It's A Boy

I've been hesitant to write this post, so instead I've been writing nothing because this subject has been weighing so heavily on my heart, I can't imagine staying genuine while posting anything else. It would feel like the ultimate in social media falsehood to post anything about our summer adventures, or our preparations for the impending 'back to school' season or even fun facts and pictures of our growing family (and my growing tummy).

Because one thought keeps running around in my head; one google search has dominated my web browser; and one topic keeps bubbling to the surface, only to be choked back by a false smile and quick laugh followed by reassuring words chosen to convince myself as much as others about how content I am.

First of all, please know that it is not lost on my how blessed I am; how lucky. I see people that I love so deeply struggle to start a family or navigate loss after loss and my heart breaks for them. I am filled with gratitude every day for my children. Every baby that has come to me has filled me with the kind of love that is surprising--until they handed me that first baby, I never knew a human had that kind of capacity for love.

It's essential love, of course, because honestly if mamas didn't love their babies that fiercely, babies wouldn't make it. I've had eight things thrown at me just today. And last night I stepped in someone's pee because making it into the toilet doesn't rank super high on the priority list of a couple of my roommates. Who, incidentally eat all my groceries, color on the walls, poop in things I buy and don't even pay rent.

...I digress.

My children are my favorite. Don't try and approach that idea using logic because it's really confusing. I don't know how I can love them so thoroughly when they torture me so regularly, but there it is.

And here's the thing: I love this baby I'm growing. Or I anticipate the love I'll have for him. Because I know it now. I know what's coming. I know they'll hand me this wrinkled, smelly, screaming lump of flesh and my whole being will suddenly need to comfort him and make him understand how loved and safe he is and I'll whisper "Hi, baby! Hi. Mama is right here. It's okay, I'm here." over and over and over until his crying slows and he just lays his head on my chest and breaths in my scent and knows that everything will be alright because his mama has him.

I can't wait.

This is (probably*) the last time I'll have that experience.

And (deep breath)

It's a boy.

My fourth boy, to be precise. My fourth bouncing, energetic, twinkle-eyed, adventurous, out-door loving, mama adoring, daddy worshiping little boy.


I've dreamed of daughters since I was a kid. I had a list of girl names and as I got older, the names changed but the gender didn't. I yearned for the frills and lace and bows and pink and nail polish. Early in my marriage, I created a board on Pinterest called "When I Have a Baby Girl" and pinned there frequently. Though, my pinning there started slowing after the third time I heard "it's a brother!" And now I passionately avoid that board. And I highly doubt I'll pin there again. I tried to delete it today, but couldn't quite bring myself to do it.

I've been reading articles by mamas with all boys, or mamas who've found out they're having their third, fourth, fifth boy in a row. And each of them were helpful, in a way. They were quick to point out the advantages (We have all the clothes and toys already. Less drama. Boys love their mamas. They are protectors by nature. Etc.) and the fun things (We're in a pretty unique club with other 'boy moms'. Brothers are fun to watch. Sports!) and the things to look forward to (Grown men take wonderful care of their mothers. Missions. Daughters-in-law.) but none of them quite hit the mark for me.

I'm glad those women are so fully focused on all the positive parts of having all boys. And trust, there are so many good things and parts of being a boy mom that I'm genuinely looking forward to. But my brain can't stay there yet. Because I'll finally think I'm settled there and then I see 'mommy and me apron sets' in Williams Sonoma and my stomach flips and I will myself not to cry in public while surrounded by expensive blenders. Or Pinterest suggests a pin with a pastel pink and crystal themed nursery and I click "not interested" while internally shouting about how interested I really am, so that I can try and correct the algorithm and avoid any future sighting. Or I scroll through facebook and see someone's precious baby girl with flowers in her hair and have to scroll a little faster so I won't think about what my little girl would look like with flowers in her hair.

Because there isn't a little girl for me.

I won't paint a sleeping newborn's fingernails. I won't buy tiny tights or peruse the girl's section in Target for pants with frills on the bum or newborn bows that are as big as her face. I won't have built in girls nights while the boys are at father-son's outing. I won't wear matching Easter dresses. I won't buy princess costumes or dress-up jewelry. I won't commiserate about periods or go bra shopping or share sweaters or steal her shoes.  I won't plan a wedding or go wedding dress shopping. And I won't be in the delivery room when my grand-babies are on their way.

And I just want it to be okay that the loss of those experiences is absolutely breaking my heart. I need to be sad for a while. I need to miss that little girl and grieve the loss of what she represented to me.


