hello monday {link up}

Linking up with Lisa Leonard for hello monday!

Such goodness has been happening here, much we are saying hello to this week.

Hello clean house.  Thanks to Honey for running errands with the kids so it could be done.

Hello colorful mobiles.  It feels so good to work on a new and fun project!

Hello baby race cars.  Oh the wonderful ways to use shoe boxes from new shoes!

Hello settling into a routine.  I, of course, know it won't last long, that soon Pal will start a new one.

Hello April showers.

Hello painting.

Hello broken washing machine.  So, hello repairman!

Hello loads of laundry waiting for his arrival!

Hello to Season 2 of Doc Martin.  I just might be addicted.

Hello warming weather and lots of kid-digging out in the yard.

Hello homemade boomerangs.

Hello to gift cards for McDonald's.  A special present from a friend of mine to each of the big siblings, made more special because we oh so rarely take them!

Hello wonderful visit with my cousin, such a treat to spend the day with her.

Hello to a week full of more projects and diapers and sweet baby smells.

this moment

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

right now, I'm

~ loving the fresh air and sunshine

~ enjoying the color sprouting around the yard

~ glad that Pal is happy to be in the Moby Wrap

~ adoring that my littles can make an afternoon of finding worms

~ happy to have some of the "old favorites" like water play and chalk back out for the season

~ enjoying homemade Chocolate Creme-Filled Sandwiches

~ discovering a great show on Netflix, Doc Martin, that Honey and I are enjoying watching in the evenings

~ trying to get some sleep each night...

~ ...and therefore trying not to have too much coffee each morning

~ realizing that the piles of library books about the house are such a good thing and much reading is going on around here

~ loving that my older boys are diving into those books and creating projects

~ planning some crafty baby projects of my own

~ holding holding holding Pal as much as I can, realizing he somehow already looks a wee bit older to me

first family outing

This post is being written because my oldest son just said to me, as he and Munchkin and Lovey play together upstairs, "Mom, go downstairs and do Mom things."  I wonder exactly what he thinks are Mom things.  I know I consider a new blog post a great Mom thing.  

It was a week after being home with Pal that our first family outing took place.  And by outing, I really mean family bribing. 

I wanted to get some pictures of the kids -- all four of them -- together in their sibling shirts I made.  So, as any smart Mama would do, I promised ice cream for all after a successful photo session.  Certainly ice cream seemed appropriate for this crew as we often celebrate everyday successes with a trip to one of several amazing local ice cream shops we have nearby.

The big boys split their first ever banana split.  Mama got to have extra whipped cream.  Our mini-van seemed oh so full, it took our breath away really.  And Pal slept through it all.

And that photo session was successful.  Here is a peek...

scenes from a babymoon

Well our babymoon has been spent with lots of hugs, kisses, snuggles, naps and more hugs and more kisses.  These pictures happen to be the ones where Pal's face was actually showing.  I have tons of photos where he can't even be seen because of the heads and bodies of his siblings hovering about him in an almost constant state of snuggling, or hugging, or kissing or holding.  All. The. Time.

I think Pal gets 100 hugs and 1,000 kisses a day.  Easily.

These past few weeks have also brought countless diapers.  Some well-slept nights and some not-so-well-slept nights.  Lots of breastmilk.  A wee bit of spit up.  And one very impressive poop incident.  (I am sparing you the picture that I texted to Daddy.  Trust me, it was impressive.)

I've re-learned the art of doing many a task while holding a baby.  And I've made myself abandon some tasks and simply sit down and enjoy gazing at my youngest.  My three older children being my everyday reminders that these days are fleeting.

We've fully enjoyed this time of soaking in the sweet warm smell of a newborn and the squeaky lovely sounds he makes. 

We've also been graced with home-made meals from family and friends and helping hands here to hold Pal, play with the littles, help with errands and take out the trash if needed.  Oh how blessed we feel.

I also received these sweet gifts in the mail from blogger friends.  Erin sent these darling fabric bags, perfect for carrying just a few diapers and wipes in my purse.  Somehow she knew it was the exact thing I needed!

