It’s too late to be up when you’re planning to be at a conference at 8 a.m., but I just have to say how excited I am to be attending the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). There is lots to learn! One place to start: To…
Apple picking… in our yard?
We just realized that our new home has an apple tree in the back yard. It’s probably not going to get a whole lot of light, and I doubt the apples will fully ripen, but we’ve enjoyed using the apples in the juicer with carrot (and some beet, celery, parsley and ginger). Since organic u-pick…
Book Review: Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood
Do you know and love a future – or new, or veteran – elementary school teacher? The perfect Back to School gift (or sugar-free Halloween treat) is Phillip Done’s Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood. Like his first book, the hilarious and tight 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny (which I…
Helping children with aggression
“But he showed remorse,” said my kind friend when I called her crying to apologize that my son had bitten hers at school. “What more could you want?” Um, for him to not do it at all? Really, what I want is for my son not to feel that kind of out-of-control anger. I know…
Fighting the flu naturally
I haven’t been pro-vaccine for a long time, since I got the flu vaccine in my 20s and felt terrible. Now that we’re facing a potentially bad flu year, there is a lot of talk about vaccines for flu and specifically for H1N1/Swine Flu. I’m hoping that the alternative folks are right that the best…
Great play about WAHM
This past weekend, I got to see a (free!) reading of a new play by Karen Brody, author of Birth: The Play. At the Kennedy Center, as part of the Page to Stage program, actors read from evolving scripts, including Brody’s one-act “Michelle Obama: Taskmaster”. The play introduced us to Beth, a working-at-home mom of…
Birthdays — the key part is the “happy”
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on August 31, 2009 Birthdays — the key part is the “happy” My mom and I used to get giddy about our almost-shared birthdays, which are two days apart in early March. But in 1987, nine days before my 14th birthday — a week before my mother’s…
Let patients get the full picture
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on August 19, 2009 Let patients get the full picture “This is why health care costs are so high,” hissed my endocrinologist when she looked at the results of the labwork my holistic physician had ordered. To her, the additional blood tests were a waste of time…
Mama’s turn at dress-up
I’ll keep mum on the details for now, but it’s amazing what a job interview has done for me. Having to buy a clothes and dress shoes that actually fit, a bag, and jewelry has been a great exercise. I’ve had a reason to take myself seriously as a Person in the World, not just…
What did the boy inherit?
A few months back, I finally did a cheek swab test on my son to see if he did in fact inherit gluten sensitivity from me. I’d ordered the test from Enterolab almost a year earlier on the advice of Melissa Diane Smith, author of the fabulous book, Going Against the Grain. For some reason,…
Away from home
It’s seriously happening. I’m spending the night away from my son. My first in 3.4 years. And all thanks to the internet. I posted a few months back on a moms email list looking for a place in the metro area where I could just go and work on the laptop all day long without…
Shopping cart etiquette
This post originally appeared on August 5, 2009 on DC Metro Moms Shopping cart etiquette I hope I didn’t just shame my friend at IKEA. It was a rainy Sunday morning, getting busier by the minute. Long gone was the relative quiet we enjoyed within minutes of our 10:15 a.m. arrival. The sight of so…
To be not at BlogHer
I waited too long. By the time I decided that we’d be in an okay place with the move and that yes, I could justify the money to fly to Chicago for my first solo time since becoming a mom, BlogHer was sold out. I’d hoped that the conference would get me over the hump…
Back to writing (or at least thinking about it)
Back to the real world! I’ve been totally focused on moving for the past week (really months, but especially this week), and there’s been no small amount of frustration (see “Life without internet,” my post today at DC Metro Moms Blog). But I’m taking a break this afternoon to check out a writing workshop with…
Life without internet
This post originally appeared on July 18, 2009 on DC Metro Moms Life without internet I’m stealing bandwidth from a neighbor’s unsecured wireless network to write this because my phone company has told me I have to wait twelve days — twelve days! — before they can come figure out why I have a dial…
Jaw and hip pain
I have a friend who thought she had an ear infection but instead was told by a D.O. that she has TMJ – jaw pain. I mentioned to her the connection between hips and the jaw but had no resources to share to back me up. I’ve heard it from numerous practitioners from dentists to…
Essay published in Exhale
The July issue of Exhale: A Literary Magazine for Intelligent People Who Have Lost a Baby, or Have Trouble Making Babies in the First Place includes a fabulous (and award-winning!) piece by my colleague and friend, Kim O’Connell. “A Feast for What Was Lost” is a must-read. My essay appears as this issue’s featured story….
THE DC writer mama says goodbye
Ouch! I just read in my DC Baby Newsletter that DC Baby author Sarah Masterson is leaving town to return to Austin, Texas. I probably should have known this long ago if I’d been paying attention to anything besides my impending move and the havoc it’s wreaking on my son. But I didn’t know Sarah…
How much more annoying could we sound?
At first it was kind of cute, my son inserting “actually” into his sentences. And then he started doing it all the time. It has been one of the first verbal habits I’ve started to find pretty annoying, actually. Damn, there it is. At first I thought it was annoying because he was using it…
When regular life looks scary
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on June 24, 2009 When regular life looks scary: the DC Metro crash I’ll never forget the first time I was in the car with a mommy friend alone, sans kids. Ahead of us, a Metro train was slowing into a station, and I instinctively called out,…