Perspective: Lessons from a One-Year-Old

This winter has been rough. Very rough. We moved the first day of winter, and soon after it snowed so much that all five of us were trapped in the house for days. One of my goals for this year is to get out of the house with Evan at least once a week. By January 4th, when the biggest snow hit, that goal seemed like a joke. I see some numbers in the forecast beginning with a six, so there's hope this winter will end, but there's also more snow expected this week.

What makes this winter easier is that Evan is fascinated by the snow. He smiles at the snow, talks to it, shows it to his stuffed beaver. Even stuck inside watching it from his window, it's fun to him. As much as I'd like to just up and move to California, I am glad my kids will get to experience all four seasons living in Indiana. He'll get to play in the snow and the rain and the crunchy leaves.

Perspective. It's all about perspective.

As another illustration of this, I really do not like house centipedes. While I generally love all creatures great and small, including snakes and possums, I draw the line with the house centipede. I'm convinced they're the result of The Fall because these creepy demon bugs could not have existed in Eden. I think I've made my point.

So imagine my reaction when I came out into the living room and saw Nenya and Evan both watching a house centipede dashing across the floor, Nenya trying to snap at it. I did what any sensible person would do and grabbed a tissue and obliterated it. And how did Evan react? He was distraught. He started sobbing and threw himself on the floor, a very rare occurrence for him. While he's obviously too young to understand the concepts of life and death, he was having fun watching the centipede run across the floor with Nenya chasing after it. I had taken his entertainment away.

Now that was a good dose of perspective. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to kill the next one I see, but what a shock to realize my son could actually find such a creepy bug fun.

While I'm teaching Evan about the world, he's also teaching me.

Trekking Through the Bible: Selective Memory (Leviticus 26-27 & Numbers 1-13)

One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible in chronological order. To help me absorb more of what I read as well as to help with accountability, I'm posting every week or two about what I read the previous week. 

It's been a few years since I last read Leviticus and Numbers, but as I remembered it, Numbers was much better than Leviticus. However, the only thing I could remember about Numbers was the Aaronic bessing found in Numbers 6:24-26:

"The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace." 

And really, while that's nice and beautiful, the rest of what I've read in Numbers so far is not nearly as poetic. It's not as seemingly strange as Leviticus, just kind of dry for the most part. It is called Numbers, after all. The book starts out with the first census of Israel. 

In chapter 5, we find directions for dealing with allegedly unfaithful wives. Basically, a priest gives a woman a drink of water, and if she did not in fact lie with another man, she will be free from the curse. If she is guilty, however, "her belly will swell, her thigh will rot, and the woman will become a curse among her people" (Numbers 5:27). Yikes. Something about that description is just a little disturbing to me. Yet, I had forgotten all about this part of Numbers that comes almost immediately before the Aaronic blessing.

This is why I'm doing this. I want to read the entire Bible this year because I can't claim I believe the Bible is the complete, inerrant Word of God if I don't even know all that's in the Bible.

On Language and Learning

I love watching Evan learn and figure out his world. It's one of the best parts of being a mom. When I think about all there is to learn, especially in a language as strange as English, it seems remarkable that any of us ever learn it all.

For example, how will he learn that a baby chicken is a chick and that chickens say cluck and chicks say peep and a male chicken is a rooster and says cock-a-doodle-do?

Or that a baby goose is a gosling and a baby moose is a calf. Two geese and two moose.

And all the letters and numbers and colors we use to describe things.

A square is both a rectangle and a rhombus, but a rhombus is not a rectangle.

A platypus is a mammal that has a bill and lays eggs.

Walk, walked. Ask, asked. Write, wrote. Eat, ate. Sit, sat. Go, went.

They're putting their books over there.

You love someone with all your heart, but the organ known as a heart really is not the source of love and looks nothing like the shape we know as a heart.

Our two dogs look different from each other and different from his stuffed dogs, but they're all still dogs, who say bark, woof, and arf.

But we do learn. Well, at least most of us learn most of this. And so will he. It's just remarkable, and I love that I will get to watch it happen.

Trekking Through the Bible: And Then It All Goes Downhill (Exodus 29-40 & Leviticus 1-25)

One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible in chronological order. To help me absorb more of what I read as well as to help with accountability, I'm posting every week or two about what I read the previous week. 

I don't know about you, but I struggle with this part of the Bible, especially Leviticus. Reading about how burning bull organs are a pleasing aroma to the Lord...it's just a little difficult to get through. I'll admit I skimmed a lot of it.

I remember my freshman year of college, my roommate was doing a paper comparing and contrasting the Hebrew God of the Old Testament and the Christian God of the New Testament. I thought, but they're the same God! And then I took the same class the following semester, reading Biblical texts from an atheistic viewpoint, including some of Leviticus. While my faith was still strong at the end of the semester, I must admit, if you remove God from the story, these rituals don't make a lot of sense. And as a Christian, it's still hard for me to look at this part of the scripture and see the amazing, loving, awesome God that we sing songs about.

