In case you missed it on social media, let me introduce you to the newest member of our family, Theodore "Teddy" Starr Vaneria (more pics at the bottom of this post)!

He was born on Friday, July 12th at 3:17am, weighing 8 lbs 10.3 oz. and measuring 21" tall. We brought him home on Sunday, July 14th and are all [obviously] COMPLETELY in love with him--especially his big sister, who cannot stop hugging and kissing him every chance she gets. 

As promised--and because I love reading other people's birth stories--I wanted to share Teddy's birth story before I start to forget all of the important details. As a quick summary for those who don't want to read the novel that follows, I'll just say that this birth was the exact opposite of Charlie Mae's traumatic birth (which you can read about here). I left this birth experience feeling strong, empowered, and healed, for which I am so grateful.

You can read all of the nitty gritty details below: 

On the week of Teddy's birth, starting on Monday night, I started having period-like cramps. In fact, the cramping that I felt on Monday night was intense enough that I started to wonder if it was the beginning of labor; when I went into labor with Charlie Mae it started as cramps just like these, so I thought the same thing might be happening again with Teddy. But as the week wore on, the cramps continued with no sign of real labor, so I stopped reading into them.

Then on Thursday, July 11th, Charlie Mae and I were out on our usual morning walk when I started to feel the cramps more intensely. We got home from our walk and went to the grocery store. As we walked around Whole Foods, I found myself slowing down and holding my belly with each cramp, and thought that perhaps I should start timing them when I got home, just to see if they were somewhat regular. 

When we got home around 11:30am, I used the app on my phone to time the cramps and sure enough, they were somewhat regular, each between about 5-10 mins apart. I kept paying attention to them throughout the next few hours and when Ben got home around 1:30, I told him that I might be in the beginning stages of labor. At these words he got bug-eyed and crazy looking (haha!), and I told him not to freak out (LOL) but to start preparing as if I was going to go into labor that night, just in case. 

Over the next few hours as Charlie Mae napped, we slowly packed up, cleared the beach stuff out of the trunk of my car, called Ben's mom to ask her to come sleep over, and prepared ourselves for a nighttime labor, just in case. The contractions continued to intensify and become more and more regular slowly throughout the day, and around 5pm we went for a family walk during which I started to feel them even more and had to start walking much slower than usual. 

We had dinner as a family (I ate a big meal in case it would be my last for a while), I put Charlie Mae to bed--bending over her crib to have a few intense contractions while I did so--and then Ben and I came to the conclusion that this was the real deal, so we should try and go to bed early in an attempt to get some rest before things got serious. I called my midwives and alerted my doula that I was in the beginning stages of labor and would probably be coming in sometime in the next 12-ish hours, and then we climbed into bed. 

But silly me! To think I could sleep through these contractions! By 9pm they were intense enough that with each contraction I had to jump out of bed, lean over the bed, move my hips, and moan. I was having back labor again (which happened during my entire labor with Charlie Mae) and the contractions were STRONG. I eventually moved into the nursery so Ben could sleep and labored on my own, each contraction more and more sensational than the last (and stronger than I thought they should be at this time). 

Around midnight I called the midwife again and asked her what she thought I should do about coming in. I was set on laboring at home as long as possible, but also had a 25-min drive to the hospital so was worried about having these intense contractions in the car and about making it in time. 

I should also pause to mention that I was positive for Group B Strep this time around. For those who don't know, GBS is a bacteria that can live in the vagina of 25% of healthy women and doesn't affect the woman, but can be transmitted to the baby during labor and if it is transmitted, can be dangerous. It's really not an issue if the mom gets intravenous antibiotics every 4 hours during labor, but it is important to get these antibiotics to protect your baby, so that made it important that I get to the hospital in time to get those antibiotics in me before I had the babe. 

SO...when I called my midwife and she could hear how intense things had gotten, she told me I should come in--especially because I needed to get the antibiotics. I woke Ben up, said let's hit the road, and we did. 

<OH MAN THAT DRIVE TO THE HOSPITAL!!!!>

On the 25-minute drive, I had about 6 or 7 contractions. Taking them sitting down was miserable; we had all of the windows down and I was just throwing back my head and moaning like a wild animal. In fact, if there's one theme to Teddy's labor and birth, it's that I turned into the most raw, primal, animalistic version of a person that could ever exist--I was only tapped into the sensations in my body and didn't care AT ALL about anything else happening around me. 

We got to the hospital around 12:45 or 1am, walked to the maternity unit (I was offered a wheelchair but DID NOT want to sit again), and were immediately escorted into the tub room, which is the room I had requested when we called. My midwife came in and checked me and said I was at 5 or 6 cm dilated, so she was glad I came in. They hooked me up to a fetal monitoring device in order to get a "20 minute strip" on the baby's activity and started getting me set up for IV antibiotics while I continued to labor leaning over the bed. 

The next little while was spent trying my best to get through my crazy contractions while they did the intake basics and got what they needed from me. All I wanted to do was get in the tub and get some relief, but they had to fill it (which takes FOREVER) and get the stats on the babe in my belly, which was hard because I kept moving to get through the contractions, which would knock the monitor out of place, which would then lead to the nurse having to move it again to get a read and thus, made it take a lot longer. 

As I labored on the bed (now on hands and knees) waiting for the tub to fill and the fetal monitoring to be over, my water broke and things started to get even more intense. A little after this I was checked again and pronounced to be around 9cm (so those last 3-4 cm happened in just an hour or so), but I was not fully effaced yet (there was just one tiny part of my cervix left) so I was told we had a little more to go before I could start to push.

This same thing happened when I was in labor with Charlie Mae and I was told to push too early, which is thought to be one of the main reasons that things started to go in the wrong direction, so I was very nervous about pushing too early again and took their advice. 

At some point around this same time the tub was finally ready and I was allowed to get in, which was a GAME-CHANGER. Getting in the tub gave me the tiny bit of relief that I needed in order to get through the last 30 minutes or so of contractions before I had to get out and push.

While I was in the tub I had my "bloody show" (ugh I hate that term!) and everyone told me not to worry, that this meant things were about to happen. Right after this, I started getting the urge to push with each contraction. I had just been checked and had been told that I wasn't totally effaced yet, so everyone told me to hold off on pushing. This was SO crazy hard because I felt like I no longer had any control over my body, but I didn't actively push any harder than my body was doing on it's own with each contraction.

My time spent laboring in the tub was marked by loud noises (I kept having to be reminded to keep them low and deep, and tried to do this by saying "opppeeeennn" in a low, loud voice, encouraging my body to open), but the sensations were so intense that this was very hard.

While I was in the tub my amazing doula arrived (things had gone so fast that although she left home as soon as we got to the hospital, she didn't get there until the very end of my labor) and she started helping me with the back labor by taking over for Ben, who was applying counter-pressure on my back with each contraction and saying very encouraging things to me. Her presence had an immediate calming effect and definitely made me feel even more confident in my ability to get through this. 

As my urges to push got stronger and stronger and I started yelling "I'm pushing!" with each contraction, they told me to get out of the tub so I could be checked once more and so that I could push if it was time (we had decided before labor that I would push on either hands and knees or on my side so that my risk of tearing would be lower, considering I had an episiotomy and 4th degree tear when I had Charlie Mae).

Thus, I got out of the tub (INTENSE!), got up onto the bed (INTENSE!), and my midwife checked me again (INTENSE!). The good news? I was ready to push! The bad news? Teddy's heart rate was dropping with each contraction so they wanted me to try and push him out quickly. 

