Lyons Cub was half a year old when, on our summer trip from Clarksville, TN to Düsseldorf, Germany, he had a hernia emergency right on the flight. Needless to say, as soon as we landed and our relatives had picked us up, we drove to the University Clinics of Düsseldorf, and he was put under…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Today, Lyons Cub baked a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake. It was fun! The mold is made of silicone. He liked how rubbery…
Hey moms, It’s such an easy trick, and it doesn’t cost you anything. You’ve probably long tried it already. I mean, it happens without your doing; you unpack a present or a big kitchen appliance, and kiddo is already snatching up the packaging material, doing his own thing. No need to buy expensive cardboard playhouses…
The funfair is in town! No, not the Largest Fair at the Rhine River banks in Düsseldorf; this would be a number too big for my toddler, and I would fear losing him in the masses–just a local small one with one merry-go-round and some food stands, where you can buy brats, candy floss, gingerbread…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Is it just me, or is baking with a toddler always a messy affair? (All you mommies out there, you’re probably comparing…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. I remember the time when I first sat in a go-kart. It was in the early 1980s, and my parents had gotten…
She couldn’t replace my late husband, but she did everything my husband would have done: From the time we met, which was three months before Lyons Cub was born, she unpacked my moving boxes with me, built cabinets and shelves with me and filled them with pottery (only to take out all the pottery once…
It’s in the middle of summer, school break has started, but kindergarten is on and mommy has to work, so long day trips or vacations are still a no-no. Lyons Cub is getting bored, so what’s better than to take a trip to the Mall to take a ride on the ride-on machines? Lyons Cub…
Montessori education stresses the importance of letting young children interact with animals. Several Montessori schools have their own little farms, where the children can feed, clean, and touch chickens, horses, or other kinds of domestic animals. This takes away their fear of big or loud or fast animals, gets them used to new smells and…
Going to the hairdresser is something special. Ideally, it’s a place where you can also talk and gossip and have some fun while getting your hair done. But with a little kiddo in tow?!? Will there be tears when the scissors approach baby’s locks? Will there be screaming when he has to release his grip…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. David, my late husband, was from a Jewish family, and I from a Catholic one. Neither of us was devout. We had…
You’ve barely had time to nest, so many things are still missing in your nursery, maybe you haven’t even had your baby shower yet — and baby is already here!!! Mine came two months early. Lyons Cub’s due date was March 8th, and he arrived in January. Luckily, I had bought two car seats already,…
by Shar (06/28/2021) Being a single mom can be, at times, painful, scary, and grueling. It can also be genuinely rewarding and absolutely abundant in love and laughter. My parents divorced when I was nine years old. At the time, I was very accepting of it. I had seen enough of my Dad’s abuse and…
Does your baby qualify for Early Intervention (EI)? Lyons Cub was born weighing 3 lbs and being six weeks early, and he qualified as an asymmetrical IUGR baby and pre-term infant. Strictly speaking, he did not have any huge delays, and his eyes and ears were just fine. However, he did have some gross motor…
When Lyons Cub had his first birthday, I wanted to create something memorable (not for him, but for me, haha 😉 ), especially with regard to his difficult birth and IUGR diagnosis. If you have a baby of whom you don’t know whether he’ll make it, or what the outcome will be, the first year…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Some people might think wearing your own breast milk in resin is kind of gross, but feeding your baby breast milk (regardless…
Dear NICU mom, You’ve probably seen them, those beautiful belfies from the breastfeeding mommy cohort, #Tree of Life (to normalize breastfeeding and to show the bond between mommy and baby), but you are stuck in the NICU with a micro-preemie, preemie, IUGR baby, TTTS (twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome) babies, or an otherwise sick and tiny newborn…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Are you nesting yet? I’m glad I started nesting when I was about 4 months pregnant, because Lyons Cub arrived at 8…
Berni was an adventurer, a globetrotter, a fun-loving flea-market enthusiast and patriarchal family father. What he said had to be done. He needed action, and wherever he was, there was plenty of it. I remember that in my childhood and youth, we used to make weekend trips called, “Reise ins Blaue,” and these trips into…
The four most important questions first, in case you are currently considering IVF: Will it hurt? Yes. Will it be emotionally draining? Yes. Will it cost a lot? Yes. Will it be totally worth it? Yes, if it works in the end. Any guarantee? No. My husband and I wished so much for a baby,…
“Is he your grandson?” asked a guy at the Christmas market when I was pushing my son’s stroller along the booths. “Have you never seen a mom over 40?” I thought, dismayed. Not every girl finds her true love in her twenties. I met the love of my life at 38, through my job at…
It was 11 p.m. on January 29th. I was 34+5 weeks pregnant. I had come home from teaching night class from 4-7:30 p.m., had made dinner, jumped into the bathtub, and was drying myself off when I noticed I lost my water. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was from the bath, but it…
What gets to you most is the sound. The beeping of the machines, the alarms when babies have bradycardia (the so-called “bradys”) and when the monitors recording their heart rate and breathing go off, or even worse, when a baby codes. The constant crying and wailing of suffering little human beings, mixed in with the…