The Book Journey

Men Will Be Boys (A Valentine)

When women get together to talk, the subject inevitably turns to men. Before long the complaints begin, and the recurring theme is “men are such boys!” Do men truly stay boys while women mature?  Are men, with their tougher exteriors, protecting an ultra-tender, childlike vulnerability?  Or, maybe the little boy is what women want to see — he is easier, less complicated to connect with and embrace. We...

Big Bad Mama

I had a conversation with a neighbor today, a mom whom I have not spoken to for more than a few moments in passing for several years. She needed to spill some resentments she’s had towards me.  Her point-of-view did not surprise me, but it helped me connect some dots.  Since becoming a mom, many of my weaknesses have been unveiled, but I have also realized some surprising strengths.  For most of my life I have...

Facing the Strange

I have never been fond of change. And I don’t mean coins, I mean transitions. This is one of the many things I have in common with babies and toddlers, who often find transitions difficult too. I would love to say, for example, that I’m a world traveler, full of wanderlust to explore the earth. That sounds sexy, but it’s not me. I am a homebody. I enjoy trips once I’m there, but the thought of getting...

No Self-Assurance (Faking It)

As early as I can remember, I suffered from a lack of self-confidence. At the same time, I had great expectations for myself, vivid fantasies about fulfilled potential and my fabulous life-to-come. These conflicting feelings of ambition and low self-confidence were played out in my first year of school. One day, my kindergarten teacher was reading to the class from Peter Pan, and a girl in the class announced...

Surprise Ending

Motherhood was going to be my “Happily Ever After.” For many women, love and marriage are the envisioned happy ending. For me, the dream was not riding off on a white horse with prince charming; it was skipping into the sunset behind the wheels of a baby stroller. I never liked riding horses anyway! Luckily I did find a prince (or close enough), love and marriage, and nearly two years into the marriage, after...

Book Journeys

There are two books I would like to write. One is the saga of my misspent late teens and twenties. Ungrounded and insecure, I navigated my way through the entertainment business as a model and actress. It was a profession with huge ups and downs, and one for which I was ill-suited. This tale would depict experiences I had that epitomized a hedonistic era, living with international models at Eileen Ford’s Upper...

Blue Sky Thinking

“Take the mobile off the bed, take care of their needs, and leave them alone.” This odd sentence was my introduction to Magda Gerber and the child care philosophy that would become my passion. I had given birth a few months before reading this quotation, the only one by Gerber, in an article in L.A. Parent magazine about raising a creative child. I remember nothing else about the article, but I could not get...

Baby Manipulator (Burning the First Pancake)

I have a confession: I’m not gushy about babies! Oh, I like babies very much, and I love my own children. But I have never been the type of person who oohs and aahs and begs to hold a baby. Instead, I find infants and toddlers to be interesting people and, perhaps because I hold that view, babies seem fond of me. When you respect an infant, he senses it immediately. Let me illustrate. I once entered an...