Sugar and Spice

I'll save Elton the trouble of telling the world and just do it myself. I'm filthy. I'm can almost see my parents hanging their heads in shame. After years of Saturday morning chores that my friends considered child abuse, I'm here to admit that I have grimy fingerprints on my bathroom mirror that I haven't - and won't - wipe away. As I'm sure you've guessed, the fingerprints are Pumpkin's. All her loyal fans know what a diva she is and how much she adores her own reflection in the mirror, so at least once daily we spend some time in front of it (and, yes, I'm aware that I'm surely encouraging some deep-seated narcissistic tendencies). As you can see from the photo, Pumpkin just adores her mirror time. My mirror, as a result, ends up filthy. As I type this there are two perfectly greasy little handprints right at my eye level on the mirror where I do my makeup every morning. I've thought about grabbing the Windex that is approxima...

http://www.scarymommy.com/the-decision-not-to-breastfeed/

I’m not sure what I expected, really. I guess I thought that when Pumpkin officially crossed the one year threshold into toddler-hood that things miraculously got easier. I had a little parenting-confidence and puffed my chest out just a little as I slowly toddled with her, grasping onto my index finger, to the doctor’s office for her one year appointment (see video for an idea of how slow slow is). I sat proudly in the “well baby” room (a place we haven’t spent much time) remembering the days I sat in that same room crying, looking frantically around for a spare diaper and praying they wouldn’t call her name before I could unhook her from her carseat (which took a long time back then) and changed her diaper. One year later here I was. We had come so far. I was proud of us and I looked at those new mothers with a little knowing pity. In all my one year of wisdom, I sat there glowing with the realization that the hard times were behind us. I didn’t have a “baby” anymore, I had a toddle...

I’ve always thought it was really tough to be sick as a lawyer. It’s not like in high school when I spent a week as a fry cook at McDonald’s and I could just find someone to take my shift (which I did at least once during that week). I mean, lawyers are important – we have deadlines and hearings and briefs (oh my). As fate would have it, sickness always seems to strike at the worst possible time. It’s always a week with multiple hearings on the same day and briefs due and clients ringing my phone off the hook. It’s never those weeks where I’m taking two hours lunches and getting pedicures at 4 (not that there are ever weeks like that; really, Managing Partner, if you’re reading this – that never happens and if you do see me at the nail salon in the middle of the day I’m either marketing or contemplating legal arguments for an upcoming brief). Not only do I only get sick that one week a year when I really cannot be sick, but it also happens to be the one week of the year that all ...

In Mommy's Words - Year 1 by Somer G. Brown

It is finally here – Pumpkin’s birthday week! I can hardly believe it. A caveat before you read any further - as the title suggest, I’m feeling a little Cat Stevens this morning (pre-Yusuf Islam and without the facial hair), so bear with me. It all started yesterday when I was wrapping her birthday presents and I started to get a little weepy. When you’re expecting your first child and particularly as you start lugging your 7 pound newborn around clumsily in a 50-pound baby carrier with the lost and frazzled look of a first time mom, everyone from your own parents to the homeless woman in the parking lot watching you bang the head of your baby’s car seat into every parked car and shopping cart within a 20-foot radius, warn you to enjoy “it” because “it” goes by so fast. After the seemingly never-ending 40 weeks of pregnancy and countless sleepless nights frantically reading What to Expect and wondering when your bundle of joy will smile, sit, roll, crawl, eat, talk, or walk, it’s hard ...