Today, I’m over at Alphamom with five easy steps to keep your kids from killing each other.

When I was pregnant with my second child and started researching the idea of a home birth, at first it felt radical. Then, as I grew comfortable with my decision and read many, many birth stories of other women who’d had their babies at home, it started to seem…almost ordinary. I found myself going online and searching for more (and more…and more….and more.) This was in the days before blogs were popular, but there were hundreds of journal-style websites out there detailing different birth choices and experiences, many with a definite air of sanctimony. One night a surfing spree took me far beyond anything I’d ever considered. I found myself in a whole new realm of birth crunchiness.

It started like this: I read about a peaceful home birth and thought “Wow, that seems really cool. That’s how I’d like my birth to go.”

Then I clicked another link and found myself reading about a woman who gave birth unassisted (no midwife or hired birth attendant on site) in a hot tub in her back yard. “Wow, that seems really cool,” I thought. The “unassisted” part made me a little nervous, but the story was so peaceful and powerful that I found myself feeling a little wistful that I wasn’t planning one myself. (never mind that I didn’t have a hot tub. Or even a backyard–I lived in a second-story apartment. I could dream, couldn’t I?)

From that story I clicked another link and found myself reading a website about a woman who gave birth, unassisted, in the woods on her property. She not only didn’t have any paid attendants, but went off completely by herself to give birth.

I clicked link after link, each story becoming more “radical” than the last, until I found myself fantasizing about having an orgasmic birth by a stream in the mountains (we lived in the middle of Michigan, so what? Minor obstacle), alone, and leaving the umbilical cord and placenta attached until it fell off itself (called a lotus birth) Never mind that, when I really gave it serious thought, the idea of carrying a placenta around for two or three days didn’t much appeal to me (I barely had enough room in my dresser for the actual baby’s clothes–what was the placenta supposed to wear? Would it need a hat and booties?), and neither did the idea of potentially getting mosquito bites on my butt while pushing a baby out in a forest. Even orgasmic birth isn’t that appealing to me–more power to the women who have them, but to this girl, birth is birth and sex is sex and I’d rather keep the two separate. There was also the fact that I LIKED my midwives and wanted them (and my husband!) at my side when my baby was born. But never mind what I actually wanted. In my quest for more–more information, a more perfect and more “natural” experience, and yes, perhaps a little more radical cred–I was willing to entertain ideas that didn’t even appeal to me or line up with my personal philosophy.

Luckily, my obsession with all uber-natural birthy things didn’t last more than an evening. I went on to have a lovely plain old homebirth attended by skilled and highly trained midwives, something that’s plenty radical enough for most people and turned out to be plenty radical enough for me. And while I respect that for many birth is a highly spiritual experience, for myself, my choice was far more pragmatic–I felt that I would be safer and have a better experience at home. But somehow, in my quest to have the natural-est, purest birth (and somehow by extension, define myself as an uber-earth-mother) I had lost sight of why I was stepping outside the norm (hospital, OB, etc) and having a home birth in the first place. Hint: it really had nothing to do with an attachment to mountains or forests or placentas or any desire to go it alone, it was just a strange game of one-upping myself and trying to emulate women I didn’t even know.

We probably all do something like this from time to time. If the idea of a home birth of any sort doesn’t appeal to you in the least, maybe you’ve found yourself investing a little too much time fantasizing over being the fill-in-the-blank-iest mom: the craftiest, the most patient, the most involved, the greenest, the sportiest, the most domestic, the hardest-working, the best read, the best-travelled, or the busiest. As this essay at Babble suggests, sometimes even being the worst mom can be a form of one-upswomanship (maybe this explains the “slacker moms are cool” trend?)

The truth is, all good parents have some standards, and that’s a good thing. And looking to other parents for inspiration, even on blogs, which we should know are not a totally accurate representation of that person’s life, can be a healthy and fun pastime. But it’s definitely possible to get sucked into a dream world where we try to live up to an ideal that isn’t even our own. Once in a while, it’s important to ask the question: what do I really want for myself and my own family? We attach so much judgment to the idea of “values”, but really, our values are just the things that we prioritize over other things. We all have different values and that’s okay–one value is not necessarily more right or more motherly than another. (I’m assuming, of course, that your values do not prioritize, say, gambling and cocaine over caring for you children).

