Share Have your children ever had a cavity? My mouth is filled with lead fillings, but my children’s mouths were untouched until recently. Ten years of dentist check ups with no cavities. Ten years of going home with new toothbrushes and a see you in six months appointment card. Ten years of brushing the kids’…
Category Archives: parenting
Torture in the Lab
Share Some people are just not meant to work with children. The lab worker who drew blood from my daughter today was definitely one of them. When we walked into his dark basement office, Juju’s face was already blotchy with fear and tear marks. Instead of acknowledging her with a smile, he scowled and barked,…
Tiger Mother, Make Way for the Mere Francaise
Share Since the furor over the Chinese Tiger Mother parenting tactics has died down, it was only a matter of time until another parenting stereotype come under scrutiny. Thanks to Pamela Druckerman’s book Bringing Up Bebe, it turns out the new target is to be the French mother. The French, after all, are fun to…
Table for Six: the Foodie Family Makes a Triumphant Come Back
Share When my first child was born, we were living in New York City and eating out almost as often as we stayed in. Although I loved to cook, there were just so many restaurants out there that were too appealing to ignore. Bella’s birth did not slow us down in the least. We had…
a Little Each Day
Share Sleep is everything. Yesterday I almost quit everything: deleted the blog, quit the freelance, and threw away the dreams of cooking school and small businesses. The world had been painted a drab gray and filled with an incomprehensible babble of children’s voices, crying baby, and the distant rumble of passing trains. My muscles were…
How Do You Incorporate Charity in the Holidays? (and a Very Special Giveaway)
Share I love the holidays but sometimes get overwhelmed with how materialistic they can become. My kids get very into making their Santa letters and to counterbalance that, I strive to find ways to give back, to include charity in our holiday planning. This year, in addition to combing through the dozens of catalogs that…
Baby as Prop
Share My sister has an amazing eye when it comes to taking pictures of children. She catches them in the most expressive poses, with one click of a shutter capturing the essence of their forming personalities. Whenever I grab my camera, I breathe deep and channel her vision, resisting the urge to ask for “Cheese”…
Because Every Dorothy Needs Her Scarecrow
Share I had no idea when I married my husband that he’d make such an amazing father. I knew he was romantic, prone to big gestures, and had a giant heart, but I didn’t know how big. So big, in fact, that when his little girl asked him to be her Halloween accessory and walk…
Snoozing on the Kitchen Floor
Share I remember the first time I realized I would never sleep again, at least never in that true, deep, shut the world out, wake up whenever, no alarms, no phone, no care in the world way. I had been a mom for about six weeks, and we decided to celebrate with our first date…
From Jealous to Zealous
Share I used to be jealous, angry, a real mess. Any little comment would send me running to my room in distress. I thought my little sister had ruined my life, taken away all my parents’ love and caused me great strife. But now I’ve seen the light, and I’m done wanting to fight. I…
My Long Road to Lactation
Share I’ve thought long and hard about whether or not to blog about breastfeeding. After all, this is a food blog, a foodie mom blog, and it seems a bit off-topic and potentially off-putting. But you could argue that producing breast milk is producing food at its most primal, and as I have been spending…
a Totally Cool Totally Tween Birthday Cake
Share We’ve been navigating the waters of tweenhood for a few years now, but they still feel like uncharted territory, where vicious bouts of eye rolling await at every turn. What was cool and acceptable last week becomes horribly embarrassing the next. From peace signs to fluffy puppies, nothing is safe. While I enjoy getting…
Traditional Birth Announcements in a Digital Age
Share Six weeks. 52 days. That’s how long it too us to get our act together to finish our birth announcements. Sophie’s matchstick chicken legs now have some kissable folds of baby fat and her cheeks are rounded. Baby Sophie is looking less like a delicate preemie and seems to be on the verge of…
Join Me for the Nutrition and Children Webinar by Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition
Share Last summer, when we traveled to France, I was shocked to see a significant number of heavyweight children. I’d read plenty about the globalization of childhood obesity, but seeing it firsthand made the statistics a reality. The American lifestyle of convenience foods and packed schedules have spread; French supermarkets we walked through were filled…
The Promise of Tiny Feet
Share Where will those feet walk in their lifetime? Will they march confidently into boardrooms, beating a staccato with pointy black heels? Will they work long hours in a restaurant kitchen, as comfortable as possible in acid green Crocs? Will they march triumphantly up Kilimanjaro to plant a bright flag on the summit, laced securely…
a Little Help for Big Sister Rage
Share The sleep deprivation of caring for a newborn leaves me feeling jet lagged nowadays, permanently confused. During my first trip to Babie R Us this weekend, I literally spent 10 minutes staring at this package of breastmilk containers before putting it back on the shelf, utterly unable to understand how they functioned. The combination…
Quiet Moments Amidst the Chaos of Four Kids
Share Four children is definitely a lot. A lot of permission slips to sign, math worksheets to check, doctors appointments to make, goodnight kisses to bestow. It’s a lot of people to feed, dress, bathe, worry about, and love, especially when one of those four children takes 45 minutes to eat and eats every 2…
After Labor, a Gentle Weekend of Nesting
Share We spent three long days driving back and forth to the Prentice NICU in Chicago, coordinating babysitters to watch the kids while we learned how to feed and care for our newest child. The quiet darkness of her hospital pod was a stark contrast to the chaos of back to school routine I left…
a Brush with Death and a Baby Girl
Share When my water broke, it was nothing like the movies. There was no gush, just an unsettling wetness, a slight trickle that woke me out of a deep sleep with a strong sense that something was not right. I walked through the darkened house past the sleeping shapes of my family, and headed to…
Blue Conquest
Share The water used to beckon to her like a dangerous toy, twinkling, sparkling, enticingly blue. She would struggle to escape my grasp, drawn inexorably towards that dazzling azure. Her pudgy little fingers wriggled with frustration in the prison of my sweaty palm, desperate to plunge her toddler body in the pool. Now her fingers…
Back to School Blue Sky Get Organized Giveaway
Share My new year’s resolutions kick in with the school year, not when the ball drops in Times Square. Every fall, I embrace a new organizational system, determined to make this the year that I keep better track of assignments, field trips, and sports practice. At the same time that I’m scouring the aisles of…
