Posts Tagged Under Beth Touchette
Parents, Start Your Vacation
We decided to drive our Prius to Yellowstone. Our Honda Accord is bigger and has a luggage box on top, but there is something wrong with the starter. Every once in a while the key gets stuck in the ignition. I pictured us in a remote rest stop in Idaho, not being able to start the car, while a bear, or perhaps a group of irate locals incensed by our liberal bumper stickers, pounded on our back window. I decided I’d rather be crowded into our 2007 Prius. I pointed out to my spouse that we could go out for dinner at least twice while camping thanks to all the money we’d save on gas.
The kids moaned as we loaded sleeping bags where their legs could have stretched. I lost my legroom to the emergency snack bag, my backpack, and CD bag. The only person who had any legroom was my husband. Normally, he gets tired and wants me to take the wheel while he naps, but when he saw me sitting Indian style in the passenger seat, he decided to keep driving. Continue… »
The Quintessential Existential Mom
“You loved me more when I was a baby,” said my seven-year-old son Walker as we looked at our family album.
I nuzzled his hair, and said, “I adore you more every day. I loved how cozy you were then, but now you’re able to talk. You can read to me, and I don’t have to change your diapers.”
Walker seemed satisfied with my incomplete answer. I turned off his bedroom light and went back to the photos. There he was, newborn, in a penguin pantsuit with matching cap. His skin looked red and blotchy, and his eyes were shut. At six months, he was still bald, but smiling, like a wise Buddha. At two, he had long wisps of yellow hair and clutched a Thomas the Train.
By Beth TouchetteThe Third Grade Fashion Police
“Today Phoebe asked me why I wear dresses all the time,” said my eight-year old daughter, Lena, one day after school.
Baby on Board
Yesterday, I saw an orange “Baby on Board” diamond dangling in a minivan. I remembered seeing lots of those signs in the eighties, but I thought “Baby on Board” had disappeared, like torn Flashdance clothing, excess black eyeliner and fluffy hair.
As a twenty-something, I thought the signs insinuated that I had some control as to whether I collided into the parents’ car. “Oh no, they have a baby on board,” I would tell my college friends as we drove to the I-Beam nightclub. “We’ll have to rear-end someone else!”
Now, I can see the point of a baby on board sign. It is not a warning FOR others drivers, it is a warning TO other drivers. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve held the wheel with my left hand as I reached back with my right hand to locate and then stuff a pacifier into my screaming infant son’s mouth while driving sixty miles an hour.
By Beth TouchetteMiddle School is Going to Be VERY Different
On Friday, my husband and I toured the middle school our fifth-grade son will be attending next year. I recognized parents I hadn’t seen in years, since our kids attended different elementary schools. We had chatted at the playground as we pushed our babies in swings, or may be we had crossed paths at Mommy and Me Music Class. All had larger waistlines and more wrinkled foreheads than I remembered.
Riding the Mommy Wave
Last Wednesday, I had the day off from work, but my own grade school children had class.
A Mother Learns How to Swim
I learned a lot about education by not teaching my four-year-old daughter how to swim last summer.
The Ties that Bind
This week I flew, alone, from San Francisco to New York City. On both legs of the trip, I had two-hour layovers in Denver. My parents live in Boulder, which is over an hour from the airport. I didn’t have enough time to visit, but I did call them.
Re-Entry
Until last month, my main job was being a mom to my son, Walker, and daughter, Elena. I filled nine years with nursing, changing diapers, sweeping Cheerios, preschool and play dates. Although I always worked part-time as a tutor or elementary school science teacher, I made sure that my kids’ schedules came first.
Now, I’m teaching high school biology full-time.
I’m responsible for other people’s children, and my kids go to before and after school daycare every day. My husband wakes Walker and Elena up and makes their breakfasts and lunches, because I have to be at school by 7:30.
By Beth TouchetteCome Fly with Me
I remember the first time I picked up my husband, then boyfriend, at the airport. It was ten years before 9/11, so I was able to meet Reese at the gate. I positioned myself at his flight’s assigned jet way exit fifteen minutes before his scheduled arrival.
The first person off was a forty-ish looking man in a suit. He wrapped his arms around his wife and two kids. I walked closer to the door, figuring Reese would soon be exiting. A couple more business travelers trotted past. A family with a stroller came out. The guy holding a sign for Mr. Fred Jones found him. A flight attendant exited with her rollaway bag. Still, Reese did not emerge. I began to look for a pay phone to check my answering machine for messages. I was surprised when Reese hugged me from behind.
“What happened? Were you on a different plane?” I asked.
By Beth Touchette
