What Is That Sound My Son Is Making?

Archer is stretching his vocal cords. He is learning the numerous ways that his mouth can make sounds. The past few days has brought on a tremendously creepy noise that he is currently having a great time with.

Here are some ways to describe this noise:

• Parseltongue
• An extended airy grunt. Similar, yet distinct from the easily recognizable "I am clearly trying to poop noise"
• A baby raptor - like the raptors in jurassic park, but without the high pitched screaming.
• A vampire taking a s--t. 
• The noise someone might make while they are putting a hex on you. Or stealing your soul.

I know kids do inadvertently creepy things sometimes, but this is my first experience. In the meantime, if we end up with snakes or dinosaurs surrounding our house in an organized manner, at least this post can act as evidence as to what may have happened. 

Your Eyes // Haiku Sunday

Maybe haiku Sundays will be a thing?

So memorable.
The exact same as the first day.
But yet different.

And just to make the world a little less serious:

Did I ever think
That I would be okay with
Talking about poop

Boobs

I didn't think I would end up doing a post about breastfeeding. There are loads of articles out there about it, and I didn't think I would have anything to add. But maybe I do. These are just my thoughts.

Background: I am lucky in that Archer has been breastfed from day 1, and we started him on solids before he was 5 months. So at 6 months now, he still gets most of his calories from me, but we're increasing the amount of solids he gets.

Anyway, I have 6 months experience with breastfeeding and I'm getting to the point where I really just. don't. care. anymore. Just this morning, I was at a small restaurant for brunch with some girlfriends when Archer needed to be fed. Every other time I've been in this scenario, I've dug out my cover, got everything set up and awkwardly fed Archer at the table as he gets distracted and overheats because of the cover. But something happened today - without even thinking about it, I had set up and started feeding without the cover. By the time I realized I wasn't even using the cover, he was already feeding and I tried to grab a blanket to make a bit of a visual block from the rest of the restaurant. But Archer wouldn't even deal with it. "Get this freaking blanket off my head! Do you have to eat with a blanket over your head, Mom?!" - this is what his eyes and yells were telling me.

I'm not all that militant about the right to breastfeed wherever it is needed (though I appreciate the people who do fight to make it less weird for me to feed him in the middle of a restaurant). But personally, I think I'm at the point where it's such a non-issue that I would never even consider asking permission to feed my kid wherever I am. It's food, and babies get angry about not having it very quickly. I'm pretty sure we'd all prefer to have a boob in a restaurant than a baby crying loudly.

And honestly, this far along you get pretty good at guerrilla feedings. At a mall? Find me a quiet alcove that's not too dirty and I can nurse on the floor pretty comfortably. At the zoo? Just sit on a little hill near a picnic table. At a restaurant (I think this is actually one of the most difficult places to nurse)  Find some room between yourself and the table and make it happen. On a roadtrip? Feeding in the car is pretty easy.

Anyway, Boobs. They are there. Sometimes you might see one (if you're lucky. HA!). Whatevs. How about we give some props to the moms who are managing to feed their babies in some seriously awkward situations?

Outlets

So all parents, and (I would argue) especially stay-at-home parents, need an outlet. They need a creative outlet, or something to stretch their brain a little more on a regular basis.

Me? I started a blog. But other people do such amazing creative things! The things that make other people go "Wow, they have too much time on their hands." But no! There is always something supposedly more important for that parent to be doing. But if getting creative makes them happy and might provide some awesome memories for the future, then that's awesome!

So this is meant to be a bit of a commemorative post to all the parents who are doing amazing things and sharing it with the world. Share if you know of more!

• Dreamscapes - This mom has serious artistic skill.
• Noah's Halloween Countdown - Dressing up babies is the best. 
• Fashion By Mayhem - This went around the internets last year. It got mom creative, and is teaching her daughter to explore her own creativity.
• What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night - similar to the Elf on a Shelf weird phenomena, the dinos spend November causing trouble!
• Art Collab with Daughter  - Amazing. 

What other ones have you seen?

On Being Furniture

My thoughts on this started right around Thanksgiving when a bunch of family was in town. I went to my parent's house where my aunt and uncle were staying for the weekend. When I got there, my 19 (20?) year old cousin was sleeping on the couch with his feet on his mom's lap.

That's when I came to the realization that I am a part of the furniture in Archer's life. And while that sounds derogatory, I mean it in a really positive way. There is something simple and loving about it. He trusts that I am there for him as much as I trust that this chair will be here when I sit down. I am as constant as gravity. As safe as his crib.

And so, when I saw my cousin napping on my Aunt, I thought to myself, "I hope when Archer is 19 that he will nap with his feet on me."

