2020 | PulseonParenting

8 (non-political) Signs to Make You Smile

Nov 05 2020

This has been a tough week for everyone. And we know that after the election results are finally in, waiting in the wings for its (third now?) encore is COVID. And who knows for sure what else. So let’s escape for a few minutes and have a chuckle. Nothing to outright make you pee a little but a little bit of something to turn those frowns upside down. Smiling actually does wonders for mental state. So I’ve curated several signs, etc., over the last few years that our family has seen during past travels, and put them together here for…

“But I Just Know MY People are COVID-Free”: Human Nature Fails Us Yet Again

Oct 22 2020

Don’t shame me, if I want to rent a house and lay on the beach with twenty of my fabulous friends from across the country, that’s what I’m going to do. I thought about this for a moment. Shaming. I didn’t know about her latest vacay plans when I told her about my grandmother’s lonely suffering in a care facility after three surgeries and the death of her daughter, that my own child was at-risk for severe COVID symptoms, and that my husband sees people in hazmat suits every day he goes to work. I’ll give her that: providing a…

Oct 15 2020

I’m really worried. It’s not a secret that our twin boys are the miracles of science. After three rounds of in vitro fertilization, and the mourning of many of our embryonic children, on our fourth attempt our boys were conceived. I had morning sickness like clockwork. I remember the weird little vibration in my abdomen while I was doing charts at work, the boys’ first movements an absolute wonder. The ultrasounds seem like just yesterday. From the first furious fluttering of their little 6-week-old hearts to Baby B turning sommersaults at 20 weeks. He still has that kind of energy…

Oct 08 2020

“I don’t WANT someone to marry me!!!” That was the climactic point in a tearful exchange with my 14-year-old daughter. Shamefully, I smiled a little to myself despite her distress, because my husband and I often joke to each other how some poor (but INCREDIBLY lucky) shmuck will get to marry our headstrong, determined daughter. He better be ready for space travel because, as our older son says, “D is gonna colonize the moon.” This is a girl who could out run her older brothers through the back acre behind her grandparents house, who once wore a set of laboratory…

Oct 01 2020

Where did this year go? (Down the toilet, to the dogs….) Certainly there’s no taking a reminiscent tone when pondering 2020. But seriously, where did it go? Seems like just yesterday we were all closed up in our houses and venturing out to get the paper in our Sunday best. Wait…that actually was yesterday. Except now, we are on the threshold of cold and flu season. This fall, more than in any previous year, getting your and your (older than 6 months) kids the influenza vaccine is of tantamount importance. In this time of a global pandemic and also with…

Sep 24 2020

My 6-year-old cousin sits beside me on the couch, madly typing away on an old-fashioned calculator. She asks me, when the screen can’t handle any more digits, What’s this number? I answer: two million, five hundred sixty-four thousand, eight hundred twenty-three. Or something like that. I can only recall the two million for sure. She asks, Is that a big number? Yes, it is. And I pause, adding, I think that’s the number of photographs your mommy and I have looked at this week. She looks at me, not old enough to have a fully-developed number sense, or understand my…

Sep 14 2020

Mommy, what happens when we die? My oldest is always good for minivan-stopping moments. Trying to toss his velcro shoe out the window. Determining that blank-staring milking cows are maniacs. Going waaaay existential. At four-years-old, he again (yes, again) flew his old-soul flag and asked the ages-old question. While other children focused on the flying house fueled by colorful balloons in the movie Up, my son was deeply troubled that the main character’s wife died. Thus our first conversation about death and dying. And I thought the birds-and-bees talk would be the tough one. Turns out, I am much better…

Sep 03 2020

For quite some time I’ve wanted to introduce guest writers into the fold for fresh perspectives and knowledge. So today I am pleased and proud to bring you the first guest blogger on pulseonparenting.com. Ok, it’s my husband. Maybe I took the easy way out. But he wrote this post for his own blog and it fits right it with Pulse’s mission to bring parents information and answer questions in an easy-to-digest manner. And if you enjoy this post and find it helpful, as my husband states on his blog, feel free to share. I have had an on and…

Aug 27 2020

I wrote this post almost a year ago and never got around to publishing it. So much has happened in the intervening time with the rise of a global pandemic and I am SMDH at how the words below are ringing eerily true now. As an unusual school year is starting, and influenza season is just around the corner, vaccination (or the forgoing of it) is a prescient topic. So now is the time to publish this long-overdue post: My fourteen-year-old son passed on this meme (or is it a Gif? A Tik-Tok? I’ve no idea…) to me the other…

Aug 21 2020

This week the writing just didn’t happen. My fridge broke, among other things. So I’m gonna cheat a little. Here is a curation of articles related to COVID that address some of the most pertinent issues out there. I hope you find them as helpful as I have:

Archive - 2020

8 (non-political) Signs to Make You Smile

“But I Just Know MY People are COVID-Free”: Human Nature Fails Us Yet Again

In Vitro Fertilization Grows Families: #ThanksIVF

Teens Need Control, Independence, and Straight Teeth

9 Undebatable Points: Get Your Influenza Vaccine Now

Respect Life: 9 Ways to Get it Right, Now

What I’ve Learned From Growing Up With Loss

Does Being a Parent Really Make You Happy? by Charles Black

Anti-Vaxxers, I Have Some Advice for You.

5 Great Articles That Will Satisfy Your COVID Curiosity