Archives for “motherhood”
It’s been a long time. It’s almost at the point where so much has happened that I’ll forget most of it unless I record it somehow. So here you go: 1. Reader, I married him. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to write that sentence. So unsentimental as to be the most romantic [...]
35 weeks pregnant. It is time to order my birth kit, even though the thought fills me with all kinds of superstitious fears of committing an act of hubris. But yet? I am so relieved I can plan to labor in my own bedroom, in my own bathroom, my own little cave, and not have [...]
This, this right here, is why I will never, in my entire life, ever again try to work in an office-based setting. But also, things have happened that I’m still figuring out how to write down with enough love and respect, things that are hard though not outside the order of the universe. Easter Sunday [...]
I was right: my ex-OB was lying to me.
I’ve been thinking about this post for some time now – but it’s the kind of thing that some who I know read this blog might get very upset about what I’m going to write. You see, I am now with a practice of homebirth midwives. But let me explain.
So, umm, let’s work on finding all this funny… this morning produced the following series of adventures for our toddler: first, she got hold of and spilled and broke my coffee cup. My fault: it seems today she’s rather taller than, say, yesterday, and my brain seems to be having a slow day because I [...]
Z is now a walker. She taught herself to walk carefully, meticulously, and with lots of caution designed to avoid encounters with anything that might hurt. It was impressive to watch: she set her mind to it and practiced and practiced and slowly but surely figured it out, over the course of a little over [...]
My brother is visiting and yesterday I was walking around town with him when a woman I used to work with at the university walked by us. I was pushing Z in her stroller and looked straight at her and was about to say hello when she sort of looked at the stroller and rushed [...]
I can’t take a feminist seriously if she takes a condescending tone towards traditionally female activities like crafting in order to make some otherwise valid points about the marketing practices of e-business sites (in this case: Etsy) (responses at Jezebel, Magickal Realism, 11D, etc.). In that article, Sara Mosle implies that an educated stay-at-home-mom’s non-work [...]
Turns out my local mom-friends and I are in a fairly small minority. One could say fringe minority. Let me explain. Obsessions die hard and I’ve been researching everything about infant nutrition and especially breastfed babies in some of my off moments. And it turns out that in the U.S. a bit less than 12% [...]
I tend to have a lot of ideas for blog posts while showering, playing with Z, walking the dog, grocery shopping, and so on. Somehow I never remember any of them when I sit down to blog. On the other hand, my daughter has a wicked sense of humor. And by wicked I mean the [...]
I know that’s not a word. Or anything close to it. I just keep thinking of that school strip search story, and just what component of it scares me the most. And it’s this: that there is no semblance in it of respect for a student’s integrity. You really can’t just go searching people’s lockers [...]
1. I realize they mean well. And yet it’s safe to say that few people have done more damage to my mental health than pediatricians since Z was born. I’m beginning to gear up for the 12-month visit. Or rather, do research till I drop to brace myself for it. I can’t believe Z will be [...]
It’s that time of the year: when holidays turn most religious – Easter and Passover, coming together as they do. My own point of view is markedly different from most moms who blog. In fact, when reading references to prayer, I feel very much like an outsider who had better remain politely silent. [...]
For the most part, I am fine with how my life is at the moment. So much so that I feel guilty at times… for example, I’m not supposed to like being a stay-at-home-mom quite so much because, based on my age and background, I ought to be more driven to succeed. But I enjoy [...]
I have a confession to make: at the moment I don’t entirely love my body. I look fine – when I’m fully dressed. I’m not fat. I’ve lost nearly all the pregnancy weight and since I’m still breastfeeding I don’t want to lose any more. But I’m not satisfied. Why, you ask? Well. I’ve got [...]
Current firsts: In addition to the word ‘lamp,’ Z recognizes the dog’s name. She now likes putting things into and taking them out of containers. Endlessly. Until she gets bored, at which point she gets up on her tippy-toes, or hands herself along furniture, or crouches down to pick up lint, gets up, crouches down to pick up [...]
Baby Z understands the word ‘lamp’. In Hungarian, for starters. (What that means? That I’ve been pointing out lamps to her very diligently of late. And now she points them out to me when I ask, where’s the lamp? Something about sources of light is recognizable even to infants, apparently.) Going from no words or [...]
It works fine for us: being silly. One could say we are good at it. To wit: (Z did not suddenly grow all that hair: it’s a cheap costume wig. For next Halloween. Must practice for next Halloween.) But sometimes life gets serious, for example when we have to divvy up some potato chips: (Yes, [...]
This blog is kind of repetitive these days. But it’s my blog and anyway, that is how life is at the moment. I want some record of how each day is about solving a shifty array of small and/or recurring and/or persistent challenges. Because while I’ll have tons of photos and minimovies to recall smiles, [...]
Nevertheless, its what finally got Z to try fingerfoods: I baked some sugary pecan-fig-orange cookies that she was rather taken with. Yes, I know how many items it contains that one is not supposed to let a less-than-one-year-old person nibble on. But she insisted. She grabbed the cookies out of my hand and shrieked an [...]
Our pediatrician’s appointment today could, all things considered, have gone better. We did indeed fail the nutrition portion of today’s exam, although developmentally all’s well (crawling: check, pulling herself to standing: check, pincer grasp: check, babbling-brooke-like soundtrack to the day: check, and so on). But (and it’s kind of a largish but): while height-wise Z [...]
My life is strewn with first things lately. Z sat directly in the cart yesterday at Target. She loved it. She twisted herself every which way the better to see everything, and the better to be able to flirt with the cashier. Did you see the baby hanging upside down from the seat of the [...]
Someone asked me once if, now that I have a baby, I’ll trade in my car for a 4-door model. You see, I have a VW Beetle, a ten-year-old one that I bought from a professor while in grad school. I drove it while pregnant (you should have seen the shocked looks I got when [...]
Our plans for the future are slowly emerging after Baby Z’s birth, temporarily renting in New Jersey, me quitting working, and A starting several very exciting but crazy work-intensive new projects. The thing that’s clearest: we want to live in New York. I grew up in a city and, very surprisingly to me, having a [...]
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