Dottie’s cookie (and pizza) party
We believe strongly in letting our kids decide what parties they’re throwing (I mean, how else would we have ended up with Nora Lea’s last birthday theme?) Asking Dottie, “What kind of birthday party do you want to have?” returned the answer, “COOKIE PARTY!” so James and I shrugged and went to work and came up with an assemble-your-own-cookies-and-pizza party concept — which turned out pretty simple. Assembling your own food helps divert attention from food sensitivities and gives guests something to do when conversation slows.
A photo documentary of placenta encapsulation: yes, you’re going to see pieces of bloody placenta
I decided to encapsulate my placenta. Or, rather, I decided to hire someone to come over to my house and encapsulate it for me (thanks, Melanie!). Honestly, if I think about it too much it still grosses me out. But I’m happy to report that the actual taking of the placenta pills is not as gross as I feared.
How did you decide you wanted to have a another offbeatling?
My first baby was a surprise (albeit an awesome one) but now that I know all of the work involved with parenting, I am finding it much harder to decide if I want another. I think only children are awesome, but sometimes I think I want to parent another child.
3 tips for sharing baby news online without annoying your childless friends
Like many twentysomething parents-to-be, my friends can be put into one of two categories: those who are absolutely thrilled to hear I’m pregnant and want to know every last detail, and those who are quite frankly tired of seeing nothing but babies and wedding photos on Facebook. And despite being a recently-married mama-to-be, I understand where they’re coming from.
Our queer family ditched fertility treatments to foster-to-adopt
We are a queer family of two (for now). My husband is transgender and I identify as queer. Obviously, any baby-making to be had wasn’t needed some outside help. We’ve been together for ten years, and I’ve been baby-crazy for all ten of them.
We are brave and beautiful: a single mom’s journey back home with her son
Ooooh, y’all. We’re very privileged here at Offbeat Mama, because we get to see and feature a lot of incredible photo sessions. This post is definitely no exception — these photos (shot by North Carolina-based Charo Photography) feature Casey, a single mother, and her son Joseph. The idea behind the photos is ingenious: the pair picked words that they would use to describe one another and wrote them on each other. The results? Totally breathtaking.
Tips from teacher: 5 ways to keep teens from frying your nerves
Whilst I’m still learning how best to manage behaviour, and the results of my efforts are often far from perfect, I’m beginning to realise just how much I rely on some of the strategies taught at university or learnt from other teachers. Even when these strategies utterly fail me, at least I feel that I’ve done right by my students and maybe, just maybe, they’ll thank me for it when they calm down.
Our toddler was speaking French before either of us knew the language
Ottawa is truly a bilingual city — it borders Quebec, and a large segment of the population speaks both French and English. There are also large portions of the population that speak exclusively French or English. We felt that our lack of language ability was definitely a hurdle to cross in that environment. We found out we were expecting our first child shortly after moving, and quickly moved to Gatineau, an almost exclusively French part of the country.