Wish, Wait, Hope, Pray

This post is my entry for the SEEDS OF INSPIRATION BLOGHER 2010 SPONSORSHIP CONTEST

I love the story of the founders of SEED, not just because they came up with a great idea but because I see the parallels in my own life. For starters I like wine and they like wine.  (See what I mean! Tee hee hee!) They aren’t gifted gardeners and I possess the black thumb of death! (Hey – we’re simpatico!) But most of all because their story of change and commitment started with the search for another type of seed – a new life.

Since becoming a mother I’ve found that I question more, research more (and I’m definitely more opinionated). For example, I never really cared all that much about organic food but now that Little Miss has started solids and I’m making all her baby food, I’m very cautious about what I buy for her to eat. I read label after label and whenever I can afford to, I buy HER* food organic (and get weird looks from the check-out girls when I explain one bag of broccoli is organic and one isn’t!) The other day I bought some fresh organic carrots and nearly cried when I tasted them (well tasted their puree!) it actually tasted like the carrots that grew in my parents garden rather than the mild watered down carrot-lite that I’m used to. (*I’d love to buy us ALL organic, ALL the time but for now we do what we can!)

In some ways Little Miss has turned my life into a series of giant questions, one after another – each of them striving to make her world, her life, a better place. Although we didn’t eat a lot of processed food before I’ve cut down even more. We eat less meat because after seeing Food Inc I would rather eat good quality meat less often than eating crappy, overly produced meat regularly.

I looked at the cleaning products we brought into our house and wondered how many of the chemicals her delicate little body was absorbing. Whereas I was oblivious before, now we try to avoid products with ingredients I can’t pronounce. I listened to the way I talk about my body, and I am desperate for her, my gorgeous daughter, to grow up without the body issues I have; so I lift weights to become strong and I run so I’m in good shape all to show her, through living it, that fitness and strength are better touchstones than pounds and percentages.

I am currently trying to decide what’s next for me – what do I want out of this life of mine? We’re in the process of downsizing our lives so that we have less stuff and more freedom. I know I want to create, inspire, laugh, play, smile and give back and I hope I’m able to find my find my own way of doing so, just like the founders of SEED found theirs.

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I have a funny parenting story for you.

So the other morning I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Little Miss & Husbando were still sound asleep beside me so I thought I would sneak out and do a few things in the peace and quiet before they woke up.

About 15 minutes later I heard Little Miss wake up and start cooing and chattering away to herself. She sounded happy and hey, Husbando was there, so I left her and enjoyed some rare time to myself. About half an hour later her chattering started to escalate (you know how the sound changes when they’re getting ready to lose it?) so thinking that Husbando must not be able to keep her calm any longer I went in to get her. When I walked into the room I couldn’t stop laughing – Husbando was indeed lying next to Little Miss but WITH A PILLOW OVER HIS HEAD! When I said through the laughter “So is this what you call parenting?” he told me that she was too loud and he wanted to sleep. LOL!

*I tell you this story not because I was in any way mad at Husbando, who is a good dad, but because I think its a hilarious representation of the difference between men & women’s approaches to parenting!

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I do not like asking for help. I like to “just” get things done – no muss, no fuss and usually I do just fine. Obviously that “usually” was before I had a baby. Now getting anything done is a small miracle so when I found myself with a messy house, a mountain of laundry, 8000 errands, some Spilt Milk Mom posts, the need for a haircut and a sick baby I was beside myself. So I picked up the phone and bribed my mum with baby time to drive the four hours each way to come and stay for a day so I have the help I need. It felt weird but also slightly elating – I’m not going to have to struggle with all of this on my own. Plus with my newfound mama ability to utilize time much more wisely I can get WAY more done in less time. And being less stressed means I’ll be a better mama and wife than before. Maybe this help thing isn’t such a bad idea afterall!

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The other day at a baby shower I was talking to a friend about motherhood and our daughters when I heard something surprising come out of my mouth when talking about Little Miss: “She’s not what I expected…”

I have to admit that its true, Little Miss is definitely not what I expected from my child. You see, Husbando and I are pretty strong personalities (‘high energy’ a friend kindly said) – he’s a politics major who can hold his own in any debate with anybody. I’m an opinionated go-getter who has no problem performing for hundreds of people. We’re strong, independent and headstrong (we’re also both Aries – go figure!) and neither of us like being wrong. So I expected Little Miss to possess the most obvious of our character traits.

