What's Mine Is Yours

I haven’t really gotten a chance to write a blog about my pregnancy yet. And it will have to wait again for the next one.  Today I watched an encounter between Aubrey and her cousin that needs a quick blog!

Aubrey is hyper aware of everything around her. It’s a nice trait, but also a bit tricky.  She asks questions and remembers things that just kind of blow my mind.  Even with being quite self-conscious of my body I never let it be an issue at home. The girls have seen me shower, change etc.  A long time ago Aubrey stopped in her tracks like she was seeing me for the first time. Her eyes widened slightly and she said “Mom where did you get those scratches on your tummy?”

I knew this question would come eventually. I sorta really hate my stretch marks, but also don’t pay much attention to them.  So, I gave her this big explanation about how when she was a baby inside me she just didn’t have enough room, my tummy had to grow and it left these marks all over.   She was satisfied and went on her way.  

Now she likes hearing the story. Like it somehow is this special story just about her and I. 

Today Rowan (her cousin) came over, I was trying to explain to her that I had a baby in my tummy. She thought I was hilarious and had a good laugh, followed by saying “uhhh no you don’t!”. 

Aubrey quickly dropped what she was doing looked at her and said “YA she is! AND my mom has marks on her tummy that are from when I got to be inside!”.  She said it with way more pride then anyone I have ever met about stretch marks. Like they were hers.

It threw me off. Made me stop and remember how much she soaks in from us.  From now on they will be ‘our’ stretch marks.

Elise meet Disney, Disney meet Elise.

We have been to Disney a few times. I love Disney. Yes there are crowds, and pricey…well everything, but the magic of the place just sort of brushes those things under the rug. In the week leading up to our trip Ben and the girls spent countless hours on our area rug pretending to fly to Disney, then they would continue on and enjoy many rides. It was super fun. The girls giggled with sheer joy through it all.  Just like our trip would be, right?!

Disclaimer: No matter what you read next we really did love this trip. It was very magical and everything Disney should be.  

Elise and her daddy have this thing where she bosses him around and he (mostly) does what she tells him. It's a really great deal they have going. Ben finally has his child who loves him most and Elise has a man servant. So, our first day was all travel and it turned out way longer than expected but the girls powered through and did great. 

Let's fast forward to our first day. We got off the shuttle at the park and the girls ran, skipping and giggling towards the front gates. Until 20 feet into the gig Elise stops, slowly and very dramatically lays on the ground and covers her face. Awe, cute right?  We smiled at each other, Ben kindly swooped down and lifted her in his arms snuggling her and doing their thing. 

That moment I just described should have been our ultimate warning. We should have known what would come next.  I won't bore you with super long stories, here is a bullet form explanation of our trip. 

- We have to wait to get into the main part of the park, so Ben stands in the already massive crowd and waits with the girls, I go get coffee.  All smiley I return to Ben with our lattes, but wait he has a weird look on his face. This is what he says to me "Soooo…Elise sort of laid on the ground again, I thought she was just doing that thing again. Well she was licking the water out of the tracks in the pavement….." 

- After getting off a ride our little family merrily walked towards the next area only to realize a group walking towards us was pointing, smiling and aw'ing. We looked around to realize we left Elise 15 yards behind us crouched down pretending to sob, very dramatically. 

- Elise wasn't super fond of lines. I mean if they were 10 minutes or less she was cool with it, but anything longer we would wait on edge for what could come.  Countless times she would get this glare on her face, look around the lineup and with lightning speed whip her soother out and throw it into the swarms of people. 

- The soother throwing was awesome fun, we did that game lots. On our second last day it was late in the evening and she had done it again. I asked Ben if it was bad that I had gotten to the point that I quickly looked anywhere but near her so that when she whipped it back in her mouth without me cleaning it I wouldn't have to deal with the look of disgust from others. Seriously, we were working on building her immune system!

- Standing in line for the Peter Pan ride we had gotten smart, we took snacks in the lineup.  The snack never lasted the entire wait, but she was doing good. Ben finally picked her up at one point (now remember this is generally a massive, tight line) she looked around the crowd, looked at her dad and before we knew what was happening she whipped his glasses off and threw them as far as her spindly arm could into the crowd. 

- On our last day we stood waiting in a busy area watching her lie on the ground fake crying again only to have people stop and ask Ben "is she ok?"….