And that's just what we did! I got on my side holding a leg up and my birth team guided me through how to push with each contraction. They were extremely encouraging and somehow--although it felt impossible at the time--I pushed him out in about 5-7 pushes (not sure exactly how many). At one point they even had me reach down and feel his head, which was both encouraging ("he's coming!") and discouraging ("he's nowhere near out yet!)". 

When Teddy came into the world, I felt an immediate flood of relief. Physically, it was a high like no other because the pain was finally gone. They put him on my belly--his cord was short so he didn't reach all the way up onto my chest--and then for a few seconds, things got scary: he was floppy and purple and wasn't crying. I started screaming "Why isn't he crying?" and the nurses quickly cut the cord and whisked him across the room. They sucked some fluid out of his nose and mouth and gave him some pats and he started crying and all was well, but in those 5-10 seconds when he wasn't moving or making any noises, I was completely panicked. Ben had to leave and go into the bathroom because he thought he was going to faint. But as soon as Teddy was aware and crying, they brought him back over to me and laid him on my chest. Once I knew he was okay, I felt complete. 

We were later told that because I had pushed him out so quickly, he may have just been stunned (or his lungs might not have been compressed for as long as usual) and just needed second to get acclimated to the world outside. But whatever the case, that one scary moment did not cloud the experience as a whole because otherwise, it was all pretty incredible. 

Once Teddy was on my chest and we started introducing him to breastfeeding for the first time, I was able to push out the placenta and was then given a bit of pitocin to help with the bleeding. I was then stitched up (I had a 2nd degree tear--WAY better than last time!) and we were done except for the excruciating contractions that came with breastfeeding and the uterus massages that I was given every once in a while to help my uterus return to it's normal size. 

Within an hour, everyone was gone, the lights were low, my birth playlist was still playing softly, Ben was asleep in a rocking chair next to my bed, and Teddy was nursing on my chest. It was just me and my doula, Lindsay, who hung around for a little longer and then left so we could rest and have some time as a family. Of course I couldn't sleep until way later in the day because I was so hyped up on adrenaline and oxytocin and pure LOVE.

For the next few days as we recovered, I just couldn't believe what had happened: how quickly Teddy came into the world, how raw + unfiltered the experience was, how strong I felt after doing what I had hoped to do. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done and yet I had done it and now I had a beautiful baby in my arms. It felt like a miracle (and still does, 10 days later). 

So there you go. I think I'll close this novel here and talk more about the postpartum experience (thus far) in a future post, but I just want to say thank you AGAIN to all of you who encouraged me to try for the birth I wanted this second time around. It was so helpful to hear all of your positive second birth experiences and recommendations on resources, tools, etc. I am so thankful for your support and so thankful for this experience. 

Here are a few more pics of Teddy/the fam for those who missed them on Instagram!

If there's one lesson in parenting that life continues to hit me over the head with, it's this: your expectations are always wrong (yes, I have written about this subject before). Nothing big will ever go as planned--at least not when your child is involved.

You think an event is going to be hard for your kid? You're wrong, it ends up being easy! You think something's going to be a piece of cake? Surprise, IT'S GOING TO BE THE WORST THING YOU'VE EVER DONE. You're not sure what will happen but are hoping for the best? Life will throw you a curveball that you never saw coming and you'll get hit right in the noggin.

And here's the other thing: even when you know that nothing will ever go as planned or as hoped, you, the parent, are still royally disappointed when they don't because--despite the odds--you held onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, they would work out as imagined in your dreams *just this once.* 

Take my brother Patrick's wedding this past weekend as an example:

Months ago, Patrick and his now-wife Caitlin asked Charlie Mae to be their flower girl. We all had adorable visions of her walking nervously down the aisle in her little white dress, dropping flowers as she went. We all know that she hates strangers, crowds, and people looking at her, but we thought that if we got her amped up enough and she understood the logistics--that her dad would be walking her down the aisle and I would be at the end of the aisle (where I would be serving as a "groomswoman") to greet her--she could do it. 

So, in the months leading up to their wedding we [read: I] searched for and bought her the perfect flower girl dress for the wedding, pink shoes with bows on them, pink tights, and a little floral crown for her head. She got her first haircut so that it would look a little cleaner for the wedding, and we talked up her job and "practiced" walking around the house in her outfit. She was pumped and excited. So was I. 

On the day before the wedding, we opted to skip her afternoon nap so that she could go to the venue for the rehearsal and practice her role. We wanted her to be as comfortable as possible with the space and the people in the wedding party. She had fun at the venue and afterward, kept asking when we would go to the wedding. She was ready. 

On the big day, I left Ben, Charlie Mae, and Ben's mom (who we brought along as our "babysitter" so that we could enjoy the wedding weekend--game changer!) around 11am to go join the bridesmaids for hair, makeup, pictures, etc. I wouldn't see Charlie Mae again until she showed up for pictures, all dressed up. That made me anxious but I did my best to let go. 

I got news via text that she didn't sleep during her usual nap time, so was prepared for a tired toddler at the 5:30pm wedding. But when she arrived for pictures she was in good spirits and seemed excited, so I got my hopes up again. She was ADORABLE in her outfit and besides being totally against taking any pictures with me (argh...see pic above), I felt like she was going to do a good job as flower girl. 

After pictures, I separated from them again to go be a part of the bridesmaid crew and prepare for the ceremony. As we were touching-up our make-up I got a text from Ben: "We need you down here NOW. Charlie Mae is having a meltdown." I ran to the elevator and made my way down. When I got to the lobby, I was greeted by a red-faced, snot-covered toddler who was wailing at the top of her lungs. The breakdown was happening and the ceremony was 10 mins from starting. 

Charlie Mae--ever sensitive to men and people she doesn't know--had been scared by a couple of people getting too close to her and saying 'hello' right in her face. They didn't mean any harm, but the harm was done nonetheless. I wasn't there to protect her from people who made her "nervous" like I usually do and because of this, she was horrified. 

I took her in my arms as she wailed that she was "scared" and wanted to go home. I tried to comfort her. I took her to a corner where there was no one around and tried to get her to calm down but it wasn't happening. She was overtired and past the point of return. There was no recovering. As I tried once more to give her a pep talk and get her ready for the ceremony, I was called away because I had to walk down the aisle. I handed her, screaming, to Ben, and ran to my place in line. It was horrible. 

A few minutes later, I had taken my place at the altar with the rest of the wedding party and was waiting to see what would happen when it was Charlie Mae's turn to come out. 

When it was, Ben emerged from the back of the room, carrying a snotty (but for the moment, quiet) Charlie Mae on his chest, clinging to him tightly with a sad look on her face. He walked down the aisle with her in his arms and when she saw me, she reached for me. Not knowing what else to do and wanting to keep her quiet, I took her, while standing at the front of the room in front of all of the wedding attendees. 

But as soon as she was in my arms, she started whimpering loudly. I had to leave my spot and rush back over to Ben, who had just taken his seat, and hand her to him [crying, of course] while he rushed her out of the room and the bride walked down the aisle. 

I was crushed. I wanted to be present but I could hear her wailing far away. I hated that she [we] had been a distraction from the main event. I had to force myself to turn my attention back to the ceremony and stop obsessing over what had just happened--while knowing that my child was sobbing in a back room wanting me because she was scared. It was SO sad. 

In the end, Ben and his mom were able to calm her down (thanks, Elmo videos on YouTube!) and I was able to refocus on the BEAUTIFUL ceremony and be present for the special moment. I soaked it in and cried tears of joy as they recited their personalized vows. Ben drove his mom and Charlie Mae home and returned to the wedding. Everything was fine and obviously everyone understood, but I was left reeling. 

