wildsunshine

Have you seen this article? It’s been circulating in my Facebook feed although it was written a few years back. And it’s awesome.

“The Disease of Being Busy.”

It makes me feel fortunate to have made friends and have close neighbors that share a common mindset when it comes to parenting:

We don’t over schedule.

We agree that kids need time to play and be supervised from afar (we all have kids under age 6). No helicopter parenting here.

We agree that we need to be outside getting messy as often as possible.

We agree that while school and sports and music lessons have their role in helping our kids become well rounded people, they should take a backseat in these early years.

Professor Safi, not only do you teach right down the street from me at Duke University (how ironic is that?), but you challenge an important stigma of which I often feel like I’m catapulting right toward the middle: the blackhole of elementary aged kids who are over scheduled, over-parented, and not allowed to just play.

It terrifies me because it’s everything I’ve worked hard not to do with my youngsters, yet I feel the pull of society calling me to enroll my oldest (4.5 years) in summer camp. Or preschool. Or a sport. She’s just 4.5!” says my inner voice. Let her be a child! She will have 13 years to be in school more hours than she plays, to be inside more than she is outside, and to endure waaaaaay more academic pressure than children should. Yet I still feel the lure of a society that values busy-ness and find myself wondering if I’m making the right choices.

Does anyone else feel societal pressure to conform to what the masses are doing? I fight it constantly and question if I’m doing what’s right for my family and my kids, and in the end my heart knows best.

You ask how is my heart? Right now it is often exhausted from being in full-time parent mode. But on this sunny morning it is joyous, because my colicky newborn is actually sleeping and my older kiddos are outside inventing games in mud puddles and picking blueberries. And that is exactly where they should be.

Welllllllllll maybe only 39, but who’s counting? Somewhere around 37 weeks I get really tired of being pregnant. I’ve lost all ability to be productive. I can’t sleep. I feel huge ALL the time. Even my maternity clothes stop fitting and I have to do laundry every 2 days. Oy! At least I forget all about these things in a few months and remember the good parts.

And the heat! In NC, March has been a heatwave. I mean days in the low 80s… which to me feels like 140 degrees.  I’m burning up. Good thing I’ve never had to endure a summer baby, I don’t think I’d survive.

How am I feeling these days? Let’s see, everything hurts as it stretches and gets ready for delivery (which is actually pretty amazing). There are approximately 1,000 things I want to be doing outside but cannot because they involve heavy lifting, shoveling, etc. I have two kids who have been sharing a room for 1.5 months and have yet to stop talking to one another before 9pm, so both are constantly sleep deprived and cranky. This mama is losing patience!

Yet through it all I’m trying hard to be aware that these are the last days to freely play outside, climb trees, and go hiking without the extra time to bundle a baby/change a diaper. At least for a little while 🙂 So I’m enjoying this time with my two littles as much as possible.

And we did manage to finally install our kitchen backsplash (more on that in a future post), so I can’t say I’ve been totally unproductive.

Gender: my guess is still a girl. Weight: 40lbs gained (5 lbs less than the other two at this point). Cravings: Salad and citrus. Can’t wait for: running again!

 

This is such a short anecdote, but I’m much better at typing things out than writing them down and I don’t want to forget the silly things!

We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner the other night. Sawyer didn’t finish all of his, and soon we got to goofing around with daddy in the other room. Sawyer disappears, comes back in and throws his last meatball at daddy’s head, then laughs hysterically. See this– this is his I’m gonna do something crazy look. Watch out!

Umm… how do I keep a straight face? Yeah, I didn’t. Neither did John. I think we eventually told him not to do it again. Gotta love a 2 year old!

Mom-of-the-year,

I love naming babies. But I find it’s so much easier to come up with names I love when I’m not pregnant. Throw an actual baby into the mix and suddenly those names are either vetoed by my traditional-minded hubby or I’m suddenly thinking there must be something better or more ideal out there.

