Breathe. Phew. Here on week four I think we’ve hit our stride. I feel alive and awake to the moment. Finally. It started out extra stormy. My daughter woke up covered in hives in the night and no one slept well for a couple of nights. By Tuesday morning I was groggy and grumpy. When … Continue reading
Filed under Emotional changes and challenges …
Summer of Calm: Week 3
I’m on week three of all-day-every-day just me and the kids. My strategy is to keep our days simple and rhythmic, to stay home more and do less. I admit, my stated goal of “tantrum free” was partially to get your attention, oh reader. But did I really think that simplifying life would be a … Continue reading
Tantrum-Free Summer: Week 1 Bread Day
As I mentioned before, during the school year my daughter had many intense tantrums. I wondered why . . . New baby? Postpartum cranky mom? Just normal for her age? But a new answer is coming clear that trumps all the rest. Overstimulation. The social setting can easily overstimulate my daughter to the point of distress, … Continue reading
Riding the Seasonal Rhythms
All through the school year I’ve been feeling conflicted. The days when I am home with both children all day, I determine our daily rhythms. Together we cycle up and down, from bursts of focused activity to a return to mellow solo imaginative play. In breath, out breath. I am in the background all day … Continue reading
To My Fellow White Parents
Dear white parents touring the public schools, I believe that you don’t mean it to be as bad as it sounds. But when you say, “that school has too many Latin families for me,” or “I’m not ready for my child to experience so much diversity,” it does offend me. Think of the message it … Continue reading
Safety and Peace at School
In my experience, school has not been a safe place. There is school violence and bullying to start, but there is more. Feeling unsafe, sometimes physically, and often emotionally, I found school to be a place of conflict, antagonism, defensiveness, and isolation. Learning, too, but that took second. I started out in urban public schools. … Continue reading
I Feel You, Bebe (Finding Empathy)
I’d say my profoundest discovery about the postpartum period is this: human evolution has developed us mamas to empathize and identify with our new babies when they need it most. I’m talking about that feeling of rawness and overwhelm, like the world is too big, too bright, too loud. I wrote in the past about … Continue reading
Baby Brother born from an Ocean
Welcome to the August 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Sibling Revelry This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written about siblings — their own, their hopes for their kids, and more. Please read to the end … Continue reading
How I Prepared for Birth and Postpartum
As I mentioned in his birth story, I prepared in a myriad of ways during the months before my son’s birth. This preparation and the week-long build-up helped me cope with his super-fast birth! Having learned from my daughter’s birth, I most wanted to change two things this time: to have a birth team that was empowering rather … Continue reading
Baby Brother’s Birth
Ten weeks ago, I gave birth to my second child, a boy. We are told in so many ways that birth and motherhood should be blissful, perfect, happy, wonderful. Or that birth is going to be a medical emergency and a nightmare. In reality they are both positive and negative all wrapped into one. The … Continue reading
Chigüiri-cosas 