Idaho International Babywearing Conference

Excitement is contagious… and it’s much more fun to catch than a cold! It was wonderful to travel to Idaho last week and see all of the wonderful babywearing people walking around everywhere! I finally felt like I wasn’t the only one who got excited about going on adventures with a monkey on my back. The excitement felt by other people (not JUST women) at this conference really gets into you and makes you remember exactly why you are so happy to be a parent. No one is protected from that feeling of being overwhelmed or frustrated when things are going perfect in your life. We all have our moments when we wonder if we’re being punished for the things we did to our own parents. But those moments happen more often than not while you are alone… it’s hard not to be thankful and mushy when you are around other people who embrace the joys in life and try to focus on all the things that are wonderful about being a parent. That’s what I love the most about being around other babywearing parents. They don’t pretend like it’s not hard to be a parent, they just embrace the wonderful opportunities that babywearing gives them. We all struggle with those frustrating times where we have our hands full and there just isn’t enough help around to keep you from losing your patience, and to know that there are other options out there and that you know about them is a wonderful feeling! It’s like having that sudden moment when you realize what it’s like to actually think outside of the box. Life seems so much more open to possibilities and you suddenly feel more adventurous. And that’s how these people were… adventurous. Not like they were all rock climbing the walls of the classrooms or skydiving from airplanes at lunchtime, but I simply mean their personalities seemed more outgoing and more open to possibility. It was wonderful to see, and very encouraging! It WAS a little intimidating, I’ll admit, but after coming home, I started feeling like I wanted to have some of that energy that I saw in some of them. (Maybe not as much energy as Becca… I think I’d overdose! LOL But definitely somewhere close to that. **HUGS**)

Outside of the conference, the state of Idaho was SOOO open and beautiful. It was amazing to see what grand talents Mother Nature had to offer. If I wasn’t such a social person, I could easily see myself living someplace like West Yellowstone or at the base of the Teton Mountains. It was simply gorgeous. On the other hand, it took us hours sometimes to find the simplest amenities… like a McDonald’s!!! HA! Seriously people – my 15 year old was acting like he was going to die of withdrawal if we didn’t find a McDonald’s by sundown. I ALMOST felt sorry for him. ALMOST.

Since there is way too much to put into one blog about our trip, I’ll take a break here and find some time this weekend to finish uploading the pictures from my camera into my Monkey Bar photo album. I’ll link it here so you can go straight to it, but I’ll try to post one or two good ones of the scenery and the conference. I know how annoying it is to follow links. J

Here’s hoping you have a wonderful and adventurous weekend! Think outside of the box everybody!

Airport Adventures

Airport adventures: Salt Lake City Airport, Utah

Before having children, there were some things that I took completely for granted. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t inconsiderate; I simply was “ignorant” about what it was truly like to be a parent. There are some things you don’t realize… like how hard it is to eat dinner while it is still hot, because you are usually spending most of the time making sure your children aren’t starving first before you eat. I took for granted how easy it was to run to the store to get a gallon of milk and get back home, in ONLY the time it takes to drive there and get back (not including carseat time, in and out of cart time, chasing across the parking lot time…) I certainly didn’t appreciate how easy it was to use the bathroom and wash my hands, or how dry my clothes were after leaving a public restroom when I was single or child-less.
Well, someone in the Salt Lake City airport must be a parent and must appreciate how refreshing it is to use a restroom without juggling a toddler, your luggage, soapy hands, and the coffee that you just bought at the coffee shop across the hall. Seriously, it’s very difficult to encourage good hand-washing habits in a 2 and a half year old when you are trying to prop them up on your thigh and keep them from getting the front of their shirt wet because they are leaning across the nasty soapy counter that someone else just splashed on, all the while you are trying not to let your purse or bag touch the dirty floor. I say that someone must appreciate (or more likely, UNDERSTAND) this in Salt Lake City because when I took Brandon to the bathroom in the airport to wash his hands, right there under the counter for the sinks was a toddler/child stepstool! It wasn’t in the way where you would bash your shins, but instead it folded up neatly and you could simply pull it down when it was needed for younger children. It even had nice rubber treads on it so you wouldn’t have to worry about their little shoes slipping on it if the bathroom floor happened to be wet and they walked through it. Now, of course, they had other perks, too, like automatic faucets and toilet flushers and a very nice changing counter… complete with hand sanitizers on the way out of the bathroom. Everything a Mom could want! Honestly, I don’t know if these were also in the men’s bathroom or not. I chose not to venture in there. So sorry guys! Maybe next time I’ll get brave and interview one of the guys walking out of the men’s room. ;-)

