It’s with deep shame I admit a failing as a mother:
My 8 and 6-year-old sons are just now learning how to tie shoes. They hadn’t been given the opportunity to learn this life skill until recently.
We went shoe shopping. They immediately gravitated toward the usual vinyl superheroes splayed on the sides. Superheroes on shoes [...]

Poison Control Operator: Poison Control, how may I help you?
Me: Uh, yes…my son just ate part of an old and rather stale gingerbread house…
PCO: How old, ma’am?
Me: Three years…
PCO: The gingerbread house is three years old?
Me: Oh, no. My son is three years old.
PCO: What is the weight?
Me: Just eyeballing it, I’d say [...]

Santa is scary
Beard like albino ferret,
Food court taco breath.
The busy bathroom,
Dancing and anxious they wait
Regretting eggnog.
…
I am next in line
So why do you crowd in front?
You must be special.
My ears just fell off,
Too weary from “Silver Bells”
Played ten dozen times.
Food court carousel
Spins festively fast around,
Unwise location.
Carousel rider
You appear rather greenish!
Next time eat then ride.
Want the [...]

Recently, we visited the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls, and Toys. The kids were very skeptical because how can a museum about miniatures, dolls, and toys be very cool? Seriously? This is how we are spending our Sunday afternoon? I think they pictured a sterile, roped off environment and not a hands-on and up-close experience. [...]

Sometimes a beloved tradition has roots in sheer necessity. For small children, Thanksgiving Day can be very long.
Adults are flurried with the feast. It’s difficult for kids to find their niche amongst long-lost relatives and the unceremonious sucking noise cranberry makes as it slides out of the can.
We found a way to capture the kids’ [...]

‘Tis the season when decapitated mummies and axe-wielding ghouls haunt the aisles of grocery stores and the lawns of our neighbors.
It’s ugly out there.
My kids like to visit the Halloween slivers of stores, where orange and black reign supreme and candy buckets have moving claws. Rows of plastic skeletons hang limply from hooks, fugitives from [...]

My son Sam hates homework.
He’s in fourth grade and this is not unexpected. Sam is aflame with tense dread as he pulls papers and books from his backpack. Sometimes, getting him started on problems 1 -28, page 135 is like lighting a fire with a feather doused in chocolate pudding.
Practically impossible.
I am supposed to witness [...]