Easter

When I was little, I wore a hat and gloves to church on Easter. I adored that. This year I wanted Sienna to start the tradition. I bought the hat and gloves a month in advance. I couldn't wait to see them on her. Just as I imagined, she looked splendid in them. Adam looks splendid in his lavender dress shirt as well.

 Don't forget the ruffly socks!

 Such a tall little lady. She is not even four, folks, and look how tall she is! I think she grew out of that dress in one day!

 Who me?

 She is a treat.

 Noah is on a throw up spree again, so he and I stayed home. He brought me his shoes to put on when he noticed everyone was getting ready to leave. He was so mad to find that they were leaving without him.

 After this monumental fit, he had two three-hour naps and then went down for the night at 8 pm. Sleep it off, Noah, and next year you can wear a bow tie!

Budding Feminist by Way of Motherhood

I wrote this yesterday after a day of reading up on the latest round of articles and news surrounding Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In. Every once in awhile when there is a media uproar on the topic of women/work/family, I try to figure out where I stand and if I'm a feminist or not or what that even means to me. This is my first attempt to explain my thoughts as of lately.

I never cared about feminism before I had kids. Correction, I never cared about feminism before I had my number two kid. Then I was just mad. For lots of reasons, postpartum depression aka sleep deprivation being number one, but a lot of the time I just didn't want to do it. Take care of kids. I was like, "Heyyyy, isn't there someone else who can do this? Can't my husband do this? Do we have money for a nanny? What about daycare? Can someone, anyone just come and do this for me? NO?! Flip." If there had been an option, I would have quit this job a loooooong time ago.

In my frustration about the inequity of my situation (me having my arse handed to me on a daily basis by people less than three feet tall while Adam, who was getting his MBA, was reaching his professional goals and finding great enjoyment in daily intellectual and social stimulation), I turned to the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives. I couldn't then and still can't partake of it daily or even weekly; a lot of it can be distracting noise, so I'm an only sometimes reader. But it has helped me. As a born and raised Mormon who was prepped and primed from an early age to pursue an education and career but be ready to give it up when the kids came, thus beginning the forging of my pathway to eternal glory, I guess the blog helped me put a label on what I was feeling.

My definition of feminism for me right now, or at least right after Noah was born: That fed up feeling of inequality in comparison to my equal aka my husband. His life doesn't change much at the onset of kids, he gets to keep going in a direction of worldly success. Me? I get to wipe poop-caked butts.

Now that I'm nearly four years into this full-time motherhood thing, I'm trying to put words to what I feel about it all. I haven't really been able to do that. Many days I feel speechless. Some nights I feel pretty helpless and hopeless. As I read all the articles on the mommy wars (working moms vs. stay at home moms) and having it all (how can we have awesome jobs and be awesome moms?), I get re-worked up. I genuinely love the debate and every article or school of thought I can pretty much identify with. Obviously, I am not in this alone and obviously there have been scores of women before me who have likewise grappled. This is not a new struggle, I repeat, this is not a new struggle. My best idea so far is to petition science as well as God to go ahead and clone women once they become mothers so the same brain and body can stay home and soak up all the tender moments with babies while simultaneously going to work to gather up new friends and dive into interesting projects. (And don't even think about interjecting here about the arguments for and in behalf of sister-wives. There never was and never will be a good reason for sister-wives. Nannies, cooks, maids, help, sure. Extra wives, nuh-uh.) I do recognize that I think I missed the boat when it came to planning for a flexible mom-friendly career - I didn't major in being a teacher, hair dresser, nurse, dental hygienist, or even consider making a plan for the possibility of going back to a PR job, the one job in which I did major. I do still have my sights set on being an interior designer, but, oh, the road is long and the hill is steep. And my mom brain - the one that currently specializes in strategizing how best to hide my treat stash from little humans with sweet teeth (?) as big as mine - hurts just thinking about it.

All this to say there isn't really an answer to the great feminist debate.

All this to say I'm incredibly lucky to even have the time, energy, and means to wonder about this. I know I am one of the lucky ones who GETS to stay home and be the number one stable person in my kids' lives. (Stable? Hmmm, I'm debating that word choice.) Sometimes Adam will leave in the morning and Sienna will turn to me and say, "Daddy goes to work and, mommy, you're going to stay with us all day? YAY!" My heart bursts with gratitude.

All this to say while I am still mad that my husband will never be pregnant, give birth, nurse or be the main person to get up at night with kids ... It's all good. It really is. It's okay. Because as many days as I spend wanting to run away to work, there are quite a few days when I can remember how awful it was to be chained to a desk. I can often stop and see clearly the perks of stay at home motherhood. Today it was 80 degrees, we walked to the pool, spread our towels on deck chairs, sat down and ate inordinate amounts of kettle corn (crack to the max, it is officially impossible to NOT eat the whole bag), fishy crackers (the combo pack of pretzel as well as Xtreme Cheddar!!!), and half melted peanut butter granola bars (Noah got sooooo messy, and I ate half of Sienna's when she wasn't looking). Then we got into an ice cold pool (why'd they suddenly turn off the heat?) and got all goofbally. No working professional climbing the corporate ladder, male or female, was doing that today.

All this to say I still believe in feminism. I still have hope that I'll be able to take advantage of the choices that others paved the way for and figure out how to have a job and hang out with my kids at some point in the future, whether near or distant. I'm really lucky to have choices and options and a future that excites me, and I thank feminists from the past for challenging conventional thinking and I thank feminists of the present for doing the same.

I agree with a comment Sheryl Sandberg gave in an interview with NPR regarding her new book, Lean In, encouraging women to join the workforce. She said something like, "I'm not saying everybody should do what I do, but I do hope that someday if a father decides to be the stay at home parent and the mom decides to be the full time breadwinner that each is supported in their choice."

