This is one in a series of guest posts by other bloggers. Read to the end for a longer biographical note on today's guest blogger, Lucy H. Pearce of Dreaming Aloud. Lucy has perfectly summed up the experience of parenting — both delectable and distasteful — in one delicious metaphor.
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Life for me as a mother is like a layer cake: I just can't jam it all in my mouth in one go. I can't savour its wholeness, the harmony of its completeness, the careful balance of the textures and flavours. I get all of one, and then all of another. I love it, I hate it. I want it forever, I can't bear another second…
I taste the tartness of tantrums, tiredness and despair at my lot. Red and raw as raspberry jam, the pips get stuck in my gums.
The rich oozing chocolate love of adoration hits me another moment. They are edibly good, my little cherubs. I shower them with kisses and thank the heavens for all my blessings.
And then there's lots of boring sponge - laundry, washing up, nagging them to get dressed, and brush their teeth, and lie down and go to sleep and don't hit your sister say sorry andwhatdoyouwantinyoursandwichtoday?
There are a lot of things that simple living means to me, but that's not very simple. So I'll go with one aspect that's occurred to me recently: I'm happy being happy.
I used to feel a driving need to be great, to make something of my life … and I've downscaled my own expectations. And you know what? It's fine.
All my life, I've had this inkling I should be somebody. Maybe because I was really smart as a child, I felt bad that I wasn't in fact a child prodigy. I felt sheepish thinking about Mozart (the overachiever!) or even fictional protagonists like Doogie Howser (a doctor at age 14! how can I compete?). I remember watching Jennifer Capriati play tennis at 16 or so and finding out this teen phenom was my age and hearing my parents josh that I hadn't accomplished anything so epic — and taking it to heart, even though I stank at tennis.
I was awarded all sorts of minor scholarships and honors when I graduated high school, but one that stood out to me was a music scholarship. Out of all the highly talented seniors in my musical groups, why had I gotten the music scholarship? I wasn't even planning on a career in music; was I worthy of such a prize? (Clearly no.)
Then there were the teachers and professors (and my mom!) telling me over and over again that I had it in me to be a writer, that I shouldn't let that gift go to waste. So as birthday after birthday passed without a novel on Oprah's list or a multi-million-dollar movie deal, I felt disappointed in my own stagnation.
It was all a sort of megalomania without a purpose: a lot of narcissism without much sticktoitedness.
Welcome to the January 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Recovering from the Holidays
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written about how their families get back to normal after the holidays are over.
I wasn't sure I wanted to write what I actually did to recover from the holidays. See — the pre-holiday rush was tremendous. Not only did I have presents to prepare and wrap, Christmas activities to take the kids out to, and festivities to attend and plan, but I also had a long list of holiday-themed blog articles I wanted to race to get posted before the timeliness expired (and of course I missed out on half a dozen, and of course I do this to myself every year so should clearly start scheduling some posts now!).
When the holidays were over, what I most wanted to do — all I wanted to do — was play The Sims 3.
An earlier time, with a very young Mikko and Sims 2
Yup, just hole myself away with my computer and ignore my real family for the sheer joy of raising a fake one. To his eternal credit, Sam let me.
I was thinking about how we as mothers (parents, but especially mothers) often think we don't deserve me-time. And not only me-time but wholly decadent, completely pointless, impossibly immature me-time.
So I'm here to tell you today: Find something you want to do, something that makes you happy, today, and if you have any space at all, do it.
Maybe it's retiring to your sewing nook and dusting off that old project you've been itching to get back to.
Maybe it's stealing the Xbox controller from the kids and racking up a few levels on your favorite game.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
Mikko desperately wants to set up a lemonade-stand-style business because he loves when people give him money. In addition to a peanut-butter stand (at which you got a taste of peanut butter for 25 cents or a whole jar for 20 dollars), he decided that this sponge cake he bought should be sold at a cake stand for $10 a chopped-up piece. He never actually takes his business outdoors and doesn't seem to understand that fleecing us isn't going to work. Still, I have to admire his self-employed spirit!
