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Controlled Chaos
Forget Dr. Spock. Forget Madeline Levine. My new parenting guru is Bob Bowman. For those of you not following the London 2012 Summer Olympics, Bob Bowman is Michael Phelps’ coach. Bowman has been...
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Freaky Friday
This is a five-minute segment of texts from this past Friday night: 9:25:What time am I picking you up? 9:27:?? 9:28:Why aren’t you picking up your phone???? 9:30:Where are you? Couple those texts with...
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Decisions, Decisions
I need your opinion. Am I a bad mom if I let my son go to a party? A party where it was likely that some kids would be drinking alcohol and that I could only guess would eventually be broken up by the...
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Parenting Disconnect
Of all the things that I thought I would need to teach my children, using a payphone never broke the top 500. Why would I need to teach them to use a payphone? Doesn’t the phone have instructions...
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Bathroom Humor
I’m writing this from my bathroom. No, I’m not actually using the bathroom–I’m hiding. It’s the only place in my house that I know that none of my boys (my husband included) will enter for fear that I...
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Oh, Christmas Tree!
It is January 22 and our Christmas tree is still in our living room. Although it is no longer standing (my husband laid it on its side yesterday – I think he thought he was hiding it from me) it has...
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Running Bases
“I started my friend on a run today,” my 12-year-old told me as we made our way past the deli section at our neighborhood grocery store. “A run?” I asked. “What do you mean?” “With a girl he likes,” he...
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Happy Birthday to Me?
Yesterday was my older son’s 17th birthday and I spent the day shopping…for me. I hadn’t picked out a gift for my son yet and yes, it was on my mind as I lunched with a couple of friends and meandered...
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Go Away*
“I can’t wait to go to college!” my 17-year-old proclaimed. Finally, I thought. I was so excited that I completely ignored the fact that he finished the sentence with: “…so I can get away from YOU!”...
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Parenting is Like Your Senior Year in High School
Do you remember suffering from senioritis as a student: those final weeks when you couldn’t wait for high school/college/grad school to end so you could get on with the rest of your life? I think I’m...
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I Left My Baby On a Train!
Ok, I didn’t actually leave my baby on a train. It was my 13-year-old and I didn’t leave him anywhere; I put him on a commuter train heading for the safety of camp in the northern suburbs of Chicago....
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It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
No, it’s not Christmas, it’s back-to-school time!! I have always loved back-to-school time but as I’ve gotten older my reasons for loving it have changed. When I was a kid I loved shopping for supplies...
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Big News!
I have some really exciting news – and, no, I am NOT pregnant. That certainly would be “news” but not exactly the “exciting” kind. No, today I was launched as a blogger for Manilla – an on-line,...
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Managed Expectations
I just returned from a four-day tour of colleges with my son and aside from my scratched cornea and a cough that has forced me to sleep upright on my living room couch, we got nothing out of it. I had...
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Size Doesn’t Matter
My younger son’s soccer team won a tournament this weekend and someone sent me a congratulatory email that read: “It shows that size really isn’t as important as determination and hard work…” I didn’t...
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On Your Mark, Get Set, Celebrate
I am one half of an inter-faith couple—the lapsed Greek-Orthodox Christian half, while my husband makes up the Jewish half. What does that mean? It means that December is a very long month. We...
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The Procrastinator’s Guide to Holiday Shopping (or what not to do if you...
No matter how much I think I have my sh*t together I always find myself scrambling for the “perfect Christmas gift” on December 24. It’s not like Christmas falls on a different date every year or that...
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Surviving the Holidays…with Teens
Do you have teenagers? Are they sucking the joy out of the season? Are you looking for a way to manage their moods that doesn’t involve boycotting the holidays?? I may have the answer (or at least the...
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Teaching Kids About Relationships (or How to Avoid Talking Directly About Sex)
I didn’t realize that conversations about the birds and the bees would continue long after my initial “this is how babies are made and no, it’s nothing like a chicken” talk that I had with my kids. I...
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Dear College Admissions Officers
Dear College Admissions Officers- Don’t worry, I’m not trying to make a plea for my kid to get into your school. I am submitting an application for you to complete for my consideration of your school....
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