“If we buy this house, we’re not having another baby. You know that, right?”
Deep down, I kind of already knew that. But hearing my husband say it out loud made my stomach drop. When we decided to buy a new home this spring, it solidified our future with a reality I wasn’t quite ready to accept: No more babies.
A few weeks back at my son’s basketball game, I saw another parent sitting on the sidelines reading a book. Honestly, my first reaction was: I wonder why? Then I realized I had that thought based on my own personal situation.
Mother’s Day is the one day that everyone is expected to take a few moments to appreciate the fine women who keep this world turning. And while we all deserve a pat on the back, it’s also a time to appreciate our own mothers. I always think of my own mother on Mother’s Day, whose positive attributes are too many to list. Did you notice that once you had your own children, you treasured your mother’s new role as the grandmother?
We all know how difficult it is to find alone time with your partner once kids enter the mix, yet we are constantly bombarded with messages telling us how important it is for marriage to take time for yourselves as a couple.
I was browsing the aisles of a store pre-Black Friday when I spotted the mountain of Instant Pots on sale. Taking full advantage of my rare ‘kid-free’ time, I wandered over to investigate further. A long-time skeptic of food trends and fad diets, I cautiously examined the Instant Pot. I started to think, “would I actually use this?” and “do I have the storage space?” It was, after all, significantly reduced in price. A follower of many food blogs, I have noticed how pressure cooking and the Instant Pot particularly has been gaining notoriety over the past year or so. I was definitely curious and decided to take the plunge right then and there, adding the Instant Pot to my cart rather unexpectedly. Why not jump on the band wagon of this pressure cooking renaissance?
If you’ve heard the expression “the hardest part of raising children is the first 50 years”, it rings particularly true for parents who have children on the Autism Spectrum.
Giving birth by caesarean was the last thing I expected when I went into labour with my first baby. We were all set for a home birth, and I was confident that all would go to plan. We ended up transferring to the hospital when I was around six centimetres dilated, because of meconium in my amniotic fluid. It wasn’t an emergency. Everything was fine. I was still on my way to having the vaginal birth I wanted.
I recently invested in a smart home device: Amazon Alexa to be exact. I was pretty indifferent to her initially, intending to bestow upon her the same benign neglect I’ve directed at every goldfish or house plant I’ve ever owned and eventually killed.
It’s where I learned to play Capture the Flag, made lifelong friends, and learned to canoe – which I still love to this day. It’s where I caught frogs and turtles, learned the importance of sunscreen for a pale, redheaded kid, and where I learned a crazy amount of camp songs…that I now proudly teach my own kids! Anyone for a verse of ‘Going on a Lion Hunt’? Summer Camp. I spent every single summer at camp as a kid. And you know what? I loved every minute of it. I loved all the games, the sports and the exploring! I loved spending afternoons building sandcastles with the other kids. I even loved the day I got hit in the eye with a baseball and my brother ran over and yelled “Look at all the blood!”. I had a massive black eye and got five stitches across my eyebrow. I…
Reading is magical. It may be cheesy to say so but it’s true, and it’s wonderful. What’s better than curling up with a book? Actually, we have an answer to that – it’s curling up with a book and your kids at the end of a busy day.
Not only is it a great way to unwind before bed, studies have shown that reading aloud to kids helps them develop stronger language skills, improves their social and emotional development, and even decreases hyperactivity and aggression in young kids. Essentially, reading helps give us the words we need to sort out our feelings – an incredible tool at every age!