2014 | PulseonParenting

Farewell, My Friend

Dec 22 2014

Last week I travelled back to Iowa to celebrate the life of a childhood friend. She was kind and vivacious. A daughter, a mother of four. Why she was taken so soon from the many who loved and needed her, no one will understand. All I know is the acute pain of bidding farewell to someone I’ve known for decades, and my age as well. When I learned she was gone, I had been standing impatiently in a restaurant awaiting my overdue takeout order, making a mental inventory of everything I needed to do that night, the next day,…

Please Pass the Funny Stuff

Dec 09 2014

As with turkey and cranberries and Christmas cookies, I wanted seconds after finishing Jim Gaffigan’s hilarious take on parenting in his book Dad is Fat. So for another humor fix I turned to Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. In her autobiographical turn, I learned Mindy Kaling and I have several things in common. Both of us were awkward, bookish kids who never got invited to keggers. And we also agree that Will Ferrell is the funniest guy ever. But somehow, despite our similarities, she was the one who became a successful comedy writer. Huh. Probably because back in college…

Thanks to You

Dec 02 2014

Before dinner each night, our family goes around the table and shares “gratitudes.” Mostly, my kids are grateful for legos and pasta and our dog (translation: grateful to have toys and a pet to play with, and food on the table). Occasionally they are thankful for each other. This exercise has been a great way for them (and my husband and myself as well) to remember the little daily wonderments of our existence. But nothing helps us reflect upon life’s big picture than that fantastically chill holiday, Thanksgiving. I realize this is belated but in the spirit of family time last…

Farmer Boy Ain’t Got Nothin’ on My Son

Nov 20 2014

Our family is reading aloud the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder and are enjoying the third installment, Farmer Boy. Of course, Almanzo is a typical boy ruled by his stomach and much of the first part of the book describes his daydreams about food and then the copious amount he actually consumes. However, his enormous appetite is no match for my second-born’s when he is having a growth spurt. Suddenly a seven-taco dinner (plus sides) simply isn’t enough to satiate my own growing boy. The warning sign to stock the fridge is that he talks about food 90 percent of…

November 2014’s Book is a Keeper

Nov 14 2014

After dumping October 2014’s book in favor of one that exposed my nonexistent ability to market a blog (doesn’t speak much for my recent book choices, does it?), I wanted to give my choice for November more than a trial run before I posted what it was going to be. Furthermore, feeling untrustworthy in the book-picking department, I even left the final decision to a higher power: the library circulation desk. Or more accurately, the faster reader who brings books back on time. After putting a hold on two books I simply waited for the first of the two to…

A Mother’s Promise

Nov 11 2014

I promise: ~to listen to you. Because you are clever, funny and insightful. ~to play catch, bake cookies and make crafts with you because we have our best talks when we do those things. ~to not feed you crap…most of the time. I promise to wash those beautiful, 88-cents-a-half-pint nonorganic raspberries through two off-key versions of “Happy Birthday.” And also to feed you Fruity-Pebble-encrusted donuts every three months because, hey, life is too short to miss out on something so decadently gross. ~to encourage you in the path you are meant to follow, not the one I think you should…

To My Supporters

Nov 04 2014

It’s hard to believe pulseonparenting is over a year old! Even more astonishing is the 73 posts that seem to have come out of nowhere (and yes, some actually did). Knowing most blogs peter out for lack of content I feel so lucky and grateful to have more topics in mind and in rough draft as well. My blog is a source of joy to work on. However, I am going to take a partial hiatus. Short ditties will still be published but less often for the next month, or perhaps until the end of this year. The reason is I…

A PhD in Mommyhood?

Oct 30 2014

Mommy Brain. We all know someone with it. We all joke about it. Any mom who has ever locked her keys in the car, left the milk under the grocery cart in the cart corral or who has said, “What? (Some event) has happened in (insert name of country here)?!” know exactly what Mommy Brain is. Or do we? If I had the foresight years ago to scrapbook all the clever ditties I read about motherhood, I could tell you who derived my favorite factoid and how but since I can’t…Well, I’m going to tell you about it anyway. Because…

Clarity

Oct 28 2014

I hate to be cryptic instead of concrete but this time I need to be, to protect those involved. For several months I have been ruminating over something, wasting my energies. I was investing emotional currency into a situation I could only speculate about and it was unhealthy, draining and unproductive. Then recently, a turn of events shed light onto the whole deal and things seemed to make sense…the reactions or lack thereof, avoidances and interactions that I tried to dissect came together to form a picture different from what I mentally painted. What a relief it was to have…

Happy Birthday! (Hold the Cake…)

Oct 23 2014

A highlight of a child’s birthday is bringing treats to school. The interruption of the school routine for personal attention, a “Happy Birthday” serenade complete with “Cha-cha-cha’s” and a decadent treat to eat drive my kids to plan this particular event not days, but months in advance. Despite their intense pre-planning (motivation I wish would spill over to doing homework, cleaning their rooms….) the request from mom’s kitchen is predictable: cupcakes with sprinkles or fancy toothpicks, please. However this year my daughter threw a sweet curveball. As some of her friends are on a gluten-free diet, she wanted gluten-free brownies to…

Archive - 2014