Category Archives: Parenting

Being Alone

I’ve read enough parenting books to understand that modeling behavior is often the most effective way of teaching kids how to comport themselves in the world. Want your kids to say please and thank you? Then make sure you are also using those magic words. (This is still only guaranteed to work 12% of the time, if you’re lucky. But keep trying. At least that’s what I tell myself.) There are all sorts of other examples, and they aren’t necessarily behavior related. Sometimes kids need to see what their parents enjoy doing, to figure out who those parents are, and to help figure out what kinds of people they, in turn, want to be.

And it struck me recently that Scarlett must have no idea how much I used to enjoy spending time alone. After all, she never sees me do it.

I’m not talking about when I wheel into my bedroom to read a book on my iPad and escape the madness of our full house for half an hour. I’m not talking about my angsty teen years, partially spent listening to Tori Amos and Pearl Jam in my attic bedroom, craving the solitude that one needs when they share a bathroom with 5 other people. Read More>

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

Dad’s Day

On Saturday, Rob asked me not to make a big deal out of Father’s Day. I didn’t totally understand what this meant—no billboards?—but I tried to keep things chill yesterday by having a slight relapse in my pneumonia symptoms and sleeping all afternoon. Rob took Scarlett and some other visiting family members to the beach, while I stayed home with my own Dad.

So I think I can safely say that not only did I NOT make a big deal out of Father’s Day, I barely acknowledged the fact that it was a day at all. We did give him gifts, does that make things a little better?

I think that maybe one of the things my very private husband meant when he made his Father’s Day decree was that I shouldn’t feel it necessary to blog about him and his Dadness this week. But that is just too bad. This is a guy who works all day at a very demanding job, comes home, serves dinner, cleans it all up, bathes Scarlett, gets her ready for bed, and then when he is finally ready to relax for the night, has to help me with…everything.

Rob is a great Dad. A few months ago, I asked Scarlett to give me one word to describe him, and the word she chose was “Batman.” Read More>

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

Three Nights

Wednesday: We went to the emergency room because every time I coughed, I ended up choking and it was freaking me out. I couldn’t seem to get the cough out, only push it back where it came from and make myself feel even worse. It was a little like early labor in childbirth; I ignored it for as long as I could until it was clearly time to seek professional help.

Rob was on a work retreat, so my sister drove me to the ER, with Scarlett in the backseat running a constant commentary, and driving me nuts. I was concentrating so hard on breathing. When we got to the hospital, I went ahead, while Liz handed Scarlett off to her Uncle Rob. The ER was half-full when I rolled in, with one person ahead of me at the window. I felt awful. I knew I had to cough, but the prospect had become terrifying, like filling my throat with glue and then trying to breathe around it.

A Dr. walked into the room. “Mrs Copeland?” he said, looking around. I caught his eye and made the universal sign for choking. “Mrs. Copeland?” he said again, this time to me. I shook my head, indicating that I was having an emergency. “Oh,” he said, and walked away. “You’re okay.”

When Liz walked in, she dealt with a ridiculous check-in process, all the while trying to contain her anger as she kept repeating my sister has ALS and she can’t breathe. Read More>

|Categories: Doctors, Drugs, Life, Meditation, Parenting, Progression, Vanity | Tags: , , , , , | Permalink