Becoming a good mom, one hour at a time
I am so sick of “X is for xylophone.”
I get it. There aren’t many words that start with x. And “X is for xenopus” will likely garner blank stares from the preschool set.
But when you read books to kids nonstop, the tedium of alphabet books can become A is for aggravating.
So here is me being H is for helpful. Nab these unorthodox alphabet books the next time you’re at the library. You and your kids will love breaking free of the predictability of A to Z. Read more
This post is really late, but work/life/everything has been a bit much. Life ebbs and flows, and we’ve been at high tide for a while now.
But Kiwi moseys along, oblivious to deadlines and the empty fridge and the thick layer of dog hair on the unvacuumed carpet. (Ok, she actually does notice all that hair, especially considering a large amount of it ends up in her mouth.)
Kiwi is now mobile. She was so close to crawling for what seemed like forever, and then one day she finally managed to move forward instead of backward. She never looked back.
Not being stuck in one place has revolutionized her life (and ours, obvi!). She is even more engaged now that she can spy something that interests her and get to it. Read more
Not long ago I traveled up to Seattle for my younger sister’s baby shower. We spent just one night in the emerald city to the north and stayed in the Alexis, a boutique hotel blocks from Pike Place Market with gorgeous, spacious rooms and a fantastic restaurant downstairs. I wish I’d known a tad bit more about how to do the family travel thing right and plan a hotel stay with a baby.
Hotel stays used to excite me—a night away, new and luxurious toiletries, someone else to make my bed. But now? Not so much.
I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in feeling a wee bit anxious bringing a baby to a hotel. Will the guests next door call the front desk if my little cries? Will the guests next door throw a raging party and prompt me to call the front desk?
You can take some of the uncertainty out of family travel—and even enjoy a hotel stay with a baby. Seriously.
(This post contains affiliate links, which means if you click and buy, I’ll earn a few pennies. Thanks for supporting this mom blogger!) Read more
This was the first year Peeper truly did an Easter egg hunt—and she made up for lost time.
Our friend had hidden dozens of plastic eggs in her back yard. We let the kids loose, and Peeper delighted in each egg she found.
At first, she put them all in Eric’s pockets, since we forgot to bring her a basket. (Noobs.) Then a one-year-old friend lent her his, and all bets were off.
Peeper ventured into the baby area, where eggs were simply strewn across the lawn. “I found SO MANY EGGS!” she yelled, showing her full basket to anyone who would listen.
Then it began to rain. We all went inside to say our goodbyes and eat a last deviled egg (or eight). But Peeper did not bother with such trifles.
Instead, she found another kid’s basket and without any hesitation emptied the entire thing into her basket.
You gotta admit, she’s resourceful.
To all who celebrate, happy Easter!
True story: Along with Radiohead’s Creep and Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Around the World, Kermit’s Rainbow Connection is one of my go-to karaoke jams.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F44HRvn8tiA]
So naturally, when it was my turn to host our co-op homeschool preschool this week, I wanted our St. Patrick’s Day lesson to include lots of activities with rainbows!
If you’re looking to infuse your fun with some St. Patrick’s Day luck, or get all rainbow-y on a regular day, here are some activities from me as well as links to additional ideas. Happy St. Patty’s Day! Read more
I’m not sure about you, but I’m having a hard time getting my Monday in gear.
We had a wonderful but slightly hectic weekend, complete with a glam photoshoot, catching up with friends we haven’t seen in way too long, and a brunch with about a dozen babies and their families. (The cuteness quotient was out of control.)
But Daylight Savings is still kicking my rear and I’m feeling stretched very thin.
To help me buck up, I’m channeling Peeper as today’s motivational coach. In my head, I’m thinking of what Peeper might say. Here’s how that’s playing out so far this morning in my #MotivationMonday. Read more
Amidst a sea of toys, books and stray socks covering the carpet, Peeper worked on a puzzle. She concentrated as she arranged several robots, fitting their wooden heads, bodies and feet together.
Then she moved on to a number puzzle.
As she was putting the numbers in their places, she paused. She moved one piece over to the robots.
“Look, now it’s a forehead!” she shouted.
And just like that, my preschooler is a punster.
Every night, Peeper’s wind-down routine is the same: Last Play with a timer. Negotiations to get another Last Play. Teeth-brushing. Stalling to get out of teeth-brushing. Jammies. Book. Song.
And recently, after the lights are turned out, she has asked for a story.
