MyTalesFromTheCrib

Wednesday

Daily Gratitude Journal: I'm Grateful for the Sea

It's been a while since I've written a "Daily" Gratitude Journal Post. Today is the day to get back on that way of thinking. However, today it's easy to sit down and take a few minutes for myself. We are on vacation with my in-laws down at the beach so there are two extra people to keep our three children entertained while I quietly slip out to the front porch, latte in hand, by myself to smell the salt air and feel the familiar chill of a beachy summer morning that provides the perfect lazy backdrop of relaxation in it's overcast, misty air. Some might call it gloomy. Today I call it glorious.

Armed with a newfound optimism, I'm grateful for so many things and since we're not home drowning in piles of clean laundry and piles of dirty laundry and piles of the yet-to-be-determined-by-the-sniff-test-only laundry that resides boldly between the two; I can breathe.

Since I'm not walking through a crumbling kitchen held up by stacks of paper, stacks of school books and stacks of dishes; I can see.

Since we have the rare one-to-one ratio of adults per children in our home-away-from-home beach house (even with me sitting on the porch alone); I can relax.

"This," I loudly proclaim, "should occur more frequently!"

Today I'm grateful for:

1. Family. We are so blessed to be surrounded by two sets of grandparents who are loving and generous. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have my parents close by to see as often as we do. At this point we see them at least weekly; sometimes more, sometimes less. The kids will always have fond memories of growing up with their maternal grandparents firmly planted in their everyday lives. They live close enough to attend a Monday afternoon dance class, or meet for lunch in addition to the once a year holiday blow-out events where everyone comes together. I'm thankful for my in-laws who go above and beyond to create wonderful vacation memories with us, like renting this house for us all to stay in. We may not be as close in distance to do all of the year-round events, but we make the most of our time when we are together a few times a year. As paternal grandparents they bring a fun perspective with them filled with water color painting lessons and hot wheel races.

...now if we could just get our brothers to move closer for regular cousin visits...

2. I'm grateful for cold, chilly, misty beach mornings where the espresso is warm and the chair is cozy, smiles are genuine, voices are friendly, laughter flows easy and the day holds promises of sandy excitement once the sun burns through the marine layer. Summer mornings at the beach. Doesn't get more relaxing than that.

3. I'm grateful for vacations because regardless of what the calendar says, every afternoon is Saturday, every morning is Sunday and every evening is Friday night.

4. I'm grateful for Mother Nature for without her, none of this would be possible. The ocean, the hummingbirds coming by to say hello!, wiry branches offering me tiny purple orchids, the fruit tree in the back yard behind us; the palm trees and waves swaying to their familiar, breezy song. Thanks Mama Nature. You're a real peach!

5. I'm grateful for clarity and perspective; for fresh starts and long journeys and the necessity of putting one foot in front of the other and continuing the walk down the mountain or up the mountain - whichever way your brain imagines life to be. For slogging onward and having faith; for getting back on Spirit the horse after it reared up it's legs sliding me and two others off it's back when I was 5 years old (true story); for not backing down when intuition is screaming at me and for trusting the chills up my spine and the way my nose hairs tingle just before crying. I'm grateful for possessing the strength to just be me and to take my family on this journey; this detour in our lives right now I believe so whole-heartidly in and trust; and for not backing down - never backing down - to the bears and the wolves circling the fire. I'm grateful for the ears to hear the wise owls and for the ability to tune out the cackling crows. I'm grateful for the steadfast gut that has served me well and has gotten me in and out of the jams that give my life the bold flavor I crave. I have my family's best interest at heart and from there is where I make my decisions. I do not apologize for that.

...and to my children who may be reading this someday, some advice from Mama:

-Always listen to your inner voice and believe what your heart is telling you.
-Trust yourself to make your own decisions but keep going if it was the wrong one. It will be the wrong one from time to time and that's okay. That's how you know what you want and what you don't want out of life. You will find the right path someday. Enjoy life's daily lessons.
-Always hold love in your heart. For a heart full of love will always seek the good and the truth of what you deserve.
-And lastly (for now anyway), I hope you find a love like Daddy and I have someday! It's been a beautiful ride!

My Daily Goal: I will take a picture each day that brings me happiness and I will post it along with my list of 5 things I'm grateful for. I invite you to do the same! These are not listed in order of importance. That is too much pressure for this writing exercise. I am just free flowing as I write and trying to be genuine in my thoughts and emotions and writing what I feel at the moment. Please join me! @coco_cana #DailyGratitudeJournal

Friday

Daily Gratitude Journal: I'm Grateful For Ice Cream

Today has been one of those days. It's just....uh.

