Little kids have weird - sometimes super gross - habits, and any parent will tell you so. A lot of them are pretty standard. At one point or another over the last eleven years, I’ve asked my kids to please stop biting that toenail, or to get their finger out of their nose and use a tissue, or to stop sucking on the collar of that shirt or that chunk of hair. But over the last six months or so, I’ve repeatedly asked our almost four-year-old to stop twirling. Sounds like no big deal, right? But … [Read more...]
When You’re the Last One Standing – Part Two
The drama continues, you guys. For a household that’s pretty low-key - even with the hustle that’s just part of the package with four busy kids - we have been craaaaazy for close to a month now. We’ve been up all night, skipping school, racing to the ER, the pediatrician, the after-hours pediatric clinic, the pharmacy. And the drugs! Liquids, pills, steroids, inhalers, I mean, you name it. Because that’s what happens when your family is ridden with, in order: walking pneumonia a … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: When You’re the Last One Standing
We’ve been hammered around here lately - pneumonia, a broken arm, miserable weather and the start of our kids’ insane new sports schedule. As we all know, moms aren’t allowed to get sick, or maybe my obsessive hand-washing and frantic hand waving gestures whenever someone coughed their infectious germs right in my face actually did the trick. Whatever the reason, I got stuck running this pneumonia-and-broken-bone-ridden show solo, after my poor husband wound up sicker than he’s been probably … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: Better Than Me
Image Credit: © Alton Jefferson II | Horse Stance | CC by 2.0 My kiddos are suddenly old enough to be better than me in certain things, and I’m as humbled about it as I am impressed. I’m not particularly competitive with my children, but as I sat watching my daughter at her martial arts test a few weeks ago, I realized that there is no way I could do what she’s doing. She’s eight. And she’s on the small side for an eight year old. But her Thai kicks are insanely high, her punches are … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: The Cavity Club
With four kids, the chances that we’d escape childhood with no cavities were pretty slim, right? Still, I admit it, I was getting a little smug. After visits to the dentist every six months for the last five or six years with no trouble at all, I kind of thought we had the tooth thing dialed. I mean, we’re religious about brushing and flossing in the morning, and we do get a little lazy as the day drags on, but they brush and floss more often than not at night. Still, I thought their … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: Kindergarten Intervention
Sounds ominous, right? With our third kiddo in kindergarten this year, we’re old hands at the parent-teacher conference. But this year, after the usual awesome conferences for our oldest two, we heard something we’d never heard before. “We’re lucky this year to have intervention at the kindergarten level, and I hope you’ll be open to letting B participate,” his teacher said matter-of-factly. For a second, I really floundered as I considered what exactly they were intervening in. Refusing … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: When Kids Call Your Bluff
Sometimes, in my weaker moments, when my three year old (the one going on, like, sixteen) decides now is the time to assert her three feet of independence, I bluff. The trouble is, it’s starting to backfire. Here’s a recent example. “Okay, ready to go? We have to go pick up your bothers and sister at school!” This is an exciting event ninety percent of the time, and she usually hustles to grab shoes and whatever miscellaneous items must accompany her - and there are a lot - but lately, … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: When Kindergarten Nerves Become Kindergarten Anxiety
On the first, second and third days of kindergarten, my just-turned-six-year-old was a champ. He marched right on in and emerged six hours later, triumphantly on day one, and then a little more wearily as the days passed. Then, on Thursday morning, as we waited for the bell to ring, his sister whacked him straight in the face with the tetherball. And the floodgates opened. “I don’t want to go to school,” he sobbed, wrapping his arms around my thighs. “I miss you too much, and it’s too … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: Outgrowing the Tooth Fairy
Our oldest son lost his first tooth the day he turned six. Four years later, I still remember so clearly how that little tooth, so white and tiny, caused such a whirlwind of excitement and emotion. Our son was a mixed bag of thrilled and surprised, flashing his gap-toothed smile around and then asking a little worriedly, “Do other things fall out like this?” His little sister was in absolute awe, tugging his arm and peering into his mouth and sighing about how she couldn’t wait until her … [Read more...]