Running With Spears

Confession – I really love holding my newborn all day…

So, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be annoyed that Apple wants to snuggle with me all day every day…but I actually love it!

Confession: I LOVE holding my newborn all day! | Running With Spears #newbaby #parenting #godislove #goodgoodfather #loved

Though sometimes inconvenient, I find it incredibly precious that nearly every time I set her down she wakes up within about 5 minutes and cries…because it melts my heart when she’s completely content the second I pick her up! It’s just so wonderful to me that right now I can fix everything that’s wrong in her world just by holding her. Having 3 older girls, I know that all too soon they face bigger and bigger struggles and there’s less and less I’m able to immediately fix for them.

Right now I’m able to make Apple feel perfectly safe and loved and happy, just by wrapping my arms around her (well, except for when she has gas or tummy troubles, then she just screams for awhile…but fortunately this time around that doesn’t happen too often). Yes, sometimes I need my hands free for other things, but that’s what my wrap is for (and why I made sure I had 2 this time around, so I can still wear her even if one gets dirty). Sometimes, too, I need my lap empty for Smiles and that one is a little more difficult to work out…but most of the time Smiles is ok with sharing my lap so long as she gets her share of Mommy snuggles. And yes, when we’re co-sleeping and Apple wants me to keep one hand on her most of the night I occasionally get uncomfortable and wish I could roll over…but if I could go back to when Apple was first born and I just held her non-stop and she got used to that, I absolutely wouldn’t change a thing. She’s my baby, I carried her in my womb for 9 months, and the second she was born I could barely stand for her to be anywhere but in my arms.

There’s one more reason I love how much Apple wants to be held…when she’s been crying because I wasn’t near her, and I pick her up and immediately all is well again, it paints such a picture of God and His love for us. I think that we should feel unhappy if we’ve wandered far from our Heavenly Father, and we should cry out to Him…and I know He loves to scoop us up into His arms again, and when we’re there we can experience true joy knowing we are perfectly safe and loved. 🙂

An Open Letter to my Mom (and all the Moms)

You guys…being a mom is hard! (I know, this is earth shattering news — you never would’ve guessed.) 😉

But as a kid, you really never think about how much your mom does for you…and I know I never had any clue how much a mom could love her child until I laid eyes on my tiny newborn for the first time.

So I’d just like to take a second and publicly say…thank you, Mom! Thanks for all the sleep deprivation you endured because of me, all the dirty diapers you changed, puke you cleaned up at 2am, boo-boos you kissed, spilled milk you mopped up, sleepless hours you spent waiting for fevers to break, sweaty, miserable hours you spent watching me play at the park, and never-ending made up dances around the living room you watched and applauded even when you were most certainly bored out of your mind.

Thanks for reading “Little House on the Prairie” while we camped by a lake and letting me imagine what it would have been like to be Laura (or at least a very romanticized version of her). And then thanks for blowing up a pigs bladder to play with like a balloon and making me super grateful I didn’t actually have Laura’s life. (EEEEEEEW!!!)

Thanks for reading all the books, actually. And adding fun sound effects, and singing the “I am a pig” song, and reading one more bedtime story even when you were so exhausted you could barely keep your eyes open. They say children learn to love reading on the laps of their parents, and I can’t imagine life without the incredible pleasure of losing myself in books that I know you instilled in me when I was tiny. 😀

Thanks Mom for taking me to all the ballet lessons...I learned I can acheive my goals if I work hard enough | A Thank You Letter to my Mom - Running With Spears Thanks for taking me to all the ballet lessons for years and years, even when we lived out in the boondocks and you had 4 other kids you had to keep happy while I danced my heart out. I never realized how much something like that costs, and the sacrifices you and Dad had to make to pay for it. I also never realized how much waiting for an hour (or running errands, or well, anything) with little kids can make you want to pull your hair out! All the practice I put in taught me that I could achieve my goals if I worked hard enough. It also taught me that sometimes life is really, really not fair — like the Nutcracker audition where we didn’t even get to dance, they just walked through the room and selected the girls who would fit best into the costumes they already had, but, really, that’s an important lesson, too.

Thanks for encouraging me to write…even when my first stories went something along the lines of, “I like mice, mice are nice, they eat rice, and have lice.” 😉

Thanks Mom for a simple childhood | A Thank You Letter to my Mom - Running With Spears Thanks for a simple childhood full of summers at the pool with cans of Country Time Lemonade, and weekly trips to the library to stock up on all the books, and swinging in the backyard, and running around Grandma’s ranch, and taking long walks around the neighborhood in the evening.

You’re a rock star, Mom. I don’t know how you did it all…cause this Mom thing is no joke. Last night I passed out on the floor next to Apple who I’d just set down to change (on a pad on the floor) when she pooped again…and in my exhaustion I decided I’d lie down next to her while I waited for her to finish pooping — and then I woke up half an hour later. Then at 2am Boo woke me up cause she had a fever and felt like puking. And all my towels are dirty, now, I’m so behind on laundry, so I just dried Apple with a baby blanket. And I’m so tired I put my jacket on under my shirt, forgot the sugar in my coffee, put soap on my toothbrush, and put my kid’s juice in the microwave instead of the fridge.

