Avant Parenting Archives

  • Avant! Welcome to my parenting blog archives

    Avant! Welcome to my parenting blog archives

    As you can see by the dates below, this blog is no longer being updated. However, there’s lots of good stuff here, much of it as true now as when it was written. Please feel free to browse, or follow these links: One last piece of parenting advice: Enjoy today even if it’s a rough…

  • No on 8

    I hadn’t done much thinking about CA State Proposition 8, the ballot initiative titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”. I knew which way I was going to vote and I knew that its support statewide would be lopsided: little support here on the coast, big support in the vast conservative Central Valley. But…

  • Food Fights

    When our son was a baby, we followed the rules set forth by every baby book: introduce solid foods one at a time. Make purees of each food and make sure he’s not allergic before moving on to the next. Diligently I went through the basic foods, and predictably, he spit them all out. Sometime…

  • Art for Kids’ Sakes

    One of our favorite family activities happens for three weekends once a year — Open Studios. We are really lucky to live in a place that has such a great variety of working artists. From the little pictures in the catalog (which you can buy at pretty much any bookstore in town, as well as…

  • Fund Raising vs. Funding

    The first time I was involved in fundraising for a school, my son’s preschool was in unanticipated trouble. There was a large (five figure) hole in the budget, and we needed money fast. Until then, I’d grumbled about the little fundraisers, and bought my way out. There were the raffle tickets that I bought rather…