From the monthly archives:

January 2009

long overdue photos

January 28, 2009

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } IMG_3455.JPG, originally uploaded by MzMuze. of Rio’s most amazing and wonderful Christmas morning surprise: a dress from .

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January 24, 2009

Today I took Serena out for a few hours to do errands. She would not pee before we left the house, so I put a diaper on her. She fell asleep in the car and napped for an hour. Then we went to the grocery store. At the store, she was happy in her cart [...]

Tagged as: parenting, serena

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spending triggers & money mantras

January 24, 2009

I recently read this excellent article about spending triggers. Basically, as Starhawk says, “symbol systems must be replaced, they cannot merely be discarded”. If I normally spend money when I’m stressed, for example, I need to make a plan to do something else at those moments of stress, something to replace the spending.

Tagged as: fi

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grrr.

January 21, 2009

we go to an extremely liberal UU church (First Parish in Cambridge). the first CUUPs group was founded there. two weeks ago our minister announced from the pulpit his intention to get arrested in a direct action aimed at shutting down a coal-fired power plant in Washingtin DC, and invited all of us to join [...]

Tagged as: church

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Early potty training

January 20, 2009

Serena has pretty much potty trained herself at home. She still wears diapers for going out and for sleep, but at home she’s good. I’ve littered the house with potties and she wears leggings instead of pants and just helps herself to the potty when she needs it. I am amazed that she can do [...]

Tagged as: funny, serena

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Hillary Clinton's chocolate chip cookies

January 18, 2009

In addition to her many, many, many skill and talents, Ms. Roham Clinton apparently makes a mean chocolate chip cookie. EDIT: a great, lactose-free chocolate chip cookie

Tagged as: food, politics

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self-help

January 18, 2009

In the further annals of “Rio no longer needs me to help with her life, kthnxbye!”: We are leaving Arisia. Rio is getting into her outdoor gear and notices that her nametag is not with her sweater. Rio: MOM! I don’t have my nametag! Every person at this hotel needs to have a nametag! Me: [...]

Tagged as: parenting, rio

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more thoughts about school

January 16, 2009

A little research proves that we live two blocks away from the best elementary school in Somerville. Everyone in the neighborhood raves about it, their test scores are on par with Arlington’s elementary schools, they go all the way up through 6th grade and their school theme is “Global Education”, which they say means organizing [...]

Tagged as: brown school, education, homeschooling, parenting, rio

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a funny thing happened on the way to homeschooling…

January 15, 2009

I called the city yesterday to let them know we were planning to homeschool Rio next year, when in the normal course of things she would attend kindergarten. As it turns out, they are required to offer kindergarten, but I am not required to take them up on the offer. There’s no paperwork or district [...]