becoming – Page 4 – Soundly Sarah

Is this how mom’s workout?

09/07/2019 No Comments

Introducing my, “If you want to watch TV, you’ve gotta walk while you do it” corner. This has also been paired with making better choices with what I eat. I’m trying to move more and eat smarter. I’m 8 weeks in.⠀
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I’m not doing this to purposely diet or loose a ton of weight (though it wouldn’t hurt), but to find a balance. To feel better internally. To live longer for my kid. To not want to die when I have to walk up the steps at work. (Note: it’s helping!). ⠀
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Pairing an iPad to the treadmill has helped make it a pretty flawless experience for me, and that’s why I’m posting this. A lot of the time I forget that I’m exercising, even while trying to keep a brisk pace. As a result I exercise more, I watch less TV (‘cause let’s be real), and I read more outside of it. ⠀
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But, I now need from you guys suggestions of *REALLY AMAZINGLY GOOD* shows to treadmill-binge on Netflix as I’m about to run out of series I can count on. So, lay ‘em on me! Though nothing too scary (I’m a wuss) or funny, cause I about killed myself laughing by almost falling off the treadmill when watching the last season of Orange is the New Black. Whoops.

[Featured], Mental Health, Motherhood, Respectful Parenting, The magic (in the mess). ♡

Fumbling towards.

08/21/2019 No Comments

I’m trying to make sense of who I am as a mom. Still.

I don’t really know what this making sense looks like, tastes like, or feels like to wear against the skin of my arms, but I keep trying to reach forward into the realm of mom identities and find something to latch onto.

I’m not the crunchy mom. Not the boss mom. Not the Pinterest/crafty mom. Not the helicopter mom. Not the wine mom. Not the perfect mom. Definitely not the cool mom.

There is nothing wrong with any of these moms, I’m just not them.

In this attempting to make sense of my mom identity, I’m doing something I try hard to not do to anyone else. I’m labeling myself, and admittedly masking it as attempt to try to figure out where I fit. I’m taking a square and pushing it into the round hole of mom identities, and expecting to meet my deliverance.

These walls are too thick.

I guess I could be a wannabe minimalist mom. An RIE mom (on my good days). An obviously plus sized mom. A boring/little too honest mom. Kinda the hot mess mom. A “reads too much and really loves sleep and chocolate” mom.

Or, in any case, the sum of those moms.

But what lies in the lingering and claiming/writing/marinating of such mom identity(s)? Is there sense to uncover? Ease to be found? Will I be less of a foggy mess and more (wiggles fingers *magically*) “with purpose”?

Side note: will blogging in this bloody thing become not be such a forgetful, directionless conquest?

Or in claiming something, anything, on this mothering journey, and trying to fit into it — will it only further lead to my own bewildered, dazzling confusion?

Perhaps this making sense… it is more than a label. More than a type. More than a niche.

Perhaps it is simply settling on where I find myself smiling in this mothering journey, and letting that be the sense and the identity that I need.

I don’t know. But I’m fumbling. It is a peaceful, awkward tumble. I’m reaching towards and casting away. Eventually, I’ll land.

Motherhood, Respectful Parenting

Educaring? What’s that?

08/11/2019 No Comments

When O was born, I worked on the floor as an ECE (I also did so [exhaustingly] for awhile after he was born, but that’s a story for another day). While pregnant, I deeply nested and dove into my ECE books (I spent a lot of time with this wonderful one), and in doing so, I became grounded in the tenements of RIE.

If you have no idea what RIE is, see here.

If you want to know what RIE means when it come to parenting, see here.

The more I learned about RIE, the more it began to shape the majority of my interactions with the children I worked with. Once O was born, it was my go to. It continues to be to this day. It hasn’t always been easy, and sometimes it asks of me to do things a LOT differently on this parenting journey than what is typical, but it has been SO worth it. D too follows RIE, and while at first I think that was due to my insistence, he has long come into his own with it all.

