Interested in a different kind of fitness activity? A mama pal in search of higher ground recommends Volo Farm in Westford. Riding instruction is offered to riders of all levels; beginners start in private lessons and move up to small group lessons once they have mastered simple control of their horse. Individual lessons can be purchased for $49 each. Packages are available for monthly sessions.

Interested in a different kind of fitness activity? A mama pal in search of higher ground recommends Volo Farm in Westford. Riding instruction is offered to riders of all levels; beginners start in private lessons and move up to small group lessons once they have mastered simple control of their horse. Individual lessons can be purchased for $49 each. Packages are available for monthly sessions.

I found out yesterday that two of my co-workers, a husband-and-wife duo, unexpectedly lost their baby last week.  She was twenty weeks pregnant, and she actually delivered the baby.  I don't regularly socialize with these guys, but I've known the husband since 2001 and remember when he went to India to marry his wife and bring her back to the U.S.  She was very, very shy when she arrived and started working here.  She didn't really come alive talking to me until I came back from maternity leave and had photos of my baby.  She loves babies, always asking about the little angel and honestly interested in her progress.

When B. got pregnant, she glowed more than any woman I've ever seen.  She was so excited.  I think she talked more in the four months she was pregnant than I've ever heard her speak at work in the years before that.  Her parents were going to come from India to stay when the baby was born.  I bumped around my house looking for pregnancy books to loan her, but they'd all already found their way to other people's houses by that time.

After I found out what happened, I found myself on the edge of tears all day and well into last night.  While anyone can understand how painful that experience could be, I think women who have carried babies know the fear that comes with pregnancy - the fear that something so horrible could happen at any moment, to the baby or to your body.  I remember the day we brought the little angel home.  I let her sleep in her room that night, but I laid in bed for hours, trying to will myself to sleep, terrified she would just stop breathing.  The force of my love for her was so completely overwhelming.  I wondered, honestly, what have I done?  Why have I introduced something into my life that I am now so afraid of losing?

I am a worst-case-scenario girl, a naturally occurring melancholy soul.  I try to find humor in everyday occurrences and build out that part of my personality, but the truth is I'm always catastrophizing, always preparing myself mentally for the fire that will destroy my house, the plane crash that will kill my husband and the phone call that tells me my parents have died.  This is really horrible to admit, isn't it?  My best friend, a sanguine soul, is often shocked that I would even think such things.  But I do.  I always think through how I would handle the worst-case scenario.  I feel like if I were to face a crisis with no advanced mental preparation, I just might fall completely into the abyss, as though somehow mentally going through the exercise will prepare me for success in the face of crisis, like an athlete visualizing the finish line.

So yes, I did anticipate such a horrible thing happening to me when I was pregnant.  It didn't happen to me, and for that, I am truly thankful.  But I do know how helplessly entangled one can be with a baby, even an unborn baby you have never met.  Yesterday when I heard the news, I felt an arrow go through the chink in my armor.   I cried a lot last night for B. and for J., but I also selfishly cried for myself and how vulnerable I am because I was brave, trusting and foolish enough to open myself up to the kind of love that knows no containment.  I can now be hurt in a way I always tried to protect myself against.  That's the price we pay for those beautiful little creatures, though, isn't it?

One of my fabulous mama friends recently passed along the dish on Let’s Dish, a super fun, stress-free way to get dinner on the table. In just two hours, create a fleet of freezer-ready meals, or order meals online for pickup. Choose between 8- or 12- dish packages (each dish serves 6 people) at an in-store session, or split a package with a friend. Confirm current pricing with Let's Dish, but at the time of this writing, the 8-dish in-store package was $160 ($3.33 per serving); the 12-dish package $200 ($2.78 per serving).

Looking for a novel mama's night out or baby shower idea? You also can host a private party fee-free. Each guest (including the host) select and pays for her/his own dishes; if more than 12 guests attend, each guest receives an extra party dish free.

You can find Let’s Dish in Burlington (82 Mall Road, behind the mall, next to Starbucks) and Newton/Needham (238 Highland Avenue, on Newton side of the 128 intersection). An Arlington location (1398 Mass. Ave, next to Panera Bread in Arlington Heights) is forthcoming.

One of my fabulous mama friends recently passed along the dish on Let’s Dish, a super fun, stress-free way to get dinner on the table. In just two hours, create a fleet of freezer-ready meals, or order meals online for pickup. Choose between 8- or 12- dish packages (each dish serves 6 people) at an in-store session, or split a package with a friend. Confirm current pricing with Let's Dish, but at the time of this writing, the 8-dish in-store package was $160 ($3.33 per serving); the 12-dish package $200 ($2.78 per serving).

Looking for a novel mama's night out or baby shower idea? You also can host a private party fee-free. Each guest (including the host) select and pays for her/his own dishes; if more than 12 guests attend, each guest receives an extra party dish free.

You can find Let’s Dish in Burlington (82 Mall Road, behind the mall, next to Starbucks) and Newton/Needham (238 Highland Avenue, on Newton side of the 128 intersection). An Arlington location (1398 Mass. Ave, next to Panera Bread in Arlington Heights) is forthcoming.

Well, okay, maybe it wasn't Rome.  Maybe it was really one Italian priest who grew up in small-town Iowa.

My in-laws are quite Catholic.  They're really good people.  They go to church every Saturday, and even though I'm not now Catholic, nor have I ever been Catholic or wanted to be Catholic (no offense to Catholics - it just ain't for me), I wanted to be a good daughter-in-law.  We were in small-town Iowa this weekend for my father-in-law's 70th birthday party.  All eight kids, their spouses, and the grandkids.  All told, there were 18 adults and 14 children.  On Saturday, most of us brushed our hair and straightened our t-shirts and went to church. 

