Posted in Miscellaneous on Nov 17th, 2009
One word: Distraction.
It’s one of the best lessons I ever learned from my kids’ paternal grandmother.
Toddlers have notoriously short attention spans. They also have very few resources from which to draw to know how to effectively and calmly express their emotions. The result? A little person with unpredictable moods and unstable actions.
Distraction is simple, really. [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous on Oct 19th, 2009
Browsing at a store the other day, I was treated to a loud conversation between a mother and her tween daughter. “Shut up and hold still!” I heard several times from the mom as the daughter tried to scoot out of her reach. The disrespect and frank hostility dripping from the mom’s voice raised my [...]
Posted in Giveaways!, Guest Bloggers on Aug 11th, 2009
The following is an excerpt from a new book by Scott Haltzman, M.D., with Theresa Foy Digeronimo, entitled The Secrets of Happy Families: Eight Keys to Building a Lifetime of Connection and Contentment. The two are also the authors of the highly successful The Secrets of Happily Married Men and The Secrets of Happily Married [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous on Jul 27th, 2009
It has come to my attention that I am perceived to be the author of mushy tributes to my kids.
Funny enough, I was thinking the exact same thing a couple days before I read Ron Doyle’s description of my blog, which happens to be one of the winners of his Ripe Tomato Award for Blogging [...]
Posted in Parenting methods on Jun 15th, 2009
I’m reading an article about the benefits of helicopter parenting published in the Boston Globe a few months ago. The author, Don Aucoin says,
…a quiet reappraisal of helicopter parents is underway. Some researchers have begun to argue that late adolescence and young adulthood are such minefields today – emotional, social, sexual, logistical, psychological – that [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous on Jun 10th, 2009
Today was one of those crazy, squabble-and-tattle-every-five-minutes days. You know, the kind that make you want to jump on the quickest flight to Maui and that actually do make you mutter “Serenity now!” every so often, in the manner of Frank Costanza. (And, as with Frank Costanza, it doesn’t work anyway.)
This afternoon, the girls were [...]
Posted in Brags, Humor, Miscellaneous on May 7th, 2009
Logan and I arrived early at the K-5 spring concert yesterday afternoon, a rarity for me, who is always running 5 minutes behind.
We stood in the doorway looking for the kids’ grandma. She found us before we even saw her.
“I was looking for you in the bleachers,” she told me.
I gave her a quizzical look. [...]
Posted in Humor on May 6th, 2009
How many times a day do you find yourself saying the following (or at least feeling like it’s daily)?
* No more tattling.
* Eat your food.
* Don’t hit your brother/sister.
* Pick up your socks/shoes/backpack/coat/toys.
* Wash your hands.
* Stop tattling. You know I hate tattling.
* Get back in bed.
* Just try one bite.
* No, you can’t have [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous on Jan 2nd, 2009
You know, it’s sort of weird that we get it in our heads that starting a new year gives us a “fresh start,” a “clean slate,” when really we can create these things any time of the year that we want.
Having said that, I’m among the millions who think of the new year as a [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous on May 1st, 2008
Possibly against my better judgment, I agreed to join a blog-a-thon for the month of May. Michelle Rafter, a fellow freelance writer and member of the writer’s group I belong to, decided to start the blog-a-thon in honor of a big birthday she’s having this month and she asked her colleagues to join her. This [...]
