August 2010

The Archives

• childbirth, labor & delivery, pregnancy

  The tyranny of freedom, the empowerment of surrender, OR, this was easier when I wasn’t in charge

  08.29.10 | Permalink | 14 Comments

  I’m nine days “overdue.” When I first started reading up on natural childbirth, I never thought I’d be seriously considering getting induced at some point because I just assumed that, with this kid being my fourth, and having had one baby (Callie) come early, that things would just happen on their own, in an acceptable [...]

• living deliberately

  The (un)Kindness of Strangers

  08.24.10 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Yesterday after a long wait and quick visit at the midwife, I was in a sketchy-ish part of town I’d never been in, tracking down a cheap box spring mattress for Avery’s bed (her old one splintered when she “fell” on it; she denies “jumping”). Callie and Lucy had been pretty patient all afternoon, eating [...]

• Spot

  The first time

  08.15.10 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Not the first time I worried about it, not the first time I knew something was wrong, not the first time I knew she was different. Not the first time I knew it couldn’t be fixed. Not the first time an adult asked me, in hushed tones, careful that she wouldn’t hear. Not the first time [...]

• motherhood

  In defense of helicopter parenting

  08.14.10 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  This morning I sent Avery off to church day camp on her bike, and then worried whether she had made it. Our church is a block away, I can see the steeple from my kitchen window. Avery is nine, she as been to the church back and forth by herself before, and still I worried. [...]