Category Archives: Parenting

Go Women

In honor of International Women’s Day, Scarlett made a piece of art in class depicting her “She-ro.” Spoiler alert: It was me! I was extremely flattered, though a little confused because the text under her drawing explained that she is mainly impressed by me because I was brave enough to attend my own wedding.

I’m glad she’s proud of me, but I had to tell her that I wasn’t scared to get married, that it was something I wanted to do. Still, I did use the whole thing against Rob for a little while, enjoying the idea that his daughter thought it took a great deal of courage to marry him.

I don’t find myself feeling fearful very often. Sad, angry, frustrated: those are all emotions that I’ve described in detail on this blog. But I try very hard not to spend my time feeling scared, telling myself that it doesn’t help anything. That logic works for me more often than you’d think it would. I suppose this might be the result of my anti-anxiety pills, but I don’t actually take very many of those. Just enough to get me to my first glass of wine, and then it’s smooth sailing. That’s a joke! It’s not smooth sailing at all, just ask Rob. Don’t look him directly in the eyes, though, he’s terrifying and that’s why it was so gutsy of me to become his wife. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Parenting, Relationships | Tags: , , , | Permalink

Curses

ALS TDI announced a new fundraising campaign this week, and I think it’s a great one. Swear2Care asks people to put their money where their foul mouth is by donating a dollar every time they utter a curse word. I’m a sucker for clever taglines, and so I really enjoyed this one: ‘Cuss ALS Research Matters. That’s good stuff.

As an Ambassador for ALS TDI, I joined a call last night to discuss the campaign, among other things. The F bombs were dropping like…well, like any kind of food I try to hold in my hands these days. By the end of the meeting, we all owed the campaign quite a bit of money. And that’s the point. As the Swear2Care website says, ALS triggers a lot of emotions. It’s hard to talk about it without getting heated up, so let’s use this to our advantage.

I love to swear. I think a well-placed F-word, for example, can be just as effective as the impressive sounding vocabulary words I learned in college English. It’s a helpful form of self-expression, and even the experts agree. TIME Magazine printed a story in May 2014 about how swearing can actually be good for you. Read More>

|Categories: Cure, Parenting, Research | Tags: , , , | Permalink

Who Is In Charge Here?

Scarlett and Otto were lying on the living room rug the other day, her head leaning against him, his tail thumping lazily on the floor. Rob sat on the couch above them, part of this suddenly serene moment that I watched from my vantage point at the dining room table. Our house is basically one big room, so that even when we’re in separate spots, we’re all together. This has its upsides and its downsides. But when everyone is behaving calmly and cutely, it’s mostly upside.

Then. “Let’s get a new dog,” Scarlett declared. “I don’t want this one anymore. He’s too aggressive.” Otto remained beneath her, looking to me as if he was doing his best impression of the coffee table, a weathered wooden semi sphere that has never been known for its forcefulness.

Scarlett is off school all week, and Rob is taking the week off from work, too. It’s heaven for Otto, who gets much more attention when the two of them are home. This morning, Scarlett is playing at a friend’s house, but Rob took the dog to a nearby park to run him around and exhaust him, in hopes that he will stop eating pieces of pizza off the kitchen counter. “Don’t leave them there,” I said futilely. Read More>

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