In honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to share a post I wrote last year in honor of my mom. You’ve probably gleaned from previous posts that I have a good relationship with my mother. The truth of it is that I have a great relationship with her: I value her opinion like no one else’s; I [...]
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Those of you who have been hanging out here for awhile have probably already met my dear friend Bruce Dolin. Not only is Bruce a husband, father of two sons (at least one of whom “is able to use an electric hand-dryer”*), clinical psychologist, former director and screenwriter, blogger, and the author of my all-time favorite [...]
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“Wake up, Mommy!” my four year old son called to me last night during that witching hour between the end of dinner and the beginning of his bedtime ablutions. “Huh?” “I said, ‘Wake up!’” “I’m not asleep, baby.” “Oh, I thought you were.” I wasn’t asleep. That was the truth. But I wasn’t exactly awake [...]
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On Sunday mornings, some people go to church. I go to the grocery store. The boys take turns coming along, clamoring for the chance to spend some time alone with me – and for the chance to get a free cookie from the ladies behind the bakery counter. This Sunday morning, my two year old [...]
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I’ve long been a fan of Tsh’s Simple Mom blog and her quiet, thoughtful tips for leading a simpler, more intentional life. I read her book, Organized Simplicity, last year after Baby Sister was born and, though I was tempted by visions of clutter-free closets and a playroom with fewer trip hazards, I never took [...]
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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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Baby Sister turned one on Saturday. In honor of her birth, I am taking this month to tell the story of the wild way she came into the world and our family. Please click here to read the first part of the story. Just over a day after I arrived at the Labor and Delivery [...]
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Baby Sister will turn one on Saturday. (My baby is almost one! How did this happen?!) In honor of her birth, I will be taking the next four weeks to tell the story of the wild way she came into the world and our family. On a sparkling blue Sunday morning last January, I gleefully [...]
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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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I know I’m not the first or the only person moved at the beginning of January to reflect on the year that just ended. But, when I saw Tsh’s list of 20 questions for reflecting on 2011 over at Simple Mom, I knew I wanted to stop and write on them. What can I say? Cliche, thy [...]
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This year Christmas falls smack dab in the middle of Hanukkah. This fact would have meant nothing to me as a child. Now it means a lot… — Please click here to read the rest of this post, in which I wonder about how to instill a sense of wonder in my interfaith kids during [...]
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I balance awkwardly on the edge of the tub, my daughter sitting on my knee, lunging for the yellow duck just out of her reach. I turn on the faucet and let the water run into the white plastic basin with its baby-shaped contours. When my oldest – now four – was a baby, we [...]
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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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Last week I was talking on the phone with a friend who recently moved away from our small Midwestern town. We were catching up on the start of the school year and her family’s adjustment to life in a new place, sharing stories about the different customs that seem to be attached to different communities. [...]
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I am bad at waiting. And there’s good reason for that, I think. Indeed, there is a way in which my whole pre-parenting life was an exercise in gaining independence and then control over my life. I followed my parents’ rules and my teachers’ directions. I studied hard and got the job I wanted. I [...]
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Labor Day 2007. Big Brother was born. As was my identity as a mother. Four years. High school. College. A president’s term. A son. — I was never supposed to go into labor. I have a uterine anomaly that was identified early in my first pregnancy that meant that I would have to deliver by [...]
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You can’t always get what you want / But if you try sometimes you just might find / You get what you need. – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards I’ve always found deliciously resonant the idea of a “fourth trimester” – that demanding three month period that comes right after a baby is born and is starting [...]
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It is my pleasure today to offer you a guest post by Wolf Pascoe of Just Add Father. I’ve only known Wolf, a father, physician, and writer, for a few months, but he swiftly earned himself a spot in my Google Reader with his insightful, beautifully written posts on the problems and prospects of parenting. [...]
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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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We had a party on Saturday morning in honor of Stage 14 of the Tour de France. We ate croissants and crepes, drank mimosas and cafe au lait, and paid half-attention to our children as we watched dozens of skinny men drag their bodies and their bikes up the Plateau de Beille. I’ve written before [...]
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I’m old, Gandalf. I know I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart. I feel…thin. Sort of stretched, like…butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday. A very long holiday. – Bilbo Baggins, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring I’m feeling worn out lately. That may [...]
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Hello. My name is Kristen. As a very little girl, I was called “Krissy,” a name that my mom’s brothers and sister still use for me and which never fails to make me giggle. I then became “Kris” and remain so to my parents, my younger brother, Husband, our extended families, and a few good [...]
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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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Last night after the boys were in bed, I was sitting in the glider nursing Baby Sister when I heard the familiar siren song of the ice cream truck as it circumnavigated our neighborhood. But instead of feeling that jolt of adrenaline that normally sends me running for my wallet, ready to dispatch a dollar [...]
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I have dirt under my nails. And that’s remarkable for two reasons: 1. I have nails. I have been a lifelong nail biter. My nails are usually bitten down to the nub, my cuticles a tangly, scraggly mess. But the happy occasion of my beloved sister-in-law’s wedding two weekends ago – along with the help [...]
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After 17 days on the road with 3 kids under 4, we are back home, grateful to see our beds, our toys, our books, and the 6 succulent strawberries that were ripe, ready, and waiting for us in our small garden patch. On our trip we visited 6 states and slept in 10 different beds. [...]
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Here’s some middle-of-the-night rambling from a nursing session when Baby Sister was two weeks old: You see a newborn’s eyes so rarely, but, when you do, you get the sense that her eyes are the key to some sort of secret ancient wisdom – as though she, despite being two weeks old, knows more than [...]
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I read with interest last winter’s firestorm over Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. But I wasn’t so interested in Chua’s parenting style as I was fascinated by our culture’s seeming obsession with titles. Western parenting. Chinese parenting. Attachment parenting. Free-range parenting. Can any of us really claim to subscribe to any of [...]
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Last week before we set out on our road trip I took Big Brother for a haircut. We arrived at the salon a few minutes before it opened and I, ever a sucker for his pleading, agreed to his request to play a “quarter game” at the neighboring K-Mart. In we walked to the vestibule [...]
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