A Mom's Life

Mine. Ownership and possession are both powerful concepts in childhood development. I can't actually remember when Caroline started declaring objects to be of her possession but lately she spends much of her time informing me about which items in our house are hers. It's not just naming her surroundings: dolly, kitty, blankie . It's announcing personal possession over them. My dolly. My kitty. My blankie . This idea of ownership is already deeply rooted in her personality. She says "mine" with a sense of pride and with passion. Caroline clearly associates people, places and things with herself as well as her ability to care for, play with, don affection upon or just hoard them all in her stroller. With this deep rooted sense of possession comes jealousy and paranoia. The cats are not to be trusted. When we cuddle in the morning and one of the cats jumps on the bed to greet us, Caroline quickly grabs her lovey and holds it close to her face. ...

Andy has never been known for his ability to empathize with others, particularly women. While he is a fairly educated man, he missed the course on "Understanding the Sensitive Female." My ability to digest Andy's remarks, even after many, many insulting comments in reaction to something I have told him, has not gotten any easier. Like a wounded puppy, I often get quiet when he responds, but lately I've been taking another tactic. Being the control freak that I am, I offer Andy an alternative statement as a suggestion for what he should have said to me. I've started writing a book, "The Book of Common Courteous Comments in Response to a Woman's Statements." I'll talk to my editor about shortening that title. In the meantime, I hope you'll take a few minutes from your busy holiday baking, shopping and cookie-face-stuffing to review my draft. Send edits and feedback to: mystupidhusband@gmail.com ! Scenario One Woman: I feel fat today. D...

Maybe you've heard this one before. When I was in fifth grade a friend invited me to go on vacation with her family, but not during a school break. My parents permitted me to miss a week of school and we had a blast, a trip I'll never forget. Maybe more because of what happened after the trip. When I returned to school the following week, my world was turned upside down. My teacher had decided to rearrange our desk grouping configuration and I found myself seated next to three different students than I was seated with before the trip. Now, mind you, there were only 12 or so kids in my whole class (grades 5 & 6 combined) and it wasn't like I didn't know my three new desk buddies. It was that something had happened out of my control. After a sour morning dealing with the change and scowling through math and story time, I was determined to get back my old buddies. I stayed behind at recess to talk to the teacher. Do you ever have a taste or smell memory? This one is mi...