Three Months

I'm slacking, cuz we're already 2 weeks past the day I took these photos, but here's my little 3 month old babe!  He's pretty damn cute.  These days he is smiling and laughing, he can grab and hold onto things, and he's pretty in love with a rabbit stuffed animal friend.  He's trying to crawl and rather annoyed that he can't get it down.  He sleeps through the night some nights.  He's a fan of baths.  He sleeps in the car and is great during outings.

As for me, I went in for another postpartum check up because at my 6 week check up things still weren't healing, so we did some silver nitrate cauterizing to see if that jump started the healing.  Unfortunately it did, but not enough, so when I went in for my follow up checkup, it was decided I needed to go into the OR that day and get the scar revised and re-stitched.  Oooof.  That sucked.  The thought of re-starting the healing process was so overwhelming.  There were tears shed.  But, a week later and it has felt better this whole time than it did at any point since giving birth, so I'm feeling super optimistic about it healing properly this time around.  I go in for my follow up appointment on Tuesday, so we'll see what the doc says then!

top: carters | pants: h&m | hat: carhartt

Eating Plants/Animals

Somewhat, seemingly, randomly, food has become a pretty forefront subject in my life.  Lots of things converging all at once, urging me towards a deeper thinking on food.  I feel like there are ebbs and flows in my life when it comes to considering eating habits.  I was quite conscious of it back when we were members of a CSA in Tacoma.  Then again, when we did Whole30.  Recently there have been various things that have all come into my life regarding food.  I got Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.  Dan mentioned wanting to pursue a vegetarian lifestyle. My good friend recommended the Jeong Kwan episode of Chef's Table on Netflix.  And I'm super conscious of what I'm eating right now because I'm breastfeeding and trying to increase my milk supply so that I, in turn, can nourish our son. 

Living in Alaska actually triggered a return to lazy, lax thinking and acting in regards to food.  For one thing, Alaska isn't the mecca for community supported agriculture or small, organic farms in the same way that Western Washington was.  While there are some prolific farms in Alaska during our short summer, winters are a bit of a food wasteland in terms of local, organic, sustainable produce.  And really, to live sustainably, regarding foods, in Alaska means eating in the way the native peoples of Alaska do.  Lots of hunting, foraging, and fishing.  And lots of storing up for winter.  The produce here is expensive and goes bad quickly.  It comes from thousands of miles away.

There's also the psychological issues, for me at least, that come with living back in the house I grew up in, and feeling the pull back to eating how I used to eat growing up.  And we obviously eat with my parents relatively frequently, at least once a week, and while my mom has occasionally wanted to shift towards a vegetarian lifestyle, it's hard to make that shift when not everyone in the household feels the same way, and you're the one who does most of the cooking.

So, there's the table with the cards, so to speak.  But despite the barriers, having the support of my partner in pursuing a vegetarian, and maybe vegan, lifestyle is so crucial.  In one way, it's just a nice accountability.  Having someone else helping you remember the choice you made, and supporting one another to continue making that choice daily.

I know a lot of meat eaters find vegetarians annoying.  I've been an omnivore almost my whole life, and even wrote an article for my college newspaper opinion column about how vegetarians aren't more compassionate than meat eaters after a friend posted a status stating as much.  But here's the deal.  I was defensive because, well, she was right. Every day I eat meat I choose to be an active participant in cruelty to animals.  And as someone who loves animals, some with a fierceness I didn't know possible (I'm looking at you Dusty, goddamnit), that choice to eat animals came with a lot of purposeful forgetting.  Forgetting the origins of the slab of meat on my plate.  Forgetting the intelligence and sentience of the creature whose torture and slaughter I invested in when I made that meat purchase as the supermarket.  

I've come to realize that one reason I've avoided confronting the issue of vegetarian vs. omnivore is that once I open the door to vegetarianism, it asks me to confront other lifestyle choices.  If I'm committed to changing my diet for ethical/moral reasoning to do with animal welfare, then I also must address the issues regarding human welfare in the clothing manufacturing industry.  If I'm committed to changing my diet for sustainability/environmental reasons, I also must confront the issues of fast fashion's contribution to pollution.  If you've been around the blog for a while you remember my commitment to buying only secondhand, vintage, or ethically/sustainably manufactured clothing that I made a few years back.  I've been pretty good about it until recently, mostly with buying clothes for Jack.  Damn you, Target, and your cute baby clothes.  It's hard when you're excited about your kid and want to get him all the cute things.  You push out of your mind that commitment you made.  And with myself, I don't buy a lot of clothes anymore since I'm not a fashion blogger like I used to be, posting outfits daily.  My wardrobe is a fraction of what it used to be back in my heyday of style blogging (and a lot of it is in storage in Washington right now, since I couldn't fit into much of it being pregnant last year).  But I recently shopped at Forever21 and H&M and I'd be lying if I didn't feel the twinge of guilt knowing that I was fulfilling a selfish desire for some new, postpartum clothes on the backs of the people who were exploited to make those clothes. 

So really, for me, it's a bigger commitment than just not picking up meat at the grocery store or restaurant anymore.  It's a question that cuts through the bullshit of doublethink and willful ignorance and forces me to confront the things I engage in everyday and how those actions affect my world.  The world I live in, and the world I will have to one day hand down to my son.  And beyond that, it's modeling the values that I want to pass on to my son as well.  Valuing other humans, animals, and the planet more than my own selfish desires and appetites.  

