Tag: parenting
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13 life lessons my kids taught me in 2013
Though I’m not really one for the Gregorian calendar’s drunken marking of a new set of 365 days, I am one for lists. (They are a relatively inexpensive way to help keep me sane.) As far as this list goes: Whether they mean to or not, my kids have plenty of life lessons to offer…
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So that’s what an Oedipus Complex looks like.
Experienced quite the strong Oedipus Complex of a 4-year old… (I officially apologize to both AP English and Psychology 101 for the doubt). After sleeping in my bed with me last night, Koala decided: “Ima, I want to be the abba again tonight and sleep with you.” “But I sleep with Abba!” “I want to…
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Parents of kindergartners.
Remember when you were young, sweet-innocent-young, not boyfriend-naive young, no, really really young, sheltered-from-the-meaning-of-war young, and life was a big friend grab, and you managed to get yourself a pair of great friends, so you didn’t have to be left alone at play time, most of the time, and sure, they were already an inseparable…
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That awkward moment when… (#tmi)
…your 3.5-year-old son pulls a wrapped pantyliner out of your purse in public and continues to ask, ‘what’s this, Ima?’ …your 1.5-year-old daughter’s been playing around on you and then you look down and realize she’s made inconveniently-located saliva-sucking marks on your t-shirt. …your son is reviewing with you the fact that private parts are…
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Koala update: Three and a half years.
Dropping off my brother at his giyus this week did a funny thing, Koala. It made me realize how very big you are. And how very small. And how those two qualities will constantly be true, and constantly conflict, and constantly pose a challenge for me, and constantly fill me with love. I do hope…
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New game: Are You Mom Enough?
At least we can gain something from the silly attempt at provocation (I guess it worked actually) that TIME magazine gave us this week with its Are You Mom Enough? cover. Am I mom enough to breastfeed a grown boy on the cover of a national magazine? No. I am mom enough to give him…
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Birthdays.
New parenting milestone: the kindergarten birthday party. I’m not a big birthday person. When I was a kid I was, as much as any other kid. Who doesn’t want presents? But at some point it switched off. I don’t like the attention for something I didn’t do. It feels a little forced and awkward. I…
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Fadichot leaking all over the place.
Every other week or so when I pick up Koala from his gan, his ganenet passes me the pants I dressed him in that day and I look down and see him wearing the poofy red replacement pants we keep there. Always with the same explanation: “He leaked again so we changed him…” I guess…
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Immigrant parenting fail.
Ok, maybe I don’t exactly fail yet. But I’m headed in that direction. I attended an event tonight for the ‘gan mothers’ for which I had to push myself to go, and, not surprisingly, a room full of women + socializing + not knowing anyone + doing it in Hebrew is a mess of a…
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Koala update: Fourteen months.
Word of the month: cheeky. Looks like Koala has started conquering the Big Three… climbing, walking, speaking. The climbing must be something he’s known to do for a while; I just never let him go up the stairs in the apartment until this week. But he managed stairs a couple weeks ago at a friend’s…
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The shaking of my non-faith.
You may think you have everything to lose until you have a kid. Yeah, I had stuff to lose before… but now everything I had to lose is seen in the new light of having a kid and thus everything to lose. Which is why today it dawned on me: My family lives in Israel.…
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An Israeli parenting first.
While I was pregnant, I found that I wasn’t getting too many invasive comments, suggestions and guesses from middle-aged to older Israeli women (as I had dreadfully expected). When I mentioned this to some, they said not to worry; the comments would come for sure once I had a baby to show for it. “They’ll…