When Barbara Bush passed away we lost not only a beloved first lady but also a one-of-a-kind role model for military spouses. Beyond her trademark white hair and pearls, her life holds valuable lessons for military spouses, just as vital today as they were when she became a Navy wife in 1945.
 
Embrace Adventure

​Though George H.W. Bush received an honorable discharge from the Navy in September 1945 after the Japanese surrender, the Bushes led a life not unlike those of military spouses, with frequent moves. Mrs. Bush supervised 29 relocations of the family and in 1974 when her husband was appointed US envoy to China, she joined him overseas and immersed herself in the culture, learning the language and riding her bike everywhere.

​At her Commencement Address at Wellesley College in 1990 she said, “whether you are talking about education, career or service, you are talking about life ... and life really must have joy. It's supposed to be fun!” When days are long, spouses are gone and moves pop up faster than summer weeds we could all benefit from this reminder to embrace the adventure with joy.

​Speak Up
 
Though widely considered America’s grandmother, Barbara Bush was not a shy and unassuming wallflower. She made her views on Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and even her own children widely known, laughing heartily when her husband’s biographer asked if she ever imagined that George W. Bush would be president.
 
As military spouses there can be pressure to assume a quietly supportive role and tone down personal views on hot button issues. Barbara Bush not only had her own opinions but she wasn’t afraid to share them. She allowed the public to get to know her and, thanks in part to her honesty, they responded by falling love with her.   
 
Give Back
 
Barbara Bush encouraged young people to “believe in something larger than yourself” and she lived the message she espoused. One of the first public figures to hug those suffering from AIDS, Mrs. Bush helped to destigmatize the disease, and the foundation she created in 1989 has raised more than $110 million to create or support literacy programs for men, women and children in all 50 states.
 
Barbara Bush knew tragedy in her life, especially after the loss of her three year old daughter, Robin, but she also knew that giving benefits the giver as much as the receiver. “Giving frees us up from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others,” Mrs. Bush explained.
 
Laugh Often
 
A recently rediscovered photo of Barbara Bush shows her in a gray tracksuit kneeling on the floor with her two springer spaniels, the dogs wearing outfits that match hers. Mrs. Bush’s sense of humor is well documented. She explained, “one of the reasons I made the most important decision of my life… to marry George Bush… is because he made me laugh. It's true, sometimes we've laughed through our tears… but that shared laughter has been one of our strongest bonds.”
 
Mrs. Bush knew how to laugh at herself, an especially attractive quality. In March the alumnae magazine for Smith College included an update from her that read, in part: “I am still old and still in love with the man I married 72 years ago. I have had great medical care and more operations than you would believe. I’m not sure God will recognize me; I have so many new body parts!”
 
Be Kind
 
The stories of the kindness of the Bush family are legion. Barbara Bush said, “the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat people, not just family and friends, but strangers you meet along the way.” A secret service agent who protected the Bush family described Mrs. Bush as “one of the most gracious people we’ve ever protected.” In fact her agents stayed with her body until burial.
 
Kindness is not as easy as Barbara Bush made it look. Far from a soft quality, being kind takes work and can be draining. It means endless small talk, remembering names and finding something of interest in each person, each conversation, but it’s the only path to real connection.
 
With her trademark humor Mrs. Bush explained, “One of the many things we have learned in all our travels is that it’s the people who count… Most people everywhere are interesting, and if you can’t find a friend, then maybe there is something wrong with you.”
 
Barbara Bush had many friends. She embraced them as she embraced her life: with kindness, humor and a commitment to giving back.
 
My favorite Barbara Bush quote is the one the speaks most to me as a military spouse: “You have two choices in life: You can like what you do, or you can dislike it. I have chosen to like it.” A choice that surely was not always easy, but one that made all the difference.
 
 

​Have you ever been told to “have a better mindset?” As a chronic worrier with a tendency toward worst-case scenario thoughts (when traveling I obsess over what I may have forgotten and then feel certain that my bags will be lost anyway) many well-meaning people encouraged me to change my mindset. But I struggled with how to change it, my mindset felt like part of my genetic makeup, akin to my wavy hair and weak teeth. Encouragement to “look on the bright side,” and be more positive and optimistic fell flat. I like my snarky sarcastic nature, if not my unruly hair or soft teeth.   
 
