How NOT To Drive to Los Angeles

Do any of you other married people have a random, sensitive topic you never bring up because you and your partner once had a huge fight about it and that weird fight came to symbolize all the ways you and your partner don’t see eye to eye? Yeah, me too. Only, it pertains to my […]

Valentine’s Day Elephants

While I realize my recent blogging break is making me slow on the draw here, I still wanted to give my husband John props for planning a fun Valentine’s Day activity. All by himself, he reserved us a couple of spots at this place called “The Painted Cork,” where you paint something (elephants, in our […]

What Kind Of Parent Are You?

Before I had kids, I knew exactly what kind of parent I would be. I’d be the kind who: Makes their kid wonderful meals from scratch and teaches them to love eating healthy sophisticated foods, and Reasonably explains why screaming in public is a bad idea and therefore has super well-behaved kids in public. And […]

The Adventures of Catfish, The Poop Goblin

My three-year-old daughter Bridget has been blaming all of her problems on Catfish lately, even though he’s her favorite stuffed animal. He’s a Siamese-looking cat with a fish on his collar. She snuggles up to him every night even though he keeps wetting her bed. And I was already having a rough day the other […]

Back in The Game

My husband John likes to say the problem with not showing up is that it gets harder and harder to show up the longer you go without showing up. He’s referring to cutting classes whenever he says this, since that was one of his youthful follies and he apparently never used my trick of establishing […]

Because English is Hard

The other day at breakfast, I was handing my five-year-old some toast… Me: Here, eat some jam and bread like your ancestors. Brontë: What are my “ancestors?” Me: Well… okay, you know how I’m your mom and my mom is your grandma? Brontë: Yeah. Me: Her mom is your great-grandma, right? And her mom was […]

A Fresh Perspective

As we were passing a man with dwarfism the other day, my five-year-old daughter Brontë leaned in to tell me: “Mom, that man kind of looks like a kid.” I went pink, silently praying he didn’t overhear her, yet not wanting to apologize (in case he didn’t). And while considering how to explain why saying […]

Judgey Cakes and Baby Angst

Upon finding out that Halloween is soon and she could eat all the chocolate she wants, my Viking baby Bridget made this face: Because she loves spooky stuff (Jack Skellington is her personal hero) and really, really likes chocolate. This was welcome news, because Bridget has been on a real tear lately. Having lots of […]

My Weird Theory About The Men On Game of Thrones (Spoilers)

Today, I’d like to take a break from our regularly scheduled program to talk about a wildly inappropriate TV show. (Because 8 PM is when the kids go to bed and all the zombies come out.) See, one of my blogging buddies writes great posts about Game of Thrones at I Can’t Possibly be Wrong All the […]

Sharks, Santa, and Farting Bear Ghosts…

So lately, my three-year-old daughter Bridget keeps getting attacked… Just the other day, she was drinking a glass of water when out of nowhere she shrieked and threw the cup down: “SHARKS in my cup!” Bridget doesn’t always speak clearly, so I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right. “There are sharks in your cup?” […]