The Virgin Garden

This week I decided it was time to go all the way. I mean, I have waited 40 years, I weighed all the pros and cons and I was pretty sure I was mentally ready to handle the consequences.

So I had a long shower, cleaned myself up real nice, put on a pretty pink dress and off I went to get my flower plucked.

The setting was perfect.

A beautiful, tranquil place, filled with lots of nice sounds and smells. All of it intended to relax me and help put me in the mood.

I had a drink and I washed my face with a cool cloth.

I took off my clothes and folded them in a neat pile on the chair and laid down on the bed.

I was ready.

And then I heard these ominous words...

"Let's see what we are dealing with here."

And the covers where pulled back.....

.

.

,

I am of course talking about hair removal.

Specifically, hair removal, to quote the much maligned heroine of a certain smuterotica best seller, "down there".

I have been thinking about it for a while and since we are going on holidays soon, I thought it would be a good idea to get it done now and not have to worry about any errant fly aways peaking {or poking} out of my bathing suit while I was lying languorously on a beach chair reading yet more smuterotica or frolicking in the ocean. (Because that is what you do on your family vacations too, right?)

My bestie went to see a woman before her last tropical vacay and had the whole shebang done and she highly recommended both this particular esthetician and the process itself.

I trust my friend and so I called and made an appointment to get all of my hairy parts 'sugared'.

Yup, you heard right. Sugared, NOT waxed.

I have always had my brows waxed in the past and have even done my legs a few times, but have never been a huge fan of the practice. For one thing, most waxes are made from resins and can include lots of chemicals, dyes and preservatives in them. With sugaring the components are sugar, lemon juice, water and sometimes essential oils. From a ingredient perspective alone it is a more natural choice for a hair removal process.

Sugaring is also more gentle on your skin. It is applied lukewarm to your skin, the sugar paste surrounds the hairs and is removed in the same direction that the hair is growing. This is easier on your skin and since the sugar itself only attaches to dead skin cells and not  your actual skin, you do not run the risk of taking off any skin along with the hair, which can happen with waxing and instead you get a nice exfoliation as an added bonus to the process.

Susan, my trusty hair removal expert at Temple of Beauty Day Spa knew I was a virgin coming in to this and she promised to gently ease me into her world.

She started with my brows, a spot I am used to having waxed and I thought to myself, "This isn't bad at all. MUCH less sting than waxing. Cool, I can totally handle this."

Then she moved to my armpits. And WOWZA! Scratch that earlier thought! I am not sure if it is because of all the lymph nodes under there, or just because it is a rather protected area of skin that doesn't get a lot of 'weathering' per se, but holy Hannah, THAT shit was painful. While the sugar itself is a more gentle and natural solution for my skin, the plain fact remained that the tiny hairs on my body where being ripped out en masse. The lovely Susan told me that she was assessing my pain tolerance while sugaring under my arms to decide how much I would be able to handle in my nether regions! It wasn't looking very promising.

Next up. My lower legs. These I have also had waxed before, so I knew what to expect and it was really not bad. Except around the ankles. That was like little red ants biting me because I danced a jig on their home in the ground. VERY ouchy!

The good news is that unlike with waxing where you have a lingering pain and sometimes an intense throbbing (and possible skin removal), once the sugar is removed, there is no more pain or tenderness. Just smoothy, smoothiness. {Those are words, really, they are!}

With my legs all done, it was now back up to the ummm, middle.

I had three choices here. The classic, the skinny or the brazilian!

Within five seconds I knew it was NOT going to be the full shebang. But being the pro that she is, Susan just kept on going. She kept reminding me to concentrate on my breathing and kept trying to take my focus away from the sweet sting of what was happening by talking to me about anything and everything else. My kids, my vacation, her kids, the weather.... and various horror stories about her first forays into doing full brazilians 12 years ago.

It was not unlike what my doulas did for me while giving birth to my children. Except of course for the 'name that rash on a strangers vagina' stories. That was different.  And this time around, Susan was helping me give birth to a new silky smooth me.

I managed to make it all the way to the skinny bikini and had to call it quits. And I don't know about any of you who have had this kind of follicular maintenance stuff done before, but I found the {ahem}, upper lawn portion more painful to landscape than the... uh, lower hedges. Maybe that is just me...

