abejita's Page

Lately, I've been feeling like a failure at Elimination Communication. I wasn't recognizing any "gotta go!" signs, and I'd had a few days where Luz wasn't peeing in her potty at all. That all changed yesterday. I don't know whether it was a turning point or just a fluke, but it was a pretty damn amazing day.

Yesterday afternoon she was crying for no apparent reason. I felt her diaper and it was dry, so I put her on the potty. She immediately stopped crying and peed. It was as though she'd had t… Continue

I've lived in Charlotte for just over four years, and all this time I've been clutching tightly to my identity as a displaced New Yorker. Lately I've realized, however, that I am becoming more and more of a Charlottean all the time. I am getting used to this place. No one from here would ever mistake me for anything other than a Yankee, but I am becoming, little by little, more Southern and more suburban. It's scary. Here, in no particular order, is a list of ways in which I've changed:

1. I ha… Continue

I’ve been getting that question a lot lately. That and its close sibling, “And you homeschool, too? With a baby?”

People are amazed that I can manage to homeschool with three children, one of whom is not quite five months old. They act like it’s some sort of amazing feat of daring and skill, or at least of remarkable patience and organization.

The truth is, though, that I am neither organized nor especially patient, and that homeschooling while mothering a baby as well as my two big kids is ac… Continue

We went to the library yesterday. I wanted to get Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, but they didn't have it. I wandered around for a bit, made a few more fruitless searches, found a Dorothy Sayers, and then came across… Continue

You might have heard that the Duggars are expecting their eighteenth child. And if you are on a moms' board or you read the comments after news articles, you've probably read lots of criticism about their lifestyle and their choice to have so many kids. I know I have. I've seen assumptions made that they cannot possibly be good parents to that many kids. I've read comments saying "a vagina is not a clown car." I've heard people say that they a… Continue