Next weekend my baby is turning four, and we will be celebrating with a Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman themed birthday party. When my daughter was born I launched a tradition of elaborate (crazy) cakes, but I have since come to my senses. The main character on Fetch! is a dog. Why not make dog bone…

It’s spring cleaning time! This time of year I frequent Freecycle as I realize that items necessary for family fun last year no longer hold my growing children’s interest, or I finally give up on those pre-kid shorts and send my husband to the closest charity drop-off point. But today is different. I’m getting ready…

About a year ago my daughter discovered The Magic School Bus series of books through Scholastic order forms she brought home from pre-school. Quickly our collection grew from one book to ten, and now Emma and Noah sit together as they decipher what the students are saying in the bubbles and guess where The Friz…

I’ve never been great at bedtimes. Even as I write this, it’s thirty minutes past when I really should go to bed if I’ve got a snowball’s chance in heck of feeling rested tomorrow. But I’m a night owl, so here I am, typing away on my laptop in bed. When I was a child…

Today I took my dad to meet my friend’s new puppy. She mentioned that originally they considered buying both Brady and his sister. I oohed and ahhed, but my dad shook his head and said, “If you want your puppy to follow your lead and learn how to behave, it’s best that you train him…

This is the happy smile of a six year old girl who just lost her first tooth. And this is the relieved blog post of a mom who is happy to have another milestone successfully under her belt. The day of Emma’s sixth birthday party she announced to the family that she had a loose…

Please join us this Wednesday from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. ET for a Twitter Party sponsored by 8th Continent Soymilk.There’s nothing like the feeling of waking up to a bright new day and that’s exactly the way Stremicks Heritage Foods – a family-owned and operated brand – wants families to feel when they drink 8th…

The 30 Days of Change Parenting Challenge launched with a bang and trickled to a bumpy start after a crazy month of travel and literally being snowed out away from my children…which made parenting them especially challenging. My biggest parenting challenge successes came on the days when I tried my best to say “yes” more…

Full Disclosure – four eggs were broken in the process of dyeing these eggs including one unsuspecting little egg that I smacked into the side of the pot absent-mindedly and one that my daughter dropped when she missed the cup of dye entirely. This year I decided that I was no longer going to dip…

For awhile I had a quiet game that I played every time I read Newsweek. I looked for errors in spelling, grammar, usage, or anything else that absolutely did not belong in a major publication such as Newsweek. Almost every week I won the game, but eventually I tired of it and started skimming the…

As parents it is our job to show our children the world, including the things that we love most. For me I knew that sharing my love of music would be an integral part of my parenting, but once my children arrived I was shocked at how tightly I reigned in their exposure to music….

I’ve been making a conscious effort lately to enjoy the simple pleasures of life with children. For a time I found myself wasting those precious moments with them, overwhelmed by the stress of getting to the next event or recovering from the last. After all, how much can you really accomplish with a three and…

You know your children are growing up too fast when… they no longer need the step stool to brush their teeth they answer you with an eye roll and glare instead of words you’ve moved from fun bubble baths to serious big kid showers when you have alone time you don’t tell silly stories, you…

I have temporarily pulled my post about my latest parenting issue with my little guy because a link to my blog in The New York Times this weekend has brought a flood of readers who are not used to reading blogs written by moms. They’re used to reading the Times. I’m sure you see the…

Oh, bumpers! I meant to write yesterday about today’s Chuggington marathon on Playhouse Disney, but I’ve been attending to a very sick little chugger and it got away from me. That said, my little man and I are enjoying watching Wilson, Koko, and Brewster right now and wanted to tell everyone on the west coast…

How are you doing with the 30 Days of Change Parenting Challenge? Which daily challenges have you chosen from the list of parenting challenges? We were hit with what can only be described as the pre-school plague this week, which meant that the kids and I spent an entire day alone together for the first…

Every child loves a good game of hide and seek. There are the fun butterflies they get in their tummies when they’re waiting to be discovered and the pride they feel when they’re able to count to ten and then yelling, “Ready or not, here I come!” But children who are hidden from the U.S….

Last week I received an e-mail telling me about a site called Two of Us. I receive outreach from many sites – some of them resourceful, many of them not – but this one caught my eye because of something called “The Couples Experiment.” Many of you know about and are trying my 30 Days…

…she came into my life screaming, angry, two months early and ready to take over the world on her schedule. Happy Birthday, Emma. Thanks for making me a mom.

We’re back! After the insane snowmeggedon experience, I am thrilled to finally be returning to some real blogging and conscious parenting! There is something about travel and bad weather that makes us slip into survival mode, and I am so happy to get back on track with the 30 Days of Change Parenting Challenge.To kick…

We’re back! After the insane snowmeggedon experience, I am thrilled to finally be returning to some real blogging and conscious parenting! There is something about travel and bad weather that makes us slip into survival mode, and I am so happy to get back on track with the 30 Days of Change Parenting Challenge.To kick…