Spring Break Road Trip ’09: Day 1

I have traveled all over the world under intense and difficult situations, such as sleeping on a centipede infested mattress on a dirt floor in India or vacating a bus due to a bomb threat in Israel or paying a quarter for a Chinese bathroom (you’d have to smell it to believe it). Yet traveling with children requires a whole new set of skills and rules that I wasn’t quite prepared for. We’ve traveled with my daughter several times now including our five week road trip to New Orleans last spring. But not yet a mobile toddler, I was able to sit her in the corner with toys and take care of dinner. Now that she is walking, and does not care to be held for long, a new breed of vigilance is required. Read more »

My Daughter is Attacking my Dog

We have one of those plastic mail carrier boxes that you get filled with mail when you go away for a while and they put your mail on hold. We never returned it to the post office because our daughter loves it. At first she used it to climb into or throw her toys in. But now she uses it for much more mischievous means, attacking the dog. Read more »

Toxic Toys Suck!

I’m not a completely neurotic mother. I let my daughter climb, unassisted, the cement steps to the wood bridge over our acequia which she walks back and forth on before descending the same cement steps. Sometimes, I let her walk around while nibbling on a bagel or apple. I even let her outside without a hat on, but rarely. I’m crazy, I know. Yet, what really scares me, are her toys. Yes, the seemingly innocent play items that fill her day with joy. It seems like everyday, another one is being recalled for choking hazards or lead content. Not to mention, the one’s that are not being recalled, those that the Government Consumer Product Safety Commission only “suggests” might be unsafe, such as BPA, PVC, phthalates, and other big words. Read more »

MAAAAAAAMAAAAA!!!

As my daughter nears the 18-month mark, I am truly beginning to understand the extent of my impatience, perhaps because my daughter tests it everyday with her incessant whining. While my lovely offspring spends most of the day being ridiculously cute, she spends the rest of the time calling for me in a curdling cry, “MAAAAMAAAA” with no rational cause. Sometimes, a simple distraction will send her on her way, other times, a hug, but then there are the times when nothing will appease her. I shake my arms vehemently with insane rage pretending she is between them, before gently kneeling beside her and stroking her head. How can a little two foot person be both my reason for living and my reason for wanting to overdose on heroin?

I looked on the Internet for some advice. Read more »

Snotty Nosed Kids

What is it with babies and snot? Since becoming a mother, I now equate winter with snot, just after snow and chopping wood. Little crusty, drippy noses abound. My daughter got her first cold last month and I chased after her with a tissue until she finally went from head wagging irritation to complete resignation. It seemed like there was snot everywhere as she wiped it from nose to hand, from hand to toy, toy to couch. Read more »

Music Appreciation

My 16 month-old daughter is a great musician, not because she likes to strum my guitar or bang on my drum, not even because she likes to bang pot lids in a loud rhythm against the kitchen floor. She is more a musician of the synthesizer sort. Read more »

Cloth or Paper?

If you’re like me, you knew from the very start that you would use cloth diapers. Even though your mom could not understand why you would revert to such antiquated tactics and argued that what you saved in trash you wasted in water, you still could not commit to adding to the nasty refuse that piles up endlessly on land and sea. I explained to my mother: we’re not talking about folding cloths like origami napkins and pinning them on with ginormous safety pins (ouch!). Nowadays, they come with snaps and covers and liners and pretty colors and various fancy means for making the option easier. And, hey, I have a washer and dryer in my house, a blessing that needs to be gratefully returned to planet earth.

It was not long before reality set in. Read more »

Read it Again, Mom

How many times can you read The Jolly Barnyard before a tick develops that causes you to cluck intermittently while conversing? How many times can you read These Are My Hands before you begin announcing your body parts to grocery clerks? How many times can you read Red Fish Blue Fish before you begin speaking in rhyme at the post office? I have tested these theories and have found that, although mommies may feel like we are incurring these oddities, no one else seems to notice. Read more »