We're not perfect parents, and our daughter is doing extra work in preschool (should be in school, but Missouri won't allow it, stupid cutoff law). Leif is just freaky, the kid is two and already can spell a lot of three and four letter words. Now he's starting to read some words in his books.

Julia was a November baby, so started kindergarten right before she turned 6. When I was a kid, she would have started a year before. Despite the fact she would have been fine if she went last year, I was still glad for the extra year. That's one more year before boys-in-cars become an issue.

Leif sounds like Chris, only earlier. Batten down the hatches, Gud.

I don't spend anything like as much time as I imagined I would reading to her, singing to her, and playing with her.

Just wait, that will all change with toddlerhood.

I don't spend anything like as much time as I imagined I would reading to her, singing to her, and playing with her.

Neither have most mothers through history.

The household with a single parent focused entirely on a single child is a historical anomaly. In most households, there would be multiple children, and the mother would have many responsibilities besides caring for the child.

Sir Isaac Newton's mother wasn't doing flashcards with him. Galileo's mother wasn't playing educational games. They were both busy.

DH and I were both freakishly early readers. They found out that DH could read at 2 1/2. I wasn't discovered until 4, but by then I was already attempting to sound out dinosaur names phonetically and learn about volcanoes from my grandmother's coffee table book, Marvels and Mysteries of the World Around Us. That was my favorite book for years.

I think my whole guilt problem is I bought every aspect of attachment parenting wholesale years before I sprogged, and then discovered that it doesn't suit my personality, style, or commitment to my writing. There's a part of me that's amazed that a formula-fed child who hangs out in a stroller rather than a sling and in a playpen rather than my lap, and sleeps in a crib rather than our bed, can be so healthy and happy. Because I'm doing the opposite of what all the learned tomes that most impressed me say you're supposed to do.

Note to self: stay away from learned tomes.

Batten down the hatches, Gud.

It's probably too late, the kid knows how to operate every child-proofing device in the house. Only the few where he doesn't have the strength or height to defeat still do any good.

I have only heard of attachment parenting since you and Cashmere had your babies, although I'd heard about many of the components, like co-sleeping, etc.

That said, some of it, to me, sounds almost like either a cult of infancy or a one way trip to the funny farm, for mommy. Now, I don't think any of what I've heard of it is bad. I think the pressure which is seemingly of reality for parents who buy *all* the way into it, has to be incredible. I mean, isn't this the thing philosophy where you never leave the baby?

What should she be doing instead?

The taxes this time of year, right?

Slightly relevant...

Baby v. Monkey

I"m trying to figure otu if I'm gonna work or stay home once the sprog is sprogged, and that story made both possibilities sound terrifying.

They both are terrifying to me. I have no kids, so I only have suspicions of what would work for me as far as having a family. I would want it all, in the sense that not having a seperate out of the house job would kill me and I would also want to be fairly involved with my kids. I want to sit down with them and watch them think it's soooo cool when they can add the big numbers just as easily as the little ones, but I also want to be good at something else. The only way that would be possible would be for Mr. H to make some compromises too- not that I don't think he would, but I think it requires a whole different way of thinking to make the burden on mothers equal to the burden on fathers.

Why do men never stress over having it all- or at least not to the point we have to write articles about it. Why do they not buy jillions worth of books on how to be the bestest father ever while still running their company. How come they don't have baby showers?

Granted I haven't completely thought through this stuff and could be talking out of my ass, it's just articles fretting over women balancing work and family bug me, because men have been doing it for a while, so why should it be any different for us even if that means they become househusbands (though I think the same effect could be achieved if they were willing to make the same sacrifices when kids were born, or were even expected to).

I'm already on record as an advocate for Good Enough Parenting. I mean, I do read to Emmett a lot (every night he's with me), and I do play with him a lot on the weekends (probably about 4 hours a day?) whether that's going ice skating, or playing handball, or rambling in the park, or just taking him down to the cafe on Haight Street, shooting pool, playing Pac-Man and browsing through the bookstore.

I think kids need attention, but not all of your conscious time. And I certainly don't think they need a bunch of special programs. We're signed up for baseball again this year and that's my one big extracurricular commitment.