Ok no!! This is not some backwards way of announcing that I am pregnant. I have mentioned before wanting to open up a shop and sell handmade goods on Etsy before but I really don’t know what to name my shop. I don’t have a fun enough given name to simply name it after myself so I have been trying to come up with a shop name and I need some help. My husband and I have not seen eye to eye on some of my ideas in this department and you could all really help clear up this issue for me.
So, I want something catchy, too the point, but something that fits the market too. I make handmade, off-the wall, craft goods. Everything from babywearing gear, to clothing, to jewelry, kids products, grocery totes, diaper and wet bags, etc.. these are just some of my numerous ideas. I will probably be eventually expanding to knit products and eventually toys hopefully as well.
So…that gives you a little bit of an idea of what it will be…
My names are as follows:
a) Something along the lines that goes with my already penname of 1urbanmom and the shop name would then be: 1 URBAN (or) ONE URBAN and then each sub division or department would then be ONE URBAN BABY (or) ONE URBAN MOM (or) ONE URBAN KID…ACCESSORY..ETC..
b) My other name idea is a little out there: “The Bird-Fed Society” and the tag line would say “..stray from the mundane”. The thinking behind this is that our general market basically puts forth a standard by which we are forcably asked to fall into line in how we dress…parent..etc.. My offerings would be a little alt-standard so to speak.
c) ??? IF YOU have any fun great ideas for me I would LOVE and appreciate your feedback. Names..words..anything that could prompt me towards making a decision here. I am not planning on opening up shop for atleast another month or more while I build up a starting line of various products. But, I am trying to bring in a little side money and have fun in the process.
Lately, I have lacked in my desire for a clean and orderly house like no time before. Which is odd since I have been having to spend more time in my home than usual! Today, while Mirabelle napped, I decided to was time to get things into gear and do some much needed decluttering. Now, this does not resolve the much needed cleaning duties but it was a good start.
I decided to take a new approach to my declutter ritual. Usually I just start zooming from room to room identifying what is out of place and move it to its rightful “home”. I’ve noticed this takes forever because I get sidetracked in different rooms rather than focusing on one room of the house. Today, I decided to focus on my adjoining dining room/ living room. I even decluttered the coat closet! I took a large laundry basket and put it in the middle of the room. ANYTHING that was out of place (even if it belonged in the room..unless it was a very quick fix) went into the basket. I then focused on the coat closet. Nothing that closet is so full (and small) that it is overflowing to the point we have been piling up its belongings outside its door..including the vacuum for a week now. Months ago a box of nails spilled on the floor and was never cleaned..till now! Now all our coats and sweaters for the winter fit in there and so do all my household cleaning tools. Now the last thing I will need to do is go piece by piece through the basket and put away each item that was “out of place” and I am done. I eliminated a lot of pacing around my house and time!
Now tomorrow I have to actually clean…. [insert doom and gloom music here!]
Today’s title really should be “Room with a view FAIL”. At the beginning of the year they began construction on the main road that runs through our neighborhood. It has since worked its way down to our section of the road. We live on the corner of the main road and a residential street and ironically, the construction begins at our house, so our street has become the detour road for all traffic. What this also means is we get have lost our lovely view from our only two living room windows and it has been replaced with dirt, crushed concrete, and a port-a-potty!
I have realized lately I have been particularly impatient and down right disrespectful towards my daughter. Now you might look at that word “disrespect” as spoken by a parent about her child and think I misspoke but stick with me. In order to teach our children to respect their parents as well as others and themselves, we must first teach them respect by respecting them as well. I fear I have been quick to expect her to meet expectations she is not ready to accomplish and then I quickly loose my cool. What I should have been doing is modeling it FIRST. If I could take a deep breath, analyze the situation, I could correct the situation by then modeling it and lessening her frustration before it leads to a meltdown before it leads to her being disrespectful (which I in turn, too often, take personally).
I have been simultaneously reading two books. One that I have been reading off and on for the last year and the other I just began on a recommendation. The first is called “Positive Discipline” and the other is “How to Really Love Your Child”. One is written from a Christian Perspective and the other is a secular parenting book. I have gained a lot so far from both of these books and they are both very much in line philosophically.
What I have learned is that I need to spend the next week focusing on 4 P’s that I used to be MUCH better at: Peace, Patience, Positive focus, and Perserverance. Sometimes the morning will be going fine and I will let one meltdown change the tone for the rest of our day together. I have been resorting to threats (for timeouts, countdowns, toy removals, etc…) and I swore that wouldn’t be me! I have very little patience these days because I am letting some personal issues I am dealing with spill over into how I interact with my daughter, and just about everyone truthfully. I need to do better about setting aside those distractions and giving myself fully to her because it is the non-verbal communication that she hears louder than anything I speak to her. Starting tomorrow I am going to work very hard at restoring these values…starting with peace and a positive spirit. I know God has called me to love her in a more respectful and compassionate way than I have been.
