Call it a patriotic pilgrimage. I love DC. I love the sense of humility I feel as I walk the mall and admire the monuments. I love that on every corner stands a tribute to our history and its heroes. As a Social Studies teacher, I  always try to infuse my children with a sense of pride and gratitude for our nation's ideals, but the reality is that it needs to be conveyed with images and words that are far more articulate than mine. And fortunately for us, these images and ideals are less than a day's drive to the south (if you hit Baltimore before rush hour!) so with a long Christmas vacation…

  Once upon a time there was a typical suburban family-three children, one dog, and lots of chaos. The children in this family loved their screens-television, and Wii. Like all conscientious parents, their mother and father permitted their first born to watch only Elmo, only for thirty minutes and only after her second birthday. When her first brother came along and her mother needed to feed him a bottle, or was simply too exhausted to play, thirty minutes turned into sixty, and on occasion, the baby would join her. Perhaps she wondered why her brother was allowed to watch television before …

Nowadays there are a lot of technological tools to help families manage their lives. I've found that gadgets can be good for my love life, too. Like my relationship with my husband, my relationship with technology can be one of love-hate. For example, I hated my computer when it crashed last summer erasing millions of words I had crafted forever. I also hated my husband at that point who balked at the notion that I should spend money to retrieve my hard drive. But typically technology enhances our romance, and smoothes the bumps that marriage and parenthood have hurled in our direction. For …

Resilience and resourcefulness are qualities we want our children to possess. I learned a lot from reading one educator's efforts to help young people develop good character in a recent New York Times story about Dominic Randolph, Riverdale Country Day School's headmaster.  Grit, he believes, is necessary for youngsters to succeed, possibly more so than academic achievement. It can be challenging, for parents though, to create these opportunities when we are fortunate enough to live in beautiful and affluent Westchester County. However, there's nothing like a fluke snow storm and prolonged …

When we were kids I loved Halloween. The costumes, the candy,  the shaving cream we secretly slipped into our bags. I loved counting my treats, trading my Snickers for Twizzlers with my sister and procuring a spot for my secret stash, before my mother put my goodies out of reach. I had heard that having one’s own children was a way to recapture the thrill of Halloweens past as we watch them run from door to door and squeal as a Milky Way bar is dropped into their bag. As Halloween rapidly approaches, though, I can't help but feel that this holiday is one of parenthood's more overrated …

My seven-year-old son had two hot "dates" last week. He took one girl out for pizza, while the other visited his home, met his puffles, and accompanied him to the Do Jo to practice Card-Jitsu, a type of martial arts. All this without ever leaving the house or my watchful gaze. I owe this to the laptop computer which sits in our den. Who says kids spend too much time online, or that technology limits their social interaction creating antisocial beings?  Well, I might have, before my son started making cyber-friends. Not to worry, there is no profile for him on Match.Com—you can only find my …

I hate you. Three little words—so distasteful. we implore our children not to use them.  I am proud that I have never heard my offspring utter the phrase to another person, or even about another person outside our home. Inside our home it is another story entirely, however. Semantics is king as hate is flung around our house with various meanings depending on the purveyor of the declaration. My husband and I hate my older two kids—according to them—which is entirely different than my little one, who "hates" us. When used by my daughter and first born son, hate really means that there is an …

There's a lot of pressure today to be the perfect mother and raise high achieving children. And a lot of guilt if perfection is not attained. Immaculate house, nutritious organic meals, fresh baked cupcakes for every bake sale. Never lose your temper, don't allow screens, coach a soccer team, cheer a baseball game, get three kids to five different locations for after school activities that start simultaneously. Oh, and make sure you love every minute of these precious parenting moments. Carol Brady seemed to have it all under control, but if you recall, she had full time help. Don't get me …

Last Saturday we welcomed three new family members when we adopted Harry, Ron and Hermione. Or more accurately, when my kids won Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Or more precisely, when my son won Harry, and then my daughter won Ron for a friend who rejected him and so we got stuck. Then the children decided it wasn't fair to their little brother, and they added Hermione. My kids are really good at tossing a ping pong ball into a glass cup. You need a license to drive, but any child can toss a ping pong ball and win a goldfish. If you have to be 16 to drive, shouldn't there be an age requirement for…

The twenty first century dictates that when a child goes to middle school it is essential that she own a cell phone, if she doesn’t already have one. I swear at elementary school graduation they passed out cell phones instead of diplomas. As my own daughter has embarked on her middle school adventure my husband and I are grappling with this mandate. As September rapidly approaches, Julia takes every opportunity to remind us that she remains, unhappily, cell phone free. When did cell phone ownership become a rite of passage for the ten-to-twelve-year-old?  Friends will tell me that it is …

