A Student Mom: Childcare

Yes, I'm a mom, and I'm going to grad school. I write on ongoing series of posts chronicling my experience as a student mom. If it interests you, find the rest of the posts here.

If you had told me ten years ago that someday I would hire a nanny to watch my kids, I would've laughed in your face.

Even if you had told me that five years ago, I still would've been skeptical.

First off, nannies were only for those super rich people, the ones who had summer houses in Europe and sent their kids to private boarding schools and that kind of thing. Sure, my husband makes a decent salary, but we are by no means wealthy (especially not with the depressing weight of student loans still hanging over our heads).

Second, I would've told you that I would never entrust the care and raising of my children to someone else. Weren't nannies for those bad moms who were too busy and too selfish to stay home with their kids?

Without doubt, childcare has been the most stressful, most gut-wrenching, and most guilt-ridden part of this whole experience of going back to grad school. There were so many days during my first semester, when my kid was sick or when the planned babysitter fell through last minute, when I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, this is why young mothers don't do grad school."

For my first semester last year, we used a network of friends and family for babysitting. I have a good friend who lives in our same apartment complex that took my kid two afternoons a week, and then I would drop him off at my sister-in-law's house for my evening class another day. It was stressful to manage the pick-up and drop-off, but I was happy knowing these were friends and family my son was comfortable with and who would care for him like their own children (plus, we couldn't beat the price of the friends and family discount :).

But my sister-in-law moved out of state over the summer, and then we had a baby, and we didn't want to drop two kids on our friends for the 15+ hours of childcare needed each week (easy way to destroy a friendship). So we started looking at other options, the most appealing of which was hiring a nanny.

I won't bore you with the details of our search, the prayers and the fretting and the late-night anxiety I went through thinking about bringing a perfect stranger into my home to take care of the two most precious people in the world to me, especially when we can't afford to pay a lot. I will only tell you the happy ending, because last week I interviewed and hired the perfect nanny. Except for the part where we don't speak the same language (why or why did I minor in French instead of Spanish?), this is the most perfect situation I ever could have dared hope for, and I feel so grateful and blessed that things were able to work out this way.

So next week, I will return to school full time (three days a week, five hours a day), and my boys will be looked after by a nanny.

Now that the stress of finding a nanny has subsided, I've had time to fully reflect about the position I find myself in. I have a nanny. I am voluntarily leaving my children every week. I am paying someone else money we can barely afford so that I can go to school and study literature.

Some days, I really feel like this is all a terrible idea. We are throwing so much money at this thing, this dream of mine to get a master's degree. Money that should be going to get us out of debt or saving for a house. And then I am leaving my children. Leaving them with someone else who will get the afternoon snacks ready and change the diapers and put the baby down for naps and make decisions about how many TV shows to watch. I'm giving up control over those decisions for fifteen hours every week. Why? Why? Why?

The only answer I can give is because for me, for us, this is the right thing to do at the right time. I can't give any more logical explanation, but trust me, I pray about it over and over and every time, I just know it is right. It is okay. I don't know why yet, but some day I will look back and understand.

After meeting with my nanny, I even wondered if I was going to school now just so we could give her a job. She has been out of work for a while, and even though we aren't paying her much, something is more than nothing. While we had been praying to find a good nanny, she had been praying to find work, and here we are answering each other's prayers.

This whole experience is helping to dislodge some perceptions I used to hold about motherhood and childcare -- perceptions that I think would have held me back if I hadn't been pushed so hard to do this. Here's what I'm learning:

• It takes a village to raise a child. One mother can't do it alone, and it's not shameful to ask others to step in and help with childcare.
• My children will still turn out just fine if I am not around for every second of their lives. I haven't given up my responsibilities for their well-fare, education, and development just because I leave them for a few hours every week.
• I like my children more when I get a regular break from them. I have more patience, I am more kind, and I am a better mother when I get back from school.
• I can still be a good mom and be a good grad student.

