humbled.

I got a facebook message from an acquaintance from Longhorn Band who said that she is at 41 weeks prego and may be looking at an induction, which may lead to a c-section and what was humbling is that her friend recommended she talked to me about my whole birth experience. It was wonderfully therapeutic to pay it forward in a way, to encourage her that she is strong and can get through it. Humbled because it made me realize that even though I'm feeling a little lost these days, scrambling to add structure and get into a groove, that the story of Adeline's birth is one that needs to be told and retold and reminds me of how hard I worked for her. It's a story that grounds me and makes me stop and appreciate my family, and what we've endured together.

I found these quotes today and love them:

"Birth is not only about making babies. It's about making mothers~ strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and believe in their inner strength." - Barbara Katz Rothman

The wisdom and compassion a woman can intuitively experience in childbirth can make her a source of healing and understanding for other women.
Stephen Gaskin

****UPDATE****

I received this facebook message yesterday, seriously warmed my heart:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You were able to instill so much confidence that I had lost and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. We were induced with Pitocin Monday afternoon and he was born this morning at 9:53 am. Other than the Pit (to work on contractions) we were able to labor and deliver with no other drugs.  Thank you so much for your help.

*glow*

RAWr

I started working with a raw foods coach to address my health! It's a long story but let me just say she is awesome and I LOVE her, and I'm on day two and am already learning so much. Like, your poop changes colors when you eat only raw veggies. Also, Goji berries are my new happy place. Seriously. SO GOOD. One of my snacks today was one cup of blueberries, one cup blackberries, and a handfull of Goji's with 4oz of almond milk. Totally my new favorite thing.

I eat breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack, dinner, and a snack that is laid out on an emailed menu by Her Rawness and the weird thing is that while yesterday I was tearing through the foodles, today I'm finding it more difficult to get through my meals. Like, I'm FULL. It's different from feeling totally satisfied, and I'm wondering if it has to do with not eating cooked food and changing my mindset about that. 

Don't worry, I'm not going to give up cooked food for good - I just want to go mostly raw right now and see how this way of eating will impact my mood, thoughts, and overall health.

Hummingbird.

Now that I am home 24/7 I have all these ideas. Things I want to work on, cook, bake, write, sew, crochet, listen to, etc.

Just writing that list is dizzying! I have therefore resolved to give myself a two-week break from thinking about all the things that I want to be doing and focus on the things that I OUGHT to be doing, namely, building a foundation, some routines for myself and my familia so that when I have an extra hour here or there I can be focused in my attack on all that stuff I mentioned above. 

And, lucky you, you'll probably like my blog a whole lot more once I find some focus :)

i wish...

me:  uh oh

 Kyle:  ?

 me:  someone in our neighborhood is giving away a 10 week old lab puppy because her kids are allergic.

 Kyle:  that's a shame

 me:  yup

it's a cute puppy.

 Kyle:  it's not in our house is it?

 me:  right now?

 Kyle:  ever?

now it's time to get back

Just a quick update as my sunshine is napping for more than 20 minutes for the first. time. today.

1) I joined Stroller Strides! thinking "hey this will be a nice little workout and I can meet moms." I get my ass kicked 3 times a week and it is AWESOME. and painful. in a good way.

2) I met and hung out with a raw foods coach and am going to go "high raw vegetarian" starting tomorrow. Kind of excited about it. 

3) I had a moment last week after Stroller Strides when after class a herd of ducks came up to us so I took A out of her stroller and stood her up on the sidewalk. She smiled SO BIG and started sort of QUACK-ing at them! In that moment I thought to myself, "yeah, I wouldn't be anywhere else."

4) KINGS OF LEON with BAND OF HORSES on FRIDAY!

5) My garden is absolutely amazing. Pics soon!

much too much

I did too much today. 

I woke up early.
I walked the dog.
I baked muffins.

I baked a chicken.

I repurposed last nights dinner into a new(ish) and exciting(ish) one.

I drove to Arlington and hung out at a craft store so my niece could pick out fabric for her Egyptian tunic for her birthday party this weekend.

I cleaned as I went.

I sort of made the bed.

I somehow twisted my knee and now it's swollen.
Most importantly, I kept my kid alive, so I'm going to have to call this day a win, even though I'm sure I'll be asleep by 8:30.

I decided that the Food Network now instead of countdown timers should have a hungry, sleepy, cranky baby in the room while they cook. If they don't accidentally burn the kitchen down, then and only then will I be impressed.

Somebody call the waaaambulance.

the mother 'hood

I did it. I left my dream job after a year and a half to stay at home with my little chickadee.

It was not. an easy. decision.

But looking back, in some ways it was. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I define myself and over and over I kept getting the same result:

1. Wife

2. Mother

3. Music Therapist

4. - 13478. Everything else

I don't want to get all Earth Mother on you, but seriously, giving birth, especially in the way that it all went down, rocked my world. I thought after I went back to work that I was handling it and then I started reading a book called Creative Interventions with Traumatized Children and could see a lot of symptoms of trauma in myself, which then as a self aware therapist made me go: 

huh. I wonder if I can go through all this and still be a good therapist. 

Not that my therapy was ever struggling. I'm really good at what I do. The music and the kiddos and the families were incredible. Invigorating. It was just that in the in-between times I found myself not really being the kind of Wife or Mother that I wanted to be because I was basically in crisis mode, trying to heal myself and my family and at the same time being a support for traumatized and grieving and hurting patients and families at the same time and on top of all that trying to find time to feed, bathe, clothe not only myself but my kid and then somehow find the brain cells to get dinner on the table, maybe hit a yoga class or run or journal in order for me to have some self care. 

In short: I was kind of off-kilter.

I was off kilter, and I had the incredible support of my husband (who should get an award for Dad of the Year in the diaper washing, dish washing, and keeping-his-wife's-shit-together categories) and my mother, who basically...no...actually lived with us for 6 months. I know what you're thinking. That's a whole other series of posts right there, but not in a bad way.

I was a step behind myself, my kid, and my hubs, and I hated that. On my best days I was still exhausted and raw and on my worst days I cried a lot, feeling guilty for "having it all" and being miserable. And then I remembered a line from Wicked:

That's why I couldn't be happier
No, I couldn't be happier
Though it is, I admit
The tiniest bit
Unlike I anticipated
But I couldn't be happier
Simply couldn't be happier
(spoken) Well - not "simply":
(sung) 'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little - well - complicated
There's a kind of a sort of : cost
There's a couple of things get: lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed
And if that joy, that thrill
Doesn't thrill you like you think it will
Still -
With this perfect finale
The cheers and ballyhoo
Who
Wouldn't be happier?
So I couldn't be happier
Because happy is what happens
When all your dreams come true
Well, isn't it?
Happy is what happens
When your dreams come true!

that's all for now...more about all this later.

and on a related note...

Independence

"Moving on is a simple thing. What it leaves behind is hard." - Dave Mustaine

After lots of careful deliberation, some therapy, and a round of Zoloft, 

I've decided to be a stay at home mom with Adeline :) There of course is more to the story but I'm still working on processing it and how I want to say about how my family got to this decision.

Mostly it's because she's irresistible...

Happy (early) Fourth!

May Today There Be Peace Within

photos photos photos!

I am blessed to have incredible, wonderful, CRAZY TALENTED friends. One of these friends is a guy I've known since high school named Nick who is this insane photographer. Check his stuff out here:

http://laningphoto.com/ 

He and his lovely wife are here in Dallas and can do it all! Documentary, wedding, creative, senior, pet, maternity, newborn, professional, architectural, the works! Check him out, you will NOT be disappointed :)

put a bird on it

Step 1

If there's anything that I'm disorganized most about that makes me the most crazy, it's my complete inability to conceive of and execute a weekly dinner plan. I mean, the conception isn't that difficult. It's the execution. The get home work out relax(?) laundry tidy up feed child make dinner put child to bed in whatever order or permutation of help from my awesome hubs and mom it happens to happen. 

Case in point: it is 9:10pm and there's still 10 minutes to go on the eggplant parmesan.

Which brings me to my next point: Meatless Mondays! I have played around with vegetarian and veganism for awhile now and after getting the hell scared out of me by reading The China Study have decided to make a concerted effort to get my little family to eat less meat.

I absolutely worship eggplant parmesan. I don't care who makes it or where it's from (Campisi's though...mmm talk to me slowly) I adore it. So, it being Monday I decided to try out a recipe from my mom's old dusty 1970s cookbook with a screechy baby trying to be rocked to sleep in the next room. Is it just me or does the sound of your crying child make you lose brain cells and/or concentration as well? Anyway, I can't tell if the recipe was terrible or if my brain was just operating on half speed, but it's going to be done in 5 minutes and you best believe I'll be tweaking it because it will not. best. me.

So yeah - my goal for these next few weeks is to have a plan and carry it through. Wednesday: Chicken & Artichoke Enchiladas with Black Beans! Maybe I'll even give you my beans recipe. You can woo people with these beans, I'm not even lying.

Happy Monday!

humble pie

I feel like I have been going in a million different directions lately, 

but some events over the last few weeks have helped focus me a little bit. 

While I was pregnant I scoffed at the idea of slowing down or changing much about my life. I expected to keep up the go-go-go...I went to happy hours when I was prego and exhausted, flitted around like a bloated social butterfly, did a whole lot of things I don't regret necessarily but will do differently next time around. Why do I have to always bloom late on everything? I swear. It takes me forever to grow up.

Kyle's had this mantra about not having to go to the other side of the world in order to have a full and happy life which I thought was just. silly.

And then all the running around, especially with a 2-3-4-5 month old just got kind of exhausting. So, I have a plan of attack to save my sanity and get more connected with my sweet family.

Stay tuned.

turn to the left.