You know that part in Inside Out where Bing Bong is so sad because they've dumped his rocket and Joy is trying desperately to distract him with all her positive thinking and silly games and tickle fights? She just can't stand to let him grieve. But Sadness finally comes over to Bing Bong and sits next to him and says how sorry she is and how sad it is that they took his rocket from him. She lets him talk about his memories with Riley and how much he misses her and how sad he is that she's forgetting him and moving on. And she lets him cry.

My internal monologue is Joy. I bounce around from thought to thought and point out all the reasons why everything is going to be okay; why there's no reason to be sad; why I shouldn't even think about it if it makes me feel anything other than happiness. But I need Sadness right now. I need her to sit down next to me and let me talk about how sad it is that my girl isn't coming. And how much I miss her. And how confusing it is to miss someone I've never known. I need her to tell me that it IS sad and then just let me cry.

When that baby boy, that fourth boy, is put on my chest in January, my only emotion will be love. I won't be grieving a little girl, but will be rejoicing in my boy. I'll be overwhelmed with love and adoration for this new man in my life. And as I watch him grow, it'll be the same. I'll never look at him and wish he were anyone other than who he will be. I will love him completely and I'll wonder how I could ever picture my life without him. So I'll hold on to that hope while I grieve the loss of a future daughter, but I have to let the grief be okay.

For now.  



*I reserve the right to change my mind about the size of my family and not have to listen to anyone ask me if I know how birth control works

Being Good Enough

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I basically think that podcasts are the stuff. They feel like a missing link to the outside world of adult thought and connect me to ideas and concepts and fandoms that give me an opportunity to engage thoughtfully in varied subject matter that I otherwise wouldn't have the chance to encounter in the daily repartee of wiping bums and noses. And faces. And counters. And floors. I'm actually starting to realize that maybe motherhood is actually just mostly wiping things.

If you're looking for a good podcast, chances are that I'll have several suggestions lined up and ready to go. And if you're looking for a good podcast on motherhood; boy howdy...you might wanna sit down because there's quite the list. I was recently introduced to a podcast done by one of my favorite mommy blogs, Bold New Mom and she basically speaks my soul.

Listening to her podcast has kind of been like having a therapist that I don't have to pay (and all the poor college students said hallelujah) or put pants on to talk to, but who just so happens to answer all of my questions and solve all of my problems. It's magical.

(That was a joke. I wear pants in my house)

(That disclaimer felt necessary)

ANYwhooo...if you're in the market for a good, relaxing podcast on momming, I highly recommend this one.

The point of this entire debacle is that I was listening to her the other day while doing dishes and she said something that kind of blew my mind. It was probably mostly in the way she framed it, because I think I've known this subconsciously, but have never been able to put it in words. She said that moms sometimes get hyper-focused on being the 'perfect' mom (which, btw, doesn't actually exist), when really all we need to be is a 'good enough' mom. Uh. Light bulb. Of COURSE being good enough is good enough! Duh. Why did I never put that together?

I mean, obviously I know that a perfect mom doesn't actually exist (even though I sometimes forget that when I'm scrolling through Instagram and watching everyone's highlight reels and wondering why I never have time to restore furniture and resell it for a profit or just keep it and decorate my house to look like the display window at pottery barn or why I can't feed my children a vegan meal made from mermaid tears and universe juice and have them all eat it happily in matching cream sweaters at my recently hand-built farm table) but somewhere down the line, my mind went 'I know there's no such thing as a perfect mom, but there is a perfect mom for MY kids and I need to find a way to be her'.

So I'd read parenting book after parenting book and balk at the horrors that are the millions of ways I'm messing my children up for life because I didn't realize the type of love they needed, and I'd pray to stay patient with the four-year-old and feel like a failure when I'd snap, and I'd cringe at myself for making mac and cheese for the third time that week, and I'd get a lump in my throat when I didn't squeeze 'special one-on-one time' in to our jam-packed day, and I'd fight back the mommy guilt for realizing I hadn't done a single, solitary craft with my kids all summer, and I'd want to take a long walk off a short pier when I looked around and realized that the folded laundry was sitting on the back of the couch for the eighteenth day in a row and my kids had no PJs in their drawers. 

But no, no, of course there's no pressure to be a 'perfect mom' because everyone knows she isn't real.

The reality is that we all have our own ideas of what a 'perfect mom' looks like. And sometimes it seems so attainable. Like, she doesn't yell. Or she can always find a balance between chores and children. Or she is consistent in her parenting. Or she reads 20 minutes a day to her kids. Or she cooks with them without having a panic-attack.

All of those things seem so simple. They seem like realistic, attainable goals. So when we fail to meet ALL OF THEM ALL OF THE TIME, or just any of them ever, we feel like we've failed.

