My Daughter Slams Me For Not Taking Her to France Already

My five-year-old daughter and I are eating lunch when she casually starts reminiscing… Brontë: So I really enjoyed seeing the Eiffel Tower with you… Me: We haven’t been there yet. Brontë: Yeah, I’m PRETENDING. Me: Oh, okay. So, we could see the entire city from far above… Brontë: Because SOMEONE hasn’t taken me yet. Me: […]

When Trying to Be Cute Backfires

Struggling to Make Her Eat: A Dialogue Between Mom and Her 5-year-old Child (That mother is me. I’m the mom in this scenario.) Scene: It’s lunchtime. Mom has lovingly prepared a princess-pink divider plate with a bean burrito and a handful of strawberries, with the stems scooped out, because her daughter has loved strawberries since […]

My Toddler Throws a Coffee Fit

My 3-year-old daughter Bridget is starting to sting together sentences and have actual conversations, which is when I think parenting starts getting real fun. I mean, I love them before that and all, but it’s a whole lot of screaming and you-cleaning-up poop before intelligible sentences come into play. Graspable language is when you start […]

Kids Are Fascinated By Gross Things

Does anyone remember Garbage Pail Kids? They were these nasty trading cards you could get in the late 80’s and 90’s of cartoon toddlers covered in vomit or otherwise being gross or violent. They were wildly popular. I think they were a backlash against the Cabbage Patch Kid fad at the time, which was all […]

Why Participation Trophies Are Awesome

So, lately I’ve been thinking about how Participation Trophies are a great idea… Psh, calm DOWN everyone. I figure that most of you reading this are currently either 1) assuming I’m being sarcastic, or 2) quietly ranting to yourself about the spoiled Millennials and their unbelievable sense of entitlement after getting participation trophies their entire […]

The Princess and the Viking

As I’ve mentioned before, I walked into parenting thinking most gender norms were social constructs. Not wanting to cram my daughter into a pink box from the get-go, I painted her room green, bought her gender-neutral toys, and avoided onesies that said crap like “I’m so pretty” like the plague. And… I still ended up […]

Western Faces in the Moon

At some point during my childhood, I read that Chinese people don’t see a man in the moon, like we do. They see a teacup. And for decades now, I’ve been trying to teacup that moon man’s face. I figured I could do it, since I see upside-down nuns in the metal part of the […]