Three years ago today, this happened: The marking of this day feels more significant than any other, which has surprised me. It looms over my own birthday or wedding anniversary. I anticipate its arrival as the walnuts ripen and with the little showers of shell crunching down from the squirrels that frequent our tree. I… Read More I become a three-year-old mom today
Living things change. They adapt and grow and die. Trees leaf out, snakes molt, babies grow up into frat boys. It just happens. So why is it I thought the moment I had a baby that I would be a full-grown mother? It came to me a few months ago when I was talking with… Read More Happy Mother’s Day from a 2-and-a-half-year-old mom
Remember the video I posted of my conversation with T when she was 38 weeks (roughly 9 months) pregnant? Well, here she is a month after we had that first talk–3 weeks after giving birth to her baby boy. I love her willingness to share and how she captures that kind of floaty, coming-back-down-to-earth feeling… Read More What becoming a mother looks like for T at 3 weeks post-partum
Other than a couple brief moments of rocking a swaddled newborn to sleep, I just started having some moments of, “now THIS is what I thought being a mom was going to be like.” And J will be 2 and a half next month. Do tell, what were the images you had in your head… Read More What I thought motherhood would look like
As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I recently assisted a childbirth class as part of my doula certification. On the last night of the class, all of the couples took turns talking about their fears, how excited they were, what they’d learned. One woman said something to the effect of, “It’s crazy that… Read More On becoming a mother
I’m all awash in thoughts of birth and pregnancy because I just finished assisting a birth class for the doula/childbirth educator/lactation consultant extraordinaire, Janaki Costello, and every couple of days we hear from a new couple who has just had their babe. I’ve been talking with one of the moms from the class who is,… Read More On pregnancy and birth
Before I became a mother, I was grotesquely good at taking care of other people. I credit my naturally empathetic, sensitive nature, my incredible-caretaker mother and my co-dependent upbringing. In the months before I got pregnant, it dawned on me that my constant tracking of other people’s emotional and physical needs could be an asset… Read More On taking care of myself
My dear friend Ellie gave birth to her daughter a year ago yesterday. So to celebrate S’s first year and Ellie and Ben’s survival of it, I made them this:
In those newborn days, as I was beat about the head and shoulders with glassy-eyed smiles and it-all-goes-by-so-fast proclamations, I finally broke down and recorded my first video blog. I didn’t know what planet everyone else was living on, but it seemed like some of the slowest time I’d ever waded through in my life.… Read More It IS the longest shortest time!
I thought I was ahead of the curve when I opted to read less how-to parenting advice and use my maternal instincts more. But for things like newborn sleep, toddler tantrums, my instincts have failed me royally. Turns out that in situations like these, nothing replaces the sage advice of a skilled expert. Resources I… Read More On intuition vs. experience
Stephanie Mackley 