Tag Archives: written by mama monday

Call me crazy but I am an Aplix loving mama and sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one. I know that can’t be the case; surely one of you reading likes Aplix. My oldest, Brennan, was very easy to distract during diaper changes. When he was still in diapers snaps were still fairly new to the cloth diapering scene so my stash consisted primarily of diapers that had Aplix closures. Then my daughter Kendall came into the world and the cloth diapers that I used to make her stash were snaps. That’s when I realized that I preferred Aplix over snaps. If you prefer snaps or simply haven’t tried Aplix you may be asking yourself, “Bert, why do you like Aplix? It wears and tears with washes. Sooner or later you have to replace it and what a pain that will be!” That may be true but there are … Read More

For the first time during my entire mothering experience I have finally understood why Mother’s Day was created. It was a Tuesday; Brennan had been giving me a hard time for the entire day. Keep in mind that Brennan is four and a half so when he gives me a hard time it’s in the form of disrespect, mouthing off, and complete disobedience. On this particular day my normally polite child demanded a snack. If I said “no” this resulted in a complete temper tantrum; face beet red, arms flailing, and feet stomping. This behavior continued whenever I declined any request he made – gargantuan or minute.

Typically I’m a tougher mom than to let my four and a half year old affect my emotions so much but after the fifth demand to watch a TV show and the fifth meltdown at the undesired answer of his request I … Read More

I think my son, Brennan, was a little over two years when he became obsessed with taking his diaper off. That was back in the day when diapers with snaps were a rarity so toddler removal was fairly easy. Thankfully, he grew out of the phase and I learned my lesson by putting him in pants that also had snaps. Then, a few months before he turned three he started the potty training process; we went with the naked approach which was effective, however, it created a little nudist! Many times I could be heard exclaiming, “Brennan put your clothes on!” Naturally, these phases passed but there’s one phase that we recently went through that had me wanting to rip my hair out!

It started out with an obsession with pajamas. Brennan would get dressed in the morning and by lunchtime he was in a new pair of PJ’s. Afternoon … Read More

I think my awareness of taking care of the environment started out by watching the ’90′s TV show Clarissa Explains it All. The main character, Clarissa, always had awesome earrings and crazy bright colors to go with her outfit. One of the episodes was about recycling and reusing waste and for that episode Clarissa (played by actress, Melissa Joan Heart) wore these cool globe earrings. Sigh. Clarissa was so cool; anyways, that’s really when I started taking notice of the environment and the impact I have on it.

Fast forward a couple decades and insert one baby and well, you’ve got quite the dilemma. Now I need to think about the impact I’m making on the environment not only for myself but for my children who will (hopefully) be here longer than I will be. When my husband and I decided to use cloth diapers on our son … Read More

Minnesota was dumped on by Mother Nature again this week. When I look out my window I have to keep reminding myself that it’s almost the middle of April because my eyes see a scene from February. Last Wednesday my husband, an accountant, worked from home in the morning. In the meantime, I took my shovel to our driveway and started digging a way through the seven inches of snow that had accumulated since the morning rush hour. There’s a lot of time to think when you’re shoveling and since I recently started watching the AMC series Mad Men my thoughts turned to Betty Draper, the stay-at-home mom married to the show’s main hero, Don.

If you haven’t seen the show, Betty is a more realistic portrayal of what a 1960′s upper-middle-class housewife would look like; picture perfect on the outside but trapped and lonely on the inside. There … Read More