Sometimes I feel like there is a lot of judgment, especially in the Mormon community, for mothers who work or go to school, especially when they don't have to. And somehow I sort of absorbed the perception that moms who worked weren't as focused or devoted to their families. It's certainly never been spoken or said to me, but I always feel like I have to defend myself when I tell people I'm going to grad school, and prove that I'm not selfish or not dedicated to motherhood.

Because what I've learned the most from this experience is that first and foremost, I'm still a mom. I still do everything I did before as a mother, only now I squeeze homework in at night and on the weekends. And I let a nanny watch them for the few hours I have to be away. Honestly, sometimes I wondered why my classmates would complain about being stressed and busy when school was all they did. Motherhood was what I did, and school was what I did on the side.

Anyway, this has been a long and rambly post, of interest to possibly no one but myself. All I'm trying to say is that if there is any other mother out there considering school, don't let guilt stop you from outsourcing childcare (money may stop you, but it shouldn't be guilt). You don't stop being a mom just because someone else is keeping your kids alive for a few hours.

And, holy cow! I have a nanny!

Goals for 2015

Image Source

I hinted at it in my last post, but 2014 was a bit of a rough year for me.

I don't want to overstate my challenges, because by and large we were very blessed last year, but I spent most of the year feeling sick, exhausted, and depressed. I had a very difficult pregnancy that not only wiped me out physically, but seriously messed with my hormones and emotions, extinguishing any joy or passion I felt for life.

Thankfully postpartum brought a return to balanced emotions (yay! I want to live again!), but it also brought a new array of physical challenges. Between the nursing and the typical sleep deprivation that comes with a newborn, my immune system was pretty much shot to pieces. Not only have I been on three separate courses of antibiotics since October for various infections, I've had a perpetual cold for the past three months that I CANNOT seem to kick.

Like I said, these challenges are minimal compared to others, and I don't mean to complain, but the fact that the last time I felt 100% healthy and energetic was January a year ago, I've been thinking a lot lately about 2015 and how I'm ready for a change.

I'm ready for a return to health, happiness, and good humor, and I'm hoping my goals this year will facilitate that. This year I'm sharing more than just my book goals here, because when I post something on the blog I feel more accountable to it than if I just write it in my journal.

I've broken my ten goals down into three categories.

Physical Goals

1. Eat Healthier and Cut Sugar Overall, I feel like my diet is fairly healthy, but I have noticed over the past few months that I might just have an addiction to sugar. Because I'm still nursing, I don't want to make any super drastic changes to my diet, and I certainly don't have any weight-loss goals, but cutting back on my sugar intake will probably hurt no one. Also, I want to focus on eating more immune boosting foods (I need to do some research into that).

2. Get Enough Sleep My goal is a strict bedtime of 10:30 this year. Right now my three-month old is giving me a very regular nine hours at night from 10:30 to 7:30, so as long as he doesn't regress I should be able to stick to this one. I'm always tempted to use late evening hours when both babies are asleep to catch up on personal projects, but I am also always a happier person when I get enough sleep. So for now I just need to accept that my baby's bedtime is my bedtime, even if that means giving up any personal time in the evenings (and hopefully someday my baby will go to bed earlier than 10:30).

3. Research and Invest in Essential Oils I don't really like using a lot of over-the-counter medication, but with how many times I've been sick these past few months I've found myself wandering the pharmaceutical aisles with disturbing frequency looking for anything to bring me relief. I've heard lots of people rave about the benefits of essential oils, but I've always balked at the prices. However, now might be the time to embrace my crunchier side and dive in.

Passion Goals

4. Read 25 Books For Pleasure  Yep, my pleasure reading goal is simply to match what I read in 2014. I consider this a low bar, but I will be in school again this year full time, so it still might be a stretch for me. I plan to meet this goal by listening to audio books during my commute to and from school.