Thank you, so incredibly much, Mom, and all moms, for ALL THE THINGS that I could never possibly mention because motherhood is day in and day out – playing, and cleaning, and loving, and worrying, and hugging, and stressing, and laughing, and pulling your hair out, and teaching, and learning, and holding tight, and letting go…in sickness and in health, for better and for worse, never giving up, constantly and forever.

With Mother’s Day coming up I’ve been thinking about what could possibly thank my mom enough and the answer is…nothing.

There’s no gift that could possibly do that. But she did mention that she was thinking about trying Stitch Fix this summer, and I think a Stitch Fix Gift Card would be a super sweet Mother’s Day gift (I know I’d love to receive one). 😀

Though now she’s seen this post, so if I get her that she won’t be surprised, so maybe I won’t…hmm.

The rest of you reading this, though, since you can get your Mom a gift card for a personal stylist who will send lovely clothes and accessories chosen just for her right to her doorstep without her knowing in advance that’s what you’re thinking of doing you totally should!

Or get her coffee, because she’s probably still tired from all the sleep deprivation you caused. Or wine, because goodness knows she’s earned it. 😉

(Post contains affiliate links and I may be compensated — as in, if you decide you’d love to give your mom or anyone else a Stitch Fix gift card, it would be awesome if you used my link to do so which will give me a small commission, thus helping out this mom.)

Praying the Bible

Do you guys pray as you read the Bible? I try to…for one thing, it helps me slow down and think about what I’m reading. And as I pray for my girls I try to pray verses from the Bible over them. This is one I want to remember to pray over my girls (and myself). 🙂

Review of “Read, Write & Type”

Hey guys! I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to share our experience with the Read, Write & Type program from Talking Fingers Inc. with you all. 🙂

Read, Write & Type - an online reading program for kids ages 6-9 that incorporates typing instruction into the learning to read process. | A review by Running With Spears #phonics #reading #keyboarding

Read, Write & Type is an online reading program for kids ages 6-9 that incorporates typing instruction into the learning to read process. The lessons stand out from other reading programs we’ve tried in that they teach kids to write at the same time they’re learning to read, which should engage higher brain function than reading alone.

We received a one year subscription and Boo, who turned 6 in November and started Kindergarten this year, gave it a try. She’s my super sweet, incredibly imaginative, nature loving, free spirit…who has no interest in mundane things like reading and writing. 😉

I’m certain that reading will click for her at some point and things she can’t seem to remember, or that she just can’t make sense of, or whatever, will no longer be a struggle…and in the meantime I’ve been exposing her to as many different approaches to gaining early reading and writing skills as possible. I keep hoping that maybe there’s one magical program out there that she’ll love and really learn a lot from.

Unfortunately Read, Write & Type isn’t that program for her, but that’s certainly not its fault (especially since I’m not even sure such a program actually exists).

She had fun with it for about the first 8 lessons (out of 40) and then lost interest and began requiring ~~bribery~~ external motivation to do the lessons. That said, she tends to lose interest fairly quickly in most things that don’t involve racing around the house like a crazy ninja while screaming at the top of her lungs. 😉

Read, Write & Type | A review by Running With Spears #phonics #reading #keyboarding One thing I really like about Read, Write & Type is that every part of the program is completely focused on teaching phoneme awareness, early writing and spelling, reading, and keyboarding. Some of the websites we’ve tried out that are supposed to teach kindergarten skills including math, reading, etc. have ended up having one or more areas that are either completely non-educational, or not teaching anything essential (a.k.a. an art spot where she can doodle on the computer). It’s not that I necessarily have a problem with her making art, or learning more random animal facts, or following directions to create an ice cream sundae, or whatever, but during the time when I’d like her to be focused on learning a specific skill, like reading, I hate having to monitor her to make sure she’s focusing on that portion of the program she’s using.

One thing that was not awesome, though, for Boo, was that when the lessons made the jump from teaching one letter sound to reading or writing words and sentences, they lost her. Just because she’s been taught the letters h, a and s individually, sadly doesn’t mean that she’s able to sound out the word has. I sat with Boo for 10 minutes on a page where it wanted her to select the correct picture based on the sentence, “Jack has a hat.” Boo quickly defaulted to randomly clicking pictures because she was completely stumped on the sentence, and there didn’t seem to be anything helping her actually sound out the words or figure out the sentence in any way.

Read, Write & Type | A review by Running With Spears #phonics #reading #keyboarding She’d just seen the word Jack on the previous page, so I helped her remember that, and then we moved on to the next word. Unfortunately, she’s the queen of slowly sounding out a word, and then looking at the picture and picking a random word that sounds nothing like the one she just sounded out to use when she tries to say it quickly. For example, one of the pictures showed Jack with a kite, so she sounded out “hhhhhhhh aaaaaaaaaaaaa sssssssss” and then said “kite.” When that wasn’t correct she became frustrated and told me the lesson was too hard and she wanted to be done with Talking Fingers.

