that "my family sucks" blog - multiple times, in fact (they really, really do), so I have been racking my brain for a new topic.<br />
<br />
And then I get a message from a friend this morning and it hits me.<br />
She works for the company I used to work for. Let's just call them Big G, shall we? I'd hate to get anybody's panties twisted when they read this.<br />
Anyway, so she was terminated today.<br />
For no reason.<br />
After many, many years of exceptional service.<br />
<br />
Is this ringing a bell for anyone because it happened to me 3 months ago??<br />
<br />
Ironically, said friend works for *gasp* the SAME regional manager I worked for!<br />
<br />
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<br />
Here's the thing. I let go of the fact that I was fired by my snake-ass twat of a regional right away, because a much better, much more beneficial, much more respectable position was offered to me within 5 days. I am not upset that I was fired. I am upset that I learned the hard way that if someone hates you enough, they really will use anything possible to get rid of you, buuuuut in the end, I came out ahead.<br />
<br />
However, what I have not let go of yet, is this overwhelming sympathy for the people I know who still work for this company, and who work for this company in Portland, specifically. A company where when you reach out to your director or to HR for help dealing with your supervisor being a total and complete bitch, you are then basically raked over the coals. And where they will also go right to your supervisor and TELL HER WHAT YOU SAID! A company where you don't matter. Where your opinion doesn't matter. Where your human decency, morals, and overall convictions do you more harm than good. Big G is a company that probably at some point did some good. But they are also a company that has turned some of the best career role models I've had, into shady, dishonest ass holes, with whom I would no longer ever share kind words.<br />
<br />
I was fired less than a month after I called my regional's supervisor, begging for advice on how to deal with her. Begging for help on how to communicate with her more effectively. I was fired less than two weeks after having a meeting with my regional and her supervisor (because confidentiality means nothing), in which I was honest about what I needed to feel more support. I was fired while my career mentor (who yes I do now see as completely shady as fuck) was conveniently on vacation and unable to look me in the face after approving to let this happen. And more importantly, I was fired less than ten days after I spent a day job shadowing another regional based on a conversation in which my next promotion was discussed.<br />
<br />
How interesting.<br />
<br />
Someone who works in the corporate office for Big G said something that really stuck with me, when I was talking to her about what actually happened (because of course, my shady-ass twat of a regional did nothing but talk shit about how horrible I was). She said, "<i>If I was an on site manager right now, and you got fired for 'not living Big G's values,' I would be terrified every day of losing my job - because you of all people, are the one showing up every day and investing in the values. You're a favorite and everyone knows it. If I were on her team as a manager, I'd be watching her every move</i>."<br />
<br />
Exactly.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I know I was a "favorite." I know that companies play favorites, and I know I was in that position. I was speaking at training classes, leading meetings, job shadowing, training, mentoring, hosting videos, joining committees. Big G was rolling out their new "values" platform, and I was not only dedicated to it, but I was dedicated to everyone else dedicating themselves to it.<br />
<br />
But my regional was a cunt, and we hated each other. And I spoke up about it.<br />
And she makes more money than me, and her position is more important, so I got fired.<br />
<br />
Which is, again, fine by me.<br />
<br />
But.<br />
<br />
I have not let go of this "mama bear" feeling of just wanting to scream GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE NOW to everyone in the Portland market. I want to find jobs for all of them (and I have found jobs for several of them). I need to let go of that and simply be an advocate for my new company. The people who still work for Big G know it's bad - they bitch about it all the time, for one. And for two, there has been regional manager mass exodus, and that shit does not go down for no reason. The truth is, I can't continue to stress about my friends who still work for the company. It's their choice to stay where they are for now, and they'll eventually realize how bad things have gotten and move on. It's hard to be in a position now where I can see all of the bad, and where I can see how unhappy my friends are at work. I have an amazing regional now - I work somewhere very challenging, and where a lot of people are really not pleasant, and yet he has my back 110% every single time. My director of operations calls or emails me weekly to make sure I am still doing well and having a good time, reminding me how fortunate she feels to have gotten me on her team.<br />
<br />
I need to let go of a need to protect my old coworkers from the shit show they're in. I can't change it for them. All I can do is offer an ear when they're bitching, and offer the job positions list when they're ready to exhale the Big G bull shit.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Values the Big G Portland office claims to live by: Integrity. Respect. Professionalism. Accountability. Service. Teamwork.<br />
<br />
Values the Big G Portland office does not live up to by any stretch: Integrity. Respect. Professionalism. Accountability. Service. Teamwork.<br />
<br />