Bottom line: we all have to be confident enough–and sure enough of where we want to go–to be our own parenting gurus. And we should never raise the pedestal so high that we can’t climb on up ourselves.

We’re entering into the busy birthday season in our household. Of the six members of our family, five were born between the end of September and the beginning of December.

What does that mean for me? I buy cake mixes in bulk, don’t bother putting away the wrapping paper, ribbon and tape until December (at which point I just swap out the paper and keep the ribbon and tape handy for Christmas). I set a little aside for gifts, and gear up for rowdy, noisy boy-filled parties.

It’s a little hectic, but it could be so much worse.

When Jacob was approaching his first birthday, I briefly considered having a Big Party to celebrate his turning a year old. You know the type: handmade party favors, a crown for the birthday toddler, a cake baked from scratch, coordinating colors for the wrapping paper, ribbons, napkins, plates and tablecloths - and perhaps a juggler. Or a pony ride.

There’d be no cop-outs like cartoon-character party hats or cake mixes, I decided. My boy deserved a REAL birthday party, the kind attendees would talk about for years to come.

As it turned out, fate intervened. Tight finances and a hectic schedule led to me cutting my grand vision down to the basics: cake and ice cream, a few presents and a small family gathering. Jacob smeared cake all over his face and hid under the wrapping paper. From the looks of things, he couldn’t have cared less about the absence of a juggler or pony.

Since then, I’ve approached most birthdays with a similarly laid-back style. All our parties have the basics - cake, ice cream, presents and guests - but the location, décor, number of attendees and number of gifts vary depending on our budget and how hectic our lives are at the moment. And I’ve yet to make any of my children a jeweled felt crown on his special day.

If I thought about it for too long, I guess I could start feeling like a bad mom for phoning in birthdays. After all, years ago I remember a fellow parent remarking to me that she thought birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese were “kind of sad” and “unimaginative” … and I agreed with her. Conveniently for me, at that moment my kids were too young to even know what Chuck E. Cheese was. Two years later, guess where Jacob had his fifth birthday party?

The fact is, as much as I’d love to be the kind of mom who creates imaginative birthday invitations, comes up with elaborate party activities and sends each guest home with a bag full of hand-sewn finger puppets, I know I don’t have the inclination or, frankly, talent to do it with any consistency. And birthdays seem like an awfully loaded event for setting that kind of precedent.

Imagine that Jacob’s first birthday party really had featured live entertainment or barnyard animals. How could we ever top it? (Eventually, we’d be looking at professional fireworks displays, or perhaps renting out Disney World for a day.) Would we be able to have a normal party again after raising his expectations so high?

Don’t feel too sorry for my kids. Whether they’re having friends over for a sleepover or meeting up for an unimaginative activity like laser tag at the arcade, they always have a great time.

As long as the birthday basics are intact, my kids are perfectly content to celebrate low-key birthdays. Their expectations don’t get overblown, and neither are mine - so there’s way less a chance that anyone will end up disappointed. Best of all? I can enjoy their special day with them because I’m not so stressed out over making sure everything is perfect.

I have some shopping to do today to kick off birthday season. It begins with a trip to the closet to gauge how much of last year’s wrapping paper is salvageable, and then a trip to the grocery store to buy five or six cake mixes on sale. After that, maybe I’ll pick up some cartoon-character paper hats, or if I’m feeling really inspired, maybe I’ll finally get around to making those jeweled felt birthday-boy crowns for the little guys.

But if I do, they certainly won’t look like they came out of a magazine spread … and that’s more than OK by me.

To document my pregnancy and growing family, I’ll be keeping a blog called “Room To Grow” over at Yahoo’s Shine! In my first post, I tackle the “Is this your first pregnancy?” question–and then the person’s jaw-dropped surprise when I say “no, fifth”–that I expect to encounter at least another 200 times over the next six months or so. Head over and check it out! I hope to move a lot of my more personal and family-related stuff over that way to keep this blog open for news about my writing work…definitely let me know if you like my new digs or have any suggestions.

A recently overheard conversation in our house:

William, four: “Hey, guys, guess what! I just farted on Mom!”

Jacob, ten: “Oh yeah? We do that all the time.”

William: “Well, this was my FIRST time.”

Passing gas on your mom! It’s like a rite of passage into manhood!

(God help me…)

sorry for the blog-neglect. We are in the middle of some big changes so it’s been really hectic and hard to find time to post.

