As a woman who birthed later than the national average, I had plenty of opportunities to be an armchair parent. By observing an array of friends – some of whom should have used birth control – I saw a range of parenting styles. I witnessed well-meaning parents make not only single goof-ups, but legions of […]
rules
A “New” Year’s Tradition: Make Resolutions for the People You Love
It’s six days in. Six days since I started my Resolution of the Decade: drinking eight glasses of water each day. This was something I used to do on an hourly basis when I lived in Bangkok. It’s harder to drink water in the freezing Canadian winter, but I soldier on, imbibing H20 like it’s […]
5 Unsuccessful Strategies for Getting Kids To Fall Asleep
Let’s face it: this holiday season, many of us will have the task of getting kids-hyped-up-on-chocolate to fall asleep beside us in hotel rooms or in a grandparent’s spare bedroom. This is no easy task; if it were, someone would’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize for Parenting. Saturday night, in a desperate attempt to get […]
Twenty Minutes with Five-Year-Old Twins
7:00 a.m. Although Vivian has been up for one hour, William is sleeping away. I walk into his room, turn on the light, and spy him asleep on the edge of his bed. It’s at this point I see the vomit. It has congealed beside him, one-inch chunks of partially digested banana. I wake him. […]
TV Or Not TV…That Used To Be a Question
I was once one of those holier-than-thou women who – in spite of having no children – had very specific ideas on how to raise them. I recounted many of these myths in So Much for My Kid Commandments. The ideal that has crashed to the ground the hardest, however, is no TV in the […]