As mothers we spend a lot of our time shielding our kids from the harsh realities of the world until they are ready to face them. School shootings, dead three-year-old Syrian refugees, teens who overdoes on heroine, missing commercial airliners – the list of frightening things that our children can be exposed to is overwhelming. […] Read more…
My younger brother was married last week in a very hippie hipster affair. I haven’t been surrounded by that many childless twenty and thirty-year-olds since I myself was childless and way hipper. And I thought I was still cool until I opened my mouth and started talking. It didn’t take me long to realize that […] Read more…
We all know our children do what they see us do, not what we tell them to do. And usually I think about all the terrible things I do that my kids are probably picking up on and storing away to try out themselves at some point – like my nightly glass of wine, or […] Read more…
I’ve been feeling as if I’ve been losing my mind lately. And not in the awesome late eighties Prince “let’s go crazy” kind if way but the Julianne Moore “Still Alice” scary version. I went to see my doctor about this a year or so ago. Because not only am I losing my mind but […] Read more…
Friday night at the Corning household means a lazy night kicking it with my husband and my seven and nine year old sons. It is Nirvana. It is what I look forward to all work week. So this Friday when my sons both lobbied hard for a sleep-over at neighbor’s I was, well, totally freaking bummed. Which kind […] Read more…
This is what my husband texted to me when my seven-year-old came home with his graded project. To be fair, it took a village. I spent a weekend researching online with my son the sorts of projects that he’d not only be interested in but didn’t involve too much complexity, then spent a day running […] Read more…
I am the only estrogen in my house. I have two sons, a husband, and two male rescue dogs. I’ve always prided myself that I am a good “boy mom.” This, in the stereotypical sense, means I can handle video games, sports, and dirt. This illusion came crashing down last summer when I showed my […] Read more…
I am very anti this whole “working mom vs. stay at home mom” conspiracy. And when I meet the mean eighth-grade-girl who thought it up I’m going to thank her for single-handedly setting women back about a century. And by thanking I mean slapping. But as much as I like joining hands with my stay-at-home-sistas I have to […] Read more…
Let me just get this out of the way: I am a gigantic, unabashed, unapologetic Joan River’s fan. Any woman who has so much trouble keeping her mouth shut and saying the right thing that she decided to make a successful career out of it deserves undying devotion. But as amazing a comedic talent as […] Read more…
4th Grade was a tough year for me. Seriously. Sadly, it started out as THE BEST YEAR EVER! I went to catholic school and for those of you who have attended a fine parochial institution you know that any year you get a “lay teacher” (meaning not a nun) you felt pretty darned lucky. My fourth grade teacher […] Read more…