Leigh Sparacino

More loss of innocence (mine)

I was casting about on the Internet, searching for something to spark my interest that pertains to parenting, but isn't celebrity or octuplet-centered. Tough going out there right now! Anyway, I stumbled across this website: www.commercialfreechildhood.org.

Posted 9 mon. ago.

Fall from grace, but not from Visa

I laughed out loud when I saw the picture of Michael Phelps, bong and lighter in hand, looking much like, well, like many people in America, particularly young ones. Then I started following the story, in an attempt to stop following the octuplet debacle in California. And, just as I thought, sponsors stood behind him, while disappointed parents everywhere bemoaned the broken image of their child…

Posted 9 mon. ago.

Lazybones

Flipper had a playdate- thank God - on Sunday. She led her friend upstairs, where my escalating electric bill has driven me back to hanging up all laundry to dry. The landing was draped with shirts and jeans and underwear. I heard her friend ask, "Why doesn't your mom use the dryer?" And do you know what she said??? "BECAUSE SHE'S LAZY."

Posted 9 mon. ago.

No More Tears

Flipper, I am convinced, has a bright future just chock full of many possibilities. Her personal choices include a hula girl at a show in Hawaii, or an artist, preferably not starving.

Posted 10 mon. ago.

The Un-Funny Bone

Many times on this blog I have bemoaned the simple reality of aging: her, not me!! The bittersweet farewells I seem to wave at every milestone, both large and small, the tiny baby, toddler, preschooler I miss, yet can barely remember. BUT ... there is one aspect of little kid-dom that I promise I will miss not at all, in fact, I pray please please please let her sense of humor NOT remain the same!…

Posted 10 mon. ago.

Beyond Chicken Tenders and Fries ...

Over the Christmas holidays, my mother, sister, Flipper and me traveled to Old Salem in Winston-Salem for the afternoon. It was heaven; we love historical things like this and Old Salem has been beautifully preserved. Flipper, while not as enraptured with root cellars as the rest of us were, has been on enough of these little jaunts to stand silently by while the costumed informers do their inform…

Posted 10 mon. ago.

Slow and Steady

How was your Christmas? By this time of the year, this is the question my friends and I ask each other, and, thankfully, the answer is almost always positive. Great! Fun! Exciting! Slow! Slow?? Well, yes. At least in my house.

Posted 10 mon. ago.

Tradition, tradition!

I bought some candy canes (all-natural, of course) to give to the high school students on the last day of school before break.

Posted 11 mon. ago.

Bye, Bye Baby

I have many potential qualifiers for an imaginary contest entitled "Most Bittersweet Parental Memory of Vanishing Childhood." Many. Teeth coming in, teeth going out. Food icky and mushy, food crunchy and chunky. Transition after transition after transition. It is what it's all about, is it not? But two thing about this inevitable process continue to be hard to comes to terms with (at least for m…

Posted 11 mon. ago.

Whistling While You Work ...

My car, my house - my very world - sounds as though it has been invaded by canaries. It is maddening. And I just don't have the heart to send that canary back down in the mines ... since it is a human canary, appearing in the form of Flipper - The Amazing Whistling 5-Year-Old. It sticks in my craw - not to mention my ears - that she can whistle, and does so at every single opportunity that her m…

Posted 11 mon. ago.

about this blog

Leigh Sparacino

Leigh is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Monday.

Leigh grew up in Durham, attended college in North Carolina, left the area for an island off the coast of Georgia, the high mountains of Colorado, and her favorite mountains in western North Carolina, before returning to the Triangle eight years ago. She lives near Carrboro with her 4.5-year-old daughter Flipper and two dogs. She is single in marital status only, surrounded by friends, family, and her daughter's very involved and loving father. She works part-time and tries to be as involved as possible in her daughter's school, The Emerson Waldorf School, where Flipper is a kindergartner. She likes wood, glass and other natural materials for toys, loves the principles of Waldorf education and hates plastic. She might be the only person in the world with no TV and who hasn't been to a movie in 15 years, but races to the mailbox every Saturday for the most recent issue of People magazine. In other words, a contradiction. Or just human.