Trad wives, sleep training, and Glen Powell

These are a few of my favorite things.

Hi! Week 2 of my newsletter, LFG! I’ll let you interpret that “F” however you choose, but I obviously meant flippin’. And I’m gonna try my best not to write another chapter book this week. My tired little fingers can’t take that again….

This week my mom, my girls, and I rented a minivan and drove to Greenville, SC to visit my sister and her husband who just moved up there and bought the cutest house! My other sister (who lives in Atlanta) came too, and we had such a fun weekend hanging out, eating great food, and playing with the girls!

But let me tell you what: there is no misery quite like a 10-hour car ride with 3 kids five and under. River came out of the womb hating her car seat. Harper is the most carsick child I’ve ever met, and Margot is…Margot. I gotta give it to the big girls; they did great. They were overall very easygoing and great little travelers…but River. River, River, River.

Not only does she hate her seat, but she’s at the age where traveling is horrible. I swear between the age of 8 and 18 months, doing anything that requires your child to sit for long periods is straight-up treacherous. Them children wanna be FREE. Yesterday I was thinking about things I’d rather do than be in the car with River, and here are a few absolutely TERRIBLE things I came up with:

1. Go golfing

2. Play board games

3. Give up coffee

Horrible, right? Right.

Okay, let’s get into it!

What I’m Reading:

I bought a new book in Greenville this weekend! It’s called Middle of the Night by Riley Sager. It’s about a man grappling with the disappearance of his best friend that happened 30 years ago while they were backyard camping together as young boys. I love a thriller, and my favorite read of 2023 was The Only One Left, which was also written by Sager. I’m only a few chapters in but I feel like this is going to be a great read!

What I’m Eating:

I’ve made these bowls nourish bowls twice this week, and they are soo dang easy and good! Just cook all of this up and assemble in a big ol’ bowl:

Roasted Carrots & Green Beans: Peel, chop, add olive oil, brown sugar, salt, and smoked paprika, cook on 400 for 20 minutes.

Orzo

Grilled Chicken: Seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.

Grilled Andouille Sausage

Arugula

Drizzle your favorite dressing on top! I love ranch or a creamy balsamic!

It’s so nutrient-dense, filling, and delicious! Cook extras of everything and you’ll have delicious lunches for the week…cuz we all know…cooking lunch SUCKS.

What I’m Listening To:

The audio of the Ballerina Farm interview.

If you guys aren’t in the loop, this week an article published by The Times came out about Ballerina Farm. I’ve been following her for years — like back when she had 200k followers — and I love her account so much! The article was shocking. The writer made her husband out to sound borderline psychotic and extremely controlling. She insinuated that Hannah had given up a life she wanted to stay at home against her will and raise 8 children. Like seriously, if you didn’t know anything about this family, you would think she was trapped in a miserable life she didn’t choose. And a lot of people DO believe that. I was even weirded out by some parts. The internet went absolutely wild, like they always do — #freehannah hashtags and all. But I was never quite sold on this slam piece. The “journalist” seemed like she had it out for the Neelemans from the get-go. And boy oh boy, did it backfire. She wrote a follow-up piece backtracking on a lot of things she said, and THEN audio from their interview came out which further confirmed that the picture this journalist painted was extremely exaggerated at best. I feel like Ballerina Farm lawyered up and threatened to sue this lady, right?! They are devout Mormons with a very different way of life than most people. And last night Hannah posted a reel addressing the topic which shocked me even more than the article itself. They have never addressed criticism before, but I’m sure they felt like this was something they needed to speak on. I thought what she shared was kind, classy and graceful. This journalist tarnished her family’s name and you can tell it really shook them. I feel sad that it even went this far. They invited this woman into their home to talk about their business and they were torn apart and attacked by the entire internet.

People think because someone is choosing to openly share their life on social media they have a right to speculate, comment, and judge. I feel like they often forget that these are real people with real feelings. Words hurt no matter how many followers you have.

Here’s a link to the article, follow-up article, and Hannah’s response. What do you guys think?

ballerinafarm

A post shared by @ballerinafarm

What I’m Learning as a Mom:

I haven’t shared this on Instagram, but I get questions about it all the time, so I figured it was something I would talk about here! I sleep-trained River about two months ago, and it completely changed my life. Before we start, can we petition to call it something besides “sleep training” — that sounds like we’re torturing our children. Can we call it, “teaching our children the extremely important life skill of learning how to sleep”? Because thinking of it that way really helped me feel better about it when I was debating whether or not it was something I wanted to do.

But River’s sleep was taking such a toll on me mentally and physically, I felt like it was worth a shot. My PPA was so bad with her I decided to get on Zoloft, and I really felt like poor sleep was a huge contributor to my anxiety. I was wearing her in a carrier for every single nap (and they were only 40 minutes 100% of the time). She was waking up in the middle of the night for hours at a time — it was awful. And I know so many of you are experiencing the same thing!

My thoughts about “sleep training” are this…it is not evil, it is not wrong, and it is not for everyone. But I got to the point where I felt like I was doing a disservice to River (and the rest of my family) by not teaching her how to sleep independently. I was so insanely frustrated and moody every night knowing what I had ahead of me and knowing I had to do it all over again the next day.

I have friends who let their kids figure it out on their own, and it works SO well for them! That is great, and I fully support it. But I’ve realized my third time around that at about 7 months, I no longer enjoy co-sleeping, and I’m ready for my space back. I used to feel so guilty about that because of all the shaming on Instagram, but I’ve realized in motherhood that if I’m doing something just for the sake of doing it and it’s making things worse for myself or my family in some way — I’m not going to do it. Regardless of what Instagram or your friends or your families say….and I cannot stress this enough…FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCTS AS A MOTHER. Your gut knows when something simply isn’t working anymore.