5. Schedule a Regular Time to Write for Pleasure One of the things I didn't do much of this year was recreational writing (and for me that includes writing here). This is sad because I really enjoy writing. I want to carve out a regular block of time each week to write for pleasure, whether it be blog posts here, or work on other writing projects I have kicking around in my brain right now. I haven't decided when this set time will be since Baby doesn't have a set nap schedule yet, but I'll find time if I make it a priority.

6. Redecorate My House This one deserves it's own post, because there's lots of backstory and philosophical musings and far too many thoughts about trivial things going on behind this goal. But to make a long story short, due to some recent developments it appears we might be staying in our little apartment a year longer than we thought (we had anticipated moving this summer, but life happens), and I need our space to be more beautiful. I don't have much time to dedicate to this goal, but I'm in the middle of two unfinished DIY projects, and I have lots of other projects in mind, so I want to make things happen now.

Spiritual Goals

7. Early Morning Scripture Study I used to have a very regular morning scripture study routine, but motherhood disrupted my life in every way and I've spent the last three years trying to find the person I was before. It's time for this routine to make it's way back into my life. This one is truly going to be a wrench for me because sleep is precious, but if I can actually make it to bed by 10:30 every night, then I should be able to wake up at 6:30 and get a good half hour of study in before everybody else wakes up.

8. Declutter Maybe this doesn't sound like a spiritual goal, but for me, it certainly is. I'm not happy when things are messy. Like I mentioned above, we have a small apartment and it often feels cramped and cluttered. I think it's time to get rid of stuff, reorganize, and reinstate the old cleaning schedule I used to follow.

9. Develop and Stick to a Budget Does this one not sound like a spiritual goal either? To me, being able to wisely manage money is absolutely a spiritual endeavor, one that requires self-discipline and a careful consideration of values. I've been analyzing our spending for the past year, and I really want to sit down and develop a stronger budget for this new year that will help us get to a healthier place with our spending and saving.

10. Solidify Family Routine  What I mean by this is I want to focus this year on having really consistent family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, family traditions (game night, chore chart, etc.) and date-night. Since my husband works long hours, I am the driving force in making sure all of these activities happen, and I hate to admit that we've been less than consistent this past year. So my goal is to buckle down and get our family into a really good spiritual routine.

And those are my 10 goals for the year 2015. I know I need to make more specific plans for fulfilling most of these goals, but right now I feel like this is a good list that will stretch me but also be very manageable if I'm disciplined. Also, I feel like most of these goals are pretty necessary to get my life back to a happy place. I intend to report back here at least once mid-year (if not more frequently) to report on how my efforts are coming.

Have you made any resolutions for the New Year (I'd love to hear about them!)? Do you think my list of goals is too ambitious? Any tips or advice?

2014 In Review

Ah, 2014.

It was the best of years. It was the worst of years.

Really, I had some awesome experiences this year. I went back to grad school and started a master's program this year (oh, and aced my first semester with a 4.0!). I got pregnant and gave birth to the sweetest little boy imaginable, and had an awesome and redeeming birth experience. I got to spend a lot of time with family, I made some new friends, and overall had a very blessed and wonderful year.

Unfortunately, there were some terrible parts to this year as well (more of which I'll discuss in my next post), and in consequence this was not the best year reading-wise for me.

When I set my reading goals at the beginning of 2014, I anticipated some of the craziness and was thus pretty lenient with myself. I only set two goals: 1.) Finish John Adams and 2.) Read 12 books for pleasure. And while it was still a pretty pathetic reading year compared to 2013 (where I read close to a book a week), I did manage to blow goal #2 out of the water and read 25 books this year. (I failed on goal #1, but we don't need to discuss that right now).

One of my favorite things about using Goodreads (that I discovered last year) is that they track my reads and provide me with a nice little page of statistics and charts and bar graphs about all the books I read every year.

Looking at this just makes me super happy. And also motivates me to read more books just so I can see more titles on this bar graph.

I've mentioned most of these books in separate reviews or monthly round-ups, but I'd thought I'd give some highlights. Here are my Top Ten listed by category.