She also hasn’t actually gained any keyboarding skills, which I’m sure is my fault for being distracted with a newborn (plus a 2 year old who inevitably wants to be in my lap the second I start nursing her baby sister) and therefor not monitoring Boo more closely when she’s using Read, Write & Type. The lessons clearly tell her where her fingers should be and which finger she should be using to type each letter, but Boo has been completely ignoring that and continuing to use her right pointer finger for everything. As there’s no way for the program to know that she’s not following its instructions, I’m not sure what it could possibly do differently. I’m guessing that if I’d noticed right from the beginning that Boo wasn’t mastering that portion of the lessons I could have made more of an effort to encourage her to pay attention. However, by the time I noticed I think she would have had to go back to the beginning and re-do all the lessons to learn the keyboarding portion, and since it was already a struggle to get her to do her lessons at all, I decided to let it slide.

All in all, I love the concept of kids being able to learn to write, and even type, at the same time as learning to read, and the program seems to do a great job of teaching those skills. I imagine it would be a hit for kids who are a little more mature than Boo and/or really ready to learn reading and writing skills. I’ll probably let Boo take a break for 6 months or so and then try again to see how she does (unless I see more signs of readiness before then).

Anyhoo…you should definitely hop over to the Schoolhouse Review Crew link-up and check our what my fellow crew mates think about Read, Write & Type. There’s also a parent/teacher demo on their website, as well as a free trial of the first 8 lessons. 🙂

I hope you guys have found my review helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Have a great day filled with lots of great coffee! 😀

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6 Ways to Actually Help a Mom with a Newborn (& Older Kids)

6 Ways to Help a Mom with a Newbond AND Other Kids | Running With Spears #newbaby #actsofkindness #tangiblehelp So here we are…I made it through the first week with my husband back at work since Apple was born!

And now she’s 4 weeks old, which doesn’t seem possible, because oh my goodness wasn’t she just born…the way these past few weeks have whizzed by kinda makes me want to cry. Snuggly newborns are just the best…and they grow up so fast!!!

I’ve been blessed, both this time around and previously, with friends and family who’ve been awesome at helping me out in these sleep-deprived, wonderful-but-exhausting days with a newborn (plus older kids who also need extra TLC as they’re dealing with all the changes). Having been so blessed myself, I thought I’d share some of the things that have been super helpful and/or totally made my day! 🙂

1. Take a meal. By which I mean…don’t just tell the mom to let you know if she needs food because that requires her to take the initiative to call you up and ask if you really meant it, and she probably won’t ever actually do that…tell her you’d like to bring dinner and ask her if 6:00 is a good time to drop it off.

2. Entertain the older kids for an afternoon. Again, don’t tell her you’d be happy to help out with the older kids “sometime.” Text her that you’d like to pick her kids up and take them to the park that afternoon.

3. Pamper her. Gifts for the baby are always appreciated…but a gift for the mom is a super rare treat guaranteed to make her smile. My parents came over the day before Easter with a nice meal and gave my an Easter basket filled with girly, pampering things like pretty hand lotion and bath salts! It was awesome-sauce!

4. Stop by with coffee. IF you’re close enough friends that you know she won’t care that you see her house while it’s a wreck, call her from the nearest Starbucks, ask her what drink she’s in the mood for, and let her know you’ll be there with it in 15 minutes. Then hold her baby and chat for a bit, sometimes contact with another adult is just the best.

5. Send a care package. If you don’t live close enough to actually visit, send a little love in the mail. Ideas for super helpful care packages include an assortment of easy to grab snacks for when she’s starving from all the nursing but can’t actually set her baby down to make herself food (snacks are also great for distracting an upset toddler), an awesome non-spill travel mug so she can drink her coffee while pacing the house with a fussy newborn, or paper plates and bowls, plastic cups, and plastic utensils so she can get a break from the dishes she really doesn’t have the time and energy for right now.

6. Give a Stitch Fix gift card. One of the hardest things after having a baby is trying to find something to wear that you feel even remotely pretty in. Even if some of your pre-pregnancy clothes fit, they may not feel as flattering since your body has changed. And if you’re breastfeeding you have to take into consideration whether the outfit has easy access for that, which may rule out some of the outfits that were previous favorites.But going to the mall and trying on new clothes is probably not at the top of your list of things that sound like fun, either…especially with 4 kids in tow. Just sayin’

With Stitch Fix, a new mom can either tell her personal stylist exactly what type of items she’s craving, or simply that she just had a baby and needs some flattering items for a postpartum body (if she needs them to be breastfeeding friendly she can include that info as well) and then she’ll receive specially selected clothing (plus shoes and accessories if she wants) that she gets to try on at home with no hassle.

Obviously there are other ways to be a blessing as well, these are just some that I can tell you from experience are super awesome! One more tip — and this may be just me but whatever — text, don’t call. I mean that’s always true for me, but it’s especially applicable when the baby might have just finally fallen asleep.

Speaking of sleeping babies, mine just woke up. AND I need more coffee, so it’s time for me to jet! Thanks for stopping by, have a great day! 😀

(Post contains affiliate links and I may be compensated — as in, if you decide you’d love to give someone a Stitch Fix gift card, it would be awesome if you used my link to do so which will give me a small commission, thus helping out this new mom. 😉 )