Catching up with Alix and Nick as they adapt to parenthood and budgeting
Three months after we were married, we welcomed our baby boy, Wilder Townsend Craft, with the help of Geraldine at Fremont Midwifery. His birth was transformative for me and us; I became a new, different, stronger person.
After the stroke, someone else sits in my grandmother’s body
My grandmother will not be at my wedding. The woman who was always so lively, so patient, and so strong is gone. She will never make me fresh tortillas. We will never again spend a day happily digging in her garden. She will not attend my wedding. The stroke marked her. She has only a little use of her right hand. She tires easily, she loses words in the middle of sentences. She confuses names. The worst part of this is that she knows exactly what the stroke took from her.
I think I’ve had three husbands: Navigating spousal career changes
Preacher’s wife. Teacher’s wife. Accountant’s wife. Huh? Yeah, I’ve been all three. And in the relatively short (five years) of marriage, I have found that with each career change my husband embarks on, I am challenged with re-learning how I perceive myself, my husband and our relationship.
I’m freezing and he’s boiling at bed time — help!
As soon as I get tired, I lose all ability to generate my own body heat. I’ll be sleeping with socks, pajamas, three blankets and something over the top of my face and still feel chilled at the same time my husband is boiling. I know partners often prefer different temperatures for sleeping comfortably, so I would LOVE some advice on how you all deal with this issue.
A non-parent’s holiday guide to picking out offbeat children’s gifts
I love everything to do with gifting: giving them, receiving them, scheming them, you name it. Since I have a kid a lot of my non-parent friends and family members will often ask me what kind of fun, kind of weird, somewhat non-traditional gifts they should give their nephews, nieces, family friends (and so on..) and I’ve decided I should just compile a list to make it easy on everyone.
Vocabulary gymnastics: What do I call my boyfriend’s girlfriend?
I’m polyamorous. So is my boyfriend. And so is his girlfriend. And while polyamory seems to be a frequent topic of discussion right now, society as a whole lacks the vocabulary and the social scripts to navigate poly relationships. This is all a long way of saying I still have no idea how to describe my relationship with my boyfriend’s girlfriend.
6 ways I found time for my favorite hobby again after having a kid
I knew before my kid was born that I would get less sleep and have less free time after having a baby. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to lose my creativity for a while. It felt like losing a piece of my soul. During what we’ve since dubbed the Era of No Sleep, I was exhausted. What energy I had went almost entirely towards caring for my family. I connected with friends and took breaks, but I did not drum, dance, or engage in any of the myriad of crafts I’ve always loved dabbling in.
Start an in-absence game of chess with your partner or roommate
My friends, Megan and Trevor, have wildly different schedules. So Trevor came up with this great idea to keep things fun and playful, even when they’re apart.