In the end, and after all the toe curling and heavy breathing I have to say that I am very happy that I finally did "IT". I will very likely go back to Susan for some more routine care and upkeep of my lovely and well-groomed garden.  Within minutes of her being done, aka, me begging her to stop, there was no more sting and just the results I was hoping for. {Smoothy, smoothiness in case you forgot.}

And really, how many girls can say that of their first time!!

Happy Friday the 13th Mamas!!

Natasha~

Why 50 Shades is good for you.

I caved. BIG TIME.

I had heard about it a few months ago, but didn't really buy into the hype.

I mean, it's not like I was a stranger to erotic fiction. I was reading The Story of O and Ann Rice's (writing as Ann Rampling) Sleeping Beauty Trilogy way before women all over North America started googling BDSM and realizing that a full bladder equals a bloody amazing orgasm!

So, YES. I have now read all three of the Shades of Grey books and I am not ashamed to say that I thoroughly devoured and enjoyed all of them.

Today I read a post on the Yummy Mummy Club site by Kat Armstrong, their new Celebritease writer in which she ponders this "mommy porn" phenomenon...

"But there's something about this book.... that keeps drawing women in, but I completely don't get it. I don't understand how poorly written erotic fiction is turning so many of you on in a major way. I don't understand how you're not embarrassed by seeing every other mum wandering around with a copy of this or the other two books in the series. I don't understand why you don't just watch porn.

I just do not understand the appeal."

So I thought I would enlighten her and a few others out there on why I think Ms. James and her irresistible characters have enthralled a whole section of the population.

My first point is a direct answer to her "Why don't you just watch porn?" statement. 

Because we are women. Plain and simple really. For most of us, sex, fantasy, romanticism, erotica, and all of that... it happens in our minds. I realize that this is a generalization, but one that I am fairly confident about. I guarantee you that if my mind is aroused, anticipating what is going to happen, seeing the whole scene in the safe and private screening room that is my imagination, then I am pretty much a sure thing. Whereas watching a perfectly shaved, busty blonde, doing her faked version of a mind-blowing orgasm on the screen of my laptop via YouPorn, meh... it seems to me that this takes all the fun out of it! {Not that I have ever done this of course}. I am no expert on this, but I am pretty sure that for most women our biggest erogenous zone is our mind!

We are not guys. Most women are not hard-wired for sex at any minute the way guys are. Need to test this? Try a little experiment for me...

If you are sitting beside your significant other and reading this right now, stop reading. Tell him you want to have sex RIGHT NOW. It's OK. I will wait till you get back.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

See, they can't really say no and can be ready in an instant. Whereas women need more of a warm up. We need to stretch before we work out! And if reading a few chapters of Christian and Anastasia's latest antics in the playroom serve as a good stretch for your imagination and this is going to make you more ready and willing for a good romp, then I say go for it. You wouldn't want to pull a muscle or something now would  you?

What exactly is the appeal of the Christian/Anasatasia relationship and why do we care?

Okay. Now most of this is just my theory, so don't shoot me if you don't agree. Let's just think of this as Book Club and we are having a discussion about the themes in the book. So here goes...

We all want to be Ana. Smart, sassy, young, pretty, perky boobs (oh, to have perky boobs again!!) and her whole life ahead of her. I don't have these statistics, but I would take a guess that the majority of women reading 50 Shades are not 22-year-old college graduates. They are 35-50 year old women who have kids and careers and husbands and mortgages and car pools and PTA meetings and probably can't remember if they actually had a shower today or not. We escape into Ana for a time and get to pretend that we are all that she is and none of the other stuff. This is not a bad thing and being able to feel what the protagonist is feeling is in my opinion, one of the hallmarks of a good read.

And we all want Christian. I don't care who you are, you can be the hard-core feminist or the devoted housewife (or both really), but no woman among us can resist the tortured soul. It is that ever-present romantic notion that love will conquer all. In 50 Shades, that love just happens to be peppered with a rather decadent dose of what Ana so aptly called "kinky fuckery". And really, who couldn't use a little bit more of that in their love lives?

That is really it on the surface, we all want to be her, we all want to be taken care of by him (in ALL ways) and we all want to FIX him. To be perfectly honest, I am still mulling over the Christian/Ana dynamic and have a few more thoughts on it. I think it could be further delved into and discussed as it applies to a lot of relationship issues, especially those of control, insecurity and trust... food for thought for a future post maybe.