Favorite Favorites

Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist. I mentioned this one in my November round-up, but I really need to do a full review. But I want to read it again first. This one inspired lots of thoughts. It was just lovely.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. Another one that inspired lots of thoughts and that I plan to read again and mull over. This book deserves its own review post too, some day when I have time to process it all.

Favorite Non-fiction

It's a rare year when both of my favorite favorites are already non-fiction, but honorable mentions go to:

The Gift of Giving Life by various authors. This one is so good, and was especially soul-filling for my 2014, the Year of the Difficult Pregnancy.

All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior. Really interesting parenting book. Can't stop thinking about it.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Because obviously.

Favorite Fantasy/Fiction

It was a strange year for me in that I read way more good non-fiction than fiction, but there were still a few good ones for this category.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbary. I debated between this one and Flavia de Luce (my most recent read), both about young girls who are too smart for their own good. In the end I chose this one, because I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I read it. Not exactly happy, but good.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. I wasn't sure if this one would stay with me when I first read it, but with a new baby of my own I find myself thinking of it frequently. And it does have some beautiful writing.

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley. Delightful, fun, adorable little read.

Favorite YA

Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Beautiful little middle-grade novel. I cried (but I was also pregnant).

Bomb! by Steve Sheinkin. This was a fascinating read. Sometimes I even forgot it was supposed to be YA.

"Enjoy Every Moment" - Or Don't. Because Parenting is Hard

My husband went back to work full time last week, after eight weeks of paid paternity leave.

I've been reluctant to talk about just how awesome all that paternity leave was, because I know that this type of benefit is extremely rare (I only got six weeks of paid maternity leave when I was working with my first baby, and even that required a combination of using all my accrued sick and vacation allowances). I know a lot of other women who have recently had babies, and all of their jaws have dropped when they found out my husband was home with us for eight weeks. Most men only get a couple of days, maybe a week. So anyway, I know I've been lucky.

However, the point of this post is not to brag about my husband's awesome benefits (actually, most of the benefits at his company really suck, paternity leave is seriously the only good one). The point is to talk about all the thoughts and reflections I've had about parenthood in the past week, as I've soldiered through all the meltdowns and dirty diapers and "sleep training" alone.

Now, this may not be a revelation, but lately I've been thinking about how parenting is not very fun.

In her book All Joy and No Fun, which I read last June, Jennifer Senior writes about all the studies in recent years that have shown how parents are less happy than their childless counterparts. The statistics on this are kind of mind numbing, because it's been shown in study after study after study that having kids tends to increase stress, decrease life-satisfaction, and damage marital relationships (for another interesting and shorter read on this topic, check out this New York article)

Senior goes on to discuss and analyze many of the reasons why parenting is such a miserable task, everything from the extreme pressure to produce perfect children (a societal shift in parenting in the last seventy years), to the simple drudgery of spending time with small irrational creatures who want to sing the same song over and over and over four hundred times a day.

The point that really resonated with me was when Senior talked about the concept of "flow." This concept was developed by some famous psychologist (I can't remember the name, and I don't have the book, so I'm just talking about what I remember from reading this six months ago), and essentially what he posits is that to truly find pleasure in work, you have to develop "flow." That is, you have to get to a point where you are completely absorbed in some process, and this usually takes hours and hours of uninterrupted time devoted to your work. Kids interrupt "flow" in their parent's lives. They have short attention spans, they have needs that must be met immediately, they are constantly interrupting and disrupting. These interruptions make it nearly impossible for parents to develop any sort of "flow" when they are around their kids.

This has been so true for me lately.

Take this morning for instance. My only goal this morning was to get the dishes done. We had a big dinner with family last night, and the dishwasher was full so many of the dishes got left on the counter over night. I found a moment of peace after breakfast and started working on unloading the dishwasher. But then the baby started crying to be put down for a nap, and then my older child had a poopy diaper, and then he wanted to play a game, and then there was some melt-downs over balancing a baseball hat on a fire truck (speaking of irrational creatures), and then the baby started crying again, and then the laundry needed to be switched out, and then it was lunch time, and just as I was getting back to the dishes, it was time to feed the baby again.

