I have started my own shop on Etsy to see if I can make some money off the crafting I have been doing for upcoming events in the lives of our friends and family. Please stop by and take a look! You can search my shop name on Etsy.com which is PixieDustPlanning and can add me at Facebook.com/PixieDustPlanning
Thanks for the support!!!
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Real Mom Mission Statement
Sometimes I write my blog with a feeling that the mothers who are reading it are my gal pals. They know me, have coffee with me, and have shared a story or two of their own trials in life. That is the way I write. I want you to be my partners in crime and for other mothers across the world who often forget that they are not alone. In fact, as a writer, I would go so far as to say that it is my "Mission Statement." I want all mothers, fathers, legal guardians, foster parents, or any other wonderful human being who has taken on the hardest job in the world to know that, no matter what your style of parenting, how many children you have, no matter the differences that separate, someone out there feels the way you do. AND IT IS OK. You don't have to be June Cleaver, a Real Housewife of Some Rich City, or even be the PTA mom. My mission is to get the message out that motherhood is messy, hectic, hard, and sometimes downright unpleasant but all of those feelings are normal. As long as you love your babies to the moon and back, you are entitled to have days where you feel like it might be nice if they could stay on that moon for an hour or so before coming back.
The thing that saddens me most about motherhood, is there's a lot of judgement going around putting pressures on us as parents on top of all the other issues parents are concerned about. From the moment woman become child bearing age, judgment is on our trail. Is it ok or not ok to use birth control, when is the right time to become sexually active, do women and men have different standards they should be held to, when is the right time to get married and then to start a family, is working while raising children acceptable, does being a stay at home make a woman a creature with less value, what kind of birthing technique is acceptable, to breastfeed or bottle feed, to co-sleep or have a nursery...the questions, the judgments, and often the unsolicited advice are a never ending steam of chatter. That is where the outside pressure to raise our babies the best way possible comes from.
However, where does the positive support come from? Who is telling our daughters, teenagers, sisters, best friends, wives, patients, and partners that whatever they decide really is fine. There is no perfect model to which all children should be raised by nor is there one for the perfect mother and wife. No mother should ever feel uncomfortable with a parenting decision she has made because she was pressured into it.
One of the most common of those pressures today is the debate over bottle feeding versus breast feeding. There are countless organizations devoted to helping new mothers learn how to breastfeed, support them when they feel they would rather rip their breasts off than breast feed for one more second, and even lactation consultants who visit new moms only moments after they deliver their little miracle.
I hate "all" statements because not ever person or situation is the same. For example, with my first son I had planned to try breast feeding but knew I had obstacles to overcome and wasn't very comfortable with doing it regardless. We had other issues pop during delivery and postpartum for both my son and myself, so breastfeeding was the last worry on my list of priorities. Apparently, that did not matter. I had so many visits from the LC that were more like being visited by a salesmen while you are busy bleeding out buckets of blood postpartum, not sleeping, and trying to wheel yourself to the NICU to visit your first born. Sounds like a ball, eh? Not the right time to try and sell me on an idea.
To make a long booby story a short booby story, I ended up with a sign on my door bluntly telling the LC's that they would be be shot upon entering my humble hospital suite. You wouldn't dare mess with a mom who is suffering Postpartum Depression and who's baby is in the NICU , would you? Didn't think so.
For the birth of our second son, about three years later, I knew better and was fully prepared to advocate for myself and my strict plan to not breastfeed at all. I was prepared for a full on war with not only my perinatologist but with the nurses who would care for us in the days at the hospital. Every hospital is different because I had a totally different experience than before. In fact, my admitting nurse to the Mommy and Baby Unit about two hours after I delivered my son said that out of the five women in the unit, only one mom was breastfeeding and was having a very hard time with it. She commended me on making a decision that was not an easy one and being ready to advocate for me and my brand new little angel. I was elated to find there were nurses out there who were perfectly fine letting the mother make her own mothering choices, whether they liked them or not. I actually got more support from that nurse than from an online group of woman that I have relied on as dear friends for many years.
