Small Shift, Few Changes and Some Cute Faces

I mentioned this a while back on my Facebook page — that changes were on the way for Accustomed Chaos. I took some time off last week to give myself some breathing space and now I am en route to new things to come for 2012.  December is hard on everyone with all the holidays and for me I had the added 6 year old birthday, balancing a new freelance job on top of two I had started a few months earlier and I will admit — I got a little burnt out. My brain was drawing blank and this space didn’t really feel like ‘mine’ at that time.

I am happy to have found the rejuvenation — all it took was a week of giving myself a break. That showed me just how much I love it here and love all your feedback — that I missed it so bad so quickly. One thing I realized that was feeling a bit off — and I have chatted about this before — is that my writing leaves a big part of us out — my kids.

I began this blog just over 2 years ago and my kids were young — their personalities were not fully apparent and I have watched them grow into these adorable, funny things and realized — their names on here just were not fitting. I mean, how more boring can you get then just their initials?  Couple that with the uncomfortablness (yes, I know that’s not a word) I had with sharing their photos, I wasn’t putting a whole huge chunk of me into this site & then what’s the point, right?

I thought a LOT about it. I spoke with my husband, I chatted with my Fairy-Blog-Mother (Jill) and thought even more about it. I feel — not dishonest — but not fully engaged by not sharing more about my kids. You know all about the children I lost, the fact that we have celiac disease in the house and my parenting philosophies, but having nicknames that don’t fit my children’s personalities and not sharing photos of their personalities — it feels weird.

I have been speaking to my kids over the past few weeks & yes I get they are young and don’t totally get it — but I chatted with them anyway. They know I write about them — so I decided to let them pick out their own names. I still wont be publically sharing their real names but they have switched up their online names a bit. Names they chose and that actually fit their personalities better. Protecting their names online is not because I don’t trust YOU but this is the world wide web and everything stays online that’s put online — I feel this is the best way to protect anyone from googling their name later in life and coming across something I write or someone writes about us.

I will also begin sharing photos of them — I don’t want our life memories to be stock photographs. Don’t expect anything too embarrassing though but you can expect to see more of their personalities and how seriously amazing they are.

I would love to take the time now to introduce you to my children … again:

Previously known as BIG P -- now MISTER SPEED

Previously PRINCESS R -- now wants to be known as PRINCESS RARU

Previously Babe E -- she want you to know she's not a baby but PRINCESS BEAN

What else can you expect? More recipes –  sharing naturally gluten and casein free dinners we eat with less “professional photos” and more what’s actually for real on my plate, more basic 101 about celiac disease and gluten free lifestyle, some cross-over of perinatal grief through Unspoken Grief, more parenting struggles, funny stories, everyday life, wishes and insights

… basically a lot more ME infused into this again.