Marriage of the Types

How our childhoods shape us and how we respond, etc.
Which sparked the quandary, "How do the types respond?" How do the types respond to _____.

Which further solidifies my feeling that marriages should more often be analyzed based on types.

I think the fault of marriage books is that they tend to to lead based on gender, while helpful to a point, seem completely unhelpful to marriages like mine which appear "ass backwards".

What are the stereotypes? It's too general to say "women are irrational" (ever meet a female INTP? I have. Bitch please.) or  that "men don't want commitment" (Ever met a male ISFJ? Known for loyalty and lifelong relationships?).
We're left not understanding eachother. All we are told is that Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, and then simply, "you will fight a lot".

Is this true?
It seems the deeper you dig, the more patterns you cold almost predict.
 What do you think will happen if you throw an INFP with an ISFJ?
What do you think will happen if you put two low conflict types together?
A nurturing type with a feeler? How about a feeler with a thinker?
What other components factor in to an extroverted/introverted relationship?

For an INFP and ISFJ, an example of advice might be: "A major challenge for your relationship may be to practice assertiveness with others", "set boundaries early and don't over schedule", and "careful to not let take advantage of his giving nature".
For thinkers and feelers, to be patient and understanding of the other. For the introvert and extrovert, to find compromise and make small sacrifices in small incriments.
Sarah spends the movie lying to her family, manipulating everyone around her, and keeping her near fiancee at a distance. Brian knows her son well  the relationship between Sarah and Brian in Saving Sarah Cain.
He understands her and sees through her need to manipulate others for love.

Motherhood Rising: LadyBalls

My mom was just reminiscing with me about a silly day from my first grade years.
She talked about the kid who "stole" my lollipop. "Stole" is probably what she heard. Actually, as I recall, I gave it to him. He asked me. It wasn't even out of generosity, he already had one, I was just too shy and too "polite" to tell him to buzz off. This silly story brings me back to how those people pleasing/confrontation hating habits have gotten me into plenty of trouble over the last 6 years.
"No."
"No" is actually pretty new for me as I was generally a people pleaser before I had Oliver. The experience of having my son turned me into a completely different person. The last 6 months have completely undone my last 6 years.

When I was in college, I was badly manipulated by a young man I'd been friends with for a while. He pushed my boundaries of comfort and I would stop communications with him, rather than communicate clearly. I actually hoped he would just not notice and maybe leave me alone. This of course didn't work and apologetically I would resume our relationship. This backfired as he pushed me further and further, as I felt telling him "no" was not polite and I found myself in a worse and worse situation. Far enough that in his disregard telling him "no" simply didn't work.

Following that experience, I began to learn and identify peoblems, enough to breed some understanding and empathy toward others, but not enough to change me.

What has propelled me the furthest 6 years later was the birth of my sweet little boy. He brought with him some real treasures.
Our pregnancy, labor, and even postpartum were very complicated and sometimes traumatic. Even now I am struggling daily with it.
Reeling, I hashed out my very angry WTF postpartum experiences with a woman who, after pointing out the nightmares of our story also pointed out to me the treasures I could dig up from them- the biggest being my ability to simply do what I want to do.
The implications of this time in my life propelled me forward by its sheer impact. enough that 7 months have passed and I still cannot go to work without thinking about my pregnancy and birth, wrought with anger born out of trauma, trauma born out of our own passive natures.
But the treasure is that now I simply have no time tolerance or patience for passivity. The treasure is the newfound gall to listen to my gut against opinion, put my foot down, say no, be in charge of my choices, son, care. Disagree, to not worry about offending or dancing around the issue, to make my call, to be selective with the communication I allow to be directed toward me, to take control, be concise and honest for the sake of other people's valuable time, and for my own sake. To have courage. To not be made to feel badly for choosing something different. To not be coerced. To not go so far as to justify when someone treats us poorly, as I have done. To not choose unsupportive relationships.

