Sometimes you just need moment to re-compose yourself, to reset and to remember who you are after all the chiming, twittering, buzzing and screaming dies down. It's really kind of nuts the world we live in, I mean I love it, I really do, but it's nuts. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep people are telling us what to do, what to like, what they like, that the car needs to be fixed, when the electrician is coming, what is right and what is wrong, tiny humans are always reminding you that they made a "beeeeeg poops" and that they are hungry, what to wear, buy, cook, love, hate... You catch my drift. It's kind of dizzying when you stop and think about it (which is rare) but if you don't you sort of just whiz along this never-ending road of information over-saturation.
This past weekend I found myself wanting to make it all stop. To have some real quite. So I tenderly kissed my iphone and hugged my laptop and told them they need a time-out because they've gotten a bit crazy - what with all the beeping and buzzing and yelling and such. Now this is not to say that my weekend turned into some yoga/spa retreat and I heard nothing but the gentle sound of trickling water. No sir, not in this house. There was laughing and crying and the sound of a dishwasher getting loaded and unloaded and more "poops" declarations and that dastardly garage door that is migrane inducing levels of loud. But in my head things were more or less quiet, or perhaps the word I'm looking for is actually - clear. Things that have seemed confusing for months seemed to all of a sudden make sense and a feeling of peace began to slowly seep back into my mind.
I learned a long, long time ago (goodness gracious I am old) in Psych 101 about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's pretty simple really - a triangle composed of five levels beginning with physiological and ending with self-actualization, the pinnacle. Sadly for most people in this world they are in a constant battle to attain physiological needs. And just as many cannot say that their need for safety has been taken care of. Then we have what I suppose you can call "first world problems" such as the need for love and belonging (the third level) and esteem (the fourth level). For me personally, it seems as if I am forever stuck in the esteem level. All of my basic needs are met as is my need for love and belonging but my need for esteem seems to become sharpened every winter. When the weather gets cold and the sun rarely shines I start to question everything, but most importantly my worth. Is it me or is fomo the worst in the winter months? It seems as if everyone but me is doing something awesome. I find myself wishing I was in Paris or Mexico or the Caribbean. I wish I had a book deal, a "tour" for anything really, speaking at some cool event or designing something (clothes, jewelry, shoes, etc...). I wish this space was better (whatever that means, I really have no idea...), I got more comments (there I said it, the unspeakable truth of what we all think ALL the time, sorry) or more widely read. Gosh the "wishes" are never-ending until I just wear myself out and decide that it's all hopeless and crawl into a hole... So perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration but you know what I mean.
But the thing is I don't really want any of those things. Even if I envy creatives that have carved out their own unique and incredible careers that doesn't mean it's for me. I know what my passion is and always will be (psychology) but in this milieu that I often find myself in (design creatives, mommy bloggers, shop owners) it seems passe to want or have a traditional career. It's almost as if you somehow haven't worked hard enough or just simply aren't interesting or creative enough. And for me that's very tough to swallow. Because I am a creative person and always have been. I've been painting and writing and dancing since I was a little child. But none of that has ever excited me as much as the human mind. And yet the fact that I will never turn my painting, writing or anything else into a career haunts me constantly. Am I not good enough? Not unique enough or talented? Why can't I just start a shop or business or what not? Why do I feel like school is the easy way out when I actually know that it's not?
The need for esteem I suppose. I've been wrangling these thoughts for some time in my mind until I started seeing this quote my Cheryl Strayed popping up everywhere:

When you have a baby you spend the entire first year running yourself ragged attending to their every need, whimper and grunt. They cry and you drop everything and run. It almost becomes a reflex, their cry always a faint echo in your head, your body clenched waiting for the volume to be turned up and then you run. If they're hungry you feed them, if they're sad you rock them, if their diaper is dirty you change it, if they're sleepy you lull them to dreamland and so on and so forth. For an entire year your baby is this cherubic, helpless creature that it is your sole responsibility to protect, love and nurture.
And then it happens, sometime after their first birthday, they do that "thing" where you know they know and they know that you know and they do it anyway. And then they smile or worse yet cackle. And you wonder "could it really be?" Is this tiny person really playing me already? And then the thing keeps happening and you're not imagining things anymore - they really do keep dropping their lovie in the car just so you have to turn around and pick it up fifty times. They really do know not to take their diaper off but they do it anyway, a mischievous smile on their face the whole time. You figure it's a phase and on the good days you say "no" sweetly and on the bad days there's a gruffness to your tone. And sometimes it does seem to be a phase as they morph back into the sweet angel baby that you brought home that snowy December. But then spring rolls into summer and before you know it the trees have shed their leaves and you realize you actually have a big problem on your hands.
The tantrums start to actually scare you - their fervor, length and toll on the family. But you keep going hoping that the next day will be better than the last. You talk about it late at night as your bodies melt into the bed and admit that you feel lost. You wonder if it's teething, a cold, poor sleep, etc. You are both too scared to admit to each other that she's just plain naughty. You're too scared because you don't know what the solution would be. And really discipline is just such an ugly word. You fear it, you fear what it means and how it would actually look.
And then one day you realize that you've simply been waiting for the other person to step up, to say - I'm the disciplinarian and this is what we're doing. But it turns out neither of you are. It turns out you were both hoping desperately that even if the other person didn't do it that there would be some lovely, magical, sweet solution. Some form of discipline that allowed for you to be the same parent you were to her when she was tiny - cloyingly sweet at all times. Unfortunately it doesn't exist. And once you realized that and realized just how badly she was craving some sort of boundaries and direction everything started to turn around. It was almost as if she had been begging for you to discipline her. She took to time outs with gusto, so proud of herself for patiently waiting out the time. The more she began to understand rules and consequences the more her little body and face relaxed. The tantrums? Those were gone. Her sleep was sound and restful. It was almost as if she was basking in the safety of the boundaries you had finally created for her.
The first few weeks were hard. Many tears were shed and you hated always saying "no," the sound of your own voice became foreign to you and you felt as if you had become someone you didn't know anymore. But as she found freedom in limits (ironic yes, but true) you found that you had to remind her of them less and less. And before you knew it your home became a place of peace again, of love and understanding and a place where just a simple raising of your eyebrows could serve as a gentle reminder when she would forget. And the family breathed a joint sigh of relief.
Having a baby around again is a daily reminder of the difference between parenting a newborn and a toddler. Where a baby rules you, you must rule the toddler. Sometimes shuffling between these two roles daily is exhausting and frustrating but at the same time I often find beauty in this awkward dance as well. A baby is utterly helpless and wholly dependent on you. A toddler on the other hand is learning about freedom and limits and where they stand in this family. They are gaining independence at a rapid pace and often it is incompatible with their ability. But the sole fact that we get a first row seat to this life is incredible. We are constantly walking the fine line between directing and guiding and letting go. Knowing when to tighten the reigns and when to loosen them is not at all instinctual and there is a lot of reading, advice seeking and listening going on around here. But then there are those moments, flashes if you will, of seeing their personality coming through and you just stop and marvel at this phenomenal little person who has taught you more in a span of two years than you feel you had learned over the course of your whole entire life.

