To My Darling Daughter
Jessica Glaze • Feb 12, 2015
Carter,
I don’t always wipe your face when it’s messy. It is not because I am a lazy or forgetful mom. It is not because I don’t care about keeping you neat and clean. One reason is because you hate it. Before I even open up the box of wipes, you start panicking, “I don’t like wipes, I don’t like wipes.” It’s usually not worth the battle if other people aren’t going to see you anyway.
But do you want to know the bigger reason why I don’t always wipe your face? You are just a child. There is no need for you to strive for perfection. There is no need for me to constantly remind you that you are a sloppy, messy, grimy little kiddo with room for improvement. You are not born with a desire to be perfect, but you learn from example. Every time I apply make-up to cover up a blemish or complain about my weight, I am teaching you, training you, to also point out and work on your own imperfections.
You will spend the rest of your life striving to be perfect. You will go to school and be scared to eat your lunch because something might get stuck in your teeth. You will go to high school and be afraid that other girls will call you fat or make fun of you for whatever reason. You will keep a mirror in your locker so you can constantly see how you look. You will go on a date and be self-conscious about what you order. Will it make your breath smell? Will it make you look unhealthy? You will hide everything about you that isn’t perfect and be extremely cautious in situations that make you vulnerable to imperfection.
One day, you will have babies and your body will change. All the wipes in the world won’t wipe away the scars and the stretch marks left behind from pregnancy. All of a sudden your body will be full of imperfections that you will desperately try to hide. You will be embarrassed that you can’t hide these imperfections from your husband, but you have to be confident that your husband loves your body anyway. You have to love your body anyway.
Desiring perfection starts much too early. It is believed that 24 million people suffer from eating disordersand 95% of them are between the ages of 12 to 25. 12 years old! At 12 years old, you should be playing with toys and having fun with friends, you should not be worried about what your body looks like. At 12 years old, you should never feel pressure to be any more perfect than you already are.
Sweet girl, by not wiping your face, I am trying to whisper to your heart. I am trying to make it clear to you that you are already perfect. Regardless of the food smudged on your face, the stain on your shirt, or your precious little pot belly, you are already perfect.
It isn’t possible for me to love you any more than I already do. There is no need to strive for perfection, you are already there.
Love,
Mommy
“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs 31:30
Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.
Four kids, I have four kids! Sometimes (well, every day if I’m being honest) I have to remind myself that I have FOUR kids to be responsible for. If I’m not forgetting to keep an eye on my mischievous 2-year-old, then I’m walking out the door for dinner without dropping a jar of baby food into my bag. (Fries for dinner never hurt anyone, right? That’s what Mr. August survives on once a week at least.) Life as a parent can be chaotic sometimes. #thisisparenthood Thank God my two older kiddos are basically self-sufficient otherwise we would never be able to leave the house. Being responsible for four other human beings (Sometimes five if my husband is in town, am I right ladies?) is so hard!
It’s no secret that I am no fan of winter. If you live up north like we do now, you know just how cold, cold is and I can barely survive the frozen temperatures. Even though I would happily leave behind the cold, but there is nothing I love more than Thanksgiving and Christmas! Best holidays of the year, hands down!
It has been three years since we left behind our life in California. Three years since we made the announcement that we were moving to Canada. Three years since we started a new adventures as immigrants in a country that is so close to home, yet so very different. And now, after three life changing years, we are on to our next adventure.
Eli is 5.5 months old, rolling left to right and every other which way, so that means it’s time to ditch the swaddle. *Que the ugly cry.* If you didn’t know, we love swaddling in our home. Rusty and I can count the number of times we have ever had to wake up more than twice a night with one of the three kiddos on our fingers and we thank swaddling for that luck. We start swaddling from day one and we use that as a basis to establish great sleep habits from the beginning that last forever. Sadly, once the skill of rolling is learned, it is no longer safe to swaddling and the transition from swaddled to un-swaddled can be rough. Thankfully, we found the Nested Bean sleep sack this time around and the swaddled/un-swaddled transition has gone perfectly smooth.
The Glaze Brigade spent the second to last official weekend of summer (which is kind of a joke because summer never actually arrived here in the GTA) at Center Island and we loved it! I’m actually a little bummed that we have lived here for 3 years and only just decided to make the trip on the ferry over to the island.
We are just three weeks away from the start of the next school year and I am so not ready! There is nothing I love more than the freedom of summer. No school schedules to follow, flexible bedtimes, endless weekend adventures, and daily trips to wherever we can get some sunshine. Sadly, all of that is about to end and I am already planning our next summer.
Since moving to Toronto, the best part of summer is getting outside. Our days are usually filled with trips to the playground, our near by amusement park, riding our scooters around the neighborhood, or taking a fun road trip, but even in the summer, there are days we are stuck inside. Sometimes we spend those rainy days cuddled on the couch, watching a movie and eating junk food, but another fun rainy day activity we enjoy is visiting our local mall.
I was just a little surprised to learn that Carter would be starting kindergarten, at the ripe old age of 3, just a few months after moving to Canada. I considered putting her in a preschool a few days a week, but never did I think I would be sending her to an all day, every day, kindergarten class in a school that holds kids up to the 8th grade. Cue the mommy freak out. Of course, Carter loved it and I had nothing to do worry about.
My middle child, Monroe, was born with a severe tongue tie, it was actually so severe that he couldn’t swallow. For the first week of his life, we had no idea that his entire tongue was attached to the bottom of his mouth (behind his bottom gums), but over and over again he would choke and sometimes even turn blue. Rusty or I or a nurse would have to suction his airway to get things cleared out. It was the scariest time for me as a parent.
Facebook is filled with groups of moms complaining about the lack of help they get from their husbands. Either dad has never changed a diaper, he doesn’t help pick up toys, dad doesn’t help discipline, or he flat out cannot keep the kids alive if he is left alone. I understand that it can be completely frustrating to get no help from the one person that should be helping you the most, so I am going to share with you a few tips that I’ve used to encourage my husband to be a hands on dad.