For more information on the best places to hang out or stop at when travelling, make sure you check out http://www.byebyewithbaby.com/ for areas by zip code or city. Don’t forget to check out their blog! They have some wonderful information out there for parents that goes above and beyond traveling tips, too! (Not to mention some awesome giveaways!)

Look for us online!

Hey everybody! Can you find our carrier on this webpage?
http://www.internationalbabywearingconference.com/MeiTaiGallery.htm

10 points if you can tell me what color it is and the name of the baby being worn in it! :-)

(I have no idea what 10 points get you! LOL)

A walk and a nap...

A beautiful walk in the woods after another visit to the labyrinth proved to be a great exercise for us all! Aunt Brandy and Uncle Glenn came over with the kids and my Mom and I took little Brandon and everyone up to the park to see the Labyrinth and take a walk. We found a lot of neat little things to show the kids and I discovered a plant that has flowers that I've never seen before! It was pretty cool. But by the end, Brandon decided that it was my job to help him JUMP the whole way back and I finally gave up. Luckily Uncle Glenn and Aunt Brandy helped me keep from getting frustrated and I was finally able to just pick him up and carry him in my arms back to the Labyrinth. I realized when we got in the car that he was exhausted, which explained the little temper he had. He passed out 2 minutes after we left! So instead of going home, we took a trip to the store and I let him sleep in the car while I listened to the radio and Grandma and big brother went shopping. It broke my heart to see his little head leaning so far down and I felt responsible for making sure he was comfortable while he was sleeping... so VOILA! Instant head rest! LOL I used the strap of the carrier I had left in the car to wrap around his forehead while he was sleeping to hold his head up. :-) I just let it hang over the back of the seat as a counter-weight to his big noggin. Such a tired little boy...

Labyrinth Walk April 2010

April 2010 - John Brown Tannery Park

It definately needs to be said that sometimes an adventure is best had when everyone does the adventuring together. I'll be the first to admit that I love taking my kids places where we can all explore someplace quiet and off the beaten path and get a little bit of that feeling that we are discovering something new or hidden. I'd love to say that every adventure I take will involve me using my carrier, but I'd be lying if I said that. It IS nice to know I have it in the car in case of emergency, but now that my littlest is 2.5 years old, his favorite thing to do is run away from me! LOL

Luckily, I found a place that kept him in one spot for at least a LITTLE while. You might not be familiar with these, but not too long ago my oldest and I discovered that there is a labyrinth just a few blocks from our old house. We stumbled upon it (almost literally) while wasting a half hour in between doctor's visits one day. We had some time to waste, so we decided to go to a park that we like and toss pebbles into the river... one of our favorite past-times. In the process of cutting across a grassy area during a particularly muddy day, we noticed that there were bricks under the grass where we were walking. Strange... at first we thought maybe it was some old historical foundation of a shed or house that used to be there and was unmarked. There was even a post where it looked like a sign had been, but the sign itself was missing.

