• Last updated 5/20/13 by Melanie Mayo

By Colleen Lowe Smith   Cassidy fell in love today.  At two and half, it’s hardly her first time, but after meeting and playing with a new friend, on the way back to the car from the park, I witnessed the moment that her three year old beau held his hand out to her, unprompted, as an invitation.  She giggled and beamed and reached for his hand.  They looked in each other’s eyes and smiled so hard I thought their faces would break.     It is so simple for a two and a half year old.  They hardly even spoke.  They just chased each other around a bench for... read more

• Last updated 5/16/13 by Melanie Mayo

By Julie Shaffer   Quite a few years ago I worked as a program manager for a "Home and Community Habilitation" program for adults with developmental disabilities. One day I discovered that one of the employees I was in charge of was billing for times he had not actually been with the client and I had to fire him. The owner of the company joined me during the meeting with the employee and supported me as I confronted him and let him go. Afterward, as I cried a little bit, I told the owner that this job of being a program manager was just not for me and I wanted to... read more

• Last updated 4/29/13 by Melanie Mayo

      Have I mentioned that I have a two year old?  'Tis true.  And she is one HECK of a two year old.  In fact, she has always been an intense child.  As a baby she awoke every hour or two.  (I realize this is normal.)  But she always woke screaming.  I would nurse her back to sleep or do whatever worked but there were never tender nighttime moments with air sucking or fist finding as my sweet one gently showed the signs of hunger.  No, she is designed like a fine race car: zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds.  The intensity of babyhood has... read more

• Last updated 4/18/13 by Melanie Mayo

My daughter, Lucy, is almost three years old, and has Rett Syndrome. It is a debilitating condition that has robbed her of speech, the ability to walk, control her hands, and talk. This makes it difficult to figure out how to let her explore the world as every other child does. When I was a little girl, I spent most of my time outside, playing with my cousins. We did all of the things little kids do: rode bikes, caught tadpoles, made forts, pretended we were getting married with bouquets of ferns, played in the mud and in brush piles, rode four-wheelers, swam...you get... read more

• Last updated 4/12/13 by SmilinMomma

By Colleen Lowe Smith   I’d made the mistake of practically bragging to a friend how Cassidy had never been sick before and that she’s “such a healthy kid.”  Naturally, two days later she was feverish after napping twice the time that she usually naps.  The day after that, still peaking temperatures at 103, I took her to the doctor just in case.  Not much they could do, viral, rest and fluids blah blah blah, come back if she wasn’t better in a few days. Which she wasn’t.   Saturday her breathing was visibly short, and she was still feverish when the tylenol... read more

• Last updated 4/8/13 by AdinaL

to catch up?  I got some dishes done, and put the kids to bed after reading them The Day Leo Said I Hate You by Robie Harris and Molly Bang (which is so hilarious). Leo is being a complete booger, right down to squirting toothpaste onto the toilet seat…and then he tells his mom “I hate you!” It’s really a great way to deal with the inevitable moment when your kid starts lobbing those three other little words out there…Nathaniel has moved on from that to the other worst thing he can think of to say, which is, when he is super-duper mad at me, “Poo Poo MOMMY!”... read more

• Last updated 4/5/13 by Melanie Mayo

By Colleen Lowe Smith   Things are changing.   Cassidy is not yet two and a half yet and I knew this time would come.  It started the other afternoon when I woke her up from her nap.  I didn’t want her to stay up late, and it had already been two hours.   It could have been a growth spurt, needing that extra sleep, who knows.  I should have let her stay in bed.  Instead she roused in protest, wailing, and was inconsolable for the next 45 minutes.  She ran away from me, hiding under chairs and tables, delirious and crying, “Go away, Mommy!”     Go Away... read more

• Last updated 3/31/13 by mamazee

Sometime just before dawn: Mr. Nathaniel, four-year-old Aries boy, of popcorn ‘do and cherubic mien, comes half-asleep barreling across the house and into my bedroom, and approaches my side of the bed. “Mommy,” he says. “Other side,” I shlur into the pillow. “Go aroun thother side.” It’s our routine, just like it used to be our routine for him to root around with small starfish fingers outstretched and flexed, baby bird mouth grasping at air until I sleepily slopped my boob out of the neckline of my nightie and he latched on, and grasped the sides of my milk-heavy... read more

• Last updated 3/25/13 by Melanie Mayo

  Before I was even pregnant, years before really, I began to develop some beliefs about what parenting was going to be like. I felt strongly (and still do) about the value and importance of toys without lights and whistles and ones that don't do all of the playing for a child. I felt passionately certain that I would have the most amazing breast feeding experiences of anyone, ever. I believed that cloth diapers would rock my world and that my precious little son or daughter would never watch television and instead we would frolic happily through the yard;... read more

• Last updated 3/20/13 by mamazee

So, my darling third child is a lively one, born four weeks early on April 1, no less, and she’s got the personality to match. She is spunky, funny and a good-time girl and she makes her desires known. She is almost 16-months now and she has some words and some signs, but, still, when she wants something, she screams a blood curdling voluminous “Maaam!” She is calling my name to indicate her full demand of what she sees and wants immediately. Often the object of her desire is to get up in her highchair, or to be picked up, or something that comes into view that... read more