Can I bitch for a minute? So I have this baby who is 6 months old, he's the cutest thing in the world (I mean seriously, look at this picture!) and he's a breastfed baby who like...eats like he's going off to war or something. The kid seriously nurses all.day.long. I mean for real, all day long. Why am I on Twitter so much? Because I'm sitting in my rocking chair nursing this tiny human 24/7 and my smart phone is really the only thing I can do one handed.

But this baby, oh my goodness! This tiny, sweet little thing of a man that looks identical to his older sister and has the personality of his older brother ~~and loves him some boobies like his daddy!~~ And nurses a lot.

(I forgot my mom reads my blog. My bad)

He can be perfectly content in his bouncy chair or in his bassinet while I'm off doing something totally glamorous and luxurious that only SAHM's do like eating bon bons (putting in a load of laundry), or getting a massage on my back patio over looking the Caribbean Ocean (going poop), sipping a tall glass of ice cold champagne (doing the dishes), getting a mani/pedi from someone who looks like a cross between George Clooney, Brad Pitt & Ryan Gosling (prepping/cooking dinner), or taking a shower all by myself without interruptions (yea right. Like that happens!) and I can't even sneak through the house without him seeing me because he goes all stalker on me when he does. I feel like I'm being ogled by a bunch of construction workers in this naked dream I had once of me running errands naked because I didn't have time to get dressed because I was trying to get 3 kids out of the house in one piece. I just forgot to put on clothes. However, I did make my latte. Priorities.

So anyway, here's what I'm grateful today:

1. Ice cream. And not just any ice cream either. Tillamook Chocolate Peanut Butter. Sent from the heavens. Go buy some now. I'm not kidding. I'll wait...

2. I'm grateful for new tub toys so that my kids will actually want to take a tub and want to stay in there long enough for mama to go to the bathroom in peace. (We have 2 bathrooms!)

3. I'm grateful for Freeze Bot. It's the indoor air conditioner my husband bought off Amazon last summer (and gave a name, of course) because he always says, "it feels like we live on the surface of the sun!" and damn, today he is right! It's so hot today!

4. I'm grateful for.....hmmmm....I'm kinda crabby today and all I can hear are kids screaming (they call it playing) at the top of their lungs in the other room (see number 2) and it's clouding the happiness side of my brain. Hmmm...what-am-I-grate--oh yea, I'm grateful for Coconut Cream Creamer because that is the nice little delight I added to my homemade iced latte today.

5. I'm grateful for my home espresso machine. Nach.

When I'm crabby all I think about is food and sweets and things like that. And no, it's not that time o' the month because I'm exclusively breastfeeding Mr. 6 month old so I haven't seen that little beauty (wrong choice of words) in about a year and a half! Another perk of breastfeeding til they go off to college. Ok that's probably a bit extreme... Maybe til they become teenagers then. Hey, mama's trying to avoid dealing with Aunt Flo. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

So there you go. A completely First World Problems Daily Gratitude post. I've made the future generations of my family incredibly proud, no doubt, of the humanly contribution I've made in this world whenever they dig this up and read it someday.

C'est la vie!

Oh and I gave my fellow mom blogger friend, Domesticated Momster a shout out with the ~~strike out~~ in the first part of the post. Whenever she does it it cracks me up. She's very funny, go check her out and say "hi!"

Domesticated MOMSTER Blog

@DomesticMomster

Monday

Daily Gratitude Journal: The Calm After The Storm

Sunday...

Beach towels and bathing suits drying on the line after a long day at the water park.

I realized I needed to sit down and focus on what I'm grateful for before I blow a gasket. I'm seeing a pattern here of me getting incredibly frustrated at some point during the day and then realizing I need to sit down and reconnect with my gratitude.

One of our dear children was playing around in the bathroom which resulted in an almost clogged toilet, and an entire roll of toilet paper and the plastic spinner (both at different times) go for a swim with a brown trout in the Yellow River.

Not cool!

Then Mr. Baby Love himself decided to flood his new high chair with poop. I say "flood" because if you are familiar with the poop of a breastfed baby then you're aware of the gold-ish, brown-ish, liquid baby poop of which I speak.

