I’ve been worried about and mystified by C lately. It’s hard to explain, but she hasn’t been herself. Or she has been herself, just more so.
C, intensified.
She is naturally a very competent and controlled person. Lately this has veered into outright anxiety. R and I have a code, “Knock-knock,” when she gets like this. It’s […]

Little she-who-is turns 7 today. All week long we were preparing her for fewer gifts on her actual birthday because of the disruptions from the storm. She doesn’t care. It’s her birthday and that’s reason enough for celebration. Love that kid.
Been working with some friends on a study guide for Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar […]

I.
the boy
holds his mother’s hand
only when offered, yet
does so with gladness,
except in the street.
the hand, all dimpled knuckles,
is soft and insistent,
like a secret with five fingers.
II.
the little girl
yanks and jerks
forward, then backward,
pulling fingers until they crack,
not to be naughty, but all the better to
jump a crack, hop, spin into the grass, dance,
pull back, then launch […]

So my aunt sent several people this video of a TED talk on “5 dangerous things you should let your kids do.” Play with fire, own a pocket knife, take appliances apart, and the like. The idea seems to be gaining traction from a lot of quarters, that keeping kids in a hermetically sealed bubble […]

I was listening to Speaking of Faith on the way to my spiritual director this morning, and John Kabat-Zinn was talking about the importance of helping kids learn to pay attention. Actually this is something they already know, and we can learn from them, but we can also help them have a greater awareness of […]

So I am feeling torn about something.
Several weeks from now I’ll be heading to Hip and Hilly, Texas for a week (Sunday through Friday) with a clergy group. We get together yearly, bringing with us papers we’ve written on the scripture texts. We present and discuss them, which gives weekly preachers a huge jump on […]

A review for MotherTalk
Out of the Mouths of Babes: Parenting from a Child’s Perspective
by Dyan Eybergen
This is a rather sweet book, with a very home-grown quality, that draws on the author’s clinical background as well as her experience raising three boys with very different temperaments. She comes from an attachment parenting perspective; it’s not likely […]

This is SVALA.
$39.99 from IKEA.
Main parts: Solid birch, Solid alder.
2 chairs and 1 table included.
Can be painted or stained.
R and I picked up one of these things when C was a toddler. We liked the simplicity, the affordability, the kid-sizedness of it. We brought it home, set it up in the family room, and proceeded […]

When we were expecting the divine miss m, I read a few things about how to help an older sibling adjust to the arrival of a new baby. R had a client at the time, an exuberant Argentinian man with a large family, who suggested a way to do the initial meeting of child and […]

Here’s my marketing idea:
Gloves and/or mittens for children that come 10 to a package. And aren’t all the same, but instead use three or four colors, in various fun stripes and patterns to allow for lots of mixing and matching.
Or in our case, to provide lots of fun options for backup gloves when […]

R read my description of Christmas and said, “It all sounds so idyllic.”
That’s not my intention. I write down what I remember… or is it that I write down what I want to remember? And what is the difference?
I know what he means though. There’s a lot of little irritations and inconveniences in the […]

Text message in response to Mamala, who asked how the kids were feeling (they were sick over the weekend):

M back at L’s house.
C better but home today.
J ate a hairball.

I had a doctor’s appointment today. Nothing wrong, just the regular checkup.
I had both the divine miss M and sweet baby J with me. This went fine, though it took us an hour to travel a distance that usually takes 20 minutes.
My face has been breaking out a bit lately. Past experience suggests the […]

Question the First: If you know of a church website that does its thing really well, please let me know, either in comments or via e-mail. I am looking for sites that are attractive, with a simplicity of design, are welcoming to visitors, and also useful to long-time members.
Question the Second: C has heard us […]

Here’s my idea for a new kid product that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist: a pictorial clock.
Our toddler will often get up before everyone else and just kinda wander around. Once it becomes clear that everyone’s still asleep, she can easily be coaxed back to bed.
The trouble, of course, is that she can’t […]

The week is going fine. Being back to work is like wading into a fast moving stream. Step, step, step WHOOSH
Someone sent this to me. I give it a big hell to the yeah, and am very glad it didn’t turn all treacly at the end:
HOW TO PREPARE FOR BECOMING A PARENT
in 15 simple steps
Lesson […]

(Our first day on the new schedule—M and SBJ home with me today)
2:27 p.m. — Wow, it looks like both children will be napping at the same time!
2:32 p.m — Oops. Never mind.
3:13 p.m. — SBJ is asleep upstairs, M is downstairs with Mr. Rogers—might I be able to sit here in the living room […]

Today was mommy-daughter time with little she-who-is. Look what we made!

We’ve definitely refined our technique—I got the consistency of the icing better. Last year’s was the Salvador Dali house.
It took us all day: assemble walls, nurse J, put on roof, nurse J… etc.
And here is the side that M helped with:

In other tales of domesticity, […]

Forget the baby monitor, sling, or bottle warmer. Here’s the techy stuff that a new mom really can use:

iPod. An obvious choice, perhaps, but indispensable for late-night nursing entertainment that doesn’t wake up wee bebe.
Bluetooth handsfree device for cell phone. Let’s face it, life is all about multitasking. Chat with a friend while putting away […]