Mommy-Focused

May 12, 2012

There’s this thing that happens at our house: Ted gets home and wants to play with Rebecca while I finish making dinner. Rebecca howls for mommy. I’m not going to ignore Rebecca for very long, regardless of who the parent on call is. I’m often not successful directing her back to her dad, either, so […]

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Snake on a Plane / Notes on Mental Processes

April 14, 2012

The plane was coming down, on our last flight of the day. Your dad buckled you in. You wanted your seatbelt off, and you started to shout and fight against it. So I told your dad, pass me the rainbow snake! And I snapped it like a collar on my own neck, “Oh no! Get […]

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Parents Are Different

March 31, 2012

We don’t use time-outs or other kinds of punishments; most people do. Whenever I get into a conversation about toddler discipline, the conclusion seems to be that kids are different, and different kids respond better to different parenting approaches. It’s true that kids are different! And aside from being true, it’s a way of giving […]

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In Process

February 25, 2012

An addendum to The Two Year Old Thing: A year ago, Rebecca was in her magical communication phase. She wasn’t talking much yet, but she used things around the house to lay out her ideas or convey what she wanted to do. I called it magic because it invoked patterns via imitation and association, following […]

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Things I Like: Fairview Gardens’ Community Supported Agriculture

February 18, 2012

We and our housemates joined the Fairview Gardens CSA at the beginning of last year, which means that we get a share of the farm’s produce. Once a week they set out boxes with a variety of vegetables, and we grab some of each or stick stuff we don’t want in the trade box. Then […]

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The Two Year Old Thing

January 28, 2012

My hands were covered in raw chicken when Rebecca asked for ice cream, so Vernon grabbed it for her. Rebecca was not happy. She doesn’t want the ice cream unless we follow the proper procedures. Likewise she’s unwilling to shortcut off the path to get down to the park more quickly. She wants Mommy to […]

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Yule

January 7, 2012

When the nights are longest and you wake up at the watching hour, the way your ancestors did on nights like this, and there’s no way that you’re going back to sleep any time soon and you and your mama are both sick of trying, then it’s time to snuggle in the dark and tell […]

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Spoiled Rotten

December 31, 2011

My mom used to wear slim gold necklaces. People whispered to my dad at his office Christmas parties, that surely, being a doctor, he could afford to buy some nice jewelry for her. So he did, more than once. But she never liked it. For years and years my dad wore a shoddy leather coat […]

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Something New

December 24, 2011

I started writing in this blog seriously when Rebecca turned one, because I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something tangible– something I could point to and say “hey, look at me!”– and I needed to scry into the murk to see what exactly I was doing, parenting a little toddler.  I vowed to […]

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Sad Story

December 18, 2011

The last two times I’ve left Rebecca with someone outside our extended family, she’s gotten so anxious she’s puked. The first time was in August, and I was perplexed and not sure what had happened. The second time was in October, right after she turned two, and I felt like a failure as a mother. […]

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