Mix that in with a fussy, overtired, hungry baby who just took a post-poop explosion tub, fold in two overtired, and overexposed kids from too much sun and fun from the water park, swirled around with them not wanting to take a tub, sprinkled all over my annoyance of the regular day-to-day drama that happens in a family and you have one very crabby, very yell-y mama.

There. I said it. I yell at my kids when I've been pushed past my limit.

Then I feel shitty about it and sit down to write a Daily Gratitude Post.

I'm human. And some days I'm a really sucky human.

Time to chill out, close my eyes for a bit while I love up on a tiny little breastfeeder who's all warm and clean and soft and calm and smelling sweet from his tub and think about more positive things from the day and from my life before I change the title of this post from Daily Gratitude Journal to Today's Rant And Grumblings Of A Crabby Mom.

The kids had fun at the water park and they swam their hearts out. We've been waiting for months for it to open - for it to finally be summertime so we could spend long days swimming like fish once again and it's here!

Daily Gratitude Journal: Sunday

1. I'm so grateful that my husband and I have taught our children how to "find their own fun" as I always say. They have dealt with the harsh realities of "being bored." They have learned that the world is not going to provide entertainment for them at every turn simply because they are bored. They have discovered that after about 10-15 minutes of being left alone to "find their own fun" after they have loudly proclaimed their boredom! (and quickly realized that they either do something or its time for chores), they are capable of inventing some great fun for themselves. Because of this they make up their own games, they go on adventures in the backyard finding new discoveries, they prefer to picnic outdoors for every meal, they build entire worlds out of dirt, leaves, bits of grass, picked flowers, pinecones, sticks and rocks. My daughter calls them "squirrel nests" or "animal hospitals" or "animal hotels." They have grown into true nature children who enjoy being outside and I'm so, so, so grateful for that.

2. I'm incredibly grateful that my mom's eye is feeling better after kind of a freaky scare the last few days. Nobody wants anything to go wrong with their eyeballs or God forbid their sight! I'm also grateful for ER docs and nurses and smart folks who are on call to help in these stressful & unnerving times.

3. I'm grateful for the calmness of the evening after bedtime. For crickets chirping outside and gentle breezes dancing with the leaves on our orange tree and the house not quite sure what to do with itself now that the kids aren't tormenting it so it just stays still and waits for morning.

4. I'm grateful for getting a time out and for reset buttons where kids cool off in tubs and mommies cool of in rocking chairs and daddies cool off in garages and babies cool off by filling their bellies full of warm milk and then everyone happily comes back together once the beasties have melted away and the lights are low and kids hair is cool and wet and daddies have gotten their tinkering fix and mommies feel rested and calm - taking deeper breaths, longer breaths and kisses are now replacing yells and hugs are replacing huffs and smiles are replacing snarls and yawns are replacing wild animal cries and, "Goodnight's" and "I love you's" are replacing the, "stop arguing's!" and the, "because I said so's!"

5. I'm so grateful for evenings. So, so, so incredibly grateful. Evenings, glorious evenings.

My happy lil 6 month old nursling

This post was shared on the following blogs:

Saturday

Daily Gratitude Journal: Saturday Day #2

Today has already seen some battle scars and it's just barely the mid afternoon. We had a tiny glass bowl with freshly prepared, homemade organic carrots for the baby get knocked off the table, crashing to the floor that ended in tiny glass shards mixed with bright orange puree all over the kitchen. I even found a chunk of glass down the hall, around the corner under a blanket along with my patience.

Today's lesson: No glass bowls for baby food. I hold it anyway, but still.

However, my husband did wake before me taking the crying baby to the diaper changing area. He then proceeded to entertain said baby while I slept. Upon waking up #AwesomeHusband took it upon himself to make the family, "Surfer's Delight" a dish he invented which is basically a fancy breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs & melted cheese, crispy bacon, crispy hash browns rolled in a buttered pan fried tortilla, served with Cholula.

"Yes, Please!"

Yes he really is a keeper! Did I mention he also made my latte this morning? Oh I didn't? I guess I didn't want to seem like I'm bragging.

However, when you have a family of 5 with kids 7 years old to 6 months old, there will be drama, fights, tantrums, whining, lots of stink face, pushing on the iPad couch and feet kicking each other under the breakfast table regardless of how tight my latte foam is, how long I got to sleep in or how crispy the bacon crumbles are.