Somehow I can't seem to get even one load of dishes done in a given three-hour window. But what about when I want to read a book? Write a blog post? Take care of any one of the five million projects on my to-do list?

Forget about it.

And most days, I just don't even start because I know I won't finish. I lose all of my motivation to work on things when I know I'll be interrupted and won't be able to finish. This is the single most frustrating part of parenthood for me right now. I'm not very good at multi-tasking, and this is a serious flaw as a stay-at-home-mom, because heaven knows I'm never going to get two hours of quiet, focused work time. At least not consecutively.

What I'm trying to keep in mind is what Senior discusses at the end of her book with the ideas of memory and meaning. Basically, the studies prove that the moment-to-moment act of parenting is really miserable, but there is still hope, because other studies also show that people who reflect back on their past parenting experiences find a deeper sense of joy and meaning in their lives.

And this makes sense. Most things worth doing in life are hard. Most meaningful things aren't pleasurable in the moment. Getting a graduate degree? Hard and miserable. Running a marathon? Really hard and miserable (I do not know this from experience). But when you get to the end of your life, these are the things that fill it with meaning, and meaning brings joy.

Why should parenting be any different?

So the next time some older, seasoned grandmother tells the young mother battling her rambunctious children in the check-out line to "enjoy every moment," feel free to completely ignore this advice. You are not going to enjoy every moment of parenting. It's hard. At times it's downright miserable.

But it's also meaningful. It just takes hindsight to realize that, so grit it out for a few more years.

Someday I will have all the time in the world I want to do the dishes.

(It took me all afternoon to write this post, and there were plenty of interruptions in the middle, along with some awkward one-handed typing while I nursed. But look! I actually got it written! Although those dishes are still sitting on the counter...)

Books I Read in November

I know November is a month devoted to gratitude, but mostly I'm grateful that November is over. That month just about killed me. November was the month of the never-ending recurring cold (the combination of newborn sleep deprivation and breast-feeding seems to have shot my immune system and destroyed any ability my body has to fight off infection) and the infamous six-week peak in fussiness. If my sweet little Baby #2 doesn't have colic, than I don't know what colic is, because the crying! The hours and hours of inconsolable crying! November was just about the perfect storm of physical and mental torture, and I barely survived with my sanity (and marriage) in tact. It was a rough month.

But there were still a few quiet hours of nursing where a little bit of reading got done, so I'm back here to report.

Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist

I've developed an interest in food books recently, and this one? This one is a huge winner. This is my most recent favorite book of ever, and I want to own it. I've decided that if I ever write a book, this is the kind of book I want to write. It's a bit hard to describe, but this book is a collection of memoir-type essays focusing on the spiritual, communal, and nurturing aspects of food and meals in Niequist's life. I loved Niequist's perspective and voice (I'm pretty sure she's read Daring Greatly), and I found myself really inspired to throw some dinner parties and cook good food for my family. Bonus: there were recipes included at the end of almost every chapter, and I've already tried (and loved) about half of them. This was simply a lovely book, and I may have to give it a full review some time soon. (P.S. This would make a great gift for any foodie in your life, or anyone who just enjoys good, thoughtful writing).

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

I know, I know, I'm way behind everyone else on getting around to this bestseller, but I knew it was going to be a depressing slog, and I just couldn't bring myself to put it on hold at the library until my virtual book club picked this one for November. And I was right, it was a completely depressing slog. Every time I thought my colicky baby was going to drive me insane this month, I would think, Well, at least I'm not in a Japanese POW camp. Way to put my small trials in perspective. And in the end, this story truly was inspiring and hopeful and really, really beautiful. I definitely see what all the fuss was about and I'm glad I read it (although I still can't decide if I want to see the movie).