As I said, breastfeeding is just one of many of the hot topics in society, much as many of the different that come with parenthood. I started writing with a specific purpose when my first, and at the time only, son was just passing his first birthday. I was coming out of that awful fog that surrounds new, sleep deprived parents in the first year of their child's life. I was determined to make a place for mom's to feel safe, comfortable, and confident in the way their were (safely) raising their brood.
Not every day is a Huggie's commercial, full of happy smiling babies who sleep and coo and cuddle next to mommy who is in full hair, make up, and an all white dress. (Those parts always crack me up. Since I become a mommy, I believe the color white has been eliminated from my closet either by choice or by baby defecation.) As REAL mom's we all have days we would like to stay in bed, drown out the noise outside, and watch tv all day. Sometimes we get mad at our kids and put them in timeout for their sake just as much as for our own. It is one of the hardest things in the world to and if we are honest with ourselves, we set each other up to be better parents and raise better children.
Who cares if the only clean room in your house is the one in your Pinterest board of dream homes. Who cares if you are wearing comfy pants from a pile on your floor and that you think your make up may even have reached it's expiration date. Life is messy, parenting is hard, and our children are worth every bit of it.
I hope you all find this a place where you can be honest about your adventures through motherhood and will enjoy reading stories about mine. This blog is for REAL mom's who know that life isn't always rainbows and butterflies and that when woman get together and discuss the gritty realities of parenthood, it makes us all better people for it.
I shall end my lengthy post at three in the morning, almost four, in my bed in California by with one humorous thing and one question for you readers. Two hours ago, my seven month old baby woke up whining for a bottle because eating three eight ounce bottles and have of the produce department today wasn't enough. In the moment I was rocking him in the crook of my arm, holding the bottle in the right, and reading a book on my Kindle in my left, I thought of words of wisdom spoken in the literary gold, Go The F*ck to Sleep. " The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest/And the creatures who crawl, run, and creep./I know you're not thirsty. That's bullshit. Stop lying./Lie the fuck down, my darling, and sleep."
Now that you are laughing because you too believe and have lived the words spoken in that book, it is time for me to learn a little more about you, my fellow reality parent partners in crime. Share with me what piece of parenting you have been unfairly judged about, whether it was from a stranger, a friend, or a family member. How did it make you feel to have someone else tell you how to raise your child? Know you are not alone and that you don't have to be June Cleaver to be a great mom.
Til next time my dearest friends, ciao.
The thing that saddens me most about motherhood, is there's a lot of judgement going around putting pressures on us as parents on top of all the other issues parents are concerned about. From the moment woman become child bearing age, judgment is on our trail. Is it ok or not ok to use birth control, when is the right time to become sexually active, do women and men have different standards they should be held to, when is the right time to get married and then to start a family, is working while raising children acceptable, does being a stay at home make a woman a creature with less value, what kind of birthing technique is acceptable, to breastfeed or bottle feed, to co-sleep or have a nursery...the questions, the judgments, and often the unsolicited advice are a never ending steam of chatter. That is where the outside pressure to raise our babies the best way possible comes from.
However, where does the positive support come from? Who is telling our daughters, teenagers, sisters, best friends, wives, patients, and partners that whatever they decide really is fine. There is no perfect model to which all children should be raised by nor is there one for the perfect mother and wife. No mother should ever feel uncomfortable with a parenting decision she has made because she was pressured into it.
One of the most common of those pressures today is the debate over bottle feeding versus breast feeding. There are countless organizations devoted to helping new mothers learn how to breastfeed, support them when they feel they would rather rip their breasts off than breast feed for one more second, and even lactation consultants who visit new moms only moments after they deliver their little miracle.
I hate "all" statements because not ever person or situation is the same. For example, with my first son I had planned to try breast feeding but knew I had obstacles to overcome and wasn't very comfortable with doing it regardless. We had other issues pop during delivery and postpartum for both my son and myself, so breastfeeding was the last worry on my list of priorities. Apparently, that did not matter. I had so many visits from the LC that were more like being visited by a salesmen while you are busy bleeding out buckets of blood postpartum, not sleeping, and trying to wheel yourself to the NICU to visit your first born. Sounds like a ball, eh? Not the right time to try and sell me on an idea.
