Blog Posts by Parentables

Climbing the ladderA couple of weeks ago we reached a huge milestone with our 2-year-old daughter, Josie, who was born nearly three months premature. We boxed up her oxygen monitor and sent it back. We had it so that we could monitor her breathing at night, and now it feels like I'm giving up my security blanket.

Josie made it through this last flu season without having to use it, but our pediatric doctor told us, "Just hang onto all that equipment just in case you need it." A year ago she had ear tube surgery and hasn't had any ear infections and hasn't been on antibiotics since or had any other complications. Now she breathes great through the night.

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We are so thankful for Josie and how she has just thrived. You look at her today and you wouldn't even know that she started out at 1 pound, 6 ounces. She is probably my strongest toddler I've ever had -- both in physical strength and determination. She's a little spitfire, amazing

Bookcase with gender confusion.The New York Times Magazine has been sitting on our coffee table for the past week. The cover photo of a beautiful young boy with long flowing hair wearing a pink flowered dress caught the attention of my six-year-old-daughter, Maia. She asked if he was like her friend from preschool who had loved to paint his nails and dress up in her princess gowns. I said I didn't know.

Read More: Gender Identity and Hair Length: Should Parents Dictate a Kid's Hairstyle?

Last weekend's cover story, "What's So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?" detailed parents' struggle to accommodate boys who don't fit stereotypical expectations about gender roles. Reading the article, I could only imagine how difficult it must be for these parents whose young boys beg to wear dresses to school. Our kids don't grow up in a vacuum but in a world of social pressures, judgments and bullies.

Read More: Would You Let Your Children Choose Their Own Gender?

In college, I camped out on the

Who is that breastfeeding my kid?This headline caught my eye because, as I'm sure is the case with most of us moms out there, the image struck horror deep into my soul. Relationships between daughters- and mothers-in-law are complicated to begin with, so imagine the territory war that would be triggered by such a situation as this.

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A mother wrote into Emily Yuffe, aka Dear Prudence, at Slate, after discovering her mother-in-law 'nursing' her two-month-old son in the middle of the night. Her husband wasn't home, and she ordered her mother-in-law to leave the house first thing in the morning and even considered calling the police because she was so upset by what had happened.

Read More: Healthy Child Healthy World: Is Breastfeeding Revolutionary?

Yuffe thought that calling the police would have been going too far, as it isn't a matter for law enforcement, but the mother's disgust is certainly justified. Yuffe writes,

It would be nice to actually enjoy making money once in a while.Wouldn't it be great if you could spend your days absorbed in your favorite thing to do, and actually make money from it? With a little brainstorming, you may be able to discover what you can do with your talents to bring in some bucks.

Finding your passion is just the first step. You might have many passions, or you might struggle to name even one. You might already have a passion you pursue without even realizing it. Here are some questions to get your neurons firing.

Read More: So You Want To Be an Entrepreneur? 4 Challenges -- and Their Solutions

What's your favorite part of the day? Do you love luxuriating in delicious smells as you whip up all-natural, homemade bath and beauty products in the morning? Is it baking your neighborhood-famous cookies and cakes in the afternoon? Maybe you love catching the perfect snapshot, or taking in some fresh air while walking the dog.

Do you have a hobby, long-lost or something you still do regularly? Is

Kitties!In June my family was working on a building doing some construction and cleanup when the kids discovered kittens trapped under insulation in a wall. (We think that they must have crawled in through a hole in the wall.) So some of our boys made a hole in the wall and carefully got them out.

Read More: Why Michelle Duggar Has a 4 a.m. Open Door Policy

The building was going to be secured before we left so we knew that the mother cat wouldn't be able to get back in, and we didn't want to leave the kittens out in the open because there are wild animals near the woods that might've eaten them. And even if they did survive, we were pretty sure that they would become feral. So we decided to bring them home where we have two older kittens.

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The kittens were just a week old, so at first I stayed up through the night feeding them. At that point they were so small that we had to keep the youngest kids away. Jeremiah,

Recently, I had a chance to attend the largest blogging conference for women, BlogHer 12. Now, I'm no stranger to conferences but typically I'm speaking; this time I had a chance to just take it all in. (And there was a lot to take in.) Just as I was about to tuck into my luncheon salad and slip my brain into neutral, I met Lavon Morris Grant.

Read More: Go Ahead and Meddle In Your Children's Relationships: They'll Thank You For It Later

I had never heard of her before but will now never forget her. She is a soft-spoken, middle-aged woman; the kind who makes you smile because her heart is big and it shows. Lavon told the hundreds of women crammed into the ballroom that afternoon about the day her husband shot her.

Read More: Fighting with Your Spouse Now Could Lead to Sleepless Nights for Your Baby Later

Lavon told us about her life and marriage. While not perfect (what marriage is?) her husband had never hit her. But that day the violence erupted, it did

Tori Spelling and Christina ApplegateTori Spelling is a very busy woman these days. She's a wife and mother of three, with another one on the way. She's a best-selling author, and also runs her own Web site, ediTORIal by Tori Spelling. She's the host of TLC's hit show, Craft Wars. And she's also a clothing designer, with her own line of toddler trends called Little Maven.

Read More: A Custom Selected Box of Kids Clothes Delivered to Your Door Each Month? It Can Easily Be Your Reality

The line was launched in 2009 and focused on a seaside feeling with some Hollywood glam thrown in. Spelling partnered with Hartstrings to manufacture and distribute the clothes, but the company filed for bankruptcy about a year ago. So, Spelling went back to the drawing board.

Read More: Would You Rent Upscale Baby Clothes Netflix-Style? Now You Can.

This time, Spelling has partnered with retail giant JC Penney to bring her Little Maven line to the masses at affordable prices. She writes on her Web site, "Don't get me wrong,

Thou shalt not tag walls with graffiti. You may have heard there's a such thing as good praise and bad praise for our kids. For example, kids who are told they are smart might not try as hard, lest they fail and destroy proof of their smarts. I made an effort at telling my daughter that she was working hard when she was doing so (instead of endlessly hitting the random praise button) but I couldn't quite wrap my head around the specifics in order to praise her in a way that felt truthful and compelling.

Read More: How You Manage Your Toddler's Tantrums Today Can Influence How They Manage Their Emotions for Life

Now that she's two and I have higher expectations for her behavior on basic things like hitting people or putting food on the floor, I am wary of falling into the trap of constant correction and criticism. If a child doesn't think it's possible to please her parent, she will stop trying. But of course I still need to guide her behavior! What's a confused momma to do?

Read More: Positive Reinforcement