I've let go of all aspects of being terminated. I'm happy where I'm at, and sometimes forced change ends up being the best thing for you. I ended up with an additional $10,000 a year to start, a better apartment, better work/life balance, better regional support, and just seriously a better existence.<br />
<br />
And it's probably about time I let go of feeling bad for the people still working there.<br />
Because let's be honest, if they're good at their jobs, they'll probably get fired soon anyway!<br />
<br />
<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-48043976505557997332017-11-03T10:12:00.002-07:002017-11-03T10:12:28.966-07:00I Need More of All of That <div style="text-align: center;">
Day Three: <b>What do I need more of in my life?</b></div>
<br />
Sleep.<br />
Kissing.<br />
Snuggles.<br />
Girlfriend time.<br />
Beach days.<br />
Money.<br />
Sunshine.<br />
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<br />
In the grand scheme of things, my life is pretty good. I have all of what I need in order to function and survive. I have a good job that I like a lot (most days); I make enough money to pay (most of) my bills. I have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, and the means to grab happy hour with friends when I want to. My car is reliable, and I don't have to live in too much worry (<a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2017/01/grab-politics-by-pussy.html">outside of the fact that Donald Trump is the President</a>, that is). I have a great family and great friends who love me, and a cat who cuddles me and keeps me laughing at her insane antics.<br />
<br />
All in all, I don't have a whole lot to gripe about.<br />
<br />
Except politics. I definitely have a lot of political griping to do.<br />
<br />
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<br />
And yet, I think we are all guilty of falling victim to the daily routine, and until someone asks us what we're missing, we may not really even realize it. Don't get me wrong - I always know when I am not getting enough sunshine.<br />
<br />
#popsvitamindsupplementimmediately<br />
<br />
But I do think really, we don't always catch on right away as to the things in our lives we need more of. I am just as guilty - I am incredibly busy at work, and without realizing it, <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2015/06/youre-not-option-youre-my-priority.html">I spend a lot of days like this</a>:<br />
<br />
Wake up.<br />
Hit snooze two to four times.<br />
Feed Juno before she claws out my eyes or bites off my toes.<br />
Shower and think up a new excuse to go another day without washing my hair.<br />
Get dressed and go to work.<br />
Work for 8-12 hours, and then go home.<br />
Feed Juno again.<br />
Watch TV. Maybe do some dishes or a load of laundry. Maybe fall asleep on the couch.<br />
Go to bed.<br />
<br />
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<br />
And when I stop and think, what do I need more of in my life...that's when I realize that my routine can be quite boring. So yes, there are things I need more of in my life. And I really do try to focus on obtaining some of those things, making more of those things happen, finding the time & means to manifest those things.<br />
<br />
I think I need more sleep. But really, that's not even true. I need better sleep. I need to go to bed on time, and I need to turn my phone off earlier so I can turn off my brain and actually get a good night of sleep. I have made myself stop falling asleep with the TV on, which has immensely helped me fall asleep and then stay asleep. I'm tired, but I think really I just need to focus on taking care of myself and allowing myself to stop stressing enough to get my 8 hours of good, quality sleep.<br />
<br />
Last night, for example, I went to bed at 10:00, which is pretty normal for me - but then instead of playing on my phone or watching TV until midnight, I turned everything off and was asleep fairly quickly. And I woke up an hour before my alarm went off, which I never do. I got to have that Sunday Morning feeling on a work day, which is so rare - I got up, cuddled on the couch, watched the news, and took my time getting ready - I need more of that, for sure.<br />
<br />
I think I need more kissing and more snuggling. And really, that one is true. I am a cuddle bug. I could literally spend every day snuggling with someone. And I find that in my experience, the more time I spend kissing someone or the more nights I spend cuddling with them, the more insatiable I become and the more time I want to spend kissing and snuggling. I just like it. I don't get enough of it, and I like the warm, safe vibe I get from all of it. #sorrynotsorry for whomever is currently stuck snuggling with me; it can be an overwhelming task I'm sure.<br />
<br />
I definitely need more girlfriend time. I am the one of my friends who is single and doesn't have kids, and I am the one of my friends who lives all the way in Wilsonville. So it can be challenging to find a lot of girlfriend time - especially because I don't necessarily see time spent with my friends and their children as real girlfriend time. If I have to edit the content of my stories, refrain from talking about sex or saying the word fuck, or take 200 hours to tell a story because a kid is interrupting every three seconds, that doesn't really count as quality time spent with my girlfriends. I mean come on. We're in our thirties, and I want to sit in a booth with hummus and a cocktail, or drink beer on a patio, or see a ranchy movie with my friends.<br />
<br />
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<br />
And for the record, I don't believe I need to feel guilty for expecting that from my friends. Because the reality is, 98% of the time, I tolerate your kid so I can hang out with you - do me the service of getting a babysitter the other 2%, right? For some reason, a large percentage of the population seems to believe that I am the ass hole because I *gasp* don't want to be around their children as much as they do. And it always makes me laugh because in the small amount of time I do manage to tear my friends from their children, they often spend a lot of time bitching about how obnoxious their kid is.<br />