It feels simple now, because it is not worth it to be walked on. Bad habits can be devastating.
I have recently thought of myself as a former people pleaser and it feels like something gross that is stuck to me. I shudder at it and it will no longer be my identity. I don't have to be that person and I refuse to be.
I am left now, stuck in the middle of this healing and changing process, seven months later, beauty mixed with pain, and a treasure in each hand.. the treasure of my perfect boys and of personal growth.

These last months, never in my life have I feel so unheard. I fear sharing my story because it has not always been met with validation. I feel trapped in this.
I am so angry and I hope for healing. And I'm not sure how to move past all of this. But I do know how to prevent it from happening again and it is worth it.
I've been thinking about the people pleaser thing a lot. I no longer want to identify as one and only recently realized that I dont have to, though I have my whole life, growing out of it since the birth of my son. Now I am passionate about being assertive and direct, and not feeling so bad about treating the things that are important to us as important. It's a hard lesson and it's so valuable. I stress to others how important it is to make the change in order to prevent something very damaging from happening down the road. But maybe for some of us it will not click until the experience transforms us.
Either way, I'm never going back! Assertive. ♡

Seasons End

Theres not a lot "new" with us, we're just busy settling into a routine over here. I work mornings Monday thru Sat, and Zane works the rest of the day/late night, so our days start early and end late and are busy with work. I think for this reason going down when Oliver does in the afternoon is a real necessity for me.
Right now Oliver is doing better at home in the morning since he's adjusted to taking the bottle I leave for him, which is hugely relieving on all of us. It is awesome as well to no longer be "wasting" milk every day. Glory hallelujah.

Car trips/grocery store runs are getting better but really touch and go and we usually avoid them and have Zane pick up groceries. We DID make it to church last week, but we left as soon as Oliver saw all the people (and royally and loudly lost his s***.. so did we and in our moment of  exhaustion decidedly committed to not doing it again.. not kidding) however he did really good the last time we were in a group so we'll try again this week with our chins up and coffee in hand.

I am simultaneously looking forward to preparing for the next season, and holding on to this one as much as I can, soaking up everything I can from it.

The next season..
Winter and Spring will include planning for overall positive long awaited changes in direction for our family, for which we are both anxious and excited.

Also later in the Winter or Spring (whenever he's ready after 6 mo) I'm planning on starting Oliver on BLW. I'm very excited for the whole process, especially at the prospect of him continuing to primarily nurse, so I think it will work well for our family. We'll be using the bone broth in the beginning, which I'm excited about because we can start trying it in the cold months, and we can all have some. :) I'm also curious to see if it will help with teething.

I'm looking forward too BLW, warmer jammies, holidays and change. Dreading sick season with a young baby in the house.

I'm holding on to today too, though. Oliver has a doctors appointment on Monday. It's not pediatrician ordered, it's just a perk of new babyhood, but I don't plan to miss it because these appointments are what keeps us in the "new" baby days before they're gone. They are part of our long-complicated-special baby story in my memory. ♡

Trifecta.

Its been a while since writing and I want to share.
This weekend I got to have a turn as bridesmaid to one of my favorite people as she married her favorite person. On top of that, my baby met LeeAnna's babies for the first time. ♡ He seemed to recognize baby as similar to him and he smiled at her. I hadn't met LeeAnna's youngest, and neither Leeann or Jo or Amie had met my new addition. These grown sisters were a second family to me for years (seriously, I actually lived with them) and it was so special to have our families together and participate in the last of us 3 getting married.

Speaking of babies.. mine is about 12 weeks now and a chunk! He's also been struggling lately with colic and reflux, and also does not travel well. Shout out to my husband who took us to Portland and volunteered in advance to take care of him this weekend (close by so I could nurse but not too close.. because.. well.. screaming baby) while I was busy doing wedding things, which meant a lot to me.

