Do you recall being spanked as a child? My mother claims we were never spanked, but a haze of nostalgia must cloud her memory.
Cut to my grandparents’ log cabin during extended-family vacation, when after-dinner rough-housing pushed my father to his limit. Typically loving and silly, my father roared like a grizzly when angered, thundering upstairs [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Parenting'
On Love and Discipline
January 11th, 2010 1 Comment
Tags: behavior problems · discipline · John Rosemund · Parenting · preschooler · spanking
For Better or For What?
January 3rd, 2010 1 Comment
As the country debates Marriage as an institution, I consider the state of my own union.
Tonight C. nursed to sleep in my arms after a night away. Such sweet reunion. Sometimes she likes to take my lower lip in her mouth and suck on it, laughing.
Later, A. wrote me a card because she knew I [...]
Tags: marriage · married with children · Parenting
Been Caught Stealing
November 12th, 2009 1 Comment
Not the Jane’s Addiction song, but a parenting experience at Whippersnappers Kids’ Consignment Shop. I’d dropped off a bag of old clothes to sell (got $11) and convinced A. to try on an adorable, red and black, red-riding-hood style, fleece coat with toggle buttons.
She grudgingly put the coat on, then skipped off to the Kids’ [...]
Tags: Been Caught Stealing · Jane's Addiction · Parenting · shoplifting · Whippersnappers
Still Got Milk?
November 10th, 2009 1 Comment
There were certain things I thought I’d never do when I became a mother. I wouldn’t yell at my children, share my marital bed, or nurse through toddler-hood. As my husband said with authority when we first discussed breastfeeding: “If you can ask for it, then you’re too old for it.”
Never say never when it [...]
Tags: breastfeeding · c-section · cesarean section · nursing · Parenting · toddlers
The Dark Season
October 18th, 2009 1 Comment
Give me October in Vermont and I’ll give you apple-picking, leaf-raking, and blazing orange-red hills.
I’ll also give you 35 degrees and raining. This morning I manhandled A. into her winter parka and physically pushed her out the door. She was refusing to go outside due to the cold, and I was having an anxiety-inducing [...]
Tags: daylight saving time · Parenting · preschooler · winter
Duck Wrestling
September 28th, 2009 No Comments
Ducky is missing. Again. He’s been MIA for 12 hours– small, nondescript, grayish rag that was once a plush yellow baby present. Two years ago Ducky arrived by mail, silky on one side, soft on the other, a sweet duckling head on a flat handkerchief. Now he’s tattered and worn with holes–my toddler wears him [...]
Tags: Baby · duck · lovey · Parenting · transitional object
Picky Eater
September 19th, 2009 1 Comment
I confess, my three-year-old eats only white foods. Despite my early efforts to offer a rainbow at every meal, she now lives on yogurt, bread and butter, pasta, tuna with mayo, crackers, and sometimes mild cheddar. My mom friends are shocked but try not to show it. “Have you tried disguising tiny pieces of broccoli [...]
Tags: Parenting · picky eater · toddlers
Current Obsessions
September 15th, 2009 No Comments
Late late summer in Southern Vermont. Gold sun on goldenrod, ten-foot jungle of green corn swaying behind the last beds of basil and tomatoes.
We’re thriving on fresh peaches, apples and plums. Perhaps that’s why A. came to find me and confess her first potty experience with diarrhea. After extensive clean-up in the sink, both [...]
Tags: Boston Globe · Joanna Weiss · Parenting
Reading List, again
August 13th, 2009 No Comments
Here are the books I am hoping/planning to finish/start in the next week/month:
The Believers, by Zoe Heller (novel due back at the library in 2 days). “She was still in some shock regarding the servility of motherhood– the sheer, thankless drudgery of it. All the cleaning up of messes she had not made and preparing [...]