On Being a Stay at Home Mama

The decision for me to stay at home with Adelaide was not an entirely intentional one. I mean, I had always felt that when I had children, I would want to be able to stay home with them, but I planned on going back to work by the end of August, at least for a couple days a week. But it never happened, mostly because of my postpartum depression. Josh and I talked about it a lot and finally, we both realized that the little bit of monetary cushion I'd be able to provide by working in the evenings was not worth my sanity.

And so I've stayed home with Adelaide since the beginning, and despite its ups and downs, I really feel so grateful and blessed that it's worked out for me to do so. I get to spend my days with her, watch how she grows each day, catch all of her little milestones (the newest one is pulling herself up on all the furniture!), and pour the bulk of my energy into raising my babe. It's the hardest job I've ever done, and we have a lot of rough days, but it is also so rewarding.




It took a long time, but finally, we have our routine down. Adelaide sleeps till at least 7, when she usually wakes up for her first bottle of the day, then she goes back to sleep until around 9, and so does mama. Then we get up, get dressed, and Mama has breakfast and watches YouTube or The Mindy Project while Miss Baby plays. She goes down for her first nap at around 11, and I do housework, blog, or take on a transcription or tw0. The first nap varies--it may be anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours (I'm a fan of those 2-hour naps, personally), and then we go about the rest of the day. I like to have her "help" with the housework, usually crawling around while I fold laundry or tidy up. Then there's usually another nap before Josh comes home from work, and that's when I get dinner started. Depending on her nap situation, we like to have her sit with us at the table with her food, and we feed her anything off our plates that's ok for her to have (she's a huge fan of egg drop soup!). We put her to bed with a bottle at 8, after brushing her teeth, and then Josh and I have time to relax together before we head to bed.

That's a typical day for us. It's not hard to stay busy, especially now that Adelaide is so mobile! I do try to get us out of the house at least once a week for a walk, just to get some fresh air. We have a great coffee place a couple blocks away, which is an easy way to tempt me outside.




Things I don't like about staying at home? The fussy days, obviously. Those are the days that I count down the minutes till Josh gets home. Those days when it's hard to get motivated or I feel like I can't get anything done.The guilt that Josh has to be the breadwinner, while I stay at home and "hang out with baby" all day, and the sacrifices we have to make because of the monetary position it puts us in. I do make some money from home doing transcriptions, which helps a bit, and has been a real blessing to us. Oh and then there's that feeling like because I'm staying at home, I should be able to do  everything and the house should always be spotless and an amazing homecooked meal should be waiting for Josh when he gets home...and then beating myself up about that rarely being the case. I'm starting to get better about setting realistic expectations for myself. And lastly, the fact that I still don't have my driver's license, so if we want to go out, we have to walk or bus, and I hate the bus, especially since pot became legalized in Washington. Luckily, we live within walking distance of most things, even her pediatrician, and walks are good for both of us.

As a whole, though, I love staying home with her. There are those days, like when she's teething and super fussy, when I just feel so done with momming, and it can be so, so stressful, but for the most part, she is such a sweet girl, and that makes up for the hard days. My current favorite thing is how she follows me around the house as I'm doing work. So cute.



For all the stay at home mamas out there, what is your favorite thing about staying home with your little one? Least favorite thing?

The Pros and Cons of Minimalism

Happy Tuesday, friends! Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the impact of my minimalism journey. I shared a little bit in my last post on minimalism how I've become especially passionate about it since moving into our condo and having Adelaide, and I want to take that discussion further and tell you how minimalism has affected my life, for better or for worse. It's all been mostly good, but there may have been a couple downsides!




First, let's talk about the pros.

1. Our house is cleaner. When we first moved into our condo, I felt like every waking moment was spent cleaning, and at the end of the day, the house still looked messy. A big part of that was just having too much stuff. Once I decluttered and purged a massive amount of excess, the house became easier to clean and keep clean. My husband recently made the comment that, even when the house is a mess, it only takes about 15 minutes to get it back in order. That made me feel like a such a success!

2. I'm less stressed. I was a giant ball of stress in the first few months after having Adelaide. I was constantly overwhelmed, I had postpartum issues, and I was irritable and snapped at my husband, which made me hate myself. I knew I had to simplify my life and remove stress, and minimalizing was a big part of that. I also minimalized my schedule and learned to say "no," which was such a hard thing for a people-pleaser, but has really been a load off my shoulders.

Also, visual clutter equates to mental clutter. Eliminating possessions made for a calmer atmosphere in our home. I'm a fan.

Anyway, the jist of it is, less stuff equals less stress, and less stress equals happy mama bear.

However, this isn't to say I'm never stressed...Like this past week, Adelaide's been working on her front teeth and it's been an absolute nightmare for all involved. Much ice cream has been eaten and my jaw is sore from being tense.

