There’s going to be a lot of tooting of my own horn in this post, so be warned.
So, my slings are selling. I’m not making enough money to retire, but my sales are definitely rising. I am thrilled! Thanks to all the lovelies who bought one, I hope you love it! And as I’ve been selling online and locally, I decided that having my slings in a store or two would be a good way to try to get a few more sales. My Midwife offered to let me sell them at her little shop in her office. So of course, my slings will be there! I can’t think of a better place to find a baby wearin’ Mama. Seriously, if you are having a homebirth, I’m betting you wear your baby. Another place I had in mind was Gretel’s Fine Gifts. I have loved this little shop ever since I discovered it, and later found out the owner used to work with my Dad. Small world. So, after stopping in and showing Gretel one of my slings in use with my adorable babe, she agreed to let me sell them in her store! Thank you, Gretel!
So, from all the local orders and getting slings made for these two shops, my Etsy shop has been suffering. I either haven’t had the time to add new listings or I don’t have the materials for the new listings because they are being used for slings I’m selling locally. So, I’m slowly figuring out where to go from here. I definitely need more linen on hand than I’ve needed in the past. As well as all the other stuff that goes into making a sling: thread, accenting fabric, and THE RINGS. You can’t forget those rings for the ring sling!
It’s just so amazing to watch my little business take this step into success. I’m so thankful that this has all worked out. I’m able to stay home with my kids and not starve because I have a wonderful husband that works and wholeheartedly supports me staying home. And to top off that, I have time to focus on my business that I’ve made from something I love doing.
Anyway, enough of that so-happy-I-could-cry stuff. Here are a few of the beauties I have made for Gretel’s store. I can’t wait for my linens to get here so I can duplicate these and list them in my shop!
P.S. I’m not sure why the pictures are all crammed like they are. Annie? If you are reading this, help!
I am lucky. The guy I decided to marry turned out to be amazingly great for the husband/Daddy/best friend role. I’ve been thinking about this lately because of one of his recent blog posts, and the many talks we’ve been having about our goals as a family. John has his things that he wants to do: sell junk. And I have mine: raise awareness about natural birth and promote breastfeeding while selling beautiful slings. Now, when you put it this way, it sounds pretty funny. John is not out to change the world, he just wants to work for himself and be happy. He’s a simple man. We both have become very serious about accomplishing these goals. Unfortunately for John, my business and new website are requiring a lot of time spent with me at home sewing or writing, and him out killing time with the boys. And it’s not really killing time, but it’s time that he’s got to be away for me to work. So, this takes away from time he could be spending on his business plans. Here’s the part when I tell you why John is amazing. He has decided to focus on what I’m doing and put his own goals on the back burner. He feels that the website I have started will take off and be useful. For this to happen, I’ve got a lot of work to do on it. And over the past two months, my slings have been selling more and more. Basically, the ball has already started rolling for me, my business, and my goals. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this!
So, the beautiful man I married is cheering me on the whole way through this path we are on. He believes in what I’m doing, he encourages me, he helps me, and he is excited for me! It’s actually us that he’s excited for. I could not be happier with the way our partnership has grown. I remember one of my roommates said that our astrological signs were very compatible and creative when put together. Whether that’s a load of hooey, or truth I don’t know. But, I do know that John and I have a lot going for us, and it seems that since the day we met we’ve had nothing but blessing after blessing come into our lives. Jackson started us off and things are only getting better.
In March we will be married 5 years. What a great way to spend five years, with my best friend.
Candy. The amount of candy that has entered our household since Jackson came around is amazing. I don’t remember having this problem before having babies, so I guess that having kids means candy suddenly becomes abundant. There is candy at every holiday, every birthday party, every get-together, and it all ends up at our house! And once it gets to our house, it just sits there. Occasionally, one of us will grab something out of the mound-o-candy, but mostly, it’s left untouched. Then, after looking at it and cursing the fact that it even made it into our house, I decide to just get rid of it. I go through my “Purging of the Candy” ritual, that seems to happen way too often. I feel like I’m being wasteful, but I would rather just get this stuff out of our house. Jackson SERIOUSLY does not need to up his sugar intake. He goes crazy on candy! He’s got enough energy as it is. The last thing he needs is a sugar rush, and the last thing we both need is the crash. So, to just avoid the mood roller coaster all together, I try to get the candy out of our house. And, I don’t even feel right about giving it to someone else. The only place it belongs is in the trash. It’s so wasteful, but I really feel that candy is better in the landfill than in my son’s stomach. It has crossed my mind to take each piece of candy out of it’s wrapper for recycling. Maybe I’ll take a picture of that when the next candy purge comes along.
Scene: Everyone in the house has just eaten a delicious meal that I prepared. John is on the couch watching TV, Archer is playing with the tupperware in the drawer by my feet, and Jackson is playing Super Mario World on John’s old Super Nintendo. I am doing dishes, wiping down counters, cleaning the high chair tray, and trying to keep Archers fingers from getting smashed in the drawer.
Jackson: Hey Mommy, can you come help me with my game?
Me: Not right now, I’m finishing up cleaning the kitchen. Can you ask Daddy to help you?