Oh, baby. If you feel like you haven't seen me, that's a big part of why. Aside from coming off a longer recovery and a slew of majorly isolating hormones (my sweet husband refuses to call it the "postpartum crazies"), some stemming from a very eventful and stressful pregnancy, and birth.. that aside it's now become just not worth it to try and take Oliver out for much gallavanting. When we take him out it's predictably and horribly unsuccessful, so I can't really go somewhere and bring him, and we don't have any more room routine/schedule wise for me to go somewhere and leave him with Zane (more on that later), but Zane knows how overwhelmelming it gets and gives his free time to me. So we're like a newborn hermit family.. which I think can also be described as.. a newborn family. This is fine. We are understanding that this is just where our family is at right now, this is how we stay sane, and that is perfectly O.K!

I just returned to work (new level of sleep depravation.. but I got a nap tonight!), but only work for a little while when the store opens in the mornings (about 3 hrs), and back before Zane goes to work himself, he works afternoons and nights. Nature's Pantry was so wonderful to work out this arrangement with me so that I can still watch Oliver while Zane is at work, and it won't mess with nursing. I feel so, so, blessed by this.

Speaking of, Oliver is again refusing bottles and spending almost all of that time angry at his dad about that, hopefully he will adapt again, at least to be ok for just a short time during the morning. He is a major cluster feeder and my first day he's wanted hours and hours (like 5.5)  of comfort feedings after returning from my short stint away. We haven't tried to get a sitter, this is on a very long list of reasons why. Yes, a long list. Baby has always stayed with me but incidentally this suits my current comfort levels too, especially since he's still pretty new.

At home he does very well when we have an uninterrupted routine. He will play and talk a little, but mostly he still just wants to eat and nap. He of course is overwhelmed easy, especially by new places and people (love that he knows both of us though!), but he's little (still technically a newborn until Friday!) and we work to go slow and do what works for us to function well until the next phase, whatever that may be.

As challenging as postpartum and nb babyhood is, I love this time just as much and I try to hold on to it because I know how much I'll miss it when he grows.. so I'm mindful to be in these moments now.

Lastly.
I love life as wife, part of the Nature's Pantry team, and now Mommy. If I step back and look, thats everything I've really wanted and if I feel like I'm just keeping my head above water sometimes because life is just so full, it really is drowning in blessings!
I haven't been giving much to God, but I still clearly see Him caring for, salvaging and changing me so that these valuable things can continue to grow in a healthy way even when it looks like I may crash them. And by the ways that we are changing for the better even though it's challenging, I really do believe that when He brings me to it, He brings me through it. And then it's still okay. And trusting Him and making those hard changes does make it better when it feels like it couldn't work that way.

That's all for now.

Postpartum crazies strike again.

I get the postpartum crazies and I get them bad. As stated previously, the husband concurs but refuses to call it "postpartum crazies".
Albeit some is hormonal, and some of it is risidual of trauma as we had an insanely eventful pregnancy and birth, and postpartum.
Some days, like yesterday, my moods swing and my brain forgets and I wonder where we are going.
And it can feel like this.

One inate treasure of motherhood is that timely gift of preservence, or rather, the most precious motivation to persevere. I push through and do my best because someone needs me. In this way, parenthood makes you better. You don't get to give up. And ultimately you make it to the next day. And if you make it to the next day, and to the next, eventually you make it to the last day of that season.

Support.

Support dynamics.. Personal  thoughts..

Countering Isolation.

"May I do "x thing" for you" to something as simple as "I am thinking of you" can go far enough so say it.

Stretch this out. It sucks to be reached out to at the beginning of a crisis and left alone in the weeks and months following.

Affirmation.

As in in lieu of criticism. I.e. Advice.

Confidentiality.

"Jame is sending prayers/advice" is just not what you want to hear before you've been able to share with said parties your personal version of the story.

"At least.." or "all that matters is.."

Nope nope nope nope. 

Consent and choices.

Theirs, not yours.

Validation.

"I believe you", and "I'm sorry this happened to you".

Validation may include empathy so long as one's experience does not need to reflect your own in order to be valid.