There’s so much to report on from the Freedom for Family Wellness Summit. But I have hardly had the time to go through my the messy, sketchy notes I took while my baby girl slept in the sling. And as it turns out, I missed a lot of the conference because it was just too…
priorities
Peggy O’Mara at Family Wellness Summit
I promised myself I would not stay up late since I have to get up before sunrise to make it back to Reston for the birth panel at the Freedom for Family Wellness summit. But I also will focus better if I can at least share some pearls of wisdom from Mothering magazine editor Peggy…
Priorities, values, and goals… oh my!
“Priorities” pops up as one of my most used tags because this blog is essentially about my trying to figure out what my priorities are and how to accommodate them when they seem to contradict one another. Or when one supposed priority gets bumped off its seat for something I don’t claim to care about…
Blog Action Day: Water!
This Blog Action Day post addresses flouride, plastic bottles, and other issues of safety and environmental awareness related to water.
(Parental) craziness at the zoo
I witnessed some unfamiliar and disturbing behavior yesterday at the zoo. I’m not talking about the animals. So much whining, taunting, complaining, aggression, and general crankiness. I’m not talking about children. Some of the most pissy parents were out in force at the National Zoo yesterday, the most gorgeous Columbus Day ever (when arriving after…
Baby’s first photo shoot
Professional photos are not something I’ve pursued for my family. It took me over a year to redeem a free shoot I won from Holistic Moms Northern Virginia chapter‘s one-year anniversary party for pregnant belly shots. When I connected online just a week later with DC-area newcomer Lisa Hager of Red Thread Photography, I was…
“It has gluten.” Escape route from junk food?
Not so long ago, my husband took our son with him to get a haircut, where the boy was offered a lollipop, something he previously didn’t know existed. In my world, we would just say no thank you. It’s just Not. Something. We. Eat. End of story. If he asked, I would have just said…
Consumer confession
Bless me, Earth Mother, for I have sinned. To cut to the chase, I drove a full 22 minutes on a perfectly gorgeous sunny autumn day to buy a bucket of plastic toys. Virgin plastic. $29.99. Lots of petroleum. Bad precedent. I know, it’s not pretty. So why did I fall so hard? It’s complicated….
Counting the minutes
There are a lot of emails I haven’t responded to and much more interesting posts I’ve written and never finished getting list to and so never posted. There are a million books I could read while I’m nursing, but at this moment, I feel the need to shout publicly that I am going insane! Yesterday…
The second time around
I have an essay called “The First Time Around” in an anthology that is coming out soon, From the Heart: A Collection of Stories and Poems from the Front Lines of Parenting. It compares my first year mothering to my first year teaching high school and explores the desire for a do-over, to fix all…
Preschooler’s first movie: Babies
Although we are not media-free, I’ve avoided full-length feature films and had not considered taking my son to a movie before the age of six, at least. It just seems like way too much stimulation, not to mention the whole Waldorf thing about media stifling kids’ imaginations. But when I saw the trailer for the…
42 days to go? Until I have a baby?
A while back, I signed up for BabyCenter‘s “Your Pregnancy” updates. I think it was when I couldn’t remember if I was 27 or 28 weeks. Now I am 34 weeks and I just noticed that the header on this week’s email also shouts: “42 days to go!” 42 days? You have got to be…
“Leisure” time, yoga, and multitasking
I walked into the Enterprising Moms event with speaker Brigid Schulte almost 20 minutes late, which I figured was appropriate since the Washington Post writer was going to be discussing her Post Magazine piece on moms and just how much “leisure time” they have. Was this event “leisure time?” Or did it count toward some…
Can’t find time to write about not finding time
Well, I keep meaning to blog about the great Enterprising Moms (TEM) event I went to the other day with guest speaker Brigid Schulte who wrote this great article a few months back in the Washington Post Magazine: “The Test of Time: A busy working mother tries to figure out where all her time is…
American Idol 2010 — not a mom
How bad does it sound to say that because she is a mom, I’m glad Crystal Bowersox didn’t win American Idol? That’s not completely true. I just wondered how bad it would sound to say it. Make no mistake, I was and am a Crystal fan. I think she’s amazingly talented, so damn centered, and…
Now I’m the know-it-all
The other day, I took a prenatal yoga class for the third or fourth time. Amid all the cute bellies on first-time moms, I felt compelled to offer a dash of perspective from the side of motherhood — the one that’s been there already. The following post appeared May 25, 2010 as “Reality Check for…
I dreamed a dream Part II: Background
I wanted to stay in the moment in my post the other day about my dream that my baby might have Down Syndrome. But there are a couple of other background factors I’d like to acknowledge. First of all, we didn’t do any early fetal testing, so who knows. I didn’t even look into all…
I dreamed a dream (Part I)
As I slept the other night, a vision came into my head of a child with a crowded mouth of ill-fitting teeth. Then I heard the words, “She has Down’s.” My eyes popped open. It was the middle of the night, and my 4-year-old son lay sleeping next to me, with my husband on the…
Time to heal
Sigh. Sometimes it’s easier to mother when your child is really in a rough state. My son has been mildly sick for over a week, just sick enough that he’s been unable to go to school. And I’ve been unable to work. It’s been a delight to see him fully immersed in play by himself,…
Look both ways — a tale of a city and its suburbs
Having someone in from out of town helps you see where you live with new eyes. When my brother-in-law visited, I was kind of psyched that after my husband picked him up at Union Station, they got enjoy a lovely drive through the District — past the monuments — at dusk on a perfect summer-feeling…