2018 | PulseonParenting

The Nutcracker: a Performance Dissected by My Twisted Mind

Dec 21 2018

The Nutcracker. An event as much the holiday season as It’s a Wonderful Life and rum-soaked fruitcake. Or that may not be fair…Wonderful Life gets people fake- (or real-) gagging and fruitcake, well, does the same. Some may agree regarding this beloved ballet, but The Nutcracker doesn’t make my stomach turn… It gets me giggling. I admit I have a twisted, ever-the -wheels-a-turning mind, but don’t get me wrong. I love The Nutcracker. It’s an all-around gorgeous feast for the ears and eyes and draws the audience in with its beauty. Tchaikovsky, Petipa and Ivanov knew what they were doing when they birthed this…

Dec 20 2018

The holidays are a time to connect and reconnect, sometimes the only time we do so with some of our family, friends and acquaintances. We wish our reach-outs could be more frequent, but time speeds by in our fast-paced millenial society. The holidays are particularly busy, and anything helps to streamline the preparations at hand. Think about how the Christmas card has evolved…from the boxed-card-and-family-newsletter to an electronic greeting sent via Facebook. The time saved and the number of people reached with the latter are tremendous. We can reach out to everyone in a fraction of the time. In the…

It’s the Little Things: Stocking Stuffer Ideas

Dec 13 2018

Before my kids hang their stockings by the chimney with care, they pull the oversized decorative footwear over their toes, up and past their knees and walk around the house giggling madly. If only that were the end to the season’s stuffing of stockings. I love little things, and stocking stuffers are no exception. But beyond the orange to fill the toes of the stockings, it’s easy to get stumped as to what comes next. Kids’ Christmas lists never include stocking stuffers, it’s the big stuff; and adults never say, “Hey, you know what I’d like in my stocking this…

Dec 06 2018

My husband can’t balance a checkbook to save his life. I tease him and tell him he needs the practice, so he should give it a go but he doesn’t see it that way. It’s fine, really, that the task falls to me. I mean, it’s only a once a month job, right? But things are all fine and dandy until the checkbook won’t balance and I find myself taking way more time than I have to get my calculator and the bank statement to agree. Arrgh. Life is busy, especially so during the holidays. And money moves in…

Nov 30 2018

Thanksgiving. The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year. Someday, that’s what this cozy November holiday will become. With store hours creeping up from their Black Friday haven to ooze into Thursday morning opening hours. Which would be sad because I love Thanksgiving just as it is…time with family and great food. The carved-out opportunity to reflect on everyday gifts and express our gratitude for them. It doesn’t get any better than that. But sometimes, we have to earn the opportunity. Oh boy, do we have to earn it. Our family’s Thanksgiving foibles and drama never happen ’round the turkey and…

Nov 21 2018

Back in January I began a series “10 Ways to Live an Extraordinary Life” based on a list my son brought home from art camp. I would have loved to know how this “Extraordinary” list, from bemorewithless.com, was incorporated into camp but my tight-lipped boy, true-to-form, wasn’t forthcoming. So I had to find my own inspiration to use these bits of sage advice in my own life. Each month, January through October of 2018, I devoted time to exploring a tenet of living an extraordinary life and then blogged about my journey. Here’s a recap of what I learned: The…

Nov 13 2018

He couldn’t control himself. HIs rage had reared its ugly head many, many times, and we labeled it Puberty. His renovating brain and growing body are overwhelming him and emotional outbursts are a symptom of the wild ride. But this time things were different. For the last several days he complained of stomachaches unaccompanied by any other signs of illness. At first I thought it really was a bug, then I worried he had the beginnings of appendicitis, then I settled on the “Halloween Flu”…the result of hoarding and munching a giant helping of chocolate, suckers and body part-shaped gummies. …

Can Vitamin D Prevent Influenza?

Nov 07 2018

After posting The Influenza Vaccine: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up a friend and fellow mom reached out to me. She told me how happy she was to see some real info cross her virtual desk because her news feed is usually filled with the myths and dangers of the influenza vaccine. She had even read that Vitamin D could save the population from influenza infection and jokingly blamed “Dr. Google” for her discovery of this one. And with her, I rolled my eyes as you just can’t make this stuff up. I do my best to keep up-to-the-moment on the influenza front,…

WTHeck…Is the W Sit That Bad for Our Kids?

Oct 30 2018

Virasana. Hero Pose. This is my “yummy” yoga position. And even yummier is Supta Virasana (reclined Hero Pose). At the end of hot yoga, this pose feels like the right amount of stretch. One morning, however, the yumminess was foiled when I realized the similarity between virasana and the W-sit familiar to all parents. I totally lost my zen focus trying to reconcile one of my favorite yoga poses with the W-word. The W-sit is synonymous with bad habit. And I was ready to fill your computer screen with only the evidence to support just that: the W-sit should be…

Oct 23 2018

I finally figured out a job title I can live with: Home-Based Parent. “Stay-at-Home-Mom” isn’t remotely accurate (my record: five trips into town on a weekday) and “Domestic Engineer” sounds like I’m trying too hard to avoid the fact I don’t have a regular income (do earnings from the consignment shop count?). But Home-Based Parent is totally on-target. It applies to both dads and moms, and includes the increasingly common possibility of a home-based business. Feel free to use this description if it suits what you do. Being a Home-Based Parent has its perks (flexibility, increased presence for the kiddos,…

Archive - 2018

The Nutcracker: a Performance Dissected by My Twisted Mind

Holiday Greetings: a Time to Reminisce

It’s the Little Things: Stocking Stuffer Ideas

Checkbook Balancing Hacks: Tweak Your Balancing Act This Holiday Season

Holiday Memories: Parties, the Bird and the Other Bird

The Extraordinary Life: a Recap

Our Best Parenting Moments: the Ones That Challenge Us

Can Vitamin D Prevent Influenza?

WTHeck…Is the W Sit That Bad for Our Kids?

Teaching Kids’ to Do Chores: a Perspective From a Home-Based Parent