My baby doesn't let go

Wow. It has been super fun (and maybe just a teeny bit scary) to be back in the blogging world! If you have been following along with me over the past few weeks, thank you. Thank you for joining me on this wonderful world wide web of ramblings. I’m so glad you’re here.

One of the most recent blog posts I wrote was a heavy one. (Read it here: I chased my baby up a mountain) It was about my daughter and the grueling (and now so rewarding) process of her growing up. It’s just crazy. When I started this blog I was barely pregnant with her. And now, I’ve written a post about the two of us tackling the mountain of toddlerhood. It was a really cool way to come full circle. 

This week the topic on my heart is much lighter. Can you guess what it is? Just close your eyes and picture yourself slowly wrapping your arms around a tiny little cuddle of warmth and adorableness. The fresh smell. The safety and security. Ahhhh can you feel it? Baby hugs! 

I sort of don’t understand when people say they’re not a “baby person”… Babies are totally the best. They’re so cuddly and their cheeks are just always so kissable. Ahhh babies. 

I’m a baby person. Surprise! 

I’m also a hug person (Surprise again?). Maybe that’s why I love babies so much. Baby hugs! Babies are an automatic person you can squeeze. Especially when they’re newborns, all they want to do is get hugs from you. They’re someone you can soothe with a hug, rock to sleep, and cuddle. When I was little, if something scared me or I was hurt, my reaction was immediate. I was running over to my mom and dad as quickly as my little legs would carry me. Hugs are where it’s at. So when I had kids I thought, YES! A brand new human being for me to hug ALL the time! This is fantastic. 

When my kids were babies I hugged them endlessly. Every time I was about to swoop them down into their carseat: hug. Every time I scooped them up from their crib: hug. Ahh I just loved to squeeze them tight and smell their skin. I had heard people say over and over how fast the baby stage goes, so hugging them was my way to stop for those few seconds and just breathe it in. I also think part of the reason why I love hugs so much is because I really enjoy just being still. I like to slow down, watch the waves, soak in the sunset, and just be. I don’t always have to be doing something. I could just sit, hold my child and be. 

But as my firstborn started to get a little older, she began to resist my mommy cuddles. She didn’t want to sit in my lap to watch the parade, she wanted to chase after the floats. She didn’t want to cuddle on my lap during the movie, she wanted to see how high she could jump off the couch (but we couldn’t turn off the movie because she was “still watching it”). This girl is the polar opposite of still. When she was a baby and I first started to sense some hug-resistance from her it was just a little tensing up, almost as if she felt uneasy. Then it evolved into full on back arching and swatting me away. My daughter, my own child, wasn’t a hugger. I wasn’t prepared for this. 

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I remember reading an anonymous quote that made my heart skip a beat. It said, “When your child hugs you, never be the first to let go.” I remember internalizing those words and thinking yeeeessssssss that is some beautiful stuff right there. I’m gonna do that. Never let go first. But as my daughter kept getting bigger and bigger I noticed she pretty much never initiated hugs. There was no opportunity to turn that quote into my life. It took a long journey of me figuring her out for this difference of ours to not make me feel bad. Like seriously, what kid doesn’t want to hug their mom? Apparently my kid and she’s still awesome and she still loves me. She just shows it differently than what I expected.

And then…God decided to rain down another big beautiful blessing in my life by giving me a second child, my son. He is quite literally, the best natural born hugger in the entire world. This little boy loves nothing more than to come running right at me-full speed and launch himself into my arms. When I walk into a room: hug. When I hand him his lunch: hug. When I discipline him for taking his sister’s toy: tear-streaked hug. It feels a little silly to admit, but his hugging ability is one of my favorite things about him. 

Each of my kids are answers to prayers in very different ways. Grace is my quirky, beats to her own drummer kind of perfect that I, truly, always wanted. As I wrote in that previous post --> here, figuring her out was a process (oh wait, it’s still ongoing). I had to learn through a lot of patience and persevering that hugs just weren’t gonna cut it for her. And that’s ok.

So when my Emmett joined us, he felt like the answer to my prayer for a child who just wanted to sit and be with me. I’ve had countless moments where I have thought that he fell asleep on my shoulder because there was just no way a hug could reasonably go on for that long. But no, as soon as I would fidget just a little (trying to reach my phone so that I could use it as a mirror to see if he was sleeping) he would jolt his head up and give me a huge chubby-cheeked smile. 

