Lies I Tell My Toddler

Photograph: Peter Glass/Getty Images

No one likes to admit they are a liar, but we all are in small ways. You might tell your co-worker that you have a stomach bug to avoid telling them you're in the throes of morning sickness. Maybe you've told your boss that you needed to take a sick day when in reality, you just needed a mental health day of streaming Netflix in your PJs. I've discovered that my aptitude for deception has increased significantly since becoming a parent. Sometimes you have to tell these sweet beguiling creatures a fib or two so you can get through the day, amiright? Below are just a few of the lies I tell my toddler:

• Oh, I'm sorry baby, the children's museum is closed today.
• We can't watch Daniel Tiger because he had to take a nap (alternately I use, go night-night, go to the potty...basically insert whatever activity I'm attempting to coerce my child into).
• No, mommy isn't eating candy, it's grown-up medicine.

I've also been known to tell my son that the crispy layers of oven-roasted brussels sprouts are "chips" and that roasted red potatoes are "french fries". It's not ill-meant, but sometimes that little lie saves the day. 

I recently read some epic fibs that other parents have told their kiddos that I'm saving for the future. My favorite? Chuck E. Cheese is only for birthday parties and we haven't been invited to one today. BRILLIANT. Parenting win.

So, what lies have you told your littles?

Salt Dough Ornament Fun!

This year we decided that we wanted to nix the all-matching grown-up tree and start making a tree full of memories for our family. Arlo is almost two and we thought it would be fun to buy ornaments for the tree that would remind us of the milestones of this year and some of his favorite things. After shopping online for ornaments, I found the ornaments I wanted weren't cheap or weren't exactly what I wanted. I decided we should go the DIY route and make our own salt dough ornaments.

The options are limitless when you make them yourself and the process really is easy and inexpensive. Plus it's a fun sensory play experience for your little ones!

Here are the supplies needed:

• All purpose flour
• Salt
• Water
• Acrylic paint
• Inexpensive brushes
• Straw
• Ribbon

Most of these you will have lying around your house (especially if you are a craft hoarder like me). If not, you're looking at maybe $15 in supplies.

The recipe I followed calls for:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of water

First mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl, add the water in slowly and mix together until you have a nice ball of dough. I've played around will some recipes that call for more flour or add in vegetable oil, but I've found this simple recipe makes a great dough. Next you'll want to lightly flour your countertop and roll the dough out. I like to keep mine about a 1/4" thick since I like to do foot & hand print ornaments and don't want the dough to get too thin after the impression. Thinner dough will dry faster though, so go as thick or as thin as you like!

You can use cookie cutters for your shapes. I used a large and small biscuit cutter for our round ornaments. I liked the pinking edge it gave the ornaments, kind of like bottle caps. For the other ornaments, I free cut them out of the dough using a butter knife.

Once cut out, you'll want to use a straw to punch a hole in the ornament so you can thread ribbon through when you're done (don't forget this step!). 

You can leave your ornaments out at room temperature to dry, but this can take days for them to completely harden so you can paint them. I don't have that much patience, so I pop them on a cookie sheet and bake them at 200 degrees for 2 - 3 hours (again, depending on how thick you make the ornaments).

Once they are dry, you can begin to decorate! To commemorate Arlo's favorite things, I incorporated a Daniel Tiger and Cookie Monster ornament. I wanted to make a small car too, but after I cut and baked the dough, it came out looking more like a turtle! Arlo is pretty indifferent to turtles, but we'll tell him he liked them. ;) I also made a reindeer footprint ornament, snowman, and some small ornaments with our initials and the year. The really make our tree feel special and I know we'll enjoy taking them out for years to come. 

Enjoy!

What I Know Now: 9 Year Retrospective

This week my husband and I will celebrate 10 years of knowing one another and 9 years of marriage (yep, we had a whirlwind courtship and engagement - 364 days to be exact!). After 10 years, we know each other's stories, past hurts, and bugaboos, but that doesn't mean we don't trip over them, even still.

