Growing Up

This morning as I walked my neighborhood there was a definite crispness of fall in the air. While I happily welcome the cooler temperatures, as the newly fallen leaves crunched under my feet I couldn't help but feel a little melancholy over the change of seasons and the impending holiday celebrations. Don't get me wrong, I really love Christmas. We celebrate the holiday season to the fullest extent. Tree, lights, stockings, cookies; I try to never miss a holiday tradition. The squeals of excitement from my children on Christmas morning, the twinkling of holiday lights and the crooning of Bing Crosby makes my heart happy for a few weeks each year. But the arrival (and completion) of Christmas, for...

I have come to the conclusion after lots of scientific research (read: talking to my husband and his friends) that men are not like women. This is a shocking revelation. With that being said, men apparently don't love being called skinny. If I ever tell my husband that he's starting to look slender, he drops and gives me fifty and my son is starting to follow suit. My son is a little guy. He always has been. He's been long and lean since he outgrew that itty-bitty baby chub and became a walking toddler. Now that's he's six years old, of course he's a lot more vocal and so are others. It's always bothered me whenever someone would say something...

Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas is here! Our tree is up, our boys (5 and 3) already got an early Christmas present (a new outdoor play set) and they're watching Christmas movies. The season is all around. And now, at least for families like mine, comes the seasonal question that I must decide upon: should we play Santa or not? Ours is a blended family, and when I first met my husband and his sons from a previous marriage, they believed in Santa Claus. And me, being simply the girlfriend at the time, played right along. Even after we got married, I continued to play Santa. After all, at least in my experience, stepparents don't exactly get a say on ending...

Are you a Helicopter Parent? You just might be raising a Boomerang Kid. If I may, could I please offer you some unsolicited advice? I'd love to tell you the kind of young adult your child will grow up to be. I have seen the outcome of your hovering-style of parenting. I spent almost nine years professionally mentoring hundreds of students at LSU. I had about 60 students directly reporting to me for those years, and I've come to learn a few things about them. Before you brush this off as a bashing article, hold your horses. There are both good and bad I see in this generation. I understand how you want better for your children than you had for yourself. But...

If you're a parent you know the lingo. You know, that weird language where we stop mid-sentence to spell choice words we don't want our children to understand. Over the past few years my husband and I have gotten so proficient at speaking this code that we can even understand the context of a conversation by just spelling the first few letters of a word. With a four-(almost five)year-old in our home the glorious time when we can still utilize this special language in our daily interactions is quickly drawing to a close (insert spelled expletive here). This year as my daughter soaks up knowledge daily in pre-k, she's quickly acquiring the skills needed to decode our parent spelling language,...