On that particular day, I happened to be using my carrier because of the mud on the trails that day, so me and my oldest didn't have a problem tromping around in the mud trying to trace all the lines of bricks under the grass. (Brandon was very helpful pointing out the spots I missed!) After thoroughly trashing my nice work dress shoes by scraping all the bricks, we realized that we were standing on top of a labyrinth! I had read about them for a while and had actually searched the online labyrinth locator (http://labyrinthlocator.com/ ) to see if there was one in the area and came up with nothing. For the longest time I had been trying to think up a way to make one myself, and imagine how happy I was when I found out I didn't have to do it myself! :-)

Well, the picture posted above is actually the second trip to the labyrinth that we took. It's hard to see the lines, but you can kind of make out the ridges in the grass. This time I brought my Mom along because I knew she would appreciate it. She will be the first to admit that retirement isn't necessarily the most stimulating to the brain, and I knew she was looking for something to do that felt more meaningful than just taking 'a walk'. She loved the fact that this hidden treasure was there and that it was available for anyone to use. As a matter of fact, I called the parks and rec office to find out more about it and they agreed to let us do some maintenance on it ourselves! Ironically, I also found out it had been there for TWENTY YEARS!!! And all that time I didn't have a clue.

If you aren't familiar with what a labyrinth is for, or how to use it, there are a lot of places online that can give you more information on them. My favorite spot is http://labyrinthsociety.org/, The Labyrinth Society. They have information and links there, as well as a directory of terms to help you understand more. For me, my first question was "What's it for?" and boy did I find out more than I planned! Labyrinths can be used for meditation, prayer, mental focus, relaxation, fun, or whatever you want! There are so many ways they have been used over the years, there is no wrong way to use them. HOWEVER, you might notice there is a kind of... etiquette... to them. So if you see someone else using one and you want to use it, just remember to try to respect that they might be using it for prayer or meditation, and take cues from them on if they want to have company while they are walking it or not.

If you want to find a way to experience a labyrinth with your little one and you're not sure how to go about it yet... try my Monkey Bar activity called "The Labyrinth Walk" on this page: http://www.addictionbabycompany.com/monkey-bars/activities

Enjoy and have a wonderful time! Don't forget to share your stories with me!

May 4th memorial walk

May 3rd, 2010

We had a great walk across campus in memory of May 4th, 1970. It has been 40 years, and it seems as though it is just now being embraced as an important part of history... and a great lesson that shouldn't be forgotten. We took our time, walking from sign to sign, trying to picture the whole scene in our heads and trying to understand what happened. Not WHY it happened, but just understanding the facts. I let both boys walk through it themselves, and had to do occasional re-routing of Brandon (I was SOOO embarassed when he stepped on a daffodil!!!). They were so good about it, and we actually enjoyed the wonderfully warm night and the gathering of people around campus and listening in to their conversations. Brandon did really good putting stones on the sites where the shootings happened. I learned a little bit about the traditions of different cultures, and that was cool. (Look up/google using rocks instead of flowers for memorials - I believe it's a Hebrew tradition.) The walk was long, but we didn't mind. While the sun was setting, we went off track to examine some of the other art-work on campus. I showed the boys "Tilt", a structure made of newspapers from 2005, and explained what it USED to look like and how neat it was that it looked so different now. Unfortunately, Brandon decided that was the perfect time to stop for a break and 'relieve' himself. Nice. Well, that smelled. lol Well, we weren't close enough to the car yet, and we had quite a ways to walk back to it. Unfortunately, Brandon was now walking MUCH slower, and I had forgotten to throw a diaper in my handy-dandy carrier (which I was wearing like a messenger bag). So, to get back to the car quicker, I threw him in the carrier and we walked straight back to the car. I put the back seat down and laid out the blanket from the carrier (the trunk is really hard and scratchy) and proceeded to stink up the entire car. UGH! What's worse, is that it wasn't solid and it leaked all over his pants. So those came off! But by then it was chilly, so going home pantsless wasn't really an option. Luckily, it hadn't leaked onto the blanket carrier, so he just cuddled under that the rest of the way home, while we left the sunroof open and jammed to a little classic rock on the car stereo. ;-) It was a great evening with my kids... something I will treasure forever, and I hope they do, too.

