Some thoughts today, the third anniversary of the day I started blogging: All my life, I knew I wanted to be a mother. As an older sister, a babysitter, and a teacher, I trained for years for the day I would have kids of my own. For the first year after my oldest son was [...]
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In honor of my daughter’s first birthday, I am taking this month to tell the story of the wild way she came into the world and our family. You can read the first and second chapters here and here. It didn’t happen the way it does in the movies – the perky pregnant mom, decked [...]
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I have been a parent for four years, four months, and eight days. I’m not sure how many of those days it took for me to realize the only truism of parenting: There is no one right way to do any of this. — We worked on potty training this weekend with our two year [...]
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On Sunday I sat on the floor in the living room, kids napping behind closed doors, my husband watching football, and went through piles of outgrown baby clothes. Like an intake nurse in the emergency room, I busied myself with triage: the impossibly small polka dot sleeper my eldest wore home from the hospital saved [...]
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I’ve been writing a lot lately. Actually, that’s not true at all. I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and talking a lot about writing and reading a lot about writing. I’ve even been studying writing with a great teacher. But sitting down and actually writing? Not so much. And this not writing all the [...]
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I’ve been in a “Mom Funk” lately – so much so that I feel like I’ve forgotten my good parenting instincts and am looking everywhere for help in resetting my internal compass. I surf around Internet parenting sites that I usually never visit hoping that they will give me the answer to all of my questions, [...]
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For the duration of my pregnancy with Baby Sister – especially during the last few weeks of it when it seemed clear that my body was telling me it was not really meant to do this work – I was convinced that this was my last pregnancy. And when Baby Sister was born and she [...]
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I’ve been reading with great interest the conversation my friend Meagan Francis started over at The Happiest Mom about modern families hiring household help. And I know I’m not alone: in addition to sparking a hopping debate in her comments section, Meagan’s essay was featured at Simple Mom and Motherlode. I applaud Meagan for dipping [...]
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Regular readers of Motherese know by now that I want to be a writer when I grow up. But what kind of writer do I want to be? As much as I love to read fiction, I can’t imagine myself writing it. As for straight journalism? I usually inject too much of myself into my [...]
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I can’t remember if it was Bruce or Lindsey who first introduced me to the writing of the marvelous Katrina Kenison. But since I know they are both fellow acolytes, I don’t hesitate to thank them jointly for bringing Katrina’s writing into my life. I spent many of my quiet, before-bed hours this past month [...]
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One year ago today, I published my first blog post. For the first few months, I posted every day. Then I started posting six days a week. Then five. Then three. Now whenever. Those all felt right and this feels right too. For now, at least. I’m not sure what initially drew me to blogging. [...]
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I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately. Throughout our Raising Happiness book club and beyond, I thought about what makes me happy and when I’m happiest. And of course visions of chubby baby cheeks and Botticellian toddler curls danced in my head. As did cuddling with Husband. Sleeping late. Reading novels. Eating Extreme Moose [...]
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I’ve written before about my lack of personal style. As epitomized by my very “not me” purse, my wardrobe is a messy mixture of gifts, ill-fitting relics, and a few inadvertent gems. But what bothers me about my clothes isn’t that they are more Target than Lhuillier (that doesn’t bother me at all, in fact); [...]
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