We just came home from a nine day trip to Iceland with our toddler and learned some very important lessons while we were there. So I thought I’d share. Do not forgo the stroller! Top of our list was regretting not having a stroller. After reading somewhere that having one in Iceland was kind of silly and a waste of good carry-on space (we have a Babyzen Yoyo²), we just decided that we would make due without. Instead, I packed my TushBaby “hip seat” thinking that would fill some of the gap. What we severely […]
2023 Mid-Point Reading Checkpoint
I managed to hit my mid-point goal of 36 books over the long weekend, so while it isn’t exactly the mid-point of the year, I figure it’s close enough. That being said, having hit the 36 book mark a full month ahead of schedule, I’m pretty pleased with my progress this year. My reading total took a bit of a hit when I only finished 1 book in the month of February. So far, romance novels have absolutely dominated my reading list. (I have only finished 3 books that were not romance novels.) The books […]
The Stroller Saga
I have been struggling hard with the stroller issue ever since the first one. There’s just not one stroller that can do everything! And worse, living in the city means that you need something compact. We were living in downtown Salem, Massachusetts when we chose our first stroller. It was a travel system – the Maxi-Cosi Zelia 5-in-1 Travel System. It was mostly okay for what we needed it for, but not amazing. To be fair, it is one of the cheapest well-rated systems on the market. It didn’t like off-roading or gravel. It hated […]
Actually Helpful Books for Parenting
Parenting is hard. There’s no way to explain that. I love my little one. But it is harder than you think it will be, even if you know it will be hard in advance. Which is part of the reason that having some good solid books behind you – especially ones that will actually tell you that you are still a good parent even when it feels like you’ve lost every battle that day – is so very important. Top of my list for go-to parenting advice is Dr. Becky. If you are not already […]
Scaffolding Toddler Learning
I came out of my child’s pediatric well check feeling like an incompetent mom earlier this week. It was the first time I’d really felt like I wasn’t on the same page as the pediatrician. It was a little disconcerting. And also completely ruined my Valentine’s Day. My mood completely nose-dived. My spouse took our little for a walk while I tried to get my head back on straight, which is when I realized a couple of things. The biggest of those was that we hadn’t truly had a conversation about what we were doing, […]
Happy New Year!
Welcome to January 2023! I’m hoping I’ll be able to do more this year, both with the blog and with my research. But as the last year, so this year too, as far as needing to balance these goals with being a stay-at-home mom. I was able to read 68 books by the end of 2022, so I am hoping to do more by 4 books this year, averaging about 6 books per month. So far, for mid-January, I have already read 4, so this is definitely achievable. I just hope I can do more […]
Upcoming Book Releases
New to the Bookshop page is a list of upcoming releases – including the Louise Penny! I was going through and realizing that a lot of my favorite authors have books coming out soon. Yes, that does mean a lot of romance novels – but you should know that if you’ve been following my page. On the list on the page I have included their expected release date and have organized them by that date. ALSO: If you’ve been following my Instagram, Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn was my September Book of […]
Coming in November: A World of Curiosities
Looking forward to November? I definitely am. And not just because of Thanksgiving, and fall, and the onset of winter on the heels of fall, but because Louise Penny’s new book will be coming out. I had set a goal for myself this year to read every single one of Louise Penny’s books. I got hooked on the first one and just could not put them down. By June 13th, I had finished my goal. Well, September 1st is tomorrow, but if you similarly have some catching up to do on Armand Gamache’s adventures and […]
When Shall I Have Time Again?: An Update
When I started this year, I had a goal of finally writing more for this blog. I was hoping that most of the new posts would be the book reviews that I have been putting off. Sadly, that has not been the case. The few blog posts I have done have been about motherhood, the general lack of support systems in place for both working and stay-at-home parents (particularly moms), the daily grind of being a “SAHM”, and while these topics are important, they are not what I set out to do with this blog. […]
Experimenting
I’ve been playing around with my new stylus and making calligraphic images. It is definitely harder to write on a screen than it is to write on paper, but this was a fun experiment. And maybe it will lead to more? We’ll see. First – another cuppa.