The Pain of Not Being the Favorite Parent

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 9 Comments

The Pain of Not Being the Favorite Parent (Photo: Silhouette of a parent lifting up a child)

“I want daddy.”

My breath catches in my throat. “Really? You don’t want me to give you a bath?” My voice cracks.

“No, I want Daddy for bath. Daddy, give mommy [Little Bird],” my older son insists.

Sigh. “I’ll give him his bath,” my husband acquiesces and hands me the baby.

I watch as my almost three-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) ambles over to the bathroom, where I usually need to drag him. I’ve always been the one to put him to bed, only relinquishing it to my husband on the rare occasion I’m out of the house. My husband follows him, pulling my son’s monster towel out of the closet on the way.

I didn’t expect it to be like this.

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Family Biking Profiles: Kathleen Youell

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Family Biking Profiles_ Kathleen Youell-2

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking.

Here’s the fourth of my Bike Month family biking profiles, following Leanne, Kate, and Stacy. This interview comes courtesy of Kathleen Youell, who lives in the bike utopia of Inner SE Portland, OR. (If only we were all so lucky!) She has two children, a son who is almost eleven and a daughter who recently turned nine. While her family is originally from Sacramento, they moved to Oregon about eight years ago. She runs portlandize.com, tweets @kyouell and is one of the administrators of the PDX Cargo Bike Gang Facebook group.

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On Valuing My Work as a Mom

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

On Giving Myself Credit as a Mom

Feeding and taking care of my child is an important, essential job. I need to keep reminding myself of this.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked how I could keep up the blog with a newborn. That answer was relatively easy; I write on the phone while nursing. But the question he didn’t ask – why I’m keeping up the blog – struck me. There are pat answers involving maintaining my audience and SEO, but if it came down to it, I would ignore them. No, the reason I’ve kept writing is because it feels like important work.

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Bike Month: Family Biking Profiles, Stacy Bisker of A Simple Six

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment
Family Biking Profiles_ Stacy Bisker of A Simple Six

Yes, these really are all Stacy’s family’s bikes. Courtesy of A Simple Six.

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking. So far, I’ve interviewed Kate and Leanne, both in Washington D.C.

This interview presents a change of scenery, with answers from Stacy Bisker, who lives in the bitter cold of Buffalo, NY. (I’m originally from upstate New York and even thinking of Buffalo gives me chills. I went to a Bills game there once in the winter and it was one of the coldest times of my life.) It’s especially impressive because she has four children (14, 12, 9 and 6 years old) and mainly bikes for transportation. You can find her family on Facebook, Instagram, and the archive of her blog at A Simple Six.

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Trains Galore at the Gaithersburg Community Museum

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Trains Galore at the Gaithersburg Community Museum

Sprout has a serious case of the Train Bug. So when I saw the Gaithersburg Community Museum was having a day focused on trains, I knew we just had to go. With Little Bird in the carrier and Chris’s parents visiting, we were ready for a day of train-centric fun.

What I didn’t realize until I got there was exactly how much “train” there was. From casually passing by, I knew the museum was built inside of an old train station. But it’s actually much more than that; there are actually three separate trains on display. As Sprout knows about several different types of trains, this was particularly exciting.

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Bike Month: Family Biking Profile of Kate Gallery

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 9 Comments

Bike Month_ Family Biking Profiles-2

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking.

Following up on my profile of Leanne, here’s Kate Gallery’s story. Kate lives on Washington D.C.’s Capitol Hill with her two-year-old daughter. She’s the owner of Recess Outings, which offers parent-child bicycle tours around the city and is on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She’s also offering a special deal for blog readers – if you use the discount code ‘timeforrecess’ on the Recess Outings website you get 50% off a ride!

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Children’s Book Week: Postmodern Fun with the Physical Form

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Post-Modern Fun with Physical Kids Books.jpg

It’s Children’s Book Week, so I have a couple of posts featuring some of my favorite children’s books.

Today, I’m featuring books that use their physical form to their full potential. They bend what can be done with a book without relying on anything but paper, ink and an enthusiastic reader. Plus, many are much more post-modern than adult books while still being awesome for kids.

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Children’s Book Week: Kids’ Lit for Lit Geeks

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Kids' Lit for Lit Geeks

It’s Children’s Book Week, so I have a couple of posts featuring some of my favorite children’s books. Check out last year’s posts on the topic: Passing Down My Beloved Books, Bizarre Children’s Literature, and Tips on Reading to Babies.

Today, I’m celebrating some children’s books that draw on a rich history of literature and more importantly, make you look smart in front of your kids. These books all reference other books, especially the classics. In other words, a geek’s dream.

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Bike Month: Family Biking Profiles

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking.

Bike Month_ Family Biking Profiles

This is not of Leanne.

To start with, here’s a profile of Leanne, who lives in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. She kindly answered my call for families willing to be profiled that I put out on the D.C. Family Biking Facebook Group. She lives with her almost-two-year-old daughter and her husband.

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