Most of you who have been following my blog know that we struggled to have a baby for 7 years. We looked that SOB, Infertility, in the eye together. Me in a paper gown much of the time, him with 3" needles aimed at my rear, but we did it. If I thought that would be the toughest test of the mettle of our relationship, I would be wrong. Our toughest challenge in marriage has been finding "us" after "we" became three. The silver lining of our 7 year trial on the way to baby, was that we had 7 years of just the two of us, and got spoiled by it. For us, marriage was pretty easy when we weren't sleep deprived, trying on the parenting hat for the first time, and struggling to find time to complete a sentence to one another without saying, "No sir, we do not put our toes in our food!"

I mean, get a load of these sweet, young, well-rested people!

5th Wedding Anniversary - Golden, CO

The last 20 months have been some of the most precious, challenging, joyful, and arduous moments of my life. I continue to struggle to find the balance between the different aspects of me (Wife, Mother, Daughter, Friend, Small Business Owner, Writer...) and I'm fairly certain there is no way for it to be done perfectly. I constantly feel like I'm sucking in at least one respect while excelling at others.

After 10 years building a life with this man, I know that marriage is not always easy and that as cliche as it may sound, communication is everything. Any time our relationship has felt strained, it has been because we haven't taken time to connect and communicate. When we make time to focus on our relationship and really talk about things, it's like someone flipped a pressure relief valve in our hearts and in our home. 

Any time I have been asked for marriage advice, I always impart the best advice we received. Ken and I were fortunate to have pre-marital counseling with our then pastor, Brad Cauley. In the last session before our wedding, Brad spent time talking to the two of us about the meaning of the word LOVE. He shared with us about the various words for love in Greek (EROS: romantic, sexual love, STORGE: natural affection between families, PHILEO: friendship, fondness, brotherly love, AGAPE: selfless, sacrificial love). Needless to say the english language has failed us mightily, leaving us with one four letter word to describe everything from how much I LOVE those cute booties, to how much I LOVE my spouse. Instead, Brad offered us a new definition for love in our marriage. He encouraged us to replace "love" with "I want to give you what you need, no matter the cost to myself." That is some big time love, y'all. It's sacrificial. It's putting your spouse first...but if you're both doing it, it's pretty amazing. We don't always hit this mark, but we continue to try.

We have recently made some big lifestyle changes. Ken is going back to school full time and we have substantially downsized our home and expenses. We are pursuing simplification, less stuff, and more memories. I'm excited to see where the next 10 years take us (Good lord, we'll have an almost 12 year old at our 20th anniversary!) This year we are celebrating with a sick toddler. Nothing says, I love you babe, like splitting leftovers by the cool mist of a humidifier, am I right? 

Today, while washing laundry in our semi-gutted kitchen/laundry room (don't worry, a how-to-remodel-a-60-year-old-home-without-killing-each-other blog will follow) I made my husband pinky swear that we will move forward in our next decade together knowing and letting go of the following:

• My husband will leave clothes and shoes and the contents of his pockets where they may fall when he comes home. He will do these things and I will still love him. 
• I will cook only the 4 dishes I'm actually good at and leave all other culinary decisions in his capable hands, because I am no cook, and don't really want to be. I will do this, and he will still love me.

After 10 years together and 9 years of marriage, I figured it was high time we gave one another the best anniversary gift possible. The gift of being ourselves, flaws and all, with the guarantee of love on the other end. 

Thank You Notes

I'm a huge fan of Jimmy Fallon and have been since he was first starting out on SNL. He visited our campus and did his entire routine of musical impressions back in 1999. If you haven't experienced his early stand-up, stop reading now and watch this.  So silly, and good, and to this day still makes me laugh. Now Fallon's moved on to the big time with The Tonight Show and has started one of my favorite bits, Thank You Notes. 