How could this have happened? How could I have prevented it? How could I have failed to get a SINGLE picture of her standing in her adorable outfit before the meltdown? Whyyyyyy??

But really, I know the reason: because when you're a parent (and really, when you're a human being in general), things don't go as planned. Because you expect one thing and then another thing happens. Because being a parent and a person and a sister and a bridesmaid/groomswoman all at once is probably going to lead to a little bit of craziness.

And I guess I'm at the point as a mother where I'm realizing that this is one of my biggest lessons to learn. I HAVE to learn to let go of my expectations. I HAVE to learn to go with the flow and let go. I have been working on these things all of my life but it's coming to the point where I have no choice but to learn these lessons or continue to feel confused, disappointed, and distracted when things go wrong. Which they will. Often. 

Fellow parents, are you with me? Please tell me I'm not the only one... 

The image above was taken on August 12th, just over 2 months ago. I was 10 weeks along and felt like my belly had just started to pop; this being my 2nd pregnancy, my uterus knew what was up and had started to expand immediately. I was over the moon, feeling great, and excited to hear my baby's heartbeat at my 10 week appointment in just a few days.

Needless to say, I didn't ever hear my baby's heartbeat. What I didn't know when this picture was [excitedly] taken was that my baby's heart had already stopped beating. Our baby had stopped growing at 8 weeks, but was still nestled inside of my uterus while I--oblivious to this fact--snapped pictures meant to capture what I thought was my growing belly. 

Within a few days of this picture being taken, after the appointment where my midwife couldn't find the heartbeat with the doppler, after the excruciating 24 hours in which I waited for the ultrasound that would tell us what was happening inside my body, after the heartbreaking 10 minutes lying on a table in the dark, watching the ultrasound tech move her wand around my belly without saying a word--and knowing what her silence meant--we'd scheduled a D&C, a surgical procedure that would remove our deceased baby from my belly. 

It was horrible. It felt like a nightmare. I couldn't stop crying and I felt like it was my fault. All of the cliches about the emotions associated with pregnancy loss are cliches for a reason: I felt all of those things. 

While some women say that it wasn't helpful for them to hear how common pregnancy loss is, I found it very helpful. I took comfort in the statistics that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss. Not because I wanted this for other people, but because if it was extremely common, then maybe that didn't make it my fault. Maybe my baby really wasn't going to be able to survive in this world and that's why it stopped growing, not because I took an ibuprofen long before I knew I was pregnant, or demonstrated a deep twist in one of my classes when I was just a few weeks along.

And I took comfort in all of the female family members who called to tell me that this had happened to them in the past, too, in between child 1 and 2, or child 2 and 3. It gave me hope that I would be able to go on and have another healthy baby someday, too. 

The thing about pregnancy loss is that you're not just mourning the loss of this child that you were growing in your belly and are no longer going to get to meet, but you're also mourning the life plans that you had set up around this baby's impending arrival.

Ben and I had started planning what our maternity and paternity leaves would look like. We knew what the rough age difference between our two kids would be and imagined Charlie Mae having a playmate sooner rather than later. We had a hazy outline of how the beginning of 2019 would go; after all, if we were having a baby in March, that would change the year in a big way. 

But then in just 24 hours, we'd lost all of that "stability." We knew our plans weren't really stable in the first place, but we'd hoped that they could be and had talked things out because that's what you do. We'd done this before and it had gone smoothly (the pregnancy part, not the child birth or child raising part, ha!) so we had just gone ahead with our life, planning around this big event as if it would happen for us again. 

And then out of nowhere, it ended. And we had to deal with that. 

I will say that in my personal experience, I felt that our loss was made easier because we already have Charlie Mae. I was able to look at her and hug her and not only feel enormous gratitude that I already had a healthy, wonderful child, but also be reminded that my body had done this before and that hopefully, that means it can do it again. 

I was also acutely aware, during all of this, of just how difficult it must be to suffer multiple losses, one after another, while hoping for a child. Or to be someone who can't get pregnant at all and wants to. It's all so devastating and complicated and just plain sad. So much sadness.

But then you have to wake up and go on with your day: you get up early and get your child ready, you take her to the park, you respond to emails, you eat lunch, you teach a yoga class, you scroll through your phone, you go to the grocery store.

No one knows that you've just been dealt a big blow and you don't tell them because you don't want to talk about it, but you carry it around, feeling empty inside when you felt so full only one week ago. 

And then you keep waking up and going through your days and dealing with life and the sadness starts to fade. At one point you think, 'I won't be able to talk about this publicly for a long time' and then only a little while later, you realize that it's National Pregnancy + Infant Loss Awareness Month, and you see everyone else sharing their stories of loss and you're surprised to find that you're ready to talk about your loss, too. If nothing else than to tell that woman who is scrolling through her phone while in bed, recovering from a miscarriage or another loss, that she is not alone, that you understand, and that you're sorry. 

You're so, so sorry. 

We've all heard the saying "the days are long but the years are short," and while I get the sentiment (I really do!), I have to disagree. I think the days are short and the years are short--it's all so short and fast and it's just such a wild ride!

As we celebrated Charlie Mae's 2nd birthday this past weekend, I was floating somewhere between total amazement at my little kid (because she really seems like a little kid now!) and wondering where the heck my baby went. I don't want to spend Charlie Mae's childhood posting pictures of her looking grown up with the crying emoji (x10) beneath them, but I see why we do this because it is all so emotional and it feels so fleeting.

So, moving forward, I'm going to try my best to celebrate Charlie Mae's growth and who she is becoming as she gets older, instead of mourning the precious days that are already in the past. 

Thus, today's post is a celebration of the the celebration that we had for 2-year old Charlie Mae this past weekend. We loved setting aside some time to acknowledge who she is at this point in time: a fun, adorable, strong-willed, sweet, opinionated, sensitive, and funny little soul.

We kept her sheep-themed party small with just family this year (probably the last year we can get away with having just family!) and I tried my best to keep my decorating/themed-party urges in check so I wouldn't lose my mind getting ready for the simple get-together. Here are a few fun snapshots from the party!

(Oh, and I know the food tables look pretty lame in these pics, but I never got a chance to take pics once the feast was laid out ;) 

This girl = 100% down with the birthday hype now. She gets it. She was ALL IN on the presents, cake, ice cream, singing, and attention. She's already excited about the next family birthday party and the presents she's going to get on our trip to GA this week!

Which brings me to my next note: there will be no #SJOTW this Friday because we'll be in GA to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday (!!!!). We'll be back in town next week and I'll get back to it then.

Have a great week + a great Labor Day! 

{Images above: the adorable little reason for the following...}
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Last week, I did laundry on Monday. I carried the basket of clean clothes upstairs in between things and dumped it out on the bed so I could fold it later. At bedtime, I went upstairs and found our bed covered with clean clothes. So I scooped them up and put them all back in the basket, put the basket on the floor, and got into bed.

The next day after hastily pulling the comforter over the bed to make a "clean" flat surface, I dumped all of the clothes back on the bed to be folded. That night, when I went to get into bed, I once again scooped up the unfolded clothes and shoved them back into the basket.

You would think I would learn, but this happened on Wednesday, too. 

I finally folded the clothes on Thursday. 

--

In late December, I ran out of contact lenses. The first appointment I could get that would be covered by my insurance was in early March, so I decided I would go without contacts until March and then get new ones.

