At the end of another busy day, it was just me and Alex coming home from choir practice in the truck. When I’d picked him up in the playroom, he’d been on a play high, but as we swooped down the entrance ramp to the interstate, homeward bound, he crossed his arms and said in…
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The Defection of Mama’s Boy
It’s a truism of parenting that no two children can be treated the same. But what’s equally true, but not thrown around so freely, is that no parent is the same from one child to the next. I think it’s been well established that Nicholas is a mama’s boy. But something strange is happening in our…
Read MoreBest Buddies
They bicker all the time. Julianna takes Nicholas’s toy. Nicholas falls apart. Nicholas decides he wants what Julianna has, and she gives her howler monkey imitation. Sometimes it doesn’t even require that the toy be taken. They screech so much and so often at each other that in those moments when they forget they are…
Read MoreSometimes, Motherhood Ain’t Pretty
I had intended to piggyback on my Tuesday post, and wax sentimental about the reaction of my children when I walked in the house after a two-day absence. But my final parenting moment last night involved Nicholas screaming…yes, screaming…in my face for ten minutes straight because he dropped a squishy pool ball on his way…
Read MoreMoments With Nicholas
There’s only one rule on a day when the weather hits 65 degrees: whatever work is on my to-do list, I must go for a walk with Nicholas. We left home an hour before Julianna’s bus was due, headed west around the circle and up the punishing hill to the main drag—my usual 20-minute exercise…
Read MoreKindergarten Demystified
One of the most unsettling things for a stay-at-home parent is that once your children go off to school, you no longer know every single thing that happens to them. Suddenly they have all these rituals that have nothing to do with you; you don’t even know what they are. That’s okay with me; I’ve…
Read MoreSo Much Trouble In Such A Cute Package
I guess I got spoiled. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but often, parents of kids with special needs say that their special needs kid is the easiest one to parent. Well, each child of mine presents unique challenges to my parenting prowess, but I have to say that until now, I’ve never…
Read MoreThe Crying Game
It’s a funny thing about parenthood: the moment you have a child, you turn into a clown. No matter how rational a person you are, no matter how deliberate and dignified, the moment it’s just you and your kid, you turn into Mr. Napkin Head. This was something I didn’t expect. Baby talk is one…
Read MoreBring It On
a child’s prayer Originally uploaded by nancybcrow It’s 9p.m. on a choir night, and I’m upstairs on bedtime duty while Christian makes tomorrow’s lunches. I hear the TV go on. “Christian,” I say in That Voice (you know the one). He knows that tone. “There’s something on the news I’ve got to watch for work,”…
Read MoreMemory Keeper
Late on a Wednesday evening, past time for bed on a choir night, I went around the first floor finding things I could dispose of or put away quickly—a probably futile attempt to render the mess less intimidating when I set out to clean for real the next day. I flipped shut the scrapbook on…
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Kathleen M. Basi 