Perspectives in Parenting

I absolutely love Elf on the Shelf and the Christmas magic it brings along. It’s so much fun as a mother to see the excitement every morning when they all run around together to see what they elves did over night. It is, of course, more on my plate as a mother to figure out what they will do and where they will be the next morning, but I also experience the magic of Christmas in doing so. I get so excited thinking about how much the kids will laugh or love what the elves are doing. I look forward to doing my nightly duty and love to find things to do and embrace my creativity. ALL the Possibilities The possibilities...

I have a confession to make. Gird your loins, y’all, because this is going to be unpopular. I hate Christmas. Despise, abhor, LOATHE. I am, essentially, THE Grinch. I’m not sure when the holiday season became a burden, but in the last few years it became abundantly clear to me that Christmastime was less than a holly, jolly season of joy for my three-sizes-too-small heart. I assume it has something to do with the fact that I am, and HAVE, SAD- seasonal affective disorder. At this time of year, my regular anxiety and depression is replaced by my “fancy Christmas anxiety” and depression. The time change is NOT my friend. The pressure to have a picture perfect, magazine worthy Christmas only compounds...

My son turned one at the end of August. We didn’t have the celebration we had imagined, but we did get to celebrate him and the fact that we made it through the first year. We had a small gathering, grandparents and godparents. It was lovely and exhausting.  In preparation for the party, I hung a “1st BDay” banner from our unadorned curtain rod...It’s still there. I see those gold, semi-inflated letters as a representation of all of the chores that I’ve left undone, all of the unchecked boxes on my to-do list. I also see it as the time I’ve gotten to spend with my son and on myself.  As a working mom, it is sometimes difficult to reconcile my son...

I whole-heartedly jumped in so many activities fearlessly in my childhood, teenage, and college years, even when I absolutely sucked at said activities. My mom cheered the first time I got a foul during my short basketball stint because I was actually on the court I was in the right place on the court for the first time to have a chance at even getting a foul Yet, I still proudly walked around with my status as a basketball player. I look back at my 18-year-old self and can learn a few things from her. I gave a speech called “Failure is an Option.” That girl knew that it was okay to try new things and fail. She knew failure was...

My three and five year old daughters have two favorite insults. “You Stink!” they’ll shout, when one does something the other doesn’t like. “Stink,” in this context, is a noun rather than a verb and can be interchanged with “little stink” as well. Adding “head” is reserved for more egregious actions and “poopy face” is the strongest insult of all. Our three year old knows how to push her sister’s buttons and will shout these names even when nothing has happened just to get a reaction out of big sis. Big sis’ reaction is always worth it—her face contorts into a mix of anger and horror, and you’d basically think little sis had called her a four letter word...