My Baby Farted Through Thanksgiving

I love the holidays. As I say that you can picture me wearing an over-sized “grandma” sweater with a cup of steaming hot coffee in my hand and a ridiculously sappy smile on my face. I’m the kind of person who puts decorating the Christmas tree on my top ten favorite things to do. The holidays are in my opinion the best time of the year. Who’s with me? I love the family time, the feasts of homemade food, the smell of pine trees in my living room, and the holly jolly music you only listen to one month out of the year.

Gracie was born just barely before the beginning of the holiday season. Her birth at the end of August marked the end of summer and the beginning of fall. Two short months later it was time for her first Halloween. Then just last week she had her first Thanksgiving, and in another month she will celebrate her first Christmas. It’s a very exciting time for a first-time mom.

Once little miss Grace joined us I didn’t want to waste any time in starting to create our own family traditions. A few weeks after she was born I told Seth I really wanted us to take her to an apple orchard. On our way there I thanked Seth for agreeing to make this trip on his day off even though Gracie won’t remember a single part of it. He laughed and said that he was, of course, happy to spend time with us. Then he said, “Shan, you’re an “All-American” girl. When it’s Halloween you want to carve pumpkins, when it’s Easter you want to paint eggs. And in the fall you want to go pick apples. And that’s ok with me.”

When I was growing up my dad was the one who instilled a love for family traditions in me. The night before Christmas we always listened to the same ancient record with a story of how Rudolph lost his red nose. Then on Christmas morning I would always run to see if “Santa” had eaten my cookies and left a note. Of course, there was always a friendly letter waiting for me. The cutest part is my dad changed his handwriting so I wouldn’t recognize it. When I was little I always thought Santa had the coolest handwriting and would try to mimic it for the next couple days. These unique traditions gave me so many things to look forward to as a kid. I hope Gracie appreciates the traditions Seth and I create for her.

So, how have I responded to my baby experiencing some of our family traditions for the first time? Even though she will have no memory of her first Halloween, you can bet your entire stash of tricks and treats that I dressed her up in an adorable costume. It was a pretty big deal for me that we didn’t carve pumpkins this year. But next year I will look forward to watching her dig her hands inside her pumpkin and pull out a handful of gooey sticky mess. We may have had a pumpkin-less Halloween but I would still call it a success because she ended up in a tiny giraffe costume complete with a hat and boots. She may have only been awake for five minutes of it but I got about a thousand pictures and videos to prove it. I’m not sure if I would call Thanksgiving a success but it was still memorable. She pretty much farted, cried, and slept the entire day. If she ever asks us what her first Thanksgiving was like we will tell her even though she was a cranky pants the whole day it was still the best Thanksgiving we’ve ever had because she was there.

I think I will always be an over-sentimental tradition-loving mom. When it’s Fall I will orchestrate a yearly family outing to an apple orchard and for Halloween I will compete with my kids to see who can create the spookiest pumpkin carving. I might even dust off on my Santa handwriting skills just for Gracie’s enjoyment. My little family traditions always made me feel special. As a kid my childlike brain would think, “I bet no one else’s family does this” even though tons of them probably did. Nevertheless it made me feel special to see my parents going out of their way to make the holidays fun.

I know Christmas is about more than just family fun but I do think it makes the Lord happy to see all the love and cheer. It’s crucially important to Seth and I to teach Gracie about who Christ is and why we celebrate His birth, and it’s also imperative that we raise her in a family that makes faces on squash-like fruits and invents silly handwriting.

Blessings,

Shanna

My Baby Danced with her Daddy

Before having Grace there were certain things Seth and I swore we wouldn’t do when we became parents. We promised we wouldn’t be the couple that never gets a babysitter, we wouldn’t let our kids sleep in our bed on a regular basis, and we absolutely would not listen to “little kid” music in the car. I love my little girl with my whole heart, but I draw the line at listening to the “Wiggles” on my way to the grocery store. I know I’ll have to put up with listening to her kiddie music sometimes, but we all have our limits.

Maybe I am so particular about where I draw the line with music because it has always been a focal point in my life. I listen to music while I do the dishes, work on editing photos, and straighten my hair. The car is no exception to my melodious lifestyle. I’m a lover of almost all styles of music. I hate to admit that I even have a soft spot for the songs with ridiculously inappropriate lyrics and awesome beats. When one of those songs would come on when I was in the car with Seth, I would have fun freaking him out by showing him I had memorized the rapping. He would always laugh and go, “Babe. How do you know this stuff??” I would take a break between verses and say, “I know, I really shouldn’t know this.” 

Since having Gracie I’ve started to filter my music selection. I know she is too young to understand what any of the words mean, but does she really need to be exposed to hearing about how Shorty with the Apple Bottom jeans got “low”? Probably not. Plus, she will eventually be able to understand the lyrics, so this change would have to come someday.  I figured I might as well grow up and get it over with. I probably don't need to be hearing about how Shorty gets low either. 

