Parenting
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I miss being my daughter’s mom
I know, I know. I will always be a Mother. I will always love my daughter. I will always worry about her. I will always want what is best for her. And I will always be here for her, no matter what. That is all true, but it is also not what I am talking about. I miss my daughter every day. And I miss being her every day mom. I miss being the person to hear her confidences, to see her smiles, hear her giggles on an every day basis. I miss being the person who holds her when she cries. I miss being the one who helps her…
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The Nationwide College Admissions Scam
I work in higher education, so naturally, I have been following the recent bombshell of the indictments in the nationwide college admissions scam. But let me be very clear, the bombshell, at least for me, is that people are actually being indicted and charged. The history of higher education in this country is not a history of meritocracy. It is a history of the haves over the have nots. College education is expensive, and not generally considered part of public education, because it originally was not something that most, or even many, people were expected to get, need, or even want. It was something for the idle rich, someplace for…
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He Only Does That Because He Likes You
In February of 2014, I hadn’t yet started this blog, so I didn’t really have a place to put long thoughts on things not specifically related to finance, pets, pop culture, or writing. So I made the following post on Facebook. Again, this post is 4.5 years old, and yet, it is still relevant. “He only does that because he likes you.” Pop Tart is 10. She just started a karate class that’s offered by a group working with the school district. On the first night (the only night parents are allowed to remain for the class), I noticed a boy kind of picking on her. I thought it might…
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The Imaginary Family
How do you get a child to talk about what is upsetting them when they probably do not even realize what is upsetting them – that the issue is so deep into their subconscious that they cannot see it, even if you point it out? Pop Tart has a best friend. That best friend lives just a few houses down the street. She is a good kid. We like her. But the friendship we do not like that much. Toxic is not the right word. Intense. Intense is the right word. If we let them, the girls will hang out with each other to the exclusion of all others. The…
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I Hate Sleep Overs
There is nothing Pop Tart loves more than a sleep over. I would say candy comes close, but if I were to give her the choice between having a sleep over and having candy, she would choose the sleep over every time. And while a sleep over at our house is good, the best thing ever is to sleep over at someone else’s house. To sleep over somewhere where they do not enforce a bed time, where they can watch scary movies and eat junk food all night. It is the 12 year old version of heaven. I get that. I was the same way at 12. Staying up late…
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My Husband, the Bum
If you ask C what he does, he will tell you he is a bum. If he is a bum, I do not care. It does not bother me that he spends a good part of every day sleeping or playing video games. Because here is the thing – he deserves it. He EARNS it. I love Pop Tart. I love her more than just about anything, but there is a reason I am the breadwinner in our family and C is the stay at home parent. I get home right around 5pm. That means that by the time I walk through the door, he has been dealing with whatever…
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Reminder: Next Year, Skip Mothers’ Day
Mothers’ Day sucks at our house. This is something that simply is. Nothing can be done to fix it. In fact, attempts to fix it just make it worse. We knew to skip the first Mothers’ Day Pop Tart was with us. She had been placed with us on April 30. She came to us from a disrupted placement – meaning it was supposed to have been an adoptive home, but then things went sideways. She called the parents in that home “Dad” and “Mom”. So, we knew. When I sent a note to family and friends to tell them of the placement, I also specifically asked them NOT to…
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Goodbye Miss Stella
This past Thursday morning, it finally happened. We had known it was imminent. For a while now, C and I had been talking days, but the days had gone into two weeks, and we had hoped, just a little bit. But we still knew. And so every morning, I still checked. This past Thursday morning, I found Stella, one of Pop Tart’s rats, dead in her cage. I had been checking every morning, for the last few weeks, before Pop Tart woke up, specifically for this purpose, so that I would be the one to find her, to remove her from the cage. Because Pop Tart was going to take…
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Instead of College, Can We Talk About Daycare?
Let me say that I appreciate that Sanders has pushed the conversation to the left. No matter who the eventual Democratic nominee for the President is, the conversation has been better because he has been part of it. At the same time, I realized the other day that I am mad at him. Not for being in the race, but for pushing the conversation toward universal college education, and forcing Clinton to respond specifically to that. As I have said before, I am not against universal college education. In fact, as a parent of a 6th grader, I am likely to benefit from it. But what if the conversation had…
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Why Our Daughter Does Not Have a College Fund
For a lot of parents, the second they find out they are pregnant, they start thinking about saving for college for their little one. And it makes sense. College is expensive, and if we can help our kids start off their adult life with as little debt as possible, that would be great. Because the truth is, while student loan debt is often considered “good” debt, kind of like a mortgage, in that you are getting something for it, it has its negatives, too – especially if the student needs more than the federally guaranteed loans and gets some from private lenders. After all, if our kids get in major…