To make a long booby story a short booby story, I ended up with a sign on my door bluntly telling the LC's that they would be be shot upon entering my humble hospital suite. You wouldn't dare mess with a mom who is suffering Postpartum Depression and who's baby is in the NICU , would you? Didn't think so.
For the birth of our second son, about three years later, I knew better and was fully prepared to advocate for myself and my strict plan to not breastfeed at all. I was prepared for a full on war with not only my perinatologist but with the nurses who would care for us in the days at the hospital. Every hospital is different because I had a totally different experience than before. In fact, my admitting nurse to the Mommy and Baby Unit about two hours after I delivered my son said that out of the five women in the unit, only one mom was breastfeeding and was having a very hard time with it. She commended me on making a decision that was not an easy one and being ready to advocate for me and my brand new little angel. I was elated to find there were nurses out there who were perfectly fine letting the mother make her own mothering choices, whether they liked them or not. I actually got more support from that nurse than from an online group of woman that I have relied on as dear friends for many years.
As I said, breastfeeding is just one of many of the hot topics in society, much as many of the different that come with parenthood. I started writing with a specific purpose when my first, and at the time only, son was just passing his first birthday. I was coming out of that awful fog that surrounds new, sleep deprived parents in the first year of their child's life. I was determined to make a place for mom's to feel safe, comfortable, and confident in the way their were (safely) raising their brood.
Not every day is a Huggie's commercial, full of happy smiling babies who sleep and coo and cuddle next to mommy who is in full hair, make up, and an all white dress. (Those parts always crack me up. Since I become a mommy, I believe the color white has been eliminated from my closet either by choice or by baby defecation.) As REAL mom's we all have days we would like to stay in bed, drown out the noise outside, and watch tv all day. Sometimes we get mad at our kids and put them in timeout for their sake just as much as for our own. It is one of the hardest things in the world to and if we are honest with ourselves, we set each other up to be better parents and raise better children.
Who cares if the only clean room in your house is the one in your Pinterest board of dream homes. Who cares if you are wearing comfy pants from a pile on your floor and that you think your make up may even have reached it's expiration date. Life is messy, parenting is hard, and our children are worth every bit of it.
I hope you all find this a place where you can be honest about your adventures through motherhood and will enjoy reading stories about mine. This blog is for REAL mom's who know that life isn't always rainbows and butterflies and that when woman get together and discuss the gritty realities of parenthood, it makes us all better people for it.
I shall end my lengthy post at three in the morning, almost four, in my bed in California by with one humorous thing and one question for you readers. Two hours ago, my seven month old baby woke up whining for a bottle because eating three eight ounce bottles and have of the produce department today wasn't enough. In the moment I was rocking him in the crook of my arm, holding the bottle in the right, and reading a book on my Kindle in my left, I thought of words of wisdom spoken in the literary gold, Go The F*ck to Sleep. " The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest/And the creatures who crawl, run, and creep./I know you're not thirsty. That's bullshit. Stop lying./Lie the fuck down, my darling, and sleep."
Now that you are laughing because you too believe and have lived the words spoken in that book, it is time for me to learn a little more about you, my fellow reality parent partners in crime. Share with me what piece of parenting you have been unfairly judged about, whether it was from a stranger, a friend, or a family member. How did it make you feel to have someone else tell you how to raise your child? Know you are not alone and that you don't have to be June Cleaver to be a great mom.
Til next time my dearest friends, ciao.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Have You Become a Facebook Fan?
I am hoping to go from 123 Facebook page "likes" to 150 by the end of the "Read an Ebook a Week" promotion, which ends March 10.
Do you think you might be lucky 150? The person to become 150 will get a free copy of my Ebook. If they already have it, they will get a free copy of "Mommyhood: The Ugly Truth, Volume 2" which hasn't even been released it!
So spread the word and "like" my Facebook author page. The more fans we continue to get, the more prices I will give away!!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shannon-Harrigan/287605324605773
Do you think you might be lucky 150? The person to become 150 will get a free copy of my Ebook. If they already have it, they will get a free copy of "Mommyhood: The Ugly Truth, Volume 2" which hasn't even been released it!
So spread the word and "like" my Facebook author page. The more fans we continue to get, the more prices I will give away!!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shannon-Harrigan/287605324605773
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