My Baby is a Kumquat

"Hey Mom, remember how you told me to pray and ask God if we could have another baby in our family?'' An enormous smile erupted on my face as I thought, Ok, she is the cutest thing ever. Then, I nodded. Yes, I did remember encouraging her to do that. ''Well guess what?!?” she replied, “God said YES! He told me yes in my heart that we can have another baby!! And...it's gonna be my sister!!' At this point, I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Still shocked at her decisiveness I said, ''Well sweetie, if God does give us another baby it might be a girl, or it might be a boy. Would you be ok if it was a boy?'' She didn't hesitate with her answer and said ''Noooo no. If it's a boy we'll just say Hi God. You actually gave us the wrong baby. Here you go! Can we have our baby girl now?’'

Well, she was right about the first part. When this conversation happened I was 5 weeks 4 days pregnant. I had only just taken the pregnancy test about a week before. My husband, Seth, and I decided to wait until I was 10 weeks to tell the kids, but my discerning little girl figured it out right away. Over the next few weeks we had many (many) hilarious conversations in which she kept telling me that she was so excited about the baby in my tummy. One afternoon I was just a little over six weeks and feeling terribly sick. I was resting on the couch while I watched the kids play in the living room and mostly just focusing all my energy on not throwing up (again). As Grace danced around the room in her typical Gracie way, she fluttered over to me and plopped herself at the foot of the couch. She had the biggest smile on her face so I grinned back, tilted my head, and raised my eyebrows as if to ask what she was smiling about. She caught on to my question and exclaimed, “I’m just SO excited about my baby sister!!” In one smooth motion she lifted my shirt just barely past my belly button and kissed my tummy. Then as quickly as she had arrived, she bounced back off towards her toys, completely unaware that I was frozen, wide-eyed, and had nothing but shock on my face.  

So here I am. 10 weeks. My Baby is the size of a kumquat (whatever that is). Sealed inside that tiny fetus are the hopes and dreams of completing our family. There’s a line in my favorite movie, About Time, where the main character is trying to decide whether he and his wife should try for a third child. He contemplates for a moment and then says, “You know, my dad always said he wished there had been more of us.” When I heard that line my body tensed and I subconsciously leaned in towards the screen holding my breath. Is that how I would feel if we decided to stop at two children? Would I have always wished there had been one more? To test these prompting questions as to how I would feel about stopping at two kids, I pictured myself dropping off my youngest, Emmett, at his first day of Kindergarten. As I walked back to the car would I feel an overwhelming sense of freedom and accomplishment? Would I even be a little relieved that my season of life of being a full time stay-at-home mom was now over? In my mind, I saw myself climbing into my car and instead of feeling ready to throw myself into the next season of life, I felt lonely. Unfinished. I glanced to the backseat, saw it was empty and my heart sank. As I tried to figure out what these emotions meant, I pictured once again dropping off Emmett at school for the first day and this time I left the building holding hands with another child of mine. A lively toddler who was skipping along and singing some made-up version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I bundled this last little one into the car, wiped a booger, kissed a forehead, and took off from the parking lot with a feeling like, yes, this is what it was supposed to be. That third kid was supposed to be there with me.

Very soon after I had these revelations I retold them to Seth. I already knew that he was open to the idea of having one more child, but we hadn’t yet confirmed that this was the path we felt God leading us toward. When I finished telling him my story he kept his head down and I saw the slightest smirk begin to curl on his lips. He then slowly looked up at me and said, “You know, to be honest I really have always pictured us with three.” 

That was the moment we decided to start praying for God to bless us with another baby. We were a bit surprised that initially God’s response was, “wait”. It wasn’t a yes or no, it was wait. To greatly fast forward this next section of our lives, we had been told to wait because God led us to sell our home and purchase a different house. The entire process took nearly a year and after we took a few months to settle into our new house, God then answered our heartfelt question with a yes. We actually found out we were pregnant when we were on our anniversary vacation back in June. (see that post here ----> My Babies' Mom was on Vacation) What a fun gift that was to find out on our trip! We got to sit and relax on the paddleboat in the afternoon and suggest potential baby names. Our mornings were spent sipping coffee on the deck and talking about how our kids would adjust to this new addition. We didn't get interrupted every five seconds, we didn’t have to fight to have time alone to talk and dream. It was very special. 

So...my little girl was right. We asked God for another baby, He said yes, and we are so thankful. Obviously, it’s too early to know if she was right about the baby being a girl, but we are thinking we will probably have to find out the gender so that we can prepare her. I think the cupcake reveal where there’s pink or blue on the inside might be the best way to go. That way if it’s a boy, maybe we can salvage her broken heart with chocolate and frosting. 