He loves to just sit, be, and hug me. He doesn’t always have to be doing something. Ok, well he’s two so he kind of does. But when we go outside to draw with chalk, he wants to sit in my lap. When we watch Finding Dory for the ten thousandth viewing, he cuddles right up next to me the entire time.

I love that God knew how much I would delight in an affectionate child. Sometimes when I’m thanking God for my children I specifically say a prayer of thanksgiving for blessing me with my little boy who always (every single day) has a hug for me. 

I get to be the one who doesn’t let go first.

What do you delight in about your child? I would love to know :) Leave a comment below!

Blessings,

Shantastic :)

My babies swallowed me.

Before I start, I feel like I should explain why I stopped. 

I began writing this blog back in 2012, soon after I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I just had so many emotions and ideas that I felt compelled to write it all down. I felt like it was something God was pressing on my heart. After lots of pacing back and forth and an elevated heart rate, I published my first post. I thought, if nothing else, this will be a cool journal to give to this baby someday, right? 

I think I was so nervous because I thought, why on earth are people going to care about what I have to say? This whole thing is basically just my inner monologue taking over and rambling about silly things. But, I kept writing, and it was a really really cool experience. After a few months I finally had my baby (a girl), and began to write about my new life as a mom. I didn’t quite realize the extent of it at the time, but my old life was gone. 

Motherhood is absolutely beautiful, but it’s so easy to allow it to overshadow who YOU are. At first, I was just so elated and excited to have a baby that the self sacrifices came pretty easily. Certain things that used to be norms, like getting to leave the house on a whim, just simply became things you knew you couldn’t expect from your life anymore. But without even realizing it, my crochet hooks and yarn got tucked away in a closet. My decoupage crafts were moved to the basement. The demands of motherhood were closing in and finding time to write became even more challenging. Although my wild and free little chica gave me quite a bit of inspiration to draw from, it was still hard to find the time. 

After about 18 months of life with one kid, I got pregnant with baby number two (a boy this time) and life began to settle into a whole new brand of crazy. I had pretty bad morning (aka all day) sickness for about 6 weeks. Trying to parent my child who thought naps were a complete and total waste of time was overwhelming. The cherry to this stress-ball sundae was that I had also started a small business that was beginning to require any “free” time I had to be poured into that. I was (and still am) very passionate about my business endeavor so for awhile it became the creative outlet that my personality craves. It was ok that I was letting certain parts of myself get put into boxes in the basement because I had this super amazing business to focus on. I began to stay up later in the evenings, scrambling to finish a post before my weekly “due date”. I still loved doing it but it was just so hard to find the time. What officially made me stop writing though was that I felt the Lord prompting me to hit pause. I don’t always understand everything He wants me to do, and even though I felt much sadness about it, I paused.

I continued on in life, my son was born, I tried to juggle everything that comes with having TWO littles who depend on you for everything…and the blog remained something that was in my past. Even though I wasn’t writing anymore, my inner monologue never silenced. I would catch myself doing a mundane task like washing the dishes or folding laundry and completely write out an entire blog post in my head. The urge to write never left, and truthfully, the longer I stayed away from it the stronger my desire was to blog again. As time went on I started to feel like there would come a time when God would lead me to write again. 

Then, a few months ago I went to visit my best friend for a few days (2.5 hour drive one way so we don’t see each other as often as I would like) and as I was driving back home I realized that during my 48 hour childless trip, I had finally felt like a person again. How long had it been since I didn’t have to worry about keeping two tiny beings alive for every second of every day? I didn’t have to try to think of new things to make for dinner. I didn’t have to stress about how now that my kids are getting older it’s growing increasingly more difficult to work from home. The thing that started out as the creative outlet that made me feel like a person, had grown to the point where it was a bigger beast than I had ever anticipated. It was truly a blessing, but trying to squeeze in time to work during my daughter’s quiet time (aka that time after lunch where I convince her to color in her room and play with blocks for 45 minutes so I can run downstairs to my office and try to get SOMETHING done) had become overwhelmingly stressful. When I was up visiting my best friend, I didn’t think about any of that. I laughed really hard, had intelligent debates about politics, and shared stories without being interrupted. (What a freaking concept!!!) 

I was a person again. 

And I don’t mean for that to sound like I’m complaining about my life. I feel blessed beyond measure to have two completely awesome children and a life partner who always, without fail, points me to Christ. What I’m trying to say is that I hadn’t even realized that I had allowed parts of myself to become swallowed by it all.