It really is just a love story. And who doesn't root for the girl to get the boy in the end and for everyone to live happily ever after?

The third point I want to make is about the writing itself. 

Now I haven't made a point to read a lot of different reviews about the books themselves, but suffice it to say that the general consensus is that Ms. James' writing is not that great.

Hmmm.... maybe my tastes are not that sophisticated, because I didn't think it was that bad for a first time author. Was it a particularly intricate read? No, it was not. Did I start to roll my eyes a bit at the constant references to Ana's 'Inner Goddess' and 'Subconscious' as if they were characters in the story? Yes, that got a bit tired. But all in all, I didn't put down the book at any time and say to myself, "Oh my god, this writing is atrocious, I can't read anymore of this!"

I would like to say this though. 50 Shades was originally written as fan fiction based on the Twilight series. Twilight, the series written about a high school student and a bunch of vampires that has been read by moms the world over. The Hunger Games trilogy is another young adult series written for teenagers about teenagers forced to fight for the pleasure of others. All of these books are written for a young adult audience, and yet here we are all reading them and we are FAR from the young adult phase of our lives.

Why is this?

Well, I have one theory. I don't know about you, but for the last five and a half years, I have read A LOT of books. Books that rhyme, books that make no sense, books that have farting dogs, and bats that live with birds, and birds wanting to drive buses and dinosaurs paying hockey and silly cats who think they are dogs. I have read books over and over and over again, to the point that I can recite them now without even looking at the pages. Because that is what you do when you have kids, you read to them, you let them use their imaginations and see the words and pictures from their books come alive right in front of them and through you.

And if your first years of parenthood have been anything like mine, you rarely have time to delve into a really good book that is just for you, let alone finish one! So, in comes some YA (young adult) fiction. Are these books easy to read? Yes, they are. Do they take you away and give you an escape from the hum-drum of diapers and midnight feedings and potty training? They sure do. This is not a bad thing Mamas. If reading a book, any book that has more words than pictures in it, and one that can give you a half an hour or if you are really lucky, an hour to yourself, I say go for it. Who cares if it was written for a 17-year-old. If you really think about it, some of the greatest books in history are considered young adult fiction. Consider The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird and Great Expectations, just to name a few.

{Disclaimer - the '50 Shades' books are NOT for anyone under the age of 25 in my opinion!}

Now back to 50 Shades of Grey for my final point to explain the appeal.

I was at a dinner party a few weeks ago and the conversation turned to the books. My friend's husband was arguing the 'why don't you just watch porn' angle and also saying that the books where stupid because it is not like all these housewives and moms where going to go out and try all the BDSM stuff that is in the book, so what is the point.

I bit my tongue that night and did not say much in mixed company, but here is the point. Having kids and careers and busy lives sometimes makes for nights when it's an effort just to get to bed at the same time, let alone be awake enough for some sexy time. Add in co-sleeping, night-time parenting and the fear of scarring your children forever if they walk in on you getting busy, well, the time for spontaneity in your sex life often goes out the window and finding and turning on your libido can end up last on your very long to-do list. If reading some erotic fiction gets your blood boiling and lights a fire in the otherwise dry twigs that constitute your loins these days, then READ ON MAMAS!! I am not saying you have to go and get yourself all trussed up on a wheel and whipped with a riding crop, but a blindfold and a few silk scarves could do wonders for any bedroom experience... It is your imagination ladies, spurred on by a few words on paper! Use this and get it on again with those hot men you made babies with and once upon a time couldn't keep your hands off of!!

All I have to say is this...

Don't knock it till you try it {or in this case read it} folks!

You and very likely your partner too will be glad that you did!

Laters baby,

;)

N~

stealth attack

It hit without warning. A small dot on my chest that felt a little tight.

And then it got bigger.

And bigger.

And then I started to breathe a little faster. And shorter.

I managed to get the kids dressed and fed before it hit me full force.

But come it did...

And then BAM!

There I was, hunched over my desk, sobbing and hyperventilating uncontrollably...

And having the first FULL ON anxiety attack I have had in over 15 years.

My poor little girl just looked at me and said "Mommy, what is wrong with you?"

I didn't have an answer for her.

I somehow managed to pull myself together long enough to get the kids to school. I did not talk to anyone for fear that the flood gates would not hold if I so much as opened my mouth.

I lost it again when I got back in the car, drove out of the school parking lot, pulled over again, called a friend and tried to let it all out.