Amy sent along a mama merit badge.  Oh I've been admiring these, and boy it sure feels like I earned this pregnancy badge this time around!

During this time I was so inspired by the poetic honesty of my guest bloggers.  Their stories -- each uniquely their own -- were gifts to me as I continue on my journey of motherhood.  I am so grateful these amazing women are in my life, whether in person or through our blogs.

I look forward to being back in this space with you my dear readers!

this moment {kisses for baby brother}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

If You Give a Mom a Bitter Cup of Coffee {guest blogger Molly}

As our family enjoys a babymoon at our house, it is my pleasure to share with becoming claudine readers special guest posts from bloggers who are mothers.  These are women graciously sharing words and pictures about birth and mothering.  Each has a wonderful reflection about the complexity, joy, challenges, happiness and gifts of mothering, and I am truly privileged to host their stories over the next several weeks.  Enjoy!

If a mother pours herself a bitter cup of coffee, she'll have to drive to the store to buy a gallon of white vinegar to clean her coffee pot. But when she gets home and prints out the instructions on how to clean her coffee pot and starts the process of scrubbing away the grime compromising the pleasure of consuming her daily caffeine, she'll notice how cluttered the shelf holding the coffee making supplies has become and remove every item from it.  After that shelf is wiped down and reorganized, that same caffeine-addicted mother will get disgusted by the condition of her other kitchen shelves in comparison to that newly tidied one and impulsively empty every single shelf in the kitchen until every single square inch of counter space is covered with spices, cereal boxes, bags of flour, dried beans and vitamin bottles.

She will then become so distraught by the overwhelming mess she's made, so close to dinner time, that when her daughter shows her her mostly finished school project - a poster board on the US Constitution- and asks what to do about a misspelled word in the title, a word written in permanent marker, that mother will explode like a pricked balloon. "How many times have I told you," she will yell, "always write in pencil first! Why didn't you bring this to me sooner so I could spell check it? Blah, nasty blah, blah blah!"  And then the daughter will get teary, and the mother's heart will ache.  "I'm sorry, baby," she'll say, after taking a moment to regain her composure. "Your mom took on more than she should have and then took it out on you," prompting her sweet, forgiving daughter to reply, "It's OK. I know that cleaning kitchens makes mothers crabby."

And then, inevitably, after being humbled by her lack of self-control, that flustered mother will have to pray for the faith to not wallow in her shame and frustration but rather, in spite of that kitchen disaster, start over right then and there.   "Let's clear some space on the kitchen table so we can sit down together,  with a plate of chocolate chip cookies, and come up with a plan to fix your poster,"  the imperfect mother will say to her resilient child.

And chances are, if you give a mom a chocolate chip cookie...

she'll want a (non-bitter) cup of coffee to go with it.

~ The lovely Molly is an Orthodox Christian author and podcaster. 

Writing Past the Wall {guest blogger Tamara}

As our family enjoys this babymoon at our house, it is my pleasure to share with becoming claudine readers special guest posts from bloggers who are mothers.  These are women graciously sharing words and pictures about birth and mothering.  Each has a wonderful reflection about the complexity, joy, challenges, happiness and gifts of mothering, and I am truly privileged to host their stories over the next several weeks.  Enjoy!

In the beginning...

So I’m going to go ahead and just throw this out there right off the bat…I have been completely resistant to writing this guest blogger piece.  It has, literally, taken fifteen “start overs” and probably as many “re-writes” to get to something I felt worthy of attaching to an email and shooting through cyberspace to Claudine.

“What’s up?” I asked myself two days before my second…sort of…deadline. {The first one I had made, the second one Claudine had gently suggested…after I had completed blown the first one.} “She hasn’t asked you to write a novel, just a short piece regarding your birthing or mothering experience. She totally kept the subject matter general. Come on Tamara…you’re a mom! You have been for almost 18 years! What’s the problem! It’s an honor to be a guest blogger! Get it together! WRITE SOMETHING!!!!”

That’s when it hit. The busy-every-day-hands-on-be-everywhere-at-once chapter of my mothering journey is coming to an end. Olivia graduates high school in June and will be leaving for college in the fall. Just typing those words brings tears to my eyes and makes me want to stop writing…and for the past month this is exactly what has happened.  I have stopped writing. 

