I was really dreading Quinn’s move from two naps to one. So many moms of toddlers seemed to look back on the two-nap phase with rose-colored-glasses, and it was also hard for me to picture myself functioning as well without my two mini-breaks a day (not that Q was ever completely reliable in her timing or even in actually taking both naps on any given day).
Suddenly, about a month ago, the transition was upon me. I thought it might stretch […]
If you’ve been waiting for just the right time to hit the wading pool with your tot, your days are numbered.
That’s right, though it seems like the wading pools just opened last week, most of them have already closed for the season (Bitter Lake, Carl Anderson, Dahl, Delridge, E. Queen Anne, E.C. Hughes, Hiawatha, Soundview, South Park, Wallingford). The rest have just days remaining (wrings hands nervously):
Magnuson Wading Pool (7400 Sand Point Way NE), which is open from 12 to […]
Babies are so weird.
These days, we spend so much time in the water. In any given week, we go to three different wading pools, a public swim and then hit the kiddie pool at a friend’s house a few times as well. And Quinn loves it. She splashes, she dunks, she pours. She ends up soaked and giggling at least five times a week.
Then comes bath or shower time, when you would think this same love of water might be […]
Last summer, when the Seattle temps hit the triple-digits, I did what any concerned, sleep-deprived new mama might do. I went to Fred Meyer for four hours and wandered the air-conditioned aisles with my baby strapped to my chest.
Tiny Q kept cool, and I got some groceries, cute baby clothes and all of the greeting cards I would need for the next year, but still, it wasn’t the greatest way to spend the day, especially when I had to […]
The results are in on which Seattle wading pools will be full of giggling, wriggling little wet bodies this summer and which will sit empty and forlorn.
Thanks to a very tight budget and federal requirements on drains which necessitated repairs, nine wading pools will be closed for the whole summer:
Beacon Hill, GeorgeTown, Gilman, Highland Park, Peppi’s Playground, Powell Barnett, Ravenna, Sandel and View Ridge.
I live less than a block from one of those pools, and I’m very bummed to hear they won’t be finishing their repairs as planned! […]
When I decided to quit my part-time job in November and become a full-time stay at home-mom, my biggest worry was being cooped up all winter. Sure, mothering had been great for the first six months, but it included so many walks through local parks and the zoo that I wasn’t really sure what my life would look like once the activities ended. What would I do all day at home with my baby??
Well, lucky for me, we had an […]
My baby girl is in for a major letdown when she sees what caterpillars really look like. Her books and plush stuffed animals have set her up to expect caterpillars to be oversized, cuddly and multicolored.
They have inexplicably set her up to love caterpillars, just like board books and toddler toys teach babies to adore mice, ants, raccoons and all of the other creatures that, in our society, only pest control workers really love.
Why do we prepare our babies for […]
Quinn has always been a cuddly, clingy baby. That’s worked for me for the most part, as I’m pretty much a cuddly, clingy mama. But there have been times over the past 10 months when I wished I could move more than two feet from her side without evoking a total breakdown. There were times when I wanted to start dinner before my husband finished work. There were times when I would have loved to go to the bathroom without […]
My husband and I are separated from our family by a continent and an ocean, so introducing our little one to her grandparents meant two flights, lots of planning and even more luggage. Here are some things we learned along the way that should make traveling with your little passenger a little bit easier.
What to take
Wheels: If you have an easily collapsible stroller, then bringing it might make your time at the airport easier, but if you have a larger […]
We all have one. Mine happened when Q was about seven weeks old.
We had just spent a lovely hour at Greenlake with some other new parents and babies from my childbirth class, walking, talking and sharing our adventures in early parenthood.
It was my first time using the stroller. I had one of those travel systems, and had miraculously managed to open the stroller part and get the carseat inside even though it had been about a million years since I learned how to do […]