Search Results for: blog ticking all the boxes

Ticking all the Boxes

It’s often interesting to ask the question, ‘Why did you get married?’ In these days when so many couples live together without being married, you might well wonder, then why get married at all? According to Andre Cherlin, Sociologist at John Hopkins University,’getting married is a way to show family and friends that you have a successful personal life. It’s like the ultimate merit badge.’ For many people it’s a case of ticking all the boxes. Recently a young woman I know would not go back to a school reunion because, in her own eyes, she was a failure and … Continue reading →

Pregnant: Am I Doing It Right?

During my pregnancy I’ve felt a couple times like I wasn’t “doing it right.”  Not that I wasn’t taking care of my body or baby properly, but that I didn’t care enough, and that meant I wasn’t going to be very good at this whole mothering thing.  I didn’t feel that way in response to serious events, or in the face of friends with children, or anything like that. It started when I was asked “what’s your countdown?”  I had no idea what the person was talking about.  Apparently it meant how many days left until my due date.  I … Continue reading →

Bunny Hunt

This is a child hot on the trail of the Easter Bunny. Actually, this is a child, who was instructed to turn her frown upside down, following a pouting-fest which was fueled by the fact that she was not allowed to stay up all night to capture the Easter Bunny. Funny how pictures work. For the past four years my now 7-year-old has desperately tried to snag the Easter Bunny. While other kids her age spend Holy Saturday night with visions of chocolate eggs dancing in their head, my child is designing elaborate traps made from blankets, empty boxes, masking … Continue reading →

An Organized Move

My daughter is getting ready to move. We all know how much fun that can be. This is her first move alone, she will be getting her own apartment for the first time. I’m a super organized freak, especially when it comes to moving, my daughter, well she is pretty much allergic to organizing. Every time we moved in the past she did not feel compelled to part with any of the things she has collected, she just threw them in a box and that was that. My daughter saves everything, she has all of her notebooks from school, going … Continue reading →

More Fun Than Freaky

My daughter is in the second grade, but she still freaks out when she sees scary Halloween decorations. She’s terrified of the bloody limbs, moving skeletons and rolling eyeballs. Consequently, we tend to stick to the kid-friendly Halloween events and parties that pop up around our small community this time of year. No tours of haunted mansions, creepy corn mazes or ghost towns for my kid. Rather, we’ve been spending weekends at fall festivals that have allowed her to sample the fun side of a horrifying holiday. Some of the games she’s had a blast playing at the local fests … Continue reading →

Random Photo Tips

My parents recently bought my daughter her first big girl bike. No training wheels, no babyish designs on the handlebars and no little doodads connected to the spokes. Naturally, I had to document her first ride, so we could send grandma and grandpa photo proof that the bike is absolutely perfect. However, in doing so, I encountered a number of issues which I thought would make for a decent blog. For starters, I would never attempt to photograph a child riding her bike in the middle of the afternoon on a bright, sunny summer day. The direct sunlight wrecked havoc … Continue reading →

Muppets Movie Trailers

The start of summer saw the release of four Muppet movie trailers. The tone of those trailers, though they contained many of the same scenes, taught us a lot what the new Muppet movie will feel like. Isn’t that any diehard Muppets fan’s biggest complaint: that most of the Muppet movies released in the 1990s didn’t feel like Muppet movies? Something about them didn’t contain that unique Jim Henson sense of humor. It’s not that we expect they could, since Henson’s passing. That raises the question, however, of whether Muppet movies should continue if they couldn’t remain true to their … Continue reading →

Food For Thought

Packing school lunches, worst mom job EVER, in my opinion. I’ve been scarred after just a single year on the job. So yeah, me and school lunches—-packed or served-—far from friends. And just as I was reveling in the freedom from prepping and packing that summer affords me I see the Today show’s piece on kids, food poisoning and brown bag school lunches. Greeeeaaaat! Turns out that parents, who try so hard to pack healthy school lunches, are actually making their kids sick. According to new research published in the Journal of Pediatrics, only one measly percent of home lunches … Continue reading →

Goofy New Check-In for Disney Cruises

Have you been considering going on a Disney cruise vacation, but aren’t quite sure that the whole experience would be enough fun? Sure, Disney cruises are some of the most luxurious vacations out there, but they’ve also got the potential to become a bit claustrophobic, and there were all those food poisoning incidents on cruise ships last year, even if none of them were on Disney ships. Well, either the execs at the Walt Disney Corp. cruise division thought their marketing scheme needed an extra push, or someone over in the animation/graphic design department was feeling whimsical, because the Disney … Continue reading →

Are You a Good PR Person for Marriage?

As I was writing the blog for Christian families the other week, I thought that the same thing can be applied to marriage. Whether we like it or not others are watching the way we relate to each other. We may think people don’t take any notice but if we think that, we’d be wrong. Others and particularly our own children are watching closely to see how marriage works or how it doesn’t. What do they see? Do they see a marriage that is harmonious where decisions are made together? Do they see a division of chores and labor, so … Continue reading →