Today I went to a zoo I hadn’t been to before, and I’m not sure what to think about it. Having yesterday been to the (free) National Zoo — where signs all over tell you the animals are on a planned diet and please don’t feed them — I was surprised that when I was…
priorities
Nothing is good enough
Oh, how many varied ways there are to disappoint a four-year-old. Or maybe it’s just my four-year-old. Time to pull out a parenting book and see just how much I suck as a mom and how much things are going to developmental stage plan. Here are a few of the gems I heard today between…
Poetry and motherhood
Last month I attended an amazing session on the politics of writing motherhood at the Split this Rock Poetry Festival. Read more about it here in a piece I wrote for Mothering.com
Time to chill
I woke last night around 3 a.m. with that sad feeling of having finished something and, though it was successful, feeling like I could have played it better. Said more thank yous, not left Slow Food DC off the resource list, not been so snappy about having to rearrange the room or not having any…
Navigating the birthday present conundrum
I was pretty comfortable with my “No gifts, please”/Birthdays Without Pressure approach until last week when my newly-four-year-old son said of the friends coming to his playdate, “But I want them to bring presents!” Am I an evil mommy for pushing low consumerism on my kid? Or am I just feeling the sting of letting…
Hot Momma finalist
I just learned that I was a Top 25 Finalist for the Hot Mommas Project whose mission is “to increase self-efficacy in women and girls by providing scalable, global, free access to role models online. “ My case is titled “Spreading the Word About Healthy Living” and can be found in the case library. The…
How long until Daylight Savings Time ends?
Four-year-olds do not sleep when it’s sunny. That’s an exaggeration, but I cannot say that I am in love with this early switch to later sunsets. The hour shift has been tough enough when we’ve had three more weeks of gradual, natural lightening to get used to the idea. But now that it’s mid-March… Ouch….
The day after
It was nice to have such warm & fuzzy feelings about my son yesterday, but today I just feel guilty. He was so whiny and out of sorts this morning. It’s great that he can adapt well to situations (like yesterday’s marathon of being in others’ care), but I feel like we always pay for…
Tired and missing my kid
It feels good to look forward to seeing your son. Lately I’ve felt so swamped — and especially after all that snow with no break — I haven’t exactly loved all my many minutes with my boy. Today I went to the National Institutes of Health for a conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC),…
I sewed! It’s a miracle!
While cleaning out a closet in the midst of the current series of snowstorms, I came across some felted wool that I cut out to make a little person as my last project in last year’s Waldorf school Parent-Child class. Now, I might have made my son a Halloween costume, but I’m not one of…
What is a snowstorm good for?
Just what all does one do during a snowed-in weekend like we’ve had here in the DC area? I got an email this morning telling me that DC Metro Moms Blog was low on posts, so I imagine I’m not the only one who did not use the time to catch up on writing. (I…
Holistic living in the news
So, a columnist whose work I really like wrote about me and my Holistic Moms group in the Washington Post in an article that was titled on paper “Healthier eating, a nibble at a time” but appears online here as “No need to go hog-wild in making healthier food choices.” I already posted some comments…
Time for mom?
I guess time management experts consider my time writing this to be part of my 30 hours of weekly “leisure time,” so I’ll keep it short. Brigid Schulte has written about this elusive free time concept with regard to moms in the Washington Post Magazine. Definitely interesting stuff. Better stop multitasking and actually listen to…
The call to simplify…
A friend sent this piece by Ann Patchett as inspiration for taking oneself seriously as a writer. I love it and did find inspiration in it, but I also found it rather divorced from the world of being an at-home mother. Additionally, I am someone who seriously needs to spend a good bit of time…
I’m a jealous friend
This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on December 18, 2009 I am a jealous friend Hey there, Misery. I’ve got some company you haven’t met yet. They’re called my friends. May I introduce you to each other so that you feel so lonely? And so I don’t? Lately I’ve been really making use…
Waldorf School Advent Garden
I just wrote this post at my column on the Washington Times Communities. The main idea is that I found this simple ceremony of children lighting candles and walking through a spiral of fresh evergreens to be profoundly moving. It’s late, and I don’t know why the photo of the apple candle wasn’t loading to…
Craniosacral therapy for my son
I don’t claim to understand exactly what craniosacral therapy (CST) does, but I believe in it. I’ve read some books by Dr. John Upledger, and I’ve talked a whole lot with my practitioners about my body and my son’s body. And I’ve seen its results firsthand. I’ve been getting CST for six years, since I…
Putting my son on the table: craniosacral therapy
I don’t claim to understand exactly what craniosacral therapy (CST) does, but I believe in it. I’ve read some books by Dr. John Upledger, and I’ve talked a whole lot with my practitioners about my body and my son’s body. And I’ve seen its results firsthand. I’ve been getting CST for six years, since I…
My legacy
This pumpkin is cheerier than I am these days. Now I understand how my mom must have felt with chatterbox me as a preschooler. My son will not stop talking. Or singing. Or shrieking. Or making vroom noises. Or just plain saying, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Are you listening to me? Mommy! Mommy! Listen to me,…
Toy’s the Season
So what do you do when a near-elderly neighbor gives your kid a Toys R Us catalog (along with a few other Sunday inserts) as though it’s a gift? After my husband accepted this offer, I ought to have put the stuff in the recycling bin immediately. But they went onto the floor of the…