Featured Blog Posts – September 2011 Archive (25)

My 6 month old daughter is working on her top 2 teeth. The problem is, she thinks I'm her chew toy as well as her food. She refuses to take a bottle, pacifer, or even to use a teething ring. I am don't want to stop breastfeeding her but I really don't know what to do about her biting me.  -Veronica

Well, mom, you’ve just touched upon one of the ouchiest parts of…

I am finding it very difficult to be the adult when it comes to my 3 year old stepson. Often I'll catch myself reacting like a 3 year old would, and then I feel defeated and guilty for giving in to his tantrums and power struggle. I have always been a never ending fountain of patience, which only doubles my frustration when my patience runs thin with him. I have never had to grasp for logic and reason and patience before, and I don't like it!

Part of me wants to just let it go and…

I am SO happy to say that this has been a wonderful month for me! Stressful, yes, but wonderful! I just got married, which was so amazing, the wedding went off without a hitch, despite all of the financial hardships we encountered along the way. My parents were a big help in making sure we had our wedding, they paid…

being laid off in may has been both a blessing and a curse.

it has been wonderful to spend all of this extra time with my little man. he is growing so fast and i know i would have been  miserable missing out on all of it. he is now saying 'UP' for everything, arms stretched straight up. I taught him that. last night he was chanting 'butt butt' and i just melted. every diaper change i ask him if i can change his butty butt, or does he have a dirty butt. i know him so…

I'm convinced. Something is in the air at Walmart that possesses my daughter to do terrible, humiliating things.

I started my "Research" when Nevaeh was about 8 months old and decided to go all Pooptastic on me. I made the horrible mistake of going to Walmart without the diaper bag, and my daughter had her award winning, drip on my toes, stink up the check out lane, blow out diaper. Lesson…

Dear Baby Princess,

You are transitioning to your new classroom this week. 

So, this is the kind of thing that I would never have imagined as being a big deal.  My pre-mom self (and possibly my mom self 6 months ago, to be honest) would probably have rolled my eyes at parents who describe the transition from the infant room to the young toddler room in the same way one might characterize an overseas deployment .  .  . wildly exciting, unfathomably traumatic, a…

Dear Baby Princess,

What is wrong with employers?

Okay, again, maybe not relevant to you right now.  But I sure hope that if you do have kids, by that time the employers in our country will have woken up and realized that the way to improve their workforce's morale, productivity and overall happiness is to provide better benefits to working parents, not do everything they can to convince employees not to take time off.  I mean are they seriously having this…

This video is a compilation of videos and pictures documenting the first three month's Phinneas Dae Wallace's life. The song is called "Little Me," by me, aka Small Hands, and, although it sounds like I wrote it specifically for Phinn, I actually wrote it in 2005.

 It all started with a grain.

Brown rice, to be specific.…

Dear Baby Princess,

I want to tell you about September 11.

Before I scare you or anyone else, as you likely will know by the time you read this, I was fortunate enough not to personally know anyone killed that day.  I just want to record, probably more for me than for you, my personal experience.  And as this week marks the 10 year anniversary (recognized in China and it seems around the world, by the way .  .  . though I doubt it would be noted so…

"My baby is 10 months old but he is not even waving good bye and not showing any signs.  I'm worried about that because I have been teaching him to clap hands, but he does not respond. What do I do? Help!" -Shalini

Your concerns for the development of your 10-month old are justified. Although every baby develops at his or her own pace and there's a broad spectrum for appropriate developmental stages, a 10-month old baby is expected to understand language and…

I haven't posted in a while, because I couldn't figure out what topic I wanted to post on. Finally, I have figured it out. To all the single/military moms out there, this is dedicated to you.

With my first son, I remember thinking: How on earth do single moms do this? I was sore from delivery, couldn't see straight and I have no idea what I would have done without my mom and husband's help. When my mom left, I loved when 5 o'clock rolled around and I had time to take a shower, make…

Dear Baby Princess,

I’m across the…