I Can Make It All By Myself

Gabe and I started out this summer with a mass effort to reduce our number of belongings. Our new reality was this, either unload much of our unused stuff or pay a hefty fee for cozy junk storage while we're abroad. Two things had to happen. We needed a frank discussion about our need to retain items of little value and to further combat the mounting piles, I had to come to terms with my need to buy and Gabe had to face his need to retain.

By the end of the packing effort we found that both of us had moved from a deeply sentimental, keep everything relationship with our things, to the cold and unfeeling sell/ donate/ trash it end of the spectrum. I joke, but I imagine that everyone who has ever helped us move is not laughing about having carried all those books to multiple three-story walk-up apartments. One Salvation Army van and several car loads later and we were looking quite svelte as far as stuff was concerned.

Initially it was hard to part with our possessions. Now that I have been able to rationalize the value of having less, I have come to appreciate only having the things that you absolutely need with and around you. If you had to be able to fit said things into 4 bags like we do, this doesn't amount to a whole lot. There is still room for sentimentality in this equation. I packed away years of saved letters and pictures, journals, drawings and other projects. We kept all of our art and [higher] quality furniture. Mostly though, we just have boring, day-to-day necessities.

In this transformation from stuff hoarding Jessica to stuff shedding Jessica, I became angry with myself for buying, literally, into this racket of material things. I am not anti-stuff by any means. I think it is fabulous to search out beautiful things, functional or otherwise, to have around you in your world. What makes me so frustrated is the "big sell" that urges individuals, such as myself, into thinking we actually need all this junk.

Case in point, baby stuff. When I first found out I was pregnant I remember this feeling of panic when I "realized" how much we needed. How were Gabe and I going to be able to provide for this kid? Would he be forever destined to a life of crime or worse, second tier universities, if we weren't able to get him a diaper wipes warmer? Each look at one of those "needs" checklist from the baby books left me overwhelmed and anxious. I never felt completely at peace or grounded when it came to filtering out necessity from nonsense.

As is everything with our family and raising a baby, we tend to butt up against the status quo, be utterly repelled by it, and figure out our own way of proceeding. This was no different. We were able to say no to many of the useless products, such as the aforementioned wipe warmer, and borrowed many of the items that had limited lifespans. Unfortunately, we still ended up with a lot more that was ever needed. Beautiful, much researched, unused stuff.

Alas, we are wiser now...

Maybe. I admitted to the real problem in the first paragraph. I just said it and moved right onto placing responsibility for the ills of materialism squarely on society. The thing about baby stuff, any stuff really, is that a lot of it is pretty dang cute. Sure I can say no to diaper pails and ugly utilitarian crap, but adorable wooden toys that click and clack... What about a sweet, sweater vest or knitted finger puppets? It doesn't ever stop. Babies with needs grow into toddlers with needs. And my baby, well, he needed a hat that looked like a little bear. I got that we could raise a happy baby without 3/4 of the things on commercial registries, but I still loved the search for the most aesthetically pleasing baby items I could find.

Then came the job offer and the move. Ah, Austria. It has been transformative, freeing really. Like when you die, we literally cannot take it with us. What was I to do with all this new-found time?

You make it, mama!

It started with a basic tomato sauce. I was just curious what it would taste like from scratch. Since then I have had a whole slew of projects. A birthday crown, a week of home-baked bread, embroidered onesies, a pin cushion, a killer cornhole game for our friends' wedding, gnome baby hats for Jude and his cousin, a blog... What a fantastic, satisfying way to live a life.

Mama's Little Baby Loves...

nursing all day and night. He especially loves snacking at night in a comfy, queen sized bed next to his mama. The little baby loves being carried; all 24 pounds of him tucked in close. Basically Jude loves all the things that elicit gasps, words of warning, and blank stares from inquisitive strangers. Now don't get me wrong, I am a confident mama who feels a hundred percent assured that we are growing a healthy, active, and inquisitive baby boy. However, I am feeling the implications of these comments more and more. As we say good-bye to infancy and welcome the wild land of toddlerdome, I feel like I am leaving a world where I had cover for our practices and entering one of even greater judgement.

