Jennifer Mathieu's Blog, page 2

Deep Thoughts About Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends

If you do not know anything about Thomas the Tank Engine, this post will make no sense to you. But if you – like me – are the parent of a toddler who obsessively watches Thomas and if you – like me – find yourself falling to sleep with “They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight, shunting trucks and hauling freight…” swimming through your skull, then I think you will relate to these deep questions about Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

1. How Much Autonomy Do the Engines Actually...

Horrible Things I’ve Done as a Mother (So Far)

The following is a list of horrible things I’ve done as a mother (so far):

Had an epidural
Fed my son formula
Nursed in public, including a time on an airplane where I’m pretty sure everyone saw most of my left boob
Shared a bed with my son (co-sleeping)
Gave my son ice cream for dinner without even trying to feed him anything “healthy” first because I knew he wasn’t in the mood for anything healthy, so I just gave him ice cream
Applied the methods of Dr. Richard Ferber and let my son cry in his cr...

What’s In My Journal

With apologies to William Stafford

What’s In My Journal

Twenty million notes to self on pastel-colored Post-its –

GET MILK, CALL VET, PAY MORTGAGE.

Maybe I should have one that says

WRITE MORE INTERESTING NOTES TO SELF.

All Things Considered, sippy cups half-filled with day-old milk,

that rotund little dictator Sir Topham Hatt

(Such a know-it-all)

My son’s robotic dancing

both spectacular and bizarre.

My husband’s towers of library books

threatening to collapse at any moment

and kill one of the cats.

(I ki...

Conversations I Never Thought I’d Have With My Husband Until We Had a Baby

Kevin:He had some diarrhea yesterday.

Me: Did he eat any grapes?

Kevin: No.

Me: Was it real watery?

Kevin: No, it wasn’t that bad. I saved it for you. It’s on your bed if you want to look at it.

***

Me: You know, I think he can start eating Yo, Toddler yogurt instead of this Yo, Baby yogurt.

Kevin: What’s the difference?

Me: I think there’s, like, more DHA in Yo, Toddler.

Kevin: What’s DHA?

Me: Some crap they put in kids’ food these days to make them smarter. It’s the reason kids take Algebra I in 8th...

Three Months in Miami

The night the boy kills the man with his car the air is as oppressive as a fur coat in August, like it always seems to be in Miami. Standing on that causeway, slim newspaper reporter’s notebook cradled in my hand, I hover by the door of my eggplant-colored Ford Contour, staring at the cop on the other side of the road. He is talking to the stocky boy with the thatch of neat black hair on his round head. The boy is 20, maybe 21. My age. Even now, more than ten years later, I can conjure up tha...