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Strollerderby
The empty pages can cause more guilt than religion!
I read Madeline Holler’s essay, Growing Up Without A Baby Book: Is that A Bad Thing? with great interest.
I had just written my own confessional of sorts detailing the massive guilt I’ve suffered each day I let go by without really chronicling my newborn son’s life.
Holler talks about how free from the shackles of baby bookdom she felt after reading Jessica Grose’s essay over at Slate about going through her childhood mementos.
As she perused the box of keepsakes, Slate had a hard time reconciling her adult self with her teenage self and writes about how tossing all those childhood mementos her mother had collected over the years helped her move on. Continue reading »
Will this kid care about her footprints two decades from now?
An on-going battle in my life (or is it just in my mind?) is my love-hate feelings toward baby books. I love the idea of them — all that information, those little slips of paper, the cute photos — neatly arranged in a simple, decorative book, which I can flip through once my nest is truly empty.
The hate part is the actual assembly of said books. I’ve got three kids and .5 books ready for perusal. I’ve got the contents, of course, in the form of a growing stack of unmarked, undated papers and photos, envelopes of hair — the knowledge of whom any of it belongs to fading as each day/month/year goes by without me properly archiving any of it.
I feel a tremendous amount of guilt about the stacks, the empty (and, for my youngest, as-yet unpurchased) books. I’m kind of an information collector, and I want to do right by my kids in case they become hoarders, uh, info collectors, too. Continue reading »
At 3, Mommy is now optional.
Writer and mother of twins, Zibby Right, has been kicked to the curb. She writes in The New York Times Motherlode blog that after spending the first three years of her twins’ lives going from Mommy and Me this to baby playgroup that, she feels she is no longer welcome. Pre-school teachers wave good-bye before closing the classroom door behind her. Dance teachers ask that she step outside the studio. Rugby coaches want her to hide in the bushes.
Zibby doesn’t like this. Continue reading »
One of the great joys of parenting, for me, has been watching my kids play. From infancy right up to today, they give themselves to joy with a simple purity that lights up everything around them. I think I’m learning to be happy by watching them.
I’m heading back towards that childlike happiness as I age science says. The New York Times reports on a study that suggests happiness comes with age. As people get older, they become happier with their own lives, and more cheerful about the state of the world overall.
There’s a rumor going around first grade that’s spreading fast: Santa isn’t real. That’s thanks to one six-year-old boy whose big sister let him in on the secret. It’s got parents scrambling for an answer this week, and though my own kid hasn’t put me on the spot just yet, I’m expecting it any day.
Hearing that news from other kids is one thing. Hearing from an adult that is not your parent is another.
This summer, my 6-year-old learned to ride a two-wheeler. Not 24 hours after that first wobbly solo ride, she asked me if she could ride around the block by herself.
“Sure,” I stammered, after a moment’s hesitation. And then I sat on my porch and sat on my hands to prevent myself from following her. It felt right, but it was hard letting go.
Later that night, my husband — the parent less likely to hover — said, “Oh, I would have never let her do that.” I had to do a gut recheck: Had I misjudged?
I don’t think I did (and after watching her, my husband agreed). Teaching kids to be independent is part of parenting, one of the harder parts for most of us. But her confidence grew each time she circled the block — how could we take that away from her to save ourselves a little anxiety?
If you’ve never had your kid ask the meaning of a word you hoped they’d never say . . . can I just say I’m a little jealous?
Usually it’s in the grocery store checkout lane where there are a ton of people watching, and they spot words like “menopause” or “make him shiver” on the cover of a women’s mag. Or worse … the middle of a crowded theater at a movie you didn’t realize was quite so over-their-heads and they shout so everyone can hear “what’s a condom?”
Which is why this video is one every parent can identify with . . . and laugh at. Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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