Folk Tales Series

Posts in this Series

Cloth Diapering - It's easy, affordable, and stinky! hehe

Moby Wrap - And a little bit on baby-wearing. :)
Shaklee - The cleaning supplies we use.
Placenta - Why I ate my placenta... Okay, took it in pills.
Doula - I highly recommend hiring a Doula for labor!
Sleep - Our thoughts on "sleeping through the night."
Birth Control - Kind of a doosey.

There are a million ways to parent. You can go by any number of methods or you can wing it, but one way or another. your kids will learn from you. We get one lifetime to work this thing out and our children are blessed and cursed by our decisions.

I have dreamed of being a mother since I was a little girl. I imagined myself older, wiser, put-together. I guess I thought that the actual event of having a baby would make me into the mother I wanted to be. What I found, of course, is that I have no idea how to raise a child. I am lost in a forest of choices and confused with all the advice I've gotten. Miraculously, we are navigating this beautiful challenge, and I do mean by divine intervention. :)

After reading my dear friend Beth's blog about her decision to homeschool, I thought about how great it was that she shared her reasoning and her honest struggle. It's a benefit for those of us who love the Ball family to see how and why they are making such a choice so we can figure out how to support them. But it's also good for anyone to read because as parents we are constantly trying to discern the best way to rear our kids. Reading someone else's reasoning can really help us with our own. Even if we come to different conclusions, it's useful! {I highly recommend her blog as I can guarantee it will be honest, funny, heart-warming and exciting!}

So I'm inspired to share and explain our own decisions. It's a little bit scary because some of our choices are, um... weird. But this blog is meant for personal use so {hopefully} the people we love can see what we're up to and I love the idea of being transparent for them. Even if they judge me! It's okay, I judge me for some of these things. hehe Additionally, I am just plain excited about this parenting thing! I by no means think that we are doing everything "right," but I am just loving this journey! I love learning the hard way and I love the benefit of others' experiences. I really enjoy talking about these things not because I think everyone should do it our way, but because this is what I do. I Mother. It's awesome. It's my dream come true.

But I don't want to be contentious. Since there are literally millions of differing opinions on parenting strategies, some people take offense when someone describes their own. However when I ran the idea by another dear friend, Tessa, she excitedly encouraged me to do it! So another reason is added to the list: I want to write a true-to-life portrait of what it's like to do the things we do. We aren't special, but the ways we've chosen to raise our kids {and I'm sure they will evolve} are going to inevitably match up with different parents. I hope that somehow they find my modest little space on the web so they get a little honest insight! :)



Also, I'll post links to each post here as well so if you'd like to read them you can check right back on this page!