On Friday morning last week, one of my children came downstairs with blue teeth. I didn’t notice but the other children clocked it in a second. “Why do you have blue teeth?” one sibling asked. “Oh, maybe because I was
The Sky’s the Limit: getting through challenging parenting moments
Over the weekend, a friend asked me what my children’s ethnic heritage is. (Answer: complicated.) When I mentioned this conversation to my six year old son, he soberly answered, “Human.” We nodded at his sagacity, but he very quickly followed
Baby seagulls and other annoyances: watching those thoughts
Every time I unfurl my Yoga mat or try to sit in quiet meditation it’s the same thing: cra cra cra cra craaaaaaa! While we were away on holiday, the seagulls that nest nearby welcomed a new baby. That baby
Bopping to your own beat: parenting without comparison
“Wait. Am I even facing the right way now?” One of my Yoga students this week caught my eye and looked uncertain. Looking around the class, she could see that everyone else was doing something different from her, and she
Worth it
“Why isn’t anybody listening to me?” Sometimes I mutter these words under my breath through clenched teeth. Sometimes I shout them above the noise of two recorders, a yelling five year old and the blasting radio. (The recorders were a
Seeing and being seen
Shortly after I had my first baby a friend from work visited me. She spent plenty of time cooing over the new baby, but she got right to the heart of the matter when she asked, “So, how’s it going?
The transience of the moment
These warm autumn days have been perfect for our morning walk. We leave the house, the five year old springing down the road like a jubilant Spaniel let off the lead. We look for the helicopters of the Sycamore, throwing
Maybe the Trolls Were Right
Several years ago I wrote this post about toddlers and sharing. It is my most popular post by far, still getting several hundred hits every month. To me, some of the angry comments at the end of that post (including
The Small Stuff
There’s a phrase that I often hear, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” The title of a book published in the 1990s, it’s become a sort of catch-phrase for those who want to simplify their lives and cease getting worked up
Mindful Parenting- some tips
Lucy, over at Lulastic and the Hippyshake, asked me to write a guest post for her on “How to be a Mindful Parent.” So if you’d like to hop on over there to read it, here’s the link: http://lulastic.co.uk/parenting/how-to-be-a-mindful-parent/#comment-142481
