My anniversary and my daughter’s birthday are the same day — how can we celebrate both?
Our daughter was born on our wedding anniversary. I am absolutely not prepared to compromise on celebrating either of these occasions — our wedding anniversary means everything to me, and I intend to celebrate it with enthusiasm every year. Having said that, I also want my daughter to have a lovely birthday every year. Does […]
A pictorial scavenger hunt for happier walks
Our son Noah had been getting fussy sometimes during our family walks, especially if he wasn’t walking our dog. It took a while, but finally it occurred to me that he’s sometimes excluded from our conversations.
We added a toddler to our family in 24 hours: our experience with foster-to-adopt
When my husband and I were dating we talked about all kinds of things during the long drive from Seattle to my parent’s house in Oregon. We talked about our lives together, our pasts, and our goals and hopes for the future. As things got more serious we starting talking about kids; how many we wanted, names we liked, that sort of thing. One thing we quickly realized was that we both had the desire to adopt.
Reconnecting with my family by changing the way we do dinner
As children, eating dinner with our families was a nightly occurrence, but as adults we seem to have fallen out of the habit. About a month ago, we decided to try an experiment: one day a week, each one of us would commit to making dinner for the family. We’ve been incredibly pleased with our arrangement, which has led to some unexpected benefits…
Stuffed Animal Hospital: an indoor toy wash activity for rainy days
As spring weather of intermittent cold peppered with rain continues to downpour in our area, I struggle to find indoor appropriate activities for two plucky (bored and fighty) toddlers. I’ll spend afternoon coffee breaks Googling indoor activities to keep the stir-crazy levels to a slow mix rather than the full-blown pulverize we get once the kids have been held in weather related house arrest for more than a day or two.
3 age-appropriate ways to talk to kids and teens about media portrayals of sexual assault
I have this super awesome talent for thinking of the perfect thing to say hours later. A talent which is not in any way useful — unless you have a blog. In which case you can blog about it and get it all out. So here are three possible, age-appropriate, conversations you can have with your children about rape that I came up with.
How can I make a hospital room feel less like, well, a hospital room?
My mother passed away last month pretty suddenly due to complications of Lupus. I did not realize how much of a difficulty just being in a hospital room would be. As much as I would love to have a home birth, at this point I would say it is just not possible, so I need to make this room seem as “homey” as possible.
Mother’s Day gifts that say “I love you like a mother”
Mother’s Day is coming up. Now, I really love my future mother-in-law. She and I get along well and I have a few gift ideas in mind. But… do I get her something? And if so, what? Is there etiquette to this cuz there is no Hallmark Card for it.