I’m confused. Genuinely perplexed, as opposed to the fake puzzlement I sometimes try to pull on the guys. As in, “I just don’t understand why you thought it was a good idea to cut gaping …

Just as sure as someone’s going to be selling a box of crayons for a quarter every August, you can mark the annual bashing of American students on your calendar in the vicinity of Labor …

I’ve often wondered if my grandmother didn’t have it easier when my grandfather sailed off for World War II in the Pacific.
Back then, there were newsreels, newspapers and radio, but that was about it. Sure, …

This week’s theme: Bananas and Balboa.
They’re seemingly unrelated, but Dad loves both and I lucked out on both counts.
Trapped with the guys in one of the unrelenting downpours that marked our trip back east, we …

I know I have a blueberry coffee cake recipe … um, somewhere. Where the heck did it go? Aw, never mind. I’ll just Google.
I’m glad I did, because the new one I conjured up went …

I have a new nightly routine of late, mainly because the old one wasn’t working.
Use to be, I’d tuck the guys in and then toss fitfully in an attempt to doze off. I’d eventually give …

How can the kid who can’t find his shoes in the morning lock his eyes onto a soccer ball as if they were guided by a laser?
Why is it that the boy who routinely turns …

I’m not sure if Big Guy was being cunning or air-headed when he came to the Book Fair room where I was volunteering at school earlier this week and said he’s lost his lunchbox. “I …

Boots came home excited to show me what he’d bought at school, and I was excited, too. I’d wondered all day what he would pick.
“Do they have Thomas books?” he’d asked that morning.
“I didn’t notice, …

When Big Guy was a toddler Elmo always was there for him – on his second birthday cake, on his Halloween costumes, on “Sesame Street” as Mommy fed That Baby Who Ruined His Life.
In recent …

We sent this one while we were on vacation and, as a result, there’s now a chihuahua living in Afghanistan. A stuffed one, left over from the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” days.
I have no idea …

Sometimes it really is this easy.
Aside from the soda-pop cake, though, it’s usually not this easy in the world of egg-free baking. That’s why I eyed the recipe my mom had clipped from a magazine …

Boots wanted to grow apples – “nice, fresh apples, but for the people, not the deer,” he explained, eyeing the trail of half-eaten fruit the previous night’s marauders had scattered across his pawpaw’s yard.
Never mind …

So did you learn anything during sparring today, I asked Big Guy after karate class.
“No, not really,” Big Guy replied.
He was lying through his mouth guard.
He’d gone up against The Girl again. The Girl who …

He’s been in kindergarten less than three weeks but Boots already has his college choices narrowed to two:  California State University, Stanislaus or West Virginia University.
The first is a small college that was practically in …

He trundled to the bus stop less than a football field’s length from our back door, waddling slightly from the balk of a backpack a tad to big for him. He clutched a sheath of …

Except for Boots’ Sisyphusian insistence on rebuilding his sand castle in the same spot where the tide had washed it away just seconds earlier, Santa Monica was a great time.
The air was warm, but not …

He hates “Wonder Pets” but will concede to occasionally watching “Max and Ruby.” He admires Max’s sneaky ways and rails that Ruby is a control freak, which is ironic given that he’s one of the …

We’ve been away from the water for more than three weeks now, which is a relief because the incubation period for typhoid fever is 10 to 20 days.
Never mind that there are only about 400 …

I was standing by the pool with my camera Sunday when a voice drew me away from Big Guy’s birthday festivities.
“Excuse me,” she said. “But just who are you taking pictures of?”
“My kids,” I replied.
“Well, …

New crayons are cool, and being promoted to a big-kid notebook was the bomb for Big Guy.
But the big buzz of back-to-school shopping was the new buzz cuts and the new Army gear. Yes, now …

I thought I’d be about three years past buying baby wipes at this point, but not so.
At home, they still go everywhere with us. They work far better than hand santizer for cleaning up on …

If you can’t be at the birthday, the birthday will come to you.
That was Boots’ reasoning behind this week’s care package, though I did talk him out of sending Dad a piece of his birthday …

Dad claims he can’t get to sleep without background noise, though snoring must qualify or else he would have been in a worse-than-normal state of chronic deprivation during basic training.
It’s led to many marital disputes …

Just when I thought three tubs of tank engine track was as bad as it was going to get, along comes the next menace: Hot Wheels.
It’s not that we’ve never had Hot Wheels – the …

Shopping for a bathing suit is bad enough, but it becomes virtually impossible when a kid wearing pale-yellow paints and has an arrow eye-linered onto a freshly shaved scalp pops around the corner.
“Hey, guys, look! …

Coloring books: New and unsullied, accompanied by a fresh pack of crayons. Check.
MP3 players: Charged, with new songs loaded. Check.
Snacks: Enough to cover the midnight munchies plus breakfast the next day because the chances are …

I ran across a story this morning about a school district in South Dakota that goes out of its way – to the tune of paying an extra $40 for a case of cookies …

Children’s shows have felled many a strong person. With me, the waltz scene in “Beauty and the Beast” used to do it. I knew that, and used it to my advantage, popping the tape into …

We really should have sent a tooth brush with this one. Or, at the least, labeled it with a warning. Caution: Most of the contents will do severe dental damage.
I picked out the Oreo Cakesters, …

Big Guy’s shorts have been in a wad since late last week, when I came home with a t-shirt featuring a baseball and bats arranged into an American flag. “No fair! I need a Fourth …

Kimberly Sands had a new Tweety Bird swim suit and a good times ahead of her when she woke up that June morning. She was ready to go swimming and eat ice cream at a …

I can’t complain about the 3D, because I saw it at a drive-in.
I won’t critique the CGI, other than to say it’s amazing how much emotion filmmakers can pack into characters that exist only in …

In the past month, Big Guy has proclaimed fish sticks “delicious” and watermelon “yummy.” He’s swooned over apple cobbler and eaten a rainbow-colored salad packed with greens, tomatoes, zucchini and carrots. He wasn’t wild about …

I’d been lucky in my lifetime to have never run into a truly bad doctor. Sure, there was the guy when I was in high school who told me my nose was definitely broken but …

Due largely to the fact that Best Friend was watching and he didn’t want to lose face, Boots agreed to get in the pool the first day of swim class. He wouldn’t consent to go …

It was more than 20 years ago when I met U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, but I recall two things vividly about that day.
The first was how ill at ease he appeared at what was …

Are you the photographer we hired, a woman asked at Big Guy’s school as I checked in during the final week.
No, I just carry enough gear to power a small television station, I said. His …