So, what's the takeaway from the laws of the Old Testament? How do we apply Leviticus to our daily life and strengthen our faith by reading it? Honestly, I'm not sure, which is why this section is a struggle for me and why I hesitated to even write about it. I am thankful that these laws are no longer our laws. I'm very thankful, for example, that I don't have to sacrifice two turtledoves or pigeons to be cleansed each time I have my period.

How about you? What helps you get through this part of the Bible? What's the lesson to be learned?

Trekking Through the Bible: Why did this have to change?

One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible in chronological order. To help me absorb more of what I read as well as to help with accountability, I plan to post weekly about what I read the previous week. 

Last week's reading was Exodus 7-27. A lot happens in the middle chapters of Exodus: the plagues, Moses parting the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, the ten commandments and other laws. There's plenty I could write about, but there's one verse I've been kind of fixated on this week. Under a section my Bible describes as "The promise of God's protection," Exodus 23:26 reads (using the New Living Translation, to put it into contemporary vocabulary):

"There will be no miscarriages or infertility in your land, and I will give you long, full lives."

I realize this verse was a promise to the children of Israel at that time and not a promise for all future generations, but why? Why did this have to change?

Miscarriage and infertility have caused me to ask "Why, God?" over and over. I have not experienced either, but that's part of why they are such big issues for me. Why the unfairness?

I know Sarah and Jen are both dealing with losses right now. It was Jen's story that really got me set on this verse this week. Then there are those I know in real life who have had miscarriages and who have dealt with infertility. I know there are women right now who desperately want to be pregnant. Who knows how many others I don't know about.

I think of these women often and pray for them. And I ask God why. Why does it have to be this way? As I said in last week's post, only He can see the big picture. But this little piece I can see just doesn't make sense sometimes.

Trekking Through the Bible: How Did We Get Here? (Genesis 12-50 & Exodus 1-6)

One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible in chronological order. To help me absorb more of what I read as well as to help with accountability, I plan to post weekly (although lately it's been every other week) about what I read the previous week.

In Genesis, we learn about the beginning. We learn about the life of Abraham, of his son Isaac, of his grandson Jacob, and of his great-grandson Joseph. For the most part, everything is good. Joesph is a governor in Egypt. Then comes the Exodus, of Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and out of slavery.

Whoa, wait a minute. How did we get here? How did we get from Joesph and his brothers and their families just hanging out in Egypt to Moses, the great-grandson of Joseph's brother Levi, leading the Israelites out of slavery? What happened in those few generations, and why did this never bother me before?

Exodus 1:7 says: "But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them."

Exactly how it was supposed to be. God promised Abraham in Genesis 22:17 that his descendants would be beyond number, just as the stars in the sky and the sand upon the seashore, and God fulfilled His promise. But immediately following, in Exodus 1:8-11 (emphasis mine):

"Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, 'Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.' Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens..."

It's because they were so numerous that they became slaves? Didn't God see this coming?

Of course he did.

As Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

All things work together for God's purpose. Sometimes, it just takes awhile to see what that purpose is. Sometimes it's not just weeks or months but generations. He takes His time. Sometimes it's difficult for me to trust in God's plan and His timing, but I know He's the only one who can see the big picture.

10 Things to Do Before Kids: How Many Did We Actually Do?

Six months before I got pregnant, I made a list of 10 things I wanted to do before we had kids. I referred to these as ideas instead of goals since these things didn't necessarily have to be done before we had our first child.

I thought it would be fun to take a look back at what I actually did before Evan was born.

Figure out being a family of two
I feel like our marriage did get stronger in those months before I got pregnant. Sure, pregnancy and having a baby can strain any relationship, but we're still very much enjoying being married.

Go on a relaxing vacation
This one is kind of funny. I meant to write a post about this one specifically but never did. Basically, we found out we're no good at relaxing. About four months into my pregnancy, we tried to spend less than 48 hours in Nashville, IN, staying in a cabin with no agenda, and we were bored! I guess we need to find a balance between planning too many activities and not planning any.

Start buying organic food and stop buying as much processed food
I wanted to at least buy the "dirty dozen" organically. I had a setback with this one when I bought organic potatoes and one was rotten inside. Why should I pay extra for poor quality? I'm still working on buying and making healthier foods, especially now that Evan is eating a wide variety of food and we found out Nathan has high cholesterol. I'll admit I gave Evan non-organic strawberries though. It's a process.

Get a second dog
This barely happened! I got pregnant three weeks after we adopted Adyn. At that time I was thinking it could still take awhile. Had I known I would get pregnant right away, there's no way I would have gotten a second dog. I guess it was just meant to be. Adyn's like my soulmate and archnemesis all in one. It's been an interesting ride.

Get in the habit of regular exercise
Eh...this has been off and on. I wanted to keep jogging during my pregnancy, but the crazy hot spring we had two years ago along with not feeling so great during the first trimester kind of killed my progress. I'm counting this one because I did walk the third of a mile to work until I was seven months pregnant.