I did make it to the gym, had another ugly cry with a good friend and then had an hour to focus on something else for a bit...the burning in my legs from jump training on the Pilates reformer and not the squeezing, breath-stealing feelings I was having in my chest. So that was good while it lasted.

Needless to say, it has been a VERY long day.

I have puffy eyes from all the tears that keep coming and don't seem to want to stop and I can't really THINK too much right now about anything without the tightness coming back a bit...

I tried to do things today that made me feel happy.

You know, the little things. Like having a long shower, putting on pretty jewelry, going to a grown-up coffee shop all by myself and getting a bang trim. Thank goodness it was a babysitter day!

Tonight I immersed myself into mindless data entry as I try to finish up all the accounting for the NUM store closure and found a soundtrack to keep my mind happy while doing it. It involved a lot of new boy band songs {think One Direction and The Wanted} interspersed with Florence and the Machine and my new favourite songstress, Ingrid Michealson.

I know I will have to face whatever it is that is making me feel like this, but first I have to figure out what exactly that is...

I kind of have an idea, but it is not completely clear just yet.

Today was a total stealth attack. No warning. Total chaos.

Tomorrow, all units are on high alert.

N~

Why oh Why do we do what we do...

This weekend I realized something. I am a purist.

Kinda...

Let me explain.

I attended my third blogging conference this weekend. It was the inaugural Blogwest 2012, the brainchild of my friend Felicia Dewar and a much-needed convergence of bloggers, sponsors, and experts in the social media and blogosphere world for Western Canada. In September of 2011 Felicia and I both attended the ShesConnected conference in Toronto and it was very clear then that western Canadian bloggers as a whole were both missing and also not being targeted by brands and sponsors. I am positive that it was after this conference that Felicia's wheels started to turn and that weekend, the beginnings of what would become BlogWest sprouted in her head!

At the time, I was quite excited about being invited to ShesConnected. I truly believed that connecting with brands and sponsors was what I wanted and needed to do with my blog. What happened in fact, was the exact opposite. I left the conference with a big case of information and sponsor overload and to be perfectly honest, I was also a bit disheartened by the focus on monetizing our online spaces and what it takes to work with brands (even though this really is the POINT of the ShesConnected brand and conference and overall it is a very worthwhile event to attend, if indeed this is your focus).

Fast forward two weeks later and again, Felicia and I (and fellow Edmonton blogger, Jennifer Banks) attended Blissdom Canada, also in Toronto. This much bigger conference brought together bloggers from all across Canada, but still only a mere handful from the west. The presentations, panels and sessions at Blissdom were divided into two tracks, the Arts one and the Business one. And while my brain was still telling me I needed to go to the business focused (read monetizing) sessions, my heart was telling me otherwise. For the majority of that weekend, and like I do in most things in my life, I followed my heart. I attended the Arts track and it has made all the difference to me. (I feel like a Robert Frost poem!)

Once home from both conferences and able to fully digest what I had learned, about blogging and about myself, I think what happened next can only be described as the perfect storm in my brain. I had a crisis of identity. Identity as a business owner, as a blogger and in the end as a mother and wife too. I was being pulled in far too many directions and not doing any of my "jobs" particularly well. So, I took some time off, closed the store for the holiday season and did some personal regrouping. And then I made some big decisions.

I decided that my identity was not that of an online retailer. That the Natural Urban Mamas brand was so much more than what I thought and that I had the power to shape it into something even better.

Just over four weeks ago, I closed my online store for good and flipped the switch on the newly redesigned Natural Urban Mama Blog.

And this past weekend at BlogWest 2012, I discovered even more about myself and the blogging world. For one, I met a whole schwakload of Western Canadian bloggers! Even some from my own city that I did not know about! I got to connect again with the likes of the very funny Kathy Buckworth and Julie Cole, and meet the lovely Maureen Dennis, with 4 month old Baby S in tow, who all came to BlogWest from Ontario (on their own dime, may I add) to be part of this western conference. I went for a great dinner with ever inspiring @SoberJulie and a few others thanks to the generosity of the Adult Essentials brand (one that I absolutely believe in by the way).

And I took away some very key messages about life and blogging and also further validation for my decisions over the past 6 months.

