Life has been busier than usual here – I suspect you can relate? – and I’ve been finding time and opportunities to write harder to come by. I’ve also been lacking the inspiration to turn my thoughts into type. Sure, my mind is racing as quickly as ever, chasing ideas into well worn pockets in [...]
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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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Healthy baby. Healthy mama. Oh, happy day.
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I hate surprises. I always have. And it will come as no surprise to most of you that I am a planner and a control freak through and through. To wit: a few weeks before Husband and I got married, friends of ours threw me a surprise bridal shower. The ruse to get me there? [...]
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Big Boy’s birthday came and went during my blog hiatus, with nary a fawning, demonstrative post from me. I thought I might try to remedy that today, three years, one month, and one day after Big Boy made me a mother. Big Boy entered the world much the way he now chooses to live in [...]
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This week, Country-Fried Mama is hosting a blog carnival to help raise awareness for the Joyful Heart Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2004 by actress Mariska Hargitay with the mission of helping victims of sexual assault mend their minds, bodies, and spirits and reclaim their lives. According to Country-Fried Mama, “The topic [of the [...]
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How could I be ready for this next chapter when the previous one hadn’t yet been completed? How could I love anyone as much as I love Big Boy? How could I take care of two babies under two at the same time? A year ago today, at 12:47 p.m., I saw you, and I [...]
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Today it is my pleasure to offer you a thought-provoking guest post from Jana of An Attitude Adjustment. Jana and I first “met” in the comments section of Motherlode, a locale from which I have since fled, seeking kinder, gentler pastures in the bosom of my blogging community, but where she remains, honorably defending mothers [...]
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Today I am pleased to welcome Amber of Making the Moments Count as my latest guest in Amy’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor series. I met Amber last fall shortly after I started blogging (thanks again to Jen and Sarah of Momalom and their Five for Ten event). I was immediately drawn to her writing [...]
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During Sunday afternoon’s precious double nap, I sat at my desk, wrangling with WordPress, trying to format Katy’s guest post to have it ready to publish on Monday morning. My Internet connection was creeping its way along at speeds I haven’t seen since the early days of dial-up. I felt frustrated. I felt angry. I [...]
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I am a European mutt. The daughter of a dad who is half German, a quarter Irish, an eighth English, and an eighth Swedish and a mom who is half Czech, a quarter German, and a quarter Irish. All that makes me a quarter Irish. And I’ve got the freckles, sunburn-prone complexion, and Catholic guilt [...]
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I didn’t quite fit. In every good way. My legs were too long. My arms were cramped, the left one falling asleep under me. But it was perfect. As I was about to get Big Boy out of his crib after his nap yesterday, he asked, “Can you get in, Mommy?” And, instead of laughing [...]
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I’ve written before about my passion for plans, my delight in following directions. This weekend, I took those tendencies to extreme lengths, abandoning my instincts and trying to adhere to an agenda that did not work. We started potty training Big Boy on Saturday. In advance of this big day, I did some (admittedly scatter-shot) [...]
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Today is Ash Wednesday, a traditional day of repentance and the first day of Lent in the Western Christian calendar. I spent the Ash Wednesdays of my youth girding myself for 46 days of Going Without. My childhood Lenten promises, like my New Year’s resolutions, were usually those that involved a Giving Up. No chocolate. [...]
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I realized this weekend that I am not cut out to be a single parent. Husband was away for four days (that’s right, including Valentine’s Day; who said romance dies after marriage?) and I faced my first nights alone with the boys. That’s right (again), I am embarrassed to admit that, until Friday night, I [...]
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Last month I shared some of my concerns over Big Boy’s nervous behavior during what was supposed to be our trip to Disney World. A comment on that post by The Absence of Alternatives has been ricocheting around my head ever since: I read this post and I thought, “We went through the same thing!” [...]
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A recent article in the New York Times captured my attention, not only for its subject matter, but also for the comments that it drew. In “How to Speak Nanny”, Hilary Stout explored the uneasy relationships that exist between many working mothers and the women they hire to care for their children. According to Stout: [...]
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On Friday, Big Little Wolf posted a passionate and provocative piece about the value – both monetary and metaphysical – of parenting. Both the post and a comment by my buddy Jane – about an article she had read attaching a dollar value to the job a mother does – buzzed around my brain for [...]
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As I have mentioned before, Tiny Baby is not a fan of tummy time. Put him on his tummy and he becomes irritated. Ornery. Sometimes he’ll push up and roll over as quickly as he can. Other times, he’ll surrender to gravity, burying his face in the blanket, admitting defeat. Not surprisingly, Tiny Baby’s aversion [...]
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In a recent post at Privilege of Parenting, Bruce offered some advice to a reader concerned about the sleep issues of her six-year-old son. In his response, he shared the advice of two of my personal parenting heroines, Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack, the dynamic duo behind Sleepy Planet and the authors of the Motherese [...]
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Are you pro-choice? No, I don’t mean it like that. Do you let your kids choose – and, if so, how much? A post at Privilege of Parenting and a comment on a post of mine have me thinking about the choices our kids make and the choices we make for them. On Sunday, Bruce [...]
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To me, the most resonant of Gretchen Rubin‘s Four Splendid Truths is the third one: “The days are long, but the years are short.” Indeed, as far as this mother of two is concerned, truer words have never been spoken. For the past couple of weeks, I have really been feeling that “long” part of [...]
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The day after we arrived in Orlando, Big Boy, Tiny Baby, and I visited Downtown Disney. I was excited to introduce the dinosaur-obsessed Big Boy to the dinos at the T-Rex Cafe and thought we might just catch a glimpse of a Disney character or two. Won’t he be delighted, I mused. [Big] Boy, was [...]
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In the early days of Motherese, I reflected on the November shootings at Fort Hood. Many of the emotions that filled me then resurfaced this week, with perhaps even greater poignancy, in learning about the earthquake in Haiti. I feel like drawing the shades, locking the doors, turning off the television, the radio, the computer. [...]
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Dear M and S, After your shower on Saturday, thoughts of you mixed with the forced air of the heater to warm me on my drive home. About an hour after I left you, a squall filled the air with snow; the flakes danced horizontally, then vertically, seeming to grow up from the highway. And [...]
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A Belated Valentine from You to You
Feb 15
One of the unanticipated gifts from my foray into the blogosphere is the treasure trove of parental wisdom that I’ve discovered here. In sharing your own experiences as parents, as children, as adults, and as teachers, you have inspired me in ways both large and small. While pondering how I might honor the spirit of [...]
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