PARENT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Lindsay Ponta
Marketing Professional and DIY Blogger
BY PJ FEINSTEIN
How do you find time to
nurture your own creativity?
I f you’ve enjoyed any of the DIY projects
we’ve published over the past year, you
have Washington FAMILY contributor
Lindsay Ponta to thank. For more than 10
years, Ponta has been inspiring busy people
to explore their creativity on her curiously
named DIY and craft website, Shrimp Salad
Circus. These days, however, she’s spending
less time blogging and more time attending to
family—husband Andrei and their 3-year-old
daughter—and her day job at a nonprofit.

Here, the Silver Spring mom tells us about
her “perfectly imperfect” life.

What’s the hardest part about
juggling motherhood and
your career?
I’ve struggled with severe anxiety for much
I started writing Shrimp Salad Circus in 2010,
and it has been a constant in my life through
a lot of change over those years. I find that
having a network of friends—even virtual
ones—pushes me to keep creating.

Lately, I find that I’m making for the
memories rather than just for the heck of
it. I sewed up matching shirts for our last
pre-pandemic trip, and I adore those photos
because my daughter thought that matching
with mommy was the coolest. I’m sure that
when the teenage years hit, and matching
with mom is cringeworthy, I’ll treasure them
all the more!
What do you love about
being a mom?
I barely remember my first few weeks of
parenthood because breastfeeding had us
awake for a feed every three hours. One night
I zombie-shuffled over for a diaper change,
and as soon as I got the diaper off, my
8-pound little person shot poop 5 feet across
the room, taking out a couple teddy bears
along the way. I started laughing so hard that
I woke up my husband, who ran off to get
scissors to cut off the onesie.

I can’t stand it when people tell stressed-out,
sleep-deprived new parents to treasure every
moment. Sometimes there’s a blowout or a
10 Washington FAMILY FEBRUARY 2021
grocery store tantrum when you have nothing
left to give that day. But the unshiny moments
sometimes end up being treasures that you can
still laugh about until your stomach hurts years
later, and I love the daily accumulation of those
perfect little surprise moments.

What’s your biggest
parenting fail?
I like to think that we’re all doing the best we
can with the circumstances we’re given, so
I try not to think of anything as a parenting
fail. But the area where I feel like I most often
let myself down is modeling that it’s more
important to do the right thing than to do
the easy or comfortable thing. I feel a huge
responsibility to guide my daughter toward
becoming an empathetic, caring adult who
stands up for others and is vocal against
injustice but also treats her own time and
mental health as the precious things they
are. That’s a hard thing to navigate when you
haven’t mastered it yourself.

What’s your favorite way
to spend a weekend with
your family?
We love to hike and are lucky to have so
many wonderful places for it in the region,
so we started calling our weekend hikes
“adventures.” We have an adventure song
that we chant as we meander. We find
treasures (sticks and leaves) along the way
and try to spot animals like baby frogs,
not-so-baby snakes, deer, squirrels and
hedgiecorns. They’re hedgehog unicorns, and
they’re exceptionally rare.

How will you be celebrating
Valentine’s Day this year?
Valentine’s Day, like all recent holidays in our
home, will be a very handmade affair. Every
few months, we put together craft kits for
some of our little friends, and then we drive
around for a day dropping them on doorsteps.

It helps us feel connected to the friends who
feel like family and who we miss terribly. My
self-proclaimed “little present elf” is always
worn out by the end of the day, and my craft
supply stash is a little bit more manageable. n
PROVIDED PHOTOS
of life, and I put a lot of pressure on myself
to always just “make it work.” When my
daughter was born, I realized I have to take
care of myself so that she’s growing up with a
strong, balanced mother instead of a harried,
defeated one. For me, that meant prioritizing:
My family comes first and then my job. My
side business happens if I have the time,
instead of between midnight and 3 a.m.

I’m constantly battling the urge to do it
all—and to do it all perfectly, no less. I want
to teach my daughter the concept of “good
enough” so that she isn’t in my shoes 30 years
from now trying to cram an extra eight hours
into the day. Because as hard a time as I have
practicing what I preach, I truly believe that in
many situations, done is better than perfect.