Motherhood seems to teach me something new every single week. Last week was no different.

The girls and I went to Knoxville last week for a few days. It’s always nice to have a little extra help with the babies when Corey is working as much as he’s been working lately. Also, my friend, Shannon, was going to be in Gatlinburg teaching her workshop and we had made plans to grab dinner the night before. So Monday night with her was fun sipping on margaritas together and Tuesday I spent the day with my dear friend and family who was in town from Arizona. Then, Wednesday Charley woke up crying.

By that evening I was at our friend’s house who is a doctor with Charley who had yet to stop crying. Her temperature was at 103.4 and she was drooling like crazy. I was thinking she had gotten some type of awful virus while also teething (I really had no idea). Our friend was able to take a quick look in her ears (to rule out ear infections) and mouth and quickly determine that she had hand foot mouth disease. Her mouth was covered in blisters. Coooooovered. People, it was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.

I had planned to spend Wednesday, Thursday and Friday working. My mom was ready to help with the girls as much as possible and I had a huge list of things that needed to get done (more on all that I was working on coming soon!). Instead, I did this:

While looking at this:

For three days.

It was bad. And, sad. She was so hungry, but couldn’t eat. We could not, no matter what, get her to drink any water. She was tired and restless and uncomfortable and just plain ol’ miserable. It was heartbreaking.

The only thing that kept her from being admitted to the hospital due to dehydration was her baba. She would drink milk from her baba so we went from “no more baba” to “Oh! You want another baba? Baba! You want another baba??! Okay!” I was so grateful for the baba. And, Elmo. The only two things that gave her comfort.

As I laid horizontal with Charley on top of me all day and all night I was reminded that all my girls need from me is me. That was freeing because it’s easy to get caught up in the doing. I’m not the type to try and pretend like I’m ever going to scrapbook or make creative crafts for every hour of the day. And, we really enjoy just sitting around and doing nothing, especially on the back porch which is where we spend a ton of our time. But still, I often feel like maybe I could do more. And, I know that’s not true, but it’s the hustle of being a mom and wanting to be the best mom possible that keeps us second guessing ourselves, I guess. But, my three days with her etched a tattoo on my brain. Just me. That’s all they need.

So, I was grateful for those days. She is such an independent little thing so I enjoyed spending so much intimate time with her and being able to just be there when she needed me the most.

Today is day 6 and she’s still a bit under the weather. She can at least eat a bit more and is drinking water in small sips. She has completely lost her voice probably from the sores in her throat paired with the incredible amounts of crying she did. But, she’s on the up and not having to hold her mouth quite so weird in order to not let the sores on her tongue touch the rest of her mouth …

With Corey being a critical care doctor he’s not dramatic about much, but with this he said if Lola gets HFM disease it will be a guaranteed hospital admittance. And, that would be miserable for us all.

We pretty much kept the girls totally separate those three days. My mom cared for Lola (night feedings and all) so that I could focus on just Charley. I would have DIED if I would have not been in Knoxville receiving all that extra help. Seriously. Dead I would be.

This week is going to be a busy one, but again I’m grateful for the lesson and open to what I’m sure to learn around the corner.

xo,

jc

p.s. Oh, did you say you want to see a picture of Lola? Why.. okay!

I mean, can you even stand that face (or those ears)??! That baby brings us so much joy which is a big relief from ol’ Betsy Buzz-kill…

If you wanna, follow me on Instagram (503jess) where you can see the pics posted above including all the other pics I post daily of Charley and Lola and Lola and Charley together. Trust me, it’s exciting stuff.

The hardest part about being a mother for me is knowing when my kids need to be coddled and when they need to be encouraged (or even demanded) to seek independence.

It starts from day one, it seems. Questions every day you are faced with in regards to sleep and eating and independent play. And, my oldest is only 21 months! I cannot even imagine what all is in my future in regards to chores and school, navigating friends and boyfriends, work and money.