As I continue to try and make gratitude a part of my daily life, I thought I'd jump on the thank you note wagon and pen a few of my own. (Cue The Roots!)

• Thank you, Daniel Tiger, for buying me 30 minutes of "me-time" each morning and for infecting my thoughts with your sing-song voice all day.

• Thank you, mascara, for being the only item in my make-up bag to transform my eyes from "sleep-deprived" to "eh, not too bad."

• Thank you, Mother's Day Out, for giving me 12 hours each week to write, work, and stream Netflix while my son plays and learns about Jesus. Bless it!

• Thank you, fruit snacks, for pretending to be fruit and assuaging my guilt whilst I shovel handfuls to my toddler to stave off a tantrum.

• Thank you, Texas fall for bringing cooler temperatures so I can wear boots and scarves and drink hot coffee drinks when it dips into the low 80s. 

• Thank you, coffee, because...coffee.

• Thank you, Netflix, for finally allowing me to legitimately say that yes, I am a marathoner (just not the running kind).

• Thank you, Amazon Prime, for the convenience of ordering toilet paper, laundry detergent, Halloween candy, razor blades, and toner without leaving my couch.

• And finally...Thank you, black stretchy pants for expanding and not reminding me of these 10 extra pounds like that bitch, skinny jeans, does.

What are the everyday things in your life that make you thankful?

The Keeper of the Stars

If you were a teen in the mid-90s in Texas, likely every dance you went to played "The Keeper of The Stars" by Tracy Byrd. It was the quintessential song for you and your guy to sway to before the night was over. I hadn't heard this song in years, until today. I was at the neighborhood pool with my little man and they had some old country playing on the sound system. 

I've always been fascinated with the lyrics of songs. From as far back as I can remember I could hear a song on the radio 2 or 3 times and know it by heart. This quirk brought much consternation to my parents. They worried their little 4 year old would go to Sunday school and request "Jose Cuervo" during worship at children's church. Nothing like a curly haired girl in a ruffle dress wanting to belt out, "I like to drink you with a little salt and lime!"

So, back to 2015 at the pool with my 17 month old son. The song playing through the speakers took me back in time and I started singing along in my head:

It was no accident me finding you

Someone had a hand in it

Long before we ever knew

Now I just can't believe you're in my life

Heaven's smilin' down on me

As I look at you tonight

I tip my hat to the keeper of the stars

He sure knew what he was doin'

When he joined these two hearts

I hold everything

When I hold you in my arms

I've got all I'll ever need

Thanks to the keeper of the stars

Soft moonlight on your face oh how you shine

It takes my breath away

Just to look into your eyes

I know I don't deserve a treasure like you

There really are no words

To show my gratitude

So I tip my hat to the keeper of the stars

He sure knew what he was doin'

When he joined these two hearts

I hold everything

When I hold you in my arms

I've got all I'll ever need

Thanks to the keeper of the stars

The next thing I knew I had tears springing up in my eyes. I was thankful I was at the pool with sunglasses and water splashed on my face so the other pool-goers wouldn't notice I was gripped with emotion.  I realized this was no longer a song about a guy in love with a girl, but about me and my son. After 7 years of infertility struggles, I know without a doubt, it was no accident me finding Arlo. I look back on those years of frustration and want and can see that it was so I could be here in this moment with this boy. I do feel like I hold everything when I hold him in my arms. I hold my hopes for the future. And if you've ever held your baby in the moonlight hours and seen the graceful slope of a soft warm cheek...well, there really are no words to show my gratitude. So, I tip my hat to my husband for walking that path with me, to our doctors and modern medicine, to our remarkable egg donor, and ultimately to the keeper of the stars for aligning things in his perfect time.

