<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!-- generator="WordPress.com" -->
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>This Maternal Life</title>
	<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com</link>
	<description>Mothering in the middle yeas:  Never a dull moment.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:22:34 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s Firsts, and Ours</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Seldom noted in the election excitement about fists is that President-Elect Obama will be our first president with a community organizer background.  We have finally elected a Democrat who is also a democrat!
 
I have been a progressive idealist my whole adult life.  I have voted on hope for the empowerment of workers, civil rights for [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=48&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/obamas-firsts-and-ours/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Thoughts on Writing from my Eight-Year-Old Poet</title>
		<description><![CDATA[All five of us in this family love words, and we all are capable of producing expressive writing, sometimes even beautiful writing.  Not only are we capable, but we’ve all done it, if only under pressure of school assignments!  At Brad’s parent-teacher conference, our youngest writer showed us his poetry, which made me laugh and [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=41&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/thoughts-on-writing-from-my-eight-year-old-poet/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>October&#8217;s Weekend Delights</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In so many ways October is a mean, mean month for anyone involved in the academic world.  I certainly feel it in my college prof role.  The students’ first papers are due, all the committees decide they must get busy with their work now, annual grant report is due for the grant I direct, and [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=37&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/octobers-weekend-delights/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>One More Obama Mama Watching Hope Rise</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Nowadays, in those rare moments I find to fire up my computer for non-work reasons, I feel the urge to reach outward, towards the internet, especially election news, rather than inward, towards the much-neglected inner life of Jodi.  I guess there’s a time and place for everything.  
 
I am excited, sometimes even buoyant, yet agitated [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=27&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/one-more-obama-mama-watching-hope-rise/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Poems to Say Goodbye to Summer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I wrote both of these poems two years ago.  I still like them at this time of year.
Kid Salads
 
Kid salads can be assembled
Out of rhubarb, lemongrass, three cups of mint
To cool your breath right up to your sinuses
Add a handful of hidden blackberries that survived August 
When their compatriots had already succumbed to fleeting July
All [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=23&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/poems-to-say-goodbye-to-summer/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>On Not Writing Much This Summer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Do we all have exaggerated hopes for the summer, or is it more true of teachers who see stretched before them three months of what looks like it could be freedom?  Is it writers, too, planners of special two-week vacations and organizers of family reunions?  Is it all of us?
 
Well, like many of us, my [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=19&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/on-not-writing-much-this-summer/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Communal Living in July</title>
		<description><![CDATA[At some point, living with your children becomes more like living in a messy and sometimes testy commune than like “raising a family.”  The older kids set the standards of jockeying for greater autonomy, freer use of space, time, and resources, often with only token assurances that they will exercise greater responsibility.  And the younger [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=13&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/communal-living-in-july/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Rediscovering &#8220;Vienna&#8221; in the Minivan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
My inner control freak lost her battle by the last full week of June, and that serenity and spirit of possibility were taken down a few notches by the looming projects of the fleeting summer.


The other day, while I sat in my minivan on the way to soccer camp—my first time as a “soccer mom” [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=8&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/rediscovering-vienna-in-the-minivan/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Believing in Summer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A few weeks ago, I told a friend from work, “I just want to believe that summer will really come, that it won’t be just a different way of being too busy.”  Though still punctuated with bouts of crazy busyness (make hay while the sun shines, mow that lawn, hang those treehouse beams, plant those [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=7&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/believing-in-summer/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Summer, Partially Unplugged?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ 
Project Mom had this idea, those last few days of school, that she should just embrace her inner control freak, at least on a limited basis.  The big idea was to propose, first to the eldest, whose buy-in generally guarantees that the youngers will come along, a “common hour,” a few times a week this [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thismaternallife.wordpress.com&blog=3921185&post=5&subd=thismaternallife&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://thismaternallife.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/summer-partially-unplugged/</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>
