Everyday Family (Page 6)

Winter Break Boredom: A Loose Rhythm Beats a Rigid Schedule

By day three of winter break, my living room looked like a Target seasonal aisle exploded, and my seven-year-old had

One Christmas morning I watched my daughter open her eighth gift, glance at it for under three seconds, and immediately

I have tried, no exaggeration, six different family calendar systems, and five of them collapsed within a month. The beautiful

The first year I hosted Thanksgiving with a toddler in the house, I tried to run the day like I

I used to be the mom hissing "what do you say?" at my kid over a birthday gift

We tried to potty train my second kid three separate times before it took, and the first two attempts were

My son would choose a screen over a book every single time if I let the choice be that bare,

Nobody warns you that kids get expensive in lumps, not in a smooth upward line. For years our spending on

Every screen-time plan I made before my daughter actually hit seven was beautiful, principled, and completely useless. I had charts.

My two kids, six and four, can go from building a Magna-Tiles castle together to a full-volume screaming match over

The first Halloween my kids were old enough to really get it, I made every rookie mistake in one glorious

My son went through a stretch where his entire accepted food list was nine items long, and four of them