I finally recieved my CD from the photographer of Mirabelle’s 2nd birthday photos. The shoot went better than I could have imagined. For 30 bucks she spent fifteen minutes with her, we did 2 different outfits, and she allowed her to walk around while capturing her in her natural state. She gave us all the original images as well as 4 different artistic edits of each image. Here are a few favorites from the shoot!
Just a week ago I was bragging to friends about how I felt we had finally turned the corner in our two-year struggle to get Mirabelle to sleep as normally as possible. (Obviously as an AP mom I was NOT looking for a “sleep thru the night” infant but by 18 months to two I was hoping to have a girl that had some idea about how to fall asleep and stay asleep for a period of time lasting longer than say 2 hours! Well, long story short, for a week or more recently she was sleeping truly through the night from 8ish to aprox. 5am and then joining us in our bed for a few more hours of sleep. This was working out quite nicely! Then, her her truest form, she changed it up on us once again and she’s back to her regular shenanigans of “hard to get down” and waking up 2-4 times a night. I know she’s cutting a tooth which would explain the night waking but the getting to sleep part is what is about to drive me INSANE!
Normally my husband will put her to bed at night and they have this whole routine worked out…well, tonight while my husband was out studying for school I had the joy of putting her to bed. Three hours later and 3 attempts to put what appeared to be a sleeping baby into bed sent me into psychosis! He just got home and we are now in the 4th hour of trying to get our toddler to bed. It’s nights like these that I sit and want to cry and wonder to myself “where did we go wrong…am I just the worst mom ever??”.
As I began this journey into the night, I had visions of putting her down for the night and then having a couple hours to myself to blog, clean a couple rooms of the house (I was actually inspired and had the energy to do this which is really rare!!), compare paint samples, etc… In fact as I was nursing her to sleep I had come up with a great blog entry I wanted to post and I and formulated the entire piece in my head. I feel like I haven’t had anything of much substance to write lately because I feel so “wasted” and dried up lately but tonight I felt alive. Well…3 hours of THAT and I can barely remember my home address!!
Even now…the entire time I spent preparing to get in bed to write this post and as I have been typing I have been searching for clues in my subconscious that would help me to remember what I wanted to post on earlier and NOTHING..I remember nothing. SAD!
Tomorrow is another day. I just hope we figure out this sleep thing soon because it’s feeling like a slow death at this point for me. When she was a newborn, infant, even a young toddler…I knew it was all apart of the growing pains of being a new mom and particularly being the type of family we are, but at some point I am going to hit my breaking point. I can’t imagine spending 3 hours getting her down and tending to a newborn somehow.
AHHHHHHH..I just remembered what I wanted to blog about earlier!! I am gonna go draft a subject line and blog on it tomorrow.
My baby-girl is a baby no more!! As of 11:06 pm last evening, Mirabelle turned two! Its amazing been such an amazing journey thus far. I had so many wonderful and joyous expectations about motherhood and all have been exceeded!
There have been a ton of hurdles and unexpected challenges, but its fun to look back now and laugh at that sleep deprived, inexperienced version of myself and see all we have survived and learned. The newest “accomplishment” is that Mirabelle is, for the most part, sleeping through the night. This has only been happening for about a week now so I am still holding my breath on this one. For the last two years I would refer to her as my “broken sleeper” and I swore she would never sleep soundly as long as she lived!! Oh..the comedy of a tired Momma! Now she is sleeping like an angel. Looking back I realize that 2 years of getting up a few extra times a night to nurse, co-sleeping, the whole lot of it..it was TOTALLY worth it. So I lost some sleep..I got to spend more time physically and emotionally connecting with my daughter because that is her unique design and her needs at the time. It does however make having subsequent children seem MUCH more possible now in comparison to a season where it seemed near impossible!
In reflecting on her true BIRTH day, I realized I am truly healing (not past tense yet) from the emotional scars of my C-section. It is a huge relief. This year, like last, I replayed the moments in my mind leading up to my surprise induction, my 30 hour labor, and then my emergency C-section. After that mental account, no tears fell from these eyes and I could only smile and thank God for my precious gift! What a blessing she is to us.
The last time I was at the fabric store I bought a couple yards of pink and black tulle to make a tutu for Mirabelle. I have been meaning to make one for a while for a photo shoot I had been planning but I kept putting it off. Finally, I found a super-easy, no-sew method online and the results were outstanding. Next time I will probably make it a bit longer and would use a bit more tulle. I think I would also like to cut the ends to a point.
There will be better pictures of her in her tutu coming but in the meantime here are a few snapshots taken with the iphone.