Now that our secret is public, may I ask something of you? As you know, life is a gift and it is fragile. Will you please pray for us and for this new little one? Being pregnant is definitely a huge blessing and a very beautiful thing. But it can also have its moments where fear and uncertainty threaten to cloud our focus. 

Please pray for us as we begin this new journey of being a family of five. We are thrilled beyond words and feel blessed beyond measure. 

Blessings,

Shantastic

My Baby Did Something Gross

And the award for best (aka worst) parenthood story goes to….

When we were pregnant with Grace, one of our friends gave us some great advice about how to approach parenthood as a couple. She said, “Don’t keep score with your spouse.” She went on to explain that parenthood is not a situation where you and your spouse are competing or keeping score. Like, if you were the one who was home when your infant projectile vomited all over your church outfit and you had to clean it up by yourself, you can’t hold that over your spouse’s head and be like, “Now you have to change the poops for a week.” Parenthood is messy and we all get our fair share of having to be the cleaner-upper. It could have easily been Seth who ended up being 25 minutes late to church because he had to change his outfit at the last minute and then realized that the outfit Grace just threw up all over was the last clean “church outfit” he had that fit his post-pregnancy body…But it wasn’t him was it. It was me. And you know what? That’s not his fault. 

But on the other side of it, I can say with a proud sense of accomplishment that I have never been peed on by one of my kids. There’s been the occasional leak that seeped out onto my pants (that time it happened when I was AT church…) but he’s the one who has gotten the bare bottom spray of pee all over his shirt. Miraculously enough, he’s also the only one who has gotten the privilege of cleaning up all the bathtub poops. It’s fine though because since I stay home with them that means I get to do all the daytime poopies, so we’re good. We’ve got a good balance and know how to “take one for the team”.

We tried to take my friend’s advice and not keep score in an unhealthy way. However, we were still able to joke with one another if we ever felt like we needed just a little acknowledgement or credit for the most recent gross thing we had to do. For example, there was a time right before Christmas when I was about to walk out the door and enjoy un-interrupted adult alone time. I had barely taken one step outside the frame of the door when I heard Seth cry out from the bathroom that he had yet another bathtub full of poop. I hesitantly turned back in toward the house (the poop-filled side) and as I was about to offer to stay back and help, he popped his head around the corner and said with an overdramatic flare, “Just go babe. Just go.” He knew that we would be joking about it for the next week and that he had been the hero to take the fall alone while I got to go eat Chick-Fil-A waffle fries ALL BY MYSELF. So, I made sure to give Seth some much deserved credit for tackling PoopGate 2016 and being the hero who saved Mommy’s magical Christmas shopping day. 

Even though he appreciated the adoration, we both knew there was nothing that would ever dethrone me from what happened last spring. It would take a lot more than a floating turd to relinquish my crown. Those fateful seconds last May forever solidified my ranking as the one in our marriage who has the best (aka worst) parenthood story. No bathtub stink or pee soak would ever top “the incident”. 

Seth had taken our daughter out for a date and I remember I had been attempting to finish the last few dishes in the sink. But of course, my babe who never wants to be more than five feet away from me wasn’t havin' it. He came waddling over and started pulling on my leg, begging for my attention. As I looked down at his little face that was beaming back up at me I realized, wait a second, I have JUST Emmett right now which means I can give him one-on-one attention and just ENJOY his presence. Peace out dishes. I’ll see ya later. I instantaneously melted down to the floor and he crawled up into my lap. As I sat down I felt my phone dig into my side so I quick grabbed it out of my pocket. I started to set my phone on the counter and then thought it would be funny to send a couple Snapchats to my family. Emmett seemed to be relishing in his recent victory for my attention and was in the perfect mood for a couple silly videos. As I started recording little ten second clips of us I kept laughing hysterically as he hammed it up. He was feeding off my laughter and started slobbering and squealing into the screen. I giggled even more as I realized that he still had leftover peanut butter smeared on his cheek from dinner. He was quite the sight. 

I glanced down at my phone to select the people I was going to send the Snapchat to. I was a little distracted as I clicked the different names and right before I pressed the “send” button I felt something lightly brush my cheek. I thought to myself, oh gross. Emmett probably just wiped some spit on me..or worse, some of the peanut butter that was smeared on his face. Ew. I quickly sent off the snapchat and as I glanced up at Emmett I saw him standing face-to-face with me…with his hand down the back of his pants. He then pulled out his hand and extended it to me. 

It was in that moment I realized…. I had poop on my face. 

The award for best story goes to me.

I forever and always win. 

Blessings,

Shantastic aka Poopface

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What’s your best (aka worst) story?? Does it top mine?? Share it below in the comments or find me on Instagram @TotallyShantastic (Or if you know me on Facebook, let me hear it! Do you get the crown in your family for the best story??)

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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