MamaBlogger365 - Pregnancy and Depression (or: Pregnant Women are Not So Smug) by Peryl Manning

Having recently posted the video “Pregnant Women Are Smug,” (which I stand by as being hilarious), I’ve been thinking lately of my own, and others’, experiences of pregnancy, and just how various these can be. I certainly learned during my own that the beatific image of the pregnant woman can be misleading.

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MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

Photo credit: expectancy by veggiegretz

MamaBlogger365 - How Different Are Your Kids? by Peryl Manning

I have two different kids. This might not come as a surprise to others, but somehow, it’s managed to sneak up on me and bite me in the behind. They look similar enough that people often ask if they are twins -- though one is a good head taller than the other. They are only twenty months apart, which means that my three-year old is convinced that he, too, is five. But under the huge eyes and eyelashes to die for (How did they get them? Why don’t I have them?) are two shockingly different brains. One stayed patiently in his bed all night, never coming down the stairs unless someone came to collect him – until his little brother learned to walk and introduced him to the concept of escape. Read more...

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

Photo credit: Playing by Peter Griffin

MamaBlogger365 - Dromophobia and Other Parental Hazards by Peryl Manning

Parenting is scary. Most parents are, on the inside, a quivering mass of semi-irrational fears. My husband is afraid of crossing the street. There’s a name for it, he’s dromophobic. When we cross as a family, it’s a dramatic undertaking, involving terse instructions and white knuckles. He insists on holding both children’s hands, being skeptical of my own ability to get myself over the pedestrian crossing, let alone taking on the responsibility of the life of one of our children. Heaven knows how I actually manage to cross the street, with the children, without him. He’d rather not think about it.

I would be a little offended by the whole scenario, except that I get it. I have a comparable fear of swing sets (for which there is no fancy title, apparently -- I’d call it swingerphobia, but that might confuse people). Who puts their child on a strip of rubber suspended from two chains, with no seat belt, straps or other safety features, and shoves them eight feet into the air at an angle nearing 180 degrees, for FUN? Well, I do. But I’m not happy about it -- and I’m scared to death every time I do an underdog that I’m going to knock myself out. If I could stuff them into the marginally safer baby swings for the rest of their life, I would. read more

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

Photo credit: Double Line by Peter Griffin

MamaBlogger365 - The Stay at Home Mother and Her Brain by Peryl Manning

There are a lot of people -- politicos, authors, strangers at Starbucks, my mother, to name a few -- who question the absolute value of the work of a stay-at-home mother. While most people will acknowledge that it's a tough and worthy job, a woman is not expected to be fulfilled by it; at least, if she is, this sense of fulfillment should be temporary (they helpfully imply). read more

MamaBlogger365 – Who’s The Boss?! by, Peryl Manning

‘How To Be Comfortable With The Parent You Are’

It’s easy, as a new parent, or even as an old (or should I say “less new”) parent to be overwhelmed by the parenting rules and lists and guides and chronicles and books and classes all around us. When my first child was nine weeks old, we interviewed a nanny, who asked us what our parenting philosophy was. I ad-libbed for bit, and then finally had to ask her what exactly she meant. MORE