-Towards the end of the big Parade Elise threw her soother into the middle of the parade. Don't worry, a kindly dancer kicked it back to us. No I did not clean it. 

Really my stories could go on and on but no one has that much time. Needless to say, we think Elise and Disney should not meet again for a few years. 

Week #8 (late again...)

I really don't have anything witty or particular mindful to go along with the pics this week. It's just a look at what's happening here. I probably don't have much to say because Elise isn't letting anyone get much sleep...

Abstract art at it's finest. 

This is her new thing, when she doesn't want to listen to me she throws her head up, like so, and marches away from me!

Pretty much everyday of every week we have a princess or ballerina in the house, or even a Princess that is a ballerina!

Week #7 Family Day Weekend

We were really lucky to get to have an entire Family Day weekend all together. It included swimming, pizza, movies, walks, adventures to find unicorns, magical fairies and butterflies (all were found but the butterflies).

Searching for the Unicorns, Fairies and Butterflies

I also had a little 'aha moment'. One of those times your kids stop you in your tracks and make you instantly analyze what you just did or are about to do.

Ben has not been feeling well so we popped him into a walk-in clinic. When Ben was called in the girls and I hung out in the waiting room. They were hopping between chairs and generally having a good time. Shortly after Ben left us a man walked out of a room from just being seen.  Aubrey looked him up and down as he walked past us, then asked "Mom why is he wearing pyjama pants?".

Elise believes in Jammie days, and wearing 5 pairs of undies on top.

Not wanting the man to be embarrassed, I instantly started to say "shhh" but barely got the sound out of my mouth before I stopped. I knew if i told her to shh, she would instantly ask why she should. . When I thought about how I would answer I didn't have a good enough answer to continue. I also thought if I say that would it have more impact on the man, maybe he would think I thought it was a shameful thing. I looked at her and replied "Well I don't really know why, but if I were to guess I bet it's because he is sick and just wants to be comfy.". Satisfied with my answer she went back to playing with Elise.

I was left to think of the impact me telling her to shh could have had. Would it have made her think it was a bad thing to wear comfortable clothing? That the man should be embarrassed?  Would it have produce a seed of judgment inside her for later years?

The rest of the weekend was much less eventful, unless you count the unicorn/fairy hunting.

I think she spotted a unicorn!

Week #6 (a day late)

Last week was a laid back week with the cold weather and everyone still working at recovering from colds. So just a couple of pictures...

She was wearing this giant skirt and dancing around, I had her stop for a few seconds so I could take a picture that was not her twirling. This is the look I received. 

Showing Dad how to multi-task, sweeping while colouring! Girls got skills!

I loves her. This picture reminds me of so many of her from when she was about 6 months old. 

I'm Kelly and I judge others...

My Mom recently sent me a link for a photo project that was done by a group called Connecticut Working Moms. The intent is to encourage women to stop judging one another and end the ‘Mommy Wars’. 

They describe the Mommy Wars as the negative comparisons and judgements on things such as post-baby bodies, feeding methods, choice of diapering, maternity leave, the list could go on and on really.

This article was sent to me about a month ago and I have been sitting on it, stewing. Probably overthinking, but at least it got me thinking.

I applaud the effort. A great step in calling the woman population out, saying “ lets all just love one another.”.  The Utopian world in my head looks a lot like that. Everyone having true compassion and empathy for one another, being fully accepting of all no matter how different it is from themselves.

But here’s the thing that I think gets missed. Understand this is all just from my own experience.

I feel like in order to truly have the change, people need to be honest that they do it.  That even the moms who held up the amazing signs in this photo project have at some point, and likely still do (even if its silently) judge other mom’s choices.  

See I look at it like an AA group. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. 

Before I became a mom I had a lot of judgments towards parents around me. I judged the choices my sisters made, the lady down the street, the lady in the mall. Because obviously when I was a mom it would be different.  Well, then I became a mom, and I did do a lot of things different in comparison from the moms I had judged.

Luckily along with becoming a mother, a new pathway of empathy opened up for other moms that wasn’t really ever there before.  But it unfortunately didn’t shut down the judgment pathway that was created many years before. Since reading this article and other blogs, board forums, I started wondering why.

When I started this blog, while going through PPD after having Elise, I was blown away at how many messages I received from women that had gone through the same thing. These are women I had known, or thought I did. And I think that is where things start to go a little haywire.