Why we HEART Ergobaby

If you've known me longer than 5 minutes, you probably know that I am a big fan of babywearing. It has without a doubt made motherhood richer and easier for me in so  many ways. I purchased an Ergobaby Original Carrier a couple of months before our son arrived, and from the time he was 3 months old, he has been worn in that carrier daily. When he was little and slept often, I wore him while on conference calls for work, while cleaning the house, prepping dinner, you name it. As he's gotten older I still use it when we venture out to a festival or any crowded event that I don't want to navigate with a stroller, and it is our go-to to help him wind down his limitless toddler energy before bedtime. I can honestly say that it has been by far the most useful piece of baby gear we have purchased.

So, you can imagine my despair when buckling him in one night, the chest clip snapped. I called customer support at Ergobaby to see if we could order a replacement strap or clip. I spoke with a friendly customer care associate who followed up by sending me an email with instructions on what information they needed to process my request. After taking a handful of photos of our carrier I responded with the photos and details and crossed my fingers. I heard back from her quickly and learned that while my model did not have a clip or strap replacement, they would be able to offer me a warranty replacement. I sent a copy of my proof of purchase, selected a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW carrier from their website and a few days later had this beautiful baby in our possession.

I'll be honest. I expected one of two things to happen:

1) Pay $15 - $30 for a replacement part, or

2) Find out that any warranty had expired and I was out of luck

I am not a paid spokesperson for Ergobaby, just a mom who has loved their carriers and appreciates it when a company stands behind their awesome line of products and believes in taking care of their customers. If you are expecting or have a little one, check out the line of carriers, nursing pillows, swaddlers and more on their website.

If anyone from Ergobaby is reading this...please, please, please release a line of toddler carriers soon! :) My little man is rapidly outgrowing our original and I would love to continue to support such a fantastic brand. 

Building Your Emotional Toolbox: A Letter to my Son

Arlo,

There are many lessons I want you to learn in life and many character traits that I think will be important in shaping you into an honorable man. You already have a dogged determination when pursuing a task and a hint of budding charisma that I think will combine to make you a person who can be quite persuasive! As I look into your bright, inquisitive, 16 month old eyes; I do not see a hint of prejudice or hatred. No stereotypes have swept in to cloud your judgement of another person's character. Today my heart is heavy because the world is not like you. The world is full of snap judgements and assumptions. I take one look at my newsfeed on any given day and see this harsh reality. Between friends posting photos of their babies, and cute YouTube videos, there is a constant negative stream of judgement. The world can be cruel and taunting and I now see that the heaviness of motherhood is knowing the reality of the world and wanting better for your children.

It's my job as your mother to help you build your emotional toolbox. These are the first three traits I want to add:

1) Kindness. I want you to have a friendly, generous, and considerate heart. Kindness breeds empathy, and if you can understand the feelings of others, you will be a better person for it. 

2) Tolerance. I want you to have a fair and objective view when it comes to those who may differ from you in their own opinions and beliefs. I want your heart to be free of bigotry. Just because you may not feel the same way as someone else, doesn't mean you should have condemnation or hatred towards them. Remember that you have not walked in their shoes.

3) Bravery. I want you to have a fearless heart. I want you to be unafraid to recognize injustice and inequality and speak up. I want you to feel freedom to love others without fear of persecution. 

These aren't ground-breaking ideals. This is all some pretty basic WWJD, love your neighbor as yourself stuff, but somehow it seems radical. I know you will learn by watching, so this means I need to do undertake some realigning myself:

• I will work to model kindness for you. Even when dealing with a rude customer service provider, or being cut off in the parking lot. I will try to model kindness and realize that I don't know what could be going on in that person's life to spark that behavior. 

• I will work to model tolerance for you. It's hard for me to understand the struggles of the transgendered because I haven't walked in those shoes, but I can be thankful that I do not have that burden, and treat them with love and grace.

• I will work to model bravery for you. I will strive to publicly stand on the side of what is right and fearlessly show you that when Jesus said, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" that he wasn't speaking figuratively, or only about a small group of Christians, but to all of us.

I won't always get it right, but I'll do my best. 

I love you so much, 

Mommy