Memory 1: Seeing the Ocean My kids haven’t seen salt water since they lived in Thailand, and that was before they could walk upright. Because we now live in a landlocked province, they’re not exactly sea-savvy. We’ve grown tired of them asking “Is that the ocean?” every time we drive past a slough in a […]
Top 5 Fridays (or Wednesdays)
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 […]
5 Tips for Traveling with Children
Tip 1: Don’t. So what’s wrong with vacationing in your house? There’s nothing wrong with it, besides the fact that your kids want to kill each other because they’re routine-bound and besides the fact you’ve started to wax poetic about the lives of your childless friends. Take it from someone who took her twins on […]
5 Signs It’s Time To Go on a Date
Way-back-when, my husband and I used to go on a date every Thursday. That was when we viewed this parenting thing as a phase, a blip on our couple-o-meter. After hibernating for four weeks following the birth of our twins, we resumed weekly dates. We’d take our newborns to restaurants in our neighbourhood in Bangkok […]
Black Friday: Five "Best of 2009" Toys That Really Suck
It’s the end of Black Friday. From corporate America’s perspective, this means today was the biggest shopping day of the year, offering retailers a chance to jump from a deficit (red) to a profit (black). From a parent’s perspective, however, Black Friday means the opposite: bankrolling Santa’s shopping spree will send my VISA card into […]
Better Than Cheap Plastic Crap: 5 Toys from the 1970s I’m Nostalgic About
With increasing frequency, I find myself starting sentences with a phrase I thought I’d never say: “When I was your age…” Yup, nothing says you’re old like those words, which have been uttered by old people since the Industrial Revolution. Usually, “when I was your age” serves as a cop-out for my cheapness. I say […]
Top 5 Funny Quotations about Parenting – annotated
1. “When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” (Erma Bombeck) I’m with Erma on most things, including the playpen – or its euphemistic cousin, the play yard. Like suburban homes throughout the Western world, my home comes equipped with a Time Out Chair. […]