See we rarely know someone’s whole truth. What makes them tick, what breaks them down, what lifts them, we are not an open species with each other. We hide. It’s like the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. Whoever hides the best, looks the best. And we all know we wanna look good.

Since exposing myself to the world wide web and stating I indeed was very flawed it helped dissolve some of the judgment of other people. Sadly not all of it.  The thing is though I am more aware. I can catch myself in the moment, then I start a little mental conversation “Kelly, do you know where this person is coming from? Do you know that that Mom might have spent her entire night up with a teething baby and now has about 5% of her patience in working gear? Do you know that she is a single Mom doing what works best for her family?”

The more I have dived into questioning what others lives are really like, I realized I don’t know much.  And even though I have more understanding of others now than ever before, I still get caught in the mudslide of judgment. Because I still have flaws, I still have insecurities that loom looking for others who might be weaker at something than I am to boost my self-esteem. 

Maybe a photo-project that would be more impactful would be one with signs saying “I judged her because she fed her child sugar cereal” and the other holding a sign saying “I accept her even though she judges me because she has an insecurity that other people think she doesn’t feed her children well”. 

I can join the chorus of Kumbaya singing “Love one another”, but I don’t think we can all truly drop judgment until we can admit we do it, even while we try not to. I think it's about taking the opportunity to stop and self reflect when we find ourselves in judgement, and work towards self growth. All the while trusting that with growth true compassion and empathy for others will organically grow with you. 

Week #5

This week was a rough week. All pictures are from my iPhone, I never pulled my camera out once. We were a house full of sickness, crocheting and crazy babies. 

My sister Angela came to my house a little over a week ago with a ball of yarn and a few hooks. She taught me the basics to crochet in about 20 minutes. Now I have gone a little overboard. Elise is wearing some leg warmers I whipped up, she had to be tricked into wearing them, now she loves them. 

Aubs and I sporting our infinity scarves I did. 

With my sinus infection I became a bit housebound, which in turn created crazy kids. So, I finally dragged myself outta the house and took the girls on a date. 

At Edo in Camrose the cooks can see pretty much everyone in the joint. They kept smiling and waving at Elise. This was her response. You can't see her hand but she was poking her fork at them with this look on her face. 

Sick mom + sick baby = multitasking put to the test!

The Sick Wars

At the end of last week I had really started to feel a bit of a cold coming on. All weekend I tried to ignore it and went about my business. Obviously my determination alone would keep the sickness at bay, I would not give in to a weakness like this. I'm tough like that. 

Fast forward to Tuesday, Ben is gone to a conference for two days, Aubrey has school/dance, our house has no food, and I am in need of a doctor. Since I am clearly superwoman I arranged for my Mom to pick Aubrey up from school, dashed into Red Deer to a walkin, got a prescription for a sinus infection (F*$#), whipped through the grocery store, got Aubrey picked up then dropped off again at dance, then ran about making a gourmet (ok it was chill) dinner for my family.   And don't you worry I did this all with a big smile and super happy….

Fast forward again to tonight. It's now been almost three days of meds and I feel worse. All day I have felt the weakness that is a sinus infection take me over. Surprisingly this has decreased my mood slightly. 

Then on top of it all BEN starts in with a man-cold. First it was a few texts telling me he wasn't feeling great. These generally followed a text where I told him I didn't feel well. I had a lot of time on my hands today, the girls were easy peasy, but this left time to stew. Jump ahead now to Ben  walking in the door…"oh man hon I don't feel good…" sniffle, sniffle, cough cough. 

This is where my eyes narrowed, breathing became a bit rapid, my head snapped up from my super non-geeky crocheting, "Quit trying to steal my sick-thunder Ben!".  He laughed. He actually laughed at me like this was a joke.  

Then he started in on questions about how my sinus infection started, "did it feel like this…" "did you have a runny nose…".  The eyes narrowed further, this guy was obviously not getting my irritation. "Ben you have a cold, I have an infection which is obviously worse. Quit trying to be sicker than me!"  Then I walked myself to the bath and told him to enjoy making supper :)

Week #4 of Life at Home

This year I am making my countdown towards thirty. I'm not sure how I skipped from being 21 to almost 30…but I did. After my 29th Birthday Ben and I had in-depth conversation about what this year could look like. We usually do this together after each others birthdays.  For me I knew I needed to work my way out of some ruts, but also learn to push through discomforts. 

