Growing up I was what many people might term a “type A” personality. On top of that, my social skills weren’t….great. Soooooooo, yea. I didn’t bond well with many other individuals. (I’m terribly thankful for the friends who were willing to put up with me. You know who you are.) I tended to be critical, [...]

I noticed a problem recently: there is a lot of complaining going on here at Earnest Parenting. Chief complainer: Me. The rest of the family isn’t far behind me. We all seem to have gotten sucked into a pattern of blaming others for situations and complaining (vociferously) if anything goes wrong. For example, the Captain [...]

Hello Son, I want to first remind you that I love you very much, and that I think you’re an amazing human being – even if you drive me crazy most days. I’m sure I bug you to pieces most of the time too. This morning you came to me upset because your brother had [...]

Still working on the school frustration thing. I talked with Hubby about it and he mentioned that the fact that the older boys don’t have desks to work at bugs him a little. They love to lay on the floor to do their work. I do too, so it’s hard for me to insist on [...]

Hubby and the older boys went on their first non-official Scout camping trip this morning. I have to admit, I miss them already. I didn’t expect to feel that way, but here I am with only half the family in the house and I’m wishing we were all together. This is even more surprising considering [...]

photo credit: Krissi AKA Kiki TechnoBoy and The Mercenary came home from camp yesterday (this is the 3rd year they’ve gone) and I’m convinced they aged a year in the 6 days they were gone. Even though they were incredibly tired after a week of shenanigans at camp, they were very kind when we asked [...]