Move somewhere with a washer/dryer and fenced-in yard

We sure did! And then right before Evan turned one, we moved again and no longer have a fenced-in yard. We can put the dogs out on a chain at least, and it's a much nicer area to walk the dogs (when it's not a blizzard). Having a washer and dryer was the biggest requirement!

Read and Research
I tried to limit this one so I didn't get overwhelmed. The one book I'd recommend is Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn by Penny Simkin.

Have a better community
We're getting there! We finally found a church we like right around the time we got pregnant. Several of my good friends are currently living overseas, which has been rough, but I needed the push to meet new people, especially other moms.

Do some freelance design work
I didn't actually do any freelance work before Evan was born, but once I made the jump and quit my day job last May, I found clients very quickly. It all worked out!

Continue putting all my income towards student loans and savings
During 2012, I contributed $50 into our Health Savings Account each week, and the rest of my paycheck went towards paying off student loans. I'm glad we'd had nearly three years' experience of living on Nathan's income by the time I decided to quit my job. We won't get out of debt as quickly now, but we knew we would be fine without that money.


Is there anything else I wish I'd done? Is there anything I'd encourage childless women to do before they have kids? I honestly can't think of anything I couldn't do now that I have a son. I wish I could have crossed off the two remaining items on my list, but I think I needed to quit my job to have the extra time to devote to them.

Anything you wish you'd done before you had kids? If you don't have kids yet, what's on your list? 

Trekking Through the Bible: Job

One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible in chronological order. To help me absorb more of what I read as well as to help with accountability, I plan to post weekly about what I read the previous week. I got busy prepping for Evan's birthday bash and missed last week, so I'm just writing one post on Job.


Job is the 18th book of the Bible but fits in chronologically after the first 11 chapters of Genesis, right before Abraham. Job is the story of a man who loses everything, and he had a lot to lose: 7 sons, 3 daughters, 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 she asses. In almost in instant, it's all gone. His children are all dead, and his animals are either dead or stolen.

And how does Job react?

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Wow! Often when I hear this verse out of context, I think of material possessions. If I lost all the things I own, I know I'd be okay. But to lose your children? I can't imagine praising God upon hearing my son is dead. 

As I read on, I started to get confused. While I'd read parts of Job before and knew the general idea of the story, I don't think I've ever read the entire book before.

"Am I missing something?" I asked Nathan.
"No, you're just not missing the part that most people miss," he told me.

You see, Job is held up as this amazing person who keeps his faith throughout unbelievable suffering. While he does have an amazing faith and never curses God, after he is inflicted with sores from head to toe, he says (Job 3:11): "Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?" His reaction is certainly understandable, but I was surprised to read it. We remember Job for his "naked I came from my mother's womb" faith and tend to overlook the part where he wishes he had never come out of his mother's womb. He wasn't perfect.

This realization caused me to think about what that I say and how will be remembered. I'm not just talking about the legacy I leave after I die but how I'm perceived right now. Will people remember the good things I say or just that one ranting Facebook status? Am I saying any good things worth remembering? How often am I saying "Blessed be the name of the Lord" in my daily life? 

One Year

One year...one year from a tiny, helpless newborn who can't hold his head up to an energetic toddler who can feed himself. When I was pregnant, I wasn't sure I was ready for just how quickly my baby would grow and change. After Evan was born, I would look at babies a few months older and think, I'm going to have one of those in just months? It's been a lot of fun to watch Evan reach new milestones this past year, but when I look back, the changes are just phenomenal.

Overall, I'm loving this age. I think the word that best describes Evan now is inquisitive. While he's always loved exploring, now it's less about going and more about doing. He's slowing down (at times, anyway) and figuring out how things work. He's currently fascinated by stacking things - blocks and whatever else he can find. Several times now he has sat on the floor of his room with me before bedtime and spent a half hour building towers. Considering Evan learned to crawl before he sat up on his own, for a while I didn't think he would ever sit for a half hour doing anything. At around eleven months, he become interested in stuffed animals again after totally ignoring them for about seven months. Now he babbles to them, usually in a higher voice than he uses to talk to people. He's become very interested in books. I think I could read him all his board books (around 20 now) five times each every day and he wouldn't get tired of them. He's also figured out doors recently and shut himself in his room the last two days. Let's hope he doesn't figure out locks for a while.

His language development is beginning to take off. I started teaching him a few signs when he was six months old, and while he started doing "milk" and "eat" around seven months, by nine months he wasn't signing at all and didn't even seem to respond much to me signing them. He was just too focused on mastering walking for a couple months. Now he's signing "milk" again sometimes and is starting to figure out "water." As far as spoken words, "Dada" has taken on a clear meaning lately. He also says "Day-Day" sometimes for Adyn and often says "Duh! duh! duh! duh!" when he has a rubber ducky. "Mama" has become less common, only coming out when he wants to nurse and I'm distracted with something else.

