Randomness

I've been wanting to update this blog more often and make it more of a family blog but as I'm sure it's easy to imagine, doing so with a newborn (wait infant, he's no longer a nb) is somewhat difficult. I have these grand plans of making posts with links and pictures but I rarely get a chance to get to a desktop these days. Anyway! Here's some things I wanted to document:

I love baths! Prior to Jack I never, ever took baths. We lived in this house for 3 years before I ever took a bath. He kind of inspired me to take them when I saw how much he enjoys them. I usually take one on Sunday afternoon. I love using LUSH bath bombs with them-an addiction started by my sister and continued by my sweet husband. The company only sells vegan homemade products and is anti-animal cruelty. Ever since having Jack, I have been increasingly more hippy (if you can believe it) and I like the idea of pampering myself while supporting an ethical company.

On that same note, I am really glad I had Jack at the point in my life I did. Any younger and I wasn't really educated about things I am today. I truly enjoy making informed choices on the things I buy for him and what I buy for him. I try to do the most natural possible because I see so many positives to it. For example, we use coconut oil for his diaper rash cream, bumgenius and pooters cloth diapers, earth mama angel baby shampoo and lotion (vegan and makes him smell like a creamsicle!), rock n green unscented detergent, and an amber teething necklace for teething pain. Younger me would have thought these things were silly and I certainly wouldn't have tried breastfeeding.

In addition, we've been really conscious about what he really needs. With an outlook on simplicity and minimalism, it's seems so silly to us to spend frivolously on Jack when really his needs and wants are so few. We've been conscious to buy clothes that can mix and match, well made imaginative toys (wooden, creative toys like Haba and Melissa and Doug). It's definitely more important to Trevor and I to provide him with more experiences than things. For that reason, he might not have every latest and greatest toy but he will do mommy and me swim lessons, have a parent home with him during the day, take family vacations together and do things that create lifelong memories. Every family is different but this works for ours. I hope to teach Jack on the importance of respecting resources (money, earth, time) and how to lead a purposeful, fun and meaningful life.

To prove how random this post is, tomorrow I am taking Jack to our first La Leche League International (breastfeeding group) meeting. I'm pretty excited! I don't know what really to expect but it will be nice to get together with (hopefully) like minded mamas. It's interesting now that I am a mom, I feel really confident in myself like I never have before. I used to be concerned what people thought of my crunchy tendencies, liberal thoughts and views but now I really don't care if someone disagrees or offers me contradicting advice I don't care for. For the first time in my life I am able to just smile and nod and move along without a care because I know we are the only advocates for our child and I'm so fortunate to have a partner that agrees with our parenting style. I'm sure it would be so difficult otherwise.

Thanks to our refund check Trevor and I want to take a small vacation this summer just the three of us but we can't decide where. It's hard because all of the awesome ones we think of we want to wait until we have both kids and they are old enough to remember them. Decisions decisions!

As the ever type A planner I am, I've been looking towards Jack's future schooling and our housing needs. We absolutely do not want Jack going to Waterford Schools and while Bloomfield Hills is an option since I work there, we want to live in the district he goes to school in for community and social reasons. Lets face it, Bloomfield is way out of our price range. So, we've had our realtor send us updates of houses for sale now that we are past the three year time frame of the Obama housing credit. There have been a few nice houses but as we are seeing, it is hard to find a nice house in a nice neighborhood for the price were paying now. Location really is number one in real estate. I would like to live in a community that has things going on: Rochester, Royal Oak, Troy, Clarkston. Trevor like more suburbia of: West Bloomfield, White Lake, Walled Lake, Holly. All of those places have great schools so were just watching the market now and waiting until the time is right for us. I definitely want to move before baby #2 and do it during the summer when I am off so we will see how that works!

I feel like now Trevor and I are really in a groove with our new life and routine and things are going well. I'm so lucky to have such a caring and compassionate husband. He really looks out for us and loves us. We might not have much but we have exactly what we need!