When the day of my March appointment rolled around, we had a huge snowstorm and the Eye Doctor's office called to tell me that they were closed and would call me back to reschedule after the storm. I missed their follow-up call the next week and still haven't called them back to reschedule.

I've been without contacts for over 7 months.

The other day I looked out the window at the fuzzy leaves on the tree across the street and remembered my missed appointment and the fact that I used to wear contacts.

Then I thought, hmmmm...maybe I don't need contacts, after all!?

--

A few months ago, Charlie Mae was having a blast sitting in the driver's seat of my car, pushing all of the buttons on the dashboard (as you do). The next time that I turned my car on, I found that the radio settings had somehow been changed so that sound only comes out of the back speakers.

I have no idea how to fix this and no time to look up how to fix it so for weeks now, when driving around, I have to decide if I want to listen to music that is just a tiny buzzing from the backseat or drive in silence.

I mostly drive in silence [for longer rides I put on my headphones and listen to a podcast. Duh.] 

--

The debris in our garage--the Elephant Graveyard of our household for the past two years--has been building and building. This past weekend I finally couldn't take it anymore so I started cleaning it out with about 15 minutes until the lunchtime/naptime routine and while in charge of Charlie Mae (not my most productive time of the day).

We don't really drink beer around here, so every time we've hosted a cookout and had leftover beer, we've stowed the unused cans in the garage, leaving us with a garage floor littered with little clusters of half-used 12-packs (again, #ElephantGraveyard).

As a part of my quick cleaning job, I decided to start rounding up the beers, stacking them all up on a shelf. When Charlie Mae saw what I was doing she was overjoyed to see a job she could help me with.

One by one she would bring me a dirty, spiderweb and who-know-what-else-covered beer can and say, "'Nother seltzer mommy???"

--

During a snowstorm in February or March, the rubber padding on my back windshield wiper came off, rendering my back windshield wiper unusable. I've been without a back windshield wiper ever since. 

--

It's really easy to let the burden of all of these little things (and there are OH SO MANY more where these come from) get me down. But every time that my mind starts to go down the "undone" rabbithole (which I've talked about here before), I just have to remind myself that I am raising a special little human being right now; that every unfixed windshield wiper, dusty garage floor "seltzer," and silent car ride is worth it.

Charlie Mae won't remember whether or not the clothes went unfolded for a week or whether or not I could see with my eyes (HAHAHA), but she will remember the quality time we spent together dancing to Hokey Pokey in the kitchen (actually, she probably won't remember that because she's so young but you understand the sentiment). 

And as annoying as all of these undone tasks are, in a weird way, they're also a reminder that my priorities are in the right place right now. And that we're not "failing at life," as Ben keeps saying when he remembers something we've let fall through the cracks (Ben...), but that we're doing our very best and that's all we can do.

At least that's what I keep telling myself. Over and over again. 

But I should probably get my eyes checked and contacts reordered, huh? 

I was listening to an episode of the On Being podcast yesterday (this one--it's definitely worth a listen!) and the host, Krista Tippett, said, "Children teach us that love in it's purest form is a kind of service." When I heard her say this, I immediately pressed pause to jot it down.

Let me repeat it for you: Children teach us that love in it's purest form is a kind of service.

In one quick sentence, this quote distilled motherhood for me in a way that I had never heard it distilled before--love as service, love that is so strong that you would do (and do do) everything for that person. And not necessarily in a sacrificial or selfless way (although it can be in that way, too), but because you want to. 

This kind of service-based love is new for me. Maybe because before becoming a mother, I was never a super service-oriented person (or should I just say, because I was very selfish with my time and energy?). I've never had to be the primary caretaker of a sick or disabled family member or friend, I've never volunteered long-term in one particular area of service, I've never had a job as a caretaker, and besides Sayde, I'd never had another being rely on me for survival. 

But now that I'm a mom, I really do see that pure love is a kind of service.

​I want to give Charlie Mae everything she could ever need. I don't because I can't (and because I know that ultimately, that wouldn't be good for her), but I am "at her service" and I actually enjoy it (not all the time, of course, but most of the time). It feels good to think about someone else, to be pulled out of my brain and out of the endless loops of my monkey mind, and instead, be forced into the present moment by a toddler who needs me and needs me NOW.

It also feels good to love someone SO much that I want to do things for her that I don't particularly enjoy. It's nice to love someone so much that when I find a booger on her leg, I pick it off without even thinking about it--and then it gets stuck on my finger in public and I can't get it off and there are no tissues in sight but I'm still not grossed out (ha!). It's a relief to take care of her and know that I'm doing something important even if it only looks like I'm sitting in the grass in the back yard playing with weeds. 

After I heard this quote about having children I called Ben and read it to him. I said to him, "We need to remember this--that love in it's purest form is a kind of service--and do more for each other. Because it's true, when someone does things for you it makes you feel more loved and doing someone for someone else is a tangible act of love." 

I think this is the part of love that I often forget about. I know love is a feeling and an emotion and that it's really powerful. I know that when it's the healthy kind of love, love motivates and dictates and inspires. But I often forget that love is a kind of service.

It's a choice to take care of someone else and to be there for them even when you don't necessarily want to be. That's what makes true, long-term love so hard but also makes it so special. And that's what motherhood has taught me without my even realizing it until now: in it's purest form, love is a kind of service. 

I am so grateful that I get to serve Charlie Mae as her mother. 

Last week's post about being the Household Manager said a lot about Ben and most of it wasn't positive, per se. I know that despite my stating (twice) that the post wasn't meant to be a bitchfest about Ben, some people just skimmed it and decided that it was, in fact, just a bitchfest about Ben.

Ben even said that he had two people ask him "if everything was okay" between us, despite my saying the following in the first few paragraphs of the post:  

Before I go any further into my own experience with this frustrating subject, I should say that this post is not a critique of Ben at all. Ben is an amazing father and husband; he carries quite a mental load himself and does a lot around our house: he cooks all of our dinners, he does almost all of our grocery shopping, he pays all of our bills and maintains our yard, he does his own laundry. Three nights per week, he comes home from work and immediately handles all evening Charlie Mae duties while I head out to teach yoga. 

Of course I go on to say a lot about what Ben doesn't do around the house, but the point that I was trying to make in this post is that it's not Ben's fault that our society {a Patriarchy} has taught him that all of the extra things I handle around the house are "just the things that women do" and thus, he doesn't have to worry about them.

It's not his fault that I saw my mom doing everything for everyone as I grew up (and she saw her mom doing the same as she grew up...) and therefore just took everything on without even realizing or thinking about it ["because that's just what moms do"].

It's not Ben's fault that he doesn't even know that the invisible workload I carry around in my mind exists. Or that he wasn't raised in a society where he was expected to be the one to stay home with the sick child when both parents work. My frustration is way bigger than my relationship with Ben--it's about how impossible it is to do everything that women are now expected to do in our culture while working (if that's something a woman wants to do, which I do). 

So, just to be 100% clear: Ben and I are good. You don't need to worry about us. 

Sure, we have stuff to work on as a couple and as you can tell from my post, we're still figuring out how to run a family + household together in a way that works for everyone, but we're in a good place and still very much in love, very committed, and very happy together. We had a hard first year as parents [aka sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on everything] but we've reconnected and I think he's the greatest. 

On the other hand, me and my role as Household Manager? We're not so good. I don't want the Household Manager job on top of all of my other jobs--or, I don't want to fill this role alone. I want a co-Household Manager in my husband and I think I deserve one.