Evan's appetite has increased immensely in the last month or so. He never wanted to be spoon fed more than a few bites until he was ten months old and refused to be spoon fed at nine months when he was teething. Now he's much more into food, both being fed and feeding himself. Meat and cheese are probably his favorite foods right now. I'm thinking we might have to raise the grocery budget soon, and he's still nursing four times a day. 

Although Evan started walking one day shy of nine months, it took him another month to walk more than twelve steps at a time. He stopped crawling (at least 95% of the time) around eleven months and is walking very well now. He loves to run from us and be chased. Another interesting part of his physical development is he's figured out how to snap his fingers in the last month. It isn't very loud, but considering I can't snap my fingers at all (seriously) I find it crazy that my son already can. 

The night of his birthday, before I put him to bed, I was singing to Evan about how we'd had a good year and we would have even more fun in the next year. As I sang, I realized I'm really excited about having a toddler! The fact that my baby is no longer a baby really doesn't make me sad at all. I'm just looking forward to what's to come.

Trekking Through the Bible: Genesis 1-11

One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible in chronological order. I've never attempted to read the entire Bible in one year, but since all previous attempts at reading the Bible without a time limit have failed, I'm giving it a try. To help me absorb more of what I read as well as to help with accountability, I plan to post weekly about what I read the previous week.

Last week's reading was Genesis 1-11...the beginning. I read through the story of creation, Adam and Eve in the garden, Cain and Able, Noah, the tower at Babel, and lots of genealogies. It's interesting to me how when I read a part of the Bible I've read before, even stories like these that I've heard since before I could read the Bible myself, I still discover something new. So, this week's post is just some of these various observations and ponderings.

I didn't recall that the river in Eden branched out into four heads: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates.

I also didn't realize the place Cain was exiled after killing Able was called the Land of Nod. Why would anyone think that's a good name for a company that makes toys and children's furniture? Very strange.

I always forget how soon after creating the world God decided to destroy it again. Granted, it was actually about 1600 years later, but it's only the sixth chapter of the Bible. It only takes a few chapters to get from "God saw that it was good" to "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth."

Do you ever wonder how it was that Noah found grace in the eyes of God? He couldn't have been completely sinless, so just how wicked was everyone else in the world? Was Noah just the least wicked?

The dove with an olive branch has come to symbolize peace because when Noah sent out the dove the second time, she brought back an olive branch as a sign that there was dry land and new growth. What if the raven had brought back a piece of moss? Can you imagine that on a Christmas card?

Interesting names from this reading: Arphaxad, Peleg


Feel free to share about what you've been reading in the Bible this week, whether inspirational insight or rambling observations like mine.

New Year, New Goals

At the beginning of 2012 I set 12 goals to achieve. However, succeeding in my unwritten goal of getting pregnant kind of derailed my progress on most of them. It also prevented me from setting any new goals for 2013 since a year ago I knew I could have a baby at any moment. It was difficult to focus on any other plans at that point. However, I never completely lost sight of my 2012 goals.


Here's a look at what I've achieved over the past 2 years:

Financial Goal (a.k.a. the BHAG)

1. Pay off half the student loans   We've now paid off about 85%.

Business/Career Goals

2. Update my physical portfolio This hasn't happened, but it hasn't really been needed. This was a goal when I wasn't sure if I'd be seeking a new job or going full-time freelance.

3. Create an online portfolio It's not perfect, but it does exist. As with #2, this was more of a focus for job seeking.

4. Decide on a freelance business name and create a business website Core Spring Design is very much a business now! 

5. Complete at least one paid freelance job I had 4 clients in 2013 and am working on a retainer for one of them.

Homemaking Goals

6. Bake with yeast I made homemade pizza. It wasn't great. I'd like to try bread.

7. Switch to using homemade or natural cleaning supplies This has mostly happened, but I'm not sure I like the baking soda and vinegar route. I need to look into other options.

8. Decorate our bedroom This never happened in the two years we lived at our last house, and we moved to a new place at the end of 2013! Maybe this bedroom will look more put together.

Personal Goals

9. Complete a 5K race I ran a race 11/16/2013 in 42:43.

10. Figure out my blog purpose I basically decided to not take blogging too seriously. I still want to write about life, but my focus is more on my design work.

11. Make something with a sewing machine I haven't decided on anything I want to make that's really beginner level. I did use a needle and thread though.

12. Visit a place I've never been before (new state or new part of a state) I haven't been to any new states in the last two years. In fact, other than visiting Nathan's parents just across the border, I haven't even left the state.

For 2014, I want to set goals that more closely relate to my priorities. Making homemade pizza doesn't really help me get where I want to go in life. 

This is what I want to achieve this year:

Marriage
1. Go on one child free date with Nathan each month.

Parenting
2. Get out of the house with Evan at least once a week.
3. Read to Evan daily.

