Julie Pippert: Using My Words

It's a savannah out there. I was sitting in my car, by the curb, waiting for my daughter to come down the path. School was out, it's Friday, and children ran as fast as they could---not so much away from school as towards freedom. But one pair sprinted past the rest. A girl chasing a boy. In early elementary school, and often, all through it (back in my day, anyway) it always was the girls chasing the boys. My husband swears it was the other way around. But as I recall, boys would run up, tease, and run off, with a backward glance that begged, "Chase me!" And we did. Usually laughing. Usually. I knew both of the children. She's a first grader on my daughter's soccer team, and he's a neighborhood second grader. The girl had an uncharacteristically intense face. Normally she has a huge smile as she runs towards after school freedom, but today her face was pinched in a concentrated frown. The boy? He appeared to be running for his life. He spotted a tree and ...

It's easy: take the kids to Disney on Ice : Mickey and Minnie's Magical Journey! Sit very close to the action: Where the kids get to see live action Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Donald and Daisy Duck. Then have a lot of awesome segments of the kids favorite Disney shows from Lion King... to Little Mermaid... to a brief moment of Mary Poppins with quick segue to Peter Pan, where you have some BIG awesome skating numbers including flying and Tinker Bell... Catch a PRICELESS video moment of your enraptured and joyful kids clapping enthusiastically to wake up Tinker Bell (then taunt the Webz with it by not showing it because well, it's your kids faces)... Include an adorable segment with Lilo and Stitch, including a rocket ship and incredible alien costumes (sorry, was too enthralled to remember to take photos!)... Then wrap up with a HUGE exciting number where all the skaters come out as the favorite characters... Take them out for ice cream afterward and you just might get...

Hi. I'm speaking from the position of a person with two kids. Not babies, kids. And trust me, that makes a difference. While they still need us on a daily basis in many ways, our kids don't need us on a minute basis. In general, that means things such as if a kid is thirsty, I can say, "Hey you know where the cups and water are..." if a kid is hungry, I can say, "Hey, grab a cheese stick or apple." if a kid wakes up before sunrise on a Saturday I can say, "Hey, go play in the playroom." if a kid is bored I can say, "Hey, go knock next door and see if your friend can play." Do you see a theme? I have more space, more choice. My kids are fairly independent, and I can baby them, or not. But they do still need me, and parent is still my number one job. Recently, there has been some hoopla about a couple of articles that were semi to very critical about breastfeeding and its antifeminist yoke. I've read several bloggy responses, comments t...

Oh they are great and wide, these swaths of our minds and imaginations. We think, sometimes, that what we know and experience is the sum total of the world, that it is what we think it is---when we are deciding things. When we are figuring out things. When we are determining. If you ever asked us, I think most of us, well, the ones I know anyway (just proving my point) would acknowledge a broader understanding of a Hamletesque world. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5 The other Hamletesque point I'd like to make might surprise you: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 2 scene 2 Thinking, hmm, is that the real problem? Or is it the underlying assumptions we make about events and people that is the real problem? "I hate her! She's a mean girl!" my daughter said, very ...

I am driving in my car, with the windows down because it is a beautiful day and I don't care if the wind messes my hair. It is sunny and 60, my favorite. The sky is an even blue sheet above me, and the road is a blur below me. Lily Allen is singing "Smile" on my iPod and I do, because I am old enough to know it is complicated, how she means it, not ironic. That's what we do: we just smile. Plus it's a pleasant and light tune. I'm still in my workout clothes, fresh from the track and my laps. I sped along that track, relishing the fresh laid gravel, still damp from yesterday's rain, so the dust and pebbles didn't kick up so much. I circled past the sea twinkling back at the sun, over and over. I watched seagulls and pelicans fish the schools who risked the surface to catch some of that warm shine for themselves. The huge birds dove, scooped, then rose---the only white specks in the otherwise spotless sky. Triumphant, they tickled their full bellies alon...

This is Part 1 in a series about the balance between self and parent, and parenting during challenges. Part 1: The Quiet Chat and why I had it When I worked in publishing, one of my authors, a doctor, introduced me to a new phrase: The Quiet Chat. You don't want to know what it means, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It's the medical equivalent of the Blue Wall. In other words, when a doctor has a problem---drugs, alcohol, shaky hand, memory loss, etc---the medical world prefers to deal with it quietly, behind closed doors. Without going into any kind of discussion about the pros and cons of this strategy for managing problems, let's just leave our stomachs right in that gut reaction of More Than Faintly Disturbed and transition over to the kind of Quiet Chat parents get to have. Don't you prefer to handle your family's situations privately? And yet, how often do you really get to do that? Of all the things in life, parenting tends to be one of the most public...

