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It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen no matter how hard you want to fight it. Eventually your child will be old enough for kindergarten, and you’ll have to trust leaving them in the hands of strangers up to 8 hours a day. You can prepare yourself and your child, but truth is, when the big …

Read More about It Will Be Here Before You Know It. 5 Things Every Parent should Avoid On Their Child’s First Day Of Kindergarten.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard the story about the six year using her mom’s finger print to buy $250 worth of Pokémon paraphernalia off Amazon, right? A little Christmas gift to herself shall we say. It’s been making the rounds on Facebook via blog posts from several of the go to guys, and she’s …

Read More about Can We Please Stop Celebrating When Kids Do Bad Things?

“What did you throw away from your lunch today,” I ask my kids as a daily ritual when they get home from school. “I don’t like crackers anymore,” declares my daughter. “I only threw away the carrots and banana,” my son says, like it’s no big deal. This is a daily battle for us. Yes, …

Read More about Yes, I’m One Of Those Moms Who Makes Multiple Dinners…

One of the things I hate about social media is the number of people who try to co-parent my child without actually being in her life. I realize everyone means well, but just because your intentions are good doesn’t mean you’re not overstepping. My biggest issue? When people find out my daughter is a single-child. …

Read More about “So You Just Have The One?”

Remember when you were a kid and winter life was as simple as coming home from school, kicking off your shoes at the door, and plopping down for homework before dinner? Maybe some bike riding. Maybe some running around the street screaming with your friends. Maybe you’re a lot younger than me and for you …

Read More about Have You Ever Wondered Why People Push Cloves Into Oranges?

Raising a child is a darn frightening experience. Moms, have you even seen what those things look like coming out? Of course you haven’t. You’re up there enjoying your drugs and…I don’t know…iced coffee? I might be misremembering my children’s birth. I was really lightheaded during the first go-around. I don’t remember much but I …

Read More about 3 Creepy Things My Kids Have Done That Are NOT Okay!

Baby keep you up all night? Toddler refuse to walk faster than a glacier? Sometimes the best way to survive is knowing someone else is out there being tortured too. Here are twenty stories from the parenting trenches guaranteed to keep you sane for at least five more minutes. 20 Tweets From Hilarious Parents The anti-theft system …

Read More about 20 Tweets From Hilarious Parents

It’s like a daily issue where something, and I mean SOMETHING goes weird. Us moms just seem to have those moments where we can’t find our keys just magically find them in the refrigerator or we can’t remember if we turned off our curling iron before we left home. And those moments cause so much …

Read More about 8 Things Only Moms With Anxiety Truly Understand

I’m in my bed, in the middle of the afternoon, with my covers pulled over my head. My body is chilled from the inside out, and I can’t stop coughing that barky, rough cough that just sounds painful. It feels like somebody is running a feather duster up and down my raw throat, choking me and …

Read More about It F*cking Sucks When You’re Sick And Your Child Is Sick At The Same Time

It’s so easy to just go through the routine. “Great, Mother’s Day is today,” my husband thinks. “Better stop by Walgreens and pick up something quick and easy.” He rushes in and out, hardly even noticing what he has grabbed. It was in the appropriate aisle, so it will do. The kids begrudgingly get out …

Read More about 5 Things I Wish My Family Understood About Mother’s Day

This is such a painful subject that the conversation is often avoided and yet it occurs far more than most people realize. This is my story…I hope in some way it will help others in similar situations. I’ve given birth to 2 stillborn children: one at 7 1/2 months gestation and the other at 8, …

Read More about Stillbirths Are A Reality, And We Need To Talk About It…

You bring home this perfect, tiny, wrinkly human from the hospital, and you expect life to be easy. I mean, you know there will be sleepless nights, dirty bottles galore, and diapers that smell of toxic waste, but you’ve read all the books. You know how to raise this child. You got this! You’ve memorized …

Read More about 5 Things Moms Of Strong-Willed Children Know To Be True

My daughter is nine. When I say she’s nine, I mean she thinks she’s 25. She is one of the most stubborn people I have ever come across. She gets these ideas in her head, and there is no deterring her. She thinks she is in control of every aspect of her life, and it’s …

Read More about My Parents Were Right, But I’m Taking That To My Grave

I’ve just finished going to the bathroom. Okay, you got me, I was pooping. Let’s get real, we all do it. I go to wipe, and I’m greeted with an empty role of toilet paper on the holder attached to the bathroom wall. Just an empty tube of cardboard stares back at me. Not even …

Read More about Could Someone Please Tell My Family The Toilet Paper Fairy Doesn’t Exist?