All this is to say, I had a pretty bad mindset about mindset until I discovered the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. Dweck literally wrote the book on the topic (and yes, it’s called Mindset). She contends there is more to mindset than an optimistic attitude. In fact she describes two kind of mindsets, not positive and negative, fixed and growth.
 
According to Dweck, in a fixed mindset, “people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits.” Whereas in a growth mindset, “people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.” It’s no surprise that people with a growth mindset are more accomplished and successful than those with a fixed mindset. It turns out that thinking we can grow, learn and adapt, often results in us being able to do just that.
 
Considering mindset as fixed versus growth changes everything. It not only removes good/bad and positive/negative from the equation but it challenges the way we encourage each other. Dweck recommends praise for hard work, instead of compliments based on talent alone, as one way to foster a growth mindset in others. Hard work may be it’s own reward, but hard work acknowledged by other is even better.  
 
So what does this new understanding of mindset mean for military spouses? As people that move frequently and are forced to find new jobs, social outlets and community resources mustn’t we already have the coveted growth mindset? Not necessarily. Dweck offers a mindset test on her website (mindsetonline.com) which I took a few weeks into our first overseas PCS. The results showed that I lean toward a fixed mindset.
 
I can’t say that this is a surprise. While I genuinely viewed our move overseas as an adventure, shortly after landing in our new home I began to compile a list of the things I couldn’t do: understand the monetary conversion, drive, decipher the accents, figure out the people, find my way around, and on and on. Rather than consider what I could do to learn these skills (create a cheat sheet for money conversion, study a map) I felt doomed to two years as an outsider.
 
I am sure I am not the only military spouse to have felt this way. But it turns out that we don’t have to. There is a way to change your mindset. In her book and online Dweck provides a practical roadmap for moving from a fixed to growth mindset. Her emphasis is on voices and choices, a freeing opportunity to take the focus off our circumstances (like PCSing) and consider our potential for growth.
 
Unlike the little engine who could my manta will probably never be “I think I can, I think I can,” but with my new understanding of mindset I realize it only needs to be “I think I can learn to.” And that’s a change in mindset that I can handle.    

​Hospital birth is the Walmart of delivery. The generic, big box store, one size fits all, no frills, experience. In fact I’d bet some of the sweet hospital volunteers I encountered moonlight as Walmart greeters. If you choose to have your baby in a hospital, you know they have (and can do) everything you need, but it’s not a terribly exciting choice and the fluorescent lighting sucks.
 
Birthing centers, especially those attached to the dreaded hospital, are more like a Target. They provide better backdrops for the gauzy photos that will clog your instagram feed and a feeling that your choice is more natural and chicer. But when push comes to push, let’s be honest, you didn’t want to be too far from the epidural, the OR and the NICU.
 
And home births, well they are the boutique choice. There is no sifting through cheaply made, mass marketed goods. No trudging through housewares and electronics to grab a box of KIND bars from the pantry area. This is all about you -- small, intimate, customized. Have your baby in a tub, in your bed, hell I just read about a woman who had her baby on a school bus (yes, on purpose). Forget about hospital visiting rules, invite over your yoga instructor and dog trainer, eat ripe plums while pushing, swing from a tree in your backyard, blast music and burn incense. Just hope that nothing goes wrong.
 
I guess it’s confession time. As it turns out, you can count me among the people of Walmart. I always knew my son would be born in a hospital.
 
What I didn’t expect happened the day after I brought him home, when a lactation consultant arrived to help me with breastfeeding.
 
After getting settled, she asked me a series of questions, chief among them the circumstances of my child’s birth. I explained that I had developed preeclampsia at 35 weeks and was induced at 37 weeks. After nearly 24 hours of medication to soften my cervix, which remained as soft as the tiled floor, and two wildly unpleasant and unsuccessful attempts at placing a balloon catheter (which sounds and feels like a bad circus trick) I accepted the offer of a c-section.
 
From the moment I decided on the surgery I felt calmer about the entire process. For me, the fear of how they were going to get a baby who wasn’t budging out of my vagina (thoughts of vacuums and forceps danced in my head) was far greater than the prospect of expertly slicing open my abdomen and plucking him out. Though the medicine administered made me shake like Shakira’s booty, the c-section was not chaotic or frightening in any way.
 
