A battle that the older boys and I keep returning to is pretty straightforward: I think they should work. They disagree. Early in school, we struggled (A LOT) over learning issues. They’ve definitely grown past those, but somewhere along the line the picked up the idea that life should always and only be fun. The [...]

(Editor’s note: Please welcome Caitlin Douglass, who has some experience with long-distance family relationships and some strategies for staying close to relatives you don’t see as often as you’d like.) When you hear the words conference call, you most likely immediately think of a business call. You probably picture a bunch of people sitting around [...]

We’ve had the dog for seven months now. She’s adorable and wonderful, but not completely housebroken. I think it has something to do with the fact that we’re constantly just taking her out instead of encouraging her to let us know she needs to go. Well. Hubby and I bug the boys to take her [...]

Even though no one here is officially an adolescent, Hubby and I are already seeing some of the emotional storms that are common to that age. I’ll be the first to say that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing here…I think “winging it” is going to be the order of the decade. I [...]

Do you remember the television show Pinkie and the Brain? Great show. There was a conversation at the beginning of every episode in which Pinkie asked, “What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” Then the Brain would reply, “The same thing we do every night, Pinkie. Try to take over the world!” One of [...]

We’ve had a surprising number of groups of Canada Geese flying overhead the past few days and boy are they noisy. It’s amazing how much honking they do as they fly. Conventional wisdom is that they’re encouraging the leader to keep going. Just for kicks I looked it up, and found this at the Birder’s [...]