In the last few years Santa Claus’ darker half, Krampus, has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The delightful half goat, half demon punishes where Santa Claus rewards. But he’s not the only other Christmas time folklore figure that kids can look forward to a visit from this holiday season. The History Of Krampus’s Gal-Pal, Frau …

Read More about The History Of Krampus’s Gal-Pal, Frau Perchta: The Belly-Slitter

When I was a little kid, my Christmases were fairly predictable. My brother and I would fall asleep on Christmas Eve somewhere after 1 AM (we were, of course, in bed by 9 PM but Christmas morning excitement is a hell of a drug). As soon as it was light enough to see, we’d bolt …

Read More about Remembering Christmases Past And Missing My Family…

I was young when my doctor told me I wouldn’t be able to conceive without help—medical help, I mean, not the usual two-to-tango type. It sucked, but infertility runs in my family and having drawn the short straw in my generation, at least I found out early. I had plenty of time to think about …

Read More about Christmas For Women Struggling With Fertility…

Now, it may not seem like a habit that requires professional help, but shopping in December can be just as overwhelming as last minute Thanksgiving day shopping. Every single store is jam-packed with annoying people like me and it is always a fight to get to the section you need to (especially if you’re a …

Read More about The Stress Of Being A Christmas Procrastinator…

I’ve watched as my own generation has struggled to make ends meet, and now my generation is incapable of instilling financial values in their offspring, as they’ve never learned to manage money themselves. Thirty percent of the people in my own inner circle, in fact, still live with their parents or their spouse’s parents. Ninety percent …

Read More about Financially Dependent: The Hand You Hold Is The Hand That Holds You Down

Yet another year has zipped on by, leaving us all in much the same position we were 365 days ago:  wondering if it’s technically a “regift” if you only touched the packaging twice, hovering over our bank balance like a hawk, and dreading the inevitable racist comments from Grandma.  But we tolerate it, because the …

Read More about A Tactical Guide to Surviving the Holidays

Our daughter is a high functioning Autistic daughter. Our son isn’t. Neither are what you’d call social butterflies. We don’t go to a lot of parks, because parks mean people and a high likelihood that we’re all just going to sit on a bench watching other kids play. Not all that much fun for any …

Read More about The Time I Fought Against A Woman Carrying A Gun In The Park By Playing ‘Barbie Girl’…

October is here, and with the crisp weather and the promise of Halloween on the wind comes the traditional horror movie marathons. We watch in giddy anticipation of the hapless hero stumbling upon a murder in progress. Then we yell at the screen when they idiotically run upstairs instead of outside to the already running …

Read More about 3 Everyday Horrors That Will Never Get Their Own Movie

I suppose I’d always imagined that if I ever made a late night trip to purchase a humidifier it would be as a last ditch effort to comfort a sick kid. As I pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot at 10:45 PM I realized I was half right. But the sick kid was my husband. …

Read More about My Husband Isn’t a Baby When He’s Sick. He’s In Denial.

Halloween is almost here. Kids are anticipating the coming sugar binge. Devil worshiping teenagers are stocking up on black cats. The inflatable décor industry, or Big Tacky, is getting a huge economic boost. Scary movies are on TV. And Christians have something else for a month to complain about. You may ask, “But Nik, you …

Read More about Why I Love Jesus And Worship The Devil

Kids suck. I get it. If you’re lucky you might only have to yell at them to get off your lawn once or twice a year. But when October 31st rolls around all the neighborhood ragamuffins have been given carte blanche to roam as they please, trodding across your carefully cultivated fescue. The worst part …

Read More about 6 Tips For Halloween Humbug Homeowners

Throughout decades of fighting for equal rights, women of the United States have moved leaps and bounds towards equality. We are largely expected to attend college, to seek our own path and to be who we wish to be. However, there are still a few areas in which women woefully lack the benefit of equality …

Read More about My Husband is a Better Parent Than I Am — and That’s Okay

IT isn’t even out yet, and already the creepiness has started. In what is possibly the craziest letter to residents I’ve ever seen in my life, the Fleetwood Manor Apartment Complex in Greenville, SC, warned residents about a clown lurking in the woods…take a look: It gets creepier… Depending on who you talk to, there …

Read More about There Is A Real-Life Creepy Clown Trying To Lure Kids Into The Woods In South Carolina

Over the summer, my family took a road trip. Seven hours of confinement with three other people who would rather be anywhere else. It’s a lot like prison, except you have to pay for your own meals and in prison it’s generally expected that someone will get shanked. Society tends to frown on fathers stabbing …

Read More about Why Are You So Happy To See Them Go?

