Ages & Stages

It started with a crash and a shrill cry early Sunday morning. My husband flew out of our room and into my son’s nursery and confirmed what he suspected: 18-month-old William had climbed out of the crib and crash-landed. I rushed in after him and scooped up my sweet boy who was crying hard and looking totally shell-shocked. I could already see a big bump forming on his forehead. He soon calmed down, but after some hemming and hawing, we decided to take him to Urgent Care that day to make sure he didn’t have a concussion and because one of his arms seemed to be bothering him. The doctor on duty saw no signs of concussion and thought his...

In the wide world of parenting topics I don't consider myself to be an "expert" (using the term very loosely) at much, but breastfeeding/pumping/working, well I've pretty much mastered! Having nursed my daughter for a little over a year, mostly while working almost full-time, and now doing the same with my son, I've developed my own list of essential items that every pumping momma needs when away from baby. A great, electric double breast pump. Yea, they are costly but at a price tag cheaper than formula it's worth every penny. Great news, many health insurance plans are now covering the cost of breast pumps! Your pump will be your best friend for many months, and when you are finally...

Parenting is such an emotional roller coaster. We have our good days and our bad days around here, as I'm sure every family does. But do you ever have a season that is just plain tough? We're in that one. That season where our family has a lot of transition happening, and our schedules are too busy, and our little girl just turned 2. I don't know that I believed what people said about two-year-olds. I think that part of me believed that it wouldn't happen to us, that we wouldn't have the Terrible Twos, and would skip right past the Threenager stage. Oh, dreams, you betray me! Now, my little girl is very sweet and polite, she loves hard and expresses...

I'm angry. I practice patience a lot because it's not my nature. Patience is a daily exercise for me anyway, but my five and a half year-old has unwittingly challenged me to a Battle of Wills. This is Day 2 of the most recent challenge. When I begin to lose my patience (a clear goal of the enemy), I have to leave the room to find it. This is me. Leaving the room. She's brilliant, that one. My daughter sees the line and marches wide-eyed RIGHT up to it, then turns to check that I'm watching so she can inch her toe across. I think she likes the challenge. But I won't be outsmarted or outlasted. Parenting is an endurance race,...

I've always been a let's wait and see, go with the flow kinda girl. Every once in a while though I get something in my head, and boy can I be stubborn. It's just how I am. After 30-some years I've come to know myself pretty well.  I was very aware of this particular personality glitch, as I like to call it, when I decided I wanted to try a natural birth. I knew that it would be very easy to become dangerously stubborn about it…so I read. I read about BOTH sides of the coin - medicated and unmedicated births. The most helpful thing for me was reading other women's birth stories. I must have read hundreds. Doing so...