Everyday Family (Page 4)

Getting Kids Outside When the Couch Is Winning

The couch has gravity. Some afternoons it pulls both of my kids in by 3:30 and won't

Spring break has a way of sneaking up and then sitting there, nine empty days long, daring you to fill

The first screen-free night we tried felt like a hostage situation, and I was one of the hostages. The kids

I praised my kids constantly, with the best of intentions, and for years I had no idea it might be

The first time my eleven-year-old walked to the corner store alone, I watched from the porch like a Secret Service

I used to say "share!" roughly four hundred times a day, like a malfunctioning toy, and it accomplished

The parenting books cover the four-month sleep regression and the eventual goodbye to napping, but the transition that wrecked me

My four-year-old once threw himself onto the kitchen floor over a banana that broke in half, and in the middle

For most of my twenties, Valentine's Day was a referendum on my relationship status, and it carried more

There's a specific kind of dread that arrives when the first kid spikes a fever on a Sunday

For years my mornings had a recurring villain, and it was the lunchbox. Somewhere between the toothbrushing and the lost

The Norman Rockwell version of family dinner — everyone at the table, candles, the dog hopeful underfoot — survived in our house