Lara Krupicka
The Reluctant Naturalist
One question for you as we approach the new year: what is it time for? Instead of setting yourself a list of self-improvement goals that are bound to produce more guilt than change (if the statistics are right), take an optimistic approach. Think about the different goals or outings or classes you’ve had in mind…
Midmorning on November 17th, 12 tornadoes tore through the Midwest, ripping homes off of foundations, tossing cars into fields, and causing chaos for hundreds of families. Our city suffered only heavy winds and rain. But the local television stations ran continuous footage of devastation not far away. When our church put out a call for…
Sunlight radiated off a nearby hill. Below us a small lake rippled in the gentle breeze. My daughter and I ate our lunches at a shady picnic table, watching archers arrange targets in the range across the parking lot. It gave us just enough time to observe the local protocol before pulling her bow and…
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…
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…
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…
Almost every new parent wishes their baby came with a manual. Thankfully, as steep as the learning curve feels at the time, those early days and weeks of parenthood are relatively simple. It’s mostly a matter of learning what your baby’s cries mean, how to get him to sleep, when to feed, and how to…
Parenting requires so many decisions, it can sometimes become mind-numbing. How to respond to discipline issues, what to do about kids’ friendship struggles, which sports to encourage them toward and what other activities to enroll them in. We have so much information and so many opportunities at our fingertips, it can be hard to sort…
It’s that wonderful time of year – those weeks where we head to the stores or our craft rooms or kitchens to buy/create an item from a loved one’s list of wishes. Our goal now, and in the weeks ahead, is to fulfill a wish (or wishes) for every person on our shopping list. But…
Three times a year I put myself through the finger-numbing task of creating and decorating my daughters’ birthday cakes and treats. It’s often a four- or five-hour process, during which my shoulders cramp up high around my ears as I hunch over my masterpiece. My tembles throb from the effort of concentration. And my hands…
