Category Archives: Parenting

If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s self-criticism.  (That’s undoubtedly somebody else’s line, but it fits.) In my last post, I wondered about what obvious-to-others thing I’m doing wrong as I raise my son.  I fret a lot about being … Continue reading →

Some time ago I was chatting at a picnic with a new acquaintance who complained that her son – 9 or 10 years old – never listened to her.  While we talked the boy repeatedly visited the cookie table, in … Continue reading →

I saw a TV commercial recently– I think it was for a car – in which a sweet young thing says to her young man, “I think I want a baby.”  Cue dream sequence, in which young man imagines all … Continue reading →

My son and I spend a lot of time alone together.  He goes to school on weekdays, but in the evenings and on weekends we’re usually a two-person show.  Even though DB is now almost four years old, I haven’t … Continue reading →

DB has updated his pronunciation of his school friends’ favorite superhero, from “Gravel Hock” (huh?) to “Credible Hock” (ohhhh…).  He learns some very interesting things at school from his peer group of boys in their late threes and early fours. I … Continue reading →

[Here's a piece that I drafted several months ago but for some reason didn't post.  Things have improved since I wrote it, I'm happy to say.] Life with a three-year-old is hard.  As a solo parent, I have no one … Continue reading →

“No!  Don’t make me go back!” This is not a quote from DB.  This is how I feel at the end of those rare occasions when I catch a whiff of what life was like in the years B.C. (before … Continue reading →

Noting droopage that will soon turn to trippage, I tell my son:  pull up your sock.  His response? “I’m pulling up it.” Leave it to DB to point out the inconsistencies in English sentence structure.  He made a direct substitution of … Continue reading →

Bedtime has become a fiasco.  Mommy, something hurts.  (The mysterious unspecified “something.”  If I pretend to be sick, maybe she won’t make me stay in my room by myself.)  Mommy, come check on me.  Mommy, be in my room while … Continue reading →

DB is very good at entertaining himself.  He gets engrossed in driving his cars or his trains, or in building roads and tracks for the cars and trains to drive on, and will concentrate for 15 or 20 minutes – … Continue reading →