I will never forget the way it felt to finally let a little me back into my life. It took almost a year from the time my first baby was born.
Quinn was an all-consuming baby, from newborn colic and nursing struggles to restless nights and teething drama. I was bone tired and had been in survival mode for as long as I could remember. I wasn’t making deliberate choices so much as putting one foot in front of the other.
Some days that […]
I remember so clearly the day a stranger stopped me to compliment my parenting. I had just parked the car and was skipping over to get one-year-old Quinn out of her carseat. I had a big grin on my face and I was humming a merry tune. I threw open her door, tickled her toes and said “We’re here little one!” and she giggled at me. A man who was walking down the street stopped in his tracks. “What a […]
When you are pregnant with your second, or contemplating such a thing, you worry that you couldn’t possibly love another baby as much as your first.
Everyone assures you that this won’t be a problem, that love is not finite, that you will immediately have enough love for them both. My grandmother, a mother of seven, was especially reassuring to me in this area.
Just hours before Ruby was born, I rocked my precious 23-month-old baby Quinn to sleep. It was a […]
Once you become a mom, it’s crazy how quickly your viewpoint on everything changes. Suddenly, you see the world through mommy-vision.
I don’t just mean how this troubled world suddenly comes into sharp focus as you realize your little ones will have to live in it. Or even how you suddenly can relate more to all mothers, especially your own, and how you’re a little less sympathetic to anyone who isn’t one.
Pacing the floor at 2 in the morning, with no sleep […]
“I kiss you and kiss you, with arms round my own,
Ah, how shall I miss you, when, dear, you have grown”
–William Butler Yeats
I lay in bed the other day, nurse-dreaming as Ruby suckled away at the breast. My hand cupped her head. As they often do, my thoughts rested on Ruby, too.
I remember the exact feel of her as she lay on my chest just after being born, her sweet healthy gurgle (she was born partway in her sac still), […]
Before I had kids, I was kind of an impatient person (cue hysterical laughter from my entire family, friends and anyone who ever paid by check ahead of me in a grocery store line. Sorry about that, by the way. I was in kind of a hurry.).
I’ve always been fixated on the future, on its allure of uncertainty and adventure. Whatever phase I was in, my mind was on what was next. In high school, it was all about college, […]
When you have a baby, everyone who has “been there” (and plenty of people who haven’t) feel obligated to overload you with advice. These are mostly well-meaning attempts to make your life easier, or at least make the bearer feel they have done their part to pass on all the knowledge they accrued.
The only problem with that knowledge is it tends to fall into the following categories: Super obvious, super crazy or super unlikely.
Some super obvious advice that most parents get is […]
When Quinn was about five weeks old, I was out walking around Greenlake with another new mama when she hit me with a revelation: She still listened to NPR all day long.
I know it might sound a little stupid, but it had not even occurred to me that I could still listen to the radio.
With the complete upheaval of my entire home and being, and the crush of total wall-to-wall sleep deprivation, I had completely forgotten that there were some […]