Most of the time it feels as if the internet is only good for making you buy things you probably don't need, bad advice and making you feel generally less than. But every once in a while a post comes along that pushes just the right buttons and forces you to make a much needed change.
I posted both here and on instagram the struggles that we've been having with Birdie and her very toddler like behavior. I got so much amazing advice and book recommendations, it was truly overwhelming. We've read some of the books and put much of the advice to use and we've seen some huge improvements. Maybe one of these days I'll write about what finally worked for us but at this moment I'm just holding my breath and letting it all play out. However, one thing I do want to talk about is a big change we made that very same week.
There were a few people that suggested cutting out tv for Birdie but it wasn't until I read Courtney's post of Babyccinno Kids that I felt like it was a non-negotiable. I've always enjoyed Courtney's posts and her instagram feed because she has a way of sharing about raising her four kids in a very relaxed, down to earth and relatable way. Her post stayed with me all day and made me question just how much I had come to rely on the tv with Birdie.
It started innocently enough a 30 minute show in the mornings. Then we added a show in the afternoon. Eventually, once I realized how much I can get done when she was zonked out in front of the tv I started letting her watch it whenever she felt like it which turned into two and sometimes... three hours a day. After I delivered Teddy I relied on it even more as it gave me the opportunity to nurse him in peace and deal with his meltdowns. We would let her watch in the car when she got fussy, in restaurants, in the shopping cart... even as I'm writing this I'm realizing that it was practically all the time.
Now before you think I'm going to get all self-righteous on you and tell you that tv will turn your child into a monster (it definitely won't and I will be the first one to admit that sometimes times it's just necessary for your sanity because a sane mummy is better than a perfect one) let me tell you the biggest lesson I learned once we took it away - it made her more independent. Ironic no? I was using tv as a crutch to get her off my hands and less reliant on me without realizing that it was only making things worse. For close to two years now my husband and I would bemoan the fact that we would buy her such nice toys, created a wonderful playroom for her and yet she rarely used any of these things. Her playroom pretty much always looked pristine and untouched and other than a handful of toys here and there she rarely played with any of them. And on the rare occasions that she did she would demand assistance and basically make you play for her while she watched. And even with all the tv watching her attention span would last about fifteen minutes after which time she would proceed to fuss and whine.
Guess what happened when we took tv away??? She learned how to play by herself!! I couldn't believe the change we saw in just one week. Every day now she tears her playroom apart playing with every single toy, reading every book and coloring in every page of her notebook. Just the other day I was doing some work in the living room while listening to her play with her toy kitchen completely by herself in the playroom for close to an hour. She also started reading her books to her doggie and play house with him - putting him to sleep, rocking him, changing his diaper or feeding him. I actually have more time for myself now than I ever did before!

Now for the sake of complete transparency I will share some of the negatives that we ran into. One area that is still tricky is mealtime. In the past I would always put on a show for her while I made her food as it made the job much easier. Now she follows me to the kitchen and pesters me incessantly requesting a bite of every single item in the fridge. It makes meal prep twice as long but it's a small price to pay. As far as how we cut it out, we just went cold turkey. The first two days there were some pretty ugly meltdowns but by the third day she was no longer asking for it. Now we'll still have an episode (about once a week) where she will demand the tv but they are rare and don't even lead to meltdowns. So for us the positives have far outweighed the negatives.
It's been so nice to have quiet in our house again and not hear Mickey's high pitched yell emanating from the living room at all times. Instead I hear her sweet voice or the sound of her toy pots and pans clanging around. As far as more subtle differences go I've noticed that her creativity has grown by leaps and bounds and she's become much more interested in pretend play than she used to be. And I don't know if I'm misattributing things but she just seems happier in general. Just this morning she was playing with her sticker book on the coffee table and gently swaying to the music playing in the living room for a half hour straight and it was the sweetest sight I've ever seen.