Adventures In Motherhood

Everything I learned about parenting I learned from episodes of The Simpsons! Not exactly true as I responsibly recount smatterings of Parenting With Love and Logic along the way; however, as sure as the streets of Portland (creator Matt Groening's hometown) point to Springfield's namesakes, I can't help but admit my admiration for the show's creativity has impacted my parenting style. At my wits end this past month with my boys' hormones on fire and my patience wearing thin during 'May End-of-School-Year Madness', I reached for a consequence. D'oh!! Bart and his chalkboard antics came to mind and I reminded my children that parenting their Bart Simpson behavior was also in my playbook! Don't knock it until you try it! Seriously, parenting from a cartoon has its benefits. My children believe in the authenticity of sentence writing, having seen Bart's disdain for chalkboard punishment firsthand on T.V. Writing sentences on a notepad in the solac...

The past month has been anything but dull, consumed by two kids with birthdays, a new job involving travel for my husband, 5th grade science projects, band/vocal concerts, baseball games and track meets! Most days I'm treading water, barely surviving the end of school year/spring athletic schedule for our four children and bigly outnumbered. Just when I believed I had thought of everything, meticulously plotted out on our antiquated wall calendar, the low-balance lunch alert email came. My kids really despise all school lunches, with the exception of Thursday pizza, so there are worse calamities; nevertheless, I was confident I had diligently pre-loaded all of their accounts at the beginning of the school year to eliminate it from my to-do list. Dumbfounded, I activated my spy tradecraft to uncover the perpetrator weaseling away funds undetected. Busted! I caught the sneaky 7-year-old bandit with the toothless grin, who spilled the beans before I was forced to play my CIA 'lie ...