I also think that Ben is up to the challenge and can do the job just as well as I can if given the chance ;)

This past weekend, Ben and I finally pulled together all of our tax documents to send to our accountant (Tax Preparer = best investment EVER). As we were looking back at our finances for 2017--and comparing them to our 2016 and 2015 finances--I was once again reminded that having a baby has affected our finances in a BIG way.

Before you have kids, people you that "kids are expensive" and that your financial situation will change once you're parents; but just like everything else when it comes it parenting, it's really hard to truly understand what this means until you're experiencing it firsthand.

It's like the sleep deprivation that comes along with parenting: it sounds doable and exaggerated before you've ever dealt with it ("How could it possibly be that bad?") and then you realize that everyone was right and it is HELL ON EARTH AND NO HUMAN BEING SHOULD EVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT KIND OF TORTURE ON A NIGHTLY BASIS.

But I digress. My point is that it doesn't seem like your finances should change that drastically when you have just one little baby (or toddler) but for us, they really have. And one of the main reasons for this is because I work for myself. 

As I've explained here many times before, when you work for yourself in the way that I do (in a primarily service-based area of business), for the most part, you only make money if you're working. Meaning, if I'm not able to sit down at my desk and "clock-in", or go into a studio and teach a yoga class or workshop, I don't get paid.

My income is variable and is mostly based on how much I can get done in a day, a week, or a month. My schedule is also variable which allows me to work when it's most convenient and scale back when needed. 

Because of this, our current financial situation is VERY different than it was at this time two years ago; we have to pay much more attention to when and how we're spending our money now, we're not putting as much away into savings each month, and things just feel much "tighter" now than they ever did before we were parents.

But this change in our finances is so much bigger than the statement "kids are expensive" would have you believe. It's not just about the child care costs or the cost of diapers and clothes--although sure, those things play into the total cost of having a child--but more about the hidden costs of having a baby and especially the hidden costs associated with being self-employed and having a flexible work schedule (blessing and a curse).  

Here's how some of these hidden costs have affected us over the past 18 months: 

When you have a child and work for yourself, you immediately experience a huge decrease in the amount of time you are able to work (even if you have child care!) and thus, your income decreases accordingly.

I know this sound obvious but here's the reason it's a "hidden" cost: I knew I wouldn't be able to work as much as I used to. I knew I would be scaling back. I planned for part-time childcare (vs. full-time) because I wanted to be home with my child some of the time, and I knew that would result in lost income.

But what I didn't understand about being self-employed? Whenever things fall through, you're the one who is "available" to pick up the slack. So when Charlie Mae is sick, I'm the one who is home with her. When day care is closed because the owner's child is sick or because her power is out (which has happened twice in the past few weeks!), I'm the one who "takes the day off" to be with Charlie Mae because I'm the one who has the flexibility to make super last-minute changes to my day. 

Similarly, in addition to these uncontrollable lost work days that all parents deal with (but that those on salary still get paid for), I didn't expect that there would also be additional "controllable" but still desired lost work time.

You all know that I love what I do and that I adore working, but I also adore spending time with my child and it's really important to me to be sure I do so every day. On some days--even if I'm slammed with work and could use every second of childcare possible--I pick her up early from daycare so that I can spend some quality time with her before I have to go teach in the evening.

And despite the fact that my business (and stress levels) could definitely benefit from adding a fourth day of daycare each week (we currently only do 3), I won't do it because I want two days at home with my child. I couldn't have anticipated how my strong desire to spend time with Charlie Mae would result in a decrease in even more lost work time.

Lastly, I've lost a lot of the time that I used to spend working in my mind, if not at my desk. For instance, I used to take Sayde on hour-long walks every day during which I would listen to podcasts and get business ideas, learn about current trends in my field, and get inspired. I also used to spend more time reading about business, doing continuing education, and taking e-courses. All of that is gone. I don't have the time to do any extras right now. When I walk Sayde, I'm also pushing a stroller and entertaining a toddler and my mind is full. This also results in lost income. 

When you don't have as much time to work, you have to start outsourcing tasks that you used to do yourself, and thus, have more business [and household] expenses. 

Although this is related to the above points, it's also slightly different. When I thought about the expenses related to having a child, I didn't think about that fact that I would have so much less time to devote to both business and household tasks and therefore, would have to pay someone to do the things that I used to do.

For instance, in the past 18 months I've had to rely much more on Sara, who works for me at Starr Struck Design Studio, than in years past. She is a Godsend and has SAVED me in so many ways since having Charlie Mae, but it's also much more expensive to pay an employee for more hours of work. 

Similarly, because my precious "free time" needs to be spent working, we've had to pay to outsource more of our household tasks: we sent Sayde away to a very expensive doggy training bootcamp because we didn't have the time to go to weekly trainings ourselves and knew we had to train her. We upped our house cleanings to 2x per month because we simply couldn't stay on top of the cleaning ourselves. We've hired someone to do a bunch of home improvement projects that we might have attempted on our own in the past but knew we would NEVER get to now. We've had to get a lot more takeout in the past 18 months because there have been many nights when neither of us were home to cook. 

As you can imagine, all of this really adds up.

The right part-time child care situation is harder to find than expected, and you can spend tons of money figuring out the best situation for your family. 

When I was pregnant, I thought I had the child care thing figured out. I had hired someone to come to our house and watch Charlie Mae at home while I worked and I knew it was going to be perfect. Spoiler alert: it was not.

As I've mentioned many times before here on the blog, I spent the first 6 months of Charlie Mae's life paying people to watch my child as I sat in my office, paralyzed, and listened to her cry. Then when working from home didn't work, I spent precious child care hours driving back and forth from the local library--working in 1 hour increments--so that I wasn't in the house and she wouldn't smell me, but so that I could still rush home and breastfeed her when needed (she would never take a bottle).

In the beginning we bled money as I paid people for hours and hours of child care during which I got little-to-no work done, hoping that one day my child would get used to that person and the lost money would be worth it. 

Eventually, we found an in-home daycare that worked much better for Charlie Mae (and got her out of the house and away from me, which is what we needed), but even that took a while to adjust to and meant many, many months of short, half-days of daycare (even though I was paying for full-days).

The hours of unused childcare that we have paid for in Charlie Mae's 18 months on this Earth is kind of horrifying. I had no idea that this could possibly happen before I was a parent. 

Sleep deprivation affects your productivity and when your productivity affects your bottom line, you feel your child's Sleep Regressions in your bank account.

While every parents' productivity is affected by sleep deprivation, this doesn't matter as much when you work for a big company with tons of employees.

When you work for yourself, if you're sleep deprived, your business becomes sleep deprived, too. You're not as motivated. You're not as inspired. You have less energy to do the things that keep you healthy and clear-headed, like working out and eating healthy.

All of this affects your ability to work efficiently with minimal errors. If you're lucky (like I am), you have an amazing employee or assistant who can ease some of this burden, pick up the slack when-needed, and catch your mistakes, but it's still a big [internal] business issue.

But wait--there's more! Here are a few of the un-hidden, out-in-the-open costs of having a child when you're self-employed that I think are worth mentioning in a brief roll-call:

You don't have paid maternity leave, you don't have personal sick days (but are sick ALL of the time now that your child is bringing home all of the germs), you don't get paid vacation days, and you don't have any of the employer perks that some parents get, like discounts on specific daycares or products or travel.

And don't forget about the cost of health insurance, which many self-employed people have to buy themselves!

