In hindsight it was probably a bad idea to schedule for The Husband to go back to full time right after Christmas. We went straight from hectic crazy holiday time into hectic crazy holiday time is still around and suddenly I'm alone all day with two kids. And next week I'll be alone all day with THREE kids at least sometimes, when LB comes back ( Read more... )

I have all these ideas for blog posts over night, when I'm being woken up by Mary-Alice, but no time to blog, and when I do catch a minute to blog (like now), I don't know where to begin ( Read more... )

I'm sipping 木瓜牛奶, literally papaya milk, but in English probably better described as a papaya smoothie. In my case I also threw a frozen banana in there. Papaya milk is one of the most popular smoothie drinks in Taiwan. Most fresh fruit drink and bubble tea places serve it ( Read more... )

One nice thing about being a caregiver to a child with, in many ways, a completely opposite temperament to my own child, is that it both keeps me humble and bucks me up about how much effect I can have as the "nurture" part of the equation ( Read more... )

I think, and this applies to a lot of different areas of life, if something is personally easy for you, or something leaves you personally indifferent, you need to be extra careful about telling people to "calm down" or "stop exaggerating" about it ( Read more... )

This is something that's been bugging me for a while, and I need to get some of my thoughts out of my head and into written form in order to process them better ( Read more... )

Final word (hopefully) on Diclectin--I was speaking glibly of "Unisom" in previous entries, unaware that the brand name "Unisom" is used for two completely different drugs in the US and Canada. The active ingredient in Unisom in the US is doxylamine (the ingredient in Diclectin), whereas in Canada the active ingredient is diphenhydramine ( Read more... )

papermint made a post about changing her name in marriage. That made me think about The Husband's and my decision to pick a new surname ( Read more... )

Baby names follow-up: I did some looking into Damiana and Cosima on the 2011 chart and here's some hilarity for you: among the commenters who expressed a preference, Cosima was viewed as "more normal" than Damiana, but Damiana was given to more baby girls in 2011 than Cosima. Both were very rare, however; Damiana was given to 10 girls, Cosima to 6 ( Read more... )

The contemporary world easily anticipates, yet paradoxically does not sustain, holidays.

Caroling parties, breakfasts with fat men in false beards, parades, airings of Miracle on 34th Street, supermarket loudspeakers playing "Jingle Bell Rock", etc, stretch back into November or even earlier; but by December 26th and 27th, everyone is heartily ( Read more... )