So just as life has been finding some order and relaxation around here we made the move that will blow it all up. We adopted not one but two puppies. Our friends and family all said, “you’re crazy, you’re insane, what are you thinking”, etc. We had our heart set on completing our “all American” family and also shutting the kids up. It’s been a nonstop discussion of begging, pleading, crying, whining and promising for us to get dogs. My husband and I made a pact years and years ago when he bought me our last dog. He slightly mentioned how he left Spanky’s sister there and I burst in to tears …

I must admit that part of me was dreading summer because keeping the kids busy and entertained is more than a full time job.  What I have found is that the more easy going I am the more easy going the kids are.     We really haven't enforced any "summer rules" here...yet. The closer we get to going back to school the more we will have to start cracking the whip a bit.  The best part so far is we haven't really had to spend a dime. We have pooled it about 4 days a week and sprinkler it the rest of the week. I have lost track of how many sleepovers we have had. Getting the kids to sleep in for …

Aside from the day-to-day craziness of raising children, my biggest pet peeve is food waste. When the kids aren't whining about a lost bey blade or about how bored they are they are standing in the fridge or repeating how hungry they are. Seriously repeating over and over and over again. You would think if they were THAT STARVING that they wouldn't be quite so picky. I have tried so hard to expand their palates but I just can't win. Ethan, my oldest, has what seems to a legitimate texture issue with meat. He has never actually eaten red meat happily. On the few occasions that he has eaten …

Ok parents here we go, summer is almost here.  I'm not sure if I'm excited to have a free summer schedule of sleeping in and not having to help with homework or if I'm stressing about having both of my kids hanging from my shirt tail all summer and having to keep them somewhat entertained and smart.  I'm sure many have already signed up for summer camps and made vacation plans. We are in the population that has no plans other than to fly by the seat of our pants. So much of our year is structured by school and activities that I plan to use summer break for what it's intended — two months of …

As always, I think back to when I was a kid, and I wonder if my parents protected me from the strong need for HOPE or if there wasn't a huge need for it. It was the ’80s, and everything was fabulous as far as I knew. I don't recall hearing about cancer on every street corner. The economy seemed fine (not that I had learned about it yet). Everyone appeared healthy and happy. Nowadays just being at school there are fundraisers and awareness days for everything from schools less fortunate to save the Earth campaigns to cancer research. In my opinion children need to realize as well that there is…

Seven years ago I made a deal with my husband when our son Ethan was born. I would carry and birth our child, and he would handle all loose teeth. I have this freaky little anxiety about teeth, and I knew that at some point our children would start to lose their teeth. The thought of this would seriously make the hair on my arms stand up. Loose, wiggly teeth hanging on to a swollen gum for dear life. I don't know where this issue came from. I had no problem as a child pulling my own teeth. Everyone has that story of their parents pulling their first tooth or at least trying. I vaguely …

Back in the day birthday parties were all about another year older, some cake, making a wish and opening a handful of presents. As with everything these days, bigger is better, over the top is the norm, and price is no concern. I thought my parents always spoiled us with constant celebrations, maybe $50 worth of gifts and a party at the house. In today's society that could be considered child abuse. I've paid the price for the ultracool birthday parties for my oldest, and we have been to many ultracool parties. The cash dropped on some of these parties for kids is obscene. I want my children …

In my teenage years, I was lured into being a nanny by a family with five children. My pay was a whopping $6 an hour. They had moved into the neighborhood and, looking back, the mother must have been a tiny bit overwhelmed. One of my duties was to organize the playroom. The empty 10' x 10' room in the basement was filled with 35 moving boxes marked "toys." What family has 35 boxes of toys? After my family's move 9 days ago, I now know that family wasn't crazy for having 35 boxes of toys for five kids. We moved at least 25 boxes of toys for our two boys, Ethan and Quinn. How on earth did this …

The purpose of our family moving in with mom and dad 18 months ago was to be free of all commitments and go into a 30-day closing with as little stress as possible. I think I have simply gone into denial this week that we are actually moving.  We still have to go through the closing process, but it's here. The boxes are packed, the trucks scheduled, the utilities are transferring and, of course, the kids are being handled. I’m insanely excited, but it’s now become this bitter sweet pill. I’m wondering why we have so much stuff in mom and dad’s garage to move. I thought all of our stuff was in…

My mom always made Easter baskets like a mini Christmas, so of course I have to follow in her footsteps because I loved it as a kid. Also, I can’t forget those fantastic plastic eggs that are so much fun to cram candy in for the all important Easter Egg Hunt.  One thing we've incorporated from my husband’s family is putting money in the eggs.  Not much...just some pocket change and then a “Golden Egg” that has a $5 bill in it. But back to the plastic eggs...is it me or do those things multiply? They are like Christmas lights--you never think you have enough so you buy new ones and then find …