I have two rambunctious boys. They’re three and one and full of love and kisses and Iron Man. The three-year-old, at least. He’s convinced he’s Iron Man. That is my fault. One day while I was doing dishes, I put on the Iron Man cartoon for him and that was that. Ever since then he’s …

Read More about Kids Climb Things, And Fall – That Doesn’t Make Me A Bad Mom

Ladies, you know I’ve raked our men-folk over the coals in a blog or two. I guess you all liked that because it gets shared a bazillion times. Right now a wife in China is reading my posts and thinking…well, I don’t know what she’s thinking because I don’t speak Mandarin. But you’re not perfect, …

Read More about We Have To Keep Our Daughters Funny

This age of technology can be exceedingly dangerous for our children. With friends and family spread across the nation, parents, aunts, uncles, and even grandparents in farflung cities, technology has moved to bring us together. A quick google search netted me 10+ apps that are free, most of which offered video chat, and a number …

Read More about Internet Danger Is Just A Click Away. It Happened To Us!

Anybody remember the rotary phone? How about the ‘harvest gold’ coloured appliances you grew up with in your home? Or the ‘Light Bright’ or that hideously creepy Hugo doll? If any of these stir up memories, you were likely a child of the seventies and the early eighties. Ever wonder how your Mom managed without …

Read More about 10 Ways Your Mom Had It Way Easier Than You

Nearly 7 years ago, I was blissfully pregnant with my second child. We were in that scary first 12 weeks, that is sort of like the ‘if I am good enough I get to have the baby’ test. Well, I guess I wasn’t good enough, because I drove myself to the hospital just before the …

Read More about The Best Advice I Received After Having A Miscarriage

I got my period the day my mom died. It wasn’t my first period or anything. I was 29 at the time. But the painful coincidence didn’t go unnoticed. Nor did the parallel that exactly nine months had passed between Mom’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the day of her death. My mom had been …

Read More about Waiting For Pregnancy, And Missing My Mom…

It’s summer and with kids out of school my niece has come to stay with me for a bit. While I couldn’t be more excited, this time together has been a complete crash course in all things teenager. I get that I’m not a full-time parent, but there are still some pretty huge things that …

Read More about 16 Things I’ve Learned By Living With My 16-Year-Old Niece…

Kids say the darnedest things, don’t they? But you have to wonder what kids think of the things We say to Them. Like, seriously, are we a bunch of psychopaths or something? Stealing kids noses, charging body parts for things, threatening to eat them. I never realized just how creepy some of the things I …

Read More about “I Just Want To Eat You Up” And Other Totally Creepy Things Adults Say To Children…

Last night over Spongebob-shaped chicken noodle soup, my five-year-old daughter asked me the BIG question. She gave me the doe-eyed look that I’ve come to learn means I’m about to impart my vast knowledge of the world upon her. “Mom, where do babies come from?” I choked on a wheat thin and prepared my best truthish-lie. (It’s …

Read More about The Night My Daughter Asked, “Mom, Where Do Babies Come From?”

My daughter, if left to her own devices, would eat candy all day, play with Barbies and watch mindless television. Seriously, I get that. She’s a lot like me, and if I don’t have structure in my life I tend to spend the majority of my day playing World of Warcraft and Twittering about it. …

Read More about Do Five-Year-Olds Really Need Structured After School Activities?

