Goodnight Mom

It’s the holiday season. I’m talking, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Years... So, I spend time thinking about how I want my kids to experience this time, and what I want them to learn from it.  Today, in the US, it's Thanksgiving, so I'm focusing my thoughts there. Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is not a holiday that means much to me as someone who grew up in the UK. As an adult living here in the States, I’ve learned about the pilgrims, colonization and the continued violence against and disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples. It makes it easy to question why Thanksgiving is still a thing. Attempts to simply reframe the holiday, to just consider it as an opportunity to be thankful for what we have now, does a further disservice to indigenous people. That approach simply ignores the truth. This federal holiday as taught in schools tells a story of peace and cooperation. Too often, this story comes without recognition of the oppressive and violent history betw

I was at home alone with Nico and Max for a few days while Steve was on a work trip. As I was folding laundry, Max asked me for the small towels/napkins I had in my hand. Oh great, I thought, he’s going to make a mess throwing these all over the place. I cut the pile I had and handed him a small number of them.  A few minutes later, Max walked up to me and handed me a rolled up napkin. “I wolled it,” he said.  What? He rolled it? I’ve never seen him do this before. “Can you do it again and show me?” I asked.  Max led me back to his space where he was rolling the small towels. He carefully laid one out in front of him and began to roll the bottom end closest to him towards the top. “Tap, Tap” he said as he used his hands to mimic a gesture of making sure the roll was aligning and not skewed. With the lightweight towels, it really didn’t do any good. But it was adorable to watch. “Wow Max! You did that so carefully. You’re really good at that! Did you learn that in school?” I asked him. 

In early August, we packed up our belongings and moved out of the Fishbowl and into a 3-bedroom apartment on the other side of Oakland. That sentence completely oversimplifies it. Anyone who has moved a house full of stuff will know that it’s no easy task. And then you add two young kids into the mix. Chaos! While you’re at it, add in 3 covid infections. Stop!   That was our moving experience.  Yikes! A few weeks before we moved house, Max tested positive for Covid. We were grateful that he had no symptoms. But we really hadn’t expected to have a toddler home during crunch time for packing up the house in preparation for the move. It sucked our time and our energy. We also knew that this time, it was much more likely that Steve & I would also get Covid (when Max had Covid in Sept 2021, we didn’t catch it) . And sure enough, we did. Preparing for the Move We didn’t want to tell Max too early about the move, because he may not have understood it. A week before we moved we got the k

First of all, it is so much harder to find time to write now that I have two kids! I've decided I'm going to try my best to write shorter posts more often! Here's a post about my trip to the UK back in May that I've been writing on and off for months! ---------- I was on an airplane, traveling at over 400mph, somewhere over Greenland. Max pulled away from my grasp. He wanted to explore. I wanted him to sit down and sleep. I wanted his brother Nico to stop crying. I wanted a break. BAM! He slipped from my hand. His chin hit the metal arm of the fold-away video monitor on a front row seat. His cries filled the plane as blood filled his mouth. How on earth did I end up here with Nico on me in the carrier and Max on my hip, blood dripping onto his shirt? A week earlier… A text came in from my Dad in our family group chat on WhatsApp. “For those able to get here: on the afternoon of Saturday, 7th May there will be a BBQ with special guest the Revernd Alan Wilcocks and his w

It’s been three and a half months since we welcomed Nico into the family. Not a long time, really. We’re still all adjusting. Things ebb and flow between easy and difficult.  Easy: Nico eats well.  Difficult: Nationwide formula shortage is scary right now. Easy: Max loves being a big brother and has been nothing but sweet to Nico.  Difficult: Two babies sometimes demanding attention at the same time.  Easy: Nico sleeps through the night. Difficult: Except for when he doesn’t and he wakes up crying multiple times. Easy: Steve and I are enjoying time in the house together on parental leave.  Difficult: Somehow we still feel like we don’t get much time together, not alone time anyway.  Before Nico was born, I was especially worried about going from parenting one baby to two. So many people said two is much harder. The work doubles, they’re at different stages developmentally and so they have different needs and interests.  Steve and I would sometimes lie awake in bed after a difficult eve