I’ve come across a lot of articles recently about the dangers of overscheduling your children’s free time. And while I get it, overscheduling is not something I worry about. Sure, it’s important for children to have time for free play and to wind down from school and other structured activities, but in my experience, underscheduling can be problematic too.
Read MoreIt's just sports, right?
Read MoreI didn’t play youth soccer for long, but I made a huge impact. I played just one season when I was five or six, but my unique style and flair is still widely talked about. By my mom, mostly, but still, talked about.
Read MoreOn several occasions recently, my six-year-old has had me film him doing something fascinating like drumming on couch cushions, scaring his sister, or hitting golf balls in the yard so we could upload the video to YouTube and watch it back on our TV.
I can’t blame him.
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, one of my favorite activities was yolf. In case you don’t know, yolf is a contraction of yard and golf and it is golf played in one’s yard. My two best friends, brothers who lived in my neighborhood, and I invented our version of the game when we were around eleven or twelve and we continued to play it with varying levels of commitment until we were like twenty-one. We were very popular in our youth.
Read More“Pretend that you think you left Jacob at Betsy’s house,” said recently turned four-year-old Jacob.
“OK,” I replied.
“Tell Mommy!” he whispered loudly.
“Oh no, I think we left Jacob at Betsy’s!” I feel like I nailed it. Much like a Broadway actor in the final performance of a long running show, my delivery was so fresh you would never guess I had delivered this same line about 100 times in the last day and a half.
Read MoreI’m going to keep this one casual because I feel like our relationship is strong enough to handle a little unfiltered, old-school blogging! My kids were on Spring Break last week. It’s hard to believe we’re three-quarters of the way through another school year. Time sure does fly, and empires sure do crumble right before our eyes, etc.
My children have had many long, elaborate, and often incomprehensible bedtime routines. I’ve written about these rituals several times because this nightly production has been a pillar of my existence for over a decade. It takes up a lot of space in my head and sometimes causes a fair amount of stiffness in my lower back.
I was sitting by myself in my car in a shopping plaza parking lot, scrolling my phone for a moment before heading to my next destination when a mom and her two little kids took me back in time.
The tattoo artist worked meticulously but quickly on my knuckle tattoos as I sat hunched over in a straight-backed chair, my arm resting on a paint-splattered wooden table. It was one of those fuzzy days between Christmas and New Year’s when time ceases to have any meaning and our actions have zero consequences.
I was sitting by myself in my car in a shopping plaza parking lot, scrolling my phone for a moment before heading to my next destination when a mom and her two little kids took me back in time.
My three children stood together in the open space between the doors of a mostly empty subway car with bright eyes and big smiles.
My family discovered a new outdoor activity that helped us ward off the mid-summer malaise but after just a few days, bruises, bumps, and a broken-down car ended our fun.
My debut novel LOVE’S A DISASTER is out NOW and I have created a playlist of songs to accompany the book!
It’s the last day of school before Spring Break starts. You’ve just attended your child’s Field Day or Picnic Day or It’s Not Break Yet But It Kind Of Is Day and all that time spent under the blazing sun surrounded by 800 screaming children has made you a little punchy.
In the spring of 2019, less than a year before the world shut down, my wife, three kids, and I took a spring break trip from our home in Florida to the UK. Michelle and I traveled quite a bit before we had kids, including a 10-month stay in Cambridge, where I completed a one-year master’s program. Since having kids, we’ve rarely left the house, let alone the country.