Way back in the good ol’ days prior to having kids, didn’t it seem like time was all we had? There was plenty of time to shower, eat, get to work, go out for dinner or drinks, go on vacation, and you would still have plenty of time left over. I don’t recall ever having to implement my mad skills of time management. That could also be because my children have not only sucked my time up, but also have sucked my memory up. Anyway, as parents our plates can get a bit overloaded very quickly. Not only are we planning for our own days, but our kids’ as well. Being a stay-at-home parent I thought …

Back in January I gave myself the Proud Parent Potty Training Award. Quinn, my 3-year-old, had been housebroken. Well, actually, maybe I should just say we were down to wearing a diaper only to bed. The week I trained him we were at the Tybee beach. He enjoyed his freedom to pee in the backyard, on the beach, on walking trails and quite honestly wherever he wanted as long as it wasn’t in his pants. I was OK with that for the period of “training.” It’s not as if anyone was watching or even near us at any of these “training” moments. Over the past few months of his success I have noticed it …

The past few days have been a little rough around here. We had just started walking back to school last week because the mornings were finally warming up and sunny and beautiful. I even allowed Ethan, my 6-year-old, to walk to school alone. We can see the school from our front yard, and our crossing guard is fantastic! Well, I knew that we would have longer days and more sun, but I forgot how dark it would be in the mornings. Ethan now needs a full-on scientific explanation as to why it’s dark out when he goes to school. Quinn just all-out refuses to get up because the sun “isn’t here yet.” I…

I was born in a small Ohio town, not far from Xenia. Xenia was the small town wiped out by the 1974 Super Outbreak tornados. Growing up, I heard the story many times about our family who lived there and witnessed it. You would think that might cause me to fear tornados or severe weather, but I reacted quite the opposite. I grew up in Texas where, as a family, we would watch huge storms roll in. All I saw was the powerful beauty of weather that Mother Nature controlled.  My husband grew up terrified of storms. We agreed to balance my obsession and fearlessness of storms with his storm-terror …

It was a year ago last February that my mom heard, "you need an oncologist.” What a crap day that was. Our family is pretty tight. We seem to all have different ways of dealing with crap news. My husband Philip, our two boys and I live with my parents. Talk about adding a whole new stress to the mix. Philip and I were about to sign our life away on a house when mom was diagnosed with cancer. Not knowing what to expect and how long mom had, my family chose to stay headquartered at Ground Zero. Little did we know that mom was going to breeze through the cancer ordeal. Okay, maybe that’s an …

We're a family. We go through the gamut of colds, flu, infections, rashes, and fevers. There are sleepless nights with a feverish baby, a coughing toddler, a puking child, and lots of snot. We deal with ooze from the eyes and sometimes the ears. I've been on the phone at 2 a.m. with children's health care nurses talking me through fever symptoms, more than once. As a parent, that's what you do. Parents usually get the illness and it takes us three-times as long to recover. It's what we endure as the creator of these little germy miracles called kids.  My oldest son, Ethan, and I have been …

If my sons aren't eating, they are growing (or making a mess, or being insanely loud). I can't keep up with two growing children. One month I need to take a loan out on food. The next month I need to take a loan out to clothe them. It starts with the eating frenzy. This begins the second, and I mean the second, my 6-year-old son, Ethan, walks in to the house from school. He is starving. A bowl of cereal, Goldfish® crackers, or raisins won't stall his hunger. That's a "snack-a-tizer." It takes a buffet to fill him up until dinner. He can eat his dinner, second helpings and half of his younger …

My son Quinn and I were driving home from the doctor's office. All was well. Quinn decided he was hot and wanted his window open. It was 40-something degrees outside. He was just diagnosed with an ear infection. I'm thinking "not"! A sick 3-year-old and the word "no" equal a balls-up temper tantrum.  The tantrum's first 90 seconds happened at a red light while he tried repeatedly to Houdini himself out of his five-point car seat harness to get to the window.  During this time, my immediate reaction was to shout at him so that I could be heard over the screaming of "stupid mommy!"  Yes, of …

Have you ever thought of how you are your child's shining example of adulthood? Children learn how to socialize, read, and write and all those great scholastic skills in school. They learn tolerance, empathy, sympathy, love, passion and right and wrong from us: their parents.  I had not given it much thought outside the general realm of 'I want my kid to be nice to everyone' until today. One of my favorite responses to my parents when I was pleading my case was that I needed to experience things on my own so I could learn from them. Yes, I'm still all about experience and learning from it.  …

When Quinn was age 2, he brought me challenges that I never dreamed possible. Ethan, my oldest, was so good. Looking back to when I thought Ethan was being bad, those days don't hold a candle to what Quinn was capable of. Quinn actually taught Ethan how to make spitballs and throw them at the bathroom mirror. While we were "trying" to potty train, he would go running outside and pee on the driveway. His head of irresistible blonde curls and elfish grin have saved his life on many occasions. But yes, for 2012 we are saying GOODBYE to diapers, GOODBYE to sippy cups, and GOODBYE to the Terrible …