How do you handle jealous grandparents?
My husband and I are expecting our first child in September. My parents are divorced and both remarried. My mom has some anxiety issues that she generally handles very well, but can get overly emotional very easily when it comes to me (an only child). She has a jealous streak when it comes to my Step-Mom, which is not helped by the fact that while my Dad and Step-Mom live 10 minutes away, my Mom and Step-Dad are a good five hours away.
What are your favorite unique baby names?
Is your kid’s name a combination of family names handed down through generations? Something you pulled from your favorite book or movie? A name you totally made up? Or does your kid have one name — but you secretly love a totally off-the-wall name (I knew someone who wanted to name her kid Saturn but went with a much more traditional name)?
How do you deal with sibling rivalry and when do you know it’s gone too far?
I don’t have the most fantastic relationship with my older sister. Now that I’m having children of my own, I need to address the personal issues I have with sibling dynamics and start to make decisions as to how I would deal with such situations as a parent.
Let’s talk about awesome literature for elementary school-aged kids
My nephews will be turning eight in just a few short weeks, and they’ve been asking for chapter books for their birthday. Since I haven’t been eight in a while my brain is a little fuzzy — does anyone have suggestions for interesting books for the age range? Book series get bonus points!
We’re about to spend two months road-tripping with our baby
I’m about to embark on a two-month road trip with my husband, seven-month-old baby, and our two 90-pound dogs. We’ll be living out of our car and tent hiking and camping across the United States. We decided to test the boundaries of what having a baby in your life means and want to introduce him to the world early. My husband and I used to travel in our car for a couple months at a time (pre-baby), so why stop now?
My three-year-old associates “dark” with “bad”: How to talk to kids about race
I’ve noticed that if she’s playing a game that involves confrontation her black doll is always the aggressor. I’ve been thinking about the movies we watch (most noticeably Tangled, which features a dark-haired evil witch and an innocent light-haired princess) and am realizing that there’s a direct correlation between bad and dark in many of them.
Too young to be a grandma: advice for moms of pregnant teens
If there’s one group of parents we rarely hear from on this site, it’s grandparents! Mamiverse recently published a piece with 5 tips for moms of pregnant teens.
My new mom friends are suddenly “parenting experts” — how do I deal?
In the last few months a small group of my mom friends have become self-declared parenting experts — and they have infants! They’re constantly railing on and on about what they’ll do when their child hits this stage or that stage, preaching to me about their enlightened childcare plans, and telling me how I should handle things my own child is dealing with… even though they have zero experience parenting a child older than six months.