The rest of the universe is with me on the extended nursing, co-sleeping, baby-wearing trifecta. While they may be standard elsewhere, somehow these three things seem to be the parenting kiss of death in the U.S. I feel like I parent in a world where if you don't have a child who sleeps 12 hours a night in a crib, drinks cow's milk, and sits content in the stroller by a year, then it is assumed that something has gone awry.

I had an attachment parenting epiphany the other evening. (Isn't it wild that we have a special descriptor for the way other intuitively parent?) Gabe was in Chicago packing up the remainder of our apartment and I was a couple of days into a stint of single parenthood. For the 12 months that I've known the little guy, Jude has been fairly predictable, never easy, but predictable in his own little way. Sure enough, the week that I was flying solo, our meager attempts at structure were falling apart. One evening, two hours into a marathon bedtime routine, I was nearing my capacity for patience. I knew my child wasn't feeling well, but after being on for the last 15 some odd hours, I was finished. Lying in bed, I thought to myself, "Why won't this baby just go to sleep on his own like other kids? I am in serious need of some "me" time." With each passing minute I grew more and more frustrated. Finally, the rational adult in me took over. I relaxed and closed my eyes. As our breaths synchronized, Jude began to drift off to sleep.

As I settled in to my book for what was left of the evening, my "me" time, I thought about what had just transpired in our bedtime test of wills. I laughed to myself, "Now I realize why people let their babies cry. I couldn't do this on a regular basis." But this isexactly what Gabe and I do as parents. Our days/ evenings are not this intense because we have the support of each other to take the edge off when we encounter a more trying moment. However, we have chosen the path that puts parenting at the forefront of what we do. I realized something in this moment of conflict- what Americans are seeking when they say they want to cultivate independent children is really independence from their children. In this moment I needed time to be sans child, not the other way around.

Sure, it is a given that everyone needs some time to decompress. No one can be on all the time. Yet, I think it is the American way of life (moms returning to work a mere 6 weeks after they give birth!) that forces parents to put their babies on the fast track to doing it by themselves. It is a world where babies must adapt to the fast paced life of the family versus the family slowing down to acclimate this new being into their world.

It has taken me a full year of my child's life to make peace with this alternative way of living. I have had my moments, much like the one in the bed that evening, where I resisted the need to temporarily give up my independence. The greatest sum of the past 12 months has been spent calculating ways to free myself from commitments that pull me mentally and physically from Jude. I am a lucky mom! While the parenting path may not always be clear, I am afforded the greatest luxury in the world- time to think and be.

A Simple(r) Summer

The Kerr family has landed (albeit briefly) for the summer at my family's summer home in Ludington, MI. It was a whirlwind of packing, applying and re-applying for our visa paperwork, and tying up the many loose ends we had in Chicago. Now is a time for family, regrouping, and readying ourselves for the vast adventure that sits just a few short months in front of us.

It is a bittersweet time for me as I try to wrap my head around all of this change. My baby is no longer an infant (as I am reminded of daily as this gregarious toddler rambles from room to room before my very eyes.) I am not a maternity leave momma any longer either. While there was no mistaking this past year that my full physical and emotional efforts were directed squarely on one little boy, the quadrant of my identity focused on professional Jessica has been put on indefinite hold. And most difficult for me, we had to say good-bye to Chicago, our home for the last decade. It is here that Gabe and I became the people we are today. The loss of having our closest friends at arms reach all the time will be hard to cope with as we travel further and further from the nest.

But... we have this summer. Unfettered. I cannot say what the next year will bring. There are so many questions, all huge, all unanswered. Yet, it is because of this unknown and my inability to control what happens next that I am able to be present in the moments. So with that, we have a simple summer.