We’ve been taking a hard look at our finances lately, in order to try and make sense of just where it is all of our money goes each month. By far our largest expenses are the mortgage, childcare, and savings, but there’s also some big-ticket debits being filed into the Automotive section (car payment, gas) and holy COW do we ever spend a lot of cash on groceries.

It’s important to us to be pretty aggressive with our savings, for our kids’ sake (college) as well as our own (wanting to retire before we drop dead, enfeebled and palsied) — so reducing savings isn’t an option. It’s important to me to keep working, for many reasons too numerous to detail here, so eliminating daycare isn’t an option. Everything else, though, is up for consideration, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what expenses I consider to be mission-critical. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time, we talked about books for the kids to read this summer.  My plan, when I have fewer demanding teeny-sized children, is to have all of us doing our reading together, at the same time, the house quiet except for the turning of pages.  Blissful little fantasy, yes?  I’m pretending it wouldn’t be broken by two of the children making each other laugh giddily and another child springing up saying “I JUST NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!!” and another child asking “What does this word say?  What does THIS word say?  What does THIS word say?”

What I look for in a book for myself is something light enough for me to manage it on half-power and in 5-minute reading sessions, but not so light I gag and roll my eyes and feel like the writer thinks women are only interested in brand-name shoes, exceptionally good-looking men who are also tender and selfless, and the “because I deserve to spoil myself!” concept.  I don’t want to see the whole plot stretching before me by the end of the first chapter, and I don’t want a love interest so perfect he’s clearly fake.  I don’t want a lead female character who spends too many paragraphs discussing her weight/shoes, and I don’t want her to be in the fashion/publishing industry because ENOUGH ALREADY with those. Read the rest of this entry »

I covered the topic of must-have baby items a while back (as well as the must-avoids), but I’ve been thinking about the topic again lately since we have friends who are expecting their first child. I put together a box of outgrown (but clean and cute) infant clothes for them, and am thinking ahead to a useful gift or two once the baby arrives. 

Now that I’ve been baby-wrangling my second child for the last five months, I actually have a different list of What Baby Products I Can’t Live Without than the list I posted back in January. Turns out babies are individuals! And what works best for one may not necessarily work for another one, even if they’re siblings! WHO KNEW. So take my new advice with a massive grain of salt, but here are my current suggestions for awesome baby products every new parent should consider: Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago when Rob had just finished first grade, his teacher sent home materials stating that children lose significant educational ground over the summer. I don’t remember how much ground exactly (waves hand dismissively in “who can keep track of these little details?” manner), but it was enough to impress me. The teacher said that having children read on their own for half an hour a day would keep this loss from occurring—a sort of “sow grass to decrease erosion” for the mind.

One reason I was glad to hear this is that I’d worried “telling children to read” would make reading seem like a chore to them. I’d worked up a nice full-figured fret about it, to the point that I didn’t even want to suggest they read a book, lest it turn them into Booky McHatersons later on in life. But now I had permission from a fully-qualified educator to institute Mother’s Dreadful Reading Hour our daily reading time. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t had the pleasure of hosting a party for children yet, and secretly I hope my own kids grow up preferring other celebratory activities on their birthdays because really, it doesn’t matter that the partygoers are only three feet tall, it’s still a PARTY and I would rather drink paint than throw one. 

I do, however, like to check out invitations. I love invitations, even when they aren’t addressed to me, and I particularly like creative ones with a personal touch. Check out some of these cute ideas for unique birthday party invites: Read the rest of this entry »

My firstborn, Rob, asked about the facts of life pretty early. He is sort of child we describe as “having an inquiring mind” (we save “OMG, he just BEATS ME DOWN with questions until I can’t stand it another SECOND and have to pretend I need to pee so I can hide in the bathroom for a few minutes!” for later, when he’s asleep) and so I did have to decide what he was ready to hear, but I didn’t have to decide when to bring it up.

My secondborn, Will, is less inquisitive. He is going into second grade next year, and it occurs to me that we haven’t had any kind of Talk yet. Rob knew the basic scoop by now, because of the asking and asking and ASKING, but I suspect Will would just as soon not discuss it.  That makes two of us.

I’m working from scratch here:  I need to decide when to tell Will, and I need to decide HOW.  For Rob, as I said, I started by answering his questions, a method which can be tricky:  it involves trying to figure out what they’re REALLY asking.  Is “the baby starts to grow in a special kind of tummy” a sufficient answer, or is he really asking HOW-how?  Is “in a special kind of tummy” sufficient, or is it time to bring out the word uterus?  And so on.  It’s a topic that doesn’t have one single correct answer for every family, or even necessarily for every child within a family.

