Everything All At Once

I usually struggle with post titles but many came to mind for this one…Head Above Water, Steak and Potatoes, Finn at 15 Months, Must Love Dogs…

HI FRIENDS! Things are nuts over here. Nuts in a good way but nuts. Mostly it feels like everything is happening all at once. Not a bad thing but a lot to negotiate…and my house is pretty much a permanent disaster these days. Much in part due to this tiny tornado.

This little dude turned 15 months on Sunday and let’s just say there’s not a lot of sitting and relaxing happening over here.

This is a FUN age but a hard one too as Finn is very into exploring the world around him and exercising his independence while having minimal verbal skills and no real grasp on boundaries/safety quite yet. Janet Lansbury has been an extremely helpful resource for me as I navigate this stage. I know that where Finn is developmentally is normal and important for his growth and learning, so I’m doing my best to look at it positively and figure out how to work with him instead of just ordering him around (which is mostly fruitless anyway).

Finn is so, so, so sweet. Here are a few things he loves at 15 months.

• All things dogs, as shown by the photos above of him in the dog beds at a friend’s house. He is super into dogs and likes to sit next to them while they’re eating, sit on the other side of a closed door trying to look under the door if he knows a dog is on the other side, throw them the ball, pat them and just be around them.
• Open, close. On, off. He is all about opening and closing things and turning things on and off.
• Water. Splash pads, pools, bath time and dog water bowls are life for him right now.
• Sorting, unpacking and stacking. He loves to sort and move things around, unpack everything from drawers to cabinets to laundry baskets and to stack things like cups and rings.
• Being outside.
• Books. He adores board books and we read so many every day. It’s the cutest thing when he brings them to me to read.
• Shaking his head no and saying “uh-uh.” You can ask him a variety of questions like “do you want to take a nap, do you want some ice cream, do you want to go outside” and he’ll either shake his head no and say “uh uh” or do nothing at all. He’s very opinionated about the no’s but doesn’t get yet how to say yes.
• Speaking of nonverbal and yes’s, Finn will lean into me and hug me/cuddle me when I ask him to. Heart melting.
• Music and singing songs. Baby Shark, Wheels on the Bus and Patty Cake are his faves.

I could keep going all night but I need to get to bed. Haha.

Work has been a little intense lately and I am so very lucky to have the best babysitters. Yesterday while I was teaching Finn crawled into our babysitter’s lap, put his head down on her and went to sleep! I got home from class to find them like this.

My work is not traditional so sometimes it is hard to explain how it can be hard and/or stressful. I lead 200-hour yoga teacher trainings where I certify other people to become yoga teachers. It’s one of my favorite things to do but it also takes an insane amount of planning and organization. The teacher training weekends themselves are a lot of work but so is all the stuff that happens behind the scenes to make training happen like creating syllabuses, writing manuals and communicating with/managing the teacher trainees.

Last month I was thrown a huge curve ball by Yoga Alliance. They are the governing body of yoga and just announced a change to their standards for yoga teacher trainings. I won’t get into it in detail but it’s creating a ton of work and stress for me in redoing the curriculum for my trainings to meet the new guidelines, and also up-leveling my own training to meet the new standards. Ultimately, these are great changes but hard in the moment to navigate and pull off.

 

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Talk about bringing it all full circle. ? _ The studio where I fell in LOVE with yoga 10 years ago just got a new owner and a facelift…and I’m about to graduate their first group of teacher trainees from my 200-hour yoga teacher training next weekend. _ Never, ever in a million years did I think that this would ever be a possibility for my life. _ We limit ourselves SO MUCH. Every single day I fight those “who am I to be…” demons. They are for real and can be paralyzing. _ I have found an unbelievable amount of growth and opportunity through having the courage to take the next step and to follow the things that excite my spirit. Nine times out of ten I feel like I am setting myself up for failure and disappointment but what I’ve come to learn is that it works out more than it doesn’t. I’ve come to realize that the more energy I put towards the things I want to be doing, the more opportunities to do the things that I want to be doing show up in my life. It’s that believing in my worth that’s the tricky part. _ Dream it…and most importantly…DO IT! _ #yogalover #dreamitdoit #workingmom #selfemployed #entrepreneurlife #clt #cltyoga #yogagram #believeinyourself #yogateacher #yogablogger #charlottenc #fitmom #yogamom #bebold #joblove

A post shared by Jen | Peanut Butter Runner (@jen_pbrunner) on Aug 20, 2019 at 6:54pm PDT

All that said, I love my work and it’s been great to be back to teaching this week. I am teaching my regular weekly classes and I also graduate my Charlotte Yoga teacher trainees this coming weekend and start my next training in Tennessee at VIDA Hot Yoga in September!

Tonight I had to press pause on the overwhelm of work and enjoy a birthday dinner with Virginia. I met her at Rooster’s after teaching a class. I had the hanger steak, she had the salmon. We shared grilled squash with tzatziki and pickled onions and fingerling potatoes.

FUN FACT! The last time I ate at Rooster’s was with my mom the night that I went into labor. The last thing I ate before giving birth was roasted duck and coconut cake from Rooster’s. My water started leaking on the way home from dinner and broke about an hour later! Can you believe my 15 month old boy was in my belly in this photo!? I still think the whole growing a human thing is so cool.

Okay. Long and rambling post. Off to snuggle with my fur child and get some rest.

Do you remember what your last meal was before giving birth? 

Favorite toddler behavior resources?

What do you do for work!? I would love to hear about what you guys do for work!