From the category archives:

intentions versus goals

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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Who Said It’s Easier With One?

May 15, 2010

I frequently find myself conned by rose-colored memories of the days when Jake was my only child and things were just so easy.  Sure, I cried frequently, often felt shut-in and lonely, and was already pregnant and too late to go back the first time Jake played by himself without demanding parental involvement about a [...]

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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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Retreat of the December Mom

December 31, 2009

I’m still ashamed, even though I now recognize it was a December Mom thing.
There’s simply no excuse for being — I can still recall the out-of-body experience of watching myself do this — the mom screaming across a crowded coffee shop at her child.  “Jake!  Jake!  JAKE!  DO YOU WANT A BAGEL?”  As if no [...]

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I Can Cook! And Lots of Other Things You’d Never Know I Can Do

December 1, 2009

By the end of our Thanksgiving meal, life as a mother, as someone who is (can it only be?) eight-and-a-half months postpartum, and as a still relative newcomer to my new home — it was all beginning to seem manageable, pleasurable even.
And then Ellen turned to Mike.  “You and I should have monthly Iron Chef-like [...]

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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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Turn, Turn, Turn … or Not: What I Learned at Six Months

October 2, 2009

“Yep,” Mike confirmed the other day.  “Lily’s acting like a normal baby.”
He said this after our first sunny fall day in the park.  After Lily and I arrived with her pouting in her stroller because I decided that much as she was demanding it I was simply not up to the task of walking to [...]

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I Want to Go to Shabbat

June 26, 2009

Shabbat starts in ten minutes.
In ten minutes, Jake will sing and dance.  He will yell, “Shabbat, shalom, hey!”  He will smile and mug and everyone there will tell me what fun he has in Shabbat.  He may even sit in another parent’s lap with one of his friends.
He will not sit in my lap because [...]

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Full of Firsts — And Not a Parent in Sight

June 18, 2009

I thought — mistakenly, as it turned out — that it was pretty momentous to be witnessing Lily’s first props-assisted rollover yesterday.
We were about midway through our hour-long drop-off at daycare.  I was pretending not to notice the time I was supposed to be using for myself slipping away as I clung to my girl.  [...]

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Photographs and Memories. And Babies.

May 5, 2009

Friday night, after a lovely family evening eating pizza at an outdoor table overlooking a local parking lot, I relaxed on the couch and looked through old pictures of Jake when he was Lily’s age.
That was my first mistake.

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The Most Natural Thing in the World

April 29, 2009

What’s the most natural thing in the world?  Breastfeeding?  The naked human body?  Worms and cockroaches and creepy crawlies?  A little flatulence after a satisfying dinner of rice and beans?
Any one of them.  Except for breastfeeding.
This declaration, I know, sounds a bit aggressive, wounded perhaps, certainly not in keeping with the spirit of someone who [...]

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Everything Bad for Me Is Good Again (or at Least a Few Things)

April 27, 2009

There are a few things that feel unshakably bad for me:  Voluntarily being outside in the snow.  Spending my work weeks in an office building (and, even worse, a suit).  Wearing my pajamas all day.  Watching television in the middle of a beautiful afternoon.  And eating chocolate.*
* I understand that I have just alienated 90% [...]

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A Brief Return to a Past Life, or How (Really) Did I Get Here?

March 6, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, Mike handed me a book that had come free to his workplace.
“I doubt it’ll be very good,” he said, “but it’s a memoir about going to Columbia Law School.  I thought you might be interested.”
Maybe it’s the buddha-like peace that has descended on me as I prepare to give birth.  [...]

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The Sweet Times, and Remembering to Savor Them

March 3, 2009

“Enjoy this sweet time as a family of three,” the midwife said to me at the end of our appointment on Friday.
Of course, I panicked.
Was she suggesting that life for Jake was about to be rendered far from sweet?  Soured?  Curdled?  Bitter enough to take away his constant smiles and laughter and remarkable goofiness?
I’ve never [...]

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I’d Rather Have My Mushrooms Fresh with Maggots than Processed with High Fructose Corn Syrup

February 16, 2009

I guess I’ve been thinking more lately about how to feed my children healthily (without instilling in them my own seriously warped food issues) because everyone has.  You know, that peanutbutter thing.
Then, on Friday, I read an op ed piece in the New York Times entitled The Maggots in Your Mushrooms. Suddenly, it all [...]

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Am I Completely LOST or Would Any Mother Choose the Husband She Thought Was Dead over the Three-Year-Old Child She Knows Is Not?

February 12, 2009

Is it just me?  Am I the only one who’s still in a state of disbelief over what the writers had Sun do?
Maybe it’s the pregnancy.
Normally, I don’t get too wrapped up in the motivations of television characters (unless they appeared on The Wire — oh, Randy, I still mourn for you).  I mean, I [...]

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Can I Make My Child (or Anyone Else for that Matter) Happy?

January 21, 2009

Jake has just discovered the concept of righteous indignation.
As in, “How dare you comb my hair for me!”  Only expressed in howls of unhappiness perfectly calibrated to get on my last nerve.
Or, “Don’t you dare fill up that bathtub!  Don’t even mention the word ‘tub’ to me!  And certainly don’t ask me why I am [...]

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Trusting the Nostalgia (Even When You Should Be Embarrassed by the Songs You Are Listening to on the Radio)

January 14, 2009

I am awash in nostalgia these days.
Certainly it has something to do with the impending transformation of my status into “mother of two.” One child, Mike and I agree, is an accessory. Two children is an adult family. Who can approach such a spectre without a slightly longing glance back at the [...]

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Why I Was Crying in the Target Parking Lot, and Why I Probably Will Again

December 18, 2008

I thought I was doing really well on Tuesday.  Last of the holiday packages mailed?  Check.  Requisite single container for the lunches Jake will take with him when he moves up to the big kids’ preschool after the holidays finally located and purchased?  Check.  Checks deposited?  Check, checks.
I was aware that in order to add [...]

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Can a Sense of Self Come with Pink Polka Dot Boots?

December 9, 2008

Jake has been wearing his beloved pink polka dot boots pretty much non-stop for over a week now.

We have engaged in successful negotiations about removing them for bed time and bath time (for which he even removed his swim diaper the other night, suggesting he is finally over the traumatic poop-in-the-tub incident).  But otherwise, on [...]

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