I was a latchkey kid starting at the age of 8. Both of my parents worked and I was granted an extremely high level of independence at a young age. When I was 8 my sister was 16 so I almost always came home to an empty house. I had a set list of chores I was to complete every day and my homework had to be done before my parents got home at 5:30. Occasionally, I would call my mom at work (I still have the number memorized!) and ask to complete my homework after the sun went down. Here, too, I was given a lot of independence so she would almost always say yes simply because she trusted me. I’d romp around our huge neighborhood hanging out with all of my friends at different houses until 5:30 rolled around and I knew I needed to be home.

The thing I will always remember most about my childhood is the way my parents treated me. Always I was treated as if I was capable of anything and when I was asked starting at the age of 10 to start babysitting (meaning I would be left home ALONE with children younger than me to care for!) my mom always acted as if I was the best babysitter to ever exist and HIGHLY qualified for the job.

I do think a lot was required of me and I do think that at times I was given more independence and freedom then I probably should have been given. But, I am grateful for being raised by parents who always believed in me and treated me as if I was capable of anything.  I have not always lived life believing that (although we all should!), but overall I can say without hesitation that I am the way I am because my parents showed me a life where nothing was out of my reach, working hard always pays off and making good decisions is the straightest path to leading a happy and fulfilled life.

I want my kids to be caring, independent, hard-working and ambitious. I want to have high expectations for them laced with truckloads of grace. I want them to NEVER fear doing things on their own* and I want them to grow up KNOWING they are capable of ANYTHING.

(*Writing out that phrase instantly reminded me of when I decided to go to Venezuela in college to work with Young Life for a month. My parents bought me my plane ticket, dropped me off at the airport and at the ago of 20 I flew to Caracas, Venezuela (a city of nearly 29 million people!). I retrieved my bags, flagged down a taxi, handed the man a piece of paper with an address on it (I will never forget how scared I was sitting in the back thinking about how he could be taking me ANYWHERE and no one would EVER be able to find me) and then fumbling through my money trying to pay him the correct amount. That trip, as you can imagine, changed my life. It was a defining point in solidifying my relationship with the Lord and the reason why I do not fear traveling anywhere in the world.)

Yet, I also want my kids to be where they are at and I don’t want to ever force them to grow up faster than necessary. I want them to enjoy their childhood to the absolute max, while also helping them learn what all it takes to lead a rich and fulfilling adult-life.

It’s tough to know when all of those things are needed and at what time and which stage.

This is why I feel more of an urgency than ever to cling to the Lord. HELP ME, JESUS! No, better yet… HELP THEM, JESUS! 

As all of you moms know, pediatricians (my husband included) suggest being done with the bottle at the age of 12 months. I know it’s very easy to want and need your oldest to grow up quickly so that you have more time to focus on the next baby, but I have done just the opposite with Charley in a lot of ways. I didn’t agree with the “no-more-bottle-at-12-months” so we continued to giver her one. Corey and I decided we would be done with it at 18 months. Then, Lola was born and I knew weaning Charley off a bottle (she was only getting 1 in the mornings) would not be of high priority. Plus, I wanted her to know that she still had full permission to be a baby, along with Lola.

One of my first days home with Lola it was time for her to eat. After making her bottle Charley started to ask for a “baba,” too. It wasn’t a time of day Charley ever got a bottle, but I made her one. I handed Lola to my mom and held Charley while she drank hers. Then, just a few sips in she refused to hold her own “baba,” wanting me to hold it for her. I happily held her and her bottle and tried to send as clear as a message as possible that she still had full permission to be a baby. Because she was. 

Just last week though she randomly started asking for a “baba” several times during the day. She was eating well and seemingly happy so it kept taking me off guard. I think she maybe was doing it out of habit or boredom or maybe to treat it like a paci?? I’m really not sure, but Corey and I talked and decided it was time to say bye to the “baba.”

The first morning she cried and a week later she still asks for a “baba” almost daily. She is easily distracted, but it hasn’t been easy. For either of us.

