the fam

Dangit, I have no excuse for not posting yesterday. It seems that posting every day is really not going to work for me. But I’m posting some! Which is better than none! Which pre-supposes a rather high level of caring on your part that may or may not actually correspond to reality!

New topic! Last night I dreamed about getting a dog. Her name was Maggie, and she was a shelter dog, but a perfect, non-shedding, well-behaved, nice shelter dog. We’ve been talking about getting a dog for a few months now, and we haven’t pulled the trigger. If I’m going to be perfectly honest, I think that all of this dog-talk is really displaced baby talk. As you’re probably already aware, Mr. Shoe and I are the happy parents of one C. She’s sweet, reasonably well-mannered, loving, kind. She’s our girl. And for a long time, I’ve thought that she might be our only. Post-partum wasn’t easy for me. She didn’t sleep well (and I’m the kind of girl who needs her sleep to be, you know, not stark raving mad), I struggled with going back to work, I got mastitis 3 times (or was it 4? I can’t even remember), and Mr. Shoe and I were struggling with our marriage all at the same time. Yeah, that was some kind of party at our house. I still think she could be our only, and that our family would be perfect the way it is, and yet when I see lots of teeny babies around me, it’s hard not to wonder about what it would be like to have another. So my question is this: how do you know when/if you’re ready for another?

I’ve made laundry lists of pros (snuggly, tiny, cute, sibling for C, what’s not to like?) and cons (no sleep, diapers, higher cost of living, more tuition, less travel, no sleep, nooooo sleeeeep, turning C’s life upside down, feeling like I’m starting from square one again), and I don’t know. I feel like my job is to do the best I can by C. Make decisions in her best interest, and in our family’s best interest, and it’s really hard to think of a nebulous, not-yet-conceived person as necessarily in our best interest. Some people talk about feeling like their family is incomplete, and…I don’t know what they’re talking about. I have half-siblings who never lived with us when I was growing up, and I was essentially raised an only child, I have no concept of feeling like three is incomplete.

And yet, C is going to be 4 soon, and we always said if we were going to have more, they would be about 5 years apart which means we’re getting really close. And we can both argue it both ways. And I have no idea.

Sooo….maybe we need to just get a dog?

© 2010, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.

Earlier in the year when I was struggling a bit, I sought out the help of a parenting coach. My wonderful friend Jen recommended one to me, and I found the coach tremendously helpful and supportive. By way of background, C was going through a rough phase, I was feeling so very overwhelmed and so very unsure of myself that I felt like I needed to talk to someone who could help me sort through all of that mess. (And by the simple act of typing those words, I wonder how our grandparents and parents survived without those kinds of professionals…)

So anyways, one of the things she and I talked about was how kids enjoy rhythms and traditions that they can anticipate and count on. From daily traditions like what you eat for breakfast each day of the week, to annual traditions around major holidays, there were a lot of traditions from her own family life that she shared with me. At first I thought “Oh noes! We don’t have traditions! C will be forever damaged!” Then I realized that we do, in fact, have these traditions, I just wasn’t thinking of them as such. I also felt like we could stand to incorporate a few new ones into our repertoire. And after mulling the idea over some more, I realized just how much I love the idea of rhythms in our family’s life that not only help C figure out what to expect from the day-to-day, but also help to ground me.

Here’s a few of ours:
-C LOVES to sleep in our bed. Friday nights, we let her. We usually don’t have anywhere to be on Saturday mornings, so it’s a great time to re-connect after a long week.
-Saturday nights have turned into Family Movie Night. We usually watch something short and age-appropriate for C, and we pop kettle corn and veg out.
-Sundays we all go grocery shopping together. I like that she’s learning about food and where it comes from, and that she’s an active participant in preparing for our meals for the week.
-Sunday nights are Sunday Night Shoe Family Ice Cream Night. We walk to one of our neighborhood ice cream shops (There are 3 within a short walk from our house; don’t hate me! It’s a curse!), and we eat ice cream together (seriously, what’s not to love about this tradition).
-Last year, C and I went to see the Nutcracker at Christmas time. We’re turning that into an annual mother/daughter tradition. I’m really looking forward to going with her this year, because I think she’ll love it even more than she did last year.
-Every year, we go to pick out our Christmas tree together and Mr. Shoe gets the honor of chopping it down.
-Every year, we spend Christmas morning at OUR house. We open presents in our jammies, eat a delicious, greasy breakfast, and celebrate with just the three of us before moving on to any family celebrations.
-We also do Thanksgiving at our house. Mr. Shoe’s schedule is such that traveling Thanksgiving weekend isn’t usually feasible. Thus, we cook at our house, and everyone we know (family, chosen family, and friends) is welcome to join us.

There’s more, for instance the minutiae involving our daily routines, but the ones I just mentioned are some of the big ones that I love. I’m trying to think of something to do each year for C’s birthday, but I haven’t come up with a good one yet. Do you have any ideas? What about your family rhythms? Do you remember any from your childhood with fondness? Have you started any as an adult that you love? Now that I’ve shared mine, I’d love to hear about yours.

© 2010, OneShoeOff. All rights reserved.