About eight months ago, a week after my annual pap smear, I got a call from my OB/GYN’s office. They wanted me to come in and talk to my doctor about the results of my pap. Normally, I was given a code to call a mailbox and get my results that way. I asked them …

Read More about My Pap Smear Came Back Positive, And Here’s What Happened…

Becoming a mom is a little like enlisting in the military, then being thrown into combat with little to no training. It’s a war out there, folks, and unless we adapt quickly we’ll be slaughtered. My way of adapting? With every year of my daughters’ life, my purse has grown an entire size. I learned …

Read More about 10 Times My Big Purse Defined Me As A Mom…

When you’re a mother, every day is an adventure. A trip to Target can be the chore you’ve been dreading because you’re a tired, working mom or the only contact you’ll have with the outside world because you’re a stay-at-home mom who’s running dangerously low on toilet paper.  But while you’re there, see if you …

Read More about 8 Moms You’ll Meet At Target

If you are a strong-willed, articulate parent like I am, you’ll no doubt agree that cowardice is for dummy-stupidheads. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re afraid to jab a stick into a rabid dog in the eye there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re smart. In fact, congratulations because you’re smarter than I am. But we …

Read More about Top 3 Horror Movies For Making A Man Out Of Your Little Girl

As a kid, I spent a lot of time looking up to my older cousins and wishing I’d been born just a few years earlier so I could hang out with them more (it was either that or hang out with the cousins who were several years younger than me, and that was definitely not …

Read More about Stop Saying I’ll Change My Mind About Not Having Kids, Because I Definitely Won’t

We all think our kids are the most beautiful ever, but mine really is. She’s ten and has this long, blonde hair, huge pool-water blue eyes, and a smile that she must have stolen from her dad…because it’s the same smile that made me fall in love with him. And smart? This kid remembers just …

Read More about The Reason I Will Never Criticize Myself In Front Of My Daughter Again

A friend of mine called me pretty frantic last week. “I can’t get my daughter to go to school. It’s been happening for a couple of weeks, and I need your help.” Her daughter is seven, in the second grade. You see, I am no expert– but I did teach school for several years, have …

Read More about Second Grade Is Too Young For In School Suspension

I’m not a noob to the affects of lice. When I was a little girl my mom once threatened to move me into a cabin by myself if I shared my hat, headband, and/or affection with another lice-carrying classmate. I was a friendly kid, what can I say? So maybe twice a year or so from the time …

Read More about My Daughter Came Home With Lice And Now I’m Going To Have To Burn Down Our House

Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mom. Most of the time. Most of the time it’s the greatest thing ever. Most of the time I look at those beautiful blue eyes and think, “Wow. You’re the coolest kid alive.” But I didn’t give birth to her. And since she is ten, she likes …

Read More about If Motherhood Is A Gift, What Exactly Is The Return Policy?

It’s not that I need to live with my mom or anything, but there are definitely times Someone should be the adult of me. Like the last time I dated a guy and wanted to break up with him, it would have been nice for someone else to step in and say, “Mary can’t play …

Read More about 20 Times I Really Wish Someone Else Could Adult For Me…

Dear Mom, I know you’re stressed, I could see it on your face. You looked exhausted, maybe even a little sick, yet you were still out shopping with your kid at 9:00 at night. It’s cold, mom. We were supposed to have snow today but the weather report changed so instead it’s just so bitterly …

Read More about To The Mom Whose Child Was Screaming In The Grocery Store Tonight…

There are some things I forget about every single year when it comes to Christmas, but I’m determined to remember them for next year. I’m pretty sure they’re universal, too. Like that we all have someone in our family who tells inappropriate jokes around children. Or that grandma’s don’t always understand your sense of humor. …

Read More about 50 Things To Keep In Mind For Next Christmas…

So a funny thing happens every single time we post a post about rainbow-colored this or that…all these dye-hard moms come out of no where and freak out about how evil food dye is and why we should be burned at the stake for ever even suggesting we let it near our children. Seriously, it’ll be a …

Read More about 5 Reasons Why Food Dye Is NOT A Big Deal

From the moment your little darling is born they are influenced by the world around them. That’s why so many parents were upset when Target decided to go all PC and make their toy aisle gender neutral. It’s been anarchy! How are boys supposed to find boy toys? If a grandmother goes in to buy …

Read More about 5 Things That Are Turning Your Child Gay

Most of the time my kids are awesome, but molding adolescents into responsible adults can be a challenge that will test the patience of a saint. After a long week at the office, running errands, acting as family chauffeur and short order cook, I want nothing more than to kick back and have a nice …

Read More about Don’t Make Me Spill My Wine: 10 Things Kids Do That Flip Your Switch