Sometimes when I tell people what I give up to be a mother, I feel like defensively assuring them I’m not a martyr. Because I’m not — I choose this, right here, right now, and I know this time with little ones so dependent on me is fleeting. Very eloquent post:
[T]his peace over my voluntary position as a mother has burned as an ember deep inside me from the earliest days, from the first decisions that I made to set aside some of my wants and needs in deference to my children’s needs.Those choices represented an ever-shifting, intricate blend of willing sacrifice and practical necessity.
I think the world would be a better place if we stuck to one acceptable way of commenting on what is on a fellow adult’s plate. That way is “That looks delicious” + some variation of “Where did you get it/how did you make it/does it taste as good as it looks/smells/Is it like this other thing that is also delicious?“
[…]
If people could do that, that would solve 90% of your problem right there. You are the boss of what goes on your plate and into your mouth. Other people are the boss of what goes into their own mouths.
[…]
You’re not that person’s doctor? You’re not their nutritionist? You’re not the parent of a young child talking to that child? You’re not running a proposed dish or a restaurant by a dining companion? Then NOTHING you have to say about what they are eating is important.
This seriously could not be a more beautiful bathing experience for a newborn — you can read the bliss on the baby's face of reentering the familiarity of the womb. Oh!
I'd say it would be lovely to have a bath just like this as an adult, but that makes me think of a recent episode of New Girl and start laughing.
Here are my top three ways to get pinned and repinned on Pinterest!
Carnival news:
Lots of carnivals posting this week, so stay tuned! And, make sure you sign up for the Parenting Blog Carnival Calendar and check out the upcoming due dates:
Check out upcoming carnivals in the calendar below, and click the "plus" button at the bottom to add it to your Google account.
To add carnivals to the calendar, see the static page with an email form that takes you step by step through submitting your carnival information. Any carnivals on topics of interest to natural parenting bloggers are welcome.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
I am visiting my parents this week, and I decided that was a good reason to unplug, destress, and bask in the present with my family. The busyness will come back to us, but it's nice to have these moments, yes?
I've scheduled a lot of posts this week in advance but have been mostly in absentia in truth. And for that reason, I'm going to share just two links that speak to me in this time:
But the pulling gets weaker. After a few days, I forgot to carry my phone with me a couple of times. The information and news that seemed so necessary last week, became more unnecessary, with each passing day. The immediate loses its charm. I started to forget. I began to relearn patience and observation, being present, and how to embrace boredom.
Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen
Thank you to Emily of Embrita Blogging for giving me a video to think about and enjoy. She's always got the best media to share.
At LaurenWayne.com:
Loose vs. lose
The copy editor tackles another pair of commonly confused words! Here they are in a sentence:
It was such a happy surprise to see my baby boy lose his first loose tooth.
Welcome to the Taboo Carnival. Our topic this summer is PLAYING FAVORITES!
This post was written for inclusion in the quarterly Taboo Carnival hosted by Momma Jorje and Hybrid Rasta Mama. This month our participants reflect on favoritism in relationships with children, parents, siblings, and more.
Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
When I was growing up, if I protested about some perceived privilege my older brother got that I hadn't, my mom would invariably respond, "That's because we like him better than you."
If my brother protested that my parents were easier on me because I was the girl, my mom's response was the same: "Well, we like her better than you."
I credit my mom's unflappable refusal to get drawn into arguments of fairness and any sort of hierarchy of affection for my own even-keeled confidence that I would be able to love multiple children according to what they needed from me — without any worries about loving one more or one less.
It's not how I think of love, for one thing. I don't rank my loves and in fact abhor making favorites lists of anything — movies, books, foods, colors. Why can't I like them all? And why can't which one is dearest to me at the moment be in ever-shifting flux?
I mean, sure, I love my family more than I love strangers. And I took more care of my children and husband than I did my cat. But, then again, my cat needed less of me than my husband and children do, and there we come back again to the crux of fairness and favorites. We parent the children we have, in the moment they need us — not based on some external notion of what's extrinsically equitable.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
Nom…nom…car seat.
The boys and I went to the Seattle Art Museum this past week. I was hoping we could do something unschoolish like grab a postcard or two that appealed to Mikko and then go on a scavenger hunt to find the artwork. I was hoping we'd have an Olivia moment where he'd be so taken with one particular piece that he'd stop and stare for long unwavering moments. As it turned out, I got only a glimpse at my favorite piece from across the room, a piece that brings me serenity, but in this case was like a distant goal, visible but out of reach.
