Lessons from My Daughter: The Honesty of Baby Speak

My little girl turned three months old today.

She is smiling and laughing and cooing at everything and everyone. (I was especially pleased when I brought her into the office and she smiled at my boss. Brownie Points! )

Her babbles, grunts and coos are filled with more emotion than I ever thought possible. She delights in our “conversations” as she tells me her story. And, of course her laughs are full of genuine happiness.

And just as she is discovering happiness and delight, she is also discovering frustration. Her eyes are now beginning to form tears that pool in her big blue eyes. Her mouth pouts in the most heartbreakingly comical way. Her cries, now much louder, are becoming more dynamic in tone and pitch.

Perhaps I can credit my fascination with her developing personality as a symptom of new parenthood, and I will admit that I often image the conversations we will have in the not too distant further.However, tonight I found myself amazed by the genuineness, the authenticity of her young self. She wears her emotions for all to see and she is not afraid to let anyone see her frustrations in not wanting to fall asleep or her happiness of a new smiling.

In my own life, I have often remained very guarded as I weigh the repercussions of honesty. The intimacy of anger, the fear of happiness, the awkwardness of frustration keeps me from sharing those soft personal emotions.

It is with her that I share the goofiness of love and laughter. It is because of her that I am more comfortable with those awkward emotions. Her innocence has taught me to be more honest.

Imagine if we all gave in to baby speak?

Advertisement

Does Gen Y Send Xmas Cards?

Have we lost the art of letter writing?

The day after Christmas, I received two Christmas cards in the mail. Both writers wished my new family a merry holiday and one elaborated briefly on the happenings of her life. This was the first year I have received Christmas cards in the mail and to be honest, I was a little surprised to find them in my mailbox.Christmas Cards

In our high speed lifestyles, is there time to send holiday greetings? Or do we succumb to sharing holiday memes on Facebook?

In my English classes, we read the letters to and from the writers we were studying in addition to their works. These letters not only gave us insight into their day-to-day lives, but the world in which they lived. This insight could be then applied to better understanding their works. We cannot truly understand Pride and Prejudice without understand the world of Jane Austen.

In 2014, we share our thoughts through Facebook status updates, and 140 character Twitter tweets and text messages. We send private messages and emails. We read our news online. We are dependent on technology to communicate.

Will sending holiday greeting cards become as antiquated as holiday fruit cakes and yule logs?

The Twelve Ways that Christmas Scares Me

Okay. J.C’s celebrated birthday doesn’t actually scare me. It’s just a day, right? As an introvert, the holidays are especially draining. Add a new baby into the mix, and the winter holiday seasons becomes the most stressful time of the year.

1. Winter Dealing: In New England, it is a fact that you will have to drive everywhere. It is also a fact that you are expected to drive in all types of horrible weather. Now, many of wear our badges of snowstorm driving with pride, but navigating snow-covered roads with a baby in the car adds a whole other level of stress.

2. Holiday Music Listening: This is left over from my years in retail. Now I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy some instrumental renditions of traditional tunes, but I’m pretty sure that anyone who has ever worked in retail gets a little tired of “Wonderful Christmastime.”

100_0151
These are decoration that I put up last year.

3. Lifetime Holiday Specials Watching: Alright, I’ve fallen victim to watching quite a few Lifetime Holiday Specials. No one’s holiday ends up like that.

4. Holiday Decorating: To be honest, I did not decorate this year. Why? I have a not-quite two-month old and a cat who nibbles on everything and I have classwork and job searching. If I did put up decorations, they would probably stay up until I spring clean.

5. Food Shopping: I live near two grocery stores. Both are competitively priced, but one does usually end up being lower then the other. Because I made the mistake of waiting until Christmas Eve to get groceries, I went to the more expensive store in order to maintain my sanity and avoid the hordes of last minute shoppers at the other store.

6. Gift Buying: This is my least favorite part of Christmas. I never know what to buy people, not to mention the crowds of holiday shoppers at every mall, department store, Target, etc.

7. Present Opening: This goes hand-in-hand with Gift Buying. Not a fan of the fake thank you.

8. Holiday Crafting: I love when people post Pinterest Fails because I am one of those people. I’ve had a few successes, but it usually comes down to my own craftiness and it never looks as good as the image.

9. Facebook Posting: I read something somewhere about how Facebook encourages a distorted view of reality and perfection because we only post what we want our “friends” to see. I think the holidays further this distortion. No one’s family is that perfect.

10. Holiday Baking: How many different types of cookies are there? Two. The yummy, perfectly sweet treats that make you forget you are on a diet and the ones you buy at the store. Now, do you have hours to commit to baking those wonderful holiday treats or will a batch from the bakery at the grocery store suffice?

11. Holiday Cooking: How many hours did we agonize over what to serve for our holiday dinners? Too many!

12. Family Gathering: Bring out the Festivus Pole for the annual “Airing of Grievances”!

Happy Holidays from My Life as a New England Townie!

Detoxing: Removing the “Busy” From My Life

It took me eight weeks to truly embrace being a stay-at-home mom. To be honest, I’m not sure if I can completely embraced the idea yet, but I am miles beyond where I was two months ago.

Like I’ve indicated within some of my posts, I was a bit of a workaholic. Not only did I enjoy working for pay, but I also enjoyed volunteering in my community. I looked for opportunities where I could positively impact the world around me and dedicated hours that could go to sleeping, relaxing, dreaming, to that cause. I loved projects. I loved late nights and early mornings. I loved to be busy.

In American culture, we often discuss the glorification of “busy.” How many activities can we add to our week? How many hours can we squeeze into our already work-driven lives? What is the impact of this “busy”-ness on our psyche, our health, our relationships?

I’ve always imagined myself to be a writer. As a child, I enjoyed writing short stories that featured my favorite Barbie doll, created an imaginary situation or emulated a recent movie, book or TV show. However, as an adult, I found that I had less and less energy and focus to write. Beyond some scribes in a notebook or a haphazard thought before I fell asleep, all aspirations of “becoming” a writer fell to the wayside. My hourly wage was more than I could make as a young writer.

Before I knew it, I fell into the “busy” lifestyle.

It took my pregnancy for me to realize that I was running at an unsustainable level. I worked two jobs, applied to graduate programs, developed a community band for my hometown’s anniversary celebration. Forget writing. I could barely stay awake to play a video game or watch TV with my boyfriend.

It became my intention to “detox” the “busy” from my life. I completed my projects, reduced my workload and tried to ease into stay-at-home motherhood. I still had great aspirations for my time at home. I planned to clean, remove the clutter that had accumulated, finish some projects, sell old textbooks online, etc. I planned to write and I enrolled in an online master’s program.

After my daughter was born, I quickly realized that it would be much more difficult to complete whatever tasks I thought I would be accomplish while being constantly distracted by the adorable changes in my growing little girl. The clutter remains. Laundry is only done when absolutely necessary. Books remain on the bookshelf and I have finally started writing again.

Despite the fact that I am still enrolled and currently excelling in the one class I am taking, I’ve realized that I did glorify the “busy” lifestyle. I now tell people who ask me when I will complete my program that I am in no rush to finish it early. Again, to be honest, taking a master’s level online course is much more difficult with a little baby than I had anticipated.

I look back on these last eight weeks and I realized that I removed a substantial stress from my life. I move a lot slower now and take real care for my family’s well-being. I find myself embracing the new moment to moment movement of my life. My life now has a sense of fluidity that I have never adopted so eagerly before now.

*These are just my thoughts on my experiences. I know that many parents need to balance work and family. Props to those to do it and do it well.