One of the major themes that kept coming up at the conference, was that of WHY? Why do we do what we do? Why do we blog? Why do we write at all? Why do we get up in the morning? In two of the sessions I attended, the amazing Simon Sinek was brought up along with his powerful message of The Golden Circle. If you have not had a chance to see his TED talk, PLEASE watch it, I promise it will change your life in some way or another.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zFeuSagktM[/youtube]

Simon's whole concept of WHY was what I had been looking for to explain my reasons for hesitating about the whole "monetizing" and blogging as a business model. And it wasn't until I was reminded of it at BlogWest by Kim Page Gluckie's "Getting Over The Fear of “Having Nothing To Say” session and then Jared Tabler's "Passion, Making Blogging Dreams a Career Reality",  that the proverbial LIGHT BULB went off over my head.

And I think it can be summed up very succinctly as follows:

"The goal is not to do business with people who need what you have,

the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe"

~ Simon Sinek

Now, as you may or may not know, I have some very strong beliefs about a lot of things.

I believe that babywearing is an essential parenting skill, I believe in breastfeeding my children and advocating for more education and resources for ALL mothers regarding infant feeding. I believe that a more hands-off approach to birthing from the medical community would empower more women to seek natural options in this regard. I believe that we are all women travelling together along this long and dusty road of motherhood and that we need each other to survive and thrive. I believe in leaving a legacy for my children and their children's children and not further polluting or disrespecting the Greatest Mother of all, our Earth.

And I also believe in standing up for myself and my beliefs and I am not afraid to express how I feel about them. Sometimes that means that I swear, sometimes that means that I tackle subjects that are controversial and polarizing, and sometimes it means that I take a very critical eye to a product or service. In all of it I am honest, about my biases, my opinions and my sources.

So where does this leave me and what does all this have to do with the Blogwest conference?

As I stood up in the middle of the 'Monetizing your Blog' session on Saturday morning and said the following (thanks to @lainiegal for tweeting it)....

...I realized that I am a blogging purist.

I write for me and because it is something that I love. It fills a need in my life. It fills my heart and my soul with love and joy and my mind with thought and wonder. I write to connect with people who believe what I believe, and for those who don't know it yet, but may want to come on over and believe what I believe (or at least hear what I have to say)! And if this happens to be a brand or a sponsor and they are good with ME and all that I believe in, then I welcome the opportunity to work with them.

My amazing (and much younger) friend, Tanis Miller, aka, The Redneck Mommy, the most famous (infamous?) of Western Canadian bloggers, gave the closing Keynote speech for BlogWest 2012. It was her story, and while it is a heart-wrenching one to read about, it is 10 times more so when you hear it from her in real life, her voice cracking as she recounts the mere 2 hours that changed her life forever. Tanis came to blogging to heal, to recreate herself, to laugh, and to celebrate and advocate for her children. She put in the time and effort to grow her corner of the interwebz, to become The Redneck Mommy and further than that, the incredible woman who is Tanis Miller today. She paid her dues. And 6 years later, she makes a living doing what she loves.

Simon Sinek also said this:

"...those who lead inspire us ...we follow them not for them, but for ourselves."

I am inspired by Tanis and many other great bloggers who do what they love, write from a place of honesty and with a rawness that I connect with. And yes, I follow them for me and because I believe!

And so in the end, what I learned at BlogWest 2012 this year and what I think I shall continue to refine at future conferences, is WHY I blog...

I blog to BE that inspiration for others.

That is my WHY!

{And if someone wants to eventually pay me for this... GREAT!}

What about you? What is your WHY?

Please share...

Mwah!

Natasha~

om.....

Today I am running through all the phrases and sayings and meditations I can to keep my calm.

"Everything happens for a reason."

"Problems are not stops signs, they are guideposts." Robert Schuller

"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."  Epictetus

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...." Dory

It is kind of working. Although I am pretty sure I freaked my kids out real good when I broke down and started sobbing after I picked them up (25 minutes late) from school, got another phone call about the Natural Urban Home and YET another issue that is not going as planned that I have to deal with and after I yelled at them to stop the FUCKING WHINING ALREADY!! (Sad to say--that is a direct quote.)

I really just have to calm down, take some deep breaths and repeat the above words of wisdom over and over (obviously, not the part about the whining!). Sitting here in Starbucks and writing it all down with my lovely Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte seems to be helping a bit.

I feel like I am at a weird cusp in my life right now. There is a lot of "When this happens, it will get better..." sentences being said to me, from myself and others.

