Chacos on a Tuesday

Yesterday, Storey and I ventured out to Whole Foods for nothing other than baby wipes and Kettle Potato Chips. It was a good enough excuse for me to go through the prepping, packing, and risking an unhappy car-ride that it takes, just to get out of the house. It turned out to be a pretty successful trip. We usually have a distinct window of time that I feel is most opportune: after the morning nap and afternoon feeding.

While we were in line with our 2 items, I noticed a mother and her son in the cafe. This was the scene: a boy, about the age of 8, chowing down on a salad, intently listening to his mother, dressed in a pair of torn jeans, Chacos and a spaghetti-strapped camisole, while she read "The Story of the World" aloud. Josh and I have kept the conversation of homeschooling open. Josh is all for it, as he was a home-schooled child, but I have felt better making that decision later on. But the more I have fallen in love with being a mother and the more I am amazed at what Josh has learned as a child growing up with his mom as his teacher, the more open I have become to the idea. Standing in line at Whole Foods, I wanted to be that mom that can share a salad with her child in her favorite worn jeans in the middle of the week, taking the classroom to the cafe- or wherever it takes us.


Tonight was a good night. In between chopping vegetables for our dinner, Josh juggled the potatoes, and Storey and I danced together to the Gipsy Kings in the kitchen. She has definitely found her laugh. It melts her mom's heart.

Happy Earth Day

To celebrate Earth Day on Saturday, Josh and I took Storey down to Woodlawn Lake to participate in the festivities.  It was a great day- beautiful weather, beautiful friends, beautiful baby.  Storey Mae was such a trooper.  She had a great time, despite missing her morning nap.  She was content people-watching, feeding in the park, taking a ride in her stroller (-even though the stroller became a cart for our free trees for a while), walking around in mom and dad's arms.

Good friends, Jon, Rachel, and Ethan Faunce and Uncle T.J joined us while we also met up with more good friends, the Everetts and the Menjivars.

I absolutely enjoyed being in the outdoors, good conversation with Uncle T.J and Josh, walking, connecting with our friends.  But I could not help but be a little disappointed with Earth Day.  

On our trek over to the Lake, we all could not help but notice trash piled up and polluting one end of the lake. It was disgusting.  Meanwhile, less than half a mile away, we were supposed to be celebrating and advocating for a healthy, clean, sustainable natural environment.  To add to my disappointment, there were vendors upon vendors handing out paper pamphlets and fliers, plastic utensils for the food and drinks.  Then, when we looked to dispose of our trash, there were plenty of trashcans, but no recycling bins?  I believe there was even a booth promoting recycling present at the festival!

No doubt there were plenty of positive things about Earth Day.  There were a lot of really great organizations and individuals promoting good ideas and making the effort to educate and engage people.  I just wish that our Earth Day had taken a more active role in not only evaluating the cost of the festival on the environment, but also utilizing all the people that gathered to clean up the park around them.  If the festival would have organized a clean-up every 30 minutes or so, where everyone was involved in proactively helping the environment, I think it would have had a greater impact on not only people but also the Earth. 

I have spent the morning trying to research the organization that put on San Antonio’s Earth Day.  I hope to make some suggestions on how Earth Day can be more Earth-friendly next year. 

The highlight of the day was meeting the Janssen family, the founders of the Live Lightly Tour.  I had stumbled across her personal blogs just this last week and fell completely in love with this family.  The wife, Sara, promotes green living, her spirituality, anti-consumerism, breastfeeding,  holistic health, attachment parenting, and a commitment to a vegetarian and organic diet to the extreme.  To me, this is what a modern-day hippy looks like (an idea I mean to flesh out in more detail).  I know that if the Janssens lived in San Antonio, we could be good friends J. 

Simple ways Josh and I do Green on a daily basis:

-Recycle.  We have 2 bins: one for the items that the SA  Environmental Services recycles and one for items that are not accepted.  (*Plastics must be cleaned out, and water bottle caps  must be removed)

      -Re-use:  We no longer purchase plastic bags for storing food.  We simply wash out and re-use baggies.  Same thing for shopping bags-  we take our own bags into stores-- not only grocery stores, but retail too;

     -Replace: Skip buying whatever paper products we can.  Instead, we use cloth napkins and rags in place of paper towels 

                      Switch out incandescent bulbs with fluorescent lighting to save energy and reduce greenhouse gases       

     -Compost:  All raw foods and organic material can be thrown into a compost pile and made into organic soil!  

