I’m thinking about throwing away all my makeup…and not buying any more.
Not in the same way I’m thinking about throwing away every single item I own that hasn’t made it’s way into a box yet. (We’re moving in a week….my house is currently UTTER CHAOS!).
I’m thinking of not wearing makeup anymore…because when Artist and Boo ask me why I’m putting it on, I don’t have any good answers.
I don’t have anything against makeup, specifically…but as a Mom of 3 girls, I want to do my very best to make sure that their self-image isn’t dictated by our culture’s atrocious objectification and sexualization of women.
I determined a long time ago that fat would simply not be in our vocabulary. I love what J.K. Rowling had to say about the word:
“Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her.
I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’?”
(You can read more of what she has to say here. I agree with her 100%)
Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make healthy choices and strive to be active and fit…but I am NOT ok with the ridiculously pervasive notion that we should all constantly diet and obsess about losing weight and being skinny.
I have resolved to never. ever. say negative things about my appearance in front of them.
I want them to choose what they want to wear based on their own sense of style and comfort, not advertisements or peer pressure.
And right now, I’m feeling like not setting an example that my face only looks beautiful if I cover it all up and make it look different might be the natural next step in attempting to safeguard their notions of beauty.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not hating on makeup or saying it’s wrong or bad. This is just something personal that I’m wrestling with. And I don’t know for sure yet what I’ll decide.
I’m pretty sure I want to just go for it, and be makeup-less…I’m just not sure I can bring myself to *never* wear it, for anything, ever. Hmm.
Anyway…I do know for sure that since Ice Cream finally fell asleep, I need to drink more coffee, and get back to packing! I’ll update with what I end up deciding. Maybe. If I get around to it. 😉
Well drats!!! I had written almost an entire post….then *thought* I saved it because I had to go do something or other, and came back to discover that it’s GONE!!!
Anyway…I was trying to share about dedicating sweet Ice Cream, and what a blessing it is to have a church family who loves and supports us! One of our small group members had described the group as “a comfy sweater” and I just loved that so much!
When we started out as parents, nearly 7 years ago, we were pretty much going it alone, at least as far as anyone nearby. And my first attempts at making Mommy friends left me feeling jaded and thinking a village was the last thing we needed. Most of the people I encountered were more interested in telling you how you HAD to make your baby cry it out if you didn’t want to ruin your baby’s ability to sleep forever, or you were recklessly destroying the environment if you didn’t cloth diaper, or were stupid if you had a c-section, blah blah blah blah blah!
Bus as I slowly found a friend here and a couple friends there that weren’t like that, I realized how valuable community really was! Most of those friends I hardly manage to see anymore, but I’m so grateful for each one of them! And then we found a great church nearby a few years ago, and we joined a small group, and I IMMEDIATELY felt loved and supported! It’s been a total life saver being able to do life with them! <3
So anyway…if you don’t have a church family, consider finding one! If you’re in church, but not part of a small group…give one a chance…it might be one of the best things you’ve ever done! And as a friend, if you find yourself telling someone about how you’ve chosen to parent in a way that indicates your way is the best way, and they should change their evil ways and copy you…close your mouth. We all need someone to come beside us and encourage us and just be our friend without any judgement…none of us need lectures about how to parent “the right way.”
And all of us need coffee! OK, well maybe not…but I do! 😀
In my post yesterday, I mentioned unschooling and jested that I merely used the term because I didn’t know how to get my 6 year old to read.
I feel the need to come back and clarify a little, so as to (hopefully) not give a bad name to unschoolers everywhere.
Over the summer, Misteris and I noticed that Artist was making great strides in reading on her own, when we weren’t stressing her out with lessons that she struggled through every day. So he and I sat down and talked about pros and cons of different ways to teach her, and finally settled on at least starting out the year by unschooling.
What I really want to make clear is that this does NOT mean she’s not receiving an education right now.
We started out by finding and bookmarking for her a ton of educational websites and learning games, purchasing apps for our iphones and ipad, filling our netflix queue with educational shows, making available board games that incorporate important skills, restocking our art supplies, and making sure we had lots of books around, both easy readers for her to master, and chapter books she loves me to read. Then we let her take the lead.
It hasn’t been perfect…right now we need to get back on track a bit. Since Ice Cream was born my energy has been pretty focused on taking care of her, and Artist and Boo have gotten into the habit of watching non-educational shows and playing games on their computers that I’m pretty sure are basically junk (unless you can figure out a way dressing animated paper dolls or playing hide and seek with a baby dragon are useful skills). BUT, Artist has started to read, and more importantly she’s excited about it, and confident enough to try to sound out challenging words, and attempt to spell ones she doesn’t know!
On another note, I hopped over to thesaurus.com because I didn’t want to use the word “clarify” twice in this post, and I LOVE the way they’ve re-done it! Which is probably a ridiculously geeky thing to say, but I was too excited not to share! 😉
I’m actually attempting to blog again. I know, I’m crazy! But it’s 1:00 and so far Artist and Boo have actually been playing completely nicely together, ALL day! Yes there are tiny pieces of paper everywhere…because Boo is obsessed with cutting paper…and she’s currently soaking in a bath to see if the ink from the stamp pads that stained her entire hands will come off. BUT, there hasn’t been a single exclamation of “MOOOM, she’s not sharing!” Or, “MOOMMYY, she wants to play mermaids and I want to play princesses and there’s no possible way we can play mermaid princesses because that would just be way too easy, so instead we’re tackling each other to the ground and saying we hate each other!” Or even shouts of “NOTHING” the second I walk into the room. (That’s always the best, isn’t it…when there’s something so bad they feel the need to deny it even before you ask). 😉
To top it off, Ice Cream has been either all smiles or asleep almost all day…no bouts of un-soothable screaming, or even episodes of projectile vomiting. (If you don’t know about her track record, just ask me about my great idea to take the family to see Frozen, and how I got to watch nearly the entire movie completely covered in the puke that had soared from her mouth towards my face over and over in a rather Exorcist manner, causing me to feel sheer terror at the thought of ever taking her anywhere ever again!)