So, as I was driving back home I thought and prayed about what it means to me to feel like a person again. Not JUST the one who changes the toddler’s explosion poop with a smile and lets her four-year-old blow bubbles inside because she is just straight up out of fun and engaging ideas for the day. As I drove and asked God to show me how to find a balance in the craziness, I thought about the blog. I also thought about how I just might need to start using some form of childcare so that I can keep doing my dream job. But, I also thought about the blog. For some reason I simply cannot explain, writing makes me feel like a person. So here I am, with that same elevated heart rate, feeling released from the pause button, and choosing…to be a person. 

What makes you feel like a person? Or maybe the bigger question is, DO you feel like a person? 

Blessings,

Shantastic

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Explaining the blog name- 

If you’re finding yourself going, “Totally Shantastic? I don’t get it” then this is for you! First of all, I know it's a little weird. (But let’s be honest, I am a little weird) What started as a silly play on my name has morphed into this bigger idea on my heart. 

“Trying to embrace the crazy and live life with intention”

I've always been insanely passionate about living life with intention and purpose. It's almost as if I feel the immensity of this gift we have been given. Life should not be wasted. To me, when I am being Shantastic it means I am living my life in that truth. It means I am loving others, refusing to get caught in the rat race, and it means I am being who I was created to be. Life with intention. 

Embracing the crazy is the part that has always been more of a challenge for me. When you have young children, how do you embrace the chaos they bring while also cherishing every single second of it? Sometimes I just want (need) to clean the laundry room while my husband wrestles with the kids. Sometimes the crazy needs taming. But where I struggle is to make sure I don't get lost in that. Yes, sometimes you do have to choose to clean the laundry room because you can no longer see the top of the washer and dryer. But then, maybe you need to stop there for the day and go help your daughter finish that final takedown of the Daddy monster. Life with balance. Embrace the crazy.

If you’re still here, thank you for joining me. Until next time <3 

I chased my baby up a mountain

“Hey Mom, can you get me out of here?” 

Hmmm that was a good question. Could I get her out of there? My daughter (who turned four last summer) had thought it would be super hilarious for me to put her in a baby swing at the park. I shared her excited energy and thought that, indeed, it would be pretty funny to see her in a baby swing too.

Literally the second I got all her weight plopped into the swing I thought, “OH CRAP. How am I going to get her out of this??” It was one of those swings where you have to lift the baby up really high until their feet clear the leg holes. With how much I struggled just getting her into the seat, I realized I had absolutely no clue how I was going to get her out of it. We were the only ones at the park. The nearest group of people was a construction crew about a 1/4 of a mile away. I quickly filed that info into my “emergency we’ve been stuck here for an hour and I am desperate for help” folder. As I just stood there silently panicking in my head, she was having the most amazing time. She exchanged excited squeals with her little brother and they both laughed about how much fun there were having side-by-side. Totally carefree. And then, the dreaded question came, “Mom, I’m ready to get out. Can you get me out of here?” ….Sweetie, do you want to know the real answer to that question?? Of course I couldn’t scare her and tell her I was picturing us spending the rest of her life stuck in this thing. I had to stay calm and act as though I was totally capable of lifting her 40lb body up over my head. In this moment I probably should have assessed the situation and come up with a strategy for how I was going to accomplish this. But no, of course I just grabbed her under her shoulders and started heaving. I got her waist out and her body slumped over the side of the swing. Her legs were still stuck in the holes and I had lost my “oomph” to keep pulling her upwards. I froze for about half a second and thought, “Dear sweet Jesus please give me the strength to not drop my kid and make her dangle by her ankles on this stupid swing.” 

The second the prayer left my brain I realized, DUH her giant boots were blocking the leg holes. My fingers barely reached the top of her boots and I was miraculously able to slide them off her feet. Within seconds she wriggled her legs out of the holes to freedom. As we both looked at each other and giggled about our silly fiasco, I realized, she really is a big kid now…no more baby swings. 

Everyone says it happens so fast. You’ll blink and it’s over. Your baby is gone and it has been replaced with this little person who just never. stops. talking. You now have a kid who has her own grand ideas about sitting in baby swings and laughing about it. For me, the transition hasn’t quite felt like blinking. It’s been more like that whole hills and valleys metaphor. You know, the valleys are where everything is all nice and easy, there’s wildflowers and the terrain isn’t as rough. It still might be a little rocky here and there but it’s nothing compared to scaling a mountain-side. For me as a first-time parent, babyhood was a glorious valley of adorable squishiness…and then, all too soon, there came the mountain climb of tantrum-filled toddlerhood.

