ShareTweet I have a new personal essay published in this month’s Chicago Parent magazine entitled My Long Road to Lactation, all about how it took me three kids to become a nursing mother. I got comfortable nursing with Juju and was a pro when Sophie arrived as a tiny preemie, ready to deal with pumps… Continue Reading
Category Archives: parenting
A Poetic Cry for Help Lost in a Sea of Paper
ShareTweet Periodically, my children’s backpacks explode onto the kitchen counter, overflowing with weeks worth of graded homework, unit tests, and all the other paperwork that fills their school lives. It sits on the counter for a few days before I can find a quiet morning to sift through it and find the gems worth saving,… Continue Reading
Too Much Death and Destruction Inspires Personal Credo
ShareTweet Last week was an endless week of carnage and destruction. When the Des Plaines River flooded on Thursday, it was as if it was as overcome with grief as those living around it. Every day of last week brought more grim news and sadness. First there was the inexplicable horror of the Boston Marathon.… Continue Reading
My Child’s Pain Brings Out the Tiger Mom
ShareTweet Like all kids, my brood complains about aches and pains frequently, but Juju’s back pain for the last year has a different quality. Her back hurts in the morning, after sports, and even after family movie night. Like a dark cloud eclipses the sun on a perfect spring day, the smile vanishes from her… Continue Reading
Winter Sunshine Therapy
ShareTweet I flew to Toronto again last week to visit my father who is still in the ICU, almost three months since his lung transplant. It’s a long road back, plagued by infections, pneumonia, and set backs. He’s still committed to the fight, but watching him suffer for such a long time, often unable to… Continue Reading
Sullied by Last Night’s Oscars
ShareTweet As if last night’s Oscars weren’t bad enough, the pain continued during tonight’s dance car pool with Jack singing, “We saw your boobs!” over and over and over again. When told to stop, he argued that he couldn’t. The song was stuck in his head after seeing the Oscars last night. His singing was… Continue Reading
Licking My Wounds
ShareTweet Sometimes the only thing to do is just to go home, call it quits, and lick your wounds. Although I generate some income from my blogging and freelancing, for the most part, I inhabit the warm cocoon of stay at home motherhood. My days are dictated by the rhythm of my children’s lives, jarred… Continue Reading
a Color Filled World
ShareTweet Table manners go beyond not chewing with your mouthful. Making good conversation is equally important. Recently, in an effort to fight my kids’ dine and dash instincts, I instituted a new rule. Everyone must bring up one interesting topic of conversation before being excused from the table. And as my kitchen is an unquestioned… Continue Reading
Serenity in 2013
ShareTweet I believe in the power of new year’s resolutions. New beginnings, even if they are arbitrarily dictated by a calendar date, are filled with tremendous positive energy. My new year’s resolutions used to be long bullet lists of personal failings I wanted to rectify. Too often they remained just that: long, depressing laundry lists… Continue Reading
When Moms Cry: Hot Tears of Joy
ShareTweet Do your children see you cry? Other than the occasional angry tears of frustration on particularly hectic weekends, my children don’t see me cry. But that’s changed over the last three days, since I left my father in Toronto in the ICU. In her beautiful memoir The Middle Place, Kelly Corrigan coined that feeling… Continue Reading
Prayers and Thoughts for a Private Man
ShareTweet What do you do when people ask for prayers? Do you kneel and pray or simply send a quiet plea out to the greater universe? Do you communicate with God in church or out walking in a lonely meadow? No need to share, just please take a moment tonight to do whatever feels right… Continue Reading
Middle School Baggage
ShareTweet My daughter started middle school this fall. Middle School. Just the two words alone made me cringe, plunged me back into a dark hole of painful memories. When I toured the school in the spring, I wasn’t expecting the rush of emotion that made me cry as I walked home. The lockers seemed so… Continue Reading
Politics Are Welcome at my Dinner Table
ShareTweet Four years ago, I voted with three kids in tow. Two were basically babies, and the third was a very mature first grader. We walked down the street in New Jersey and huddled behind a curtain to take turns punching numbers. My big girl first grader was jumping up and down, telling me to… Continue Reading
Nutella Hot Chocolate Warms Up Ghosts and Goblins
ShareTweet Tonight all rules go out the window. Everything in moderation is usually my motto but Halloween is an exception. I give the kids a night of excess, a night of enjoying their sugar-laden bounty. Regardless of its pagan roots, I love the magic of turning our ordinary neighborhood into a candy wonderland. For one… Continue Reading
Confession of a Sport Hating Mom
ShareTweet I hate sports. Televised sports that is. Why sit on a couch when you could be out sweating chasing a ball or pounding the pavement somewhere? Various boyfriends over the years tried to teach me the rules of baseball and football, but little registered. Eventually I fell in love with Steve, and one of… Continue Reading
Six Easy Tactics for Better School Lunches
ShareTweet I like to think of myself as a fun-loving heathen, as someone happiest with a car full of kids setting off on a day of unstructured adventures. But yesterday, I danced in the street all the way home when I kissed my three oldest kids goodbye and sent them off for their first full… Continue Reading
Prolactin Blues
ShareTweet I’d heard of postpartum blues, baby blues but never of prolactin blues. I wasn’t ready for feelings caused by the crash of hormones at the end of breastfeeding. I wasn’t ready at all. Sophie stopped breastfeeding suddenly 9 days ago, on her birthday. Overnight she stopped drinking contentedly, pausing every few minutes to look… Continue Reading
Big Birthday for Tiny Girl
ShareTweet One year ago, you arrived: early, unannounced, and terrifyingly tiny. Your brother and sisters were not convinced you were a good idea. A puppy sounded more fun. But you quickly took over the house and all of our hearts. You made us whole, even, complete: a very loud and messy table for six. Going… Continue Reading
Looking Up to Find the Magic of Summer
ShareTweet This summer has been a whirlwind, dashing from one task to another, unable to think beyond the next commitment, driving from swim meets to baseball games in a hot minivan. I am ready for time to stand still, for the clock to stop running, for the magic of summer to wash over us. Summer… Continue Reading
A Look Back Through an Artist’s Eye
ShareTweet Artists see the world through a different lens, one filled with a riot of colors and shapes, even at the most banal moments. Last summer, I was huge, hot, and miserable. We were in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in a beautiful beachfront home rented by my husband’s aunt and uncle. I had… Continue Reading
Beach in the City
ShareTweet Chicago has been home for almost two years, but in many ways we’re still newcomers here. We still rely on the GPS to get around, still hunger for ketchup on our hot dogs, still marvel at the flatness of the landscape. But more than anything, we still hunger for the ocean, unable to get… Continue Reading