My Daughter Misgenders the Cat

My four-year-old daughter Bridget’s favorite toy ever is “Catfish,” a stuffed-animal Siamese cat with a fish drawing on its collar. And though she loves him, he’s clearly her fall guy. Messy room, dirty bed, broken toys… she’s been insisting Catfish orchestrated all these petty toddler crimes and more. He’s been so naughty, in fact, we […]

My Daughter Builds A Candy Pipeline Into Our Backyard

My six-year-old daughter Brontë pretty much never stops talking. “Using her words” has never been one of her stumbling blocks. It’s simultaneously adorable and exhausting. If I’m scrambling to get lunch ready, she’s demanding I go check out the portal she made in the living room. It takes you to a castle, she tells me, […]

Let’s Try This Again…

Argh… after a few months of being super busy and letting the blog slide, I finally started writing again when BAM! Germs snuck up and slapped me down for the count… It’s been a real pain, actually. This year has been a bad year for illness in general and we just moved to a new […]

Viking Role Reversals

So, Bridget the Viking has been rapidly civilizing ever since her big sister Brontë started Kindergarten a few weeks ago. Gone are the sudden, inexplicable tantrums that would alarm neighbors living two blocks away. She doesn’t throw Legos at cats anymore, or refuse to eat anything while simultaneously screaming about how hungry she is. She’s […]

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 […]

How To Solve Your Toddler Problems With Timers

A chicken may have just solved 95 % of the Toddler Problems in our house. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. You see, once we finally got past that stage where the kids were throwing hour-long tantrums about things like not wanting a glass of water then being enraged about not having one, most of […]

Do You Teach Your Child To Share?

Whether or not to teach your child to share is a matter of great controversy. Some may find this surprising, because sharing is good, right? Doesn’t it teach kids not to be selfish? Eh, not so fast. Like practically every other aspect of modern parenting, the issue is much more complicated than it seems… For example, […]

Little Pink Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky…

For today’s post, I was inspired to try something different: a freehand comic strip! The only problem is… I don’t know anything about making panels or drawing on computers, which complicates things. But was I gonna let my complete ignorance and total incompetence stop me? Hell no! So here goes… and I swear I’m going to get much better at this.

Sibling Torture Tactics: Psychological Warfare

My two-year-old daughter Bridget has been trying really hard to talk lately. She goes on long monologues at the dinner table, flinging her arms around and shaking her fist to emphasize her point. Frankly, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Whatever it is, she feels very passionate about it. Something about tacos and cats, which are […]

Where I Sick My Toddler on Our Obnoxious Dog

So we’ve had Douglas the chihuahua/terrier/something for about a week now and I have to tell you, he’s driving me nuts. Don’t get me wrong. He IS sweet and adorable and will cuddle up to you at night and really, really means well, but I’m having a rough time with his berserker dog energies. I’m beyond certain this […]