3. I have more time to focus on the important things. Since I don't constantly have to worry about cleaning and such (especially now that miss baby is crawling everywhere!), I can focus on doing things I actually want to do, like blogging, yoga, devotions, my transcription work, playtime with baby, and spending time with my hubby. It's helped me be more intentional with my time.

4. We're saving money in the long run . There are a lot of different facets to this, but just focusing on minimalism in general, it's helped me to be more intentional with my spending. I will only bring something into my life if I (or my husband) absolutely love it or will get frequent use out of it. I've also learned not to settle and make purchases of pieces with the idea that they'll do for now, but I'll upgrade in the future...now I will just save for the piece I really love and that will suit our family the best. I also have a better mental inventory of what we have, so I don't buy duplicates or similar pieces, and there's no waste.

Those are some of the positive ways minimalism has impacted our lives. Now onto the not so positive impacts:

1. I'm always thinking about what I can get rid of next. Honestly, I got a little obsessive with minimalizing, and went through everything multiple times searching for ways to pare down more. I got a bit of a high after taking that first load to Goodwill, and I wanted to keep that up. I had to force myself to relax. I still edit often once I notice things starting to accumulate, but I'm no longer just focused on what I can get rid of next. On the flipside, I do occasionally stress about bringing things into the house, particularly around Christmas and birthdays, because that means more decluttering is on the horizon.

Though really, if you want help minimalizing, hit me up. My dream is to be Marie Kondo and help others declutter/reorganize for a living.

2. The house still gets messy. This isn't really a con as much as a fact of life. But I do think that a lot of times when we think of getting rid of stuff, we think that our house will magically be clean all the time. And well...you still have to clean it, even if you get rid of everything. It's irritating, but the bonus is that we shouldn't have to spend as much time cleaning.

3. It's hard. It's hard to go through your entire life and simplify it; it's absolutely overwhelming, especially if you do it by yourself. It's hard to get rid of things you have sentimental attachments to. It's hard to get rid of things you spent a lot of hard-earned money on. It takes a lot of hard work and determination to pare down your possessions. Finally, it can definitely hard when everyone else you know isn't a minimalist.

But in the end, it can definitely be worth it.

Honestly, the pros kinda outweigh the cons for me. My tiny list of downfalls seems pretty insignificant next to the list of positives. What are your thoughts? If you've tried minimalism, what are its pros and cons for you?

Adelaide at Nine Months

I feel like it was only last week that I was typing up Adelaide's eight-month update, and now she's nine months old! She's been out of the womb for just about the same length she was inside, which is such a crazy thing to be able to say.

There weren't as many big changes in month eight as there were in the previous month, but more gradual changes, which I'm very much okay with. For one thing, Adelaide has graduated from army crawling to real, full-on, hands and knees crawling. She is still getting into everything, but she has started to pick up on the meaning of the word "no," and will back off, for the most part, when Josh or I tell her to. She's not happy about it, though, and we've started to see some small tantrums. Last month I had resigned myself to buying a playpen to keep her contained, but now I think we'll do just fine. She's starting to pull herself up on things, but she's not quite sure what to do with herself, and usually cries because she thinks she's stuck. She does love standing (supported), though, and she's eager to be walking!




She has started to say "Mama," which makes me pretty pleased. She also loves shaking her head "no." I don't know that she actually knows what it means yet, based on the big smile on her face, but she does usually shake her head in response to questions or requests, which I think means she's getting close. (She's going to be so stubborn. I can feel it.)

Adelaide got two teeth over the past month, and she's about to cut another two. Those few weeks crawled by for me. It felt like she was constantly fussy, and nothing seemed to help, so I felt about as frazzled and stressed as I was when she was first born. But her teeth are so cute!




Weaning is still going well-- she loves everything we've given her! If we're eating anything she can have, we share with her, and so far she hasn't rejected anything but the Gerber chicken we last tried a few months ago. Adelaide loves her squeasy snacker and gets so, so excited whenever I get it out. She feeds herself completely independently with that, and we feed her off our plates with spoons. I've been trying to incorporate more vegetables, and she really likes carrots, but her favorite food so far has been mangoes. She is also a huge fan of the Baby Mum Mums rice rusks and baby puffs.



Bedtime has been a bit of a chore lately--we used to put her down every night at eight with no difficulty, but as of a few weeks ago, she's decided she wants to be up and playing with Dada and Mama...so she will cry unless we get her up and then she's all smiles. She does better if she goes down with a bottle, though. Typically she sleeps all night, wakes up between 5 and 7 for a bottle, then goes back to sleep until 8 or 9. I feel very blessed to have such a good sleeper. It's helped my sanity immensely!

