The DU Lounge

...when to worry and when not to, so they could have a more relaxed parenting experience.

Most first time parents are scared to pieces because they get home with their precious new baby and realize they don't know a damned thing, so everything scares them - hiccups, sneezing, spitting up, all the different colors of poop, you name it. It was common to walk into an exam room to see parents with anxious faces and their shoulders up near their ears with tension. And, it was very gratifying to see smiles on their faces and relaxed shoulders after they'd spent half an hour with me.

If I could have restricted my appointments to new parents and young babies, I'd probably still be working. Just shy of turning 70 in 2021, the prospect of another summer doing school and sports physicals on dramatic, hypochondriacal teenage girls filled me with dread, and it was time to hang up the stethoscope.

I have found out that I have something of a talent for making earrings and beaded bracelets. I've never had any sort of artistic hobby. I can't paint, draw, or sculpt. I don't knit, crochet, needlepoint, sew, or scrapbook. So, this is a very recent endeavor - about a year at most.

Friends and family members keep telling me I should open an ETSY shop but no way, for 2 reasons - I'm a terrible procrastinator, so customers would be pissed off about how long it would take me to mail things, and if I were trying to sell my creations, it would be something I felt I had to do, and then I wouldn't want to.