The Breeders: Separation Anxiety...for Mama

Next week I have to travel for work. Needless to say I'm a bit anxious about it. Any tips for surviving parental separation anxiety are greatly appreciated. But, don't worry I will fully take advantage of the opportunity to sleep - anxiety will not win out over Ambien.

...and why, yes, of course my son already has a cape....

The Breeders: Achieving key parenting milestones

Adam: What did you write your blog post about this week?

Me: Cheerios and maracas.

Adam: Oh, cool.

Yep, this is the new normal. Read about it over on the Patch.

The Breeders: First Word? Maybe?

From my new favorite blog, Parenting with Crappy Pictures.

I was an English major who maybe took too many semiotics classes. I also have a friend going to school to be a speech pathologist, so I might be over thinking the whole first word thing, but when the first word is just a shortened version of repeated babbling, its hard to tell.

I don't want to shortchange the kid, but I may also be the only mom who was also kind of hoping it would be "dada." It seems only fair considering he spends all day with him.

The Breeders: My Husband's Best Parenting Tip

Speaking of increments of time, my most recent post on The Patch is about how my husband is a genius and came up with a super simple way to keep us sane.

Counting. 

No, really. That's it.

Your Friday Awesome: The Longest Shortest Time

Do you have a baby? Do you know someone who has a baby? Are you about to have a baby? Are you thinking about having a baby? Soon? Ten years from now? Are you now, or may you in the future be around anyone that may have a baby?

Yes? Good. LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST.

I read all the books. All the blogs. I had a few friends that had babies. I was once a baby who was parented by a mother who shared stories about my babyhood. I was not prepared to have a baby.

The first few months are hard. Those first few weeks are very hard. You need to know that everyone else thinks they are hard too, but most importantly you also need to know that those first few weeks and months that feel like they will never end, that you will never stop being required to keep a person alive solely with what is made of your own body, that you will never stop smelling like spit up and spoiled milk, that you will never be able to control your hormones...that will all end. It will end soon. It will end faster than your required quarter of Western Civ. It will end more quickly than a season of American Idol.

It will end.

And the moments that are amazing, that make you laugh, that make you think you might just be totally capable at this, that make you think you could never love any person more (but not so much that you sob every time you think about it) will be much more frequent. The moments that you enjoy your baby will greatly outnumber the moments that are hard, and you will begin to forget the time when they didn't - and that, my friends, is awesome.

Teach Your Children

I'm a big fan of the DIY crafting movement that has become mainstreamed recently, just in time for this nice recession of ours (more on that later). It has so many good things about it: it values creativity, it's anti-corporate, there is a nice strain of eco-friendliness to it, and it injects new value into many skills that were previously relegated to the feminine domestic sphere.

But then we get things like "Crafting for Boys."

Okay, I get it. In some crafting circles it's hard to find projects for men, and many attempts to fill that niche have been incredibly disappointing (really, Debbie? A stripper scarf?). But, sweater patterns for adult men, which often require different sizing and shape, are far different than projects for children. Until you hit puberty, a sweater is pretty much a sweater. It just takes a color change and some embellishment to gender it up.

But, when it comes to play, why do we continue to count tents and capes for dress up as something only in the boy realm? Even the author admits that many of these projects are for girls, too. And she even talks about using some of them as a child herself. So, obviously this early indoctrination of gender isn't a given, though some people would like us to think that it is.

So, okay, you have sons and we want to make sure all our kids feel special, but is reinforcing gender roles really how to make them feel that way? And besides, its a pretty short and slippery slope until we get to this nonsense.