There is a bright orange wall in my house. Like, Tigger orange. In fact, the paint is from the Behr Disney line at Home Depot and is called “Bouncy, Bouncy.” You know, like Tigger. Last week, it was a lovely boring shade of beige.  Well, to be fair, it wasn’t exactly boring. It was beige, with all kinds of crayon pencil, pen and even paint marks on it.  And then, the straw that broke this mama’s metaphorical camel back; Joey took a stamp from a birthday goodie bag and stamped all over the poor wall, making lovely race car tire tracks all over it. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the …

Do you know what I do on my children’s birthdays? I spend the entire day (in Joey’s case, TWO DAYS) remembering what stage I was in at this time on that day, however many years ago.  Kimberly celebrated her fourth birthday this week, and I marked each hour from about 10am till about 7pm, loudly declaring “At this time, four years ago, I was taking a dose of castor oil!” (Yuck, by the way)  or “At this time, four years ago, our midwives got here.” Thinking about Kimmie’s labor and delivery for a day made me consider Joey’s, as well. And then I started considering how each of my girls’ labors …

This New Year’s Eve will go down in history as the first time either of my kids made it to midnight. Both of them did it, actually, by the skin of their teeth.  In fact, by the time we hit about 11:30, my husband and I were actively trying to keep the girls awake.  Well, by that time, it would have been a shame for them to miss that ball dropping, right? Lady Gaga and Mayor Bloomberg pushed the button, the ball fell, we all exchanged cheers in my best crystal (yes, even the almost four year old), we all exchanged Happy New Year Kisses and then I trundled both my little New Year babies off to …

The New Year is generally a time of resolutions and good intentions. Everyone wants to lose weight, quit smoking, or find a new job. We’re all trying to better ourselves, start fresh, have a clean slate in the coming year. How about our relationships with our kids? Don’t they also deserve a fresh start in the New Year? I think they do, so I spent some time today doing a little inventory on my parenting status. I’m pleased to say that I fared better this year than I did last year when I did this same exercise, which means I’m definitely moving in the right direction.  However, there is …

  It’s almost here! Just days away!  I’m so excited!   You think I’m talking about Christmas? No way, man. I’m talking about the day after the day after Christmas. Look, we have all this stress leading up to Christmas. Well, I do, anyway. In fact, as I sit to type this, I still have half a dozen presents left to get.  Christmas is Sunday. I need to get a move on, here.  Of the stuff I have already, nothing is wrapped. For that matter, all my kids’ presents are still in our sunroom, in taped up Amazon boxes. I haven’t even opened them yet.  For all I know, the Playskool Alphie I got for Kimmie…

Chestnuts roasting in the microwave; Jack Frost leaving his calling card all over my car windows every morning; yuletide carols being sung in my kitchen, and the price of toys hitting hundreds. I know, that’s not how the song goes.  I don’t have a fireplace, so we microwave our chestnuts. And if Jack Frost touches my nose, I attempt to poke his eyes out with knitting needles.  I’ve been playing Christmas music non stop on the kitchen radio since Thanksgiving.  As for the last part, I just spent three hours surfing various toy sites, trying to find someone who had the Monster High Hydration …

Know what’s at the top of my Christmas list? Well, a Vitamix Blender. But also, this. Yes, I would love the Tokidoki Barbie. Have you seen her? Obviously, a collector’s edition, a limited edition of 7,400 dolls, originally at $25, and now selling at nearly $400 a pop. Just as obviously something I’m not likely to find under my tree in a couple weeks.   What’s most interesting to me about Tokidoki Barbie is the uproar surrounding her. Parents freaked out about the “tattooed Barbie with pink hair.” Speaking as someone who has sported both pink and purple hair in the past, hey...freaks are …

I don’t know about you, but Christmas shopping is in full swing at my house. Specifically, at my dining room table.  I have only my nephews left to shop for, and I haven’t set foot inside a single brick and mortar establishment.   Also, can I just get a high five for being about done with all my holiday shopping before November is even over? Holla! I have friends and family who spend weeks preparing for Black Friday. They gather all the ads, they make their lists, they check them twice, and then they head out on Thanksgiving night. I admire them. That’s some serious dedication, right there. …

I’m sure, by now, you’ve heard all about the accusations being laid at the feet of Penn State.  I’ve got a bunch of problems with all this, as you can imagine. So many problems, in fact, that I hardly know where to start. I mean, it’s bad enough that Jerry Sandusky was allegedly molesting boys who were trustingly placed in his care.  The fact that there were several members of the Penn State football organization who apparently knew about it just adds insult to injury. And I think that’s what we need to talk about; the fact that other people were aware that this had happened, and nothing was …

My parents have been on vacation for about a week.  Well, truth be told, they’re both retired, so define “vacation,” right?  They don’t actually go away very often and I’m so glad that they’ve done this. They’re in Florida, primarily visiting my dad’s sister and some other family, but also hitting up a theme park and getting some beach time in. They’re probably lying on a beach with a pair of frosty beverages right now, in fact.  I am sitting on the floor in my living room, typing a sentence here, getting down a thought there, while I play Strawberry Shortcake with Kimmie, try to pick up some…

