Happy November! Have you started counting your blessings yet? You might want to think about getting a head start on it. Because by the time Thanksgiving arrives, we’re so revved up to launch into the holiday season, that Thanksgiving itself gets the short end of the stick. We spend one day watching parades and football…
Archives for 2013
Why You Should Face Your Fears
I hate haunted houses. Actually, I’m adverse to anything scary. No horror pics, Stephen King novels, or Fright Fests for me. For one reason: I scare easily. When my daughters agreed to play the role of zombies at the big All Hallow’s Eve event at our city’s living history museum, I was asked to help…
Childhood, Halloween Candy, Autumn Fun, & A Confession
I hope your family had a fun Columbus Day weekend – with or without the requisite fall activities. Our family did a bit of this and that, including attending our high school’s last home football game. I had forgotten the electric excitement of being among the crowd cheering on the marching band – I mean…
Permission to Think of Yourself, Mom
What do you want to do? What is your biggest dream, your highest hope? No really. What do you, mom, want to do most in life – today, tomorrow, next month? Can you tell me off the top of your head, without needing to hear other people’s answers first? I ask this question because I…
One Way to Improve Your Kids’ Decision Making Skills
So much to do. So little time. But do you ever make your children choose? And could making them choose under the pressure of “not enough time for it all” backfire? It’s easy to want to avoid making our kids choose between activities. We don’t want them to miss out. We don’t want to shortchange…
Meal Planning, Pet Choosing, and Other Helps for Moms
Today I’m staring down two bushels of apples waiting to be cooked and pureed. That can only mean one thing: it’s fall. Cranking out our own fresh applesauce is a favorite (if time-consuming) tradition in our household. We also love jumping in leaf piles and visiting corn mazes. There’s so much to savor about autumn….
When “Super Moms” Make You Feel Small
I’m waiting at a stoplight when I see one again: that oval sticker on the back of a minivan that says “26.2” (or sometimes “13.1″). Are you tired of those yet? Because I am. And not because I think those who have completed a marathon don’t deserve to boast. They do. Completing a 26.2 mile…
Living Into Your Longings
Sometimes as parents, and especially as moms, we deny ourselves the fulfillment of our longings. We mistake being a good parent with making life all about our kids, as if every one of our hopes has (or will) come true in them. Or we believe we don’t have or don’t deserve the space, time, energy,…
8 Articles to Make This A Great School Year
If you aren’t aware, I’m a parenting journalist and my articles appear every month in parenting publications around the U.S. and Canada. This month you can bridge the back-to-school transition and overcome a variety of school year issues thanks to the hints and tips I’ve gathered from experts in these eight articles: By now you…
Turn Back-to-School Blues into a Promise For the Future
It’s school time again. I find that among the moms I talk to there are two sharply contrasting reactions to the start of the school year: glee and sadness. And frankly I think many moms, whether they’re anticipating sending the kids off to school or dreading it, feel a mixture of both. If you’re sad…