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

This was my second Kate Morton book this year, and while I still found her ability to craft such an intricate plot to be incredible, this was the exact same formula as The Secret Keeper, and I found myself less impressed. Also, I listened to The Secret Keeper as an audiobook, so I didn't realize until reading this one how many unnecessary sentence fragments Morton uses. It pretty much drove me insane. Honestly, who was the editor here, and why didn't they fix this? Also, there were a few characters in this one that I felt were underdeveloped and their motivations weren't explained well. That being said, I still enjoyed this, and recommend to anyone who enjoys a good story.


And now for one in the inauspicious category of Did Not Finish:

Outlander  by Diana Gabaldon

Okay, I know people who love this series, and on the outset it sounded like just my sort of book. After all, I have a weak spot for good historical fiction. But this book reconfirmed why I mostly stick to YA historical fiction. I've actually become a lot less prudish about "adult content" in recent years, but when the main romantic relationship became aggressively violent, and Gabaldon tried to pass this violence off as passionate romance, I just couldn't read anymore. The feminist inside me was too disgusted, because I'm sorry, I don't care  if it is historically accurate that wives were whipped in the 18th Century, portraying that kind of abuse as "deserved" and romantic is not acceptable. Never. No. And that wasn't even the worst of it. I just couldn't read any more. I do NOT recommend this one.

And with that, good riddance to November! Bring on December, with it's Christmas music and twinkle lights and holly and joy! Hopefully December will bring with it less sickness, more sleep, and happier times all around. I'm predicting nothing but good things this month. Here's to December!

To All The Pregnant Ladies

So, you're pregnant, and you want a book to read about it?

Way back four years ago or so when I got pregnant for my first time, I was scared and excited and completely ignorant about everything that was going to happen, so off I went to my local library to search for whatever they had on "Pregnancy". I think the very first book I checked out was What to Expect When You're Expecting, and if you want to know physically what is happening to you at every stage, and freak yourself out reading about all the warning signs of things that could possibly go wrong, and want a very ADA approved list of foods to eat and avoid, this is a great book to start with. Go for it. Very safe and not controversial at all.

Also kind of completely useless when it comes to preparing yourself for labor (at least it was in my case).

This second time around, I wised up a bit and rather than ask my library, I asked my friends for recommendations for good pregnancy books, especially about labor and delivery. My good friend Sarah really came through for me, and let me borrow her entire pregnancy library. So here are my thoughts and recommendations on some good/interesting books to read while you are pregnant.

HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie F. Mongan

Check out my full review of this book here. So be prepared for some pretty crunchy-granola stuff, but I completely recommend this one with a grain of salt. She spends a lot of time talking about how labor can be painless and even enjoyable. Yeah, no. That was certainly not my experience. But all of the advice about mentally and emotionally preparing, the relaxation techniques, all of that is golden. If you can, take the class. I've only ever read the book, but this is by far the most helpful for practical ways to endure a natural labor.

Birthing From Within by Pam England and Rob Horowitz

Okay, if you thought HypnoBirthing sounded fringe and crunchy-granola, this one is even beyond that. This book is more like therapy for the pregnant woman. There's all sorts of talk about exploring your emotions and creating pregnancy art. Yeah, I don't know much about therapy, and it sounded pretty weird to me at first. There's all sorts of art pictures from actual students that took her classes, pictures of baby bumps and female bodies and vaginas and stranger stuff. The art is all about helping women (and men) process their emotions about pregnancy. I couldn't bring myself to actually paint a picture, but I did try some journaling using the recommended questions because I really did suffer some trauma from my first pregnancy, and that was a nice therapeutic experience. This one is definitely interesting, but also very weird and not conventional at all, so just be prepared for that.

