Blogs

I love Corona, Bloody Mary's, and coffee spiced up with Kuhla and Baileys.

I've had a back and forth love affair with Pinot Noir and Reisling -- and pina colodas and margaritas. No, actually, my love for margaritas only drifted once. Sweet and cool Margarita, I promise I am devoted to you. 

It's something that most adults will try to plan in their life - when to have a baby. Is it best to start in your 20's, 30's, 40's? How established in my career should I be? How big of a house do I need?

Recently my family discovered two new books that involve animals and adventures. The first is The Adventures of Bella and Harry Lets Visit Instanbul! The book was written by Lisa Manzione and Illustrated by Kristine Lucco.

I'm a bit of a maniac with checking my children's social media accounts, and I'm glad. I almost always learn something "interesting" (good and bad!) about them or their friends. This week, it was that many of the teen girls and boys are facing emotional challenges -- and aren't afraid to publicize it.

My kids probably think I think I'm a good mom -- but most days, I'm beating myself up, thinking I yell too much, clean too little, nag too often, don't do fun stuff often enough...you get the idea.

I was going to post about an hour ago, as I sat waiting to see if my daughter would remember to go dog sitting. She goes at 7:30, 3, 7 and 10 for six days over spring break. It's on the other side of our neighborhood and since I have driven her the last few years, she figured I would drive her again this year.

My daughters, ages 11 and nearly 9, and I began spring break with yesterday in a great way. We went to the Virginia Air and Space Center to see Flight of the Butterflies in 3-D IMAX.

Do you ever apologize to your children for something wrong you have done? I do. Case in point, I lost my temper this morning when trying to get the children out the door for school. I was driving them today. After several warnings that it was almost time to leave. They did not adhere to those warnings.

My son missed five days of school this quarter and the amount of work he had to make-up has convinced me that it's better to send him to school sick and risk having him throw up on someone just to avoid the freakin' stack of worksheets he must do once he returns.

For each class -- five -- he had morning work, classwork and homework for each day.

I never saw myself taking a parenting class until our first daughter was about four-years-old. I always thought of myself and my husband as enlighten enough. However, since we chose early on (during my pregnancy) not to repeat some of the old-fashioned discipline techniques as earlier generations (a.k.a. spanking) we found we did know who what to do otherwise.