I was tired and very cranky as I dragged my huge, nine-month pregnant stomach up the front steps to my parents’ house. After spending six hours at the hospital having my pre-admission tests, I wasn’t really in the mood for the annoyed greeting that my mother gave me. “Why is she so mad at us? It’s not our fault we’re late to dinner?” This was said to my husband in a hushed … [Read more...]
Bringing Baby Home
This is going to be a piece of cake, I thought. I mean really, how hard could it be to take one little baby home from the hospital? This thinking was why my husband and I declined my mother’s offer to escort us home from the hospital with our newborn son. After all, we’re both college-educated adults. I was 33 and my husband was 40. We had taken every course we could and … [Read more...]
The Power of Positive Reinforcement and Your Teen
The Following is a sponsored post for Stop Medicine Abuse.Org. The opinions are all mine. In December my first baby turns 16. How is it possible that the baby I brought home from the hospital is about to get his learner’s permit for a driver’s license? When Tom was an infant, the teen years were so far away that I barely thought about them while I was toting him around in … [Read more...]
Another Day at the Fun House
The last few days, my nine-year-old, Peter, has been doing such a good job of driving me crazy that I swore he was trying to actually bug me to death. His barrage of questions and requests for everything from going to the beach in the pouring rain, to begging me for a magic wand to turn him into a teenager like his older brother, had me scraping the bottom of the barrel for … [Read more...]
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
At 48 with three kids ages 15, 12 and 9, I feel like a monkey in the middle. Some of my friends have kids that are much older than mine. Babies that I bought shower and first birthday gifts for so many years ago, are finishing college or well into their careers. I also have some friends with children still in diapers. I’ve found in my mom friends and in myself, that … [Read more...]
