Twelve (very serious) tips on how to get your picky child to eat
Since Dominic was born twenty months ago, I’ve gotten good at letting most unsolicited parenting advice roll off my back. I can shrug and smile now when people tell me my child is tired or cold, or when total strangers look offended when Dominic doesn’t respond to their overtures with open-armed affection and kisses on demand. However, there’s one parenting mantra that people trot out that I could quite happily never hear again. That line is: “When a child gets hungry enough, they’ll eat.” This really pushes my buttons. You see, Dominic is what you might call a picky eater...
Read MoreIntestinal Fortitude: An essay in Notre Dame Magazine
I wrote this essay a month after we arrived in Laos, way back in 2010. It was bought that same year by Notre Dame Magazine. They finally printed it in their spring 2013 issue, which came out just a week before I left Luang Prabang. The piece was originally titled The Hungry Months and the editors renamed it Intestinal Fortitude. I’ve included the beginning here for you (to read the whole piece jump on over to Notre Dame Magazine). Below the excerpt I’ve added some photos from that trip to Viengkham. Looking at those shots now is a bit surreal. It hasn’t yet been three years...
Read MoreNormal life is taking all my time
“What have you been up to this morning?” Mikes asked me via Skype from Bangkok. “I didn’t even get online until 10:45 today,” I told him, still stunned. “I’ve been changing diapers and emptying trash cans and replacing toilet rolls and tidying up rooms and making beds and cooking breakfast and doing laundry and hanging out laundry and … normal life is taking all my time!” “There’s a post title,” Mike said. (Apparently, not only is normal life taking all my time but the events of the past months have taken all of my creative energy, so Mike has started to point out...
Read MoreFarewell, Luang Prabang
Ever since I published my post discussing how I hadn’t taken time yet to think about farewelling Luang Prabang, Mike has been bugging encouraging me to write a goodbye post on things I’ll miss about this little fairytale town. He even wrote his own list to show me how it’s done, titled the document “I like LPB”, and put it in our shared Dropbox folder. Mike’s list has 36 items on it. I haven’t read them yet, because I figured that might be cheating. I thought briefly about just posting his list and being done with it, but regretfully decided that was also probably cheating. So...
Read MoreTimeless Choices
Christmas was just a couple of weeks ago, right? I remember thinking that I needed to write a post on books I’d loved in 2012, set some creative goals for 2013, and find a great birthday present for Mike to make up for the fact that my Christmas presents consisted of some basil seeds, my old broken kindle, and a child’s toy with a bite taken out it. But now it’s April. I still need to do all of that, and Mike’s birthday was in the beginning of March. I’m taking a deep, soothing breath and telling myself that this is to be expected when you live in a small town whose slogan is...
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