Little Elm

mastering the art of gratitude ~ why i heart oprah

little elm living in the moment ~ so full of joy

Wow.  I just happened to see this on the guide on television the other day and though I would DVR it.  I turned it on tonight thinking I would just breeze through it and see what it was like, especially because it was recorded in Toronto.  Instead it was transformative.  I can only imagine what it would be like if you believed in god as it does delve into that world a lot, but you certainly don't have to believe in any certain thing for this 'life class' to be powerful.

The emotional flooding exercise led by Tony Robbins is awesome.  In such a intensely quick amount of minutes, I was brought so many places and my freakin heart actually felt affected, a warm sensation ran through it.  You will have to see for yourself.

Anyway, check out this gift that lovely ole Oprah put together for all of us to remember that in the end it really is just about being grateful and in the present. 

Check out the full espisode here.  I would highly recommend watching it alone, at least during the emotional flood part so you can not feel filtered by being with someone else.

Thank you to anyone who reads this and is affected in anyway toward a more positive day, year, moment or minute.

With love and gratitude:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Full-Episode-Oprahs-Lifeclass-Mastering-the-Art-of-Gratitude-Video

pure joy

Being a mom of two has brought me to the edges and beyond of pure bliss and complete and utter exhaustion.  Hanging out with my little elm outside today with the sun peeking at us between the branches, made if feel like one of the pure bliss days.  The joy this girl has within her and can bring me is beyond what my heart can hold sometimes.  So I'll extend it to you as well.  The last picture of me is Elm's first photography work.  She was so excited to give it a try.

Pure Joy

What a beauty!

My little dancer

What a silly bum!

Elm's first photography work

Dear Peekay ~ 5 months

Dear Peekay,

As I write this, you are sleeping swaddled in the swing.  Yes, you read correctly, you are still being swaddled as otherwise you just scratch yourself into a tizzy (as mama llama would say) and yes, you still have some of your naps in the swing to extend your tiny 30 to 40 minute naps or so that you don't wake up your sister from her nap.   Of course, because of these things I have twinges of panic that a) I'm failing you and b) you will need to be swaddled until you are 18 and finally c) we will have to set up a swing in your dorm room.  Seriously though, I am going with what works and right now these are the things that work for you.  I'm not that concerned that you are still swaddled, as you are getting better and better in the sleep sac, possibly when your eczema isn't acting up and your sister was swaddled until around this time.  The swing though, is an interesting one.  In the last five months, I have learned a lot about myself.  When I was on my first maternity leave if I would have read one of my friends blogs and they said they were still using a swing at 5 months, I would have thought to myself....do they not understand sleep training.  Just have a good nap time routine, wrap up the baby and stick them in the crib, throw a mobile on and you are good for two to three hours of peaceful bliss.  Not so, this time around.  I have realized that I am no baby whisperer, and that instead I just had a good sleeper the first time around and that we all have to do what we can to survive and create a positive space for our little babes.  I am learning and will continue to learn how to be the best mom I can be for you and elm and at the end of the day have to feel good about that and defintely not judge anyone else for what they are making work for them.

As you seemed ready and in an effort to dream of a sleepful night, you just started eating solid food! We started at the beginning of the week with rice cereal and you seem to just want more than I can offer you yet.  You have already figured out how to open your mouth for more and grunt with excitement when you even see the high chair. You sister loves it when you eat and wants to help and defintely wants to taste your food. She is very intrigued by the whole thing.  By you in general actually.  She is always running to you if you cry out, shushing you, telling you "it will be okay, it will be okay".  It seems from your eyes, that you adore her and by your body that you can not wait to play with her. You body is almost always vibrating with excitement as you just want to go go go.  You have made a few crawling motions and have learned the basics of a wave.  You love playing in the exersaucer and love having anything soft against your cheek as you are falling asleep.

You get extremely excited when you see your dadda.  Instant smiles and grunts. I have this feeling that your are going to say his name before mine and I am trying to give equal practice time to both dadda and mamma. 

