In the next few weeks, I intend to highlight some of what I got out of the Holistic Moms Network national conference in more detail. For now, though I want to at least mention what an inspiring and yet frightening talk I heard from the founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, Barbara Loe Fisher….
Sleep saga continues
Well, there’s a first time for everything. My son fell asleep in front of the television on Friday. We normally do not have the television on during waking hours except on weekends during sporting events. So it’s not like there was ever really the opportunity for this before grandpa wanted to check on his stocks….
Let that fever go
After my son’s first illness in a while, I’m so glad I’m still nursing and that we can still create a family bed. Last night my son said he had a “stomachbake,” and he clearly had some gas, but he fell asleep fairly easily around 7:30. Then, when he woke at 9:00 p.m. crying, I…
Counting the Minutes
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on October 13, 2008 Counting the Minutes I came into this mothering gig already Type A, feeling short on time to pursue all my interests, but the concept of “money is time” didn’t hit home until I was at home, full-time. As a salaried high school teacher,…
Yard Sign Blues
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on October 10, 2008 Yard Sign Blues This can’t be the right address. I checked my notes from the Freecycler’s email. This was the house. But it can’t be. There’s a John McCain sign in the yard. I looked back at my toddler son and thought, “Baby…
You may rest now. You may not pinch Mommy.
Isn’t he sweet? Napping in his new bed, or rather, his old double futon that takes up half of his new room? If only this shot represented reality more than cover model head shots. We are not napping. The kid is so wound up, you would think someone else in his family teaching him that…
Celebrating changes, looking ahead
Around here, we are finally feeling ready for a big purge and reorganization. There is too much stuff, and we’re ready to simplify. In some cases, the stuff we will toss (or recycle, or Freecycle, or sell) just doesn’t reflect how we live anymore. I keep thinking that once I get rid of all the…
Chasing sleep and a room of one’s own
Naps are hard to find around here these days. My son has just turned two and a half, and he’s not napping about 60% of the time. This might not be such a big deal if I hadn’t failed to teach him how to fall asleep on his own or to stay in one place…
Glad I Never Made It
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on September 26, 2008 Glad I Never Made It I’ve always said I chose to live in the DC metro area because of the cultural opportunities. As a teacher, I took my world lit kids on field trips to the National Museum of African Art and the…
Small change
Leave it to the French to spoil a quiet moment. No, really it was my toddler, just choosing to blast a track from Putumayo’s French Playground in the middle of a rare couple connection. The three of us had just gone out for a nice dinner together — lovely walk in cool September air down…
Gluten-Free Baking
I took another great cooking class last night with Monica Corrado of Simply Being Well: Cooking for Well Being. This one was on gluten-free muffins and quick breads, which were delicious! We did a touch test to feel the difference between three types of rice flours: Bob’s Red Mill and Arrowhead Mills, which were very…
Giving up the Goat
I really hoped we could tolerate some goat cheese, my son and I. We bought some of the same kind we were eating a year ago until the chiropractic neurologist muscle-tested us and said “Absolutely not,” literally tossing the morsel I’d brought aside. “I just adjusted him!” she exclaimed, as though eating something his body…
Earning my keep
I just returned from my first tutoring session of the new school year with the boy I’ve been working with for a year and a half. He’s a student at a boarding school, parents living in Europe. The differences between his life experience and that of the students I used to teach at the public…
It’s 2008: Does he/she know where his/her children are?
Today it was in the Washington Post Style section that I came across the already-tired backpeddle, “We wouldn’t be asking these questions if Sarah Palin were a man.” I say: Bullshit. Although I concede that DeNeen Brown probably had to reference this position early on in her otherwise interesting and insightful piece on how women…
Babysitting Bliss/Blues
Childcare is a good thing. This is how I felt yesterday as I drove to the sitter’s house six hours after dropping E off for no particular reason other than to get to some writing, cleaning and posting stuff of Craigslist and Freecyle in the hopes of eventually seeing my basement floor again. Outside of…
Internal Egg Hunt
“I’m helping you take your temperature, Mom,” said my two-year-old son as he reached for the thermometer on the dresser. A 7:00 a.m. reading of 98.5 after a few days of similarly elevated readings seemed to indicate that I’d ovulated for the first time since he was born, 28.5 months ago. I hadn’t been charting…
Goin’ to Carolina (solo, with my son)
On Saturday mornings when I was a child, I spent hours watching cartoons before my parents came downstairs. It always startled me when one of our Siamese cats darted into my field of vision. After inhabiting a two-dimensional light-box world, seeing the muscular real-live animal removed my fantasy goggles. A similarly surreal experience was enjoying…
The belly is back
“Sugar is a bigger deal for you than gluten,” concluded my doctor as she perfomed muscle-testing on me. A chiropractic neurologist, she was very happy with my progress since my first visit back in October, 10 months ago. At that appointment, I was weepy and not very hopeful. Plus my son was clingy and grabby,…
Ani the Mami and Indigo Women
My husband was really trying to do something nice. In fact, he was trying to do exactly what I said I wanted: take initiative to get us out together as a couple. And he was thoughtful about it, purchasing Indigo Girls tickets after a drive in a borrowed car to the beach in Maine had…
Gluten-Free Casein-Free Pie Crust
“I’d given up on pie until I tasted yours,” said my friend S, who recently went gluten-free and dairy-free. I think she’s exaggerating, but I admit I was pleasantly surprised to taste the GFCF strawberry-rhubarb pie I made when we gathered at her parents’ lakehouse with three other families from our Bradley childbirth class. Yes,…