Babble

One of the less acknowledged benefits of the holidays is that it prompts heavy housecleaning.  We talk about the opportunity to gorge on pie, family togetherness, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but not about finally getting around to scrubbing the toilets.    If it weren't for visitors, I don't think I'd ...

Learning to talk is hard work. My boys like to practice. I think this means that they are going to be big talkers, like their dad, and I am going to be surrounded by a chorus of male voices and will have to slam my hand on the dinner table to have a chance to ask someone to pass the potatoes.   Right now, I've got a bad cold that, ...

Axel, at two, has discovered the awesome power of the Tantrum.  He explodes in a Hulk-like transition, going from a cheerful kid to a red-faced demon.  I have discovered that, in the face of the Tantrum's ferocity, both reasoned and thoughtful strategies and unreasonable spur-of-the-moment approaches are repelled by an invisible, ...

I've reached that point where I'm so tired that I don't even feel tired anymore, just queasy and confused.  I'll think, "Hey!  I slept for three hours and look how well I'm doing!" and then I step of the curb into oncoming traffic and have to be saved from an oncoming truck by a ...

Now that I have over a year's worth of combined milk production time, between both boys, I feel like I'm something of a lactation specialist.  So let me share what I've learned with you, the sort of things that I did not read in the La Leche League manual:   1.  The Eating/Milk Connection   You are what you ...

In toddler world, older kids are gods. And in baby world, toddlers grace the cover of the baby version of Tiger Beat. Jonas is lucky - he's got his very own toddler idol rooming just down the hall.   Sometimes, as parents, we delude ourselves into thinking we're important. I give Jonas milk - not just give it to him, I make it. I ...

Sean and I are amateur foodies. We like our prosciutto and cheeses from the $3 bin at Whole Foods. We watch Top Chef and bake bread and experiment with kale and bacon and capers. This food fetish has gotten a little stronger since we've had kids, though admittedly more home cooking than seven-course degustation focused. We almost never go ...

Today, we got to sing Axel's favorite song, Happy Birthday. And not just because I didn't want him to land a kick in my stomach during a diaper change or because I was trying to keep him awake in the car - it was because it was his actual birthday.   He's old enough now to demand multiple cupcakes, to refuse to peddle a ...

First swine flu.  Then croup and baby's second hospital visit.  Now a blizzard.  It's been a busy week.   Axel has made a full recovery from the bug.   Jonas was then struck down by what I thought was the swine flu.  Turns out it was regular old seal-bark cough, gasping for breath croup.  Croup, like ...

We've been Swined.     After our close brush with H1N1, we relaxed.  We thought we'd escaped, we thought that our obsessive hand washing and use of sanitizer had worked.  We were wrong.  There's no escaping germs in the slobbery illness haven of the toddler room.  While we haven't had the test ...