Here’s the deal: after almost 18 years of mothering Olivia, looking ahead brings a feeling of excitement and hope for her future, while looking back brings a feeling of sadness and emptiness and “if I had it to do over again” kind of thoughts. Looking back is much harder, and with the thrill of looking forward right there available all the time, looking back is easy to not do…ever.

When I look back I see my parents who seem so young. They were the same age as Jon and I are now. I see my cousin who was in grammar school and is now married and pregnant with her first child.  I see my sister-in-law awkwardly holding Olivia after she was born, who is now in the midst of her own busy-every-day-hands-on-be-everywhere-at-once chapter of mothering.  I see my Grandma and Grandpa, still healthy and so proud to be great grandparents for the first time, who are no longer here. I see daily activities I thought would never end, like sitting at the foot of Olivia’s bed reading with a flashlight while she fell asleep for hours…and hours…and hours, completely and totally finished. 

In the midst of it all it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that tomorrow will be here…right on time. Maybe there will be another battle of wills with a little one over the evening bath, and maybe there won’t. Maybe there will be another grocery cart left in the middle of aisle 3 due to somebody who isn’t taking no for an answer, and maybe there won’t. Maybe you’ll be up again till midnight waiting for a post-movie and then ice-cream date, arrival home, and maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll hear “I love you too mommy” and maybe you won’t. 

Whatever you have had today will carry you through to and help to shape your tomorrow. I wouldn’t be as excited and hopeful about Olivia’s future, if it weren’t for the yesterdays…ALL of the yesterdays: Good, bad, scary, anxious, excited…every description you can think of…I’ve had them. As have {or will} you.  Being able to look back and acknowledge this enables me to look forward relaxed and with a smile. I have done that, and I can do this.

We can’t journey forward to a tomorrow without a yesterday…and this is what I have realized while sitting here tonight and writing past stop.

Now on to my actual birthing story….just joking. That’s a post for another day.

With much love and gratitude to Claudine and all of you who allowed me the opportunity to write my way through this wall.  It truly is an honor to be given this small part of the birthing and mothering experience that’s happening here at Becoming Claudine.  

...and now.

~ The beautiful and loving Tamara blogs at Smiling for Grandma.

A gift in trusting nature {guest blogger G}

As our family enjoys a babymoon at our house, it is my pleasure to share with becoming claudine readers special guest posts from bloggers who are mothers.  These are women graciously sharing words and pictures about birth and mothering.  Each has a wonderful reflection about the complexity, joy, challenges, happiness and gifts of mothering, and I am truly privileged to host their stories over the next several weeks.  Enjoy!

Greetings!  I'm happy to be in this space with you today, especially because of the happy event that brings me here!

I am blessed!  As I've come into motherhood, I've watched the journey of many women and listened to many childbirth stories.  So, I see my own birth stories through many perspectives and know that I was gifted with the most amazing childbirth experiences.  All three.  All unique.  All more perfect than I could have planned.

But, there is one story that I will share because I have shared it many times over the last seven years.

It was Palm Sunday.  I had just conducted the children's choir at church for their last performance, for my due date was nearing.  My husband and I took our oldest to Sunday school.  I was having contractions while at church, but I was "talking and walking" through them.  So, no worries!

We went home, had lunch.  My, then, 18-month-old son and I laid down for naps.  My husband went to the grocery store.  I was quite restless and uncomfortable during this nap, which was a bit unusual for me.  So, when I heard my husband come home from the grocery store, I headed into the kitchen.  I believe my exact words were, "I need to call [my boss] and tell her that I'll be in tomorrow morning only, but then I'm going to begin my maternity leave."

As the sentence fell out of my mouth, I heard a splash and felt the warm liquid on my legs.  My husband knew immediately what had happened and a look of panic fell on his face.  I said, "Relax. We've got time."

Let me flashback to my first childbirth experience for a brief moment.  It lasted 13 hours after my water broke (fairly short for a first-time mama).  I had a natural childbirth (no meds and little medical intervention).  While I knew the second experience would be different, I felt seasoned enough to know we had time.

