If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop? — Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication On The Rights Of Women (Chapter 3)

(Photographosophy, Pissy Feminist Edition.)

There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender… identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results. – Judith Butler (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity) (continue reading…)

… the kids will just end up in the backyard in diapers and bathing suits, faces unwashed, playing with sundry bits of Goodwill-bound baby equipment and also a skateboard.

It is very important, when you are staying up after your bedtime so that you can be awake when Mommy gets home, even though Mommy is having trouble getting home, and it is getting very late, it is very important that you know how to tell when you are sleepy, and when you are not, because then you can explain it, so that everyone understands, and no-one will accidentally put you to bed, because that would ruin all of your plans for staying up and giving Mommy the present that you made for her, which is a picture of a great big orange heart, inside which you’ve listed all the things – candy, cake, juice, straws, marshmallows and (for her) coffee (which you spell KOFFY) – that you need her to buy at the grocery store as soon as it opens in the morning. So.

My daughter on Saturday:

My daughter on Sunday: (continue reading…)

A few weeks after I gave birth to Jasper, I wrote this:

I do it every night now. When it’s dark, when the rest of the house is asleep, or almost, I untangle my tiny newborn bundle from my arms and lay him down in his nest and ease my birth-battered body from our bed. I make my way – gingerly, gingerly – around the bed, supporting myself on furniture, against the walls, down the hallway, to her door.

I open it slowly, holding my breath against the creaks, and slip inside. There, in the dark, is she, my first baby. Rumpled and tangled in her blankets, her breathing slow and deep, strands of fluffy blonde hair stuck to her damp, pink cheeks, she is every inch the baby. A big baby, but still. A baby, my baby. In the quiet, in repose, she is no longer toddler, no longer little girl, no longer big sister – she is just she, my first born, my first baby, always a baby, always soft and vulnerable and in need of me, always in need of me.

I bend over the rail of her bed, and kiss her cheek, and stroke her hair and whisper nothing, everything, about how I love her so, how I adore her, how I miss her. How every nuzzle of her brother’s cheek brings a memory of her; how every clutch and suck and moment of skin pressed against newborn skin makes my heart burst for him and yearn for her; how my love for him has made my love for her grow and stretch and strain and ache.

How I love her, how I love her. (continue reading…)

Emilia is the world’s pickiest eater. You probably think that I’m exaggerating. I’m not. There might be a child somewhere in Germany who will only eat bratwurst and cherries, but I’d be willing to bet that that child would eat a whole chocolate chip muffin if coaxed. Not Emilia. She’d remove the muffin top and pick three or four chocolate chips from around its edges and then discard it, saying that she didn’t like how it felt in her mouth. And that would be on a good day. (continue reading…)

Rule #637 about partying hearty, kinder-style: it just isn’t a fiesta until someone ends up with shredded pinata remains on their head.

(It’s a holiday today here in Canadialand, and I’m still off the grid, except to post pictures of birthday – birthdays, plural – debauchery and to weep pitifully about the end of Lost. So. As you were.)