My beloved was not thrilled in the least to be dragged to church.  He is a reformed Catholic - the guilt of it all sort of ruined him on church for a long time.  After our nondenominational wedding, I convinced him that attending a Lutheran church with me when we wanted to hang out with other (we hoped) open-minded-but-God-fearing folk would not be painful after I found a church that featured a sports-allegory-quoting pastor.  The pastor left two months ago, and it's been difficult at best to get him anywhere near a church since then.  Especially near a Catholic church.  Ahem.

But we went, because I could tell it was really important to his parents.  So did all but three of the other families.  We. Are. Such. Suckers.

This particular priest grew up in Iowa but is currently living in Rome.  It was some sort of children's week - I think bible school had just ended or something.  During the sermon, the priest picked up a sword made by the adorable children and started talking about the sword of the spirit, the belt of truth and other armor-of-God-type stuff.  We smiled and nodded.  Then, out of nowhere, he launched into a diatribe about how contraception has caused the war in Iraq (a modern Babylon, I tell you).  He also said contraception caused homosexuality, which in his book is the same as having sex with animals or robots.  ???

At this point, I found myself gagging a bit and trying to cover the little angel's ears without appearing obvious.   The priest went on to quote a sermon made by Pope John Paul in 1968 in which he denounced the sexual revolution.  That all makes sense - I understand why the pope wouldn't be part of the Summer of Love.  Where he went from there was bizarre and hateful.  He said all people who use contraception consider abortion to be the next step in birth control.  He said "plugs and drugs" have brought about the downfall of society.

During communion, which I couldn't take anyway, I took the little angel outside.  I pretended she was fussy, but really, I needed some air.  I encountered my Catholic sister-in-law with her one-year-old cavorting about the church lawn.  She looked mad enough to spit nails.  "Please tell me it ended better than it started," she said.

"Uh, no." 

We looked at each other, and I felt a surge of love for her, dear Catholic K., who is able to love her three kids and still realize that homosexuality and bestiality are so totally not the same. 

When we got home, we sat around and discussed the sermon. Every person in the family is religious in their own way, and most of them are still Catholic.  Not one person that I talked to agreed with what was preached that day.  Not one person could fathom being so quick to judge in the name of a God who said first "love your neighbor as yourself."

I'm sure there are many Catholic churches out there that wouldn't have let this priest get three words past "robot," but there were many people who thanked the priest after the sermon and told him how much they had enjoyed it.  As much as that made me sad, I also respect the fact that this is a free country, and part of what makes that pretty great is that everyone has a right to believe what they want and say it out loud in a church or on a street corner if they want to. 

Sometimes freedom of speech is a hard cross to bear, you might say.

I know paint + toddlers seems like a recipe for disaster but the endless days of downpours this spring called for new activities.

Crayola’s Washable No Drip Gel Paints (purchased at Michael’s) work like a dream. The package comes with 18 paint tabs and a 100% natural brush. The strips perforate into three strips of 6 colors; for easier handling, I cut the strips in half and gave the babe 3 tabs at a time. The little paint tabs were perfect for toddler dabbling and the paint was, in fact, drip free (i.e., paint clung to the brush and made it from paint tab to paper without dripping) and completely washable. The paint was so easy to clean up that on the next go ‘round we made lots of handprints, which was great fun and made for many keepsakes. Working with the paints also offered lots of fun with color naming and explorations into the effects of color mixing.

Use cover weight paper (aka cardstock) or painting paper (i.e., material that won’t pucker like regular sheets of computer paper) and your little artist’s work easily will translate into a framed gift or card for a loved one.

I know paint + toddlers seems like a recipe for disaster but the endless days of downpours this spring called for new activities.

Crayola’s Washable No Drip Gel Paints (purchased at Michael’s) work like a dream. The package comes with 18 paint tabs and a 100% natural brush. The strips perforate into three strips of 6 colors; for easier handling, I cut the strips in half and gave the babe 3 tabs at a time. The little paint tabs were perfect for toddler dabbling and the paint was, in fact, drip free (i.e., paint clung to the brush and made it from paint tab to paper without dripping) and completely washable. The paint was so easy to clean up that on the next go ‘round we made lots of handprints, which was great fun and made for many keepsakes. Working with the paints also offered lots of fun with color naming and explorations into the effects of color mixing.

Use cover weight paper (aka cardstock) or painting paper (i.e., material that won’t pucker like regular sheets of computer paper) and your little artist’s work easily will translate into a framed gift or card for a loved one.

Let’s get personal. Your mama blogger has ill-fitting-shoe-induced-bunions (don’t try to say that 3 times fast) and they are a grave source of retail distress. Subsequently, I am obsessed with finding properly fitting shoes for my babe.

For summer play, check out the Lands’ End Solid Action Sandals. These thoughtfully designed shoes have a flexible but supportive sole, adjustable forefoot and ankle straps, and padding inside the back ankle strap to prevent chafing. I was so thrilled with the first pair that I just ordered a second pair online. And the price went from $17.50 to $12.99 between the two orders.

Note: while it’s a bummer to pay shipping for online orders, returns/exchanges can be done at a local Sears store (check your local store for sizes; fyi, the Burlington Mall Sears does not carry toddler sizes). If you need to reorder the same item in a different size, the shipping charge is waived.