     -Hang-it:  Hang light-weight items, towels, cloth diapers on a line outside to reduce energy

     -Turn it off:  This includes lights and appliances, as well as unplugging electronics, chargers and appliances when not in use (*Even though it may be turned off, simply having it plugged in still uses energy)

     -Garden:  Josh has created our own eco-system in our backyard complete with herbs, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, onion, garlic, peppers, pecan trees, and soon to come: fruit trees.  We know exactly what we are eating, it is seasonal, pesticide-free, reduces cost of transporting goods to local grocer, we get our hands dirty on our land, and it saves money :)

     -Organics:  Josh and I have made a commitment to buy and eat everything organic as possible.  Yes, we do enjoy a meal out once in a while, but anything that finds it's way into our cloth shopping bag is of the earth-- for a sustainable environment and society and a healthy body.  

Intention

It is amazing how absolutely wrong you can be about your self. This includes who you are, what you think you should be, and where you feel you belong in this world.  That is not to say that I have not been pleasantly surprised with this misjudgment of myself.  Just when I thought I had it all figured out, Life throws me a curve ball before I’m even ready to step up to the plate. 

Pregnancy-labor-birth-and now being a mother has completely challenged my controlling nature.  Ever since I was a child, I have had this deep-seated tendency to play pilot.  I would say that my need to control bordered on an OCD with my never-ending lists and schedules of what must be done, when and exactly how I planned to carry it out.  I would have lists of lists.  I have not exactly gotten to the root of this behavior, but I think it stems from this idea of perfection: to reach this unattainable ideal of self and to create a space around me that I could guide, manipulate, change, handle.  I believe that Josh, a deeper connection to the Spirit, and now the birth of Storey has had a significant part in breaking me of this unhealthy frame of mind.  This new role of being a mother has forced my world to revolve around another person, unconditionally.  It is a beautiful place to be.  This place allows me to take a step back and figure out what is really important: whether it is how I spend my thirty minutes of free-time or time with Josh, how I want my child to experience this new day to its fullest, or how each decision I make impacts this life-and the lives of others.  So some days this may take the form of planning a new system of sustainable agriculture in our back-yard, sitting on the porch in the evening to connect with Josh over catching my favorite TV show, dancing Storey to sleep at 10:30 at night when my arms just can’t take anymore, or missing a lunch with my girl-friends because I know my baby needs this time to nap at home instead.  It is so very challenging, but so very worth it. 

While I have not completely given up my lists, as I think there is a good balance between going crazy and being organized, I am working on simplifying.  I have a new standard of tidiness and show myself some grace when I may not complete anything on my list.  I have found, instead, to approach my day with Intention: whether it is to make it through a humid spring afternoon without turning on the A/C, breastfeeding without a distraction or connecting with a friend over the phone.     

Happy three-months, Storey Mae.  

Boerne

For a little R&R with nature, and in honor of Storey Mae’s three-months, Josh and I loaded up the family (me, Josh, baby, and dog, of course) and decided to head out to the country on Friday for the night. We were both long-overdue for some time with just the three of us without the house and other obligations to busy ourselves.

The trip was off to a good start. I had successfully packed us all up and gotten on the road at the time we wanted to be. This was huge.

Our first bump in the road came when we were halfway out from our home and realized we had forgotten the key to the cabin. I tried to be positive by responding that at least we had realized this then and not when we were standing in front of the gate in Boerne. Josh was not so positive and reacted with an explicative (enter your choice here J). Luckily, our parents did have a key as well, but this would involve a slight detour (or so we thought). Our plan was to run in and out for the key, but just as we pulled up to the Alder home, Storey relieves a very audible poop from the back-seat. Josh and I knew this could not be ignored. It had the potential to be disastrous if left untouched. So we planned to just do a quick change of the diaper, and we would be back on the road in no time.. until Storey breaks into her bloody-murder cry, and we are nursing for the next 45 minutes. Meanwhile, Nya leaps out of the back of our car through the front passenger window and proceeds to take a swim in the pool. Over an hour later, we are finally back on the road, wet, smelly dog et al.

It took the stillness and solitude of the country to center us again.

That night Josh grilled up a delicious meal and we followed that up with some roasted smores.
The next day Josh and I took Storey on a hike.

She was bound to Josh’s chest in her sling, while we dug up plants to bring home to our garden and trekked a-long the creek side.

At times the hike got a little rough- jumping across stones to cross the creek, climbing up rocks, and clearing through brush, and I couldn't help but worry if Storey would be okay. 

But then I imagined that this as a way of life for peoples; that this is the way many cultures live life. They don’t have paved sidewalks and strollers with seat-belts. From then on, I trusted that this was the way we were created to be anyway, and I was okay.