Blogs She Loves
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We asked Catherine Newman, the Dalai Mama of blogging, to share links to (and excerpts from) some of her favorite parenting blogs.
Breed 'Em and WeepJennifer Mattern, living in Western Massachusetts with her two little girls, Sophie and Hattie Belle
On giving birth: "The Jacuzzi helped. It definitely helped. In the way that a tourniquet would be a welcome approach to the bloody, spurting stump of your just-sawed-in-half leg. As in, it's not a bad way to go, but it doesn't really solve the problem. ... I forgot I was bad-ass. I wandered about on my knees in the Jacuzzi, mooing softly and wondering whose fault it would be if I pooed in the tub."
Bub and PieAnonymous, mother of Bub and Pie in London, Ontario
On the way luck can masquerade as despair: "It's hard, of course, to remain aware of how lucky I am when I'm going crazy with sleep-deprivation, fighting off the hands clinging to my legs, the self-pitying thoughts scratching at my brain. Every once in a while, though, there is something — two little jackets hanging from pegs, one little line on a home pregnancy test — that reminds me of how very full my life is."
DooceHeather Armstrong, mother of Leta in Salt Lake City
On her daughter's "bunky": "We had struggled with what we were going to teach her to call her parts, and before you freak out and call the police because we're encouraging our child to nickname her vagina, don't I know that now that I've allowed such aberrant behavior she's going to grow up and nickname the severed limbs in her deep freezer, let me assure you that we've gone ahead and taught her the correct anatomical designations as well. It's not like we're calling it her Wallace or her Supreme Chancellor Palpatine."
Falling Down Is Also a GiftMoreena Tiede, of Normal, Illinois, mother of Frankie and Annika, who awaits her third liver transplant
On conflicting desires: "Sometimes I want to rush them ahead to adulthood, to see them mature and developed and safely ushered through the difficulties of childhood and adolescence. I want to see Annika surviving liver disease. I want to see them as independent and capable young women. Finished, in other words. But finished never really happens. ... And no matter how difficult and scary it is, I never really want to miss any part of the girls' growing up. The failures and the successes and the days filled with both joy and frustration."
FinslippyAlice Bradley, recent transplant from Brooklyn to the New Jersey suburbs, and mother of Henry
On sweaty napping: "He wakes up from his naps soaked in sweat. … When he peels himself off his damp mattress, he's so wet I could swear he's simply spent his nap joyfully peeing himself. It doesn't help that he covers himself in a quilt and won't let me turn his fan on. His room is like an oven, but he says he likes it. 'I like to be all sweaty,' he tells me. Kids are just like us, with their misguided assertions. I keep telling him he can't like it, because I don't. But there's no talking to him."
FussyEden Marriot Kennedy, mother of Jackson in Santa Barbara, California
On her son's evolving language: "And I don't know which cartoon got him into the habit of saying 'BEHOLD!' but I have to say, he doesn't overuse it, even though he knows it will get him a laugh, and he uses it properly, like the time when Jack was looking around the couch for something and Jackson knelt down with his hands cupped reverently in front of him and said, 'BEHOLD! THE MIGHTY REMOTE!' "
Here Be HippogriffsJulia, wrestling with Patrick in Minnesota
On her son's love of letters: "The balloon guy made him a lovely number four in blue. Patrick then asked for a P. The guy turned purple. 'No no,' I said, 'he just wants the letter P. He doesn't have to ...' 'Actually I do,' Patrick interrupted, and started to pull down his pants, right there in the garden. I am willing to bet everything I have that the balloon guy has never been so happy to see the last of a child as he was when I hustled Patrick off to the bathroom."
SweetneyTracey Gaughran-Perez, mother of daughter M_, in BaltimoreOn eating in a restaurant: "Presented with her meal, M_ did everything but actually consume any of it. She waved her peanut butter and jelly sandwich around her head threateningly, like a cocked pistol. She smeared wads of peanut butter and gobs of jelly onto the table. She gyrated in her chair as though in full seizure, refusing to be still for even the most fleeting of moments. And the whining, OH THE WHINING. Jamie and I took turns shoveling food in our mouths while one of us manned the Tilt-A-Whirl molded into the shape of our daughter, alternately growling behavioral corrections and pleading with her to PLEASE STOP THE INSANITY."
