Our Outside Origin Story
In April 2019 our first daughter was born. We were living in DC and were so excited to grow our family with our little girl, Whitney. The first few weeks were challenging but wonderful. And then at 5 pm the day she turned 4 weeks old, the screaming started. It was textbook colic. Whitney screamed every evening from 5 - 8 pm. It wasn’t a cry… it was a YELL. If we tried to feed her, she would keep her mouth open around the bottle and scream. She loved pacifiers during the rest of the day but wouldn’t take them during these 3 hours. We tried everything and nothing would stop the screaming that started exactly at 5 pm every day.
About a week into this horror movie that was our newborn situation, I put Whitney in our Ergo Carrier and went outside. I simply couldn’t take the sound of the screaming bouncing off the walls of our small city apartment. We walked half a block with her screaming in public (which was also very stressful) and then suddenly she stopped. I checked to make sure she was breathing and found her calmly looking around. So we kept walking.
The Spring of 2019 felt like the rainiest season we had ever had - or at least it felt like that to me because I walked in it for hours every single night. One night it was pouring so hard that I tried to do our walk in our apartment building stairwell - Whitney did NOT approve and after 30 minutes of disturbing every floor in our building I finally grabbed an umbrella and went outside where immediately her yelling stopped. At the time we had an old lab named Gator who would do some of the walk with me. When his stamina wore out, I’d text my husband who would drive to wherever we were, load the dog in the car, feed me snacks and water, and then Whitney and I would continue on our way. This evening ritual became our biggest bonding exercise and our family’s lifeline for those challenging months.
We started using the phrase, “When in doubt, take her out.” The colic stopped when Whitney was twelve weeks old but that phrase turned into our family motto and stuck. Whenever Whitney would get fussy or start to cry, we would take her outside and she would calm. Sometimes I would bring blankets and books or little baby toys to play with while outside, but most times we just used the world around us. Outside, I could narrate all that we were observing, “Do you feel that wind?”, “The sky is so blue today.” or, “The birds are chirping loudly, I wonder what kind of birds they are.” Outdoors, I felt myself becoming the present, engaging mom that I always wanted to be. There seem to be a lot less to observe inside the walls of our small apartment in comparison to the ever-changing world outside.
Fast-forward five years. It’s now 2024, our family moved outside of the city, welcomed a second daughter, Gemma, lost our beloved old lab and adopted a very active cattle dog mix. We also survived a pandemic in the last five years and being outside has felt safer than being inside. Now, we spend hours outside exploring every morning and every afternoon. My husband and I have taken up hobbies that get us outside like golf, paddle boarding, and running. I get on video calls for work and people often say, “You look like you’ve been on vacation.” To which I respond, “Nope, I just spend a LOT of time outside.” And then usually get funny looks in return.
We ended up living this outdoor lifestyle sort of by accident, but the research backs us up. Spending time outside is scientifically linked to lower anxiety, depression and mortality, among a slew of other benefits. So at this five year mark, as we prepare to embark on a new stage of life with a kindergartener in school full-time, I am eager to make this lifestyle more intentional, and hope to encourage others to do the same.