I went to change to go to the hospital and my husband started the phone tree to contact our babysitter(s).  But, the contractions now were coming hard and fast.  They were one on top of the other and from short to long in duration.  I remember saying to my husband, "If I have 13 hours of these contractions, I won't make it without meds."  The expression of worry on his face magnified!

He was unable to reach any of our sitters on the phone.  He couldn't reach the doula.  The plan, oh, the plan was not working.  So, I suggested he go get a neighbor and I gave up packing.  I went to my own bed to labor.  While he was next door, I was overcome with this realization - I was NOT going to make it to the hospital.  A peaceful realization, really.

So, when my husband came home with news that the neighbor would be over any minute, I shouted, "Call 911.  We're having this baby here!"  And he did.  He made three phone calls, in fact.

The first call
Operator:  911. What's the emergency?
Husband:  Hi!  This is [Husband].  My wife.  She's having a baby.
Operator:  Are you at [insert address here]?
Husband:  Yes. (Primordial yelp in the background).
Husband:  She's 39 weeks.  I mean, she's 31 years old, but the baby is 39 weeks.
Operator:  OK sir.  Stay calm.  We are on our way.  We'll be there.

He hung up the phone.  I said, "You need to look.  I think the head is crowning."
He looked. "Yep.  That's the head."

The second call (less than 1 minute later)
Husband:  (Shouting) The head is crowning!  The baby's head is crowning!
Operator:  OK sir.  We are on our way.  Tell your wife to try not to push. (Another loud groan in the background).
Husband:  (Thinking, wisely, there is NO way I'm telling my wife THAT) OK.  You are on your way?

The third call (less than 1 minute later)
Husband:  (After he hands me the warm, sweet, bundle of fresh baby) The baby is born!  The baby is born! (He throws the phone to now-arrived neighbor.)
Operator:  Hello?  Hello?  Is the baby breathing?
Neighbor:  Is the baby breathing?
Me: (Hearing the most beautiful sound every new parent waits anxiously to hear.) Yes!
Neighbor:  Yes.
Operator:  That's a great sign.  Hang tight.  We'll be there soon. Congratulations!

Six minutes from the first phone call, EMS arrived to find me and my beautiful baby girl and my very relieved yet shaken husband and our neighbor in my bedroom.  They cut the umbilical cord which left my daughter with a trophy from her birth story.  Her belly button is an "outie."  They took my newborn and me to the hospital.

And, my son, napping in his crib in the room next door, slept through the entire thing!

That year for Christmas Doctor Daddy was gifted with CDs of those 911 calls.  He stills cries each time he listens to them.  And HIS name is on her birth certificate as the Birth Attendant.

We had always been open to a home birth, but never quite had the courage to plan one.  It's wondrous how remaining open can make you prepared for the twists and turns life throws at you.  I would not change a single thing!  And I know that I am truly blessed!

Thanks for joining me in this space and allowing me to share with you, dear readers, one of my most sacred moments.


~ The reflective and compassionate G blogs at Through My Eyes.

Motherhood is Bittersweet {guest blogger Tonya}

As our family enjoys a babymoon at our house, it is my pleasure to share with becoming claudine readers special guest posts from bloggers who are mothers.  These are women graciously sharing words and pictures about birth and mothering.  Each has a wonderful reflection about the complexity, joy, challenges, happiness and gifts of mothering, and I am truly privileged to host their stories over the next several weeks.  Enjoy!

 

Hi, my name is Tonya, and I am thrilled to be guest posting for Claudine while she takes a little bonding time with baby. 

As I write this post, I’m sitting in Panera.  A few tables away a couple is having their lunch.  He’s a big man, probably retirement age, his hair shaved short in the way men are wearing it these days.  The woman’s black hair is cut almost as short, pixie-like, although she herself is no pixie.  She’s large in the way my mother would call “big boned.”   Somehow her stature makes her seem strong.  Right now she is laughing uproariously at something the man is reading off his smart phone. 

