Learning about Northampton, the Valley, and Being a Mom…One Day at a Time
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales, Uncategorized on Jan 6th, 2009
Is it just me, or do you ever feel like the window in which we have to teach our children how to be healthy, happy ctizens is closing before we have even begun? I have so many good ideas about what to teach my children, what to expose them to, and what to shelter them [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales, Uncategorized on Nov 12th, 2008
I sit here writing, hot coffee steaming next to me, crusty eyes squinting, at 5:30 a.m. For real writers, this is normal. I have a poet friend who wakes up every morning two hours before her children to have writing time. If this is Real Writers’ modus operandi, then I guess I’ll never be one. [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales on Oct 15th, 2008
I don’t have a radio/CD player in my house anymore. We moved, it is in storage, and we can’t find a good place for it. But I don’t miss it. First of all, in my life with three young children, when could I ever listen to it, even if it were here? Secondly, I have [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales, Uncategorized on Sep 29th, 2008
“I don’t have any money at ALL in my bank and I need more!” While this sounds a lot like the front page of the WSJ these days, this is actually the sad and slightly scary voice of my almost-seven-year-old daughter. I think it is high time to introduce the idea of chores, allowance, and [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales on Sep 22nd, 2008
Since school started, I have one child in 1st grade all day, five days a week, one child in preschool all day three days a week, and a two-year old at home with me. This now leaves me with six hours a week of guaranteed nap time, and four more hours a week of possible [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales on Sep 3rd, 2008
I dropped my daughter off at her first day of First Grade today and, though she was utterly fine, my heart felt heavy as I left the school. Not because I’m concerned about her school or teacher but because, my God, my baby is growing up! Kindergarten still felt like preschool to me: lots of [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales on Aug 30th, 2008
Two years ago, my 4 y.o. daughter turned to me and said: “I want to be a boy.” (This, coming from a girl who refused to wear anything but dresses- the frillier, the better- and wouldn’t consider accepting a babysitter unless she was “pretty”.) “Why?” I asked her. “Because if I’m a boy, then I [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales on Jul 29th, 2008
I stepped out of the shower this evening to find my six year-old daughter face down in her bed sobbing, “Nobody likes me!” She wasn’t crying to anyone; she didn’t even know I was standing there. She was crying to herself, into her pillow. Painful flashbacks rattled into motion.
After calming Tiernan down from sobs to [...]
Posted in General Parenting Angsts and Tales on Jul 25th, 2008
We recently moved from a single family home in Medford, in a neighborhood where there were no young children (we even had to walk 1/4 mile for trick-or-treating!), to a town home in Northampton, were the population of children under 8 supersedes all others. Our back door opens to a large grassy courtyard encircled by [...]