While this issue didn't affect me personally because Ben works for the state, I should also mention that many self-employed parents have to buy their own health insurance. And often this health insurance isn't as good as an employer-provided policy would be or has a higher deductible, which means that in these cases medical costs (like birth, pediatrician's appointments, follow-up OB-GYN visits, etc) can be way more expensive. I know some self-employed people who had to pay upwards of 10k out of pocket for their hospital births [with insurance]. Unacceptable!

So yeah, the struggle is real.

I'd obviously do it again in a heartbeat and any financial hardship is totally worth it in my book, but as you know, I think it's important to talk about these things.

And I also think it's important to remind all of my fellow parents that there isn't an easy or right answer when it comes to working (or not working) and parenting. My flexible, work-from-home, part-time stay-at-home-parent situation might sound like the ideal, but I'm here to assure you that while I'm very grateful for this life situation, it is not without it's own set of challenges + drawbacks, and it has definitely resulted in a loss of income for our household. 

Parenting, huh? Such a wonderful challenge. 

On Saturday night, our "big plans" were to eat dinner at home as a family and then, after Charlie Mae went to bed, start up a new show. Charlie Mae is at the age where it's no longer very fun to go out to dinner as a family because she just wants to get down and run around the whole time {+ she's warming up her tantrum muscles}, so we've started laying low more than usual on the weekends.

Oh, and of course she's sick again, so after a day of dealing with an uncomfortable, extra-clingy, extra-whiny child and wiping her nose approximately every 20 seconds, we knew we weren't up for attempting a dinner out. 

Thus, we each had a glass of wine at home (to which Charlie Mae pointed and said, "Wieeennnn!" which always makes me feel like I'm #winning in the parenting department), Ben made us a *delicious* dinner, and then, we put Charlie Mae to bed. But first we had to use the Snotsucker on her (yum), which obviously causes a horrible breakdown because who likes to have their brains sucked out through their nose (not me!)? 

After getting her down, Ben and I settled in on the couch. Finally. I had been looking forward to spending time together + watching a new show all day long. We had made it.

About 15 minutes into the show, Ben changed positions on the couch and laid his head on my shoulder. I looked over at him because his head felt *really* heavy and wouldn't you know it, his eyes were closed. 

I should stop right here and say that if you've never watched TV with someone who has a tendency to fall asleep the second they sit down to watch it, it's kind of infuriating. Not if it happens once or twice--that's understandable--but when it happens all the time. Part of the fun of getting into a new show with someone is the fact that you're sharing the experience with them and can talk about it, look forward to it together, etc.

When your TV partner falls asleep every time that a show comes on you have to decide if you're going to, A) Keep watching it and then have to either explain the entire plot line to them before watching the next episode (and then still answer all of their questions the entire time you watch it because they don't know who anyone is or why they're doing what they're doing),  B) Keep watching and then rewatch the entire episode you've already seen with them, or, C) Stop watching that show and watch something else on your own--but if you do this you have to make sure that the show you pick isn't something that they also want to see and know that they will inevitably still wake up and say, "Hey, why did you turn off our show?" Anyways, I digress. 

So, Ben fell asleep and slept through the entire show. It was a really good show and when it was over he woke up and said, "It obviously wasn't that good because it didn't hold my attention enough to keep me up." Ha!

Hahahahahahaha. 

After that lovely moment, Ben wanted to keep sleeping on the couch for a little while (as he does) so I decided to go up to bed to read--trying to hold back my annoyance but kind of failing as I grumpily stormed past him and up the stairs. As I walked into our bedroom after tip-toeing up the stairs and quietly sneaking through the baby gate, I noisily tripped over the plastic basin that goes along with the new potty we got for Charlie Mae. While she hasn't yet shown much interest in sitting on the potty, she does enjoy pulling the plastic basin out and using it as a carrier for her toys, which is why it was in the doorway, waiting to be tripped on. 

Instead of feeling annoyed that this basin had never been picked up, it made me smile because it reminded me of Charlie Mae and our day of playing. What a funny little child we have. 

Then I walked over to my bed and pulled back the covers, getting ready to crawl in, and found a bunch of foam fish bath toys hidden under the sheets. I had forgotten about the game we were playing earlier, in which Charlie Mae would hide a bunch of fish under the comforter and then look at me, arms up in a questioning position alongside her body and say, "Where did fishy go?" I smiled as I picked up the "fishies" and set them on the floor. That was a really cute game. 

Then I climbed into bed, put on my hand lotion and chapstick (as you do), and took my hairband out of my hair. As I ran my hands through my hair I found not one, but two heart stickers stuck to my head.

Again, I smiled as I pulled them out (along with a couple pieces of my hair which I SWEAR I'm still losing at an alarming rate since having a baby), and remembered a day filled with putting stickers on anything + everything and re-using each one until it had completely lost it's sticky backing. 

I finally laid my head on my pillow and turned on my Kindle. Despite all of the little annoyances I had experienced all day long, I smiled because it been a good day in mom-land. Or in the words of Phil Vassar, just another day in paradise.  

Fellow parents, are you with me?

{Editor's Note: this post was supposed to go up yesterday but I came down with a *horrible* 24-hour stomach bug on Sunday and was flat-out all day yesterday so couldn't make it to my computer. Oh, and in case you were wondering/didn't already know, vomiting while taking care of your baby = the WORST.} ​

On Saturday we took Charlie Mae to her first wedding as a toddler. We've had this event on the calendar forever and have been looking forward to it for months. It was Ben's cousin's wedding and it was a huge, fancy, formal, gorgeous event, so it felt like quite the family to-do. 

We got all dressed up--Charlie Mae wore a bow in her hair and a maxi skirt for the first time, I wore heels for the second time in the past year, Ben put on a suit + tie, and off we went. The wedding was amazing and everything was perfect but as I'm *sure* you imagined, my expectations of having a baby at a wedding were WAY off.

Don't get me wrong, I still had a lovely time and am so glad we got to be a part of the festivities, but as usual when it comes to life with a baby, I was shocked by how much more challenging it was to be at a wedding with a baby than I had anticipated.

When thinking about the wedding beforehand, I didn't ponder how hard it would be to carry a child around on your hip while wearing tall heels and a floor-length dress. I didn't think about how challenging it would be to try and hold a glass of wine during cocktail hour while also feeding your child cheese, keeping her happy amidst all of the people (especially the strangers getting in her face and scaring her), and keeping her from grabbing all of the stuff she wants to touch but can't. I didn't anticipate being sad when we had to leave early and therefore missed all of the dancing, the dessert, the family picture, and the late-night fun. I forgot about the fact that I would spend much of the 4 hours that we were there sitting on the floor in the corner, playing with my child in order to keep her happy enough to stick around for a little while longer. 

Again, I want to reiterate that I had a lot of fun at the wedding and loved having Charlie Mae there (I wouldn't have done it differently), but I left feeling that sense of, "Oh yeah, I'm a mom now, and that means that weddings won't be what they once were for a very long time."

At various points throughout the wedding, I looked around and thought about how different my life has become in just a mere 14 months; as I sat on the floor letting Charlie Mae feed me part of her soggy, half-eaten cracker, I jealously watched other attendees noshing on the hors d'oeuvres while having adult conversations.

While reading Charlie Mae a book and trying to steal sips of my wine (only one glass enjoyed right at the beginning of the event so that I could still breastfeed before bed, of course), I eyed the moms of slightly older babies who aren't going through a super-attached phase, as they passed their children around to family members and sipped their drinks without worrying about what time it was or what number drink it was. 

