It was testing week in karate and, as usual, Big Guy was under the gun. Not as much as he used to be, when he didn’t have a clue and had to frantically cram, but …

It would have been an “oh sh**” moment, except I was surrounded by Big Guy’s basketball team, and I’m careful to restrain myself in such situations.
“Where was Big Guy?” his coach asked shortly after we …

I’m a mom, so I have strange dreams.
No, I’m not talking about the one shortly after I returned to work following the Boots maternity leave, when every night for a week  brake failure sent my …

I knew Big Guy had to be getting better because his belt kept changing colors but I’ll be honest: I hadn’t really noticed.
Despite sitting through almost three  years of the guys’ karate lessons, I still  …

We have a strict 8 p.m. bedtime.
Sort of. Over the past two years it’s morphed to a strict “be physically in the bed by 8 but stay awake and read for a while if you …

He’s a list-maker who’s used to same slip of steno pad for months to keep on track.
He’s a planner whose Valentines were ready Feb. 8.
He’s an organizer who gets that if you put away your …

In the almost three years since the guys started karate,  the pattern’s persisted.
Blow off practice then get upset when you don’t earn a stripe. Practice your little butt off for the next week or so …

They’re bad for the environment – all those bits of plastic and foil have to go somewhere. They’re bad for the pocketbook – calculate the cost per ounce for a box of bags and compare …

It seems that the easiest way to quit something cold turkey is to not know you’re doing it. Of course, that’s also the hardest way, since it’s usually impossible to stop without realizing it.
I managed …

Maybe we’re weird, but I swear this kind of stuff happens here all the time. We’ll be out enjoying the day or running errands, something will catch one of the guys’ attention and before I …

I suppose there’s something to be said for the provocative headline, even if it’s inaccurate, if it gets your attention.
A recent headline from a random publicist trying to get a byline on my site certainly …

There was a time when I wrote two, sometimes three times a day every day of the week. A time when life seemed a little muddled once in a while but mostly clear.
That time is …

Big Guy brought the project home from school Monday. It started with a typed note attached to a brown bag – bring three things to school that represent something important in your life. You’ll talk …

It was bad enough that it happened once. By the time of the second incident in less than 24 hours, my head was ready to explode.
One day last week, my phone rang about 20 minutes …

Boots’ school operates on a color system – kids start the day at green and either move up to yellow, orange and then red or down to blue, purple and gray.
The problems with that are …

Boots  loves critters – anything with fur, feathers and fins. He’s always loved winged creatures the best, so I suppose it was inevitable that once the infomercials hit we would be buying a butterfly kit …

Disclaimer: There are many men who flat know their shiitake when it comes to the ways of the super market. They understand that when you need balsamic none of the other vinegars in the cabinet …

Due to a dog who eats everything and kids who leave drinkware scattered through out the neighborhood, I dragged my collection of stadium cups out of the cabinet yesterday. Accumulated over decades, the stack had …

It took a while longer to get to the little one.
By the time Big Guy was 4, I knew he was destined to be a baseball fan. That was the summer when he opted to …

Last year, it brought  “mean, range and mode” to second grade. Later we saw estimations that caused many a kid to howl “why can’t I just solve the problem?” instead of rounding addends  to get …

Twenty-nine months after it came into my life, the relationship is ending.
I’d hoped to eek another few months out of it my 2009 Blackberry, even though I’ve been eligible for an upgrade since the …

Even though this year’s bus stop is a much longer hike for Big Guy than last year’s “roll out the back door” location, my plan had been to let him walk the third of a …

I’m probably the last geek on Earth to own a GPS device, which is funny because the technology was invented with people like me in mind.
The guys don’t say, “Are we there yet?” They ask, …

I’ll say this about our first adventure in standardized testing land: Big Guy’s results from the spring exam dovetailed perfectly with his performance in the classroom. I’m just not sure that either indicator is accurate.
In …

You remember the sweet little baby he used to be, and you wonder how it all went sideways.
You tried to raise him right – before he was born you ordered a onsie from your favorite …

It’s reminiscent of what happened to military personnel during the Vietnam Era, except at least this time the vitriol isn’t violent.
But it’s just as uncalled for and almost as ridiculous. Even worse: It’s the direct …

Big Guy had just gotten his little butt beaten badly, but he’d come up grinning so it was safe to broach the subject.
“So what did you learn today?” I asked. It’s my standard question when …

I’ve come to the conclusion recently that my perfect friend would be a geeky food-allergic liberal with quirky sense of humor, an obsessive interest in education issues and a tolerance for cute crap my kids …