I don’t often give parenting advice here, but Thomas asked me to tell you about this. Give your babies a chicken bone. A chicken bone, cooked and stripped — it’s nature’s teether. All my babies have loved chicken bones because all babies love chicken bones because, what’s not to love? It has flavor, it’s the perfect shape for holding and
David is going to preschool three days a week this year, and Mary Virginia is going two days. So on Monday, we spent all morning rushing around, fumbling through our new preschool routine, and also explaining to Mary Virginia over and over and over that David was going to school today, but she was going
Right around this time of year in my house, it feels like all we do is blow out candles, eat birthday cake and celebrate — which might be the best feeling ever. David turned four on Sunday, something he’s been looking forward since the day he turned three. We started the celebration this weekend with a
When I wasn’t looking, Thomas outgrew his bassinet. A friend stopped by and when she saw him she said, “Wow, he’s almost out of that thing!” Sure enough, she was right. The same thing happened with 0-3 month clothes. I put on a doggy sleeper that was one of my favorites when David was a baby, and he
Reaching month one feels like such an accomplishment. It’s the first mile marker — your chance to pause for a moment, take a breath, look around, and pump your fist in the air because WE’RE DOING IT! WE’RE REALLY DOING IT! From the very start, Tom has encouraged me to take this whole “mom of three kids”
Before I begin, I’d like to answer the two questions people keep asking me about Mary Virginia. First, Mary Virginia has been sleeping like a champion. A CHAMPION. Well, ok. Maybe not a champion, but she’s been sleeping like a normal toddler. She wakes occasionally at night, but no one is singing nursery rhymes from midnight to
The other day Tom took the big kids on a quick errand, and I decided it was high time I got around to giving Thomas his first bath. I’m not going to tell you how old Thomas is in these photos because my mother raised me with higher hygiene standards than that, and she has a reputation
We were outside the other day and Mary Virginia climbed onto the armrest of my chair. As soon as she did it, she started shrieking with joy, “LOOK AT ME! I’M ON YOUR CHAIR! I’M SO HIGH!!” I’m not sure if she was proud of her accomplishment, or pleased with herself because she figured out
This isn’t the craziest birth story you’ll ever read. It isn’t the most dramatic or fastest or the closest call. But it is my craziest birth story. I’ve already told this story several times, and each time I feel a bit like I’m lying, or at least exaggerating because the timeline just doesn’t feel real. Whenever I tell it, I
It’s hard to know when or where to begin baby Thomas’s birth story. Does it start it when I felt my first, painful contraction? Or a month before that, when I packed my hospital bag and asked several close family and friends to please keep their phones on in the middle of the night just in case.