This is so small I know, but it was hard that first morning to not hand her her “baba.” It’s not easy not making her life easy. It’s my nature to want to coddle her. It’s my nature to want to do everything for her and pick her up every time she asks me to. It’s my nature to want to put her in timeout and then sit next to her and remind her that she is loved and everything is going to be okay. It is my nature to want to protect her from the world in a lot of ways. I know she would probably love school, but the thought of it most days freaks me out, imaging her in an environment I can’t control.

Yet, not creating a seemingly perfect and easy world for her is what will be the best gift I can give her. Guiding her out of her comfort zone and setting boundaries that aren’t always easy to stay in, giving her small jobs she doesn’t always like to do (like cleaning up the food she threw on the ground) and disciplining her when she needs it. These are the things as a mother that are the hardest for me to do, but the most important.

I know this to be true, but it’s hard. The hardest part about being a mother, in my opinion.

I am such a rambler…. sheesh! Thanks for reading. : )

xo,

jc

“…most Americans suffer from “possession overload’, the problem of dealing with too much stuff”. The average supermarket contains 30,000 items, two and a half times as many as it did 20 years ago [note added by me: that was 1990, people!]. To keep these largely useless items, homes have become twice the size they were in the 1950s, though the family size has shrunk. Typically, American homes now have 2,300 sq. ft. and three garages. But even this is not sufficient. There are now more than 30,000 self-storage facilities in the U.S. providing over a billion square feet of storage space. The authors point out that this industry has grown 40-fold since the 1960s, when it was insignificant, to one with an annual turnover of $12 billion now, making it bigger than the music industry in America.”

Review on the book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic written by Badrinath Bao’s (full review can be read here)

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I’ve had a life-changing shift occur in me recently. It’s something I’ve been thinking about constantly for the past almost 6-months. I’ve wanted to write about it here for nearly as long as that, but I have never been able to organize my thoughts. I still don’t think I have, but I also feel a burning inside to just write so here I am.

I’m not sure what exactly started the shift in me. It came about slowly and just built with time. I do know that a large proponent to the shift was following the journey of some of our friends who moved from this …

…to this…

Blake and Sarah moved their family from one of the wealthiest places in the world (California) to the poorest (Lima, Peru) to work with Krochet Kids. Sarah writes openly, vulnerably and bravely on their blog about all they have learned and how hard the move has been.

The initial reading of how they sold nearly everything they owned to move to one of the poorest areas in the world was mind-blowing to me (and, holy crap, with their four young kids, too!).

While following their journey I found myself becoming more and more aware of all kinds of things big and small. The abundance of coats we had in our closet, the storage units sprawling across our country, the perfectly good clothes I was putting on Charley to realize she had outgrown (only having worn them a few times), the piles outside of the Goodwill I pass on a daily basis where people have ditched stuff when they weren’t open, the utensil drawer in my kitchen that often gets stuck because it’s too full, etc, etc, etc.

I have always been incredibly organized and tidy, but still I was looking around and realizing that we had

a

lot

of

stuff.

And, yes we still had room to grow as far as space, but we had somehow accumulated an insane amount of stuff over the less than five years we have lived in this house. Fancy cheese knives and miscellaneous utensils, umbrellas and gloves, blankets, quilts and pillows, books and DVDs, toys and baby gear, furniture and decorative items, shoes and sweaters, jewelry and an array of shampoos, conditioners and smelly lotions. Stuff. Just a bunch of stuff.

And, then I’d think back on the simplicity of our days in Memphis when we lived in an 1,100 square foot apartment and had 1 extra room to use as the guest room, office, craft room and storage area. And, I’d look at Charley and reminisce about my first 7-years of life when there were 5 of us living in a 1,200 square foot house.

And, a desire to lead a simpler life for and with my family began.

