My dang nightmare returns over at: PB Writes!

I found Orka popsicle molds on Amazon. They are twisty and colorful and fun. I luf them. Then I found the following recipe and tweaked and tested and made it my own. Or, rather, I made it my son's. Best of all, 3 1/2 year old Taylor LOVES the popsicles and I feel good about what's in them.

 

Taylor's Banana Popsicles

 

In a blender combine:

1/4 cup…

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It took a while getting here—praise all that is holy—but we have reached this phase: When I tell my son we are going to a store he immediately tells me there will be toys there and that he will be taking one home.

Read more:…

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Last Mother’s Day I received a pet from my lovely husband. Last year, I was more sleepless than I am these days. That beautiful thing called preschool hadn’t started for us yet. 5:00a.m. wakings were still regular occurrences. Another pet to care for in addition to the two cats was hard for my weary, toddler-focused mind to process. Last Mother’s Day, as my lovely husband was pulling Julian’s cage from…

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PB Rippey: Blogma (Ravings Of A Sleepless New Mother)

The night before my birthday, last night, a dear friend I never see anymore because she lives in Berlin---GERMANY---visited and we stayed up talking and sharing a bottle of wine until midnight. I wouldn't have traded that visit for anything, but it was late, my son is an early riser and right before I headed for bed (where my husband snoozed blissfully) I started my period. Oh yes: TMI! TMI! I know. However, to carry on---my first birthday present was a huge dose of real life with cramps,…

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October 2009 by PB Rippey.





Weekend Edition

(when a week’s worth of domestic business is conducted in 48 hours and no one knows what anyone is doing because it’s just not possible and besides the toddler has broken into and is ransacking the bottom kitchen cupboard and who can remember what dangerous implements might have been tossed in there the last time anyone put anything away—whenever that was?)



Have to… Continue

So--did you catch that piece by Hanna Rosin? It's in the April 2009 issue. I find it unfortunate; contrived; one-sided with very questionable research tactics. And just plain sad. Apparently Hanna Rosin felt like a parasite for intimating she was so OVER breastfeeding. Who made her feel this way (besides herself)? Other mommies, she claims, breastfeeding-nazi-mommies at her local park.



As the baby books tell you these days, including La Leche League's The Womanly Art of… Continue

In case you get the urge to make this Trinidadian candy, I'm here for you, Man. Just---have a really, uber-strong and enormous spoon handy for stirring and make sure your sweet tooth is in gear. You might want to lift weights, upper body only. And don't use an electric stove. In fact, you might think about never making Toolum and run screaming from the challenge. Unless you have a spinning machine, then you're fine.



Ingredients:

A frikkin' s***load of brown sugar, 1/2 c… Continue

From Los Angeles to Singapore, Santa Barbara to Great Britain, from mommy blog to mommy blog I heard/read the same complaint: "Worst cold/flu I've ever had! Lingering fatigue! RELAPSE! RELAPSE! RELAPSE!"



My son and I were hit the week before Christmas, suffered runny noses, but felt chipper enough on Christmas, then were hit with that virus right after and well into the new year. It is the worst cold/flu I've ever had, complete with relapses and certainly the worst illness poor T has… Continue

Recently we kinda sorta went Hollywood very, very briefly. I got to ask a teething question of one of the younger Drs. Sears on the CBS hit show "The Doctors".



I don't know if it's a hit show. It has lasted long enough for our episode to air. And that hunky ex-"The Bachelor" doctor hosts and SAYS MY NAME. Total hoot. Taylor had a great time trying to figure out the sound boom waving over his head during the taping. And everyone was extra nice to him because the sound boom guy… Continue

I have to admit: I was one of those who expected madness, mayhem, injustice, an interminably long wait for results--in short, I expected the worst. How hope-instilling was it to be proven wrong? For the results to come in so swiftly, clearly, seemingly without complication--to gaze at the television with my husband, listening to The Speech, watching the crowds celebrating in Times Square, in Chicago, in Century City, CA, while our boy snoozed… Continue