By Kelly I set my squirming, squealing 17-month-old daughter into the bathtub last night, then ducked around the corner to grab a towel and washcloth out of the cabinet. Her rage was immediate and deafening. I apparently didn’t have permission to leave her side – to split atoms, as it were. In her mind, we…
She Wanted Something Called “Honnook?”
By Megan My big kid’s growin’ up way faster than it ever occured to me she would, y’all. I think what brings it all home for me lately is watching my littler kid come into himself, as it were. He’s all laughter and mirth, my funny boy, full of mischief and chatty as the day…
Warning to cute bullies
By Melodee At our private pool the other day, six-year old Grace asked me for $1.50 to buy a snack from the vending machine. She likes the process of choosing a snack and putting in the money more than eating the snack. Feeling generous, I gave her the dollar bill and two quarters. She was…
A Comfortable Place to Be
By Cassie I used to get lost when Aiden would go to his dad’s for the weekend. I would spend the weekend drinking with friends, shopping, and spending way more money than I ever needed to. I hated being home. The silence that filled the house drove me crazy. Knowing that he wasn’t going to…
A Dose of Humor – And He’s S’posed to be the Gentle One.
5 Minutes for Parenting’s weekly column, A Dose of Humor, is here to remind you to take your humor pill regularly as the best medicine to treat the side effects of parenting! It features a different blogger every week and is hosted by Rachel at Grasping for Objectivity in My Subjective Life. Now you can…
Veruca Salt And Light
By Beck The Baby just returned from a walk with her Papa and my cousin Ben, chocolate bar in hand. It is 10:30 in the morning. “You bought her a chocolate bar?” I asked my dad, a bit incredulously. “I had to,” he said. “She cried about it.” “Yep,” said The Baby, happily eating her…
Soccer Mom
By Kelly I earned a new badge today. I am now, officially, a soccer mom. My five-year-old son started practicing with a bunch of fellow pre-kindergarteners this morning. I don’t know who was more excited, him or me. Because this isn’t just his first venture into team sports – it’s also mine. The way my…
A Little Girl Prays for Iran
By Veronica I was sitting at the computer, looking at pictures of the election protests in Iran. My four-year-old daughter was up past her bedtime, due to a late nap. She saw the photos on the screen and clambered into my lap. “What’s that picture of, Mommy?” “That is a picture of people in a…
Heaven Can Wait. (Spongebob Saves the Day.)
By Megan Bean and I sat over lunch the other day and I coaxed her to eat her carrots the same way I always do: Make sure you eat all those carrots, they’ll help you grow up big and strong. “Will I be bigger than YOU if I eat my carrots?” “Well, not immediately bigger…
Yes, I noticed your passive-aggressive jab, perfect stranger
By Gretchen The zoo is the Roman Coliseum of mothering, where strollers are skillfully jockeyed for prime penguin viewing spots and picnic lunches are compared. We go a lot. A family membership pays for itself in one visit when you have seven children, so I think of our local zoo as an elaborate park. There…