WE’RE BACK with Weekly Obsessions, hey HI long time wow.
The Umbrella Academy – A new Netflix series that has me all like “This is so weird” “I like them” “This is weird” “OMG WHAT” “Wait…. how?!” “SO WEIRD” “He’s my fave” “WHAT IS HAPPENING” ….. So yeah. It’s kind of superhero-y. Very well written. A little creepy? Definitely weird. You should probably watch it so we can talk about it, thanks so much.
Trader Joes – I don’t shop there very often, so every time I do I’m reminded how wonderful it is. They have so many fun foods. But the biggest perk is they have a great flower selection to brighten up my cold winter heart.
Maggie Rogers – Heard it in a Past Life – If you haven’t listened to Maggie’s debut album, what are you waiting for. Honestly. Go go go. This girl can sing and write and also tear out your heartstrings and also make you want to go hiking. I don’t know, probably not, but I felt that once.
Argan oil – This is actually a “multiple months” obsession, but I love this stuff for my face and hair. I am in a DEEP season of postpartum hair loss and have been massaging my scalp with argan oil to hopefully combat that. And, it’s a great detangler! The only detangler I will use now! Try it, it makes you feel earthy.
None of these are sponsored, you’re very nice and cute for thinking that.
Thanks for being here on this random fun blog that has no real point except to ramble about my life to someone other than my 5 month old. 😉
I am a person who feels the burden things. Stuff. Items. Especially items that I haven’t picked out for myself. Those give me the most anxiety. Items that are gifted to me or my baby in the spirit of “I thought you might like this” or “It’s a holiday and I felt like I needed to get you something” mostly just make me feel heavy. And I usually DO like the thing. I just don’t usually need it.
In the last 3 or so years, I’ve made a mindful effort to curb the amount of items I bring into my home. I either need to completely love it or have a defined need for it in order for it to be in my space. Having a kid completely derailed this lifestyle change. Babies come with a lot of necessities, but they come with even more non-necessities. And that’s where a lot of my recent anxiety has come from.
Having a baby has elevated the amount of gifts we receive. And I get it. Baby stuff is fun to buy because every product is super cute. But as the pile of gifts for the baby grows, so does the level of anxiety I feel around those things. Not only does the responsibility of dealing with my own things fall on me, now I need to deal with his. (dealing: organizing, cleaning, keeping track of, washing, donating, storing, ect) (and yes, Nate also does some of this ‘dealing with’, but the majority falls on me simply because I am in the house more often than he is.)
Another part of the burden of gifts is this: I feel really bad (like, guilty, to the point of crying) if I ever end up donating these things, because I know the gift giver has spent their hard earned money on it. So not only do I feel anxiety around excess stuff in my home, I feel an additional anxiety around giving it away because I feel like I am wasting other people’s money.
The *wild* part is that recently I asked a couple questions surrounding this topic in my local Mom’s group and the responses blew my mind. I am not the only parent who feels this way, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the amount of gifts our kids receive. There were so many other moms who mentioned something about how they have asked time and time again for their people to stop buying un-asked-for things for their kids, and people just don’t. More gifts. More stuff. More excess stuff for these tired moms to spend their already-limited time and energy on organizing, cleaning, or finding new homes for.
BY THE WAY. Don’t get any of this mixed up with ungratefulness. You can be grateful for it and also exhausted by it.
SO. If you are hoping to give some a gift, ask questions first! “What useful or cool thing have you been eyeing lately that I could get for you as a (Christmas, Mother’s Day, birthday) gift?” “What type of gift would be really useful to you/bring you joy right now?” “Do you have a wishlist I could get you something from?” “Send me a link to your top (maternity, baby, kitchen) item you’ve been needing!” Think before you buy!
One of my 2019 goals is to spend way less time on social media. When the idea to take every other week of 2019 off of Instagram came to me, it felt like such a not-normal idea. Not normal for what life says is normal these days, and for me, as a social media loving human. It seemed hard. My excuse for always being on socials was “but I have a business I need to tell the world about!”. Yes, I would do social media marketing, but honestly, I mostly was constantly scrolling with no real plan in mind. So this challenged seemed challenging, as challenges are. But then I remembered the time in 10th grade when someone dared me to be a vegetarian for a week and I lasted an entire year. So I guess challenges are kinda my thing.
My first #InstaOffWeek was a little tough. It was basically a time to retrain my brain to not immediately click on Instagram and start scrolling when I grabbed my phone. It was second nature to do that. I actually think I had become addicted. I’ve had 3 “off weeks” so far, going into my 4th, and it gets easier every time. Here are some positive things I’ve noticed my time away from Instagram has taught me:
There is WAY less comparing my day/kid/life/business to other people’s. Space to live my own life, ya know?
It gives me time to clear my head. I process the day’s events without feeling the need to talk about it on social media while it’s still happening. Similarly, the time away given me perspective on what and how much to share.
This is the best: I’ve been SO productive. The time I usually spend on Insta (and by now you realize it was a LOT of time), I’ve instead spent reading more – my own books, but also to Julien. I’ve been leaning into my hobbies like embroidering, blogging (HI!) and journaling. And also just resting my brain more! These are things I’ve always wished I had “more time to do”, the difference now is I’m intentionally choosing to use my time to do those things.
I think this is the most interesting finding so far: The time away has given what I DO share during my ‘on’ weeks much more purpose and focus. I don’t feel the need anymore to post something to just to have SOMETHING there. I’m thinking about my content more, and honestly, it gives me more satisfaction knowing that I am creating this quality feed verses throwing random stuff up just to stay in the algorithm. Yeah, I know, it’s weird that I even had to think like that it the first place. That’s social media, I guess.
So among all the Pros there is also one Con to not being on Insta as much! I obviously follow a lot of my longtime friends, and though we don’t communicate personally every day, it IS nice to keep in touch daily via socials. I always pick Instagram over Facebook to do this, so I definitely feel like I’ve been missing out on some moments over these last weeks.
That being said, I plan on sticking with my plan of being off Insta every other week for 2019. Maybe I’ll add Snapchat and Twitter into the mix one of these weeks (though I do find that those generally aren’t as big time sucks as the ‘Gram is.)
Let me know if you end up doing your own “time off” challenge! I would love to hear how it goes and what you learn!
Am I blogging again?! Am I starting a new series? What is all this sudden optimism and enthusiasm about internet sharing? Yeah, clearly it’s been a while, but I really do want to start posting more on here. I think it’s because the only person I talk to for 10 hours a day is a tiny human who can’t talk back, so I need somewhere to spew all my crazy thoughts. SO YAY HERE YOU GO. Let’s start with a weekly recap of my THIRD #InstaOffWeek (where I stay off Instagram for a week. Very creative name, huh.)
It was SO nice out early in the week! I took Julien on two springy walks. I loved & soaked up the warmth and sunshine – but it’s February & nice weather doesn’t last long, so my heart was, as Kacey Musgraves sings about, “happy and sad at the same time”. It leaned a little more towards happy, though, because Julien is totally warming up to the idea of being carried in a carrier and actually seems to like it now. Only took him 4 months!
Instead of watching the Superbowl, I ate chocolate cookies dipped in funfetti frosting AND worked on a colorful hoop with our Wifi password on it. It’s hanging in our kitchen and it feels fancy (it’s not) and I’m obsessed. I’m now out of hoops and since it’s #NoSpendFeb, I needed an alternative, so I started tackling my biggest embroidery project yet… my jean jacket 🙂 Welcome back to 1998!!
Like I mentioned, #NoSpendFeb is in full swing. I’ve been tempted just about every day to check in with Mr. Dunkin and see if my favorite coffee order is still great, BUT I’VE RESISTED. Nate and I have cooked more dinners in the last week than we have probably since Julien was born. (Dear Lord, only you truly know how much I miss Thai takeout.) I’m keeping track of everything I do and don’t spend, and will do a #NoSpendFeb recap when it’s over! (FUN FACT: My besties and I have determined that wine is, in fact, an essential grocery and have allowed ourselves to buy UP TO 2 bottles per grocery trip.)
Other things of note: – I started a new book, Rock Needs River by Vanessa McGrady, which is about her experience with open adoption. – I sort of came up with a blogging schedule for this blog AND my biz blog and am hoping to stick with it. – I took my first embroidery commission! That’s kinda crazy to me. – I rekindled my love affair with orange juice. Was that too much? Ok, bye. Stephanie
Hey! I’m not an expert, but here are some thoughts and tips from my two airplane travel trips with my baby before he turned 4 months old.