But darn it, we are good. enough.

My kids are alive. Fed. Clothed. Played with. Paid attention to. Loved to pieces. Snuggled. Read to. Usually wearing clean clothing (barring that time I forgot to pack a change of clothing for our over-nighter to Bryce canyon and the boys got covered in red mud and treats from Nana the day before aaaaand had to wear all that stuff the next day, too) They're learning how to contribute to the world. They're learning to sit still. They have all their shots and go to the dentist and sometimes even get pretty swanky hair-do's before we go into public because if I don't do it, they'll use words like "raggamuffin"to describe their own appearance. See? They learn!

I'm good enough.

I'm good enough when I have a cold and can only muster enough energy to hit 'play' on the remote. I'm good enough when I just CANNOT with the fighting anymore and have them go and sit in their beds until they can figure stuff out on their own. I'm good enough when I'm doing the best I can with my kids. I'm good enough when I don't do my best and I recognize that and instead of feeling hopeless, I try and fix it.

Be a good enough mom, or dad, or person. Just be good enough. And maybe also extend that grace to others by assuming that they're just trying to be 'good enough', too.

Well. Off to wipe another bum!

...wish me luck.

I Sort Of Quit Facebook (...mostly that's clickbait)

So it turns out that life with three children sort of looks like this: *ˆ#%#(Q*YQ*Y%Q)UIˆ%@%@% all the time. And somewhere in the midst of that chaos, I allowed myself to get a little lost, all with the good intention of saving my sanity. I will explain this (probably) very common phenomenon...or phenome-'mom' (punny) in a moment, but the important news is that I am now in the process of re-discovering myself...or rather...allowing myself to exist once again in and around my busiest and most demanding responsibilities which directly involve the small people I am charged with turning into functioning human beings. Which. Considering that I've stopped all three of them from eating a bug at one time or another in their short little lives, is no small task.

Here's what happened to me.

I'm an extrovert. Pretty much by-the-book in that I need regular interaction with other adults (let me once again emphasize that I used the word adult. That was intentional.) to avoid becoming sucked into a fog of melancholy. But guess what just so happens to be unbelievably difficult to come by as a mom? Oh right. Regular interaction with other adults.

So in this age of social media, the number one temptation for extroverted mothers (or at least ones who have moved to a city far away from any family or friends and who has a husband who both works and goes to school and is therefore rarely to be found as a suitable outlet for his extroverted wife's extroverted needs) is to use Facebook and Instagram as a conduit for social interaction with other adults.

But here's the thing. It isn't the same.

It's false social interaction. I mean, I know real people are interacting with other real people, but they've done studies (said a TedTalk to me) that show that the parts of the brain that light up with activity during face to face (or even voice to voice) interactions between human beings are not the same parts of the brain that light up when you're interacting 'socially' via social media.

Don't get me wrong; social media is awesome! I love it. I love that I'm still in touch with many friends from high school as a direct result of it's existence. I love that I can share picture of my kids and thoughts about my journey in motherhood with family and friends. I love that I can 'see' family and friends regularly and keep up on their lives to a degree. It fills up a place in my heart that so badly needs to be filled. But then I log off and the feeling of deep satisfaction and renewal that accompanies real life social interactions for extroverts like me does not stick around. Instead, the dopamine and serotonin that flood a brain using social media, gradually begins to drain and I am left feeling highly unsatisfied and in need of another 'hit' of social interaction. And on and on until I'm stuck in a horrific cycle and can't seem to peel myself away from the status updates and memes being shared.

Yesterday, drastic steps were taken. I deleted the facebook app from my phone.

...I know, right? Who even am I?

I mean, I'm not an insane person, I still have my account. And I fully expect to use it pretty regularly. But now it won't be accessible at my finger tips. Now, I'll have to go out of my way to login from a desktop or my laptop, probably while my boys are having their daily quiet time or are in bed so that social media will stop robbing me of precious time with those quickly growing men.

So far, the experiment has been a success. I was so nervous about deleting the app...it literally was probably very similar to an addict destroying their stash. My hands got sweaty, you guys. But man, has it felt freeing ever since. I don't feel an invisible tether, tying me to my phone anymore. I haven't been watching my life pass by, waiting for the next free moment that I can scroll mindlessly through my news feed.

The most important development so far has been that I now have a lot of time freed up in my day in which to explore those things which make me feel like I'm an entire person and not just a house elf. Before, I would hop from mom task to mom task and intermittently would 'take a break' and peruse facebook whenever I started to feel lonely or nondescript as a person [i.e. always]. Now, I play the piano or read my book (currently recommendation: Grace Based Discipline. I think I've finally found the parenting book of my dreams) or journal or BLOG. These activities are much more satisfying and bring a whole lot more meaning and fulfillment to my life.