"When our current house is sold, we won't have to worry so much..."

"When the store is finally closed, you won't feel so stressed and can focus on the kids more..."

"After the move, everything will settle down and it will get all better..."

I know that this is all true and that our life will be a lot less hectic in a few months. It is the time until then that I am worried about. And my stress and anxiety over it is rubbing off on those that I love the most. Especially the kids.

And if I have taught my kids one thing it is to be very open with me about their feelings.

To hear from your 5-year-old that I am not a fun mommy or the dreaded "I hate YOU!", sucks ASS! And the 3-year-old even told me that I scared her the other day with my yelling. So, you can imagine the heaping, stinky pile of 'mommy guilt' that I am under right now. The boy is not wrong...I am not a fun mommy right now.

I really have to try to keep this in check and keep my eye on the bigger picture. I can't afford to let myself slip back to where I was back in October. I need to be the non-toxic glue keeping it all together right now. For myself and for my little family.

So on that note...

I give you the things I am grateful for today:

1. A husband who comes home from work and tells me to go sleep off my migraine and takes care of all parental and house duties.

2. An hour at the gym with my awesome trainer, who kicks my ass and reminds me that YES, I CAN do this!

3. Amazing friends who will pick up my kids from school when I am late and offer help whenever I need it.

4. My babysitter. Gawd, I am SO thankful for her on days like today!

5. My contractor's Site Manager. Cute, competent and completely honest with me at all times.

6. Sunshine on a winter's day.

7. The current roof over our heads as well as the new one we are building.

8. Friends who chat with me on Facebook and make me feel normal.

9. The way my daughter looks like such a big girl with her hair in a ponytail.

10. How they both speak louder and slower when I ask them to use their big boy/girl voice as opposed to a whiney one.

11. I said this already, but a nice hot Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte and the background noise of my local Starbuck's.

12. My favourite green t-shirt.

13. Bank tellers that know me by name.

14. Picking up my new designer spring dress from My Filosophy. (A beautiful orange number by Joeffer Caoc.)

15. A dog who comes in for a snuggle and a pet, especially when I am crying.

16. Writing as therapy...

See, I'm feeling better already.

Om.......

Natasha~

a few of my "least" favourite things

A few things have me all riled up today. ~ When I am really, really wrong. Like having no problem swearing in front of my kids, saying that I don't care if they swear as long as it is in context and then having them swear totally IN CONTEXTand realizing that I was WAY OFF BASE with this one. (Oops!)

~ Bad editing. Whether it be in a movie, a TV Show (Hello Once Upon a Time, I am talking to you), or a blog post. Especially a blog post. Spell Check people, know it, use it, love it! And please read and re-read your posts before you hit publish.

~ People trying to pass off someone else's work, research or pictures as their own. Show some respect and give credit where it is due. (PS. Not only is this not very nice, it is often illegal!

~ Laundry. (Not so much riled up about it, I just really don't like it and have about 5 loads that need folding right now.)

~ Oh yeah. And THIS.

The "Mommy Wars", "Judge-y McJudgertons", "Complainiacs", SAHM, WAHM, WOHM, "Walk a mile in my shoes", "You are so lucky, no YOU are so lucky" conversations, status updates, posts, and general going on and on and on, etc, etc, etc....

PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!!

Rodney King said it best. "Can't we all just get along?"

Or as my mother has always said (and I am sure EVERYONE else's mother too), "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Oh wait, maybe I shouldn't say any of this....none of it is very nice.

SHIT....

um, crap....

I mean son of a ...

Oh poop, I am in trouble!

Also, I saw this video on a friend's Facebook feed today. (See how I did that.... giving credit to where I found something? Even if I didn't name my friend because I am not sure if she would want me too.)

Any who....

I really liked it, and I thought you might too.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR7-AUmiNcA[/youtube]

OK.

Enough of that...

...back to happy things.

Natasha~

P.S. If you ever find a spelling error in my posts, please let me know so I can correct it! Thanks. ;)

I like to do things in threes... can you tell?

Day 16. Morning.

...when it is -40 degrees Celcius, you need a hot tea latte and bunny mittens to start  your day.

Day 17. Water.

...I need a lot of it!

Day 18. Something I bought.

..and might regret very soon.

A white jacket for my 3 year old.

#JANphotoaday Challenge.

This is actually harder than you would think.

pointing out rainbows

This post has been a long time coming. And I don't really know how to write it.