Except she’s doesn’t.

Somehow I managed to give birth to one of the easiest going creatures on the planet. Want to introduce a bottle? Sure thing! A sling? Not a problem! Want some time after she’s woken up in her stroller after a walk? Just leave her there! There has been nothing we have thrown at this girl that she has balked at. She falls over and laughs, takes solids like a champ and adored the pool the first time we visited. We can take her anywhere and do anything (I’ll let you know about the whole long haul flight thing in a few weeks) but so far she’s unflappable. In short, she’s everything I aspire to be. I honestly wish I was more like my five and a half month old daughter.

Perhaps that’s the point, maybe she’s here to remind me to relax and take it easy or not get too worked up over stuff. I guess I just didn’t expect to learn so much from her – isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

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Little Miss has been under the weather for over a week now. At first it started with a little bit of a runny nose but it has morphed into a full blown cold complete with a plugged nose and a sore throat (I know about the sore throat because I unfortunately have the same bug). The other night neither of us felt great and she was having trouble sleeping so I brought her into bed with me (Husbando was working late).

As I lay next to her she pulled my forearm towards her (she’s got some grip that kid) and then wrapped her arms around my wrist and snuggled up to me. Wrapped around my arm, her little hands stroked (and sometimes scratched) my hand as I lay there breathing in the moment. She needed comfort and no blanket or stuffed animal would do – she wanted me. She wanted her mummy.

Last night it happened again – just as she was slipping off to sleep she reached out for my arm and stroked my wrist until she fell asleep. On my side, breathing in that heady scent of “just washed baby” I was so happy just to be there. There will be plenty of moments where she won’t want to hold my hand (hell I’m sure there will be plenty of moments when she won’t want to speak to or be seen with me) but in this moment, right now, there’s nowhere either of us would rather be.

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I recently experienced TWO (I know!) fantastic customer service experiences from businesses started by moms. Is that a coincidence?

The first one came from See Kai Run. I had ordered Little Miss several pairs of (totally adorable) half price shoes during their December sale. By the middle of January I figured something must be up so I emailed them and asked them what was going on with my order. I very quickly received an email back apologizing and explaining that it seemed they had experienced a technical glitch when I placed my order that charged me but didn’t schedule my order to be fulfilled. Sadly because this hadn’t been discovered the shoes I had ordered were now all sold out. They apologized again and then offered me two different ways they could remedy the situation. They could either refund my credit card immediately or I could choose ANY three pairs of replacement shoes from the site – email them the size and styles and they would ship them to me right away. I chose the shoes (um hello!) and was able to order Little Miss these adorable shoes:

There was never any question or debate that they were going fix the problem – they admitted it was their mistake and immediately remedied it – making me tres happy and an ongoing customer.

My second great experience was with Mally Bibs. My grandmother had sent Little Miss some money for Christmas and had asked we get her something special with it. After much thought I decided that it would be sweet to get her one of the personalized Mally Bibs – I could chose the design (I love their old heart and crossbones design), the colours (her nursery colours of course) and have her name put on it.

With their custom design studio you choose the colour for the front, the pattern on the front, the main colour for the back, the colour of the pocket on the back and the colour of the name. I wanted the colour on the back to match the pink of the heart pattern on the front and thought I got it right – until the bib arrived and I realized that the colours on my screen weren’t the same as the bib.

Now I know that I am probably one of the only people that would notice but when you pay $50 for a bib you want it to be exactly how you want it to be and I knew it would bug me every time I looked at it. So I emailed Mally Bibs and explained the situation and asked if there was anything that could be done.

I received an email back very quickly from them saying that although they usually charge for changes and repairs they could see how similar the colours looked on the screen so if I sent the bib back to them they would fix it for me for FREE!

This is all in stark contrast to the service I’m receiving from my insurance company as I try and get our beloved iMac replaced after it was damaged. Do mom businesses better understand their customers (mostly other moms) better? Are they more sympathetic? Or do they better understand that moms are more likely to talk to other moms about their experiences and therefore one bad experience can have an outreaching impact? Whatever the answer this is one mom who is very grateful that they are more clued in and that both See Kai Run & Mally Bibs made my life easier! Thanks!

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Over at Spilt Milk Moms I’ve just reviewed the incredibly helpful momAgenda wall calendar and we have one to give away! So if you’re looking for a way to make mommy life a wee bit easier go enter now!

