PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
February 2008 Archive
February 29th, 2008
The thrill of thrift
I like to shop at thrift stores. I like thrift stores because you can find the most amazing and startling things there--and finding a small treasure amid trash is thrilling. A few weeks ago I found a wonderful robin's-egg-blue vase with a white daisy on it and if I hadn't looked closely at the shelf where it sat I'd have missed it because it was almost hidden by a tacky enormous china rabbit and a broken wire basket. Last winter I found a red plaid thermos that was exactly like the one my mother used to pack into my matching red plaid school lunch box. [more]
February 28th, 2008
Done
Yesterday I sat in my third meeting of the week, next to a colleague in another department who is some months pregnant and showing. Her belly is rounded out just enough so that her sweater stretches taut over the curve of it, and throughout the meeting she kept running her hands over the bump in that characteristic way I found so familiar, and which filled me with a sudden pang of longing. I don't long to be pregnant again, but I do feel nostalgia from time to time for the pregnant me from some years ago; the pregnant me who used to sit in my graduate school classe [more]
February 27th, 2008
Yet another benefit of being small
Sometimes I feel as if one of my main missions in life these days is to grouch at the people around me about responsibility. At home both my husband and I are spending more and more time each day trying to curb T.'s newfound love for making messes everywhere she goes. Be responsible! Don't forget to clean up!
February 26th, 2008
Tantrums, and a lesson learned
I'm kind of a stranger to preschooler tantrums. My son really never threw classic tantrums as a small child (although he has thrown many of a different sort) but T., as an independent and stubborn girl, has thrown her fair share of them.
February 25th, 2008
Reality check
I had a long, and involved dream on Saturday night. It was one of those meandering dreams that takes you on a surreal mental journey, through dark and twisty roads, against the backdrop of an unfamiliar and menacing city. I won't go into the details of the dream, but it involved my son, and a parent's worst nightmare, and even though it all worked itself out in the end, when I woke up I still had that heavy-chested feeling you get when you have been run through the emotional wringer for a prolonged period of time.
[more]
February 22nd, 2008
Role reversals
This past weekend L. had a friend over for a play date. The weather was gorgeous, temperatures in the upper 60s, so the kids were out in the backyard playing. I made my way over to the hammock on our back porch, contemplating a brief rest in there while the kids were occupied. L.'s friend J. saw the hammock and swung it slowly back and forth with his hand, in a contemplative way that is usually quite uncharacteristic of this particular kid.
Mrs. M., does L.'s dad take naps in the hammock a lot? He asked, looking at me seriously. [more]
February 21st, 2008
Visible women
On average, I have more men in my classes most semesters than I do women; many of the young men have beat the odds, some still won't. They laugh, they joke; some work hard, some don't. Behind them the invisible women in their lives--their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, surface from time to time, voices over their shoulders telling them to push on, work hard, and keep their chins up. They are relentless in propelling their boys forward--ever forward--into opportunities they themselves didn't--and couldn't--have. [more]
February 20th, 2008
Full circle
I don't get much one-on-one time with my son anymore, despite often superhuman efforts to make this happen. Before T. was born he was my buddy; I took him everywhere, even to classes with me sometimes when he had a day off preschool, or wasn't feeling well enough to go to school. He always sat quietly in the back of the class, drawing on paper, or listening to me even while students snuck amused glances at him and tried hard to win his attention. The last really special walk we had together was the day I went into labor with T., who arrived ten days early. [more]
February 19th, 2008
The muse that comes in the night
A friend asked me over the weekend how I manage to juggle everything I do and find time to write on a daily basis. She was envious, she told me, of how I carved out blocks of time during the day to write. But I set her straight right away by telling her that I don't at all have the writing life she imagines: hours to myself holed away in some quiet room of my own (ha--wouldn't that be a dream!). [more]
February 18th, 2008
Crafty love
Back in September I signed up to volunteer at T.'s preschool Valentine's Day party and, when the "assignments" were doled out a couple weeks ago, I volunteered to lead the craft. I like to bake and decorate cookies and cupcakes, but I also enjoy doing crafty things as well and would far rather spend my precious time putting together craft items then baking and frosting a dozen cupcakes.