Amongst my friends, it is usually the wife who has the market cornered on worrying, particularly after the kids are born.  And it is the husband who rolls his eyes and tells the little woman there is nothing to be nervous about when Junior swings from the chandelier upside down. But when Irene blew in, she brought with her the winds of change. One friend told me that she didn't sleep for days before the storm because her husband gave her an extensive list of chores to complete in preparation for the hurricane. Another friend texted me that she had gone to the track to walk around in circles …

If there is one lesson to learn from Irene it's that my kids would never survive if they had lived during the day of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Truthfully, I'm not sure I would have, either.  When Irene swept through and stole our power, for several days we existed much like I imagine the Ingalls family did two centuries ago. I could paint a rosy image of the electric free days and describe simple evenings spent visiting neighbors, or bed time stories that lingered much longer than usual. All true. But that's not what you're going to read. The fact is we all got cranky fairly quickly without  …

My in-laws generously took us on a cruise in honor of their 50th anniversary. I like my family and the logic was clear: there would be plenty to amuse a group whose members ranged in age from four to sixty nine: a floating intergenerational entertainment center. I was apprehensive, but friends assured me that I would quickly become a cruise convert. Still I fretted. Would we get seasick? Would we get sick-sick? Would the boat be clean? Horror stories about Legionnaires disease on cruises swirled in my mind. In some cases my fears were happily unfounded. The ship was immaculate. There were …

Literature expands the mind. Prose takes us places. Places we want to go, and sometimes places we don’t. It helps us contemplate and consider. Since embarking on parenthood, reading has helped me to ponder phrases that speak to me about raising children. Here, I have collected some of my favorites that guide me through some of the more challenging aspects of parenthood. There is a wide variety of authors and literary periods—with everything from the Bard to Dr. Seuss represented. The words in italics have been changed to reflect how I use the quote to apply to my life.  “Are you There God it’…

I sometimes wonder why I thought a third child was a good idea. But playing Monday morning quarterback after a baby’s birth does one little good. I assumed three would be a snap.  Many parents feel the jump from one to two children is overwhelming, but for whatever reason I still felt in control. I guess I like to live dangerously, because we went ahead and had number three—a tiny, wisp of a fellow with a fiery temper and an anger management issue. He tries to rule the roost by fear—a modern day Napoleon who takes no prisoners and violates household rules regularly. For example, he knows he …

I love raising kids in Northern Westchester. Less traffic, more green, and neighbors whose homes I can see, but without the intimate knowledge of knowing what they eat for dinner. But there are realities to my country life style that I didn’t anticipate. When we moved to Bedford, a friend scoffed as she watched my hip hop-karate-boxing combination meant to destroy any bug in my path. “Bring it down a notch,” she admonished. “This is country living.” These were insects on steroids, though, and up all night scratching, I wondered whether we had made the right decision when we abandoned the …

This summer I am professional nitpicker, literally and figuratively, which started when we dropped our daughter off at sleep away camp. Waiting on line at Ellis Island—as my daughter like to calls the health screening queue before one is granted access to camp—I couldn’t imagine how my life would change. To say that the discovery of a single nit in her hair would alter my existence may seem dramatic, but it certainly altered my summer. After the nit was discovered, we were ushered into a room where we were instructed that we had a choice: return to the mother country (also known as home) and …

Dearest Summer, What happened to us? My devotion to you was like no other love I have known. The promise of your arrival with the sun’s sultry kiss upon my skin and the sweet scent of flowers after morning dew guided me through the bleak winter months.  And in June when my classroom door closed I ran into your embrace. I felt so loved, Summer.  You whisked me away to exotic locations like Alaska and Scotland. You showered me with gifts—novels that I devoured as we lounged on my deck.  I miss those long walks I took with my first baby in the stroller and the leisurely afternoons at the …

Edgar Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance always makes me teary. I need not know the graduate, or even attend the graduation in order for this piece to make me misty. I most associate Pomp and Circumstance with June, when it plays itself at the myriad of graduations that occur this month.  And this gives me a touch of melancholy because June signifies the end of a journey for my children, and in a small way for me. I prefer September. September suggests new beginnings—with a touch of cold in the air and color on the trees I send my kids off on a brand new journey full of possibilities and …

The family road trip. Part comedy, part drama. No matter the miles travelled, getting five people out of the house, three of whom are less than five feet tall, is a Herculean task. For my brood it was my college reunion in Boston, a simple one-night trip which should require little more than throwing a few things in a bag and filling the gas tank.   The drama began at 4 p.m. the afternoon before departure. The sitter was getting ready to leave with the dog, who she graciously offered to watch for the weekend. The middle child began to wail, throwing himself at the fur ball and threatening to …