I love listening to Christian music around her because I want her to grow up hearing the name of Jesus. As far as Christian music goes though, there’s some really good stuff out there but there’s also some that I literally can’t stand to listen to. However, my tolerance has slightly grown since having Gracie, maybe having a kid softens you a little. A song came on the other day that I normally would have switched off because it’s just a little too “sweet” for me. But as I started paying attention to the lyrics my heart started to swell with a memory from my own life. Now that I get to add “mom” to my resume and I am married to a “dad” there are so many more things in life that I can connect to. The lyrics tell a story about a dad who dances with his daughter throughout her life. First, they dance together while she is a little girl pretending to be Cinderella. Then as she gets older they dance together before she goes to prom, and then finally they dance at her wedding. The part that pulled at my heartstrings was where the singer says, 

“So I’ll dance with Cinderella while she is here in my arms. 'Cause I know something the prince never knew. I’ll dance with Cinderella, I don't want to miss even one song. 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight and she'll be gone.” 

I got so emotional because I remembered a moment a few weeks ago where Seth grabbed Gracie and said, “Come here Sweety, we’re going to dance cheek to cheek.” And he danced around the living room with her in his arms. I now have a daughter and she has a dad who dances with her. That song is literally my life. It’s so exciting to be at the beginning of the song, and know that we have many years of dancing with her.

It was so sweet I had to grab our video camera and record a few seconds of it. We’ve had so many people tell us how fast kids grow up so we have tried really hard to be intentional about seizing magic moments with her. I wrote in a previous post about making sure I don’t let myself get distracted with all my tasks and take those moments to just lay with her on the couch. Thankfully I got to capture this magic moment between my daughter and her daddy. I always smile when I watch it, maybe it will bring a smile to your face too.

Blessings,

Shantastic :)

My baby is wealthy

I apologize for my short leave of absence on the blog! If you haven’t completely forgotten about me, and are still here I want to say thank you. I had to take a temporary break from the blog because I got so busy with photo sessions. Great news for the stay-at-home mom who is trying to help contribute financially to the family! God has been proving once again that He is providing everything we need. It recently became time to pay our hospital bills, which we had been dreading because we didn’t want to have to use up a chunk of our savings. Being on one income makes it much harder to replenish money back into savings. The day our bills were due I had just gone to the bank and deposited the money from my most recent photo shoots. The amount we had to pay was almost the exact amount I had just deposited! Amazing!

We also had family visit us for a week and I got to be the photographer for a three-day conference. Busy Busy Busy! Any spare time has been spent snuggling my little one, feeding her, and of course giving her lots of kisses. Even though I haven’t physically written a blog in a few weeks, my inner monologue has still been dialoging away throughout the day! It already feels therapeutic to let some of my thoughts start floating around on the Internet. It’s nice to have busy seasons sometimes but I am definitely glad to be settling back into a life that allows me to share my thoughts with you every week.

Even though it has only been a few weeks since my last post, it feels like it has been months. Grace is changing so fast! Since my last post she has outgrown an outfit for the first time. (I’m trying really hard to not be sad about this. I stated in a previous post that I would not be sad and embrace the changes that come in babyhood. Much easier said than done!) Before we had her everyone told us about how babies fit into their newborn clothes for two seconds and then they already outgrow them. Grace must be an exception to that rule. She was just under seven pounds when we took her home from the hospital and she has been wearing teeny tiny newborn clothes ever since! However, she must have hit a growth spurt over the last few weeks because now most of her pants are capris and her feet have finally reached the bottom of some of her pajama onesies. And now she smiles just about every time I look at her. Ever since she started smiling I feel like I spend the majority of my day leaning over her trying to get her to smile. Every time she does feels like a victory. It never gets old. It’s the best feeling because she won’t smile until she locks eyes with me and sees that I’m smiling at her. I love watching her take it in, receive it, and then willingly smile back at me. The highlight of all her recent milestones happened just this past weekend. Seth was making dinner in the kitchen and I was sitting on the floor next to Gracie working on some editing. She was in her alert active mood and kept making little noises while she flailed her arms and legs. Then without any warning she made a noise and her voice went up an octave, cracked, and then slid back down. Seth and I immediately burst out laughing and spent the next five minutes hovering over her trying to get her to do it again.

At the end of October she also got to see Seth’s mom for the second time and meet her great-grandma and great-grandpa on that side of the family for the first time. It’s so neat as a parent to watch members of your family love on your child. And it’s humbling to see how immediate their love is. Grace hasn’t had to do anything to earn their love, and still they are captivated by her. Soon after Seth’s family arrived him and I were standing in the kitchen watching his grandma hold Grace in the living room and sing to her. I whispered to him, “It’s so neat to see how much they love her”. He smiled as he watched Grace gaze up at her great-grandma and whispered back, “Grace is so rich and she doesn’t even know it.”

Right away when Seth said the comment about Grace being rich I was a little confused because my first instinctual thought was of course relating being rich to having an overflow of money. I feel extremely blessed to be in the financial situation we are in right now but his comment didn't really make sense to me. We may have everything we need but we aren't living life like Donald Trump. We have to be careful with our money but we are definitely blessed. Then I felt a little foolish when I realized he meant Gracie is rich in the things in life that really matter. She has two parents who love her unconditionally, four grandparents who would literally leap in front of a bullet for her, six great-grandparents who melt every time they see her, two uncles who have sworn to protect her at all costs, and an outpouring of extended family, church family, and friends. Gracie may wear clothes from Goodwill and have parents who clip coupons but she is so rich. She has an overflow of people who love her, and in life that is what really matters.

Blessings,

Shantastic