The other night I was rocking you to sleep at bedtime in the rocker in your room, singing Blackbird and In this life and you put your little hand on my wrist.  Strangely though, in that moment it did not feel little at all and I was transported to the future for just a mere second when you are a man and set your hand on my wrist to lead me to the dance floor on your wedding day.  I felt safe and loved.  I'm so excited to see how you develop into this man, this gentleman over my lifetime.  Even if you don't marry, I hope that on that one day in the future when you lead me toward a dance floor, I am transported back in time to how I felt that night, holding your little innocent body in my arms. Pure, full of love and all mine.

xoxo

Love mumma

Dear Peekay ~ 4 months

Dear Peekay,

What a ride! Your 4th month made me feel like I was a first time parent again.  Two trips to the ER, one misdiagnosis and one paediatrician's visit later, you had bronchialitis.  It was so sad to see you so sick.  To hear a little baby cough is such a sad sound. You were first diagnosed with croup and then later your paediatrician examined you and changed the prognosis.  Seeing you in the little chest x-ray tube for babies made me realize that you are always going to be a trooper.  As I hid protected behind the wall watching through the small window, I thought my heart would be breaking as you screamed.  Instead, stuck suspended in this clear tube, arms up to the moon, it seemed like this was meerly something you do every other Tuesday. Cool as a cucumber. You smiled at the doctors and nurses between coughs and although I was up with you a lot we didn't have to pull any all nighters or anything of that sort.

Your new hearty laugh made your recovery even more rewarding.  You are such a smiley baby even with all your colic, acid reflux issues.  You had several visits to your chiropractor this month to try to relieve some of your symptoms.  We became regulars.

You started venturing outside from a whole new perspective this month.  First, looking out from the baby bjorn and then sitting up in the stroller.  Your sister likes seeing you in both and is excited that your ability to sit up in the stroller now allows her to sit in the back seat where she can lay flat and peek at me as we walk, playfully grabbing my hands.

Everywhere we go, the first thing that people say when seeing you is, "That is great hair!".  Much to my chagrin, it is just starting to lay flatter, but typically in your first four months it would stand straight up, front, back, middle, everything.  It is definitely a crowd pleaser and starts a lot of conversations wherever we go!

You have certainly developed a little personality in the last month.  It is clearer when you want something and when you are upset if I take something away.  You love to hold onto a wash cloth in the tub and bite at it to calm your sore gums, but once it is time to take it away, it is mayhem.  You still love my hair and I think you have started to figure out how to give a kiss. 

I'm glad we survived the rollercoaster this month, little man and I hope I never have to hear you cough like that again.

xoxo

Love mumma

firsts

My little man had his first solo buggy ride sitting up today! You can't see it but his lovely hand me down shirt from his little buddy D says, That's how I roll, with a picture of a buggy on it.  So cute!  He seems to like the new view.

sound of silence

I'm very late with my dear peekay post but in the meantime, I am thinking about sounds.  My little guy has laughed several times now but the laugh he had today was his first official hearty baby laugh.  What a sweet sound.  He is getting so big.  I then was reading a blog that mentioned two of the bloggers' favourite sounds and it got me thinking beyond the obvious statement of saying my lovely little guy's laugh is the best thing I can hear, I am wondering what my favourite sound or sounds are. 

Lately, I have been dealing with feeling an extreme strain in my hearing.  Trying to hear one kid through the monitor while the other one is crying  or talking loudly in my ear, trying to catch the first whimpers through the monitor before PK wakes up, hearing little elm call me in the morning over the hum of our fan and catching it quickly enough before it wakes up my son. It seems that having two children requires supersonic hearing.  This has been bugging me lately and when I can sit in silence without a hum of a monitor, sound machine, sleep sheep or any other distractions it is pure bliss. 

Having said this, it is nice to think of what sounds I do like and when the strain is bugging me again, I can think of what my favourite sound is.

So the question is.....what is your favourite sound?

