What are the ethics of naming your child — can you use someone else’s baby’s name?
As days went by, I couldn’t stop smiling and giggling when I thought of the name — I know it’s meant for my baby, and my husband feels the same. Except… I feel guilty about the idea of “stealing” this beautiful name.
DIY marshmallow shooters for kids of all ages
I know some big kids, aka supposed grown-ups, who will be high-tailing it to the hardware store to get s’more supplies for these marshmallow shooters. (Ha! See what I did there?) Then your advanced marshmallow weaponry is easy to load and laughter-inducing to unload. Find out how to make your very own marshmallow arsenal…
I am breastfeeding a two-year-old and it’s not gross (I promise)
The other day I was hanging out with my friend and her four-year-old daughter. My son, the aforementioned two-year-old, at some point asked to breastfeed. I’m trying to cut down on nursing him in public, but he’d just spent his first night away from me, so I figured I could make an exception. I helped him up onto my lap, pulled down my shirt, and let my kid do his thing.
I am the parent of a weird kid, and I know I’m not alone
Life with a weird kid is isolating. You spend a lot of time tamping down that parental anxiety when your kid is freaking out and it seems like all the other kids are sitting nicely and cooperating. You explain over and over that your kid just doesn’t like circle time or story time or most organized activities. I’ve learned over time to respect my son and the way he functions, and there are a lot of activities we simply cannot do because he can’t handle them. I’ve learned that the reason it seems like all the other kids can cope is that the parents with the weird kids are staying home. I’ve felt completely and utterly alone as seemingly everyone else went around with their perfectly normal, average kid.
My daughter wants a Doctor Who-themed Bat Mitzvah and we’re lost: help us plan her party!
Since there’s no way to know how many of our readers have actually celebrated/attended a Bat Mitzvah, I thought it would be a good idea to, you know, ask someone who HAS. I wrangled Avital Norman Nathman, and she gave me the rundown.
We need to quit telling lies on Facebook
Not to be outdone, I uploaded our new pictures. “Sunny Saturday!” I wrote in the status. I’m not a total liar. I’m just good at PR. Time passed — five minutes? An hour? When you’re blissfully ignoring your kids, the seconds slip by far too quickly.
Infertility and a wedding: what if I can’t have children?
Having a baby always felt like a given — I’d get married, have a baby and live happily ever after. That’s the way it works, right? Six pregnancies and seven miscarriages later (one set of twins) we find ourselves facing the very real possibility that I simply can not carry a child to term. Three months seems to be average, though one pregnancy was lost at five months.
My child and I will be bilingual, but my husband isn’t: how will this impact our family?
Though babies are not yet on the to-do list, my husband and I have been thinking about what having a child would mean. One of the things that came up is language — my mother tongue is Dutch and both my husband and I agree that I should teach our kids(s) how to speak it as well, so they can communicate when visiting my family and other advantages. The problem is… my husband doesn’t understand Dutch at all, save the odd word here and there. He won’t be able to understand us and has previously expressed discomfort and annoyance at not being able to join in conversations.