This Mama’s Dharma

Here is my debut Mama Dharma interview, with the fabulous and talented Charlotte Schoeneman. I joined GoMomGo, a listerv for divorcing moms in the Washington, DC area, just as I was separating from my spouse in October of 2006. Those were beyond crazy times, beyond terrifying times, when I felt as if every [...]

I recently taught Sami to say “I’m two and a half,” and today, June 10, 2008, it is true!
2.5, or 30 months, is a wonderful time in Sami’s existence, and I am honored to mother him every second of the day. He is such an interesting little dude. Constantly I am [...]

Today I got felt up at Washington Hospital Center by two doctors, a woman and a man, both lovely people. I found out that because I am an Ashkenazi Jew, I already have a one in forty-two chance of getting breast cancer. And because my mother and my grandmother both had breast cancer, [...]

I have always had a love-hate relationship with my grandmother.
I do love her, but I absolutely cannot stand to be around her for more than a day. I have been practicing letting go of my ego, but I think anyone other than a Zen master would probably have some reaction at [...]

I somehow forgot to blog about the fact that I left yesterday for San Diego to spend a week with my 86 year-old grandmother. She is more than a grandmother to me - she’s sort of a hybrid mother-grandmother combination, as she raised me from the age of 5 1/2 years old. My [...]

I am typing this post on a keyboard without a functioning right shift key or an up arrow, thanks to Sami’s adventures in keyboard destruction. This will, according to my estimate, be the fourth mysterious keyboard replacement I request from Dell in the 2.5 years that I’ve had this computer.
This happened at [...]

I have been trying to teach Sami greetings in several different languages, just for the heck of it. He seems to pick up words in foreign languages with far more ease than I would have given him credit for. I totally discovered this by accident, from a Little Einsteins book from the bargain [...]

“The bud stands for all things, even those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to re-teach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again [...]

Often, when I am too tired to go through with the bedtime or naptime ritual, I drive my son to sleep through Rock Creek Park (luckily Sami transfers very well). Rock Creek Park is one of Washington, DC’s best-kept secrets. The streets of Rock Creek Park snake through the city in strange and [...]

I am currently taking a course on Positive Discipline for Preschoolers through the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP). So far it has been really illuminating and the basis of it is about being present for yourself and your child. The class introduces a lot of techniques like reflective listening, giving children choices, encouraging rather [...]