My mom is always looking out for me.  Specifically, she’s always looking out for ideas for columns for me.  I get clippings from newspapers and comic strips every week from mom, usually bundled up with coupons from the Sunday paper. This is proof, my friends, that we will never stop taking care of our kids, by the way. Recently, mom gave me an article clipped from a newspaper about elimination communication.  Parents who use elimination communication, or EC, watch their very young children for cues that they are about to, well, eliminate, and then get them to a potty chair on time. At one …

Do you remember kindergarten? I do. In my class, we had a play kitchen and some kid-sized brooms and mops for playing house. We had colored differently shaped pieces of wood for making designs. We had books all over the place, and we were read to several times a day.   We learned our letters, and some basic letter sounds. We learned our numbers. But, I’d say, we mostly learned how to go to school. How to listen to our teacher, how to socialize with our peers. Kindergarten was a lot of fun when I was there. Now, I’m not saying Joey’s kindergarten class wasn’t fun, because it was.  But it was …

It’s fall!  It’s one of the most wonderful times of the year!  Every year, I look forward to September, with its pumpkin lattes and swirling leaves. Also, my birthday is next month. That goes a long way towards making fall my second favorite season.  Spring is first. I just prefer the whole “spring has sprung” thing to “everything is dying.” I do love fall, though, and here are some things I’m excited about this year. Pumpkin picking.  Every year, for the past 14 years, my husband and I have taken my cousin pumpkin picking. We started when she was 4. Do the math. She still comes with us every…

Kimberly is going to be four soon.  That’s about the age where I typically stop regarding a child as a “baby” and start thinking of them as a “kid.”  This isn’t a scientific unit of measurement, but it’s been working fine till now. Kimmie, however, is not matching up with my little yard stick, and it seems that she has no desire to. It’s not that she’s not hitting milestones or that she’s incredibly short or anything like that. It’s that she’s pretty much convinced that she wants to be a baby forever.  For example, she pretty much flatly refuses to use the bathroom, preferring instead, to …

I’m not exactly what you’d call a joiner, and I never was. I never took dance classes, for example.  I wanted to, for a short time, but my parents were busy saving every penny they earned to send me to the private school I loved, so moot point.  And I pretty quickly grew out of my love for ballet shoes and tap costumes. Joey is deep in the throes of that love. Last year she took a basic ballet/tap class, and she loved it. She told her teacher she wants to take more classes and wants pointe shoes and wants to be a ballerina when she grows up and, and, and.... I’m exhausted just thinking about …

I watched the CNN coverage of the 9/11 memorial ceremonies yesterday, pretty much all morning.  It’s rare that I take over the television during prime cartoon viewing, but the kids were surprisingly quiet about it. Joey got set up with some games on my computer, and Kimmie was playing with some toys, and it took a while for either one of them to notice that there were tears streaming down my face. Eventually, though, Joey saw, and asked me “Mommy? What’s going on?”  I told her that everyone was remembering something very sad. Of course, you can see the next question coming, and so could I. “…

Joey is officially a first grader.  She approached this milestone pretty matter of factly. When I asked her, the night before school started, if she was excited, she said “Eh. I’ve been to school before.” She has been a little concerned that none of her friends seemed to be in her class. Her two best friends are both in different classes, in fact.  But, even that didn’t seem to phase her too much, which shocked me. As September neared, I found myself feeling anxious at the thought of first grade. I would get knots in my stomach, and start feeling tense all over. I couldn’t figure out what I …

I’ve been thinking about bringing Joey to a Broadway show. Well, I think it’s high time she start her phase of dreaming about being a Broadway star. This way, she’ll get it out of her system before she’s actually old enough to do anything about it.  Maybe. Looking at Broadway’s current family offerings has left me pondering Mary Poppins.  I liked the move when I was a kid. What kid wouldn’t dig a movie with a carousel that comes to life?  But I’ve been thinking, Mary Poppins is so much more than a children’s movie. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Mary Poppins should be required viewing …

When my husband and I started talking about taking a multi-stopped road trip with the girls, we figured that having several shorter drives would be preferable to one huge, long drive.  We did the huge, long drive last year to OBX, and it went okay. Yeah, just okay. By okay, of course, I mean everyone got out alive. So this year, we were looking for something a little better than okay.  It’s also true that after a day or two in one location, the adults of my family are pretty much ready to move on to something else. Hey, we’re wanderers at heart. Free spirits! Can’t keep us contained in one …

When Joey was about two, and I was about pregnant with Kimberly, we went to Disney World. We didn’t do this because she was two, or because I was pregnant. We did it because we had a business conference in Orlando, and it seemed like a great idea. Of course, walking around the Magic Kingdom at about six months pregnant wasn’t the most fun I ever had in my life, but Joey loved it. It was worth my discomfort. Also, my best friend lives near Orlando, and she and her family came with us. So, yeah, I had a good time, regardless. One of the highlights of the trip, by far, was Joey’s first …