After a long night with L (she was up from 2 to 4 a.m. in major tooth pain) and an even longer morning of work, I escaped for an hour today to grab a quiet lunch in town.
The escapade started out swimmingly. No traffic between home and one of my favorite local Mexican restaurants. Grabbed [...]

We’ve had an eventful weekend here in Healdsburg, dominated mostly by the emergence of L’s molars—and the subsequent havoc that new teeth can wreak.
The poor thing is in agony. Her nose is running, pretty much non-stop. She’s got serious ear pain. And on top of all of that, our prize eater has been almost completely [...]

L’s been babbling for months, but today, on the eve of her 15-month birthday, the girl really started talking up a storm.
This morning, she picked up an animal flashcard with the letter G and said, “Gecko.” Then, while Powergirl was making coffee, L looked up at the coffee machine and said, “coffee.” While counting grapes [...]

Psychologists and divorce attorneys know all too well about the “seven-year itch,” the phenomenon through which married people generally get sick of each other after seven years of matrimony.
But an essay this week on The New York Times “Motherlode” blog discusses a different kind of seven-year disillusionment: One with your kids.
The story, written by Alison [...]

It was Isaac Newton, I believe, who pontificated on the relationship between action and reaction. Perhaps dude was referring not to the laws of motion, but instead to the laws of parenthood.
Case in point: L’s recent sleeping patterns. The good news: She’s been going down for the night around 7:15 or so, giving Powergirl and [...]

L’s vocabulary has been expanding exponentially in recent weeks; we estimate she’s adding six to 10 new words each day.
Perhaps her favorite new word: “No.”
At first, this concerned us significantly. Kids going through the Terrible Twos are notorious for talking back in this fashion, and Powergirl and I feared that L had evolved into the [...]

Earlier today I returned from three days of reporting a story in Las Vegas, and I couldn’t be happier to be home. Interestingly, the effects of my life as a stay-at-home dad followed me to Sin City in ways I never dreamed.
To make a long story short, my assignment was about spa treatments for men. [...]

So, maybe the whole ambulation honeymoon is over.
Sure, I’m delighted that L is walking on two feet like the rest of us. But Powergirl and I have learned the hard way this week that with ambulation comes a new set of responsibilities for Mom and Dad—namely, to watch said infant every second of every minute [...]

Remember that campy movie, “Snakes On A Plane,” from 2006? The last few days in this house have been more like “Babies On A Plane,” since we’ve been up to our eyeballs in planning our end-of-year trip to England.
We’ve got our destination (The Cotswolds). We’ve got our dates (my wife’s winter break). We’ve even got [...]

Look out world, after about a month of fits and starts, L now ambulates just like the rest of us.
She took the, er, leap tonight, staggering/shuffling from her toy chest in the living room, past the coffee table, to her high chair in the kitchen. Thirteen steps in all, confident as ever she’d reach her [...]