Tag Archives: Family

How will I love two kids at once?

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 […]

My Christmas story

Quinn is such a little sponge right now, and she is sucking up everything having to do with Santa and Reindeer and candy canes and snowmen and gingerbread houses and sleighbells and. . .

It’s really fun. We made santas out of felt, decorated ornaments, made gingerbread, read The Night Before Christmas four billion times. That kid cracks me up that she loves that poem so much. I can’t wait to make paper stars with her, decorate gingerbread houses, and go […]

I need a sister wife!

Poor baby. She wakes up in the morning (be it 4 or 7 a.m…) cooing and crowing at the window, a giant grin spread across her little pink, cherubic face. Her feet are kicking, her arms are pumping, her heart is full of gladness and she turns to me with all of the richness of her angelic little being, eager to bask in the delight of the moment together, and who better to share it with then her mama, the […]

Mommy is beautiful, not that it matters

A few days ago, we were getting ready to go out. Not anywhere special, really, just out with a few friends who also have kids, and we were all bringing our kids. Hubby was holding the girls at bay while I got  ready. These days, that pretty much means just redoing my ponytail, putting on a clean shirt and brushing my teeth. I might smear on a little lipgloss and throw on some earrings if I can find them, but […]

Letting boys be kids

I know I’m a little late to join the pig-pile of vitriol over this whole kid with pink fingernails thing, but I’m slogging in anyway. It’s an interesting topic, and one that struck a nerve with me (and 60 million other people). If you’re sick of it already, feel free to ignore me.

As the mother of two young girls (OK, one of them is only a 34-week fetus but I have already been mothering aka worrying about her for what […]

The unlikely archivist

No less than four dozen times a day, my daughter will do something amazing. Maybe she’ll make up a little song about her baby sister in mommy’s belly, or line up all of her stuffed animals and read them a story, or, like she did the other day, wake up from her nap, still half-asleep and say “Big, big nose. Big beard. No, little beard. So fun, so cute. Daddy!”

I will think to myself, “Man, I’ve got to write that […]

Cute, cute, cute!

Quinn has entered the cuteness stage far earlier than I expected. No, not the stage of being cute herself. That’s one she’s always been in and will never, ever leave (note to self: Re-read that sentence when Quinn’s in eighth grade, then cue the chianti).

No, my toddler is in the stage where she remarks upon the cuteness of other things and people. Like her pigtails, my earrings and her friends (especially a certain little boy at preschool, who is actually […]

Making it up as we go along

It’s not until you have kids of your own that you realize how DIY this whole child-rearing thing can be. Parenting just seems so simple in theory (love them enough and they will turn out fine) and so ridiculously complex in practice (should I let her hold the pen for a few minutes while I watch her, or should I preemptively pull it from her hands for fear she might sprint off with it and have it lodge firmly in […]

Building our traditions

I have an old shoebox I keep close at hand these days, and I pull it out when Quinn is self-entertaining for a minute or two, or when she is asleep and I’m not. Inside is a needle and thread, tiny jinglebells, gold glitter, a red felt stocking, and felt shapes that I drew and cut out. I am a terrible sewer: I usually just wear a coat with a button missing rather than repair it, and I couldn’t even […]

Can’t I have two babies?

Ever since I got pregnant with baby #2 four months ago, I’ve gotten hints of what’s to come for my first baby: Immediate move to “big girl” status on or around June 3, 2011, even though she’ll only be 23 months old. That thought makes me really, really sad.

The crazy thing about toddlers is they seem so much like little kids, but they still have so much baby in them, too. I really think that’s as it should be, and […]