Add to this that baby #3 is a surprise, and we now have to go in with two names. Yikes – me and my first world problems! We have our boy name picked. But for a girl, it’s a real toss up. I have always loved Larkin for a girl, although it seems a wildly unpopular name choice on the baby name forums. Hazel was in the top for a long time. Then there’s my love affair with Indiana/Indie. Even Wilder has been a frontrunner. And don’t forget about River, which was probably close to my #1 girls name before Kelly Clarkson used it.

Good thing we have ~7 weeks to go, since my guess is that this baby is a girl. Fortunately we have two potential family names to use as a middle name: Mathilda or Eleanor.

Anyone else only seem to struggle with girl names?

Long about this time every year, in the dead of winter, I start daydreaming.

• I dream of open fields of green grass and their fresh cut smell
• I dream of big blue skies instead of being surrounded by stark naked trees
• I dream of a cute white farmhouse — a slight downsize from our current home even though our family is still growing (tiny house junkie here)
• I dream of summer days splashing in hoses in bright sunshine followed by summer nights around a firepit with a sky full of stars
• I dream of soft sounds of a horse, a few goats, and enough chickens to feed our weekly 4-5 dozen egg consumption.
• I dream of rows of grapevines and the smell of fermenting grapes as we stomp bucket after bucket full, ready to embark on the fine craft of winemaking on a larger scale.
• I even dream of the smell of manure.

I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I grew up near many. I lived an unplugged childhood, running through grass and catching bugs. Don’t get me wrong, we live in a great house in the best neighborhood. But I still dream about open fields and a smalll farm. Maybe someday…

Am I the only one with these winter daydreams? 

PS: maybe the fact that I’m 34 weeks along has something to do with it. Wowzers! Time needs to slow down!

The other day as I stood in the kitchen making lunch for the fam, I made a fairly large pasta bowl of pimiento cheese (hubby was home… he can devour some pimiento cheese). I set it on the table and went on getting the rest of lunch ready. When I turned back around, the 2 year old had climbed onto the table, was on all fours, head in the pimiento cheese bowl, LICKING IT with pure happiness.

I stood there in awe. “Sawyer! What are you doing? You’re not a cat!” (we do have a stubborn white cat who is forever contaminating unattended food bowls).

Sawyer looked up at me with a grin and said…. “meow.”

Ever since Pippa started eating solid foods, we’ve been casual followers of the Paleo and WAPF nutrition guidelines. I say casual because we do occasionally eat beans out of the can, rice, and we do eat dairy (although we do keep our dairy to yogurt/cheese/kefir, i.e. the fermented set). Knowing we would love to have a third child I made sure to eat extremely healthy last spring and summer. And here I am in the third trimester, yet again trying to give a sh*t about what I eat because… I’m hungry. ALL the time. And I want carbs. Bread. Cake. Rice Krispy treats. All the stuff I know will not grow a healthy baby.

At least we abide by eating a lot of meat and after purchasing a quarter cow last summer, we still have a good supply of grass feed beef in the freezer. In the words of my kids “we love MEAT.”

I also have never been pregnant in the winter when it’s hard to make it outside with a 2 and 4 year old. So my instinct is to eat. And hibernate. We spend 15 minutes getting ready for 10 minutes outside before they are cold. And another 10 minutes getting undressed and putting our winter gear away. Then I’m ready for a nap.

33 weeks preggers y’all.

So what have we been eating?

• lots of soup with bone broths
• stew beef in the crockpot
• almond butter stuffed dates
• dark dove chocolate (it’s my vice, can’t help it)
• apples and cheese
• paleo crepes (I make these almost daily at quite time in our house so I can eat an entire plate in peace)

Thanks for letting me vent. And sorry about the lack of photos. We just got a new computer, a Mac (and I am SO excited for the photo editing opportunities!) but am still in the process of moving photos and learning the ropes. I promise, more photos coming soon!