My son’s Nintendo and Mario-themed bedroom
When I learned I was pregnant I knew immediately that my child’s room would include elements from my old favorite original Nintendo games. I started working on items for him right away, many of which are still in his room today.
The history of National Grandparent’s Day and ideas for grandparent celebrations
If you live in the United States you know how we just looooooove to make holidays for everyone, and September 8 is yet another: it’s National Grandparent’s Day! I’m a big fan of celebrating just about anything and anyone, so I’m totally on the Grandparent’s Day train. While looking around for cute ideas for stuff my kid could do for his long-distance grandparents, I realized I don’t know ANYTHING about the origins of the day. Anyone up for a history lesson/craft party? Let’s do it.
It turns out I love creating art with my four-year-old
No sooner had I drawn my first face (I love drawing from old black & white movie stills) had she swooped over to me with an intense look. “OOOH! Is that a NEW sketchbook? Can I draw in that too, mama?” I have to admit, the girl knows good art supplies when she sees them. I muttered something about how it was my special book, how she had her own supplies and blah blah blah, but the appeal of new art supplies was too much for her to resist. In a very serious tone, she looked at me and said, “If you can’t share, we might have to take it away if you can’t share.”
The road to acceptance for parents of children with special needs
With the birth of our son we joined the ranks of that undefined, amorphous, limitless group of “special needs parents.” Within the first days of the NICU I knew there would be challenges, but I could not ever imagine the constituency of belonging to such a group. A stat perhaps. A label. A stigma?
My ex and I are amicably co-parenting a year after a contentious divorce
Connecticut mandates that all couples with children who are seeking a divorce attend a series of parenting classes (not together, thank GOD.) The classes are intended to offer advice for co-parenting post-divorce. These classes were long. And often boring. And filled with a lot of “Well, duh” information. But I learned a few good tips that I assumed I would never use because I was certain we would never be able to effectively co-parent.
How do you respond if someone is blatantly racist in front of your kids?
I in turn wanted to share this [now gone] post from Ask Moxie — the topic is powerful and uncomfortable, and definitely needs to be addressed. A (Chinese-American) mother was out with her two kiddos and confronted with blatantly racist comments directed at her
I’ve known I was transgender since age 2
I have a hard time explaining to non-transgender people how I knew I was male from the start; I just did. I sometimes ask them, “How do you know you’re male or female?” Often, they go quiet and look stumped, because they can’t answer it either. Most people seem to just know, right? You can’t pinpoint what makes you feel that way or when exactly you realized it, can you? You likely always just knew.
Our house is drowning in toys so we’re cutting back
It has all just accumulated over the years to the point that I feel our house is overrun with it all. Now, I know there are a lot of folks out there that will not agree with me. I know lots of families that have entire playrooms full of toys, and that’s nice and all. But what if I don’t want to use up an entire room just for toys? What if I actually don’t really want more square footage in my house just so I can accommodate a habit of accumulation?