I should be clear, I wasn't feeling sorry for myself or throwing a pity-party in the corner, I was just watching everyone else with a sociologists' eye, remembering how the other half lives, and wondering why I didn't expect this reality at the wedding. I can't just skip around the house without a worry, glass of wine and gourmet mac-n-cheese ball in-hand, so why did I think a wedding would be any different? 

This is the thing that I keep learning--over and over again--about being a parent. My expectations are always wrong. There isn't a vacation from being a parent. Ever. No event, trip, childcare situation, or outfit change can take you out of your parental mindset, your parental role, or your parental duties. I'm not even sure if I would want it to, but I do know that sooner or later, I'd better adjust my expectations so that I don't live the next 20+ years expecting one thing and getting another. 

That being said, Charlie Mae was SO cute in her little outfit! And she had so much fun rolling around on the fancy couch at the wedding! And she loved the gourmet popcorn that was served!

Being a parent is the best. Even if your expectations are always way off and reality is always way more challenging than you anticipated.

On Friday, Ben and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. When out celebrating on Saturday night (the night we could go out early enough to make it home in time to put our babe to bed) we toasted to our hardest year of marriage yet--to the hardest year of our almost 12-year relationship (!)--and to getting through this past year with our marriage still intact. Honestly, this feels like a big accomplishment. 

In the 12 years that we've been together, Ben and I have been through a lot of ups-and-downs and a lot of the BIG life changes/stressors. For instance, we've weathered the following:

• 4 Years of a long-distance relationship 
• 3 Graduations and "figuring out what to do next" stages 
• Lots of individual moves (2-3 each?) and 4 moves together, the biggest being our move to DC and then our move to Cape Cod 4 years later
• The death of two family members
• Big career changes on both of our parts (numerous career changes on my end and one big one for Ben)
• Getting married
• Adopting a dog [with major issues]
• Buying a house
  
  

...and then we underwent the biggest life change of all, we became parents. If I haven't made it clear enough yet, I'll say it again: this past year of being parents was by far, without question, hands-down, the MOST challenging year of our relationship.

It was way more challenging than the year that Ben was trying to decide what to do after graduating from college (he was a little lost) + I was still in school and studied abroad in France. It was way more challenging than the year that we moved to DC together, moved in together for the first time, and both started over in brand new jobs that neither of us really liked. It was way more challenging than the year that we got married, lost my stepmom, Ben studied for the BAR Exam while working full-time, and we decided to move to Cape Cod.

It was a really hard year. It was one of the best of our marriage, but also one of the hardest. 

What no one tells you when you're pregnant and they're giving you all of the "warnings" is how hard that first year of parenthood can be on a relationship. People tell you that you'll be exhausted, that you'll experience a love you never knew existed, that your baby will bring you and your partner closer, that you'll never have any time to yourself again, that you should go on lots of dates while you still can--but they don't tell you that your relationship will be under more pressure than you could possibly imagine.

They don't tell you that at 2am you'll purposefully hit your sleeping husband IN THE FACE with a pillow because you're so mad that he is sleeping through the baby waking for the 8th time that night and you're not. That you'll snap at each other all of the time because you're both so overwhelmed and sleep-deprived. That in your darkest moments, you'll collapse on the floor, sobbing, and your partner will be too tired or frustrated to comfort you. 

I hope I'm not worrying you; Ben and I are fine, we're still very much in love, and we're SO happy that we had Charlie Mae, but this year was the brightest of days, the most loving of days, and also the darkest of days all in one. Emotions ran high, quality time together ran low, and Charlie Mae came first. We knew that having a baby would be a big change, but we didn't really know what that meant. 

It wasn't that Charlie Mae as an individual made our lives hard, it was the reconfiguring of our already full lives that made it hard; it was the challenge of piecing together our busy (and different) work schedules, childcare issues, financial changes (I'm now working way less than before), and childrearing obstacles while also being sleep-deprived and having no time to take care of ourselves anymore that made it so hard. 

So on Saturday, as we ate one of our first baby-less dinners in months, we talked about how hard this past year has been, but we also laughed together, made fun of ourselves/each other, and enjoyed one another's company in a way that reminded us both of how we acted before we were parents--before we had someone else's wellbeing hanging in the balance between us and so many more logistics and questions to discuss.

Our anniversary date night made me excited about this next year of our marriage as we continue to emerge from the baby fog, reconnect, and remember how much fun we have together. It also made me so thankful that our relationship was strong enough to weather the storm of this past year, and that we can look back on it and feel proud that we went through yet another big life challenge together. 

I now truly know what people mean when they say that relationships are hard and take real work. Or as my dad always says when quoting one of his psychologist mentors, "the hardest thing in the world is another person."

If you're in the thick of it now, or if your relationship has also taken a beating in the first year of your child's life, know that you're not alone and that things do get easier and better.

And at some point in the near future you won't have that 2am wake-up call anymore; or if you do, you will have the wherewithal to stop yourself from slamming that pillow into your partner's sleeping face and instead, remember how much you love that person in bed next to you, even if he can seemingly sleep through anything (or is he faking it so you'll get up? It's SO hard to know...). 

Happy anniversary, Ben! 

Thirteen months ago when Charlie Mae was born, she had approximately one way to communicate what she wanted: she would cry. When she started crying, we would start troubleshooting in order figure out what she needed, and once she stopped crying, we would know that we'd solved the problem and thus, satisfied her needs. 

It was that simple and that complicated. 

Now here we are, just a little over a year later, and from the second that she wakes up until the time that she goes to bed, Charlie Mae is verbally communicating with us. She says new words every day and is constantly exploring new sounds, new objects, new ideas. We no longer have to rely solely on tears to tell us what our baby wants (although crying is still a big form of communication for her, of course), because now Charlie Mae can tell us her basic desires through actual language. 

Just last week she started being able to identify which book she wanted to read by saying the names of some of her favorites; "E-I-E-I" for her Old McDonald Had a Farm book, "DUCK!!!" for her 10 Little Rubber Ducks book, "BrawBeau" for Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, etc...  She says "yeah," "no," "hiiiiii." "byeeeeeee." "rock" (for when she wants to sit in her glider and rock back and forth, which is almost always), "walk" for when she wants to practice walking, "wowel" for when she wants to play with her owl toy, "mook" for when she wants to breastfeed, and "more" when she wants--you guessed it--more of something.

I could go on and on listing her words (and believe me, I want to!), but I think you get the point: the girl knows how to communicate with us now and it's pretty incredible. This child, who still can't walk on her own, who still wears a diaper, who is just learning how to use a spoon to feed herself, can communicate her needs, her desires, and even her funny little "jokes" using language. 

Isn't the human brain an incredible thing? And aren't babies kind of geniuses? I am constantly in awe of this process. 

I know Charlie Mae isn't special in this regard--I know that around a year is when all babies start to really explode in the language department--but I still can't believe how special it feels to hear her little voice form actual words, and how much satisfaction I get when I witness her master a new sound, or when I watch her brain make the connection between an object or image and the name of that object. 

Watching your baby grow and develop is obviously one of the most amazing parts of being a parent (and I know that everyone knows this), but I really had no idea how much I would love listening to my baby learn to communicate or how much it would mean to me to be fluent in her special little language, to be a part of her small, precious world that is so insulated from everything outside of our house. 

It's these kinds of daily wonders that make parenting so fulfilling and fun, that make me so glad that I became a mom, that stop me in my tracks and make me feel SO grateful for this life I'm living.

Even if I am still more tired, frazzled, and unavailable than ever before. When does that part change? ;) 

As I mentioned on Friday, we got our 'Charlie Mae's 1st Birthday' family photoshoot pics back last week, and it was incredible looking through them and seeing how much our little one has grown.

