Modern Parents Messy Kids

The best ideas on how to raise engaged kids, organize your life, and create a stylish home.

Parenting Styles: The One With The Puking Kid

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You know it’s going to be an eventful day when your five year old wakes up puking. And maybe it’s just me, but by kid number three, we're long past stripping the sheets when one of them tosses his cookies all over the bed. Now, we clean up the crying kiddo, lay down a few towels and wait. Because there’s always more to come, right? Also, I take out my contacts before bed and I’m legally blind when I’m stumbling around at night. I may not be so willing to throw down a towel and call it … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: The Kid Who Doesn’t Eat

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  The other night at dinner – and I don’t need to tell you about all the work that goes into planning, preparing and serving dinner for six, let alone the legwork involved in actually getting all six people to sit down in one spot at the same time – our two-year-old took one look at her bowl of some shredded-chicken-and-quinoa dish and slapped the entire thing onto the bench, where it fell to the floor. Cue… absolute silence. The three older kids were wide-eyed, forks halfway to … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: Taking a 2-Year-Old on a 9 Hour Road Trip to Disneyland

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  Fun fact – our two oldest kids have the same April birthday. Our son was two weeks early, and two years later, his new little sister was a week early. So far, the dual birthday party thing has worked out, but now they’re ten and eight, and I think that window is coming to a close. So this year, we decided to surprise them with a trip to Disneyland instead of a party. My husband and I were extra secretive about our internet research, ferreting out bargains on three-day hopper passes … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: I’m NOT Teaching My Kid to Have Grit… And It’s Totally Fine

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Our five-year-old locked himself in the bathroom at the neighborhood coffee shop a few months ago, and now we're dealing with the fallout. At the start of the school year, I fell into the habit of a latte and a chat with a few other moms before the 3:30 pm chaos, so we hit this place up regularly. It’s not every single school day, but we’re there enough that the baristas all know me by name and drink order – and my husband has pointed out more than once that an espresso machine would be a lot … [Read more...]

Mom Rant: Stop Calling Your Husband Your Biggest Kid

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I'm so interested to know how you guys feel about Jessica's post today- she certainly has some strong opinions! Do you agree? Not agree? Does the whole thing just make you smirk? Stop by our facebook or instagram pages and let me know... I saw something on Pinterest the other day, one of those e-cards or memes or whatever that had a picture of a goofy guy in his 30s giving a thumbs up and the caption, “Your husband will always be your biggest and oldest child that requires the most … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: We Took Our Two-Year-Old to the Movies

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Happy New Year guys!  And what better way to start off the year than with a parenting story we can all relate to? I really enjoyed Jessica's tale of trying her hardest to accomplish a family night out at the movies with a 2-year-old... and I could feel her pain. We tried this ourselves recently with the movie Moana and had success for what, I think, might be five critical differences: We didn't pick a movie that lasted for two and a half hours. We picked a very kid-friendly … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: The Truth about the Elf on the Shelf

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Image Credit: © Jon DeJong | The Elf is Shelved | CC by 2.0 I watched my son lose a little bit of his childhood the other day, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. Two years ago – maybe three – we caved to the elf on the shelf hysteria, primarily because our kids were bewildered and a little hurt that no elves invaded our house come Christmas time to spy and create mischief. Fine. Bring on the elf, even though I find the whole idea a little creepy and I have a real aversion … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: How We Accidentally Became a No-Devices-For-Kids House

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My husband and I did something capital C crazy a few weeks ago, completely on a whim. No parental strategy, no thoughtful discussion weighing pros and cons. Nope, he just made a passing comment about how our kids’ screen time on their various mobile devices – a few hand-me-down iPhones and a Kindle received as a Christmas gift last year – drove him up the wall, and I agreed. So we rounded everything up and stashed them all away. It’s crazy to me that taking away mobile devices is a crazy … [Read more...]

Parenting Styles: Competitive Sports for Kids? Not in Our House.

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Ah, kids and sports- who knew before becoming a parent they could become so all-consuming so early on?! If there's one thing I've learned, though, it's that there are flexible options to be found. For example, in the spring we are all in with Little League- my second grader will have 90 minute practices twice a week along with a game every Saturday that will take up several hours. Because I know this is coming, I like to keep a lighter schedule the rest of the year. That means we look … [Read more...]