When I first got pregnant, I didn’t really daydream past the baby stage. I knew that based on my personality, babyhood would be the magnificent valley I had always dreamed of. Yes, of course there would be LOTS of growing and learning that would take place, but I knew it wouldn’t stretch and test me the same way toddlerhood eventually would. I knew the season of life would undoubtedly come where I would have to take my girl by the hand and we would both, together, have to climb the inevitable mountain of growing up. However, little did I know that it would more accurately involve me chasing after her like a crazy person, trying to slow her down, and trying with all my might to figure her out.

Somehow, by the grace of the most amazing God, we both survived. There were times where I didn’t know if my sanity would remain intact. There were days when I questioned if her staying home with me was really the best thing for her. 

I remember one morning I was leaving to go get groceries and tried giving her a hug before I left. She doesn't like hugs. I knew this, yet I persisted. So instead of embracing me like my foolish wishful thinking had hoped, she pulled away, kicked me in the stomach and said “I don luhh you Mom!” I glanced up at my husband with tears starting to form in my eyes and as he started to try to say something to make me feel better I put my hand up and said, “Thanks sweetie, but I just need to leave now.” The last thing I needed was for my child to see me crying.

At the time we were on a pretty tight grocery budget, but on that day I got myself a white raspberry mocha from Starbucks. As I slowly sipped my coffee while perusing the aisles at Target I kept whispering to myself  'My child loves me. My child loves me.' Now, don't get me wrong. She wasn't a mommy-kicking monster all the time. She had her many sweet moments and countless silly ones too. But, I'm embarrassed to admit how much the monster moments crushed me. I can't even tell you how many times my husband has had to console me by saying things like 'You KNOW she loves you Babe.’ I realized over a very grueling and sometimes painful journey up our mountain that learning what she needed from me would be a process. When I started the parenthood stage I just assumed that my kids would need me to be their mom and that the definition of that would be whatever naturally came out of me. I was so very wrong with my feisty, strong-willed little force. It took a lot of prayer, self reflection and patience to finally start to piece together what she needed from me. In my prayers I would ask God why she acted the way she did. Why won’t she just hug me? Why does she fight with me on everything?? During those moments of prayer when I was waiting for an answer, God nudged me to the thought that I need to start seeing HER. I need to ask questions like, “What does she need from me in this moment?” instead of trying to mold her into what I thought she should be. She doesn’t need hugs. And that’s perfectly ok. Instead, she needs me to sit down with her in her room and let her explain how to play the new game she invented during quiet time. That’s what fills her up and makes her feel special. 

As we continued on our trek up that mountain, the more I started to figure her out. And the more I figured her out, the more I noticed the gap between us beginning to close. I wasn’t chasing after her in panic mode anymore.

Then, finally, after a grueling climb of trudging (sometimes crawling) and persevering, the monumental day finally came when she turned four. The moment she reached that age milestone it was like a switch turned on in her brain. We had finally made it to the peak of that seemingly endless climb. And on that mountaintop we were blessed with the glorious, magnificent descent into the valley of being a preschooler. It’s much more peaceful here. There’s less tantrums, there’s sentences that include the words, “Ok Mom that will be a good idea.” It’s so freakin beautiful. Now, her sense of humor has grown to the point where we can have inside jokes and I can lovingly tease her about how sometimes I just NEED a big cuddle-hug from my baby girl. She obliges with rolling her eyes and trying to distract me with a question or anecdote from her day. We can laugh about our differences now.

My baby is not a baby anymore. We’re steering clear of baby swings, I’ve packed up all her little rompers and have started to forget just how chubby her little cheeks were. I thought leaving her valley of babyhood would be heartbreaking, but what I forgot to think about is that there is inevitably another valley on the other side. Yes, it looks very different. I’m now walking with my girl holding her hand-no longer chasing after her in a full on panic. I’m taking what I learned on that trek up the mountain about who she is and applying that to what she needs from me as her mom. Of course I know there will be many more mountains for us to climb together, but for now, I’m going to soak this in. We worked really hard to get here, so I’m going to enjoy it.

Have you had any "monster moments" with your kids? Did you have to buy yourself a coffee to feel better too? :) 

Blessings,

Shantastic