Ozzie and Harriet beds: The aftermath of sleeping separately
This is in response to the insomniac post. I saw a few comments like, “Separate beds will help. Separate rooms would probably help even more.” Having a little bit of experience with this, I wanted to lend my two cents. I can say that it has definitely been a mixed bag, with a few unintended consequences.
A home water birth in a developing country with a homebirth ban
I woke up at 6:30 with what felt like menstrual cramps. I don’t know how many times I’ve read that phrase at the beginning of the scores of birth stories I’ve read over the months but it just didn’t seem real now that it was actually happening to me. I knew then that this was definitely labor, but couldn’t imagine I’d have a baby at the end of the day.
I’m an atheist but my step-kid is religious: how do I respect his beliefs while expressing mine?
I have a nine-year-old stepson. I’ve been in his life since he was two-years-old. We’ve always split time 50-50 between the houses. My partner and I are definitely offbeat. We’re tattooed, politically radical and activist-y, feminist, intentionally unmarried, and atheists. Around the time my stepson was four, his biological mom “found Jesus” and joined an evangelical, fundamentalist church. Needless to say, this was a difficult transition. Now, our little dude is coming to our house and evangelizing to us, trying to convert us.
Stay-at-home-dads, breadwinner moms, and making it all work
Stay-at-home-dads are slowly making a cultural creep into relevance: we’re seeing more dads who either by choice or circumstance are finding themselves happily keeping up the homestead while their partners work outside the home. Here’s a recent piece from NPR with more.
How to hit on moms: getting over your social awkwardness to make plans with other parents
So here’s the thing about making friends with other parents: it’s kind of hard. Every time my kid makes a new friend I am so excited (!!!) for him, but it’s also a little trepedatious for me: does this mean I have to try to make a friend, too?
I’m completely deaf in one ear: how do I teach my children to help me hear them?
I’m completely deaf in my right ear, and I’m a parent to a toddler and a preschooler. I need to be able to read lips to most effectively hear people when they speak, and preschoolers are notoriously unintelligible in the best of circumstances. I try to teach my kids to look at my face when they speak so I can hear them, but it doesn’t often work.
Should we get divorced but stay together?
When my husband and I weren’t married I had “zero” income. Now that we’re married and I’m on his healthcare and I’m trying to continue my education I’m realizing that my low/no income healthcare was far better than actually being insured. And now I’m worried about me receiving enough aid to finish school. Has anyone else thought about just getting a divorce on paper in order to reap the financial benefits?
What non-crazy steps did you take to baby proof your home?
I have a four-month-old little ball of love who is about to become a ROLLING ball of love. My partner and I are looking into baby-proofing — or rather, baby safe-ing as I like to say — our two bedroom apartment.