Today a friend in my writing group sent a link to a contest for essays about “what this inauguration means to you.” I don’t know if I can come up with anything intelligent-sounding by midnight January 8, but I will say that I had a lump in my throat today when we saw part of…
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Train them young to be stay-at-home dads
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on December 27, 2008 Train them young to be stay-at-home dads I know that it’s ridiculous in this economy to say that I didn’t want my husband to find another job right away, but it’s true. He’s been a consultant working on a contract basis for a…
Book Review: 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny
As a writer who often has to tap on the keys for hours and pages before I can find the most important thread of an essay, I have great admiration for authors like Phillip Done who can present a smart, witty and fulfilling treatment of a topic in just a few paragraphs and at the…
Catching up, catching ripples
A long, long time ago — even longer than my last blog post, if you can believe that — I decided to undertake a project. It was for a pregnant friend and a newly unpregnant sister-in-law: a journal that I wish I had to keep track of the changing realities of being a new mom…
Reduce = Relief
This post originally appeared on December 10, 2008 on DC Metro Moms Reduce = Relief One sister wants socks. The other wants to just to re-gift or to do a white elephant. The brother is always gunning for t-shirts. This year, the name of the game is one item under $10. Two years ago, when…
Teacher, can you please make that mean mommy shut up?
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms Blog on December 7, 2008. Original comments follow below. She called her daughter rotten. I think the girl is 18 months old. After several weeks of cringing in mommy & toddler Spanish class listening to Mean Mommy shout “No!” and “Don’t make me come get you” in…
Don’t come in this store!
It’s always bugged me that the Babies R Us near my home has this mixed-message sign on its entry door. The white-line-divied red circle screams “don’t go there!” but the wording says “Entrance Only.” The other day I happened to have my camera with me, so I finally documented the insanity. Above is the view…
Diversity and Language: Not Just Words
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on November 21, 2008 Diversity and Language: Not Just Words “How do we say manos in French?” my two-and-a-half-year-old son asked, his open hands twisting on his wrists high in the air. “Wait, he’s learning two other languages?” my friend asked, head cocked to the side. French…
Clearing the Clutter
My son finally has a room with a bed, no longer a double futon on the floor that takes up half the room. I am finally feeling like a grown-up parent. Here is his room now moving clockwise. All that’s left is perhaps some work on the walls — art or shelving — and curtains…
Mama Bloggers Show Motrin What Pain Is
If you’re not on Twitter, you might possibly still not know about this phenomenon (I didn’t until yesterday). Motrin released a snarky anti-babywearing ad in the hopes of garnering more pill-popping consumer support. What the company got was a big dose of mad mamas. Women started Twittering about the condescending ad in droves. Here is…
Happy and healthy Halloween
This year’s Halloween was a great day with crisp air and squeaky clean blue skies. I’m happy to say that, at two and a half years old, my son had a blast without having any clue that Halloween and candy have anything to do with one another. Here’s what we did: 9:00 Parade at school…
People who live in houses with smudged glass doors should do some cleaning
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on November 13, 2008 People who live in houses with smudged glass doors should do some cleaning When I brought out a spray bottle of Parsley Plus to wipe off our patio table during playgroup, my son nearly outed me as having a housecleaner. “That’s for Selma,”…
Coconut Oil – new study shows it might help with pneumonia
The Washington Post recently published an article entitled “Coconut Oil May Help Fight Childhood Pneumonia.” The study was only done on folks taking antiobiotics (no group that wasn’t on meds), but it did show that the folks who also consumed coconut oil daily had a quicker recovery and had lower levels of the “crackling” sound…
Just Like in the Books – Boy Gets a Bed
This photo is artistically rendered to obscure both my son’s face and my husband’s thinning hair. (btw, the masthead on this blog is a similarly altered-in-Picasa chunk of a photo of my son’s mouth and nose. Can you tell from the hyperpink in this bedroom rendering?) The heartwarming scene depicted here is of a father…
Election ’08: One more take
Everyone and her dog is writing and talking about the election. It’s one of those phenomena we all have to talk through endlessly to process. Did it really happen? Yes, it did. The United States of America elected its first black president. Two weeks ago, a campaign button made the impact of this reality —…
A Tale of Two Airports
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on November 1, 2008 A Tale of Two Airports “What year are we in — 1993?” I asked my husband as we stood waiting at the old terminal of Reagan National Airport for Northwest to produce our bags. Two tired carousels sat glumly like rides in the…
Happy Halloween – 33 years later
I don’t give my mom enough credit a lot of the time. But the woman can sew! In 1975, she made this leopard costume for me. It’s been worn by nieces and nephews, and now, by my son. Thanks, Mom!
Smacked in the Facebook
I’ve just recently lost my Facebook virginity. It happened a few months ago, but I’ve been in denial. I created the account using my secondary (read: hardly checked, used only for esoteric Yahoo lists about traditional eating and food allergies) email. Then I just ignored my page. When I checked back during vacation in July,…
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….
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,…