Healthy Women Are NOT More likely to Produce Sons, YouBeauty

This morning, a nasty little email from Youbeauty.com, entitled “Daily Aha! Pick Your Pregnancy,” assaulted my inbox. Intrigued by the teaser “Your health could determine your baby’s gender,” I couldn’t help but click on the article link. According to the article, you can “defy the odds” when it comes to your baby’s gender. Based on recent research, […]

Bridget Makes it Through an Entire Exercise Class Without Screaming

Today is a banner day. It’s the day Bridget made it through an entire exercise class without screaming. I’ve been taking her to work out with me at Herself Moms, in Roseville (there is also a Sacramento studio). I also took Brontë until she started crawling around so wildly that it was no longer feasible, […]

My Daughter Projects Her Psychic Apparatus Onto Imaginary Friends

My two-year-old daughter has personified the warring factions of her psyche and is literally working out her issues using imaginary friends. Kids are concrete thinkers. They are literalists who imagine all manner of abstractions as physical beings. Everything unknown is magic and The Dark, or disquieting unknown, is the perfect breeding ground for magic of any sort. Fears and anxieties become monsters… […]

Your Kids Want to Do What You Do; Grimace’s Love Child

Car rides have not been positive experiences for Brontë. While many parents take their howling infants on impromptu car rides to calm them down, our daughter tends to shriek at the top of her lungs whenever she is in a car. Since she can keep it up for well over an hour, car rides with Brontë have […]

How To Sleep Like a Baby

It’s easy. Wake up every hour and scream your fool head off. Done and done. We have all been hoodwinked by the phrase “sleeping like a baby.” It’s supposed to mean falling asleep quickly, sleeping soundly without stirring, and waking up fully refreshed. It refers to the glorious sleep of the innocents… The complete slumber that only those untroubled by […]

My Husband and Daughter Duel for Pesto

It was just a matter of time until Brontë started fighting her father for food. Lately, I’ve been noticing that whenever we eat out, my husband has been ordering food “for the kids” that he actually enjoys. For example, Brontë is a big fan of beans, whereas John is not. So when we get Mexican food, […]

The Great Mason Jar Experiment

Once you have children, you may look back on your former, childless life and wonder: How on earth did I ever think I was so busy? I had loads and loads of free time on my hands… Sure, you may have had a lot going on, but kids are a giant black hole of time suck. […]

The Secret to Happiness

Imagine picking up an old brass lamp from a flea market. It’s pretty, but tarnished. You take it home, pull out some polish, and begin rubbing away at the stains. Suddenly, a puff of smoke… a genie appears, all decked out in a turban and silk pants. He is prepared to grant you three wishes […]

How Black People Became White People

It’s summer here in Sacramento, which means lots of 100+ degree days (yes, it’s a dry heat, but so is an oven). If global warming kicks up the thermostat any further, I think this place may become truly uninhabitable. Being the dutiful mom I try to be, I slather my wriggly, pale offspring in heaps of […]

My Kids Are Turning Into Cats

As mentioned in an earlier post, our cats like to babysit our children. Since John is gone at work most of the day, that leaves just me and four giant cats to raise the baby monkeys. I’m clearly outnumbered and think my kids are starting to go native. Case in point: Bridget loves apples (and I […]