motherhood take 2

Right now, all I know is I am overwhelmed and tired. Emotionally tired.
it takes so much to raise this strong-willed, sneaky, smily little person. Patience, which I too often lack of for my liking. Persistence to make clear I am a person too.
I am in need of some grace for all of us and I am lost.
Where do you find grace?

I obsess about the things I do wrong, my own temper tantrums and melt-downs.
It's confusing to feel frustrated but at the very same time so much full of love.
Little D started to test where my boundaries are. Where my body ends and his begins. Where his freedom ends and mine begins. It's a draining task of motherhood.
Many times a day he crosses the border of my own freedom. Hitting, biting out of frustration because he can't yet articulate himself as much as he'd like. It's like on some days he forgot how to speak.

Some days I am a mess and I am trying not to be. Yet it is what it is.

Hello motherhood,
you beautifully ugly beast, you.

Love,
Suki

...

 

I turn up my favourite kind of music, my tight shoulders relax for a moment.

I sing, because I don't know what else to do.

Loneliness surrounds me like a blanket, yet the comforting thought of the baby sleeping upstairs keeps me breathing. Often I feel misunderstood, mistaken of my choices. I am surrounded by way to little I can relate and look up to. I am judged.

I don't fit in. Because I think way too different. Life becomes difficult if you think different or if you think at all in a society where they want to blindfold the people. 

I may be different. I may be difficult. I may be quirky. not in a positive way.

Trying to see the good in it all. In a battle which may not be mine to win. 

But I tried. I run. 

I am sick of loneliness.

Love,

Suki

spring is just around the bend.

This first quarter of the year is real shitty, if I am allowed to say so.
We got 10cm snow this morning and I was like "how in the world will we ever get spring"??
The snow melted by noon so it was all good (kind of). I am over the coldness.
And am ready for spring. So I figured why not make spring by myself indoors?
So I did.

I made a plan to grow my own herbs, blueberries, tomatoes and strawberries. Plants who survive in pots, since we only have a limited outdoor garden area. Pinterest is a great tool for the planing stage. If you ever decide to do an indoor garden check out my boards on pinterest. I did lots of research and ordered our plants and seeds at an organic farm. They arrived a few days later. While I scrambled through pots and leftover pieces and I figured I don't have enough pots to raise everything NOW. Why not do it one after one?!
So I did.

I build myself self-watering seed starter pots (via pinterest of course).

I had little optimistic outlook that they'll work, but (surprise, surprise!) they do. And I am just about in heaven. It is so much fun to see these little buds grow. Get stronger and bigger day by day. It's actual lavender in the pictures. And I did another one in a smaller bottle with lemon balm. I found big bottls work better.

As far as the strawberries go, they grow nicely too. I am so excited to harvest this summer.
The blueberries have cute little green buds already.

The only plant who is ready to get some leaves from right now is the peppermint. I already made some fresh tea with it. yumm. I got it at a local organic grocery store.

  

My word for the year is grow (or growth) which happens a lot around here apparently. Somehow year after year I found the year shapes the word and not the other way round.

What are you doing to invite spring?

I'd love to know.

Love,

Suki

If I could change the world..

... I would build a learning center behind a superhero supply store in my neighborhood.
A place where kids itch to go to, because they decide what they learn. They decide wether they watch TED talks, raid hundreds of pages of scientifical books. They don't need to sit still. Kids can run around, experiment with things they are interested in like building a rocket from scratch or just talking to random people, like a 60 year old man who was a photographer, turned educator, turned vet.

... I would educate people in raising healthy, grounded and well-attached kids.
I have taken a little experiment with people I meet on the streets of my city. Especially regarding kids and how they are treated. It shocked me to see that most people think their children are unworthy of respect, love and intellectual intelligence. Or maybe that's just the way they have been raised.
If I could change the world I would open their eyes to let them feel how their kids feel and how they can implement respect, love and intelligence into an affectionate parenting lifestyle without the fear of spoiled, anarchitstic brats.

 ... I would fight for more freedom in self-determination.

 ... I would fight for well attached babies, intuitive parenting, homebirths, baby-wearing, confident mothers, breastfeeding superstars, well comunicating non-speakers and confident emotional healthy children turned healthy adults.

 ... I would replace consumption with fairytales about creativity.

 ... I would let parents who stay home with their kids 3+ years benefit financially. Big time.

 ... I would rather stand out than shut up.

And maybe, just maybe I can change how people think, how politicans and how society thinks the things should be. One humble person at a time in open discussions with constructive criticism.

Things are not like I imagine it and at certain times this really frustrates me. this may be a chance too.
If I could change the world health, love and peace would be the measurements for success.

Love,
Suki

transformation

It has been full of thoughts about living, modern life, civilized cultures, growing, nourishing, going back to the roots, growing family roots and raising a grounded child in my mind lately.
If that sounds like a lot, it probably is.

It all started on a Saturday evening where I just couldn't bear the sound of David's crying himself to sleep. It was just too much. On that day I made a mental note, an affirmation of sorts to try co-sleeping again.
We co-slept roughly until he was around 10-11 months old, because I felt it was expected of me as a mother to move my child nearly a year old into his own bed in his own room and let him fall asleep all on his own. I thought others kids learned it that way and he will too.
I was way wrong. He cried himself to sleep for a total of 3 weeks. Some may say I gave in, but his behaviour just proves that I did what was best for us.
After that before mentioned Saturday evening he fell asleep easily in unison with my breathing and I felt at ease because this is what my body and my soul tell me is the right thing. Not what society, advertisements or parenting books try to sell me on. This is how our ancestors slept and this can't be a wrong thing, because if it would be, we wouldn't be here right now and the human breed would have been lost.

This little turning point started a major transformation of questioning my parenting style, what I believe in and how do I give David the best quality rich love and nourishment he deserves.
How do I nourish me, what fuels me, what takes most of my energy and how do I want to react to that.
I applied simple rules to our living and it feels like the bomb.
Rules include no social media during D's awake time, no unnecessary TV time (it use to run often in the backround in the evenings), we use nap-time as down-time physically lying down and resting, being present, focusing and honoring life as it is.

I am not running around like a restless, sleep-deprived, headless chicken trying to keep up with the fast speed of the world. Instead I sit back, watch my needles click turning a ball of yarn into something loving for my boy or watching the warm dough rise in the kitchen. Finding beauty in handmade and simple things.
I turn to a book and educate myself, thinking about how I can grow and be a better parent. How I want to implement our love for nature into his up-bringing and including a different approach of the importance of art into my parenting, way different than I have been raised.

And while all that happens life goes on in a way more peaceful, grounded way.  The world is the same place as yesterday and the day before that, but it is me that is different.
I don't want to give into all the thoughts of needs, wants and should-have. I acknowledge what I have and go from there. I am way beyond blessed in the place that I am in.
I need quality instead of quantity, meaningful conversations and realizing that the path beyond the norm is perfectly awesome if it makes me and my family a whole way happier.

This feels like a good path. Let's go from here and see where we end up.

Love,
Suki