Andrea Lynn Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Mothering in the Middle

Best Wishes

by Andrea Lynn

We are decorating the house for the birthday party. With my two girls, I’ve done seven parties, and the formula is nearly the same every time. Balloons, blown up by me and tied and taped to the ceiling in bunches, no matter what house we’ve been in. Streamers from corner to corner. Then comes the cake. A different one every year. A butterfly banana cake for Claire’s first birthday, a safari diorama for her second, a pink strawberry for her third, a round (!) chocolate cake with pink roses for her fourth. […]

It’s Christmas Time!

by Andrea Lynn

It’s Christmas time, and my kids are 2 and 4. Magical, as everyone keeps telling me. This is the year. They must be so excited. And they are, I assure you. But boy, the pressure is really on ME now to live up to the hype. Traditions must be kept, or started. Decorating the house, buying the tree, the advent calendars, the gingerbread houses, the Christmas books. As each special thing happens, I wonder, hmmm, does this mean I have to do this again next year? Paper chains until they are how old? And, crap, I forgot to string the Christmas cards – is it too late? […]

Rose-Colored Parenting

by Andrea Lynn

My 4-year-old and I took a trip down memory lane last month. My memory lane, that is, since we were visiting the city of her birth, which we left when she was 15 months old, and of course she has no recollection. […]

A New Crop of Would-Be Single Mothers

by Andrea Lynn

Every month in my Single Mothers by Choice group, members who are trying to conceive using various fertility treatments link up on our internet forum to cheer each other on during the dreaded “two week wait” between their insemination or IVF and their pregnancy test. I am a lurker on this thread now, my days of knocking myself up all in the past. But I’ve been watching the average age of these hopeful women drift younger and younger, with mixed feelings. […]

The Oldest Kindergartener

by Andrea Lynn

Last week, I walked my daughter to her first day of kindergarten. We did all the typical first-day things, the new backpack, the special outfit, lots and lots of photos on our front steps, the Facebook share of that first-day-of-kindergarten moment in time. It joined my newsfeed of other first-day at school photos from friends – including the “first day at university” photo of a friend and his daughter, smiling from a lecture hall on a leafy campus. My friend is exactly my age – 40. And while I acknowledge I got started a little late on this whole parenting thing, it still boggles my mind that someone I went to high school with 22 years ago is driving his kid to a far-flung college campus while I walk my 4 year old down the street to kindergarten. Another friend touring university campuses with her daughter exclaimed: “How did this happen so fast?!” My reply as I prepared for kindergarten: “How did this happen so slow?” […]

Not a Daddy, But a Husband!

by Andrea Lynn

Leaving the soccer field last night, Claire said “I want to have a daddy.” Yeek! It was boiling hot, we were all exhausted, Anna was whining and crying her way to the car. I was carrying the folding chairs, the bag, the water. I had no energy for this kind of discussion. Not to mention the setting of the parking lot was not as I’d hoped. […]

The Father Fix (From a Single Mother by Choice)

Andrea Lynn

Father’s Day has never been a big deal in our house. My girls are too young to know the occasion exists, since they are still at home and sheltered from both Hallmark and earnest preschool teachers. But my legion of Single Mothers By Choice friends all have tales to tell about school projects mislabeled to “daddy” and efforts to substitute variations of grandpa and uncle on hand-written cards and macaroni photo frames. It is an annual discussion that is sometimes painful but mostly handled in stride. I’m pretty sure Jewish kids have more trouble with Christmas than fatherless children have trouble with Father’s Day, though perhaps I’m in denial. […]

Mother’s Day Blessings, and Regrets

by Andrea Lynn

My Mother’s Day this year was a wonderful one. I had a dinner party playdate – three of my Single Mothers by Choice friends and their three children joined my girls and I for dinner and play, under the blue skies and leafy green canopy of my back deck. There is nothing like spending this particular day among women who almost didn’t get to be mothers to make it all the more special. […]

Health

by Andrea Lynn

My daughter has become fascinated by health – good and bad – since she turned 4. Four is a year for discussions about death and sex, I’ve been warned by friends. It’s been true, so far, but far more interesting than either is health – what is good for us, what is bad for us. Her fascination with exercise, healthy eating and the horrors of smoking, among other things, is fodder for daily discussion. And while I’m all for healthy discussion about nearly anything, the talk of health hits me just as I’m occasionally starting to feel old. Or not old, exactly, but a little tired. […]

Baba

Andrea Lynn

This weekend, my family is throwing a surprise birthday party for my grandmother. A surprise 90^th birthday party. Setting aside the question of whether one should surprise a 90 year old with anything, least of all a room full of people yelling “surprise”, the party has got me thinking. A lot. The first question is whether I should drive 250 miles, each way, with my small children in the backseat, and then drive back the next day, so that we can attend the party. It’s a long way to drive, at an inopportune time of the year, and we’ve all been sick for the last few weeks. We’ve been feeling better, but the very idea of a trip right now – and that long winding drive — exhausts me. But 90^th birthday parties don’t come around that often, and everyone else will be there – Baba’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, dozens in all. […]