Anyway, my idea was to summarize my year…but I spent way too long explaining why I’m able to actually write a post right now, so at this point I’m going to have to just hit the highest points…or at least the ones that come to mind first.
Random 6 Flags pic…um, it was a roller coaster of a year? Or a fun year…or something.
Artist can readnow…at probably about a first grade level!!!!! “Wait, isn’t she in first grade?” You ask. Why yes, yes she is….but last year reading was just not happening for her. So I practically gave up. We stopped having any official reading lessons whatsoever. I called it unschooling, because that sounds way better than, “I have no idea what to do, and my Mom says not to stress about it, and she ought to know since she homeschooled 5 kids, and she asked a teacher friend who agreed that not reading in Kindergarten isn’t a big deal, so I’m just giving her some time.”
She lost her first teeth this year. And I think this is a pretty cute pic.
Also, she’s dancing with the kids worship team at our church on Sunday mornings, and came home from church yesterday telling me all about the group she started called “Super Girls” with her two BFFs. 😛 She even made friends with a couple girls at the park on Saturday!
These are all HUGE accomplishments for her, because at the beginning of the year she was in therapy for Sensory Processing Disorder and went through a few months where she was SO anxious at the thought of simple things like church that she wouldn’t even go into her class. And she used to sit by me at the park if there were too many other kids, or if anyone tried to talk to her, or got too near, or looked at her. So these seemingly mundane things are great victories for us, and I am overjoyed!!!
My little “free spirit” middle child. Being a dancing nature fairy rescuing animals, of course!
I’m having trouble coming up with any big achievements for Boo this year…which probably makes me a pretty terrible Mom…and doesn’t say a lot for her chances of avoiding the plight of the middle child. Let’s see…um…she can count to 10 now…except that she skips 5. And I think she recognizes about 4 letters…A, E, O, and X. But she can spot an X hiding anywhere, and loves to make an X with whatever she has at her disposal.
She has an incredible imagination…and trust me, don’t bother trying to get her attention when she’s in the middle of a made up adventure (which is most of the time) because it’s nearly impossible to get her to come back down to earth.
And she’s a natural born cheerleader…she fills my day with encouragements like, “Good job changing that poopy diaper, Mom!” and “Thank you so much for letting me take a shower, Mom! Thank you, thank you thank you! You’re the best Mom in the WORLD!” And occasionally, to Ice Cream, “You’re the last baby, because Mommy’s tummy was big and then you were born, and now Mommy’s tummy is big, but there’s nothing in it, it’s just mushy!” Oh wait, maybe that last one isn’t so encouraging…unless I’m looking for motivation to start doing crunches. 😉
We visited the Reunion Tower in Dallas…and I thought this post should include one family pic.
And of course, Ice Cream was born this year!!! She’s an incredible blessing…but as I hinted earlier, she’s not always the easiest baby. In fact, let’s just say, thank God for wraps to wear her in and spill proof coffee mugs! If one more person says something along the lines of “Oh the 3rd baby is no big deal, it’s just more water in the soup!” or anything along those lines…well, I won’t actually say or do anything…but I’ll feel very irked.
Speaking of which….FYI well meaning friends and family…I HATE the word “chunky.” If you use that word to describe my baby girl’s cheeks, or any part of her, it will take ALL my willpower to separate the use of the word from the fact that apparently you were trying to compliment her…so just stop saying it.:)
I wanted a sleeping pic, but she kept waking up and grinning, so I have to settle for this. 😉
On another note, OHMYGOODNESS she is the most smiley baby EVER!!! She may not always seem happy, but don’t be surprised if she stops crying long enough to give you the cutest grin in the world!
It’s now been two and a half hours since I started this post, and I’ve only had ONE fight to break up. Of course I may or may not (but definitely do) have poop in the tub waiting for me to clean…and the ink on Boo’s hands didn’t come off, so they may be red and blue forever! All in all, I’m calling this an excellent day around here so far! We’ve had a blessed year and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us in 2014!
P.S. You can find my follow-up post about unschooling here! 🙂
I’m making this blog post for myself. My Mom makes the BEST hot chocolate mix in the world….no other mix even comes close to comparing! Every year I call her and ask for the recipe…and then after I make a big batch, I end up misplacing it and have to call her again the next year. So now I’m going to type it out for myself in a post that I can find again when I need it. But if you’re reading this, trust me, make a batch…you won’t regret it!!!! 😀
Here it is:
3/4 cup powdered Hershey’s Cocoa
1/2 cup powdered milk
2 cups powdered creamer
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Mix well, then add 1/3 cup to 2/3 cup very hot water, stir well an enjoy!
I added mini-marshmallows to mine because, well, they sell them by the canister now, so why not? 😉
Not in the same way I’m thinking about throwing away every single item I own that hasn’t made it’s way into a box yet. (We’re moving in a week….my house is currently UTTER CHAOS!).
I want them to choose what they want to wear based on their own sense of style and comfort, not advertisements or peer pressure.