Pushing through discomfort is a really big thing for me. I have based many choices (more than I care to admit) on the fact that I may be uncomfortable, embarrassed, fail, the list goes on and on.  

Now I am a bit over 6 months away from my Birthday only to realize I have been half assin' this promise to myself.  Thankfully January has been different. This month Ben and I have made decisions about our family, I've joined an amazing circuit training class, and push myself in personal growth everyday. 

AND get this, last week I started crocheting. My sisters and I like to mispronounce it, say it more phonetically, you know to make it still sound like we have some coolness left in us and that it's just a geeky thing we thought we would try. But I, the girl who was given 'special projects' in Home-ec instead of sewing because I was so terrible, am a crocheter!  

Just imagine what next month could bring!

If you feel like giving me a little extra love please give a click to the smiley lady in the top right hand corner. All you have to do is click and it gives me a vote :)

Character... (and week #3 of pics)

I love books. I love movies. The characters I tend to really love are ones with characteristics I wish were stronger in me. So living in my bubble I assumed it must be like that for all people. Until my children came along and kind of upset my thinking. 

See, Aubrey fell in love with the character of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Well the problem with that is, she kind of is like Belle. I read a character description of Belle tonight and it describes Aubrey quite well.  

Then I thought maybe Aubs is just weird and it was a fluke for her. Until this last week. Elise had a rough week, sick, teething, all that fun kind of stuff. In desperation one day I got out the iPad, showed her three options of movies, she picked Brave.  I didn't think much of it then. Until she sort of became obsessed. She asks at least a dozen times a day for a 'yo' (thats how she says show). Finally I went and bought her a book about Merida, which seems to mildly satisfy the addiction. 

This is her 'Mom pleeeease a yo?!' pose.

I kid you not, the description I read of Merida could easily be written about Elise. Now I kind of feel in a dither. 

Fine I'll read a book.

Where along the way did I step off the track? Or maybe I stepped on the track, one that so many people do.  As i think back to some of the characters I really love in books and movies, I feel like the qualities I admire in them (yes you can admire a fictional character) are ones I maybe had and lost along the way. Probably due to the fact I spent a large majority of my time worrying that I fit in, or didn't draw too much attention to myself, or was terrified I would fail miserably at life in general. 

As I inch closer and closer to my 30th birthday I realize how ridiculous I have been. Wasting time worrying about most things out of my control.  So, maybe the next step is to step off the track and see where it takes me….

Week #2

Aubrey and Elise are big story tellers. The imagination that sparks out of them each day never stops surprising me.  One minute I can be watching a ballet about a girl who wants to go to a grand ball, the next it's a story of magic that most people can only dream of. 

Before I had Elise (also while she was an infant), I used to do a lot of painting projects with Aubrey. Once Elise was old enough to participate it came to a quick end. Elise was has a lot more spunk than Aubs did at that age. A painting project meant spending an hour getting it off my chairs, walls, garbage can, her hair, face, legs, I think you get the picture. 

This week I decided it was time to branch out and try again. I am so glad I did. Elise loved every minute of it, she even ended with barely any on her. And Aubrey created stories with her paintings in a whole new way. 

Aubrey has a really great story about her painting. In the end it was an Angel who was guiding three golden stars. Actually I am not doing the story justice, she explained it all to Ben when he got home, luckily he caught it on video :)

Lisey really thought that painting was hilarious. She finished in about ten minutes, then sat there eating a cookie chattering away at me. 

Elise and I have two hours, twice a week where it is just her and I. During our time alone we do a lot of reading, snuggling, playing with dollies. It's all very exciting especially when you don't have to worry about sharing!

I kept trying to talk to her while taking this picture, she got very frustrated and told me "shhhhh, baby night!". Which obviously means 'lady be quiet my baby is sleeping'!

The look she gives me when she doesn't like an answer I give her ;)

Week #1

I was looking for a way to make sure I kept my camera out this year. Last year I found that I would go hard, then not touch it for a month. So, I decided that I needed a plan. I looked around at some of the 52 week challenges but was not keen on taking on a theme each week. Instead I am doing my own thing. 

Every week i will be posting either a picture or pictures that show a week in our life. It will definitely be a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. Hope you are all prepared :)

Week #1....Fun in the snow!

The girls waiting on Lukey to shovel a path. 

Such good buddies. 

Finally in!

“Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.” 
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix