Hi! I'm Shawna and I am a stay-at-home mom of three young girls. This is my life and my truth and all of the lessons I learn along the way. I hope you’ll sit back and savor the chaos with me!
It matters
The other day, I met a nice lady at the park and spent 10 minutes chatting with her about mothering while I pushed my toddler on the swing and held my sleeping infant and she chased the twins she was nannying. She had been a stay-at-home mom back when her three kids were little, so we did a little bit of the easy commiserating that moms often do, and talked about how much we loved being with our babies despite […]
Paging June Cleaver…
Though staying home with my kids is something I never, ever thought I would do, my new identity is mostly, and surprisingly, a great fit for me. Mostly.
Before I had kids, I spent hours wondering how motherhood would change my sense of self. The mothering part has actually been easy on my ego (relatively speaking). I am wholly a mom. I love being a mom. I don’t care if I have “mom hair” or wear “mom jeans” or any of […]
How I learned to live in the present
Before I had kids, I was kind of an impatient person (cue hysterical laughter from my entire family, friends and anyone who ever paid by check ahead of me in a grocery store line. Sorry about that, by the way. I was in kind of a hurry.).
I’ve always been fixated on the future, on its allure of uncertainty and adventure. Whatever phase I was in, my mind was on what was next. In high school, it was all about college, […]
No rollover points in mommyland
Picture an average morning with your toddler: She wakes you up at 6 a.m. but you’re all grins and excitement anyway, she spills her morning milk on the ground in a move you sweetly call an accident but which definitely seems suspiciously deliberate, constructively parent through another “accident” five minutes later, keep your cool during a tantrum over having to wash hands after breakfast, then the milk is down again, play, play, play, draw a picture for grandma, constructively parent […]
A pause before crawling
One by one, the babies in our yoga class, play groups and PEPS group have left the land of immobility. I’ll watch a baby slide backwards on his tummy, or push up into downward dog not sure what to do next, or plane in frustration, prone as a snake, and then the next time I see him he will be crawling from one corner to another as fast as a door slams.
Parents will tell me how they hastened the crawl by helping […]
The constant grown-up
A few years ago, right before T and I started trying for a baby of our own, I went to visit a friend who had recently given birth.
Actually, it was a whole group of us childless 20-somethings sprawled out on my friend’s patio drinking beer and feigning nonchalance at the tiny baby in our midst.
Noticing my friend’s mostly untouched Fat Tire, I pointed out to her that she could always “pump and dump” if she wanted to drink more.
I know. […]
Can I nurse here??
I know that Washington state law allows a woman to nurse anywhere. And that is wonderful. But it doesn’t mean you’re comfortable whipping out your boob while sitting in a 10-top at Canlis, or behind home base at SafecoField (though more power to you if you do!), especially during the first few months.
Matroshkas
My grandmother had two matroshkas that she kept on a shelf in a tiny bookcase in her bedroom. I bought them for her 10 years ago in St. Petersburg, one a silvery city girl with 18th century Leningrad landmarks etched on her front, and the other a country lady, with a strawberry on her dress and a kerchief on her round head. Each nesting doll is a wooden mother inside a wooden mother inside a wooden mother, and so on, […]
Summer baby, summer morning
We are out at the lake with my parents for one blissful week. In the mornings, Quinn wakes up early and points frantically to the bedroom door.
She knows her grandparents are out there, and she knows mornings out here mean a walk with them through their orchard and down to the dock.
I know that mornings out here mean more sleep for me and my husband. I can’t say which of the five of us is happiest!
The other day, my mom shared some reflections […]
Building your mama library: Baby edition
When I was pregnant, I accumulated all kinds of parenting books. I got the usual onslaught of “Just owning this book will make your baby sleep through the night”-type books, as well as about 10 copies of “What to Expect” and several scary baby training books that appeared to be written during the paleolithic era (most of those were gifts).
In the early frantic weeks (OK, months), I found that a lot of those books made me feel really bad about […]