The bases (at least to me) of RIE lie in respecting, trusting and genuinely hearing the child(ren) in your life. This sounds simple enough, but it asks of you to turn SO many parenting standards directly on their head to really, really follow it through. Your language, actions, intentions and purpose? They all change. Seriously. Think about the process of authentically trusting and respecting a newborn, toddler, etc. Everything modern society is taught to do when parenting goes *exactly* against that, much without realizing it.

How so? I’ll leave that to the “experts” explain. One could first read about RIE through Magda Gerber. These days, Janet Lansbury is big on the scene with RIE, and she shares a lot of really great resources on how to go about making it a reality in your home and/or child care. Lisa Sunbury talks about it a lot, too.

(Note: I know that in the topic of respectful caregiving/parenting as a whole, there are a LOT more resources than these two, and it’s also called a lot more things now, too (i.e., Resptecful Parenting). Janet and Lisa were just my fallbacks as I learned, initially struggled with and came to strongly find my footing with RIE.)

I bring up the topic of RIE, as it matters immensely in my journey of being a parent. I’m not here to preach about it. I’m terrible at writing in this blog, so I likely won’t write about it, either. I rather wish for it to be known that in what I do post in this life, be it personally or here, RIE is the direction from which I’m/we’re working. It’s important, and it matters. RIE might not always make sense to you or perhaps seem a bit peculiar to you, and that’s okay. For our family, it works. Remarkably so.

And, if you’re curious, RIE might work for your family too! Let me know if you’d like to know more.

Motherhood, The magic (in the mess). ♡

You always will be.

07/01/2019 No Comments

7 years married, 11.5 years together. ⁣

D, I have no idea how you continue to love me, support me and put up with me. Truly. It baffles me.⁣
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We’ve changed a lot these past years — and not always in the same direction. We’ve given each other the space and the love we needed to find ourselves among such change, however. We’ve experienced the reckoning that is having a kid, and how to put the pieces back together of our marriage and our identities in its wake. We’ve loved, we’ve struggled, we’ve worked hard, and we’ve refused to give up. ⁣
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We are entwined. Deeply. These roots are infallible. We might not always see eye to eye, and sure, we make each other a little crazy, but you are my home. I know not myself or my life without you. ⁣
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And you’re still the one.

You always will be. 💚⁣ ⁣

Motherhood, Respectful Parenting

Every Child Matters.

09/28/2018 No Comments

I didn’t learn about residential schools until 2011. Having went to high school in the states, it was never covered in the curriculum (nor are there enough mentions of the atrocities committed against the Indigenous people there, but that’s a story for a different day). It was unsettling to have my picture perfect image of peaceful and kind Canada disrupted in such a way at the age of 27. Even more so by first finding out about them in a class of fellow college students, all younger than me, who were talking about the crimes of the residential schools like common knowledge. Wait, what?!⁣⁣
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But in learning about it, I learned how to be different. I learned how to better understand the systematic racism that prevents people of the First Nations of being able to do and simply be. I learned how to check my own ways of thinking, and how the world (and sometimes myself) can be so quick to Other something based off of unfounded fears and assumptions. I also learned how to ask better of the people around me, and to not be afraid to call them on bullshit that does nothing but further divide us. Not just for myself, but for children in this world that deserve so, so much more.⁣⁣

My coworker and I wore these shirts today. On the way out of work we were stopped by a teenager. Our office is rented through the Burnaby Neighbourhood House, and it runs lots of community programs for people of various cultures and circumstances, etc. The teenager asked my coworker what our shirts meant. Having seen them earlier in school that day worn by his fellow peers, he didn’t know what they represented, and wanted to know more.

I too still have a lot to learn. Too many of us do. #orangeshirtday day is just a step of many that need to come next in terms of truth and reconciliation. One that I will soon took with my son. It’s a step I’ll be proud to take.
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#everychildmatters