So, all of that to say, I mentioned this to a friend of mine and she told me about a course she bought for her daughter from littlezsleep on Instagram. She said it was a gentle method, and her daughter was sleeping through the night within a week. I bought it that day.

It is very straightforward, and she has a few different methods you can choose from depending on how hands-on you want to be. I won’t tell you all the details because I want this sweet mom who put the course together to make money off of her hard work! But within 3 days River was sleeping through the night. She sleeps for 12 to 13 hours with one wake-up around 4:30 am to eat. I put her right back in her crib when she’s done without any fuss or crying. She no longer naps in the carrier, and her naps are anywhere between 1.5 to 2 hours every day. There is very minimal crying…usually just a minute or two and oftentimes none at all. And I felt completely at peace with the process. I didn’t want her to feel alone or abandoned while she was learning, and I truly don’t think she ever did. I feel great about the amount of nurturing and care I gave and still give her while she sleeps!

And guys…on top of everyone sleeping again, she became a different baby. She went from my hardest baby to my easiest. The girl was chronically sleep-deprived, I’m not even kidding. She was miserably, miserably tired.

This month I decided to get off of Zoloft after about 5 months, and I know the only reason that was possible is because I am finally sleeping again.

Ultimately, I just want us moms to do what’s right for us and our babies babies. Sometimes giving them our best requires letting go of what we might think things should look like and doing whatever it takes to offer our family a happy, healthy mama.

What I’m Loving:

This swimsuit! Ladies, you will never look more snatched than you do in this baby. When I’m not wearing it, I look like one of those orangutans from National Geographic…you know the ones. But when I put it on: immediately Sydney Sweeney. It is $144, so definitely a splurge, but I mean…worth it to feel like Sydney Sweeney, right?

FYI, don’t buy a light color…I started with yellow and exchanged it for dark brown because, as my girls said when I jumped into the pool for the first time while wearing it, “Mommy, I see your boobies.”

What I’m Thinking:

I’m thinking… I’m about to add “kindergarten teacher” to my resume. I can’t believe it’s time for Margot to start kindergarten. I’ve been planning to homeschool since before we had kids. And then life’s events — between Adam joining the military, Margot’s vaccine injury, and some of the insane things public schools are teaching our kids — made me even more excited about my decision. I don’t trust big pharma, I don’t trust big food…so it’s hard for me to put trust in the government teaching my kids. I know that that’s a bit of a generalization. There are lots of wonderful schools with incredible (majorly underpaid) teachers, and I know we’re all making the best decision for our kids. But this is what will work best for us! And I feel incredibly blessed to be in a position where I can stay home and teach my girls. It is an honor, a privilege, and a leeeeeedle bit terrifying.

I’ll share more about curriculum and other things in the coming weeks as I continue prepping for the school year to start sometime around Labor Day!

What Are Y’all Up To?

Thank you to everyone who shared submissions this week! I’m going to try and share them all eventually, but I think I’ll start with 2 a week for now and go from there. If you don’t see yours, don’t fret. It’s coming! And this is where I would love for people to share their insight in the comment section (just get over it and download the substack app okayyyy?) I feel like you guys always offer such great advice in my DMs and I would love to give the same to these girls!

Submission 1: “How do other moms in the thick of it (toddler and baby stage) keep the spice and romance in marriage? Like are we scheduling sex with our husbands? Is lingerie still a thing? Is making out? Like if you’re being demanded of and touched on all day by cute, tiny, little tyrants…how are you able to have anything else for your spouse at night?”

Chime in moms! Who has tips? I agree that this is so hard! Being touched out is so real and whoooo wants to wear lingerie when you’re postpartum? I think in general we have to remember (and remind our husbands) that this is a very physically demanding season of life. Things might not be as spicy or frequent as they once were, but it’s not going to be like this forever. Connect when you can and also encourage each other that, God willing, you have a lot of years left together when you’re not going to be spending your entire day wiping butts and making snacks. One day soon there will be less poopy, more whoopie.

Submission 2: Okay guys I LOVE celebrity gossip…sue me. So when I got this dm, I was pumped:

Adam has jokingly been calling Glen Powell my summer boyfriend. It’s not my fault. I feel like he’s been in everything! He is absolutely blowing up. But this gal knew Glen in college before he was famous — she asked me not to share the screenshots, but the girl’s got receipts.

Let’s just say, pre-famous Glen was your classic college frat boy in every way. Here are a few snippets of our convo,

“we made out at a party…he was just a creeper after that.”

He invited her (and some other sorority girls) to his family’s ranch for a party promising, “one of the wildest times ever,” and apparently it has secret underground tunnels?

Can we pause for a question: is Glen still hosting these parties? I’d like an invite (not to partake, just to observe — I’m happily married to a hottie, okay?!)

“He was a really nice guy! I just think he was always cocky and tried to get away with a bit too much because he knew he was good-looking.”

^^ that tracks. She’s still friends with Glen on his personal Facebook page which he occasionally posts on. She sent me a few screenshots and the man is obsessed with his dog. And I can’t blame him, cuz the dog is freakin CUTE.

Celebrities…they’re frat daddies just like us.

Okay, that’s it for this week! Please leave a comment if you have any feedback for me or advice for our girly and keep sending in your submissions!

See yall next week!

xo,

Addi