Return to Top of Page
Menu
  • Close
  • About Us
  • Contributors
  • Donate
  • Opportunities
  • Staff
  • Submissions
  • 20 Years
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Search Website
Literary Mama
  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Departments
  • Blog
  • Newsletter

Mother Shock

Retired Columns

From “Life in the Sandwich” to “Special Needs Mama” to “Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance”—they’re all here for you to explore.

Learning to Write

Emi is ambivalent. She is five years old, losing her baby-fat and gaining the responsibilities of a kindergartener. At school she loves the thrill of being in “K,” though she…

Mother Shock | April 2006 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


It’s a Boy

I am thirty-eight weeks pregnant. It is 98 degrees out, claustrophobically hot, and I am sweating as I cajole my three-year-old daughter up the steps to the building where my…

Mother Shock | November 2005 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


The Third Baby

People ask me all the time, when’s the third? My parents, my husband’s parents, parents of my children’s classmates. The third: the third baby, the person who would officially tip…

Mother Shock | July 2005 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


False Alarm

At 5 a.m., I woke up to a horrible sound. It was like your most annoying roommate’s most annoying alarm clock on one of those mornings where your annoying roommate…

Mother Shock | May 2005 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


Happy-happy

I’m going to confess something that might sound shocking coming from a writer who often takes as her subject the complex and sometimes dark experience of mothering young children: Today…

Mother Shock | January 2005 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


Misconceptions

The first time I was pregnant, I had no idea what was going on. I was weepy over commercials, shaky and dizzy if I skipped breakfast, prone to sobbing over…

Mother Shock | October 2004 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


The New Bed

It’s bedtime, and Emi’s asking for a drink before she goes to sleep. But tonight her usual request is accompanied by a more ominous directive. “Mommy,” she says, her face…

Mother Shock | August 2004 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


Empathy

Empathy is a hard thing for a preschooler to understand. “Emi!” I snap as she deliberately shoves her baby brother to the floor while he walks by. “Nate was in…

Mother Shock | June 2004 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


The Piano Tuner

Mr. Rogers is on television. My daughter seems more interested in her blocks at the moment, but I have turned on the TV anyway, a bad habit, I’m sure. I…

Mother Shock | April 2004 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


Pillow Talk

Every night when I put Emi to bed, she asks me questions in the dark. She asks things like, “How do turtles eat if they don’t have teeth?” “How do…

Mother Shock | March 2004 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


Spotty and the Great Beyond

I happened to read a while back, in some book called Your Four-Year-Old: Wild and Wonderful (a follow-up to Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy), that the imaginary play of four-year-old…

Mother Shock | January 2004 | By Andrea J. Buchanan


Posts navigation

1 2 Next

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Don't miss out on Literary Mama news and updates

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Instagram
  • RSS

© 2023 Literary Mama | Search Site | About Us | Staff | Submissions | Privacy Policy