Corey is only two years away from making a lot of money. I know that’s a bit taboo to write, but it’s no secret that he’s a physician specializing. Life is easy because his pay is minimal (*minimal* compared to the hours he works) right now. We don’t live all too extravagantly (to America’s standards) because we don’t have the money to. But, one day we will and I want to start fighting now creating and keeping a norm for our family that is simple and laced with generosity. I don’t want our kids to grow up thinking nothing is hard to obtain. I don’t want our kids thinking they are entitled. I don’t want our kids to ever think that everyone lives in as nice of a set-up as they do. I don’t want my kids to lose the excitement of receiving a gift, even the smallest of kinds. I don’t want our kids to scoff at hand-me-downs. I want our kids (starting young) to learn the empowerment in working for something they want. I don’t want my kids to look at their birthday and Christmas time as a time in the year when they get an abundance of stuff and everything they have asked for. I want my kids to see that it’s more fulfilling to spend our money helping people or on experiences than it is on buying stuff.

At the beginning of December Sarah wrote on their blog that they would of course not be celebrating Santa (you can’t have “Santa” if you don’t have the money to buy gifts “Santa” left behind) and that they would not be buying gifts for one another for Christmas. Instead, they simply celebrated Christmas. Without gifts. What a novel idea, right?

I knew we would not be going that route, but it shifted my heart big-time. I felt more relaxed this past Christmas than I have in the 8 Christmases we have had married. I didn’t let the burdensome of gift buying get in the way. It was refreshing.

With our big family (Corey is 1 of 5 boys) we returned home with a car brimming with gifts. It took me a few hours a day for a week to make room for everything we had been given and I felt sad about it. I realized that I was trying to make room for stuff we didn’t have room for (or simply didn’t need). All the while I was reading posts from Sarah about the women they had hired that were living with barely anything.

And, this is when I became totally resolved with it all.

In the past I thought through every thing I chose to give away in an emotional sort of way. But, this time I started to sort through things with ease, creating giant piles of stuff we either 1. didn’t need or 2. had too much of or 3. simply didn’t love or 4. didn’t use regularly.

One day while the kids played, I talked extensively about my heart’s shifting with my friend, Beth, and we made the decision together to not spend a penny on anything (minus the necessities of course) in the month of January.

Then, Lola was born. January 8th.

And, I found myself, 10:00 at night, at Target and Baby’s R Us buying all the things we needed for our trip.  We wrote the biggest check we’ve ever written for her adoption, lived in a hotel and ate 3 meals out a day (until I got to my sister’s house, of course).

Not spending money in January flew out the window faster than I could get started.

When I returned home with Lola I spent the week my mom was here continuing to sort through things in our house. When my mom left her SUV was stuffed to the max with things I was donating to their church’s yard sale.

I continued to tackle rooms and closets and spaces in the weeks ahead. Our bedroom, bathroom, the kitchen, buffet table, the hall closet, the girls’ room…

In March, my dad led a trip of college students to Mexico so my mom came to visit for a few days before we went on vacation. When she pulled out of our driveway her SUV was again stuffed to the brim with things I was donating to their church’s yard sale.

Since vacation, I’ve tackled a few more areas and there are piles piling up yet again. Just this past weekend I started on the closet in our guest room (where I keep our photos and albums, gift bags and wrapping paper, some extra blankets and sheets)…

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I was watching Guiliana and Bill the other night on TV (love them) and she was making him help her organize their office/guest room. She was putting aside stuff to donate and he said, “No, no, no… isn’t it better to have and not need then to need and not have?”

And, it hit me. That’s what I’ve been fooled into believing.

Have we forgotten what it feels like to need (or want) and not have? Have we forgotten what it feels like to share resources with our friends? Have we forgotten what it feels like to have an empty drawer, shelf or closet not because our house is so big, but simply because we don’t have so much stuff?

We keep things in case we need it, right? So, we have stuff. An abundance of it. Just in case. Filling every corner of our house.