I explained to the lactation consultant that I had no complications and was healing well from the surgery. “Oh, honey, you had a traumatic birth,” she said, putting her hand on mine. “It’s okay, all hospital births are traumatic.”
 
Did I hear that correctly? All hospital births are traumatic? What has happened to our worldview when we label an institution that has saved the lives of countless mothers and babies as traumatic in all circumstances? This is more warped than my nipples after three months in a pump.
 
Prior to having my son I had a missed miscarriage at ten weeks. Feeling the sonographer move the cold transducer across my belly hopelessly looking for signs of life, the wait while she summoned the doctor and the inevitable, “there is no longer a heartbeat,” -- that was traumatic. Struggling with infertility while stationed in the Middle East with my husband, enduring months of disappointment and searching for a decent doctor, that was also traumatic. But having a healthy baby via the medical marvel of a c-section due to a health condition that was identified early and treated appropriately, having a say in my care, being attended to by knowledgeable doctors in a world class hospital -- that was most certainly not traumatic.
 
Real trauma, unfortunately, is much more likely when women buy into the romanticized notion of home birth at all costs, a scenario that often places mothers and babies far from life saving interventions when they may need them most. Real trauma is losing your life or your baby’s because a condition that could be treated in a hospital occurred outside of one.
 
Hospital birth is not perfect -- it often lacks privacy and comes with a glut of one-size fits all institutional rules. The gowns are hideous, the beds are uncomfortable and you may end up with Nurse Ratched. No matter how much essential oil you diffuse or soft music you play or twinkling lights you string up, you’re still in a hospital. It’s not trendy or posh or daring. I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

​Here we are, halfway through the year. I had high hopes for 2017: a smaller waistline, a larger bank account and oh yeah, better baby formula.
 
I think formula is great, and more importantly so does my son. But if Similac Advance could just get a little more, well, advanced, it would make my year. So here are my five suggestions for the formula of the future.
 
The Name - Infant formula. Ugh. I mean it sounds like motor oil. Synthetic or artificial breast milk isn’t much better. I like infant nutritional drink or breast milk substitute though both are a mouthful. Even shortening infant formula to IF is preferable. I know there are many savvy minds marketing formula. Can’t we come up with something better? Words matter. And the word formula isn’t doing us any favors.
 
The Price - My son goes through a large canister of Similac costing approximately $33 weekly. We’re able to afford this, and the price is worth it to me, but I can understand the sticker shock many moms get when they begin formula feeding. When you consider the cost in the context of the shaming that often surrounds formula feeding, I have to ask, if formula is so bad, why does it cost so much?
 
The Stains - Crayola has a whole line of no mess products including washable markers and paints. All I am asking is that they get together with Similac to create some no mess formula. I’ve googled ways get rid of the telltale brown formula stains but since, like most moms, I struggle to find time to sleep and bathe, going Martha Stewart on these spots is not an option.
 
The Smell - Okay, I admit it; I am accustomed to the smell now and may even have a bit of an affinity for it. My adorable kiddo almost always smells like formula and I am not about to let that keep me from snuggling him. If odors kept us away from kids we would have died out as a population a long time ago. But yes, at the beginning the smell really did strike me as strong and unpleasant. I can ensure that my freshly laundered clothes smell like a mountain stream so is it too much to ask that my baby’s formula smells decent?
 
The Disclaimer - I haven’t checked all formula but Similac includes a short disclaimer that basically says breast milk is recommended, but if you choose to use formula we have a formula that is right for your baby. My dad pointed this out to me as I was making Similac one day. “Jeez,” he said, “it’s not a pack of cigarettes.” I anticipated judgment from lactivists but not from the very product I was using. If the canister I’ve paid $30+ for could not remind me that my baby’s food is inferior or frame formula feeding as a choice (because for many moms it isn’t) that would be awesome.
 
So, hang in there formula feeding moms. I don’t need a self-driving car or smart house but a formula, I mean infant nutritional drink, that doesn’t stain, smell or shame me? Now that’s futuristic.