Active Birth by Janet Balaskas

This one is less touchy-feely, more medically mainstream. Sort of. The premise here is that women should be active during labor, moving into different positions, delivering in a squatting position, that kind of thing. It goes over all sorts of exercises to prepare for labor, all the positions to labor in, etc. At first I thought this one was great and very helpful. One of the major reasons I didn't want an epidural was so I could labor in different positions if I wanted to. Then I went through labor without an epidural and discovered changing positions was the last thing I wanted to do. In fact, what I wanted most desperately was to NOT MOVE at all. I remembered all the pictures and stories of women laboring in standing positions in this book, and I thought How? How? How? I barely had the strength to breathe, I don't know how any woman has the strength to labor in a standing position. So, this one ended up not being my thing, but I still recommend it. Warning though, there are some very graphic pictures of completely nude women in the process of laboring. It's not sexualized at all, but I still found myself skipping over the pages with photographs a lot. It's just a lot of naked woman.

The Gift of Giving Life by a collection of LDS women

By far my favorite of any of the books I read this pregnancy, this one is not so much a How-To, but more a series of essays and birth stories reflecting on the spiritual side of pregnancy and birth. Yes, all the authors are LDS and they write for an LDS audience familiar with the doctrine, but I think this one could translate well to any Christian faith. Just a note of caution to even the LDS readers, the first section was a bit rough for me, and I almost didn't continue reading (the first few essays talk about Heavenly Mother, and they delve into some very questionable grey area that is NOT mainstream doctrine), but I'm glad I pushed on because nearly everything else about this book was completely beautiful. With my first pregnancy, I thought a lot about the physical preparation of bringing a new baby into the world, but I never thought about spiritually preparing for this experience. I loved the way they compared labor and delivery to the atonement, and using the power of the atonement to help you through your hardest moments in labor. Also, I really appreciated the section on meditation. The birth stories are fantastic too. I love birth stories, and there are hundreds of birth stories in this book. Honestly, I think reading all these birth stories was more helpful during my own labor than any other book I read, because the thought that kept me going was if all those other women survived, I will survive too. I do want to reiterate that this book does not come from church leadership and should not be considered church doctrine (with 90% of the stories being about natural labor, someone could walk away from this book feeling like they are sinning if they get an epidural), but there is some beautiful stuff in here for every pregnant woman (I do NOT recommend this book for those suffering from infertility). I want to reread this book with each pregnancy, which is why I now own it. And I plan on giving it to all the pregnant women in my life.

Books I Read in October

October was actually a pretty good reading month for me (yay for all those hours and hours of nursing!), but I only finished two books, so it looks like it was a bad month. My problem was that I kept getting distracted, starting new books without finishing the books I was already in the middle of. I was just so excited about reading again (after the brainfog that was my pregnancy), and a bunch of books came in from my holds at the library, and I couldn't bring myself to be disciplined about finishing. So I'm in the middle of about 10 books right now, and only managed to finish two that whole month.

Oh well, here's the update.

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morely

This book was published in 1917, but if you haven't heard of it, that's okay. I wouldn't exactly call this a classic, it's not nearly substantial enough to be required reading in a high school English class. But it is a completely delightful little read. It's full of whimsy and funny characters and comical situations. But most importantly, this little novel is love letter for book lovers. It is about a little man named Roger Mifflin who is on a mission to bring great literature to the rural farmers of America, and thus he travels about the countryside with a book-shop wagon (essentially a book mobile, except pulled by a horse named Pegassus). And when he meets Helen McGill, a thirty-nine year old farm housekeeper who up and leaves the only life she knows to buy the Parnassus and have an adventure of her own, the story takes off. It's completely adorable, and I thoroughly recommend this to any book-lover looking for a fun, old-timey classic read.

The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful by Myquillyn Smith

A book about home decor. Hmm. You wouldn't think a book about something as fluffy as paint colors and arranging $10 tchotchkes would be all that thought provoking. But! This one caused lots of thoughts. Lots of thoughts on the philosophical level. Be prepared, a longer post is coming with all my deep thoughts about home decor, but for now just know that I whole-heartedly recommend this one, especially to any woman out there with house-shame (do you know what I mean by that?). Smith has a fun voice and is a good story-teller, and this is a lovely little read.