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Turns out Little Miss was more than ready to try solids.

Despite all the books saying that you have to be patient and the first time they may not even have more than a mouthful she finished the entire amount (1 tbsp of cereal mixed with breastmilk) and when I doubled the amount the next day she finished that as well. She’s still not entirely convinced about the taste – which leads to the most hilarious expressions – but she’s definitely into this food thing. Actually she stunned me today when she grabbed the spoon from my hand and then put it into her own mouth. I was literally speechless. She doesn’t quite have enough dexterity to get it in every time but she wants to so I don’t think it will be too long till she’s feeding herself all the time.

I tried to add a morning feeding but, to be honest, she’s never that hungry in the morning (probably because I desperately shove my boob in her mouth to try and get an extra hour of sleep when she first wakes) and it was just starting to feel rushed so I’m going to stick with just the evening feed for now and see how we go. She’s not overly keen on thicker foods so I’m keeping it pretty liquidy for now but I’m just really glad I listened to my gut and gave it a go.

And I thought you might like to see how it all went:

PS – If you haven’t already weighed in about Who’s In Your Reader please, please, please do – I really want to know!

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Today we fed Little Miss her first solids. And my heart broke a little bit.

Over the last couple of weeks Little Miss has taken a very large interest in whatever we’re eating. She’ll watch us put food into our mouths – tracking every second – she’s tried to grab porridge from our breakfast bowls and the other day she, literally, took my water bottle out of my mouth and tried to drink from it. This new awareness of food has been joined by a lack of sleep – she wakes a number of times in the night and is absolutely starving each time. She actually snorts when she’s presented with the breast she’s so hungry.

I asked a bunch of friends how and when they weaned their children but most of them stuck to the six month rule and I was very much hoping to keep her on the boob until after I got back from my trip so I kept putting what I thought out of my head. But after a particularly bad night last night I decided that time-lines be damned, my child was HUNGRY and it was time to move things on.

So today we fed Little Miss her first solids. She was a little alarmed to begin with but quickly gobbled it all up – and I mean ALL of it. Despite the fact that everything I read said “Don’t expect them to finish the first serving completely” she ate every. last. drop. And then drained my boob.

And in one very simple, expected, necessary step my little baby – the one that snuggled to my breast to feed, who fell asleep while feeding filling my nostrils with the heady scent of new. little. baby – morphed into something bigger, someone more independent someone who would eat real food and it made me cry.

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So here we are… a new year all shiny and unblemished and full of numerous ways for me to screw up possibility. I’m not entirely sure how I felt about 2009 – it began with me ready to come out with my pregnancy and within a month had seen my salary cut and my husband let go – things that we really haven’t recovered from a year later. 2009 brought me my gorgeous baby girl (who is so ridiculously chubby its hilarious) but it also brought insane financial and emotional hardship and that, ultimately, is why we’re now having to sell our house. And although I don’t want to seem ungrateful in a year that brought us a daughter I don’t really have good feelings about last year. So onwards and upwards I say!

2010 is going to be an interesting year for us – a combination of making change and twiddling our thumbs and chances are we will end this year in a very different scenario to how we’re beginning it.

I don’t usually make resolutions (I have enough things to not get done as it is in any given year!) but this year I’m setting some goals instead.

1. I need to get back into shape and lose weight. I have set the lofty goal of getting back to my wedding weight (and into my gorgeous wedding dress) by our anniversary on June 24th. I’ve been talking about doing this for a while and now I seriously need to get my ass in gear. Basically its about 35lbs(ish – I’ll know tomorrow) in 6 months – doable but not easy and I’m strangely looking forward to it.
2. I want to eat more whole foods – we do make a lot of things from scratch but I want to up the quality (and not the quantity) of the food we eat.
3. I want to beat my previous times at the Sun Run in May which means running 10K in less than 70 minutes – bring it on!
4. I want to make some decisions about our future plans and be confident in them. Right now I’m incredibly lost with how I feel about our future and I want to make some plans that FEEL RIGHT and start putting them in place. This means everything from Little Miss’ routines, husbando and my jobs and even where we live.
5. I want to be more positive. I feel like the last few years have beaten me into a cynical downer who never sees the best in things so I’m hoping I find (at least a bit of) my inner Pollyanna this year.

So thats me for this year – hopefully sprinkled with some travel and a lot of love. What do you want for 2010?

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