City Mom, Longmont Mom Longmont, CO Having recently moved my family from Chicago to Longmont, Colorado, well, what can I say – I miss the sirens. Every four minutes, I wonder if I’ve gone deaf. Back at the University of Colorado, I referred to this place as Longtucky. As a student, I generally had no... Continue Reading →
Longmont, CO I just read that, if you want to keep your bay leaves flavorful longer, you can store them in the freezer and they'll last for years. This seems to suggest that these little turtle shell shavings had flavor, to begin with. They are hard to describe, given that they have no discernible taste... Continue Reading →
Philosophically, I'm not a proponent of the Family Bed. At least not in the sense of making it "a thing." But sometimes the family bed happens.
Chicago Bus Stop, 6:45am I think springtime in Chicago has my number, something made painfully clear to me recently as my kids and I suffered a bout of CPT (Chicago Public Transport). Our car was in the shop for 2 weeks, thus signaling the arctic front that did descend on our dear city this May.... Continue Reading →
Shanghai, CHINA That’s ‘Hi Baby!’ in Chinese. In China, it's usual and accepted that most families, local and foreign, employ Chinese women to manage the household. The 'Ayi' (Auntie) will clean, do laundry, wash dishes, shop for food, care for children, pay bills, and whatever else needs to be done, all for a very reasonable (ridiculously... Continue Reading →
“If humans were meant to fly, we’d have wings.” Certainly this is true of babies, who, if meant to fly would have an on-off switch or, at the very least, a volume control?
As parents we get constant, immediate feedback on our performance. Mostly from our children, who even before words and tend to be pretty straightforward. Chewing lunch and swallowing it might say “I love you mom, thanks for everything,” while the occasional upending of a bowl of homemade split pea soup could be loosely translated as “What did I ever do to deserve this and what were they thinking when they allowed you to be a mommy?”
"I can see the head!' the midwife exclaimed triumphantly in her lovely accented English. "Well,” I thought, “could we not just grab it and pull it out?" as it dawned on me that the real miracle of birth is that anyone does it more than once. Tallinn, ESTONIA I had vastly overestimated my endurance for... Continue Reading →
The Overhead Bin 