Jackson: But, Daddy is on the couch watching his show.
Me: Oh, well then, just give me a minute. (In my head, “Well, we wouldn’t want to disturb Daddy while he’s relaxing on the couch, now we would we?!?!?!)
Lately, it has been on my mind, the importance of having some sort of support group around for motherhood. When I had my first son at age 22, I was not ready for the mother role, but life brought me a baby, and a mother was what I had to be. It’s not that I wasn’t thrilled to become a mom, I just hadn’t really given motherhood a second thought, until I found I was pregnant. At the time, I had the women in my family to look to for guidance on how to take care of my new little one. My mother-in-law was absolutely wonderful. She came and stayed with us the first week of Jackson’s life. She made it the most relaxing and cozy time for getting to know our new baby. She cooked, she cleaned, she let me nap. She was amazing. But once the newness of the whole being a mom thing wore away, I was left to decide where I stood in my identity as a mother.
I’m always writing about sewing slings, but I have yet to write about why I love baby wearing. I’m so happy I discovered it with my second son. There’s so much more to it than just having a different way to tote your baby around. It creates convenience in so many situations and helps create a strong bond with your baby. I wrote more on this topic over here.
I have started another website! This one is going to be a joint effort between myself and a few other lovely people. Things are barely started, but I’d love it if you would take a look at what I’m doing. The basic idea is to have one place to find resources within Indiana that support a healthy pregnancy and/or a natural birth. I also plan to consistently write there to raise awareness about issues pertaining to those subjects. So I’ve got quite a bit of work to do, but I’m very excited about this project. I really think a website like this is needed here, and I can’t wait to see where it goes! Check it out! If you have any suggestions or info, please contact me!
January 16 is coming up, and we all know what’s so important about that day, right? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is it’s the birthday of a friend I had in elementary school. It’s weird how I remember stuff like that, but I can’t remember to get my teeth brushed before walking out the door. Really, the true significance of this day is that last year it was the last day of being employed and the first day of being a stay at home mom. At the time I wasn’t sure how that decision would all work out. I wanted to stay home, but I also was really sick of the stress going on at work. I wanted to make sure I was making this decision for the right reasons, not just to get the heck out of that job. So, now that I look back on the whole thing, I am thankful that the job was stressful enough to encourage me to think about quitting. Staying home is one of the best things I’ve done. I’ve been able to spend time with my kids, grow my business, and grow as a woman and mother.
This time last year I was making big plans for Jackson. I wanted to have each day scheduled with things to keep him stimulated and busy. He is such a high energy little boy, I wanted to make sure I offered him all he needed to learn and grow. In January I was too huge and tired from being 9 months pregnant to really focus on organizing our days. Plus, I wanted a little vacation before Archer was born. Well, February brought a newborn, and all the plans for structure went out the window. And now, Archer is 11 months old, and we still have no set plan. And we aren’t going to. There is so much going on with our family, that a structured day doesn’t work. But, we’ve managed just fine. I’m very happy with how the past year has went. Everyone is happy and healthy, so that tells me we’ve been doing something right.
So, for the year we are upon I plan to keep things similar to how they are. I’ll let life and the kids lead me to where we need to go. If Jackson has an interest in music, karate, or swimming, then that means we look for an activity to suit his interest. He’s old enough now to decide what things he’d like to learn more about, which is really exciting for me. I can’t wait to see what he excels at. As for Archer, we’ll continue mastering the walking thing, as well as learning to talk and eat solid foods–the normal one year old stuff.
We had a family meeting the other night about each of our goals. If you’d like to read about it, go here. But, there was one goal left out: my goal to have a garden! I’ll post about this at another time.
Last night my friend showed me the website The Shape of a Mother. It is dedicated to “letting out the secret” about how a woman’s body looks while pregnant and postpartum–imperfections and all. Here is the story of how it all got started.
One day I sat in a restaurant in Anaheim, California eating breakfast, when a woman passed by my table with her infant carrier in tow. As she lifted it up to fit between the tables, her shirt raised and I saw that, although she was at a healthy weight and her body was fit, she had that same extra skin hanging around her belly that I do. It occurred to me that a post-pregnancy body is one of this society’s greatest secrets; all we see of the female body is that which is airbrushed and perfect, and if we look any different, we hide it from the light of day in fear of being seen. That makes me want to cry. Sure we all talk about the sagging boobs and other parts, but no one ever sees them. Or if they do, it’s in comical form, mocking the beauty that created and nourished our children.
It is my dream, then, to create this website where women of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities can share images of their bodies so it will no longer be secret. So we can finally see what women really look like sans airbrushes and plastic surgery.
I really love this idea. This is definitely a topic that needs to be addressed. We shouldn’t be ashamed of how we look during or after pregnancy. We are the givers of life. If anything, we should be very proud of these changes that occur from having babies. We are beautiful!
Babies is a new documentary coming out that follows four babies from 4 different countries from birth to their first steps. The places range from Japan and Mongolia to San Francisco and Namibia. I just watched the trailer and had the biggest smile on my face for the duration of the entire thing. I can’t wait to see this!
