Month: March 2015

This is trippy: Tips for a business trip away from your child

catherinemryan

So you're going on a business trip without kids. Here's how to get through the family free travel - and enjoy it! Ten Thousand Hour Mama

Even though I see rain and fog out my hotel window right now, everyone assures me that yes, I am in Texas. I left Oregon a few days ago for a business trip without kids—all on my own! (Cue the happy dance/tears.)

I’m spending most of the week in Austin for business during a regrettably cold and wet stretch (while Portland is enjoying sun and temps in the high 60s—argh!). This also marks the longest I’ve ever been away from Peeper.

I went on one business trip without kids before, and we both did fine—a fact that definitely helped me click “buy” on my plane ticket here. Peeper and I are both a little more independent now, so I figured we’d do even better this go around.

That has been mostly true. My mom is staying at our house and watches Peeper while Eric is at work. They spend a ton of time together even when I’m not hunting for vegetarian BBQ in the country’s most meat-centric state, so my absence wasn’t an enormous transition.

Still, my mom tells me that Peeper asks for me when she wakes up and calls, “Where Mama go?” when looking around my bedroom. The fact that she misses me both breaks my heart and feels like a tiny hug. (Is that weird?)

This business trip without kids has armed me with a few techniques for traveling without my sweet toddler. For parents leaving their littles at home, then, I have a few pieces of advice. Read more →

Painting abundance

catherinemryan

When we were growing up, my siblings and I sometimes had to go to Carma’s. Looking back, the day care surely wasn’t legal—it entailed dozens of kids and one grumpy woman more concerned about her soaps and her dogs than the children under her care, it seemed.

I vividly remember the vinyl couch and carpet covers that protected against spills. I remember one time when a queue of little kids stared at me as I sat on the toilet—a mortifying experience that told me I was holding up their pre-nap pee. I remember Carma once fixed me an egg salad sandwich instead of my usual PB&J and I sat at the table, horrified, deciding between eating a hated food or getting scolded.

Most of all, though, I remember that each child was allowed only one piece of paper to color. I would plan out my artistic vision, carefully choose my crayons and cover every inch of white—on both sides, of course.

Looking back, my heart breaks for 5-year-old me. There I was, stuck in a miserable day care I hated, with my one escape—Crayolas and art—arbitrarily limited.

Peeper, thankfully, is blissfully unaware that a limit on paper could actually exist. When she paints, she does so with a gleeful abandon, mashing her palms in the paint and clapping her rainbow-hued hands together. “Another one!” she says as she fills each page with smears of color. Before long, art covers the table, counters and even the stove.

Toddler painting - Ten Thousand Hour Mama Read more →