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 …
Read the full story »Picky eaters and allergy-safe cooking — the two aren’t necessarily unrelated.
From policy to politics, this rant’s for you.
The day’s events in a family way — unless something else amuses me.
From preschool to kindergarten — so far
Inexpensive homemade gifts, creative parties and low-cost projects, for Christmas and beyond. Many are easy enough for children to help.
When Rita heard the roar of the bus engine and the wheesh of the brakes, her ears perked up. She knows those sounds. They mean it’s time for the first of her boys to come …
I read somewhere a long time ago that a dog is about as intelligent as a 3-year-old. I read somewhere recently that a dog can understand only about 20 words, which means someone’s either underestimating …
It sounds frivolous to compare the New York Times to a children’s Web site and instant movie access, but those are the economic facts at my house.
Club Penguin: $12 a month – $6 per kid. …
He looks around among his friends and sees only a few women in green. It was inevitable that the question would come up.
“Mommy, why aren’t there many girls in the Army?” Big Guy asked.
There are …
Looking for a social media strategist? There’s one particular group that recently did an exceptional job of compiling the important information, explaining without talking down, laying out policies and backing them up with salient case …
Can I get an amen from everyone tired of eating off the kids’ menu?
OK, so maybe those of you with better parenting skills than I don’t suffer through the same cycle of spaghetti, mac and …
My only consolation as I read the note from Boots’ teacher is that he wasn’t the one in trouble this time.
Please talk to your children about not having boyfriends and girlfriends at school, she wrote. …
Note to Florida Rep. Kelli Stargel: I’ve already passed kindergarten. Second grade, too! Therefore, it really doesn’t matter what my kids’ teachers think about my performance. I’ve earned a diploma and a degree. It’s the …
Content warning: Germophobes are strongly advised to don protective gear before reading this post. The rest of us should quickly buy stock in companies that manufacture face masks.
It was supposed to be a science project …
It’s an event almost as foreseeable as predicting that someone this week will call today’s kids “the dumbest generation”:
A family will “unplug” – shed all electronics for an arbitrary period. Let’s say, oh, six months. …
We’ve been on a Harry Potter kick lately, watching them as fast as Netflix can deliver them after Big Guy started begging because he didn’t like it that friends had seen something he hadn’t.
Big Guy …
There’s name calling, and then there’s name calling.
We have zero tolerance for one kind in our house: Anything that’s gender, race or sexual preference-based. I called Big Guy out recently for saying, “that’s so gay,” …
“They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it – seems that only children weep.” – To Kill A Mockingbird
It was a dog and a …
The guys have an unfortunate addiction: Graham crackers and milk for breakfast. We could go through a box every three days, at $2 per “on sale” at the commissary.
I thought that price was bad until …
As long as they’re still selling Milk Bones, there is no reason for a normal person to make dog treats.
When a 5-year-old gets an Easy Bake oven from Santa and a dog treat set complete …
Back in the days Before Children, weekend plans were simple:
Friday night, a drink after work or maybe dinner out.
Saturday night, a dance club capped off with a trip to an all-night pancake house where I’d …
“I am heavier than him uh huh.”
“That is shinier than that yep it is.”
“I am happier than him OK right.”
Overlook the confusion about usage of he/him. I’ll work on that one later. Right now, I’d …
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – and if you have a chronic medical condition, you probably have.
One drug works so-so, or not at all to control your symptoms. This is the one …
I can’t remember their name, though it was burned in my brain at the time. Just seeing it on the reservation list was enough to make me want to fake a case of bubonic plague …
It’s not that I had the “bad math experience” in school that a recent newspaper article talks about – though I’m not sure what a “bad math experience” is because the article never defines it.
At …
There’s a heaping helping of irony in the fact that Saturday’s assassination attempt on an Arizona congresswoman by a man associates say is “very disturbed” has forced the right into the same box Muslims have …
A little more than a year after Dad’s departure, his return is getting close.
Tantalizingly close. Not close enough to order the balloons or bake the cake, but near enough that we can see that it’s …
There’s a gulf in our house that’s even bigger than gap between the Digital Native (the guys) v. Early Settlers (me).
