Underrated Milestones

Underrated Milestones

My second kid turned eight months old yesterday. He has a few teeth, we’ve started easing him into baby food (with disastrous results), and he’s looking to crawl any minute, which is going to severely complicate my life and increase my stress level.

Meanwhile, the original kid started first grade last week. He is about to lose a few teeth, tried oysters for the first time over the summer (loved them!), and, most significantly, is dangerously close to being able to read the channel guide, thus preventing me from lying about his shows not being on.

This is all very momentous, obviously, but when do my kids’ developmental milestones start benefiting me?

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We Are All Sisyphus

We Are All Sisyphus

Parenting is such an incredible, all-consuming experience that it causes you to feel emotions differently than you’ve ever felt them before. Caring for your children causes many emotions to come on more strongly, and more quickly, than they used to.

Not only do you often find yourself feeling myriad emotions in quick succession, if not all at once – many of them new emotions you may not have experienced before – but you also find yourself experiencing the same ones, good and bad, every day, over and over again.

Especially if you have more than one child.

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Sleep Deprivation

Sleep Deprivation

You may have noticed that “being tired” is a recurring theme on my blog, because my blog is about parenting, and being tired is one of parenting‘s recurring themes. Yay kids!

I knew – we all knew – that being tired was part of the deal before I had my first kid, and it’s not the tiredness that bugs me. No, my problem isn’t that I’m exhausted, or my constant sleep deprivation; I knew my quantity of sleep would suffer. It’s the quality of sleep I miss the most!

Two kids deep, the little sleep I do get has become a battleground. Every night, there’s a five-year-old in my bed, keeping me awake for no discernible reason, and a baby in my bed, keeping me awake just because he doesn’t want to starve to death!

Together, the little leeches have stolen my sanctuary from me.

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Premature Parenting Challenges

Premature Parenting Challenges

My son is five years old.

Sounds cute, right? He’s still little! He still snuggles with a blankey thing; he often mispronounces words in adorable ways; he still likes to sleep in our bed!

It all sounds downright Disney… unless you have a five-year-old of your own. Then it’s more like Tim Burton.

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Prenatal Message: I Hate Babies

Prenatal Message: I Hate Babies

Have you ever been curious about what I was like before I had kids? Or what I thought about kids when I was single and carefree? Well today is your lucky day!

Like most of you, I had a bit of a different take on kids and parents and parenting before I became a parent – I was not yet a part of the collective – and perhaps nothing I wrote encapsulates that different take better than this piece.

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