I realized today whilst shopping for clothes that I don't have a specific style. I want to, even if it's one of those whatever-meets-whatever-meets-whatever, and I would like to cultivate it, but right now I think I'm in the whatever-fits-and-doesn't-look-like-I-just-rolled-outta-bed mode. If you're reading this and you're a fashionista or had to learn how to hone your style, share tips. And maybe this'll be a new little focus for the bloggy blog.

backspacer

Ugh! I keep starting and stopping on this blog post because I don't know where to start. Just write, right?

Right.

Okay. Well, if you're a mom, you know about the mommy blues. I am a pretty emotional person to begin with, and I don't know when it stopped being mommy blues and started being PPD but I started having pretty gnarly anxiety attacks, one after a visit to the OBGYN, and another just out of the blue one night: full on shaking, crying, the works. Sometimes someone will play a sad song and I'll freak out, or my brain will just magically go to that place that creates horrible scenarios, and in each one something happening to me or my loved ones. The nightmares are awesome too.

I am not someone who lives under fear. I'm not. This is therefore new territory for me. I went to the doc to get my thyroid tested and it had swung under my normal range. Their reaction was - everything's in (the standard) normal range! You're fine! Except, I wasn't. I had stopped taking my thyroid meds because I noticed that if I didn't take one, the anxiety wasn't so bad. But then I would notice a drop in milk production. Oh, the rock and the hard place.

Adeline's pediatrician is an earthy crunchy family doc and at her last visit my mom spilled my beans for me. He ended up testing my thyroid and ultimately putting me on a lower dose every other day. He also tested my progesterone, which turned out to be super low (and an indicator of PPD), so I'm taking that now. I am also seeing a therapist every week to help with everything.

I expected to feel better almost immediately, and so far I don't really. The last two days have been rough, enough that I made the decision that our little family was going to stay home instead of go to Vegas for the weekend, where my brother is getting married.

I wanted to write this because I know there are folks out there who have experienced this type thing or are in the middle of it, and I wanted to provide some solidarity, some insight, and hope that things get better. Not that they're all the way better for me quite yet but we're working on it.

so.

I've decided that my not writing has come from mostly just not wanting to be that girl who blogs about awesome stuff and then has a kid and only blogs about poop. I mean, I'm not even sure I want to read yet another blog from a mom who thinks that they're the first one to ever experience motherhood.

That sounded harsh. What I mean is, I love reading other people's blogs about their kids, LOVE checking up on my friends and their babies and how they do things - I just don't know that I have a fresh perspective.

I am still learning to balance this crazy full time work full time momma thing. It is NOT. EASY. 

I know, nobody ever said it was easy. Mostly anything anyone ever said included the words "mommy guilt" regarding returning to work full time. Do I want to be home with my kid all the time? Oh gosh yes. Right now she is all squeaks and squawks and smiles and feet and all I do every day upon returning home is hold her and kiss on her. Do I want to continue being a music therapist full time in an awesome setting? You. Betcha. For me, balancing everything has come down to watching a whole lot less television, saying no to happy hours and the Dallas MS150, and saying yes to drool and pumping at work and seriously the best faces I've seen anyone make. Ever.

So just as I am learning to balance it, I am learning to balance and focus this blog so I know what to write about when I have nothing to write.

brewing.

I don't blame you if you're not following my blog any more - heck, I'm hardly following it any more. I've moved Adeline's stuff over to a different blog so if you know me and want the link and all the goodies, lemme know.

There's a post brewing here, I promise. It's just that I'm trying to focus the blog and thinking about privacy and all that.  But, I can't be the mom of a nearly 5-month-old and not have something to write about. Also, we're in the middle of a garden expansion so you best believe there will be some beautiful pics up here shortly.

what.

learned how to play "blackbird" on the guitar tonight after putting Adeline to bed.

ka-chow!

mommyville

phew! life, full beautiful painful wonderful life with a 3 month old is FULL and I've been busy living it instead of writing about it but now I'm sitting on the second hour of The Bachelor The Women Tell All and I feel like I can spend a couple brain cells here instead of melting in front of deliciously trashy television.

Things that have been going on - laughing, smiling, marveling, working, working, working, and a tiny bit of sleeping. It's kinda like being in college again, except way more awesome.

I don't know if I'm the only person noticing this but there's been a LOT of death around me lately. It seems to be on everyone's mind as of late - in getting ready for this past weekend's grief camp I was dreading every moment because I feel like I've been swimming in it...and then a local pastor at my coworker's church died suddenly a couple weeks ago, and then I heard that a friend's dad passed away suddenly, and then Jason Mraz's recent blog is all about a song he wrote about people and pets who have gone before....ugh. Thankfully, the day at camp really was wonderful and filled with laughing and helping others that it was incredibly healing for me. I know that's not why we're supposed to do what we do, and I didn't go into it expecting it, it was just a nice surprise.

For whatever reason becoming a mom has made me not only crazy grateful and in awe of life but also heartbroken at the messed up world we're in and really...aware...I guess...of the fragile nature of life. Maybe because there have been some mad tragic things that have happened in my family's life, and the mama hormones, I have been struggling with some anxiety and fear that seriously keep me up at night, second-guessing every step and decision. Any other moms out there experience the same thing? 'cos wow I'd really like to hear that I'm normal.