From the monthly archives:

May 2009

Infant Potty Training

May 20, 2009

While children are clearly ready to potty train at different ages, I don’t think it was entirely luck that landed me with less than two years per child of diaper duty (my youngest was out of diapers at 18 mos, the oldest right around her 2nd birthday). So with the caveat that you could follow [...]

Tagged as: parenting, potty, rio, serena

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This is the week Serena learns to speak

May 19, 2009

Serena seems to have about doubled her vocabulary in the past week, dropping out new words every time we talk to each other. “Bubbles”, “Cookie”, “Go”, “Cake”. By far the best of the set has been “Scissors.” Serena picked this one up from her sister, who loves scissors as she loves all things crafty and [...]

Tagged as: funny, parenting, serena

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Detachment Parenting

May 18, 2009

this is what beaches look like to me., originally uploaded by moominmolly. Hello, blog. I have spent the past four days in California. I played in the water, I wandered around Berkeley. I went to a few funky bars and a very good party. I slept in late, and ate a good burrito. I saw [...]

Tagged as: parenting, travel

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Peanut Butter Dough

May 14, 2009

When I was a child, one of my favorite snacks was Peanut Butter Balls. The recipe for these is delightfully simple: Wash all the hands that might go in the mixture. This includes your own, any child helpers, and any children who claim they do not want to help but might get drawn in once [...]

Tagged as: food, homeschooling

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Check it out: I'm "flashlight worthy"!

May 13, 2009

I have an article up on Great Memoirs for New Moms”, on a blog called Flashlight Worthy Books. I love the idea of their blog: assembling lists of books so good you can’t put them down, on a variety of topics. I also love the execution; I’ve linked to them a few times because their [...]

Tagged as: blogs, reading, writing

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Reading Games for Four-year-olds

May 12, 2009

rio’s reading game.jpg, originally uploaded by MzMuze. Rio made this! Background: I’ve been reading an interesting book, published in the 70s, called the Home Guide to Early Reading. This is pretty much the opposite of the Waldorf approach I’ve taken with my kids thus far. The author advocates a playful but structured approach to teaching [...]

Tagged as: homeschooling, play, reading, rio

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Happy Mother's Day!

May 10, 2009

My kids brought me breakfast in bed and a mother’s day card they made themselves while I slept in late. I have arrived. So happy mother’s day to all y’all who are nurturing kids. And just a brief reminder for everyone that Mother’s Day is not a Hallmark holiday. It was first declared in 1870 [...]

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The Gift of a Garden

May 10, 2009

Last week, Serena’s godfather came by to plant a rose bush for her. Her middle name is Rose, and he wanted her to have flowers. Very sweet and simple. Then he saw our front yard. When we moved into our lovely new home last fall, the front yard was a wasteland. It was also low [...]

Tagged as: garden, house project, serena

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The Rules of Running

May 9, 2009

Rio took a header onto wet pavement the other day. She scraped her face up something fierce; swollen lip, bruised cheekbone, the works. It hurt, a lot. I could tell because when she was done crying about it, she continued to lay on the couch with her ice pack for almost an hour, just feeling [...]

Tagged as: parenting, rio

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The Shrinking of Treehorn

May 8, 2009

Serena took this book out of the library. I think she chose it because it was a nice shade of green and charmingly square. When we got it home, I noticed that the drawings were by Edward Gorey, a favorite artist of our entire family’s. We’ve been to visit his house on the Cape, and [...]