• Blessings,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz

    College Drop Off: We Went, We Moved Him In, I Got The T-Shirt.

    Two, actually. I bought two t-shirts, because I couldn’t decide between the short-sleeved hot pink shirt and the long-sleeved orange and blue shirt–school colors–so I went home with both. So, the deed is done. We dropped our younger son off at college and I didn’t die. I can tell you what leaving felt like, though. It felt like having a full-body bandage pulled off, with that last little sticky part that always stings the most being positioned right over my heart. But again, I didn’t die. Jim didn’t either. We were sort of thrown for the rest of the day, but we’re going to be absolutely just fine. Also, there…

  • Amazing People,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Reflections on Parenting

    Adulthood Looms

    It’s thick in the air around here. I can feel it looming. As busy as I have been lately, I have noticed. What’s fleeting around here? Childhood. I have been doing my best to pay extra attention to my boys, to close the laptop when they are talking to me, to listen fully, to answer them thoughtfully. When they want to play a game with me, I drop everything I’m doing if at all possible and I play. When J wants to show me his latest DJ video, I watch. Same with D and those random YouTube videos that college students seem to spend hours sharing and laughing about. (He…

  • How To,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Pretty Pictures

    Displaying Artwork For Geniuses

    When the boys were little, the amount of papers and artwork they used to bring home from school (not to mention what they produced at home) was ridiculous. I bought a plastic storage container for each of them and put select items in them to save for posterity. Every now and then, I’d come across something that I didn’t want to put in a time capsule. Of course, I didn’t want it laying around the house, either. I needed a place where I could look at it whenever I wanted to, but it was out of the way at all other times. Enter my kitchen cabinets. The insides of the…

  • I've Got Mad Skillz,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Reflections on Parenting

    Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bebe” Stirs The Pot On Parenting

    There’s been another dust-up in the news this week, and this time the big story is how great the French are at parenting. I mentioned it briefly in yesterday’s vlog, and I really need to expand on it because parenting and its various styles is a topic for which I have endless passion. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here to read the Wall Street Journal essay/excerpt by Pamela Druckerman, author of “Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting”.) First, let me give you the disclaimer: I am not ragging on the author OR the book, which I have not read.…

  • Childhood Memories,  Family Fun,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz

    Texten Sie Deutsch?

    I started learning the German language in Middle School, eighth grade to be exact. I loved German class even more than I thought I would. After all of this time, I still remember some of the conversation examples used in the book, like “Wo ist Monika?” (Where is Monika?) “Im Boot.” (In the boat.) “Wo ist der Hut?” (Where is the hat?) “In der Stube.” (In the living room.) (Truly not literary masterpieces, but they helped us learn.) The following year I was a High School freshman in German II class and I was able to compete at the state level. (Yes, a state-level German competition.) Categories in the competition…

  • My Kids Have Mad Skillz

    Truth

    My boys, three years apart, enjoyed the same second grade teacher. Actually, I enjoyed her very much myself. Mrs. J was a fantastic teacher who maintained a classroom balanced with fun and order. She was very creative when it came to assignments and projects, too. Each year, during the week before Curriculum Night (the evening during which the parents were invited to visit the classroom and hear an overview of that year’s curriculum from the teachers), Mrs. J asked each student in her class to choose a parent to draw and describe. She told the kids to refrain from writing any names on the front of the papers, and on…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Travels

    What Teenagers Will Do When Left Alone For The Weekend…

    I’m back. You didn’t even really know I was gone, did you? That “rare opportunity to disconnect” that I wrote about on Sunday evening? That was me being away from home for five days, alone with my husband (that means no kids). Jim and I flew to New Mexico and stayed just south of Santa Fe for a much-needed break, and in fact when I wrote that post, I was still “sitting in my southwestern office” at our Bed and Breakfast: It is going to take me a couple of days to assemble a proper post (or two) with pictures (I took about 550, but don’t worry: I won’t share…

  • My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments,  Reflections on Parenting

    Sometimes It’s Hard To Wait For What’s Worth Waiting For.

    We have worked really hard to teach our kids all about money and the importance of making good decisions with it, since they were old enough to know what money is. They know first hand that when you work hard for something, you appreciate it much more than if it were just handed to you. As a result, I’m proud to say that my kids have purchased their own iPods, computers, guitars, and cars. Well, car: only one so far. J has been talking about a car for a couple of years now, and naturally when he turned sixteen in February, he went into overdrive, so to speak. Suddenly the…

  • Best Thing Ever,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Reflections on Parenting

    How To Avoid “Mom, I’m Bored!”

    Step 1: Have children. Step 2: Do your best to keep them entertained all the time when they’re babies and then toddlers. Step 3: Rejoice when they start preschool and then kindergarten, because although you adore your children and love spending time with them, that’s two and a half hours less (on 3-5 days per week) you’ll have to make sure they’ve got stuff to do, and two and a half hours more (on 3-5 days per week) you’ll have all to yourself. Step 4: Do the Happy Dance when they begin full-day elementary school. Step 5: Feel overwhelmed when that first summer vacation begins, because you’ve forgotten what it’s…

  • Blessings,  My Kids Have Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments

    Working For A Living

    The events surrounding the release of my book weren’t the only big happenings around the Wells house last week. In fact, we had a couple more reasons to celebrate: both D and J found summer jobs! This development could’ve been some kind of miracle: I’ve read that this summer is supposed to be one of the worst summers ever for teenaged job-seekers. Thankfully, the rate of employment for teens in my house is booming. D got a full-time job at Jim’s company. The company has a program specifically for the student-aged offspring of employees. The program has been on hiatus for the past couple of years, so we hear (Jim…