This is life as a parent. It's not glamorous, but it can be very beautiful if you don't mind things sticky.

Here's my attempt to find the beauty in today to get rid of my being annoyed. I feel like it's working already.

My Daily Goal: I will take a picture each day that brings me happiness as well and post it along with my list of 5 things I'm grateful for. I invite you to do the same! These are not listed in order of importance. That is too much pressure for this writing exercise. I am just free flowing as I write and trying to be genuine in my thoughts and emotions and writing what I feel at the moment. Please join me! @coco_cana #DailyGratitudeJournal

Daily Gratitude Journal #2

1. I'm so grateful for my little baby boy who just turned 6 months old yesterday. He has the chubbiest cheeks and two of the tiniest teeth that stick out when he smiles creating dimples in his big apple cheeks. It should really be illegal to be that cute and not have a spot on Ellen already.

2. I'm so incredibly grateful and lucky for my husband. #obvs

3. I'm grateful for the days when my kids entertain themselves out in nature for hours and don't say, "I'm bored!" every 5 seconds making me say, "If you're bored I'll give you something to clean" making me sound like my mom when I was a kid! Or my personal favorite from my food serving days, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean!" My kids LOVE this one!

4. I'm grateful for TV for the days that don't go according to #3. Yea, that's right. I said it. I let my kids watch TV when we're having a shitty day and mama needs some peace and quiet. Even if the day is rad, it gets turned on sometimes. C'est la vie!

5. I'm grateful for Wild Krats, Octonauts, Peg + Cat, nature shows geared towards kids, most stuff on PBS, and any other type of learning TV show where my kids can become enlightened or educated while mama needs some peace and quiet while I breastfeed the baby. We have only 1 TV in the house and it's in the living room along with my nursing chair. That's how, brah.

...off to the water park for some summertime family fun and reconnecting.

My kids. Totally entertaining themselves for hours on end with a picnic outside playing with bugs and fruit trees, digging for worms and making mud pies. The thought of it makes me exhale with about 8 minutes of inner peace...until someone gets a mudpie in the face. Then I'm annoyed. Again.

Daily Gratitude Journal: Friday Day #1

I just read a post by Mummy and Monkeys where she writes a weekly gratitude list of 5 things and it really inspired me to write my own list. At this point in my life I need to try to do this daily. My littlest guy just turned 6 months old today!

Happy half a year my sweet little love!

Why I'm doing this: I also have a 7 year old and a 4 & 1/2 year old. I've been homeschooling this year for 1st grade for the first time on top of having a newborn and so life has been challenging to say the least. I have dealt with postpartum depression (PPD) in the past and I feel like I have been dealing with it again this time around as well. So for these reasons I really need to do a daily gratitude list for myself.

My Daily Goal: I will take a picture each day that brings me happiness as well and post it along with my list of 5 things I'm grateful for. I invite you to do the same! These are not listed in order of importance. That is too much pressure for this writing exercise. I am just free flowing as I write and trying to be genuine in my thoughts and emotions and writing what I feel at the moment.

Daily Gratitude Journal #1

1. I'm so grateful for my extremely helpful husband and loving children. Without them I'm not sure where I would be in my life. I wouldn't have nearly as much love and laughter as I do now, so I thank them for that.

2. I'm so grateful for how helpful my 7 year old is with her baby brother. I have a bad back from a few different car accidents and she has held the baby for me so many times, especially after sitting for a while nursing him I get really tight and it's hard to get out of the chair holding a heavy baby so she will hold him for me while I get up. She's amazing!

3. I'm grateful for our home espresso machine so I can save money and make lattes at home using my raw, organic milk and natural, organic creamer and have a real coffee snob moment at home each day while I tamper my grounds and steam my hipster milk.

4. I'm grateful for learning how to cook years ago and for having the confidence to get creative in the kitchen in order to provide my family with healthy home cooked meals each night where I know exactly what is in each dish we eat. And they love my cooking, so that is a bonus! Not too many dinner time fights.

5. I'm grateful for my two little boys who light up my life and melt my heart with their smiles. Here is a pic of my "big" little guy who is growing up so fast and who is so loving and thoughtful and who brought me these flowers today while I was breastfeeding his baby brother. These are his words below. He is such a sweet boy and I'm so proud of the little human being he is growing into and I love him dearly.

"Mom, for your hard work I'm going to send you some flowers. Here you go!" -My 4 & 1/2 year old