Love and Lollipops

If you’d close your eyes for a sec and paste a silly smile on your face, I wonder what you remember about the dreams you had about being a mother before your first was born.

Because before our children are actual human beings, who exist outside of our heads, motherhood seems just picture perfect.

Hugs and cuddles, tea parties and ball games, outings to the park and family trips, nutritious meals and a clean house - all the everythings that you could ever have wanted for your children.

But once those real live human beings (you know, the ones that you call your children) are born, it can be easy to just fall into the day to day grind and wear and forget about why you’re doing this.

So keep that silly smile on your face for just a few more minutes, and let’s talk about Love and Lollipops: the stuff that sums up motherhood.

It’s all about love (even when it’s not)

Let’s be honest here: motherhood is not a bed of roses. (And, if we’re being even more honest: we know it’s not going to be; that’s our klallah from Chavah’s chait - tza’ar gidul banim, right?)

It all really starts during pregnancy, but even once pregnancy is over, the fun isn’t over. You may struggle with nursing your newborn, with lots of nighttime wakes, you might struggle with behavior, with tantrums - the list goes on and on and on (and doesn’t even really end when they get married).

But despite the thorns hidden in there, motherhood is all about love.

It’s about your love for your child, and his love for you. That beautiful love that blossoms, unbidden (or sometimes bidden), after (or before) your baby is born. 

It’s about connection - connecting with your child, enabling them to connect with themselves, and helping them learn how to connect with those around them, and with Hashem.

Being a mother is not just something that we do, it’s part of our tafkid, part of our very essence as women in this world. It’s a bracha, a privilege, a duty.

But more than loving our children, we want to - and can! - love motherhood, love being a mother.

Despite the fact that it’s hard sometimes. Despite the fact that it’s externally unglorious and the world around us disdainfully turns its nose on those seemingly unglorious parts of motherhood. 

Despite all of that - being a mother is all about love… and of course, lollipops.

What’s with the lollipops?

Shortly after I changed my email signature to Love and Lollipops, a past client (who’s only slightly more health-nutty than I cam) emailed me. When she saw my response, she said, “I’ll take the love, but not so sure about the lollipops.”

But the thing about lollipops, is that they're not necessarily lollipops.

In my house, lollipops can be anything from a grape stuck onto a toothpick, to the leg of chicken, to a piece of broccoli. 

Lollipops are sweet, they’re iconic of childhood… and (at least for this chewy mom) they also mean thinking outside the box, not just doing things the way they’ve always been done just because that’s the way they’ve always been done.

It’s about saying “Who says that newborns ‘just cry’?” “Who says that kids have to come into your bed at night and prevent you both from getting the sleep you need?” “Who says that the newborn sage is just something you get through?” “Who says that managing is good enough?”

It’s about taking that artificial-coloring-and-flavoring laden, nutrient deficient piece of sugar on a stick and saying - hey, what if we turn this into a protein? A fruit? A vegetable?

What if we could have our figurative cake - that iconic or unavoidable thing - and eat it, too - actually enjoy it?

Love, and Lollipops

And that’s the foundation of what I do with my clients, as well as the information that I share here on my website, and elsewhere.

It’s about having the tools to be able to reconnect with that basic love, about having the knowledge to turn lollipops into “lollipops” and get as much of that delicious sweetness without the crash that comes afterwards.

Because here’s what I believe: 

• The newborn stage does not have to be a miserable time that you just have to ‘get through’. 
• Babies don’t have to be sleep trained to be able to sleep well. 
• And you can use the months postpartum to build the reciprocal love between you and your baby by meeting his needs as they come up -- and also learning how to meet your own during that hectic time.

And the best time to get started is before your baby is even born. I’m booking up now for the spring and beginning of the summer, and would love to talk to you about how we can make this newborn stage different for you, your baby and your whole family.

Read more about this package and sign up HERE.