Stealing from Barney

Is Barney still on television today? Thankfully, the purple dinosaur was not popular in our house when my kids were younger. Yet, while the show annoyed some parents on oh so many levels, many of us still felt free to steal from it.
You know who you are. When you couldn’t get your kids to start [...]

First Words

It is with great embarrassment that I confess that my daughter’s first word was “mall.” This was shortly followed by “shoes.” I don’t even want to think about what this must say about me. Ironically, it says little about her.
Anyone who knows my daughter knows that fashion is of no concern to her. Her only [...]

Your husband does that?!

I was recently at an evening work event where a woman said to me, “Your husband agreed to put the kids to bed?”
I’d like to say that I was shocked that anyone would ask such a question, but I’m not. The vast majority of couples I know with children are living an updated version of [...]

Parental One-Upmanship

They’re innocent enough questions—When did she walk? When did he say his first word? But what we parents really are asking is how does my child measure up? And when our kids seem to do something earlier than other children, we internally gloat that this is a sure sign of future brilliance. Nobody will own [...]