I must admit to being fascinated by older, married folks who have long since sent their kids off to college and are living their “golden years.”  To me, these couples seem to have risen to a higher realm of living, able to relax after the years of washing sticky maple syrup hands, stepping on Legos, driving to early morning hockey practices, and waiting up way past their bedtimes for returning teenagers. 

I envy them.

Not every day, mind you.  There are those days when everything seems to gel, where all of the times reminding the kids to say “please” or put their towels on the hook on the back of the bathroom door or to not call their sibling a stinky poo-poo head...it all comes together.  Well, it may not come together for an entire day. More like a particular afternoon.  Or an hour at bedtime.  Or even just a moment after eating peanut butter crackers at 2:35 on a Tuesday afternoon.  All seems to be going as I had envisioned it, when my four children were only a distant vision down the road of life.

In that magical vision of motherhood, I would use cloth diapers and make my own baby food and soak up all the wonderful maternal bliss of nursing.  But somehow I lost the memo about how sore I’d be after an unexpected c-section to think of washing diapers, and how baby may prefer the jarred peas to the army green ones frozen into ice cube-sized portions, or cracked, bleeding nipples.

However, my dissolution with first-time motherhood didn’t keep me from having three more.

Interestingly, last Christmas Eve at church, I noticed a woman who I know had recently embarked upon her “golden years,” looking our direction.  At the time, Husband and I were wrangling our two little boys up to communion, Josh and Owen barely able to contain the excitement inside their two little argyle-vested bodies.  And this woman, she was looking at us with a mixture of delight and yearning.   If I could see her thoughts, I knew she was reliving the Christmas Eves of her past, with her own little ones squirming in their little loafers.

And I knew with all my heart that someday, I will be she, looking over at the young mother and her brood, and I will be yearning for the days when my children were that small.

~ The insightful and witty Tonya writes at Whoopsidaisy.

this moment {morning paper}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo Two photos - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are savoring this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of all kinds of wonderful!

Thrifty Mama {guest blogger Cory}

As our family enjoys a babymoon at our house, it is my pleasure to share with becoming claudine readers special guest posts from bloggers who are mothers.  These are women graciously sharing words and pictures about birth and mothering.  Each has a wonderful reflection about the complexity, joy, challenges, happiness and gifts of mothering, and I am truly privileged to host their stories over the next several weeks.  Enjoy!

Almost 6 years ago we moved from a booming little city to a small rural-ish town.  In the little town there was no Target, no Macy's, no Pier One.  I had never really been all that into shopping anyway, so it didn't phase me.  I had no real sense of style.  I didn't know what I liked.  No real aesthetic sense when it came to, say, a bedroom or living room or kitchen dishes.  

A few years into the move, I found myself dipping into the local thrift stores - of which there were many.  I also found myself reading blogs which shared and supported an alternative lifestyle; one in which backyard chickens were commonplace and mismatching antique china plates were the norm.  Something resonated in me and soon I began to find myself aligning with a sense of style for the first time in my life.   I hesitate to say "style" because I am literally a void of style.  Instead, I collect things that move me.  Things that I love.  So, I guess somehow "love" has made my home more stylish than it ever was.  Backyard chickens and vintage muffin tins, granny-crocheted lap blankets and funky industrial metal lamps.  I have a small collection of old rusty vintage chairs in my backyard (along with the chickens) and I love every single one.   Old mixing bowls are my favorite.  Soon, I'll have to find a real cool hutch to put them all in. 

There is something about re-using that makes me so happy beyond the feeling and look of the items I find.  I am lessening the landfill and helping the environment in my own little way.  And I have also learned not to throw things away that our family no longer needs.  I know that someone out there might love what I am ready to lose.  So, when we need to clean out, it all goes back to the local thrift. 

This morning my younger daughter asked me if I would take her to the toy store.  Instead we went to the local thrift.   When we walked out, I was down $4 bucks.  Meanwhile, my daughter was decked out in a brand new (to her) outfit and hugging onto a little vintage doll.  As I like to say: badda bing, badda boom.  Everyone's happy. 

~ The funny and passionate Cory blogs at Lady Cordelia.