Disclosure: I love working with Chicago-based companies to find the very best in kid-friendly, body n’ brain-stimulating activities all across town. Although I’m compensated, all thoughts, opinions, and stubborn children are entirely my own. *** Windy City Ninjas Let’s lay it all out on the table, shall we? Even though I have three children, I only have two types of children: One is the kind of kid who shies away from newness, believes wholeheartedly in stranger danger/”Mom, can I sit {Read More}
Chicago kids love to float, pose, and scale
March 7, 2017 By Leave a Comment
Disclosure: My kids are ridiculously lucky to try all of this stuff for free. Although my activities around Chicago are compensated, all thoughts, opinions, and impressively flexible children are entirely my own. *** Want to see what those monkeys of mine have been up to for the past two weeks? (Here’s a recap for folks just tuning in now; don’t worry, the only plot twist that could possibly confuse you would be the moment that I jumped in the pool. Which {Read More}
Splashing and splitzing around Chicago: Weeks 1 & 2
February 7, 2017 By Leave a Comment
Disclosure: My kids are lucky li’l ducks to be offered so many complimentary classes. But although I’m being compensated, all thoughts, opinions, and snoring offspring are entirely my own. *** That trio of mine enjoys staying supremely active. (And I enjoy letting them out crazy amounts of excess afternoon energy; it’s a little bit like letting a bit of steam eke out of a very full, very shouty teapot.) And thanks to Goldfish Swim School and Design Dance- our two {Read More}
Best laid plans (a January re-entry blog)
January 19, 2017 By 2 Comments
Hi guys! I’m baaack, what’d I miss- ohmyGodWHAT’Shappeningtomorrow?! Kidding, kidding. I may have not been posting, but I certainly haven’t been living under a rock. (Sigh.) Now this is the part where everyone says they were kidding, too. The whole country, in fact. I’ll wait. … Here’s what I’ve learned during my four-week absence from the ol’ blog. (Good grief- four weeks? Christmas was already a month ago? I remember maybe two days of what’s happened since then. Someone needs to {Read More}
Be a good guy.
December 1, 2016 By Leave a Comment
“Have a good day, buddy. Be…” “-A good guy,” he tells me. That’s Jasper’s constant- and recently new- refrain. This preschooler’s mantra has become oddly more effective than the looming TIME OUT on the couch, more than the seemingly random removal of toys, and definitely more than the promise that, if he’s patient, something nebulously awesome will happen in a half hour or so. Be a good guy. Since this past summer, it’s seemed an adorably harmless and sweetly moral-compassy catchphrase {Read More}
Jasper’s big (tiny) Halloween #StreamTeam reveal
October 17, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Disclosure: As part of Netflix’s superbly fun #StreamTeam, I get to extol the virtues of the latest and greatest in streaming content. Although I’m compensated for my work, all thoughts, opinions, and downright edible children are entirely my own. *** Halloween is hard. Not the overstimulation, the constant blocking of gory zombie displays, or even the crazy amounts of candy consumption (that part is embarrassingly easy)… No, what’s hard is the dressing-up and going-out and keeping-on of a costume for a {Read More}
My baby started preschool and I’m super great with it, really.
September 15, 2016 By 4 Comments
Jasper started school. SCHOOL, you guys. For two and a half hours a day. (Two mornings a week.) Granted, he’s not sending me monthly postcards from his assigned oil rig- yet- but it’s hitting me oddly. Not jubilantly- like some of you freewheeling parents out there. (How the heck do you do it? Not celebrate, I mean. How do you do make it through a school day without wondering who’s gonna play Hungry, Hungry Hippos with you? On whom do {Read More}
Catcall.
July 21, 2016 By 2 Comments
The other day, I was catcalled by a construction worker. I also happened to be holding my 2 year-old son. As my brain swirled with righteous indignation, anger at the classlessness of objectifying a woman in front of her small male child, and the witty retorts that I’d been saving up since the last time I was catcalled on a construction site… My son lost it. Lost it. “Hiiii DIGGERS, hiiii! Mama, see diggers? A crane! A scoop! Dumpppppppp TRUCK!” {Read More}
