From the monthly archives:

November 2008

Do I Really Have Any More Control Than a Two-Year-Old?

November 24, 2008

Mike does not believe in the Terrible Two’s.
I wish I were as certain that Jake is not, in fact, entering his Terrible Two’s as my husband, even though I know it would do me no good.  (Witness Mike’s frequent less-than-patient exchanges with Jake in which he variously commands, wheedles, and begs Jake [clench teeth here] [...]

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Giving and Receiving Toddler Style — In the Bathtub

November 21, 2008

Jake took a bath last night for the first time in a week.
This fact is notable for three reasons.  First, he is generally quite fond of the tub, so a one-week boycott is a serious thing indeed.  Second, the fact that I was able to ease him back into the tub wearing a swim diaper [...]

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Just Let It All In

November 19, 2008

I experienced a whole new way of thinking at the end of yoga class yesterday.
I’d spent the past several days mulling over how I wanted to approach writing about continuing toddler-inspired sleep interruptions; guilty, crying morning-afters; plummeting four-season temperatures; and that frustrating in-between period where the choice between too-big maternity clothes and too-small normal person [...]

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Zzzzz, or Do I Wake Myself Up or Honor My Exhaustion?

November 12, 2008

I do not deal well with exhaustion.
I feel demoralized, lazy, like I am squandering opportunities, watching the economy sweep the can-I-get-published? bus off the road and into the deep muck of a future in which Mike and I are — we know — crazy to imagine raising our children on freelancing and, even worse, journalism.
Mostly, [...]

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The World Has Shifted

November 5, 2008

My baby will be born in a world where an African American man is President.
My twenty-two-month-old son will grow up knowing nothing but a President who is black and a Governor who is a woman.
Overnight, everything has shifted.
My children live in a much better world than the one I grew up in.

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