I have no memories of my mother playing with me as a child. She read to me a lot, we went on outings together, and we cooked together on occasion. But I can’t remember actually playing together, and I think most of my friends would say the same things about their mothers. Recently, I’ve become aware of what a huge contrast this is to my own parenting style. Since I have only one child, it’s not surprising that I spend {Read More}
The following is a post from contributing writer Dianna Kennedy. Want to know why you rarely see pictures of my house? I’ll let you in on a little secret. I stink at cleaning house. I was halfway decent when I only had one child. Now, with a teenage daughter and four children under the age of six, my house looks like a cyclone hit most days. I know that there are many of you out there like me — let’s {Read More}
I’m in the throes of children’s consignment sale season over here. I’m furiously going through my basement and closets, ironing, hanging and tagging. During the mundane task of ironing, my brain tends to wander. “What are you going to do for Lent?” I generally have a million lofty goals for Lent, and end up being about 10% successful. This year, I’m setting my sights for more reasonable achievements, and hope to clean my house in the process. It stands to {Read More}
Did you ever fathom how tired you’d be as a mother? Yeah. Me neither. It’s like a tank that is never full. It’s a tank that, even if you tried, will never be full. During the baby and toddler years it seems someone is always up at night, and usually multiple times during the night. Bad dreams. Baby needs to be fed. Sick kids. Heck, even a toddler who is full of deep thoughts and just wants to chat a {Read More}
Raise your right hand if an inner Martha Stewart lives within you. Raise your left hand if today’s to-do list is holding you back. I’m here to tell you that anybody can have a kick tail holiday dinner and not lose her mind. You just have to refocus a bit. Below I’ll share a few things I’ve learned from hosting a big brood, as well as some sample menu items from one of my favorite magazines, the master of all {Read More}
My mom was a stay-at-home mom. Our house was, and still is, immaculate. There were no piles of junk mail, no receipts hanging out on a counter, no laundry that just hadn’t been folded yet, and no dust. Really. No dust. I still fail to understand how that’s possible. The “domestic rockstar” gene skipped over me. I got the “artistic and crafty” gene, but I’m thinking the “domestic rockstar” gene would have been more helpful. I am now the mom {Read More}
I’ve been known to organize a few things, alphabetize my spices, color code my closets and label my kids’ toy bins. Mostly, I think it’s what happens to the gene pool when a school teacher and an Army man get married and have children. To keep it all balanced, I never make my bed unless company is coming over, I wait until the dishes pile up in the sink before washing them and I loathe doing laundry every Monday. Yin {Read More}
Housework: The bane of my existence. I am pretty sure that no one enjoys doing it. I know I certainly do not. I wish I had a magic wand that I could just walk around waving. Better yet – a remote control that could pause my children so that what little I manage to get done wasn’t destroyed in 2.5 seconds. There are a lot of days when I just do not have the time. Really, who has the time {Read More}