I don’t want to live in the “just in case” category. I want to live in the “if we have it it’s because we use it regularly” category. And, if we don’t have it we’ll make do or get creative or borrow. And, if we can’t do any of those things then we’ll have the perfect gift to ask for for an anniversary or birthday or Christmas.

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I still have a list of areas in our house I plan to go through, but so far it’s starting to feel good (and freeing!) to know we are that much closer to having a house filled with only the things we need, use regularly, or love …

Our food pantry has pretty much looked like this since we stopped eating so much processed foods last year. Outside of a few things for Charley we basically just have nuts, dried fruit, Lara bars and protein powder.

Where I get my craft on:   (I really should have fixed the white balance on this pic, but people, I am tired.)

So, this pic is a little unrelated, but as I was be-bopping around the house snapping pics for this post I snapped this one of my husband’s beer cellar nook in our laundry room. Last year for his birthday, I built those shelves for him, organized all his beer making stuff, framed a few pics I took of his favorite beers aaaaannnnd bought him a mini-fridge. As a reminder at how awesome my gift was I just high-fived myself (which my friend, Jackie, says is called clapping, but it is totally not)!

A few disclaimers and notes:

1. I like stuff. And, I enjoy shopping. I specifically love small shoes. Charley probably has a dozen pairs. And, she’s one. I also specifically love buying stuff for our house. Recently I bought a new rug for our living room and it is the third rug I’ve bought in the past 18 months. For our living room. I like to think I’m resourceful, but I am not frugal. And, although I am not a brand snob, I like nice things.

2. Often tackling areas of our house is trying, tiring and just plain frustrating. Having said that, I have a knack for purging and organizing. Both of my parents (sister, too) are incredibly clean and orderly. I grew up in a small house, but it was never cluttered and we rarely had things we didn’t need or use. So, for me I can do this fairly painlessly and quickly.

3. Since I like to shop and we like nice things much of what was given away was nice. Clothes and jackets, decorative pillows and frames, unlit candles and blankets, small appliances and… you get the point. If we decided to hang on to something because it was nice or still in great condition we would have gotten rid of very little. Instead, I only saved what we needed, used regularly or loved.

4. For those of you wondering how I did this with a newborn and a toddler here’s how:

• I’ve been doing this slowly for five months now. That’s a long time!
• Although Lola has had colic, reflux and an intolerance to milk that took us a hot minute to figure out (a major detail I think I’ve failed to mention) she has always been an amazing sleeper. Charley, as a newborn, would only nap for 30 minutes bursts. Lola will sleep for 3 solid hours (thanks to the love affair she has with her swing).
• I did not birth Lola. I came home tired and with an array of emotions surrounding her adoption, but I did not have to deal with wonky hormones settling or an achy body healing. This is huge.
• I work Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (I also only Crossfit on these days) so I typically pick a house project to tackle on Wednesday, Fridays or the weekend if Corey is working. Then, I only work on it for short bits while Charley is awake. I am a big fan of my kids seeing what it takes to be a homemaker and helping out. She is not much help, but she thinks she is and we enjoy making messes and putting things away together (although she typically gets distracted by shiny things and will go off to play with her toys or stomp around the back deck).
• Once Charley goes down for her nap (1′ish) I do not do any housework (minus starting a load of laundry or washing a few bottles). Instead, I’ll take a warm shower, make myself lunch, sit on the back deck and chat on the phone, read, watch TV, work a bit, write here on this bloggity-blog, etc. Doing things that aren’t refreshing and fun is no way to spend your free time, in my (not so) humble opinion.

5.  have no intention of writing this as a message to the masses, spurring you all on to do the same with your houses. Truly. We have chosen to do this with our house because we felt the Lord’s urging to do so. Having stuff in excess just wasn’t feeling right with us so we did something about it. This does not mean that you should feel guilty to do the same. The Lord could very well be urging you to do something totally different (which could equal resting!). It’s all about your heart. My heart was simply telling me to simplify our possessions.

