When I sat at my kitchen island yesterday to ponder my third annual Thanksgiving post, I had a laundry list of things in my mind for which I find myself especially thankful in 2008. I am thankful for First Steps and Simon’s finally walking and running; I am thankful for Keneseth Israel Preschool and all […]
Category Archive for 'Jessica'
These days Simon strikes me as something of an apprentice wizard, possessed of the skills and tools that he needs to master his universe, but still unsure of how to use them all. He’s using all of his senses to explore this world. He touches things to tell me if they are hot or not, […]
Two nights ago, I fussed-really fussed-at Simon for the first time. Matt was out at a concert, and the two of us were spending the evening together. He had had a quasi-tantrum (the first and only in a delightful two week stretch) earlier in the day, during which I had been the picture of compassion […]
Thank Goodness. I mean, Thank Goodness. Possibly even, THANK GOODNESS! I have finally decoded a bit of Simon’s speech, and it has brought no end of relief. For ages now-literally months-Simon has been walking around saying variations of “Mommy, shee”. Occasionally it would be, “Daddy, shee” or maybe even “Bubbie, shee”, but the last word […]
Yup, today is the day I’ve been waiting for since early October: The gingko next door has dropped its marvelous gold leaves all over our and the neighbor’s yard. Time to get the camera out! It has been unseasonably cold the last few days, so Simon is also modeling his new coat (roomy at a […]
I’ve been feeling a trifle guilty for all the TV Simon has been watching lately, but I have to say it truly saved the day today. I had more or less decided to let the issue go until good weather arrived and/or I got the downstairs playroom set up anyway. After all, until we have crafts, […]
For the second year in a row, Simon enjoyed someone else’s birthday party better than his own. Turning one sent Simon into a puddle of despair. As the family gathered around to sing, he became overwrought and overwhelmed, and he dissolved into tears. Then, six short weeks later, we went to his friend Colin’s first […]
When Simon was around 18 months old, he experimented with a temper tantrum or two. It wasn’t fun, but I expected them, read about them, and dealt with them as best I could. Then, at twenty months, he began to walk, and the tantrums came to a halt. As I had read that negativity frequently […]
Simon is now in the throws of a linguistic explosion. After months of hearing him say about a dozen words, we’re now sitting at a vocabulary of around sixty words and counting. We’ve heard him say words like “dog”, “light”, and “ball” for ages. Today we also hear words like “house”, “clock”, “car”, “cracker,” and […]
I’ve mostly avoided politics in this blog. Anyone who knows me can guess how hard that’s been; I’m a political animal, and I’ve been following this year’s presidential race with obsessive focus.* I have opinions-great big emphatic ones-on nearly every campaign issue. But this is a mommy blog, and while motherhood is a great unifier, […]