Life Lately

Years ago I used to do regular "life lately" blog posts.  Just little posts sharing some little things I'm currently thinking/doing/into/etc.  I've been taking more random photos lately, so instead of sharing them with no words, I thought I'd start doing "life lately" posts again.

Watching: This Is Us. After finishing Parenthood, I was on the lookout for a feel-good family tv show, and This Is Us delivered.  Also, it's great if you need the occasional cry.  Jack, the father in the show, reminds me a lot of Dan, so it gets extra emotional at times.  It's wonderful to see Mandy Moore again, too.  I won't lie, I loved A Walk to Remember.  I'm a little envious of her gorgeous hair in the show, too.  If you want a show with happy feels, I recommend.

Reading: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd + Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.  I just finished the former and it was a wonderful book.  It was recommended my many and definitely lived up to the praise it received.  
I got three Jonathan Safran Foer books, Eating Animals being one of them.  Since I finished my last novel, I'll probably pick up one of the novels I have of his and read it at the same time.  I watched the Everything is Illuminated movie many years ago in college so perhaps I'll read that one first.  But anyway, back to Eating Animals.  I've wanted to, for some time, change my lifestyle to a non-animal-eating diet.  It's always difficult, despite believing 100% that it's ethically and morally right, healthy for my body, and ecologically sustainable.  And since there are practically no places up here in Anchorage to access more sustainably produced animal protein, as opposed to in Washington state, eating animals has been even more problematic.  Jonathan Safran Foer's impetus for writing his book, Eating Animals, was the birth of his son and the responsibility that comes with parenthood, which is a place that Dan and I are in as well.  Dan came home from the grocery store the other day and announced that he'd like to eat a vegetarian diet, and I immediately grabbed Eating Animals off the shelf and started delving in.  
While my book reading resolution was focused on fiction, I'm looking forward to getting further into Eating Animals, and reading some of his fiction work simultaneously.

Thinking About: Getting back in shape.  While I'm certainly the flabbiest, and heaviest, I've ever been (not counting that time I had another person inside me), I mostly just miss feeling strong.  I feel very weak and out of shape.  My body feels like my muscles are atrophied and I really want to get back to some semblance of fitness.  My dream would be to join a Crossfit gym as I've wanted to do Crossfit for years, but $175/month for a membership to the local gym is just out of our budget right now.  I love going to a gym so I might join the Planet Fitness gym that is literally across the street from us, which would make it easy to get out of the house for an hour while Jack is watched by Dan or my parents.  I still have my Kayla Itsines workout PDF so I might try to work through that for now.  

Wanting to: Take more candid life photos.  Now that Jack is a part of our family, documenting little daily moments feels more important.  I've been trying to keep my big DSLR around to capture little moments with Jack.  I've been posting them here, but ultimately I'd like to cull them down to create an annual photo album.  I always adored flipping through my old family albums, seeing my parents when they were young, and remembering fun times from my childhood.  I've been very bad at printing photos, mostly because I was pouring so many images into my blog.  But I feel like it's important to capture the little moments, especially right now when Jack's development is blazing so fast and he's growing bigger every single day.

Missing: My family.  Mom and Dad, who live next door to us, have been gone since, basically, mid-January.  First, they were down in Portland getting my brother settled back into his home after he went to the hospital and was dealing with some medical problems. Then they came back, but we almost immediately left for Tacoma for a week.  Then they left for Hawaii the day before we came back from Tacoma.  They'll be gone for another week at least, though my brother is back in the hospital in Portland again, so they could cut their Hawaii trip short and head back to Portland to be with my brother.  It's hard being far away from family, especially when there are medical problems happening.  I'm used to being able to go to the hospital and us all being together to support each other.  Thankfully my other brother lives in Portland, and we have lifelong family friends who are basically family who are also in Portland, so he's not alone.  In the meantime, it's awfully lonely up here with no family around.

Two Months

This weekend has been so wonderful.  I always like the weekends because, even though I'm at home all day, erryday, having Dan home all day with us feels like such a treat.  Mister Jack turned 2 months old this weekend and it's so crazy to see how much bigger he is, and how expressive he is compared with just a few weeks ago.

I've had a renewed interest in capturing candid life with my "big" camera.  I think since I got a 35mm lens, capturing lifestyle stuff has been more enjoyable.  It's definitely a lifestyle/candid-friendly lens and I love taking pictures with it.  I feel like I'm out of the survival-mode period of new-mom-ness, so feeling like I have time and energy to be creative is really nice.

The boys are back in town

Well, the boys and me.  This past week we flew down to Tacoma, where I was shooting a good friend's wedding.  Jack went on his first plane trip (and the nice Alaska Airlines flight attendant gave him his wings!), met his great grandma, and was introduced to all our friends in Tacoma.  It was so wonderful to be back in a city where we feel so loved.  

We are at a crossroads thinking about where we will find ourselves, geographically, this time next year.  We don't really want to stay in Anchorage, even though it's affordable for us, and Jack + I get great healthcare, and my parents are here.  I guess when I put it that way it sounds pretty stupid to leave.  Anchorage just doesn't feel like the right spot for us.  So we're at a crossroads, trying to figure out where to plant our little family.

In the meantime we are back home in our little Alaskan apartment, staying cozy while the snow falls outside our windows.  I snapped these shots of Dan and Jack at our Airbnb in Tacoma last week.  These two dudes are my fav.