The Weekend of Awesome vs. The Weekend That Could Have Been - My Thoughts on Mommy Anxiety

Motherhood brings on a new set of anxieties. I have to admit, prior to being a mom, I was pretty anxiety free. I didn't lie awake at night stressing out over work. I didn't need long conversations reassuring my relationship with my husband. And I didn't have any crowd induced anxieties, like feeling overwhelmed, or being worried that I wouldn't be able to find anything to say to people.

But all of the sudden, I find myself dealing with, and talking myself down from worries that are unfounded. Most of them seem to spur from social situations. Here are a few examples of my anxieties from this weekend:

• We were going out for dinner with friends on Friday. But before we left the house, Archer was a bit cranky and hadn't slept all that well. We were meeting people at 7, but Archer's bedtime routine often starts around 8. What if he decides to turn into a pumpkin, our food hasn't even arrived yet and we're a half hour from putting him to bed properly?
• People were coming over on Saturday to enjoy some pre-halloween festivities of horror movies and games. What if Archer decides this is one of the few nights he has where he implodes while trying to go to sleep? What if he gets overwhelmed with all the people here? What if I get overwhelmed trying to be be a mom and interact with my friends at the same time?! Will it end up just being me upstairs taking care of him while everyone else has fun?
• My mother-in-law is in town and hosting a birthday dinner at our place with close family. This was less anxiety inducing, but what if something went wrong? Or Archer freaks out? Or I just want to be alone? 

Wouldn't you know it, that absolutely none of the fears above came to be. Here is how the weekend actually played out:

• We went for dinner with friends and Archer had a late nap on the way over, which gave him the energy to make it through dinner without turning into a pumpkin. We ended up having an awesome dinner at a great BBQ restaurant  and hung out with a few friends that we haven't been seeing as much as we used to. Archer had some solids at the restaurant, got changed into his pj's and fell asleep shortly after we got home. AWESOME NIGHT. 
• People came over and we ate pizza. We played games, watched horror movies and made fun of the stuff we were watching. I had friends help me put Archer through his nighttime routine and he fell asleep without too much fuss. And we successfully watched The Shining in the basement while Archer slept upstairs. It was the latest I had voluntarily stayed up in I-have-no-idea-how-long. AWESOME NIGHT.
• Brett's brother Brad came over earlier in the day to hang out with the rest of us. The day brought some fun uncle-nephew bonding time, a great walk at the dog park and the wonderful smell of roast beef throughout the house. My parents joined for a delicious dinner with an amazing chocolate cake to finish it off. Archer napped right before my parents arrived and was able to join us at the table in his highchair. He even got to eat dinner with us. We cleaned up, went through the bedtime routine (that also brought some full Archer laughs out for Grandma) and Archer was sleeping by 8:30. AWESOME NIGHT. 

In case you didn't get the drift, it was a really good weekend. It went by in a flash, but at no point did Archer freak out, or did I feel overwhelmed. So what is my deal? I don't really have a good answer. Maybe it is related to my recent post about figuring out the balance of my new role of mom. My old self and new mommyhood haven't found their balance. Can I still have fun post-Archer? Are moms allowed to have fun? Shouldn't I just be staying at home alone and fretting about the dangers of the world? I mean, I'm being facetious, but every once in a while, it's not that far off from the truth.

Or maybe I just have too much time on my hands, leaving me plenty of opportunity to think of scenarios to fret over.

Regardless, it's clear that when I leave my comfort zone of me, Archer and sometimes Brett alone in the house together, I have a great time. And I do not want to raise a son to have anxiety about going new places, trying new things or hanging out with people.

In fact, part of the purpose of me writing this post is so that I can remind myself of those things. Things that were once very easy can sometimes seem like a challenge now, but so often, that challenge is 100% worth it. So don't worry about it. 

Kevin Vickers: Is His Today Stranger Than Yesterday?

Ok, so terrible shooting that happened yesterday in Ottawa is one that will be remembered for a very long time in our collective thoughts. It was terrible, and I'm not really sure I have anything to add regarding the actual events of yesterday.

What I do want to speak on is today's celebration of Kevin Vickers, Sergeant-at-Arms. How strange could today be for him? Yesterday, he was forced to take another person's life. Today, he received a long standing ovation in parliament for it and is called a national hero.

Now, I am in no way saying that shooting the gunman was wrong. I don't want that to be what you read up there. Thank goodness he was there and took action. Who knows how many lives he saved by doing it, and I think the title of National Hero is well deserved and appropriate. He deserves to be commended and thanked for his work yesterday.

It's just that when I watched the video of the standing ovation in parliament, I couldn't help but wonder how a person would deal with receiving such praise for doing such a horrible (yet obviously entirely necessary) thing. Yesterday would have been surreal for Mr. Vickers, but his years of training allowed him to keep his head and do what needed to be done.

But today? Who could possible be trained to deal with his today?