That’s the Whole Wheat Native v. Adult Converts.
I didn’t grow up on whole wheat. I …
I say all the right things when the guys ask about Rita, and I go through all the motions when she comes up and nuzzles me.
But when they ask I lie, because they wouldn’t understand. …
The guys’ backpacks are camouflage. Their lunch boxes, though, are Buzz Lightyear. We have a camouflage model left over from last year, and since only one guy takes his lunch these days that means they’d …
For Big Guy it fell into the category of Things That Are Really Important. That meant he was going to keep pestering me until I got around to making it happen.
For me it fell into …
Mommy, am I Student A or Student B, Big Guy asked.
Huh?
Am I Student A or Student B, out of the ones in my school folder.
I was stunned that he’d read his school folder, especially given …
You know the mess is getting annoying when it’s bothering the slob in the family, a friend muttered as she stared at the pile of dishes in the sink.
It was only an afternoon’s worth, but …
For some crazy reason – probably our “Cinnamon Roll Friday” tradition – the guys have decided that they’re entitled to a fresh-from-the-oven breakfast every morning of late. For some reason that’s even crazier, I’ve gone …
Note to Sara Palin: Michelle Obama is free to stop by my house any evening and tell my kids they can’t have dessert. After seven-plus years of this war, I’m battle fatigued. Michelle would probably …
The lack of health-care workers in schools is nothing new.
We saw the impact when Big Guy was in kindergarten and cooled his heels in the office for half a day after a snooty secretary diagnosed …
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 …
In this corner we have Big Guy, who’s bored with every book I bring home and isn’t fond of fiction.
In this corner we have Boots, who could devour Step 3 books if he wanted to, …
It’s a good thing Accelerated Reader wasn’t around when I was in third grade. I doubt there would have been AR tests for the Perry Mason novels I loved.
For unindoctrinated uninitiated, Accelerated Reader bills itself …
Sometimes life is all about timing. There’s a chance the soldier took his protective goggles off briefly during training in The Box – 1,000 barren square miles at Fort Irwin where soldiers prepare for desert warfare. Then ...
So there I was last month, stressing until 2 in the morning over Dad’s “welcome home” cake, worried that it would be ugly or dry or have the wrong color stars. Silly, silly girl. If I’d ...
I’m kind of frustrated this morning because I don’t have girls. I don’t even know any girls young enough to appreciate this. But if I did, I’d be all over the tutu tutorial – say that ...
Poor Boots. He wakes up every morning chirping with the birds and with a cheery greeting. “It’s a beautiful day!” Somewhere along the line, though, the grind of the world beats the beauty out of it ...
On one level, it’s simple: When you’re about to fall, just let go and fall. Trying to stop the tumble or, even worse, flailing your arms and legs as you land will make it worse. Somewhere ...
There’s often a reason why Big Guy does the seemingly quirky things he does. A reason that makes sense only in his 5-year-old brain, but a reason nonetheless.
I usually don’t question, because if it’s genuinely ...
This one landed in my Twitter stream just as Boots was diving into a bowl of … Cocoa Puffs: “New peanut flour warning for General Mills cereals.” Luckily, he’s not the child who’s allergic and Big ...
From the country that wants to censor the Internet worldwide in the name of protecting its children comes another bizarre project, also in the name of “protecting children” The British have launched a database, at a ...
Do I ever feel like a dolt after my post last night lamenting the difficulties of finding dye-free snow-cone syrups. I went to a Middle Eastern market today to pick up some hummus ingredients and ran ...
Parties in the park seem to be the rage around here of late – a rage that will be over by the time Big Guy’s birthday rolls around in 103-degree July – and today’s was ...
Six hundred and eight three killed in Afghanistan. Four thousand, two hundred and ninety six killed in Iraq. Many stories of incredible lives, often amazing sacrifices. This is one such story. Army Maj. Steven Hutchison survived two ...
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Oh my goodness!! I am (ashamedly) a thirty-something with Boots’ tendencies toward finger-jabbing and angry accusations...