That's the kind of feminism, aka equality, or at least looking past conventional gender roles, that I can get behind. No judgement, while understanding sacrifices that are made on everyone's part to raise a family.

FemBlog over and out.

Birthday Weekend

Happy 31st to me! I had a burger. Which would have been enough. But there is more!

It was a three day weekend of fun, thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law, Diane, flying in and watching the kids. She gave the gift of freedom, which is the best gift of all for this stay at home mom.

So here's how it went. Adam and I saw a matinee of Silver Linings Playbook on Friday. Great movie, love that J-Law. After that, Smashburger! A joint that distinguishes itself by smashing the pattie to reach beyond the bun circumference. You know when you fell in love with hot dogs that extended longer than the bun? This was the moment of falling in love with a burger than knows what we really want but can't articulate it until it's in our mouths. Smart move, Smashburger. That evening we went to a Martin Sexton concert at the Crescent Ballroom in downtown Phoenix. What a cool little place! 

And by little, I really do mean little! We got there early enough to be touching the stage the entire time.

He's a bluesy, soulful guy. And I really like that rug, too. This concert was my Christmas present to Adam because he's been a fan for a long time, but I wasn't familiar with a lot of his songs. I did my best to pretend to mouth along, like all the cool kids were doing.

 For his encore, he brought out a different mike, a different guitar, and stood literally three feet in front of me. I could have reached out and strummed his guitar for him. It was really cool. If you want to hear my favorite song of his (the only one I knew before this night), look up Glory Bound on Spotify. GOOD VOICE, this guy. He is the real deal. Also, he played with John Mayer once (there's a YouTube of it) and not sure if you know this but I was John Mayer obsessed for many, many, many years. Recovering now, thank you. But he has a similar sound. I may have even closed my eyes and pretended it was John. Shhhh, I'm recovering now, we don't need to talk about it anymore. Great night! Plenty of beer spilled on and around me and that was just icing on the cake. Nope.

 The next day we headed to Tucson. Don't make fun of us for going to Tucson. I did want to go to Sedona or see the Grand Canyon on my birthday, but we thought it'd be colder than we wanted. By the time I'd planned everything for Tucson, we realized it'd be nice in Sedona. Don't think of what might have been! Just don't!

Tucson did not disappoint! My friend told me a lot of great things to do/see/eat, so everything was just as I wanted it. We went on a great shuttle ride and hike through Sabino Canyon.

 




I took a hundred thousand photographs of cacti. I am sick of calling them cacti, by the way. Cactuses is so much better and doesn't feel so proper.

This was my favorite cactus. They made me think of spiky crazy knobby witch fingers!

This was the biggest saguaro cactus I've ever seen.

And check out that blue sky. The bluest skies are in Tucson, not Texas.

I envied him the Camelback.





I sweated (sweat?) a whole lot. And the sun burned through both slatherings of 100 SPF sunscreen on my face.

This was a naturally occurring cross. Naturally, I took a picture.

Who knew there'd be naturally occurring water along the way? And that it'd be FREEZING?! Nature is amazing. Naturally.


That evening we went out to The Grill at Hacienda Del Sol. I'm too tired to write up descriptions of the food here, so read what I already wrote about it on my other blog.
 

 We stayed at the Ventana Resort. So cool.

 Sunday morning brunch was at The Abbey. SO GOOD. I want to go back right this second. I wrote about it on the other blog.

 Adam gave me such a grown up gift: a watch! I love it. It also has pink and white bands. He is awesome. And also watch-obsessed. Which I'm fine with .... especially when I benefit from his good taste.

 We spent Sunday afternoon at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I didn't know what to expect, it was just that I hadn't been to a good art museum for a long time, and I wanted to just go.

Lo and behold, there was one installation (it's a small museum, a former firehouse - love that), and the artist himself was there and about to give a tour and lecture.

We totally lucked out. He and his art was fabulous.

 I'd put any and all of it in my house. I wrote more about it yesterday on my other blog here.

And on the way out, headed for home, I found this cute little house. This is why I love living in Arizona.

 

And when we got home, Diane had these paper balloons and Sienna's choice of pink snickerdoodles greeting me! The cookies say "31."

 30 was good, but 31 is gonna be GREAT!

Love Day

The question looms on a made up holiday like Valentine's Day: is it really worth all the trouble to make it fun and special for those you love? The conclusion I always come to is: yes. Yes, it is. 

This Valentine's Day I had the pleasure of making Sienna's preschool valentines to give away to 11 classmates. I say "pleasure" in jest. I was caught without a plan the day before and had to use what I had on hand. Thanks to an RS lesson in which I'd cut up a ton of hearts the week before, plus a bag of suckers my mom sent, plus Google, the Valentines came together. I present you: "Crafty meets I don't care."

 Whatever works, people! Sienna was thrilled. She had a really fun party at school and came home with a bag of loot.

 It was so fun to watch her open everything. And then consume all the contents!

I did the old "lipstick on the mirror" trick before everyone woke up.

This shirt came in the mail in the afternoon. Adam got a kick out of it when he came home from work.

 Noah dumped water all over the floor during bath time. He was then deposited in his crib to cry for 15 minuntes until dad came home and rescued him.

 And then suddenly dinner appeared on the table! Hahah. Yeah right. There is a price to pay for going out of your way to make a day special. The price on that evening was a cranky mom and kids. But once the kids were in bed, I put food in my mouth, looked at my husband and sanity was restored. Ahhhh. It's so nice to have the best Valentine in the whole wide world.

 I'm a dork. Also, Adam sent me flowers. Blue irises. I love them.
Dessert, aka the best part, was chocolate cream puffs with pink cream cheese/whipped cream filling and chocolate sauce.

More lipstick on the mirror .... and goodnight!