I still need to solve the 'regular interaction with other adults' problem. But I'm feeling pretty confident that now that I'm leaving space and time open in my day, and not 'fixing the problem' with the band-aid solution of social media, that a more long-term solution will be found. I'll feel much more inclined to step outside of my comfortable little box and stretch myself to meet those needs when I'm not using a Facebook crutch to help myself hobble along.

Wish me luck!

Also, I promise I'll blog more frequently than once every 10 months now. So. Everyone wins! Except for people who hate my blog.

Ya'll are the real losers.

#BecauseWhyAreYouEvenStillReadingThis

Bountiful Fireworks with friends and family. My happy place.

    

Making A Comeback

Welcome to the new and improved (and by improved, I mean a whole lot freer) beanieandherbirds blog!

It's almost exactly a year since my disastrous - but highly educational - escapade with a paid blog host. For just shy of a year, I owned a domain name and learned a crazy amount about blogging on a more professional level. I poured a lot of love into creating that blog, and even though it was a humble little site, I found satisfaction in knowing that I had built that thing from the ground up. I learned some coding, picked a color pallet and a theme, solved technical issues that I never dreamed I'd be able to figure out, watched youtube tutorial after youtube tutorial, had a mission statement, wrote several pretty solid blog posts, posted weekly and then....bluehost failed me.

It was a problem that no matter how hard I tried, I could not solve. I will give bluehost some kudos for their customer service reps who tried to help talk me through the issues I experienced, but ultimately (after days of frustrating back and forth with bluehost) I concluded that if I were paying for this service that I could otherwise get for free through another platform, it had better be at least sort of user friendly. So, we split up, bluehost and I. I archived my new posts over at my 'classylassy' blog and shut the thing down. Got some money back, pocketed my hard-earned blogging knowledge and cut my losses.

It was actually unbelievably painful.

And so, here I sit over a year later having not blogged at all in that time because the thought of doing so was an irritating and somewhat painful reminder of the enormous failure I'd been in the blogging world. It reminded me of all of the time I'd wasted on building that humble little blog and the pain that was caused by hitting 'delete' on all of those weeks of hard work. It was a sad day, guys, A really sad day.

Fast forward to the now. I'm currently reading Stephanie Nielson's memoir "Heaven Is Here". If you don't know who Stephanie Nielson is, I highly recommend checking her out over at nieniedialogues.com. She is fantastic and her story is breathtakingly inspirational. She started her blog in 2005 and quickly became fairly widely read. She is a cute and creative homemaker and her crafts, recipes, decor and DIY posts took the blogging world by storm. She was bubbly and happy and lived a pretty ideal life with her true love and her four babies in Mesa, Arizona. In 2008, she and her husband were in a devastating airplane crash. They both survived, but over 80% of Stephanie's body had been severely burned. Her entire life was completely changed and her memoir very beautifully describes the struggles she faced and the miracles she witnessed during her lengthy recovery. I highly recommend the book; it's a fantastic read about faith and family and finding hope amidst absolutely devastating circumstances. But the point today is that it has inspired me to come back to the blogging world.

In her book, Stephanie describes starting her blog and falling in love with it. As she talked about that part of her life, it struck a familiar chord with me. I love blogging. I find it extremely therapeutic. I have always loved writing; it's a creative outlet for me and as a mom, finding a creative outlet is more important than ever. Mostly because my every day tasks of 'creating' (meals, cleanliness, folded laundry, etc.) are almost instantly undone by the forces of entropy. Oh, also my three-year-old. And his big brother. And the little one who is currently in training as my third Unmaker.  

I miss documenting my every-day adventures and sharing it with whomever among my friends and family might care to read about it. I've missed the feedback I get that makes me feel not so alone in the fairly lonely world of momming. I've missed the outreach it provides. I've missed that feeling that comes with pushing the 'publish' button and knowing that I just put something out into the world that will still be there tomorrow.

So, I am back! I'm blogging again. And probably no one will care a whole lot, but dang it, *I* do! I've started fresh with a new domain name and blog title and put about thirty minutes into finding a pre-made template that I like. Hooray for simplicity this time around!

Blogging likely won't ever lead me to any sort of career or 'big break' moment, but I'm okay with that at this point. I'm blogging for me now. I'm blogging because I love it.

So buckle up and stay tuned for life updates and pictures!

I know. Exciting stuff, right?