Mississippi Snow

SO many people have been impacted by the Snowpocalypse in the past week, but you know it's getting serious when Mississippi gets blanketed, which is exactly what happened there today! My mom just sent me these two photos. The top one shows my parent's home, as it looks right now, and the bottom one is of my mom and her brother exactly 50 years ago to the day, having fun after another memorable snowfall. Aren't they so cute?

Mississippi Christmas, Days 3 & 4

1. Christmas Eve reading, 2. stockings, 3. gumbo, 4. gumbo taste, 5. Mamaw's yummy root veggies, 6. J unwraps, 7. ornament, 8. Mamaw's surprise, 9. W's 1st Christmas present

Christmas Travels

We're packing up tonight for our trip to Mississippi tomorrow (our first time flying with two kiddos!). We'll be staying with my parents for five days, and we can't wait for the good times to begin! Hopefully I'll get to do a little blogging here and there, but if I don't manage to post amidst the fun and festivities here's wishing you a joyful, marvelous, peace-and-love-filled Christmas.

How (and where) are you celebrating this year?

Photo via a long-ago post on one of my favorite blogs, Please Sir.

My Mom's Raw Food Demo

One of my mother's many passions is the Raw Food Lifestyle. In the last few years she has become quite the Raw gourmand! These photos are from a recent event she hosted in her home in Jackson, Mississippi (that's her in the bright yellow apron). She gave a "cooking" demonstration, and then sat down with her guests to feast on what they had prepared. Here's the menu (doesn't it sound yummy?):

Fresh squeezed juice to start

Zucchini “Pasta” with truffled Alfredo Sauce

Mixed Greens with Caesar Dressing

White Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake

I hope to get my very own demo when we go to Mississippi for Christmas next week!

My Mom

This is a photo of my mom, taken about 31 years ago, exactly! She was just days away from giving birth to me on November 26, 1978. Wasn't she the cutest pregnant mama? To mark my birthday, my mom is going to be sharing the birth story next week on Marvelous Kiddo! So stay tuned...

Love you, Mom!

Sakura Bloom Triathlon: Interview Question 1

What first interested you in babywearing?

Even before having children, I had very strong ideas about how I wanted to be a parent. I wanted to hold my children as much as possible. I wanted to breastfeed on demand. I wanted to respond to their cries. I wanted to practice co-sleeping. I was not interested in bottles or cribs or pacifiers or nannies. I wanted my children to be integrated into my life completely, and yet I somehow thought that a stroller would be an immediate necessity from birth on!

When I was pregnant with my first son, I had only a peripheral awareness of the concept of babywearing. I remember filling out my shower registry at Babies R Us and stopping in front of a giant kiosk devoted to the latest models of Baby Bjorn. My husband and I puzzled over the options -- did we want the simpler-looking standard model, or were we more in the market for the top-of-the-line-serious-looking carrier with lumbar support? Bright, happy faces of parents and babies shone out from the glossy fronts of the Bjorn boxes, encouraging us with their perky smiles. We knew we wanted to wear our baby, but still, we felt overwhelmed. Could this contraption really be comfortable and practical? And how would we ever learn to put it on? Most of all, where in heaven's name would we be carrying all the BABY STUFF we were in the process of registering for?!? I envisioned taking a jaunty (short) walk in the park with the baby in the carrier, my husband pushing the STUFF in our giant stroller. OF course, if I needed to DO anything, I could just put the baby in the stroller and carry on...

Little did I know that within months I would get rid of that precious stroller (and cumbersome Bjorn) and find myself gallivanting all over the place with my baby held close to my body in a wrap and the drastically edited stash of BABY STUFF handy at my hip in a compact little bag. It really took having my first son and experiencing life with him for a while for me to mend the disconnect that had led me to initially overlook the amazing array of baby carriers that are out there. My first conversation with an experienced babywearer caused an "ah ha!" moment and I immediately became obsessed with learning more about wearing my son. Becoming connected to the vast and exciting community of passionate babywearers helped even more to show me that this was going to be more than a handy parenting tool. It was going to become a lifestyle.

Carrying my little ones just makes so much practical sense -- I can continue to do all the things that I enjoy doing in life, with my babies along for the ride, hands-free! In a city like New York it has proved invaluable to be able to hop on and off the subway or bus unencumbered by a bulky stroller. I love not having to worry about finding a comfortable or discreet place to nurse because I can breastfeed so easily in a wrap or sling. Most of all, I love how much babywearing soothes my children and fosters an incredibly strong bond and better communication between us. It helps me to be the kind of parent I want and need to be for my children.

Often, people stop me on the street and ask questions about the carriers I use or remark that "we didn't have those back when I had babies." I always acknowledge how wonderful it is that babywearing is becoming increasingly popular with today's generation of parents, but I point out that it is in fact an ancient art.

I am mindful now of stories my grandmother told me when I was little of her own mother, who raised ten children in rural Mississippi during The Great Depression: my great-grandmother carried her tenth child, who was born prematurely, from the time she came into the world. Even as my great grandmother returned to picking cotton under the blazing southern sun, she wore the baby skin-to-skin. The better part of a century later, modern science has begun to show the beneficial power of skin-to-skin contact with infants, and although her daughter stood little chance of survival at birth, my great-grandmother's instinct to wear her might have been what made the difference and helped to save her baby's life all those years ago.

Now that I have two little boys, I am incredibly grateful to have inherited the ancient wisdom of babywearing, and I am proud to have translated it into my very modern everyday life.

Have a Yummy Weekend

Alexandra Grablewski Photography

Tomorrow we're off to celebrate my mother-in-law Riki's 60th birthday at her home in DC.  While we're traveling, getting snowed-on, and partying down, here are some splendid links for you to explore...

You Won't Remember This and You Won't Remember This Either. Unforgettable.

This is why I love the Internet.  Addictive.

New York through the eyes of a great Mississippian.  Indelible.

A tour of Michael Stipe's pad.  Fascinating.

The Julia Child of Unschooling five-year-olds.  Awesome.

Home Again

Photo from here.

Christmas Chillin'

Puppies for Christmas And Other Images from a Mississippi Afternoon......

And now for a pop quiz:  

This afternoon, we...

A)  Adopted the adorable puppy on the left   

B)  Adopted the adorable puppy on the right

C)  Purchased the lovely embroidered camouflage t-shirt for the Kiddo's wardrobe

D)  None of the above

GUESS!

South Bound

Our bags are packed and sitting by the door, and first thing in the morning we'll be headed to Mississippi to spend five days with my family.  I hope to keep up the blogging over the next few days, but just in case I become scarce around these here internet parts, I want to take this opportunity wish everyone a beautiful, love-and-joy-filled, delicious, peaceful, and safe Christmas.  May all your wishes come true!

Photo of Eudora Welty's home library, by Susanna Raab.

Unlikely Wonderland

While we're still waiting for a noticeable snow here in New York, my home state of Mississippi turned into a veritable winter wonderland yesterday!  That's right, these photos were taken in central and southern Mississippi (it even snowed substantially in New Orleans!).  

I have to say I'm a little jealous.  But not too much -- mostly I'm just happy for all the folks in Mississippi who are getting the rare experiences of making snowmen, catching snowflakes on tongues, and having snowball fights.  I mean, look at the bliss on the faces below! My mom is probably the happiest person of all.  She loves snow, and sent me the link to these photos.  See more here.  Thanks mom, and have fun!

All photos, Clarion Ledger.

A Day of Fun & Color