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Now... if you'll pardon me for a minute... I'd like to share some thoughts about something other than "Adventures in Babywearing". It was something I needed to say, but didn't know where to say it. So here it is.

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" ~George Santayana

____It was strange, considering I grew up so close to this memorial, yet I almost never think about it. It's a part of the scenery, a part of the town, blended into the hill... and yet, if you make a point to walk through it for the SAKE of thinking about it, it can really make an impact on you. I have walked past the sites where the Kent Four have died many times before, and until I stopped and thought about what happened on that spot and just how tragic and unnecessary it was, I never really understood what kind of lesson we were supposed to learn from mistakes like this in history. What was it that we were supposed to tell our children about this? Would they ever understand it? Could they ever relate to it? I suddenly felt the weight of being a mother on my shoulders. I had no idea what lesson I was supposed to teach my children.
____I read the editorial about the May 4th incident in the University Paper, and that's when it hit me... it is nearly impossible for college students and teenagers to understand the impact this incident has had on their lives. For me, it wasn't even about the war or protesting it, or whether wars should exist or not. That's not why we remember this. It's because what happened was unnecessary... and it resulted in the deaths of people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time... and they couldn't have even known that they were in the wrong place until it was too late. For the first time during that war, the war came HOME.
____This was a different war than we might be familiar with now, although the lessons are still important. There were no cell phone alerts to pass along a message from the University about dangers on the campus. No terrorism alert signs telling us what level of anxiety we should have. There were no laptops to be able to research the moods and attitudes of students across the campus, and no blogs or facebook pages where the University could communicate openly with the students and address the issues that weighed heavily on their hearts. Back then, students were looked down upon because everyone assumed they were there simply to avoid the draft. (If you don't know what a draft was, or why going to college might protect you from it, you have some research to do!) If you were in college, then you were a hippy, and an activist, and you had radical, even crazy, ideas. You weren't cutting edge, you were just nuts and a plague to our Leave-it-to-Beaver world. Let's not forget... law enforcement didn't use rubber bullets back then, either. There were no riot shields or Kevlar vests to make them feel more protected and calm under the pressure of a crowd. And there was no internet where students felt they could have an impact and make their voices heard. Instead they had to shout it out loud just to get anyone to pay attention.
____I wonder now, if 'kids these days' will ever understand what people have done to pave the way for them. A college graduate today goes through such a different experience, and is looked at in such a different way than 40 years ago. Universities are so much more involved in what their students do, and they are held MUCH more responsible for the citizens that are a part of their campus. It's a necessity. A campus is a community within a community. But it's important to remember that both the city and the campus are intertwined, and they are dependent upon each other, not at odds with each other. One supports the other in ways too complicated to begin to describe. It's a support system with a very delicate balance. So much more delicate than we realized 40 years ago. The world is different today, and with that difference comes new concerns, but also new experiences and new opportunities... and new lessons. But we still have to teach the old lessons, lest our children learn from experience.

"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time." ~Anonymous

GIVEAWAYS!

I've been blogged!!!! :-)
http://byebyewithbaby.com/wordpress2/

How cool is that????? Woo hoo! They really make me sound good, don't they? LOL

Please go check out their blog!!! The website is really useful and the blog has so many interesting products that us parents don't know about! AND, they have tons of giveaways for those who take the time to comment, and you can comment on the blog about us and be entered to win a Micro Blanket Carrier!

Speaking of giveaways, I am pairing up with "Aunt Brandy" to start a line of first aid type products and we are trying to come up with a name for that line of stuff. It's not babywearing oriented, so I wanted to give her products a different name. If you help us come up with a name, you'll be entered into another giveaway for a free pair of cold packs! Look for the info on our Products and Pics page!

Happy surfing everyone!!!