“That’s the Difference Between Girls and Boys.”

We were walking through a wooded park the other day, Martin covered in mud from his waist down, Chris from his neck up…and in his mouth…oh, and in his nose. They tore around in circles, careened down hills, clambered up trees, and toppled into the creek. I pushed an empty double stroller for [...]

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$138,095

I just got yet another “mommy joke” e-mail. Complete with lots of pink and animated gifs. I admit, sometimes particularly saccharine ones bring a tear to my eye–even when they annoy me, but I’m like that: easily teary-eyed.
But this one, which I’ve seen in various forms, just irritates me. It tells of [...]

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Hey! Didn’t I Tell You That You’re My Friend?

On my way to bring Martin to his little gym class, I was behind a car decorated with bumper stickers that advocated everything I opposed. From politics to religion to the rule of law, it was me, but opposite. I followed this car all the way into the gym’s parking lot, and we [...]

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Whoops. . . I Laughed at Bill Maher

I watch Bill Maher occasionally, but I didn’t see the breastfeeding comments until I YouTubed it after reading about the outrage women were feeling about what he said.
And I found that I really didn’t care a whole lot.
I even laughed a few times.
And over the last nearly four years, that was me you might have [...]

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Get Us Outta Here

You know when you can’t play Candyland or pretend to be a crocodile one. more. time.
I needed freedom today. I wasn’t going to get it.
So I got us all some freedom. We went out in a field by a pond. They ran. I sort of stumbled behind them. They fell [...]

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Opinion #8,472,196 On Britney

If I have to hear one more time that Britney looked fat in her outfit at that MTV awards show, I’ll scream.
No, she didn’t. I don’t even have to get into whatever “fat” means, or get into the whole body image/culture thing, because she didn’t even look Hollywood fat. The talking heads in [...]

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I Finally Left Him

My little baby, my first born; I left him in the care of not-family members in a public place for over an hour. He’s three years old, and I’ve never done this before today; it was high time.
He’s taking one of those kid gym classes, and all of a sudden it’s without parent participation. [...]

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I Think I Got Bullied Today

I think–I think–I got bullied today. The suspects: all in their mid-thirties, with double strollers, juice boxes, antibacterial wipes, and Cheerios. They stuck together in a little group at the playground entrance. One mother was running around, though; she was frenetically scrubbing all of the equipment with her towel before her toddler [...]

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My Rope Nurse

My three year old heard a woman on tv say, “I raise my children.” He turned to me and said, “Mom, you graze your children, too. Look at the baby–he is grazing right now. And when I was a baby in your stomach, I grazed on your rope nurse.”
Huh?
I pieced it together: He misunderstood “raise” [...]

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Three Mothers at the Coffee Shop

The other day, I went to a coffee place that I frequent, or, rather, I frequented with one baby, but infrequent it with two little guys because it doesn’t fit a stroller, and everything in there is breakable or art or both. Those sorts of places scare me when I’m with my kids, and [...]

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