Domestic Engineering, Humor

At Least I Buy Fresh Fruit…

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I’ve never thought of myself as a domestic diva, but I think I’m at least a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, between
“Barely Knows How To Boil Water” and “While Homemade Bread is Baking In Perfectly Cleaned Oven, She Hand-Paints Her Own Gift Wrap And Coordinating Tags On A Table She’s Refinished All By
Herself.”  I mean I did major in journalism and Home Economics. I was in 4-H for six years as a teenager, sewing and cooking …

Kids and school, Raising Girls, Raising Teenagers

The Passing Period: More Like A Passing Dash

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When parents have a bone to pick with a teacher or a school, it’s definitely a whole different ballgame than
everyday consumer complaints. Many things race through your head when trying to decide if you should speak out or not. Will the teacher take it out on my child in the classroom if I complain? Will
my complaint really make a difference? Will they laugh at me after I leave? You know there are those parents who are in the principal’s …

Being a Better Parent

Ordinary Family

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Just watched a sneak preview of the new ABC TV show, No Ordinary Family, about a family who discovers they each
have a superpower after surviving a plane crash. And I must say, while I know a lot of people are into superheroes these days, I thought the best parts of the show were the ordinary moments. The
moments that people can relate to, where they can say, yeah, I know someone like that, or wow, they act just like my …

Humor, Kids and school

Form Fatigue

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Are other parents with school-aged kids feeling the crush of back-to-school paperwork this year, or is it just
me? That was the question on my mind last Thursday afternoon when I got an email asking me to fill out what seemed like the 50th  (or was it the 60th) “form” I’ve had to
fill out since the start of school. I put the question to Barb, a mother of two, ages 10 and 13, who was at the elementary school that …

Being a Better Parent, Humor, Raising Teenagers

Communication Breakdown? Start Writing…

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I’ve been thinking that the joke about “people texting each other inside the same house” might not be such a
bad idea. Or carrying around a white board. Or sticking notes in lunch bags. According to a study released last week from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1 in 5 teens now has at
least a slight hearing loss, due possibly to iPod volume. The study, conducted with almost 5,000 kids, showed slight hearing loss increasing in the past 15 years, …

Raising Teenagers

Table for Five

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I’ve written about surprises before—how parents of teens are often faced with “surprise” dilemmas, constantly having to make judgment calls about things they’ve never experienced before. The first
few days with our 16-year-old foreign exchange student, Cleo, have been filled with surprises, too—only the good kind. Gifts? Yes, she brought …

Travel With Kids, Uncool Parent Hall of Fame

Road Trippin’

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Just got back from taking the kids (and the dog) on our annual summer road trip to Grandma’s (a 26-hour round trip) and while there, we
decided to rent a movie and teach Grandma how to use her DVD player. It’s hard to find a movie on which an 86-year-old, a 15-year-old, an 11-year-old and two 40-something parents
can agree, but at Allison’s suggestion we chose “RV”, a 2006 family road trip movie starring Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, Kristin Chenowith, …