Andrea Mulder-Slater

by Andrea Mulder-Slater The best-laid plans are doomed to fail. As you may or may not know, I began 2015 with the goal of painting/drawing a coffee cup each and every day for the entire year. #ACoffeeADay Three hundred and sixty-five cups!   I was chugging along... drawing, painting, Tweeting, Facebooking and Instagramming - well on my way to completing month two of the project - when I did something that would forever change the course of history. Well, not YOUR history. Just mine, mostly. I came across a note on a friend’s Facebook page. The note was called 21 Questions to Ask Your Child and like a happy-go-lucky puppy, I did it. Here's how my daughter responded...   1. What is something I always say to you?  I love you. 2. What makes me happy? I make you happy. 3. What makes me sad?  When I get hurt. 4. How do I make you laugh? By dancing funny. (I don't try to dance funny, but whatever.) 5. What was I like as a child...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater It’s approximately five years ago and you - feeling particularly blank and sweaty - are feeding your pudgy infant for the umpteenth time that day when, in an exhausted stupor, it occurs to you that you haven’t changed a poopy diaper in oh I don’t know, two - or maybe six - days. So you panic and immediately call the exclusively-breastfed baby help line at the hospital and the woman on the other end of the phone – who sounds inexplicably like your Aunt Trix – asks you if the baby seems happy. “Yes” , you reply, “I suppose so.” I mean, how are you supposed to know? You’ve never been in charge of a three-month-old before and sure she seems content. I mean, she eats constantly and sleeps whenever she wants, so yeah, she’s freaking ecstatic. Wouldn’t you be Aunt Trix? “Does her belly hurt?” No . “Is she passing wind?” Yes . “Is she curled up and writhing in pain?” No . You’re told that your child is not constipated and her bowel isn’t twisted and no, yo...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater Because not everyone enjoys impromptu discussions about poop, our local coffee shop features a not-so-secret upstairs room where mothers of toddlers congregate to have conversations punctuated by phrases like, “What happened to your other shoe?”, " How long has that worm been in your pocket? " and "Can you please take that dolphin out of your brother's ear?" without disturbing the street-level caffeine imbibers below. The other day, after a chance meeting on the sidewalk, my friend Sharon and I made tracks to “the room” to swig copious amounts of coffee while our kids ate giant ginger cookies. Two seconds in, our children asked if we had any toys. You think they would know us better by now. The only remotely kid-friendly items in my purse were a marble, two Band-Aids, a hotel pen and a miniature Spirograph toy that can only be operated by someone with Barbie doll sized hands. So, you know, I’ve given up on any aspirations of beco...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater My daughter is crazy about tiny plastic toys. It’s an obsession that began just after she turned 2 years old. I blame the owners of Sundog Books in Seaside, Florida for getting her hooked. That’s where she first saw them... a large round basket full of 'em. We're talking a massive collection of dogs, cats, birds, snakes, bees and beyond - designed to keep the kids occupied, so parents can stand around pretending to read Noam Chomsky books. For those who don't know, Seaside is a beautiful, but exclusive place with lots of expensive people running around. How we made it past the imaginary gates, is still a mystery (to the guards). In any case, from that day on, we’ve fed the girl’s habit by purchasing a crap load of fake creatures. Sometimes, she takes baths with them. And sometimes, they become part of her nana’s sculptures.  Like this one which I like to call, " Frog. Dog. Love ". Last year, someone bought her a set of plastic din...

  by Andrea Mulder-Slater When my daughter was barely a year old, we zipped her into a cozy festive sleeper and hauled her to the local drug store/candy store (yeah, I get the irony) where Santa makes a yearly pre-Christmas appearance. I’m not proud of getting sucked into the holiday frenzy. I blame flashy Christmas lights. I think they hypnotize me.  This - and the fact that I don't want my kiddo to grow up and find herself searching for non-existent photos of "fun" family traditions - motivated me to stand in a line up, surrounded by farting children, greeting cards, Jelly Bellies and Tylenol PM. The crowd consisted of several parent/grandparent types with all manner of little ones. Some were on year 3 or 4 of the Santa experience and as such, knew what to expect. Others, like our girl had no clue what they were in for. She watched in fascination (fear) as one baby, toddler and preschooler after another sat on the lap of a local marine biologist/bag...