Infants Abroad: tips for taking your baby to Europe
My husband and I had already been planning our belated honeymoon to Ireland when we learned I was pregnant. We thought about it briefly, and decided to go anyway. I had been to Europe before; I had taken care of babies before. How hard could this be?
Recognizing ourselves in the stories that we read
At bedtime, I read my daughter Alice a story. This has been our nightly ritual since before she was born, but now, after we read together, she reads on her own. She’s always loved stories, but more and more she’s caught up in words. Almost nightly now she pops out to read her dad and me a short passage: beautiful descriptions, scenes that seem especially funny or apt to her.
What’s the very best thing about having a child (or children) in your life?
We know you love the kids you’re raising and/or taking care of — our archives are filled with stories about the joys of breastfeeding, the indescribable wonders of adoption, the incredible ways families are being created, tales from parents of teens who share interests, and so many wonderful birth stories it’d take you days to get through them all.
I can’t believe I’m cloth diapering
Anyone who knows me in real life knows I am not an earth-hugging hippie. And now I’m cloth diapering, something labeled “too crunchy” for some of the crunchiest parents I know.
Family nudity: my sons see me nude at home
I have always been a nudie booty in my own home. I would come home from work or class and just shed my clothes. It’s not so much that I dislike clothes; I actually love them quite a bit. Not too long after the big gender reveal of our latest pregnancy, my husband came home and found me and our son playing in the bath tub together. He very calmly said “Don’t you think you should start covering up around him, he’s getting a little old for that.”
Using my wife’s brother as sperm donor – how we talk about it with family & kids
My partner and I (both women) have been thinking a lot about starting a family. We’ve thought about using a donor, and always come back to the possibility of asking my partner’s brother how he would feel about donating his sperm for us to start a family. It seems like a good option on some level — we would know about the baby’s biological history, and the baby would have both our genes.
Releasing feelings of guilt and blame when your child is born with an illness
I’ll never forget the moment I realized I didn’t get to hold my baby right after his birth like I was “supposed” to. It wasn’t when you would think, but instead it happened several hours later when I sat alone in my half of a shared hospital room and listened to the woman next to me coo at her baby. All of a sudden it hit me: I didn’t get to do that, and I didn’t know when I would.
The trouble with teen girls and constant apologizing
In Girl World, where the slightest faux pas can make your friend inexplicably upset, you learn to apologize. Girls have come to think of apologies as preventive medicine, daily vitamins to be consumed habitually.