The baby is, of course, one of those changes! I’m almost 14 weeks along now, which means I’m about out of the dreaded sick-and-tired-all-the-time phase. I actually haven’t had very severe nausea, but have had low-level “blahs” since about week eight. Sleepy, low energy, queasy stomach…I feel great while I’m eating and right after I’m done eating, but within a half hour of a meal or snack I’ve either got indigestion, heartburn, nausea, or some combination of the three. This is the first time I’ve had indigestion or heartburn so early in a pregnancy, but also the first time I’ve had so little nausea (no throwing up at all!) So, I guess I’ll take the good with the bad.

The boys are so excited about their newest sibling. Every day the little ones ask to see a picture of what the baby looks like now, which is difficult because if you Google “13-week fetus” you get some seriously disturbing images, so we’re stuck with the cartoony ones on pregnancy websites. They fight daily over who will get to spend the most time with the baby. Owen is convinced the baby is a “gwil”, while Jacob insists it is twins–a boy and a girl. (yikes.) I would laugh that one off, but Jacob knew I was pregnant before I even did…for no reason at all. He just randomly walked up to me one day and said “Mom, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” and I was. So the kid has a bit of a crazy intuition. But since everything seems normal so far, I’m just going to assume his radar is off on this one. Anyway, the other day I overheard this conversation:

Jacob: “If we have a girl baby, she’s MINE. I get to hold her all the time.”
Owen: “No, da gwil is MINE!”
Jacob: “No way. The girl is mine.”
Owen: (nearly crying): “DA GWIL IS MINE!!!”

At which point I had to play the old Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney tune. Can you imagine if it really is a girl? That’ll probably be her theme song.

As for the other change–we’re moving back to Michigan. Actually, the kids and I are already here. It’s a plan we’ve been half-heartedly hatching since last winter, but finally got serious about it this summer with just weeks to spare before the new school year began. A lot of factors were at play in our decision, but the high cost of living in Chicago and our family ties in Michigan are the two biggest.

We’ll be living on the southwest side of the state, just across Lake Michigan from the big city, and Jon will continue to work a shortened week in Chicago and come home for long weekends. (We’re keeping a small apartment in Chicago so he has a place to crash and we have a place to stay when we visit).

Of course, when we finally decided to really DO IT, we didn’t have much time to pull all the details together. I had to get here by last weekend in order to enroll the kids in school, but we didn’t have a place yet, so…we moved into my sister-in-law and brother’s house. My brother has been traveling for work so he’s not here much, but currently there are my four kids and her two kids plus two adults…in a two-bedroom house. Chaotic? Just a bit. Let’s just say that the last two nights, things have totally imploded around 9 PM including screaming children, broken pottery, and wild-eyed mothers…oh, and a new development in the last two minutes–a seriously flooding toilet that’s leaking into the basement! Wooot! They’ll be rid of us in six days, when we move into our new home. Until then, posting will probably be scarce as I try to keep my kids from waking baby Ruby and wrecking the house.

Then again, we’ve had some fun, too. Jenna and I were college roomies, so this is just like the old days…except we have six needy children between the two of us. We’re eating better than we did back then, though, and we’re probably doing more interesting things to boot. We’ve made strawberry jam (yummy!), tried to make yogurt (jury’s out on that one until tomorrow) and have spent some fun afternoons at the beach and downtown along the bluff. We even visited a corn maze the other day. You know you’re in farm country when…

Okay, tonight’s implosion and the flooding toilet have worn me out, so it’s time to go to sleep and hope nothing else breaks, explodes, leaks, or cries tonight. More from me soon…

In this week’s column, I pondered the idea of encouraging our kids to do their best, while realizing that not everyone can BE the best…

Chances aren’t great that all of mine will be super-achievers, so how do I walk that line between encouraging them to meet their potential - whether it be artistic, academic or athletic - and accepting them for the people they turn out to be?

I don’t see any future Olympians in my home (yet), but they’ve definitely got their strong suits.If there were awards for death-defying jumps from the highest point in any room, Owen would have it in the bag. If we could give out medals for “most persistent arguer,” William would have the gold every time. Isaac never misses a detail; his brain quickly recognizes patterns in letters and numbers. And Jacob knows how to spin a story and get a whole room laughing; his creativity blows me away.