Every year around this time I go through a pretty big decluttering/simplifying stage. And every year my life becomes a tiny bit more manageable. I believe simplifying and streamlining and minimizing is a gradual process for many of us. You can’t slam on the brakes. You’ve gotta slow down gradually. This overwhelming desire to cut […]
Archives for August 2017
I Did Not Require My Kids To Read This Summer, And I Never Will
The other day a friend of mine acknowledged in a closed Facebook group for the middle school that she had not required her child to read this summer, and she described herself as an “awful mom,” and she wanted to know what the consequence was for this failure to force her kid to read over […]
I Am Not Watching The Eclipse With My Kids
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple weeks, you know that there’s going to be an eclipse tomorrow (Monday, August 21, 2017) in North America. Here in CT, we will not achieve “totality.” The sun will be approximately 67% obscured at the height of the eclipse. I get that this is […]
Because Nobody Wins In A Power Struggle
Number 6 is currently my most challenging child. He is defiant, and he says no, and in a power struggle, he often comes out on top. It’s easy to get sucked into a power struggle without realizing it’s even happened. It took a number of them over the last couple days to snap me out […]
20 Things Good Moms Do
I get a couple emails or messages every week from women and moms in particular thanking me for “keeping it real” and for making them “feel normal.” It’s one of the reasons I started this blog. Because when I was in the thick of parenting and we had five kids under the age of eight […]
They Done Good
One of the challenges of being a swimmer is that swimming is not a seasonal sport. It’s a year-round, full-time commitment once you really decide to commit. The year is broken into two main seasons (in the Northeast, anyway). September through March is known as short course season. That’s because all meets are held in […]