So here goes...

I have come to a realization over the past few months. (You Mamas out there with little babies, listen up!)

What I have realized is this. We have all been duped.

We have been duped into believing that our babies need us the most when they are brand new. And while, yes, it is true that they do need us to clothe, feed, soothe, love and protect them while they are so tiny and vulnerable, once you get into a routine and you find your mama-baby rhythm, things can get relatively easy at this point. Yes, I know, I am making some big generalizations here, but stick with me on this.

Last year I went to visit a friend in Toronto who had just had her third daughter. Her two older girls were 4 and 6 at the time. When I asked her if she was going to go back to work again after her maternity leave, I was very surprised to hear her say no, that now she needed to stay home with the girls. I assumed she meant because of the baby, but she told me that it was more for the older two. At that point I really did not understand what she meant.

Now I do.

My kids are 22 months apart. And while this was a challenge when they were say teeny babies and then at 6 and 28 months old and then again at 1 and 3, it is NOTHING compared to right this very minute when they are 3 and 5 years old.

They NEED me!

A LOT.

The questions they have need answers. They need to DO more. With their growing bodies and with their expanding minds. They are both in play school now and are starting to navigate the world of friends who are not always of my choosing.  And all this means we have activities to attend, playdates to go to, new skills to hone and way more emotions to deal with on a daily, if not hourly basis.

So I need to be here for them, while they are still little. I know, that to some degree they will always need me, I just can't let them down right now. These years are important ones, the degree to which they are learning and growing and becoming little individuals with their own opinions and feelings is astounding and I need to be giving them my full attention. It's my job to help them navigate through this time in their lives and it is the most precious and MOST IMPORTANT job that I have.

In the past year I have spent way too much time saying the following phrases over and over to my kids,

"Just one more email and then Mommy will come and play with you."

"I just need to pack up these orders and then we can go to the park."

" Please wait...."

"Just five more minutes..."

The list goes on.

And it is not only that. As a family, Natural Urban Dad and I made the decision that I would be the stay-at-home parent. We did not want to have both of us working, have our kids in daycare and have our money go to someone else to spend most of the day with our kids. We are very fortunate that we can make that choice and it is one that I never, ever want to take for granted or lose sight of why we made it in the first place.

In the past six months I have been increasing our babysitter's hours on a regular basis to the point that I might as well just call her our nanny and be done with it. Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE my babysitter, like, REALLY love her. And so do my kids. But for the months before Christmas, every time I would have to go to a meeting or an event or just lock myself in the office to get some work done, I would come home to kids who missed me the whole time I was gone, who became super clingy for the rest of the day and night and who kept saying over and over how much they wish I didn't have to go away so much. The guilt that I was feeling and the mounting childcare bill where getting to the point that I was starting to feel ridiculously overwhelmed. And I started questioning whether 'having it all' or 'trying to do it all' was really worth it anymore.

Turns out it is not.

And the time has come for me to make a few changes in my life.

The first of which is that...

Natural Urban Mamas, THE STORE, will be closing its virtual doors.

This was a very long and hard decision to make, but one that I know is right for me and for my family at this time. I want to thank each and every one of you who has supported me on this journey. I have learned so much about life, about business, about myself and about the strength and determination that lives in so many of you through this adventure called entrepreneurship. I have made some life long friends and probably a few frenemies along the way too. I thank you all for lifting me up and making me want to be a better person, a better mother and a better business woman.

I want you to know that I am not going away. I have spent a lot of time and effort in educating myself about and being an advocate for babywearing and breastfeeding and all kinds of aspects of natural parenting. This part of Natural Urban Mamas will remain. I will still be doing workshops and speaking engagements and you will be able to find me here on the Natural Urban Mama blog or on Twitter or Facebook whenever you need to. Just know that I may not respond as quickly as I have in the past, because I will likely be watching someone learn to float on their back all by themselves or I'll be hanging out at the museum with a certain bug-crazy small individual.

“The work will wait while you show your child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work.”

Patricia Clafford

I want my kids to remember these years and our time spent together and I want to know that I did all that I could to make it memorable for all of us.

Thank you all!

Much Love,

Natasha~

And lucky YOU! Starting on January 30th and while supplies last,

Our "UNTIL IT IS ALL GONE" Blow-out Sale will be happening at Natural Urban Mamas.com!