Proud supporter of laziness

The neighborhood playground is about a ten minute walk from my house. In honor of the glorious spring weather, the kids and I trooped over to fulfill the daily wear-them-out requirement. Across the street are about a dozen townhouses, houses we briefly considered when we were looking to buy, and every time we go to the playground I think, "Gee, if we lived HERE I'd only have to walk across the STREET."

Read more at Parenting.com

Also today! I am quoted over at Grandparents.com for an "advice to grandparents" slideshow thingie. When they sent the email asking for thoughts, I spent a ridiculously long time trying to word my answer Just So and DUDE, MAGGIE, could I have sounded like any more of a Word I Don't Want To Use On A Family Website? My "advice" amounts to something like, "Don't even LOOK at my kid without asking first" when really I was thinking back to my very early new mom days, aka Days Of Profound Insecurity. It's hard to pinpoint what you need and want in the middle of the New Baby Fog, you know? And you need space to try out the authority thing because you've never been the authority before. At least I did. I AM SLOW. Anyway. This is especially embarrassing since only, oh, YESTERDAY I was telling my mom that I wish the grandparents weren't CONSTANTLY ASKING ME STUFF because seriously, I do not care if you want to go put socks on the baby or give Jack two cookies instead of one. The baby probably IS cold. And isn't it some inalienable grandparent right to spoil the grandkids? So I come off WAY cool in that slideshow, LET ME TELL YOU. Anyone who clicks to my site from there is only wondering what other kinds of Word I Don't Use On My Website advice I've got to share. I'M SORRY, GRANDPARENTS. PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE FOR THREE WEEKS NEXT MONTH.

Check out the other advice though. THOSE moms aren't Words I Won't Use On My Family Website.

Comments

[Mary]

Maggie, I checked out the slideshow you didn't sound at all like a "word you won't use on your family website." Yours was a good bit of advice and worded respectfully. I worry, with this first grandbaby on the way, about feeling usurped by my parents and the in-laws. I hope they DO ask first, just because it will totally stress me out and put me on the defensive if I'm not respected as the MOM from the start. I'll be insecure enough anyway at that point and will NEED to feel in control. Besides, there was another blogger who contributed to that slideshow who was VERY blunt and came WAY closer to being a "word you don't use." No worries.

[Elsha]

You definitely did NOT sounds like a word I won't say here. It's good advice for all grandparents. For instance, my parents have 3 grandkids each with a different set of parents, and we all parent differently. So my mom needs to ask about everything because one of us would say yes where another would say no.

Incidentally it also helped me feel more secure in parenting when my mom would phrase suggestions as questions so that I could decide. Like when she would bring me my obviously hungry newborn and ask, "do you think she wants to eat?" That way I got to say, "yes, she seems hungry" rather than having my mom hand her over and say, "you need to feed her" which I probably would have taken personally. (Hormones and all.)

Anyway, good advice. Not at all mean sounding.