Birth Order, Only Children, and Sibling Warfare

Once a month, the cooperative preschool we take our daughter to requires parents to attend a three-hour meeting, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. My daughter had woken me up at the crack of dawn, to share her fascinating discovery of having two feet, and I had been running on fumes since midday. Sheesh, […]

We Have the Tamest Chickens Ever

Having chickens that you’ve held since chick-hood means having some pretty tame chickens. Hester and Rosie race up to us whenever we go into the backyard so we can pet them. I managed to capture these charming photos of Brontë snuggling Hester on the backyard baby gate. What I didn’t manage to capture, despite my best efforts, was […]

Six Word Story Challenge: Amusement

My idea for this week’s six word story challenge: “Mockery throws light on shadowed demons.” A bit darker than other entries, perhaps, but it came to mind. Something about humor helping us with everything that makes us nervous and uncomfortable. Watching someone slip on a banana peel and being relieved it wasn’t us, or imagining the […]

My Cheese-Loving Kids Learn to Work the Fridge, With Disastrous Results

Uh oh… Came back to the kitchen and Bridget was rifling through the fridge. Again. She had already eaten a bunch of honeydew melon, squeeze fruit pockets, a bottle of milk, and two bags of parsnip chips. But apparently, that was just her “warm-up.” Hungriest baby ever. Wow, does that kid love to eat. Normally, Bridget is […]

When a Gender War Erupts at Preschool

As some of my readers may know, my daughter Brontë is enrolled in a cooperative local preschool that requires a parent to work a supervisory shift every week. So I spend every Wednesday helping other parents look after about thirty children under five. This place is all about letting kids learn social skills, through independent negotiation, […]

Nominated for the Sunshine Award :)

I am very touched to have been nominated me for the SUNSHINE AWARD… by my adorable blogger friend. She is a charming Indian girl who keeps a sweet blog at: https://itsmeharshi.wordpress.com The questions she asked were: What is the meaning of your name? My name or the blog’s name? My name is Erin, which is […]

Six word story challenge: Sin

Found diamond bracelet receipt: never received. (This is my entry for this week’s “Six word story challenge” from Sometimes Stellar Storyteller Nicola. They look like so much fun, why don’t you enter too?)

The Humiliating Life of Toddlers

It was midmorning at the preschool and my shift for the day was watching the goldfish pond and the “manipulatables,” which means the various magnetic shapes and blocks that little kids can build stuff with while improving their fine-motor and, hopefully, future geometry skills. Two boys were tormenting another kid by using their magnets to swipe shapes […]

My Family Braves Mickey’s Giant Wheel of Death

On the third day of our family vacation, I awoke to the bizarre sensation of artificial cheese crunching in my teeth as I struggled to breathe. Opening my eyes, I found my daughter, Brontë, straddling my chest with a bag of goldfish crackers. She was petting my face with one hand and stuffing goldfish into my mouth with […]

My Daughter Gets Into it With Cinderella

I was walking hand-in-hand with my daughter Brontë through the streets of Disneyland when suddenly she froze. Her little hand began to quiver as she stared ahead, whispering, “Cinderella?” Several feet in front of us, a woman in a Cinderella costume was signing autographs for a gaggle of kids. Decked out in a blue and […]