<br />
Yea...I know...that's why I invited you to a bar, so they had to stay home with their dad.<br />
<br />
I've really written about that before, and it continues to be prevalent in my world. I get it. Being 34 and kid-free, I am the minority. That's why I am 98% of the time willing to (and happy to, honestly) spend quality time with my friends, kids in tow. I just also happen to believe that some time in the land of adults, is good for people.<br />
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I always need <a href="http://grownuptantrums.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-beach-is-best-for-soul.html">more beach days</a>. Mostly because I need to actually live there. So until I have 365 beach days every year, I will need more beach days.<br />
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Let's be real, we could all use more money. I had a really interesting conversation a few weeks ago about how no one makes enough money anymore to support the rent and housing market. and that basically, based on that none of us will ever get to retire.<br />
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Also I would like to be able to leave the country once per year, and get at least one new tattoo every 6 months. That'll be my measure of true life success I think. Plane tickets and tattoos: the measure of how well I'm doing at life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtUqf3w44vvWFP8lUtvJZKQ5Qv5dCyKkU1BhtpOYejsOJ_TgYV-aTj1zgVVpd-yQHus6Rq_IenD8mV_odfcpi4tJ2NL3N1fgxDQS_EkQtbyhtZzQ3e_PIWkYRL-ogNTu3STOuyUUs-1KE/s1600/6438e08f5a8715e73858285a724d339b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="564" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtUqf3w44vvWFP8lUtvJZKQ5Qv5dCyKkU1BhtpOYejsOJ_TgYV-aTj1zgVVpd-yQHus6Rq_IenD8mV_odfcpi4tJ2NL3N1fgxDQS_EkQtbyhtZzQ3e_PIWkYRL-ogNTu3STOuyUUs-1KE/s320/6438e08f5a8715e73858285a724d339b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I need more sunshine. Me and everyone else living in the Pacific Northwest, right? I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, or SAD as they so appropriately call it, and I have to take 3,000IU of Vitamin D for about 8 months out of the year to ensure I don't hurl myself over a bridge in February on the 212th day of rain in a row. I need more sunshine, for sure. I probably need to spend some of my 365 beach days per year on a beach in Mexico or the Bahamas where it's sunshiney for me; that would likely solve all of my life problems.<br />
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In general, I think we could all benefit from just getting out of the grind every once in a while and trying to remember that if all we do is get up, go to work, and come home, then there's really not all that much purpose to life. While I can't instantly satisfy all of the things I believe I need more of, I can certainly set myself some realistic goals, make small changes, create better habits, and ensure that I am having more fun in my life. Sure I have to get up and go to work every day - but the day doesn't have to start with me flying out of bed in a rush to get ready, after not getting enough sleep. Life isn't intended to just meander through; sometimes ya gotta shake it up a little bit and have some fun.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5052195087531790762.post-81281089523674761912017-11-02T11:34:00.000-07:002017-11-02T11:34:09.508-07:00Forever Weekends<div style="text-align: center;">
Day Two: <b>What does my ideal day look like from morning to night?</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6V-1M7N1Rf3Tl9nccufbhqlCQJDNJRE9SY0mvNP7oVAmW5qmbKMUM9uhXkJmd-VXeTRRVd3NbgG5Zsg5JqEPCYpcr2nhOKRMqiP5RqsIZUaksd9lplYCCudEqHN8z66jabyqNROz-ycs/s1600/ed66545fa207f96512952bdf974613b0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6V-1M7N1Rf3Tl9nccufbhqlCQJDNJRE9SY0mvNP7oVAmW5qmbKMUM9uhXkJmd-VXeTRRVd3NbgG5Zsg5JqEPCYpcr2nhOKRMqiP5RqsIZUaksd9lplYCCudEqHN8z66jabyqNROz-ycs/s320/ed66545fa207f96512952bdf974613b0.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
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Well, that's easy:<br />
Sleep in.<br />
Snuggle.<br />
Have sex.<br />
Take a nap.<br />
Stay in my pajamas.<br />
Eat bacon and waffles.<br />
Watch TV and snuggle.<br />
Take another nap.<br />
Maybe eat dinner at some point.<br />
Go to bed.<br />
Have sex.<br />
Snuggle.<br />
Sleep.<br />
Repeat.<br />
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Blog post done.<br />
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Just kidding (sort of).<br />
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I mean that is basically the outline of my perfect day, though...<br />
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My ideal days are always the ones where I don't have to go to work or accomplish anything - because those days are rare. I'm a busy girl. I work a lot of hours, I do a lot on the weekends. I have a big family, so there's always something I am supposed to be doing or somewhere I am supposed to be. So the days where I literally do not have anything I have to do, nowhere I have to be...those are the best days.<br />
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The days I don't have to set an alarm.<br />
The days I can stay in bed, or lounge on the couch watching shitty reality TV in my pajamas.<br />
The days I don't have to have my phone on me or check my email.<br />
The days I can snuggle for hours and take naps in the middle of the day just because I want to.<br />
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Those are the very best days.<br />
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<br />Grownup Tantrumshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029889252298660521noreply@blogger.com0