My baby is 4 months old (as of last weekend!) and has already been on two adventures that required us taking him on an airplane. His first trip was to California when he was 2.5 months old to see his Great-Nana. Boston to LAX is a 5.5 hour flight, so this was a big feat. His second trip was to Atlanta, which was “only” 2.5 hours, but as I’ve learned, it doesn’t matter how long the ride is, just how prepared you are. HA.
Very helpful tools for traveling with a baby:
– A spouse/friend/grandma/responsible adult human that you trust: California was our first family trip so Nate was there, and my friend Amy was with me on the Atlanta trip. It was reassuring to know Julien had two pairs of eyes on him, and that I could easily hand him off if I had to use the bathroom or pump or just needed a break. I’m sure I could have done it on my own, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as smooth.
– Stroller frame (we have the Chicco KeyFit one since that’s the carseat we have) Quick, foldable, LIGHT, big bottom basket to store bags while walking around airport. Also, they aren’t suuuuper expensive, so if it gets dinged en route it’s not the end of the world.
Optional tools:
– Baby carrier: *if your baby already likes it and is content being it for a while* otherwise there’s no point in lugging it around. We lugged our to California because “maybe” he’d finally like it, but nope. Didn’t use it once. But I can see the advantaged for having a baby who likes it. Carrying baby in a front carrier through security instead of having him in the stroller and then needing to take him out would have been IDEAL. Julien was FAST asleep in the stroller when I was coming home from Atlanta and they still made me take him out and he screeeeeamed. It was not pretty :/
TIPS + TRICKS:
PACK LIGHT: – The less stuff you have to carry, the better. Obviously it depends where you are going and how long you’ll be there, but try to be reasonable with how much you bring for your baby. He doesn’t need 10 toys or 20 onesies for a 3 night trip. Pare down (for the adults, too!) and you will save yourself the trouble of lugging way too much stuff AND a baby around the airport.
FEEDING: (I think this is the thing that brought me the most anxiety while prepping for my first trip as a mom. But guys, it was not as bad as I imagined it in my brain. You can do this. And once you nurse your baby on a turbulent airplane, you feel like you can conquer ANYTHING.) – For airports, download the Mamava app the see where their private nursing pods are in each airport. The pods are passcode protected and are basically a private little space for moms to nurse or pump. They have clean seats, and one or two power outlets for pumping.
– For the plane, bring more pumped milk or formula than you think you need, especially for baby’s first flight. For some reason Julien had trouble nursing on the plane when we flew out to California. It was his first flight, a new situation, and we were both kind of uncomfortable. So we went through my pumped stash real quick. I did try nursing him again at the end of the flight and he seemed to hate it less, and he didn’t have any trouble on the way home. By the time it was time to fly to Atlanta, he was used to it and nursed like a flying champ.
BRING THE CAR SEAT: – But not the base! If you have a click-in base, there is no need to lug that around. It’s HEAVY! When you get to your destination, you can use the old school way of clipping the carseat into the car with just the seatbelt.
– Also carseat related: Go to your gate before boarding and ask if there are any open seats on the flight. If there are, and they are nice enough to let you move, you can bring the carseat on the flight and have a dedicated space for baby. We were lucky that this happened on our flight out to California and Julien got to take a few pretty nice naps. The other 3 flights we didn’t get lucky, so we lap-held him. It wasn’t necessarily hard because he was so tiny and not super squirmy, but it took him longer to fall asleep. (This would be another place that a front carrier would come in handy, if your baby is a fan of it.) (you could also buy your baby a dedicated seat for this reason, but unfortunately we didn’t have the funds for that.)
MISC: – Wear pants with pockets. For real. This is a legit tip I am giving you. – Ask the closest coffee shop or the flight attendant for a half-full cup of hot water to warm up bottles in. – There *are* diaper changing tables in airplane bathrooms! Just bring your own changing pad and a small pack of Lysol wipes. Just to be sure.
REMEMBER THIS. MOMS + DADS. Your baby’s feelings might be big, especially in this very new and kind of strange setting. If they are screaming, and you are doing everything you can to console them, and they are *still* screaming, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. Yes, people are going to comment or roll their eyes. But you need to keep your eyes on your baby and cuddle them and love them and let them know you are there for them. You are doing something so new and so wild and so good for your family. OWN IT. You rock.