***
When I was growing up, my dad loved to tell us kids stories. He’d invent characters and a plot then string them along in drawn-out dramas. He told us a scary tale about a ventriloquist’s dummy that came to life and a mummy who chased a bunch of explorers—but just because he wanted a cough drop.
He’d tell us these stories in the car, mostly. The tales kept us enthralled between point A and point B—but he’d impeccably time a cliffhanger to the moment he turned off the Shempmobile, his blue Dodge Caravan. He always left us wanting more.
It’s legend, in fact, that one summer he stretched a story about Fluffito, the world’s fluffiest dog, to last a road trip spanning a dozen states. He told about Fluffito’s adventures as he made his way up from local to regional to national to finally international fluffy dog competitions. But, unbelievably, he didn’t finish by the time we returned home.
Before I could hear the end of the story, in fact, my sister ruined the punchline:
“He’s not so fluffy!”
(Yes, we waited 3,000 miles for that.)
***
I can’t help but think of my dad’s storytelling when Peeper curls up on my lap, waiting for the tale to begin. They’re significantly shorter than my dad’s yarns, but Peeper listens just as raptly as I used to.
Every night Peeper asks for essentially the same story. She wants to hear about how Finn lost his bark. My challenge, then, is to invent a new twist every night—how his bark froze when he was walking to the North Pole, how a crab pinched his nose at the beach and made his bark disappear, how he jumped so high on the trampoline that his bark bounced out of his throat, how a wave from the river splashed into his mouth and made his bark too wet.
Peeper enjoys them all, I think. But every so often, I spin a winner.
“Oh, that’s a good one, Mom,” she’ll say as she slides off my lap and climbs into bed.
Maybe my stories will become longer and more complicated as Peeper grows older. I doubt I’ll ever tell an epic of the same caliber as Fluffito, but you can bet I’ll continue to imagine ways for Finn to lose his bark.
Tonight, and tomorrow night, and every night she asks me, I’ll begin. “Once upon a time…”
When we were sleep training Kiwi, Eric and I slept on an air mattress in the living room. Peeper was enthralled with it: It was just like the bouncy castle, except in the house! As she jumped on it, her expression was all, OMG YOU GUYS! You’ve been holding out!
When we tried to deflate it, she deflated, too, into a heap of tears.
Eric and I looked at each other. “Would you like to have a sleepover on it later on?” Eric asked. Peeper immediately perked up.
Peeper talked about her sleepover the entire day. I was looking forward to it, too. I imagined a movie night with popcorn and snuggles and a toddler falling asleep on me. But all day she acted more like Meet the Fockers than a Disney flick—everything that could go wrong went wrong.
She refused to eat. She sassed. She demanded. She threw fits. She threw toys. I was ready to call off the whole sleepover.
Somehow Eric, whose job as a special education teacher should have depleted all of his patience, kept a cool head. We pushed through Peeper’s bad attitude and got set up for our special evening together.
I’m so glad we did.
Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now,
I know you’ll like it if you give it a chance now,
Come on baby, do the Locomotion!
The last month Kiwi has been all about moving around!
She’s not crawling, although she’s made it to all fours and is occasionally rocking, the first steps toward that milestone. But she intentionally rolls toward a destination where she’s set her sights—a beach ball, her toy piano, and especially Finn.
She also moves by whale tale splash, a special move she’s waiting to patent. While on her back, she lifts her entire body up to her shoulders and slams it back down on the ground. She swivels around like this and, by all measures, looks very proud of herself.
Kiwi has also started the Peeper Fan Club. She is, of course, President. The two of them have also started a band. Kiwi does solo side projects, too.
[vimeo 155894222 w=500 h=281]
Kiwi Rock from Catherine Ryan Gregory on Vimeo.
She’s pretty much obsessed with Big Sister. Peeper can do no wrong. Even when she is hitting Kiwi in the face with a pom pom or grabbing toys away, Kiwi stares and giggles.
Over the last few weeks, everyone in the house has been passing a cold back and forth. Kiwi has been sniffling for what seems like forever. During the day she’s still her usual cheerful self, but the nights have been brutal.
Every night is worse than the last. My euphoria over her successful sleep training has been replaced by despair as I feed her to sleep every two hours. And the last few nights, she has been awake in the deep, dark hours when everyone else is snuggled safely in their dreams.
Motherhood is not for the faint of heart; parenting two is even harder. But when I’m living in a sleep-deprived fog no quantity of caffeine can touch, beautiful rays of light break through: the love these girls share.
Shine on, sisters.
