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When Good Girls Go Mad

November 23, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve written. (Blame the novel. Or don’t blame the novel, just read it when it’s finished.) A lot has happened. Lily is speaking in three-word sentences — “Jake eat pasta” is a common one; “Man is gone?” a particularly clever way of saying she can’t find the man in the [...]

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Lost in Barnes & Noble: A Case Study in Second Child Syndrome

October 4, 2010

I feel, at the outset, that I should be clear this story has nothing to do with my second child, despite being about Second Child Syndrome. Or, at least, nothing directly.
But I do feel, rightly or wrongly, that my ability to walk away from my not-yet-four-year-old as he played with the toy train set in [...]

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When Even Vacation Isn’t Easy

September 25, 2010

I am a bit of a physical wreck these days — sore right elbow, sore left wrist, aching hip capsule. (“Hip capsule” is a term I learned from my osteopath brother-in-law so I believe it is something that exists, or at least I know I’m not the one who made it up.) These ailments, as [...]

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Nose Yourself (My Adventures in Piercing)

September 7, 2010

The JCC pool has closed, not to reopen for nine long months.
No more built-in Sunday morning play dates. No more after-school swimming adventures to break up the week. No more watching Jake launch himself off the diving board before dog paddling to the edge of the pool while I marvel at the fact that in [...]

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Summertime and the Land of When Things Calm Down

July 26, 2010

I’m nearing the end of Michael Chabon’s book of essays, Manhood for Amateurs. I’ve been reading it for about two months now, approximately the average amount of time it takes me to finish a book since Lily has decided that if I am going to read while waiting for her to fall asleep I [...]

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What Wonder Woman and I Have in Common: It’s Not What You Think

July 6, 2010

For those of you who somehow missed the news, last week Wonder Woman unveiled her new look.
When I saw her picture, two thoughts flashed across my mind in quick succession: First, she dresses a whole lot like me. Second — and this is the one that stuck, overcoming any embarrassment the first ought to impart [...]

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Little Shifts, Big Changes

May 20, 2010

Although Lily has been walking for over a week now, she does not yet view it as a mode of transportation. Walking, for her, is a game that starts with a parent placing her at one end of the living room and yelling with great excitement, “Walk to Jake! Walk to Jake!” It is unclear [...]

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Lily Walks

May 14, 2010

It’s one of those favorite phrases of parents of young children. “Any day now!”
“Any day now!” we chirp as cheerfully as someone as sleep-deprived as the parent of an infant can chirp when someone asks if she is sleeping through the night yet with unknowing cruelty.
“Any day now!” we promise as we watch her rock [...]

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Never Say Never, and Never Say, “What Is That?” if You Plan on Picking It Up

May 3, 2010

There are times, I’ve found, when, no matter how certain I was of my choice, the Universe was right there daring me to stick to it. Telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I would be foolish to be that stubborn.
Take, for instance, bath time Thursday night.
It was then, in one, parenthood-requires-a-good-sense-of-humor flash that it [...]

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Full Circle

April 19, 2010

I’ve been writing YogaMamaMe since Jake was younger than Lily is now.
This makes me think a lot of things: How quickly time passes when you have kids. How scary it is to watch time pass so quickly, especially when you have kids. And how I seem to be repeating myself.
Take last night, for instance. I [...]

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Passeaster

April 6, 2010

Last week I did something I am pretty sure I’ve never done before — I threw a seder on Tuesday (does one “throw” a seder?) and I put together Easter baskets for Sunday. (Actually, Jake and Lily got Easter baskets and the rest of the folks visiting got some perfectly serviceable Easter bags, but who’s [...]

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Careful What You Wish For (2010 Version) — I Still Want to Hug Him

April 1, 2010

It occurred to me this morning, as I wandered the empty kitchen feeling just a little bit sick over leaving my son in his new classroom, that this surely must not be the first time I’ve thought to myself, “Careful what you wish for.”
Surprisingly, it turns out I last wrote those words nearly a year [...]

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The Triple Crown of Things That Make It Hard to Be a Parent

March 3, 2010

The triple crown of Things That Make It Hard to Be a Parent, as I have just now decided, is a marathon consisting of what at this moment strike me as the most frustrating parenting moments:
1) Staying home with a sick child. For a week.
2) Staying home with a child who is finally well on [...]

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When the Vacation Ends and You Still Have 2,500 Miles to Go. With Kids.

February 18, 2010

My approach to the end of a good vacation is to panic.
My stomach twists into a little cherry-stem bow at the very thought of resuming a regular life. I see the piles of laundry arranged almost neatly in the suitcases as mountains of unsettled-ness to be scaled before I can breathe again. I feel like [...]

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At What Point Are There So Many Boundaries That I Can’t Find My Way to My Child’s Heart?

January 27, 2010

I had a heady moment of deja vu this morning.
There I was, crouched over my son in his car seat, using my knee to push his arching body back into place as I struggled to buckle him in and heard a gutteral voice that sounded suspiciously like my own hissing, “You sit down NOW! Do [...]

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Imagine How Pushy I’ll Be By the Time Jake’s in College

January 20, 2010

I thought I had it under control.
A couple of years ago I had that breakdown over Jake’s fifteen-month evaluation at preschool — the kind where they determine whether said fifteen-month-old can say anything more than “Mama” and “Dada” and pick up a Cheerio with his fingers. And that breakdown, I felt, brought me to a [...]

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When a Fresh Perspective Requires a Fresh Perspective (Don’t Look at Your Butt Redux)

January 14, 2010

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson when I looked at my butt in a mirror at my sister-in-law’s house while four months pregnant.
You would, in fact, not be expecting too much to think after that shock I would be smart enough not to look at my butt in a changing room mirror at a [...]

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Lily Goes Full-Time

January 4, 2010

Today is Lily’s first day of full-time daycare.
Just writing it is making me cry again. (As is wandering past my bedroom and the empty bed on which she is not napping and knowing that I will not have that unspeakably joyful moment of my day when she first wakes up from her nap and grins [...]

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The Co-Sleeper Is Gone … And Time Marches On

November 30, 2009

Next to my side of the bed there is a large, clean(ish) patch of floorboards. On the other side of that large, clean(ish) patch of floorboards there is room to open the drawers on the left side of my dresser. In between there is space for my discarded shoes and socks to breathe without having [...]

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