Summer Time Blues or, Why I Haven’t Been Updating My Blog
You may have noticed that I haven’t been spending much time around here. Actually, you haven’t noticed because you’ve stopped visiting since there’s nothing new to read. I could lie to you and tell you...
View ArticleProject Discover Ashland Place 5: Dagoba Chocolate Tasting Room
My 13-year-old and I fight about whether you pronounce it: “DAY-go-ba” or “Dah-GO-ba.” We also disagree on the types we like best. I prefer milk chocolate. She and my husband like dark, dark, dark. We...
View ArticleBike Safety 101: Safety Rules
Yesterday I was driving downtown to buy groceries with two of my kids. I was driving slowly and I put the signal on to make a right turn into the gas station. All of a sudden I heard someone scream....
View Article44 Thoughts About Turning 44
1. Last year I felt good about my birthday. We had a party in the park and I raised money to help an innocent man who is wrongly in jail. This year I wanted to skip my birthday (which was yesterday),...
View ArticleDon’t Stay Silent About Child Abuse
I wrote an article awhile back for the local newspaper about walking to school with my friend Becca Steinberg. Becca and I passed a man in a parked car who had his penis hanging out. He was sunning...
View ArticleWhere You’ll Find Me: Hot-Lanta Georgia
I’m in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend. I’ll be speaking at Emory University What: Panel discussion, “Pathways Beyond the Professoriate,” about how to leverage a Ph.D. into a non-fiction book. When:...
View ArticleDying With Grace: Are You Prepared for the End of Life?
A version of this article was published on the cover of the Jefferson Monthly. Text and photos reprinted with permission. On a sunny day last March over a hundred mostly gray-haired older people file...
View ArticleWhere You’ll Find Me: Minneapolis, Minnesota
I am attending the American Association of Birth Centers annual conference in Minneapolis this weekend. I give the quiche note (breakfast keynote) this Saturday, September 28, 2013 7 a.m. to 8:15 a.m....
View ArticleWhen Hurry Becomes a Habit: It’s Time to Stop Rushing Our Kids
“Whaddya doing Max?” a father shouted at his 5-year-old when his son stood looking longingly at the snack bar. “We came here to go on the water slides! We’re going on the water slides! C’mon!” The...
View ArticleWhat I’m Reading, What I’m Writing, and Where You’ll Find Me This Weekend
The Fall Family Fair, put on by Southern Oregon Birth Connections, is this Sunday, November 3rd, 2013, at the Ashland Springs Hotel in downtown Ashland from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Goodie bags, free food,...
View ArticleOne in 500 Newborn Boys Experience Acute Complications From Circumcision
“I didn’t really think that much about it,” a doctor friend admitted to me as we hiked through Lithia Park last weekend. “I didn’t research it. I just trusted my gut. It didn’t seem necessary, so we...
View ArticleThe Possible Dangers of Obstetric Ultrasound
I’m often asked what the most surprising thing I learned while researching my book, The Business of Baby. Though I had been studying, writing, and talking about birth for over ten years, including as a...
View Article13 Random Parenting-Related Things You’ve Probably Never Thought Of
1. Most children’s movies have a French and Spanish soundtracks. If you play the movie in a foreign language and turn on the same language’s subtitles, you will learn a lot of new vocabulary and...
View ArticleAre We a Nation of Fat People?
A version of this article was first published in Healthy Life magazine, under the name, “Portion Distortion.” I have an Emergency Room doctor friend who’s been thinking about writing a book called Eat...
View ArticleHow to Make a Pop-up Puppet
We had a crafternoon at my son’s school this week. Lynn Fain’s second and third graders joined Debi Blair’s fourth graders. The door between the two classrooms stayed open and both rooms were set up...
View ArticleMaking Facebook Memes
I’ve been spending quite a bit of time over on my Business of Baby Facebook page. It’s all Kris Bordessa‘s fault. She has a community Facebook page called Attainable Sustainable. It used to have about...
View ArticleEverything’s for Sale … Even Positive Pregnancy Tests
Your bald beauty needs a … wig. So people will know she’s a girl. Because we need to stereotype babies as soon as possible. And it’s so embarrassing when your girl is mistaken for a boy. Among the most...
View ArticleBiggest Parenting News Stories of 2013 (The Ones You Haven’t Heard)
This year has brought good parenting news from around the world. It was pretty wonderful that the Prince William and Kate Middleton had a healthy baby boy as fans from Britain and around the world...
View ArticleOn Professional Editing and Why I Charge My Friends For Advice
“Oh my God, I just don’t understand how you possibly find time to write!” People say that to me all the time. Everyone I know is a “writer,” only most people I know are not writing full-time for a...
View ArticleDon’t Read This Sitting Down, Or, Why I’m Buying a Standing/Walking Desk
Are you sitting down? Get up! My husband, who is something of an exercise nut, has been forwarding me articles for several years now about the dangers of sitting still. Sitting slows your metabolism....
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