6. We still have a lot of stuff. Like for reals. I don’t want to live in a museum and I still like stuff. I just want it to be stuff we need, use regularly or love. That’s all.

Ahhhh… again, I feel so good to have written this out! This here blog truly does help me process and make sense of things. Thanks for reading! I hope you know that when you invite me over I will only peek into a few closets and if you have a lot of stuff I will only judge you in my heart.

xo,

jc

Customary to Korean culture is to celebrate the baby and mother on the baby’s 100th day of being alive (because both SURVIVED). When I first found out about this celebration I had instant visions of a big dinner party with all of our friends and their kids. But, the more I read about it the less I had a desire to celebrate it. The main part of the Korean 100 day celebration is praying to the gods, thanking them for keeping the mother and baby alive. You are also supposed to do a list of things with food to determine how healthy, rich and lucky the baby will be. Well, none of that was sitting well with me so instead I just decided to focus on getting through the first ONE HUNDRED days.

Here’s the deal: The first 100 days of caring for a human being (whether from birth or if you adopt an older child) are uniquely challenging. They are exhausting and trying and confusing and just plain hard.

And, no one seems to talk about them. And, I no why. You can’t put words to it. How do you try and explain a fleeting time in your life where you feel OVERWHELMINGLY in-love and happy and OVERWHELMINGLY exhausted and beat down?

I know during our 100 days I often did not say all I was feeling because I didn’t want to come across as ungrateful or even, dare I say, unable to handle the challenge. And, I also know I often didn’t say all I was feeling because I was simply too exhausted to try and make sense of how I was feeling.

So, you just get through it.

Do any of you pick up your feet and hold your breath when you drive through a tunnel? And, have you ever thought you were gonna have to take an overly dramatic breath in before you got through only to finally see the first glimpse of light and find a way to hold your breath for an extra 10 seconds?

That’s what it’s like.

You make it through, but your body will struggle and will BEG you for a breath and it will get it before you die, but it will have to be pushed to its limit first.

So, here’s my BEST advice for any of you preparing to add a baby to your life (whether it’s your first or fourth):

1. Figure out your baby’s 100 day of being alive and mark it BIG on the calendar.

Know that even on your worst days and longest nights you are one day closer to that 100 days. And, maybe not for every single baby, but for most 100 days is when you’ll see that things get SO much easier and SO much better. And, you’ll still be exhausted, but the new rhythm will feel good and natural and your new norm will be just that: normal.

Then, CELEBRATE, just like they do in Korea, that both you, the mother, and baby SURVIVED. Go out to eat and drink a glass of champagne or schedule yourself a massage or just TAKE A NAP. You deserve it.

2. Schedule a trip AWAY right around the 100 day mark.

You and your husband will undoubtedly be a little disconnected so getting away will help you reconnect and just rest together. Celebrate your new life as a family of 3 (or 4 or and take a little time to just reflect. Having a newborn and making it through those first 100 days is like being in a serious car accident, but knowing that everyone survived and you get a dream car out of it. Taking a little time to reflect on your life when you drove a Toyota Corolla and celebrating the fact that you now drive a Mercedes-Benz G-class is good and healthy for all parties.

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Corey’s vacation, which was set in stone last year, just happened to fall quite close to our 100 day mark. And, boy was it good. I had NO idea just how worn down I had gotten and just how much I was NOT myself until we got away. We went to my family’s lodge in Banner Elk, NC and just rested. It was so refreshing and that particular visit to the lodge is one I will probably never forget.

I haven’t even downloaded all of the pictures I took on vacation, but I have sorted through most of the ones I took at the lodge. I’d love to present them here using my hand-dandy blog templates from MCP, but I’m too tired so I’m just going to upload and insert. There will undoubtedly be a lot because I’m still a little sleep deprived and the simplest of decisions can be too much so scroll and enjoy (if you wanna).

Holy cow, is your index finger about to fall off? Forgive me!

Love to you all!

jc