 

super inspired power post

I'm not sure what it is this morning, but I suddenly feel like I am closer to feeling like myself than I have in years.  I feel super inspired, woken up from a short cat nap with a business idea for a friend, optimistic that I can take on all that comes with raising two little ones and managing a family and feeling a bit of clarity.  I have even started using anti aging products this morning (a sample I was given) and although I wish I would have used them for the last 10 years, I feel like if I work hard on getting my body back in shape my face may be able to get there too.  I know, I know, wrinkles are a sign of a happy life. I always thought that too,but we live a really long time now these days and I want to look a little fresher while I am still young.  35 is still young right.

I have a flood of ideas and thoughts and superhero feelings today.  Watch out world!

I wish I could bottle this feeling up so on my super low days I could reach for it and take a swig. 

I hope you have a wonderful long weekend!

 

on shame and vulnerability

Brene Brown is someone I have been following for years now and her Ted talk about vulnerability from last year was something that just triggered something for me (and 4 million others I guess).  I love the way she speaks about the topic and right now in this place that I sit in my life, her newest Ted talk has really hit home for me yet again.  It is 19 minutes and well worth your time.  I'm fortunate that Sam napped long enough to allow me to sterilize bottles and watch the talk!

Here it is:

 As she refers to her other talk within the new one and it is so powerful, I have included that link as well, in case you fall in love with her like I have.

To shine

I have a feeling that on some level we all want to be discovered.  This secret hope that something we do, some skill we have gets noticed and we are put up on that pedastool, or  receive those accolades or are given that new opportunity.  We all want to shine.   

I am trying to sort out what it is I hope to be discovered for and why it is that I may need that.  I do realize it would be better for me to just want to shine for the sake of shining and not have any need for acknowledgement.

I have been promoted, I have found love and am very grateful for those things but I also have this need to be noticed for something that I offer the world, through my voice, my actions, something I am not sure of just yet.  Something that is just now building inside of me. 

What do you want to be discovered for? How do you shine?

Skip, hop and run the other way

Getting a customer to  chose your brand is difficult in the sea of choices these days.  Once that customer chooses your brand, allowing them to have an easy buying experience is and should be simple.  That was not my experience with Skip Hop, a baby diaper bag and developmental toy company out of NYC. 

I have a Skip Hop diaper bag and have loved it so I recommended it to my friend who is about to give birth.  I offered to buy her this as a gift and she was delighted.  Easy peesy right.  No.  As my address is in Canada and her address is in the U.S. it made it impossible to purchase it on-line.  So for a few days I would call the company's 1 800 number to be told by the receptionist, who liked to call me 'hun', that the customer service team was in a meeting and I could call back in about 40 minutes.  I could call back, me the customer who wanted to pay them money for what truly is an overpriced diaper bag.  On Friday afternoon when they were in a meeting again, I had had it and wrote them a very disappointed and frustrated email but at the same time giving them my card number to process the order.  No one responded.  I called again this afternoon and the customer service rep was slightly apologetic but not that genuine and not that helpful. 

Instead of being able to take my order on the phone, which is not allowed (which again, here I am the customer just wanting to buy your product and you are putting an obstacle in my way), she told me to put in a fake billing address and use the paypal option.  There is no way I could have figured this out on-line, no clear direction for any of that.  She didn't offer to walk me through any of it on-line to assure that I managed to be successful this time.  She eventually after I conveyed my extreme frustration offered me free shipping, which was already part of the package on-line for anyone ordering x amount of dollars.  I then had to ask for a discount myself, which was a meager 10%.  Had they handled the situation differently, been more helpful and apologetic, I would have blogged about their saintly customer service.  Instead, I am telling you that although I did end up buying the diaper bag because I had told my friend that is what I was buying her and I know she will like it, I recommend that you pick another company for your baby needs.  They are obviously not in touch with their target customer, who are busy parents that don't have time for this nonsense.  We'll see if they have a response for this post.  I will send it for them to have a chance to respond.