Almost 2020 Now!

This year my family (kids, husband etc.) have moved away from Seattle! We aren't very far, but living on an island now sure is different! My favorite part is the calm and peaceful environment..my least favorite part is that I have to think a LOT harder about how and what to recycle...which I know is a blessing in disguise or growing pain I guess, but yeah. It is sure a good way to get involved with the scene of recycling!

Regarding recycling, I have always believed in it, and love that it happens. I grew up mostly in Portland, Oregon and we definitely collected at least all of our bottles and cans to bring to the stores to get our "deposit" back. I also always bought into trash being in the appropriate place, I remember as a young adult living in NYC my one time boyfriend was SO embarrassed when I walked back to pick up some trash that he threw on the ground, hopefully I was able to eventually pass along some good reasons to care but I don't know. NOW I am completely obsessed, it happened over the year which began with me getting accepted and going through a Master Composting/Sustainable Steward program in Seattle. I had applied a few years in a row and am SO GRATEFUL that I finally was able to get in and take part in it.

Having my options as far as recycling a bit more limited and now having to really take an active part in getting it to the right place has got me kind of collecting/saving "trash", with the goal of figuring out either where to take it to recycle. reuse, or even figuring out something to make of it! I was very inspired by the Recology Artist in Residence program artist in residence program that is taking place in Seattle over the last few years, who gets to use items found in the sorting of recycling to create pieces of art with...I am not so close to Seattle, but maybe I'll either do something like that on my own, or helping kids to do something like that which is also appealing to me.

Thanks for taking the time to read! In the last few years I totally forgot about this particular blog on blogger that I have, so I decided to post an update. We will see where this next chapter in life leads me! 

Summer Camp

Summer Camp has it's impact on all of us...fortunately for us, my father decided to contribute towards a week of a camp that my oldest daughter is at this week. It is an interesting side effect that it is pretty far away from our house, and it is a daycamp. It takes about 40m to drive out there and so now I'm looking at this week ahead of us and thinking about what I can do to kill some time during the day, with my little ones (4 & 2yo) during the day...

So far I have been tipped off about a Kids Museum, and also another Zoo (I say another because this isn't "the" zoo of Seattle that we usually go to). I am thinking of a beach, well lakeside, day too with a picnic etc. will probably be in order...and I'm hoping that one of the days we can hang out at the camp which is on a farm, and partake in all the activities there...of course the open days might not be open while camp is going on.

It's an adventure though any way you look at it! Combined with the constant dietary pivot even more so.

One cool added side effect is that between home and camp is Daddy's office, so we will be picking him up most days which is very nice. This morning he even drove with us all the way to the farm which was a fun surprise.

Maybe another Seattle Ferris Wheel day is needed sometime soon...

I haven't decided on any other summer camps but I really do want to get the girls into swimming lessons...so maybe we'll just do that instead. We are definitely enjoying this hot Seattle summer though.

What is a Nursette?

I had to google this one...I got an email from a big toy/baby chain store (from my registry 4 years ago?) advertising 50% off these things called "Nursettes". I imagined since it uses the word "Nurse" which refers to of course breastfeeding, it had something to do with little boobs? Maybe those nipple shields that help sometimes when women are having troubled nursing? Perhaps it is for shy nursing moms who want a small kind of cover to wear over themselves and baby for privacy when they Nurse In Public.

No.

Nursettes are little prefilled, premixed bottles of formula that are ready for baby. One of the things that came up in the google search even said that it was for newborns which I kind of reacted to. I reacted to it with sympathy for the baby who is fed that upon being brought into this world rather than the milk that mother nature made custom for that baby through mom. I felt tears welling up thinking about the mom who for some reason, either guilt, shame, or maybe medical reasons decided not to give this gift to her baby. I can only imagine the feelings that go with it.

Then I started thinking of the other side...the business side of it. I wonder if in the product development meetings,  that led to labeling this artificial human milk product after the process used to extract actual human milk from the mammary glad of a human, were hoping that the reference would make it seem more pure? More natural? I'm sure it is definitely more convenient than those cans that they sell of powder to mix into the stuff, I wonder if they sell "Nurses" for the larger babies? I mean if they use the word "Nursette" then it is referring to a smaller version of something called "Nurse" or "Nurses" right? Then I started thinking about little nurses and yeah, well I think that was about the time I googled the word because I had no idea.

I think I was hoping it was a cover, which I was thinking about blogging about because I personally never felt the need for a nursing cover. That would have been a much lighter blog post, research project, whatever the last twenty minutes was. I could have even supported that as I know some pretty cool moms who make and sell those (like LilSoak)

Now I think I just want to go snuggle my baby sleeping next to me as I type this up...and when he wakes up saying "Na-na!" I'll lift my shirt, and give him a sip of mommy milk so he can doze back to sleep...yawn...

Mobilize Mom!!

Ok, I've been registering a few domains recently...I sometimes can't help myself. The ones I have been contributing to the most frequently are:

Mobilizemom.me (as in "Mobilize Momme (Mommy)"
I am using this site to wax poetic about all the things I love to use to stream the efficiency of life as a mom of three. I only post when I have something relevant to share.

and...

JustRelaxMom.com
On JustRelaxMom I am pouring my heart out about my diet that I have embarked on, as well as other fabulous things that help me relax...hoping to post some spa reviews on here sometime soon!

Can you sense the mom theme?

I'm trying to decide which of these sites, or maybe another site, will make the most sense to post reviews about how kid-friendly different cafe's and parks are for kids...I'm sick of ending up at parks without bathrooms for example it's crazy! I think Saner.gy needs to become a big part of our country too...we could use it. Maybe I'll stick to my KristinBennett.com site for that...I can write about my Pike Market experience the other day...

Getting bigger and redder!!

I'm loving how this one is ripening!!