“Nooooo!” My toddler’s anguished cry rose high into sky along with her shiny new balloon. “Balloon, don’t do that!!” Moments before, she’d been skipping down the street, holding the balloon with such care. She’d continually turn to look up at it with awe. She was so incredibly happy. And she’d refused to let me tie the ribbon to her dress or […]
“How do I remember what I’m supposed to do in the heat of the moment?” a dad asked me. I was giving a keynote talk at BabyFest NW, and he had stopped by my table to check out my book beforehand. The dad said he had plenty of parenting information. He knew how he intended […]
“Umm … now what do we do?” I distinctly remember having this thought a couple weeks after my baby was born. Her first days home were a flurry of us trying to figure out how, basically, to keep her alive. How to sleep. Where to sleep. How the heck to feed her. Trips to the doctor to check her […]
“I want to wear the Mickey Mouse pajamas!” our toddler announced. My husband fished out the top, but the Mickey Mouse bottoms were in hiding. “Look, here are your shark pajamas!” my husband tried, cheerfully. “I want to wear the Mickey Mouse pajamas!” our toddler repeated, whining. “The shark pajamas are from your good friend,” my […]
I remember trying to get the real scoop on parenting, good and bad, before I had a baby. “It’s hard,” new parents would say, and then quickly paper over that tiny admission. “But of course I wouldn’t trade it for anything!” It sounded suspicious to me. Even so, once I had a baby, I followed suit: […]