Joy and Wonder of Parenting

My son never seems to stop amazing me. From the first laugh to learning to count to learning to sing songs, each new event truly humbles me. I am inspired by how a child grows and develops. I find each step to be fascinating. My husband and I act as though no child has ever done this before. Part of this is certainly because our son is our first child. But what I am realizing more and more each day is that part of what is so beautiful about this process is watching him become an individual with his own thoughts and personality. Each child we have will surely be unique and fascinating.

Because of the beauty of watching our son grow and develop, we have taken on the role of active participant in his life. We try to be present with him throughout the day. Through this we are able to observe, support, teach and admire this little man. We are by mo means perfect in this process; it is ever evolving. However, our son is happy and smart and loved.

One of the other choices we have made is to choose gentle discipline and no-cry methods with our son. We still stay with our son each night until he is ready for us to leave or until he is asleep. We try and say yes more than we say no. We set boundaries to protect him without stifling his ability to make his own choices and mistakes. Because of it, our house is more peaceful even as our son heads towards three years old. He increasingly wants to do things himself. He gets frustrated when his hands are not skilled enough. However, we are able to mitigate some of that frustration by showing him what to do and saying, "Watch mama,"and then allowing him to try again. Sometimes he asks over and over again to watch mama. Other times it looks as if he were born with the newly acquired skill. We also acknowledge his frustration and try to transform it into positive energy. We turn it into a joke or something silly. Sometimes being held, or, in extreme cases, nursing him are the only comfort we can provide. However, I cannot bring myself to let him cry while leaving him alone. I know that when I am frustrated and upset, the first thing I do is seek out a listening ear or a caring shoulder. My son is learning independence at his own rate. Fortunately, that is what works for our family.

Finding joy and/or wonder in even the bad moments is what gets us through.  Even now that we are expecting our newest member of the family any day now, we try and focus on the positive.  Some days are harder to give our son all the attention he needs or wants.  Sometimes we can tell because his frustration level is clearly elevated.  We have tried to continue to make changes that give us the space to do what we need while still giving him the comfort he needs.  Some days that means we don't do dishes or pickup so we can read a couple extra books or play play doh before bedtime.  Some days it means we order pizza instead of having a home cooked meal.  Some days everyone is frustrated at the end of the day.  We try to forgive ourselves for the bad days and comfort each other in the frustration.  It is an ever evolving process but it works for us.  And he is only little once.  And more than that, we will only be a family of three for such a short time more, we are trying to cherish these days together.

Who is the Buxom Balabusta?

Hey Everyone!  Welcome to my blog!! I am so excited to share with you all of the exciting things I do with my family in my home to live a conscious Jewish life.  We strive to live consciously in that we try and make each choice we do throughout the day to be one with meaning and thought.  For example, we keep a kosher home.  We do this partly because it is halacha.  But we also do this because it is something that makes us conscious of our Jewish life each time we sit down to have a meal.  We also try and focus on selecting organic, locally-grown, fresh foods for most of our food choices.  Of course, Kosher meat in Northern Virginia can be a challenge.  We have found a couple stores that sell organic Kosher meat (sometimes even grass-fed or free-range/pastured) and there are great resources online.  We also have found that making a lot of our food from scratch has been hugely helpful when keeping Kosher while simultaneously saving us a lot of time and money. These choices are done to support local organic farmers.  It is also to promote a healthier lifestyle for us and teaches our children where food comes from.  We also try and select products for our home that are good for us and good for the environment.  This is always a work in progress and we are certainly not perfect.  It takes some trial and error and finding what things work for us. 

A little more specifics about me. I am currently a working mom of a 2.5 year old son and married to a wonderful man.  We live in the Northern Virginia area and are conservative Jews.  I converted to Judaism 6 years ago (today! on the last day of Hanukkah).  I married my husband a little less than a year later and welcomed our first son just shy of 3 years after that.  I am currently 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant with our next child (is it a girl? is it a boy? we shall see!).  We live in a small two bedroom condo and are a one car family.  We live a life full of so many wonderful things that we hope to share with you through this blog.

Why did I choose the name Buxom Balabusta?  Well, my lovely Aunt Sandy came over one year for Sukkot just after I was married and told me that I was a real balabusta.  Being that my grasp of Yiddish is very little, she had to explain to me what a Balabusta was. She explained to me that she is the homemaker who is able to do just about everything.  She cooks, she cleans, she raises the children and keeps the household running smoothly.  In our day in age, she often does this wile keeping a full time job and commitments to the community at large.  I was beyond flattered. Over the years, I have longed to start a blog and I knew I wanted the title to have Balabusta in it.  I chose buxom as the adjective because it describes both my physique but also a playfulness that I hope I will convey to you all as we get to know each other.


Over the next few days and weeks, I imagine a good many of my blog posts will be about my pregnancy, birth and children.  However, my hope is that this blog will focus on much more than this.  I hope to talk about living a Jewish life, raising Jewish children, and learning along with them as I did not have a Jewish childhood.  I also hope to share with you some of our favorite recipes, cooking techniques, meal planning, etc.  I also want to share with you tips on minimalism in living more with less.  And I'd love to share with you some of the ways we have lowered our toxic load in our home and lifestyle.  I hope that we will be able to foster a community through my blogs.  I'd love suggestions and questions so please feel free to contact me in the comments or by email at buxombalabusta (at) gmail (dot) com.

I look forward to getting to know you all!