The house was too quiet. You really missed the commotion. The pile of laundry was half its normal size. The grocery bills were no longer helping finance the national debt. Sleep filled nights were the norm, not having to stay awake until the wee hours, waiting for them to return. Then, before you knew it, [...]
As I write this, the house is more quiet than usual. It’s naptime here which is the time of day when pace slows, the little ones sleep and everyone is quiet. Everyone, that is, except my two oldest daughters who get to play “quietly” together in their rooms while the rest of us nap. Today, [...]
One of the things about living here is we tend to wax poetically about all the simple joys of summer. We talk about spending time outside, enjoying the warm weather and smelling the summer flowers. We talk about taking bike rides and swimming for hours. It’s about this point in the summer season that I wonder where those [...]
“When I’m a mom, I’ll NEVER do that!” How many times did I shout that at my own mother? How often were those words indignantly flung from my young mouth over the outrageously cruel injustice* that was being imposed upon my former childhood self? Obviously, now that I am a mother of an 11 year [...]
It’s summer in Chicago and the festivals are in full swing. Before kids we were regulars at most of them and after kids, when they weren’t mobile yet, we went to a few after nap. Always early, always for just a few hours, always home by dinner. Now that they are 3 and 5, we [...]
I am a camp director by day. While some moms can relax at the beach and read a novel under the umbrella when school is out, when summertime comes I can have up to 300 kids a day at the beach and I go on High Alert each day when I punch in. Every summer I can pretty [...]
When I was in school, my least favorite subject was science. I attribute this to some really (really) bad science teachers. I had the unfortunate experience of being a student of three science teachers who were on the brink of retirement. As an example of how bad things were, my mom told one of these [...]
In Shrek Forever After, Shrek dreams about what it would be like to be a real ogre again. Every now and then, I wonder what it would be like to send my kids away and be all by myself for a week. It would be heavenly, right? It’s the end of “Taking a Break from [...]
I spent four hot, humid hours at the Pitchfork Music Festival on Friday with my two children, 5 and nearly 3. Going to concerts–especially summer music festivals–was a huge part of my teenage and young adult life, and I knew, even as a 16 year old indie rock girl, that I’d be one of the [...]
Living in the Chicago area most of my life and having spent more than a decade shuffling my brood around the city to festivals, cultural sites and tourist attractions, I don’t know how it is that I only discovered Loyola Park Beach this summer. It’s a short drive from my house and the beach is [...]
It happened. Without my asking (okay, nagging), my 13-year-old daughter wrote a thank you note. I may write her a thank you note! For years, I’ve insisted on personally-written cards whenever my kids received gifts from relatives and friends. I have no idea how much money I’ve spent on stationery and cards to give them [...]
Every parent of a two year old knows the power of no. Your here-to-fore sweet baby is suddenly full of negativity, and you swear if you hear just one more no, you’ll … well, I’ll let you fill in the blank. Back in the day, I belonged to a twins group and we had a [...]
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