I have recently been thinking about the pros and cons of blogs, chatrooms, Facebook and Twitter. What need does each fulfill? What need does each block? After some contemplation, which those of you who know me well enough to know was very deep indeed, I decided that the ability to converse in a back and forth manner was a big pro of Twitter, but the ability to converse at length and with thought was a big pro of chatrooms and blogs. So...I'm endeavoring, in my own way, to create the best of all possible worlds, and allow conversation and thought to mate on my blog. Bear with me as I try this out and refine it as I go. Feel free to make suggestions and thanks for participating. Meaningful Conversations 1: Tribe, Phalanx, Marketing, and the Internet Yesterday, on Twitter, someone (and I'm sorry I forget who) linked to a video of Seth Godin talking about tribes. Then, today Sarah of Slouching Mom selected phalanx (def.: noun, 1. any closely grouped mass of people: a solid phalan...

I remember my Valentine's Day childhood parties well, even though these days it seems like a hundred years ago. I went to a lot of different elementary schools so the parties are distinct, rather than a blur of similarity of places and people. There were a lot of common points, though, regardless of place. We'd sit at our desks---the old-fashioned kind (now) with the wood top, attached by a metal bar to the hard, slick wood seat (one size fits all, hard for smaller bottoms). The cubby was underneath the seat, so children's heads tended to bob down as if going under water to get a fresh pencil. We'd have ants in our pants, the teacher would say, because not one of us could sit still. Every now and again a child, usually a boy, would explode up from his desk, no longer able to sit at all, and the teacher, resigned to this sort of thing, would say something like, "Mark...Mark, what are you doing up?" And poor Mark, a victim of a heady case of excitement beyond hi...

The time is right The time is right I'm gonna pack my bags And take that journey down the road Cause over the mountain I see the bright sun shinning And I want to live inside the glow Yeah I wanna go to a place where I am nothing and everything That exists between here and nowhere I wanna got to a place where time has no consequences oh yeah The sky opens to my prayers I wanna go to beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. . . Beautiful , by India Arie My soul needed cleansing this morning. Last night, I let it get dirty. Someone said ugly things about me, about me to my kid, and I let my temper overwhelm me. I said some ugly things about that person. Someone told me that same person said out of line things to her, as well. As she shared her story, I struggled back and forth about providing support or staying out of it. I feared, rightly, that were I to get involved and provide support, I'd be unable to set myself aside and simply be a friend. I rightly feared that My Feelings would as...

She is three, no four now, and she is running along a stretch of grassy lawn. Her feet flash over the mix of brown and green blades of grass and the skirt she wears---skirts and dresses only---peals behind her, bell-shaped. Her short hair, self-cut, flops beneath three bows placed strategically yet erratically on her head. She faces forward, never looking away to either side or behind herself. Her arms and legs pump fast and hard as she races to meet up with friends to play, big kids, who are waiting for her in the cul-de-sac. Except she never thinks they will wait for her and so she, the younger child, spends her life running to keep up. I shuffle more slowly behind her, trying to gauge the right distance to stay back---enough forward to assuage my desire to protect and enough back to respect her desire for freedom and independence. She has no idea I am there, but I watch her closely, not just for safety but for the remembrance of pure emotion I know she feels. She is unguarded, yet. ...

The last few months of 2008 were a little mind-blowing in a "I'll let you know when I've finished processing that" kind of way. Have you ever gotten busy and let your house go? You know what I mean...skip the laundry, dusting, cleaning, tidying, vacuuming and so forth and one day, walk in, notice the mess and dirt and think, "Holy crap, how did it get this big and bad so fast and where in the world do I start?" Have you ever just backed out of the house and decided to find errands to run and a good excuse to eat out in order to avoid the mess and all you have to do? Overwhelmed. I haven't written much because I've been so overwhelmed, and had no way of figuring how to break it down and which one thing to tackle first. The next thing I knew, the things I wanted to say had piled up on top of one another and I? had no time to get to it, but more than that, it was such a cluttered jumble in my mind that I needed to break it down. Let's go back a few ...

High today: mid-70s High tomorrow: upper 70s Lows: mid 50s to low 30s (when cold front comes through later this week) Everyone is all excited about a freeze, but,despite my really poor performance in my meteorology courses (yes! I took them! required for a geography degree!), I'm pretty sure the weather can't be at 32 for ten minutes and create a freeze, as much as some of us might wish it. So...show me photos, give data...what's December like for you right now? P.S. This is one of two waterside parks near my house that are my favorites for jogging/walking. Lately I've been at this one most of the time, and the relative warmth and green struck me as funny beside the Christmas tree in the gazebo.