Miss Baby is growing so fast, and the older she gets, the more I think she looks like her mama...Of course, everyone still says she's the spitting image of Dada, but when I look at my baby pictures, there's such a strong resemblance.

It's been another good month with my sweet girl, and I can't wait to see how she grows and changes over the next month!

My Minimalist Journey - What I've Learned

Minimalism for me has been a journey.

My husband and I come from two maximalist families. In my family, we would donate boxes of junk every month, but the house remained in a state of perpetual clutter, because we continually brought in more than we took out. In his family, unused items are saved because they're family heirlooms, or because they might serve a purpose to someone someday.

When Josh and I first started dating, actually within the first month, one thing we keyed in on together is that we both wanted a home with less. He was very into a minimal Japanese aesthetic (he still wants a zen garden, if we ever have any yard space). For me, minimalism was something that was just starting to become a buzzword, but was still more on the periphery. I honestly did not think I had that much stuff. I had one small room, everything had a place, and I liked it.

It wasn't until Josh and I were getting married and I began the process of moving out that I realized that I had so much stuff.

Packing, which I thought would be a breeze, was an absolute nightmare. I filled massive boxes to donate, and I thought I was done for a while.

We moved again from our rented basement six months later into our condo, which is funnily smaller than the basement (which was at least 1000 square feet). This time, both of us thought, "This will be a breeze. We don't have that much stuff." We had so much stuff. I was in a state of dismay on moving day when we could hardly navigate the condo because of the overwhelming amount of boxes.

I think that was when I became determined to become a minimalist. I was tired of being overwhelmed by my belongings, overwhelmed by life, overwhelmed by our culture of consumerism. I needed to simplify.

Over the next month, I massively purged all of our belongings. I detached myself mentally, and donated or sold things that I had been hanging on to because they were gifts, had sentimental value, had been expensive, or might be used one day. I went through every room, step by step, and got rid of a truckload of items in September.

That felt so good. It was freeing to leave all those boxes at Goodwill.

In January, I read Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I was so inspired. I didn't agree with every aspect of it (I still fold my socks the precise way she says not to...because, well, I still believe my method is more efficient), but I was intrigued by her concept of examining each object and, in addition to the other questions, asking if each item sparked joy, and discarding it if it didn't. That concept encouraged me to do another major edit of mostly my own belongings, and most significantly, my books. I was also spurred on by the discovery of decluttering videos on YouTube (I was obsessed).

I forced myself to be brutally honest as I examined each item and got rid of possibly more than I did the first time I edited my things the first time in September.

Our home is, for the most part, pared down to the essentials and the things we love. It's such a huge load off my shoulders, and has had a hugely beneficial effect on our family, even Adelaide. As for the other parts of my life I wanted to simplify, I've stopped over-scheduling myself, put more focus on my health, both mental and physical, and I've fixed my bad spending habits. It's led to a lot less unnecessary stress, which is exactly what I'd hoped for.

So that's kind of been my process. And these are some things that I've learned about minimalism along the way:

1. Minimalism is an ongoing process. One massive edit is not going to be enough, it has to be an ongoing thing, or else you'll find yourself overwhelmed with possessions again. With a baby especially, editing is a frequent occurrence in our household. If I'm doing more of a deep clean of a room, I will typically go through everything quickly and see if there's anything that we don't need or isn't getting use anymore. I'm not sure that we'll ever have the perfect amount of items, but that's why continuing to edit is important.
2. Minimalism is open to interpretation. There is no one form of minimalism--for one person it may be about counting possessions and having the bare minimum, for you it may mean something else. It can be whatever works for you. All that really matters is that everything in your home (and you can even extend this to life in general) are things that you truly love and use. Minimalism is different for everyone.
3. It's okay to hold onto things that you want. Don't feel guilty for not getting rid of things that aren't essential to your life, because if they make you happy and you love them, then you should keep them. I don't need my bulky record player because I have Spotify, but I love it and it makes me happy when I'm spinning vinyl. And don't make yourself feel guilty for buying that thing that you love, but may not necessarily need. I felt guilty several times because I felt like I should be able to get rid of more things, but that's when I had to rein myself in, and tell myself that getting rid of things for the sake of getting rid of things is silly. Only get rid of excess, and the things that don't bring you joy, and only bring in items that you need and/or bring you joy.
4. It's okay to have more than you need. It seems like almost like an anti-minimalist statement, right? But this is something I struggle with, especially with our kitchen. I constantly find myself thinking, "We have three serving spoons, but don't we only need one? How many of each thing do we actually need?" I was stressing myself unnecessarily. We may not need three serving spoons, but we do use all of them. Don't stress yourself out about finding the perfect number of plates, silverware, or mugs. If an item is not being used, then there's a reason to get rid of it or pass it on.

 

 

Your turn: Have you tried minimalizing your possessions? What did you learn from it?