The moment I realized I could no longer handle teaching high school, I was sitting in a Teaching for Change-organized class with Enid Lee, one of the authors of Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development and a huge force in the area of critical literacy, which was…
priorities
Anatomy of a spring “break”
When I was a teacher, I considered spring break a reprieve from grading and early morning wake-ups and dealing with adolescent angst in 120 flavors. But now that I am a mom with school-aged children, spring “break” is a misnomer. It is a week when I feel the weight of responsibility of keeping to a…
Traffic choked the cherry tree
After my last post whined about the tough time I’ve been having, I really intended to write something more uplifting the following day when I was feeling better. My friend who has been teaching herself energy medicine did a phone consult with me that really turned things around Thursday night. The biggest issue she identified…
Special Needs Mommy
You know that kid who’s always a handful at a playdate? The one who needs an extra eye at a birthday party? The one who can’t handle surprises, or who needs lots of support through transitions? The one who can’t tolerate the smell at the farm field trip no matter how many times the teacher…
Finding space for moving pieces
I appreciate that parenting is an amazing opportunity for personal growth, but I kind of feel like my psyche is about to explode. I can’t say that it’s my brain, because that would imply a boast about smartifying, which I’m decidedly not. And I can’t say that it’s my heart exactly, because it’s not the…
Happier at home … by staying at home?
The more I channeled Happier at Home author Gretchen Rubin this morning, straightening up and dealing with clutter, the more I started thinking about ditching the chance to see her speak tonight. Talk about shooting the messenger. She didn’t exactly say the words “don’t do anything that doesn’t make you feel joyful” in what I read…
One person’s happiness is … musings on marriage
Hearing about someone else’s marital problems is a guilty pleasure, but only until it becomes cause for envy. In her new book, Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin shares the little things that bother her about her husband Jamie (who must be a really good sport to put up with this public laundry-airing). I liked hearing…
Under a January sky: Welcoming 2014
It didn’t look like it was going to go well, this New Year’s Day. I had been eating pancakes all morning (sugar-free and GF but not GAPS-legal) and was wearing the world’s frumpiest sweatpant/pajama combo. My daughter was reaching up to the counter to help herself to the sausage she didn’t eat at breakfast while…
Longest month ever: November illnesses befuddle
It feels like about 90 days since I woke on November 1 with the intention of blogging every day for NaBloPoMo and working on my novel every day for NaNoWriMo. I made it three days for sure (maybe more that I didn’t tag!) had some great and productive mornings, but I have also been sidelined…
City mouse, country mouse, suburban mom
It’s been a lifelong desire of mine to live many different existences at one time. I wanted to be a jet-setting child actress and also live a life of quiet contemptation from my perch in the treehouse. I wanted to be a busy, driven academic and also a party girl. Today, I want to be…
The importance of laughter
This post is part of the first Humor in Parenting (and Breastfeeding!) Blog Carnival inspired by the anthology Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding, a collection edited by Rachel Epp Buller and published by Demeter Press in August 2013. The anthology looks at the lighter side of nursing. All of its contributors found something…
A day at home
I’d have loved to jet off to my first yoga class in 8 months or just go somewhere to write, or have my husband take my kids out for the morning or the afternoon. But I had cranberries and apples to use and a chicken to cook, so instead we made pie, and two kinds…
What does “vacation” look like?
When you’re a parent, vacation seems like two four-letter words. If you have taken one recently, I’m not sure I can handle hearing about it. But tell me anyway. I have a friend who recently posted on Facebook a screen shot of her phone texting with a friend about what they should take to New…
Early morning hours
The goal this year was to get up by 5:30 a.m. to exercise, do yoga, and get centered for the day before starting on breakfast to get the kids out the door at 7:45. That went great, until I broke my toe, and then my daughter got sick. I rebooted with waking early to write…
Why didn’t I think of that? Grandma saves 1/72 of the day!
It might be said that I had a perfectly fine day, parenting the children alone from 9 to 5 on a Sunday. Except that I appear to have gained 5 pounds from stress-eating and might have let my children’s eyeballs get singed by TV and computer screens. At least it was from gorging on Mr….
A weekend of many possibilities
For nearly a year, I assumed I’d be out of town tonight. I would either be at the National Women’s Studies Association national conference, hosted this year by my alma mater, the University of Cincinnati. It would have been a reunion of sorts, and I’d have had the chance to talk to people about the…
Humor in Parenting (and Breastfeeding!) Blog Carnival
The hilarious anthology Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding was published in August by Demeter Press (and reviewed glowingly by Literary Mama). The editor is heading up a Humor Blog Carnival this month. Details below! The book contains some 30 essays from mothers sharing the funniest breastfeeding stories you’ve ever heard. Even if the…
Jealousy in the face of children’s periodicals
Maybe it’s just because I have a fever or a painful skin issue that came out of nowhere, but I’m feeling sad when I look at the issues of High Five and Highlights that are currently taking up real estate on my bathroom floor. I just for the first time took a glance at the…
So many choices! A blessing and a curse
The same things I love about a day home with my kids are the same things that drive me nuts. I’ve probably said this before, and I’m much more accepting of this contradiction these days, but I still feel it. At least the feeling is more like an ironic chuckle than an internal war that’s…
The desire to write: swallow and spit
Some might say if you can’t reflect, then just live instead. I like the concept, but in practice, it drives me crazy. How people live and live and live and manage to be happy only posting about it on Facebook and not writing about it in long form — or to at least have time…