Since I love a good side-by-side comparison, today I've pulled together some pics from our newborn shoot to share alongside some of the pics from our 1-year shoot; I can't believe the staggering difference that a year makes in the life of a babe! Not only is Charlie Mae bigger, but I think that Ben and I look a lot more settled into our roles as parents now, too. Also, Ben's beard has filled out and man, has he gotten a lot tanner in the past year, haha! ;)

Quick shout-out to our amazing photographers (who both happen to be yoga students of mine, as well):

• Newborn shoot: Kati Mennett of Sparks Fly Photography (view more pics from this shoot here)
• 1-Year shoot: Olivia Beaton Photography

Oh, and I should note that Sayde is still VERY much a part of the family, but she's not allowed on the beach this time of year so couldn't be included in this latest shoot :( We missed her!!!

We had such a special weekend! Our little girlie turned one last week so we had a bunch of family over on Saturday to celebrate her first birthday and our first year of being parents (!).

I have to say, this was definitely my favorite party we've ever thrown; the weather was perfect, Charlie Mae was crazy happy, I had a blast creating + setting up all of the decor for her duck-themed party, Ben grilled up some amazing food, and we had a lot of fun visiting with the wonderful family members who attended.  Also, I didn't get super frazzled the day of the party (or during the party, for that matter), which is a *huge* win for an easily-frazzled gal like myself ;)

Highlights of the day? Watching Charlie Mae point out + name every duck at the party (her latest animal obsession), seeing her light up when opening her gifts--especially her "big girl" basketball goal that her Dad got her--watching her eat her first bit of cake, and of course, seeing her interact with her dear family.

As you all know from my many blog posts about motherhood, I've found being a mom to be the most rewarding and simultaneously most challenging thing I've EVER done. This past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions {ALL OF THE EMOTIONS ALL THE TIME} along with more sleep deprivation, overwhelm, and pure joy/happiness/love than I ever could have prepared for, and while I am sad that this first year of Charlie Mae's life is over, I'm also thrilled to see what the future holds for our little babe and can't wait to watch her continue to grow + develop.

I'm also hoping that this second year of her life brings us a lot more sleep and a bit more "balance" (WTF is balance, anyways? Does ANYONE have it? No, I don't think so...and especially not parents of little ones. But still, a girl can hope, right?).

Anyways, you can see some more snapshots from our ducky party below:

Above: Charlie Mae gives her new stuffed animal a "smooch" + does one of her many assisted dunks of the party. 

Below: This girl is hovering around 55th percentile for height and weight, but is 75th percentile for head circumference. Can you tell from this silly pic of her dome? Such a little melonhead, just like her mom ;) 

 Above: After trying the cake herself, Charlie Mae promptly fed some to her dad. I don't think I have to tell you how much this meant to him ;) 

So that's that! This first year has definitely come and gone in an instant. Does the fact that Charlie Mae is now 1 mean that I can no longer use the excuse "I just had a baby" for why I'm falling behind in every aspect of my life...?

[Me getting my emissions checked after noticing my sticker had expired months ago: "I just had a baby, so just completely forgot about it." Me running late to a doctor's appointment: "I just had a baby so am a bit all over the place right now." Me explaining why I can't sub classes for other yoga teachers: "I just had a baby and haven't gotten into a good groove with my schedule yet..."

The person who I'm explaining myself to: "Oh congrats, how old is your baby?"

Me (making super awkward face as I realize how old she is): 1 year. ] 

Thanks for sticking with me through this past year of transitions and for all of the <online> support you've provided as I've muddled my way through this whole mom-thing. 

Oh, and for those who love a good look back in time, here's the first post I wrote after giving birth + some snapshots from Charlie Mae's first week of life. 

For the first few years of my life, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV. I’m not sure we even had a TV when I was really young (although we must have, right?), and once we did get one it was seriously restricted for us kids.

At first we were only allowed to watch Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Eventually we graduated to being able to watch some selected movies (Mary Poppins was a favorite) but we didn’t have cable at my mom’s house until I was in middle school and I don’t think we had it at my dad’s house until even later than that.

Obviously, this was before "The Golden Age of TV" that we’re in now (so. many. good. shows.) but still, my parents were hippies and were way more into imaginative play and dress-up than they were TV shows, so even if the shows had been as good as they are now, I’m not sure that would have changed things very much

It wasn’t until 5th grade--when my parents got divorced and my mom moved us to the suburbs of Atlanta--that I realized how much pop-culture I was missing out on by not watching TV. It was also then that I came to understand that I’d better learn the names of everyone on Full House and Family Matters if I wanted to fit in with the other kids (and while I was at it, I needed to buy some clothes from The Limited Too, as well!).

At school I would fake knowing what people were talking about when they mentioned storylines on these shows, and I would never dare to mention that we didn’t have cable at home, or that Nickeloden had always been a *very special* treat reserved for visits to my grandmother’s house (SNICK, anyone?). 

Similarly, I remember the excitement at eventually being able to join in + follow these conversations once I was finally allowed to watch the TV shows that were talked about at school (the most notable being Dawson’s Creek; swoon!); I also remember watching TRL after school on the days that I didn’t have some sports practice or after-school activity and feeling so cool because after years of being clueless, I was so fully immersed in what was happening in the teenage world... 

..But as we all know, times, they have a' changed and limiting screen-time is no longer just about how much TV you let your kids watch; the issue has become so much bigger and WAY more challenging for today’s parents than it was for mine. 

Yesterday, as I was watching Charlie Mae play with our remote control, I started thinking about how different her childhood will be from my own simply because of the prevalence of screens in her everyday life and in our world.

Even if I am able to successfully keep her away from screens in our home for the first two years or so of her life, my phone is still her most desired object (as it has been for months) and no matter where we go in the world, there are videos playing on almost every surface.

I know that this is something that all parents think about and I know that I'm not making any new observations about our world here, but when I compare Charlie Mae's reality to my own [somewhat unique] screen-less early years, I find them to be in stark contrast. I also didn’t quite realize how pervasive screens were until I had little eyes that I wanted to protect from those screens--and until I saw how quickly her eyes find them, how much she loves moving lights + sounds, how mesmerizing screens are to her little brain.

One of the first truly personalized gifts that I remember picking out for my dad was a bumper sticker for his car that said “Kill Your TV.” When I saw it in the store I knew it was perfect for him--he was one of the OG TV-haters, after all--and although he now has a big-screen, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, + surround sound, I think he still believes in the sentiment behind that bumper sticker, as do I.

I love a good show and watching TV is one of my favorite ways to relax, but it's common knowledge that we could all benefit from a little less screen-time and a little more outdoor time, or conversation, or reading time, or meditation. I'm finding more and more that the idea of “killing [or turning off/silencing] your TV [or phone, or iPad, or whatever screen you watch most]” is one of the only ways to do that.  

So, I don’t yet know exactly how we’re going to navigate Charlie Mae’s relationship with the multiple screens that are readily available in our home, at her daycare, and at family + friends’ houses, but I do know that I'm highly aware that this is an issue and I want to approach it mindfully. As we all should when it comes to our own screen-time on a daily basis.

Also, I  know that I want our daughter to have a childhood that is as full of screen-less downtime and creative play as mine was, but maybe with a *little more* understanding + awareness of pop-culture. And if a teenage Charlie Mae were to ever come across a bumper sticker that said “Kill your screen,” I’d want her to think it was a perfect gift for her mom, simply because of the sentiment behind it ;)