Probably it was because we were meeting up with some other friends, and therefore got pulled in multiple directions. Probably it was because my kid is four years old and the elevators interested him more than the exhibits.
It certainly didn't help that the docents were the least child-welcoming people ever ever ever. They kept yelling at our kids, everywhere, for every perceived infraction. It was like they'd just read a guidebook on "How to Make Sure Children Forever Hate Art." Bah.
Mikko said it was boring and we're not to return. And yet — his joy at seeing the Hammering Man outside was palpable and limitless. And he told me later he also liked the interior "big statue of the guy."
I think the next step will be the Olympic Sculpture Park, where I hope fewer people will be policing his happiness and he can wander at leisure. Also, we need to eat first, because he was really hungry at the SAM. Hmm.
I have a boatload of links for you this week, so hang on and start reading:
Save a mama’s life this Mother’s Day — consider putting together a simple, inexpensive birth kit to help moms in developing nations reduce maternal mortality. Putting kits together is a great project for a moms group, a homeschooling group, a church group, etc., or you can blog about it and link up at the post, or donate money toward the cause. You can even use your donation as a Mother’s Day present in honor of your own mother or mother-in-law!
Wise take on the point that correlation does not equal causation.
Healthy, balanced diet and activity = important for everyone, lean or fat.
Losing weight = almost purely social goal that may or may not be important to you, gets even more complicated and guilt inducing when you have children and may actually make you less healthy.
As a birth nerd, I’m supremely interested in subjects like how the placenta detaches and leaves the uterus, and what happens after. And as a former sufferer of postpartum hemorrhaging, I love knowledge that can keep it from happening again.
I thought her conclusions were very interesting: In a hospital, you’re unlikely to have a completely hands-off third stage of labor (i.e., the time you birth the placenta); therefore, so-called active management might be best for avoiding PPH, based on studies. However, in a relaxed environment where the birth can be purely physiological, then a physiological birth of the placenta can also be safe and effective. My second birth was like that: low lights, low noise, low stress, skin-to-skin just after birth — and no PPH this time around. I know of women who’ve had serene home births that ended in PPH, however, so I’d love to see more studies on the topic to tease out which method is preferable in terms of maternal safety.
[M]y thoughts are that while elimination diets have their place, like any other treatment or tool, they can and are being abused by well-meaning mothers and their breastfeeding counselors. I think that starting an elimination diet without real symptoms (just over normal baby developmental issues) is not the best idea and may actually be doing baby a disservice when it is used as a first recourse.
I love posts that point out that dieting doesn’t work. Really.
In previous posts I’ve covered lots ofevidence that there’s not much you can do to change your weight. In the midst of all that, it turns out that thereis one reliable way to make yourself fatter.
Can you tell I'm gearing up to write a post about fat acceptance and health at every size?
Poetry of a Hobo Mama giveaways
Do a poet a favor, will you? Please be super kind to these wonderful hosts who are doing their best and boldest to promote these giveaways and go and enter. Even if you don't care about poetry, will you please enter at their sites (Anktangle & Hybrid Rasta Mama — two different giveaways; you can enter at one or both) just to brighten their days? I don't mind if you never read my book — you can give it as a baby shower gift, or wrap it up as a Mother's Day present to your mama, or donate it to your local library. I just want to share these poems that have meant so much to me, and support the bloggers who are supporting my dream. I don't say this out of a place of desperation or frustration at all, just truly out of a desire to honor these reviewers for their hard work. Thank you so much!
If you entered my previous giveaway, winners have been notified. So if you didn't get an email, you're free to try, try again!
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living.
Riding the rails with my husband, Crackerdog Sam, and our hobo kids, Mikko Lint Picker (born June 2007), Alrik Irontrousers (born May 2011), and Karsten (born October 2014). Trying every day to parent intentionally and with grace.
When I was growing up, if I protested about some perceived privilege my older brother got that I hadn't, my mom would invariably respond, "That's because we like him better than you."
moment where he'd be so taken with one particular piece that he'd stop and stare for long unwavering moments. As it turned out, I got only a glimpse at my favorite piece from across the room, a piece that brings me serenity, but in this case was like a distant goal, visible but out of reach.
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living. 