Personal
4. Get out of bed by 7:00 each morning.
5. Walk (preferably run!) Adyn every morning.
6. Read the entire Bible.

Homemaking
7. Create a weekly cleaning schedule and follow it.

Financial
8. Become completely debt free while maintaining an emergency fund of at least 3 months' expenses.

Business/Career
9. Make double the income I did in 2012.
10. Design 3 portfolio-worthy logos. 

Being Ready for Motherhood

I never had much interest in dolls when I was little. I only liked to play with stuffed animals, preferably beavers. My grandmother couldn't stand it. She bought me doll after doll, hoping to find one I would like. No luck. I just couldn't stand dolls, or anything else in the nauseating "pink aisle."

"How are you going to learn how to take care of a baby if you don't play with dolls?" my grandma asked me once. Looking back, her statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense; it's not as if my stuffed animals were preparing me for a career as a zookeeper or veterinarian. But I do understand her concern that my lack of interest in plastic babies meant I lacked interest in ever having real ones.

This should probably be the part of the story when I say that my grandmother was completely wrong, and that I grew up to be a woman who just loves babies and couldn't wait to have her own. But that's just not true. That wasn't me. Sure I liked kids and wanted two or three someday, but I'm just more comfortable with animals. If I hadn't gotten married, I probably would have become a crazy cat/dog/blue tongue skink lady and been perfectly happy with my life.

Was I "ready" for motherhood when I became a mother? I'd never even changed a diaper! Nathan had to teach me. But my lack of experience aside, I don't think I ever would have reached a point in life when I truly felt ready to become responsible to care for and raise another human. I mean, babies turn into teenagers! Is anyone ever really ready for that? I don't know if I ever will be.

Sometimes you just have to jump into the water and hope you can swim, and so far I'm still managing to tread water. I'm still not a baby person and I doubt I ever will be, but I adore my baby and look forward to having more kids. Not only have I figured out how to change diapers, I switched to cloth diapers when Evan was 5 months old!

Am I doing it all perfectly? Of course not. I doubt there's any aspect of parenting I do anywhere close to perfectly. I'm making it up as we go, and I'm sure most parenting "experts" would say I'm doing just about everything wrong, either holding him too much or too little, feeding him too much solid food or too little, etc. But you know what? Evan doesn't seem to know that I'm doing it wrong. He seems to think I'm kind of awesome, and that's good enough for me.

Do you feel ready to be a parent? If you have kids, did you feel ready to be a parent when your first child was born? 

Evan at 9 Months

I originally started writing this post as "Evan at 6 Months," but then I blinked and three months had gone by. Yikes. I guess I'd better do at least one post before he's a year old. Here's what Evan's been up to in his first 9 months.

As a newborn, the first words I would have used to describe Evan were "laid back" and "happy." As he got a little older, I would have added "engaging" because he was so social and wanted everyone to talk to him. Now that he's become much more active, I've seen "determined" come out. This kids does not give up! He's been a little less social the last few months as he's focused more on his physical development. He does seem to be developing a goofy sense of humor though.

Evan weighs about 18 pounds now. He hasn't had his 9 month checkup yet, but at about six and a half months, he weighed 16 lbs 6 oz and was 26.5" long, which put him around 20% for weight and 40% for length. He's not nearly as long and skinny proportionately as he was as a newborn, when he was about 30% for weight and 90% for length, but we're okay with that. His clothes fit much better. He's wearing mostly 12 month clothes now.

He rolled onto his stomach for the first time at three and a half months (May 2) and it wasn't long before he mastered rolling as a means of transportation and started rolling across the living room. At five and a half months (July 5) he pushed up to his hands and knees for the first time. By the time he was six months old, he was already an excellent crawler. Sitting up on his own didn't happen as early but happened very quickly. He could sit up on his own with his hands supporting him for a few seconds by six months, but he had no interest in doing so. What's the fun of sitting when you can roll or crawl all over the place? About a week after he turned six months old, he started to push up from all fours into sitting with his hands, and at six and a half months (August 2), he was sitting up with no hands. Two weeks later (August 16) Evan pulled up to standing for the first time. He started standing on his own earlier this month and took his first steps one day shy of 9 months old (October 18). I've always thought walking at 9 months sounded crazy and by no means have I tried to push him into early development, but I'm not going to hold him back either! His record is up to 12 steps in a row.

To answer what seems to be everyone's favorite question, "Is he sleeping through the night yet?!?" Sometimes. Sometimes he sleeps 12 hours straight, sometime she wakes up after 6 or 9 and goes back to sleep after nursing. He's pretty much always slept 12 hours at night, just with fewer wakings as he's gotten older. He's also gone to bed and woken up progressively earlier as he's gotten older. At first it was midnight to noon, and now it's 7:30pm to 7:30am. These days he generally takes one nap in the afternoon. It's usually two hours, but sometimes it's as long as three. Up until a few days before he turned six months old, Evan was sleeping in a pack-n-play right next to our bed. It worked great up until that point, but once he started waking up more easily and making more noises in his sleep, I decided it was time to put him in his own room. Evan's been fine with it. If anything, he liked the change of scenery.

Evan's diet is still mostly breast milk, with solids once a day most days. I wanted to hold off on solids until he was six months old, but I had no doubt he was ready at that point. He was grabbing our food at 4 months old. We started off with avocado. I just gave him a little taste, thinking if he wasn't into this solid food thing, we'd just try again in a week or so. Well, he was totally into it! He was launching forward with his mouth open and grabbing the spoon from me to stick it in his mouth himself. By 9 months old, he decided he wanted nothing to do with spoon feeding anymore, so I've just been letting him feed himself for the most part (under close supervision). I have yet to find a food he doesn't like well enough to eat as much as I give him.

It's been a joy watching this little guy grow and change and experience the world!

My DIY Baby Project: Felt Bird Mobile

While some moms make toys, blankets, and even clothes for their babies, I didn't want to spend a lot of time absorbed in projects during my pregnancy. However, I really wanted to make one project for my baby.

I've seen a lot of really cool felt creations around the internet, and I decided to make some felt birds and put them together in a mobile. This was probably not the best project to select because 1) I had never done anything like it before and can't sew well enough to hold a button on securely and 2) I'm a perfectionist. But whether it's because I majored in art in college or because of the do-it-yourself attitude I inherited from my father, I tend to think I can create things using any medium.

My mom is a bird watcher who can identify just about any local bird by sight or sound. As a toddler I learned not what a bird says but what a cardinal says and what a chickadee says. I've taught Nathan to identify the birds we see most commonly around here and look forward to teaching Evan to do the same.

I wanted the birds to be colorful while keeping true to the natural colors of local birds. I also wanted to include black and white patterns to interest a newborn.The birds I selected were the downy woodpecker, chickadee, bluebird, goldfinch, and cardinal. Nathan's favorite bird is the chickadee because of their jubilant "party in the air" way of flying, which I never even noticed until he made the observation. Bluebirds are my mom's favorite birds, and my grandma loved cardinals. It's a family tree of sorts.

I found the patterns for the woodpecker, goldfinch, and chickadee on Downeast Thunder Farm. Their bluebird and cardinal patterns are older and the body shapes didn't seem quite right, so I made my own. (Like I said, perfectionist.)

It wasn't until after Evan was born that I finally put them together as a mobile. I'd never made a mobile before either and I wasn't sure how best to do it until I saw the bird mobile Carmen of Life Blessons made for her daughter using a photoclip mobile. Evan was five weeks old at that point, so I decided there's a time to DIY and a time to just get it done and ordered one for my felt birds.

It took a lot of time, effort, and frustration but a lot of love went into it as well. And most importantly, Evan loves it! It hung over the changing table until we moved him into his own room, and then Nathan put it above Evan's bed. Sometimes all I have to do is spin the mobile and he drifts off to take a nap.

Did you do any crafting for your baby? Anyone else have a do-it-yourself problem like I do?

The Importance of Together as a Mom

I'm spending another 5 minutes of nap time writing for Five Minute Friday this week on the prompt of Together.


Together

It took me awhile to realize the importance of togetherness as a mom, of spending time with other moms. If you're a new mom or future mom, I encourage you to come together with other moms.

I didn't go to a La Leche League (breastfeeding support group) meeting until Evan was almost six months old. We weren't having any problems with nursing, so I didn't think I needed to go. But I need together. I need to be around other moms choosing to nurse past a year or even two because there are people who think nursing a baby who can walk is disgusting. I need to be reminded that I'm not alone. I go to a moms' group to remember that I'm not the only mom who's accidentally whacked her baby's head while walking through a doorway or who doesn't have a perfectly clean house.

As an introvert I'm happy being along most of the time, but I still need the togetherness.

Life as a Work at Home Mom

It's now been over five months since I left my job. Five months ago Evan wasn't yet mobile, and now he's crawling like a pro and has taken his first steps. It flies by so fast, and I'm thankful I've been able to stay home with him to watch him grow and develop.

While working full-time outside the home as a new mom just wasn't for me, I wanted to keep working. Graphic design is part of who I am, and while I may be more selective about clients and projects down the road, I don't plan to ever completely stop. I cringed when someone listed my occupation as "homemaker." There's nothing wrong with that job title, but it's just not me. However, I did give myself two months to focus on being a wife and mom, a redo of my maternity leave if you will. I bought a domain for my freelance business and made a Facebook page, but I didn't do much with either. Once I reached my July 1 deadline of when I needed to get serious about my freelance business, I realized I really had no idea how to find clients. I invited all my friends to like my Facebook page, offered my services in a couple places, and that was about it. I submitted a logo design for a contest and browsed around Elance, but nothing really came of it.

Then, three weeks into July, something really crazy happened: someone contacted me through my website about doing design work for them. And a few weeks after that someone else contacted me. A week later, someone from a local organization contacted me about working for them on a retainer. This local client has given me so much work that I haven't even made much of an effort to find new clients, and I'm able to offer my services to others at a lower rate. And just like that, I was a work at home mom. 

Balancing the work, home, and mom parts of my job has been an interesting challenge. I've found that on any given day, it's usually a choice of 2 out of the 3. If I have a lot of freelance work, I might completely forget about dinner or run the washer through an entire cycle without putting any clothes in it (hypothetically, of course). If the house is clean, I probably didn't do any freelance work that day. On the rare occasion I manage to spend a few hours working and get a lot done around the house, I don't spend much quality time with my son, which defeats the entire purpose of why I'm at home. If I find a true balance between the three, I feel like I accomplished nothing at all. I'm still working out the kinks, but overall, I'm very happy. 

Nathan has been wonderfully supportive. When I told him I ruined dinner (it turns out mixing eggs with shredded potatoes will NOT keep them from immediately turning brown), he brought home Fazoli's. One night recently I was lying in bed reading from the book we're reading for the moms' group I go to on Tuesday mornings. This particular chapter of No Perfect Moms was entitled "No Perfect Marriages." When I saw the title, I thought, "Yeah, that's for sure," yet as I was reading, Nathan was doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Our marriage might not be perfect, but my husband is pretty awesome. I never would have been able to handle working at home, let alone working outside the home, without a husband who cooks, cleans, and does whatever else he needs to do to take care of our family and home. I'm thankful he was never set on having a wife who stays home or a wife that works, and supports me no matter what I choose to do.

As for my main client, I think Evan likes that I'm home. He is very happy and healthy and growing well. We're still going strong with breastfeeding with no plans to stop anytime soon. We go to a moms' group, La Leche League meetings, and other places where he can be around other kids (and I can be around other adults). Sometimes I think I'm not providing him with enough stimulation or activities, but whenever I get down on the floor to play with him, he just climbs over me or cruises around me. It's pretty fun being his favorite toy. 

So, when will I be going back to work? I don't know. Some have misunderstood the fact that I actually resigned from my job and am not still on maternity leave. Depending on where the company is if and when I want to go back to work, they could rehire me, but there isn't a job waiting for me. At this point I don't have a set date or age of my child(ren) for when I'll go back to work. I look at this not as "taking a year off" but rather taking the next step in my career. I might want to go back to working full-time at some point, but at this point I'm happy being just a work at home mom.

Write

I'm taking part in Lisa Jo's Five Minute Friday today. Kayla's doing it for the first time today too, and when I saw the prompt on her blog for this week, I thought it would be a good one for me to do. So here we go...

Write.

I don't write much anymore. I'm not sure why. Writing used to be a pretty big deal for me. I started my first journal 19 years ago, when I was 7. I filled notebook after notebook by the time I was 18. For most of elementary school, my dream was to become a published author. In middle school I wrote for the school newspaper. And then at 15 I decided rather than sit around and write books and hope someone would publish them one day, I would become a graphic designer.

Writing kind of sat on the back burner during college. It's hard to keep writing for yourself when you're writing so much for others. 

I started my first blog 8 years ago, on MSN spaces, then moved to LiveJournal, to Xanga, and to Blogger. Now I don't blog. And I don't write for me. And I don't know why. I think part of it is what blogging has become. At first I loved blogging because I was such an advocate of keeping journals and now other people were doing it too! But now blogs aren't journals. Words like SEO and monetizing came in and made blogs into business. If blogging is just about making money, I'll stick with making money with graphic design.

So now what? {An update on our Financial Peace Trek}

It's been awhile since I wrote about our financial goals. Since we just significantly lowered our income, and since Nathan and I are going to be two of the co-leaders for a session of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University starting next month, I decided it was time to take a look at how we're doing with our trek to financial peace. We've made lots of progress, but we still have a long way to go.

To review Dave Ramsey's baby steps and the progress we've made so far, step one is to put $1,000 in the bank. That one was pretty easy for us with two incomes; we've never had less than $1,000 during our marriage. Step two is to pay off all debt except your mortgage, but we deviated from Dave's plan a bit. We have no mortgage and had quite a bit of debt in the form of graduate school loans, so we decided to pay off all debt except the grad school loans. We called this Baby Step 2, Phase 1, and we completed it early in 2011. Then we moved on to step 3, which is building an emergency fund of 3-6 months' expenses. This baby step kind of bugs me. Three months and six months is a big difference. How do you know when you've completed it? We just decided on a nice round number, and after saving that amount about two years ago, we began paying off the grad school loans.

Originally we thought about setting aside money for a down payment on a house at the same time we were paying off the loans, but we decided it made more sense to pour all our extra funds into getting rid of the debt as quickly as possible to avoid paying more in interest. We've questioned this decision from time to time as we watched the real estate market, but ultimately, we can't predict the future, and we're okay with renting.

Our goal for 2012 was to pay off half the grad school loans. I never did write a post on how I did with my 12 to Tackle in 2012, but I can say that we successfully met our financial goal. I called this our "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" because I really didn't think we could pull it off. Well, we did! The initial goal for 2013 was to be completely debt free with a 3-6 months' emergency fund. However, we could only do that by putting 100% of my income (and then some) towards paying off debt. Without my income, this isn't just an audacious goal, it's a nearly impossible one.

So now what?

Well, we are still putting as much as possible towards becoming debt free. I say "as much as possible," but within reason; we want to be able to enjoy life. As of now, seven months into 2013, we have paid off around 75% of the grad school loans. Our only remaining debt is two subsidized federal government loans. Can we be debt free by the end of the year? Probably. The question is, do we want to be? By the end of the year, the amount of debt we have will most likely be less than the amount in our emergency fund, so if we wanted to, we could use the money from our emergency fund to pay off our debt (assuming we have no serious emergencies). The financial adviser we met with doesn't think we should do it. He told us, "Dave Ramsey says once you have your emergency fund, you don't touch it." True, but Dave also says to pay off all debt before worrying about building your larger emergency fund. So, we're not sure what we'll do when we reach that "break even" point, but for now we're just continuing to work towards reaching that point by the end of the year.


How's your trek to financial peace? Which do you think is more important: having lots of savings, or being completely debt free?

Life as a Working Mom & The True Cost of Working

Evan usually wakes up to eat around 3:00 am. At 5:30 it's time to feed him again and get ready before feeding him again at 7:15 to ensure he's as full as possible when I drop him off at daycare. I haul my bags and my baby out to the car, drop Evan off at daycare, and then try to be productive at work for a couple hours. By the time I get into the groove, it's already time to go upstairs to a dirty, dusty, cold room to hook myself up to a machine to make my son's first bottle for the next day. A couple more hours of work, then I go feed Evan at daycare, grabbing some sort of fast food on my way back to work. I try to eat while working, and after a couple more hours of work it's time for another pumping break. I work a few more hours, then it's time to go pick up my son.

At home I barely have time to feed my dogs before I have to feed my baby again. By this point Nathan's usually home, and we try to see what we can scrounge up for dinner. I'm usually too worn out to cook anything. One of us usually ends up holding Evan most of the evening. My once easy-going, fairly independent baby is now clingy in the evenings. After spending most of his day lying on his back in a crib or on a play mat, competing with seven other babies for attention, who can blame him? I try to spend some time with my husband in between nursing sessions, but it's hardly quality time. I sterilize all my pump parts and bottles and get everything else ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

On Evan's second day of daycare, I got a call from one of the directors because he'd had all three of his bottles by noon. Not sure if he was going through a growth spurt or just being over fed, I stayed home with him on Wednesday. It was definitely a growth spurt, but hoping it would level off, I went back to work Thursday. I left him with 3 bottles and told them I would be back at noon to nurse him. By the time I arrived at noon, he had already taken all three bottles and was hungry for more. Unable to feed him, the daycare workers had left him crying on the floor. It was undeniable at this point that the best place for a baby, especially one fed exclusively breast milk, is with his mother.

I tried to keep working. If I could just make it eight more months, we would be 100% debt free and have an emergency fund of at least 5 months' expenses. Evan would never remember being in daycare. I thought there had to be a way to make it work. Maybe I could do freezer cooking on the weekends and clean after Evan's gone to bed. Maybe if I gave up breastfeeding and gave him formula

After four weeks back at work, I gave my two weeks' notice. It was by no means easy to do. I'm not a quitter. I'd been working there almost four years. I got comments on Facebook telling me it would get easier, to just hang in there. I just couldn't. I admire women who can make it work, but it wasn't for me.  I wasn't giving my best to anyone: not my job, not my son, not my husband, not myself.

I had to stop crunching the numbers and look at the big picture. Quitting my job was not a good move from a purely financial standpoint. Even after daycare and increased costs related to me working, I was still bringing home a decent amount of money. The thing is, there's quite a bit more to life than money. I could relate to a lot of what Amy from The Finer Things in Life wrote in a blog post about what working outside the home was costing in terms of her time, her marriage, and her health. It just wasn't worth it to me.

A lot of it came down to this: At the end of my life, what will I regret? Will I be more likely to regret having less money during this time in our lives and being in debt a little longer, or missing out on the first year of my son's life?

I don't think I'll regret this decision.

I'm a Mom?

A year after finding out I would soon be a mother, and nearly four months after meeting my baby, it still seems unbelievable that I actually am a mother. I was reading a book to Evan today about a Mama Bear and her Little Cub and in my mind, Mama Bear is still much older and wiser than I am. Even though he looks like my family and I see his dad's personality in him, it's still hard to believe that this amazing little boy who gets bigger and smarter each day is my son. I find myself constantly thinking, and sometimes saying out loud to Nathan, "We have a baby!" or "I made that!" 

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms. Does it ever sink in?