When I felt Rob was ready for what I think of as The Basics (bringing out the real words and explaining some mechanics), I used Read the rest of this entry »

Every summer I buy a few new things for the kids to play with.  You will notice that the toys on my Summer Toy List are OUTDOOR toys.  I am sure this is just a coincidence.  Ahem.

My two older boys, ages 9 and 7, each have one of these Super Soaker Aquashock Sneak Attacks.  Evidently these are awesome, but I am only going on hearsay:  what do I know about water guns, other than that they take children OUT of the HOUSE?  We have one main rule about water guns:  even if they are called Sneak Attack, you may not Sneak Attack anyone who is not playing water guns.

The Backyard Safari Bug Vacuum is…a bug vacuum.  The child or children take it OUTSIDE with them, and they use it to suck up bugs. (The child or children can also be asked to suck up bugs that are inside the house.)  Then they can examine the still-living bugs in the little capture vial, which includes a magnifying lens.  When they are done freaking the bug out with their peering, they can release it unharmed.  We have one main rule about bug vacuums:  release the bug OUTSIDE.

Even knowing small boys as I do, and even with my husband Paul’s enthusiasm for the purchase, I was still unprepared for the amount of fun the Stomp Rocket is.  I was like, “Oh, I get it:  you stomp on it and the little nerfy rocket thingie pops up in the air. Wooo.”  But man, that thing LAUNCHES.  It goes so high, you can stand around and WAIT for it to come down.  We have one main rule about stomp rockets:  if they go over the fence or get stuck in a tree, please write down the location on this notepad and do not bother me about it until you’ve lost three.

What are your kids playing with this summer?  It is only just barely July, and I could use a couple more ideas.

It’s been a month since my baby had his first birthday, and it’s time to call the winners of the Best Birthday Present for a One-Year-Old competition.

First prize goes to the Fisher-Price Baby Gymtastics Bounce and Spin Zebra.  My parents gave this to Henry, and he lovvvvvvves it.  So do his 3-year-old siblings:  the twins are a little big for it, but can still play on it.  It spins Read the rest of this entry »

I recently discovered that my 3-year-old LOVES having tea parties. His play is an uncomplicated exercise that basically involves repeatedly pouring out pretend tea for those in attendance, while asking over and over and over (AND OVER), “Want MORE?”. If these parties were based in reality, his stuffed animals would be long expired, their bladders having burst and their systems succumbed to electrolyte imbalance triggered by water intoxication — but as long as he’s not practicing for any upcoming fraternity hazing activities, I find the practice fairly charming. 

Well, for the first ten minutes, anyway. It tends to get a little old after that. Oh, did I mention that I am a Honored Invitee of these events? And that I am expected to say “YES PLEASE” over and over and over and over, while knocking back cup after cup of invisi-tea? Not only that, but I must supply the squeaky voices of the bears and so on, because they too would like some tea, MORE PLEASE!

Anyway! So: tea parties. We’ve been using random cups and things from around the house, but I’ve been considering the option of giving him his own tea set. I know, a tea set for a boy? WHY NOT JUST BUY HIM A BRA.

In poking around online, I came across a number of cute sets that aren’t too, well, girly. Not that there’s anything wrong with a boy using a girly tea set, mind you, but some are even too foofy for ME. In case you happen to be looking for your own Non-Floral Tea Set, here’s what I found: Read the rest of this entry »

I seem to be on a roll recently with disappointing purchases.  One person’s bad purchase can be another person’s good purchase, especially when the problem is with a purely subjective things such as scent or flavor, but it can still be helpful to know what someone else wouldn’t buy again.  I’ll tell you mine, and then you tell me yours and maybe I can get off this roll.

This one was totally my own fault:  I KNOW I don’t like fruit scents.  But I love Consumer Reports, and they rated the Gain Joyful Expressions fabric softener very highly, and Target only had it in Apple Mango Tango scent.  In the washing machine, it smells like apple cider.  After the clothes are dry, the scent reminds me of a faint lingering mildew smell.  It’s a great fabric softener, though, and someone who likes apple-scented stuff would probably love it.  Er, perhaps not after I’ve said it smells like mildew. Read the rest of this entry »