• Review

    The Wells Fargo Community: Making College Financial Planning A Little Less Scary

    For most parents, the thought of planning for their kids’ years in college is extremely daunting. It doesn’t have the feel of “just another milestone” in our children’s lives, perhaps because there are major bucks attached to the decision. The cost of college can be right up there with the cost of purchasing a house, and even if the parents and the student share the expense and there are scholarships involved, a bit of trepidation is totally normal. The cost of full-time enrollment at college ranges widely, from a couple thousand dollars per year at a community college to–are you sitting down?–SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS per year* (includes room and board)…

  • Family Fun,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  Too Funny To Ignore,  Working On My Fitness

    As Good As It Was, The Conversation Ended Pretty Much How It Started.

    The enjoyment of weight training workouts is something seventeen-year-old J and I have in common. When he was playing midfield in lacrosse a couple of years ago he discovered that adding resistance training on top of his practices made him stronger, of course, and his game improved. For the last two years he has chosen a weight training unit in gym class as much as is allowed, skipping over other units like basketball, soccer, and other sports, and on school breaks he’ll use the Bowflex we have in the basement. I have always (well, since I started working out twenty years ago) enjoyed feeling strong and having some tone in…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments

    The Bad Parent, Good Teenager Strategy In Action

    The scene: My dining room, earlier this week The players: Seventeen-year-old J, me, and my sister J: “So, Tim* and Megan* want me and (girlfriend) Shannon* to go to this dance club with them on Saturday night.” Me: “Really? A DANCE CLUB? Like, for under twenty-ones?” J: “Yep.” I glanced across the table and raised my eyebrows at my sister. Me: “What is the name of this dance club?” J: “The Zone.**” Me: “And where is this ‘The Zone Dance Club’ that I’ve never heard of after twenty years of living in this Chicago suburb?” J: (shrugging shoulders) “I don’t know. They have a 17+ night on Saturdays. It starts…

  • Family Fun,  I'm Apparently Old.,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  Reflections on Parenting

    Weirdest Halloween Ever.

    Halloween came and went (as it tends to do), and for the first time in twenty years we didn’t have a kid in costume. Not only that, but Halloween was almost–dare I say it?–exactly like any other day. It was bizarre to say the least. In fact, when J left for school, he said goodbye to me like he always does and walked out before I even remembered that it was Halloween at all. My decorations, as I’ve written about before, were pitiful. I didn’t even have time to take pictures of Roxie in her 2012 costume because I took a TDM class in the morning and then worked on…

  • Amazing People,  Confessions,  Proud Moments,  Reflections on Parenting,  Review

    Leafing Another Era Behind…Gladly.

    I hope you enjoy this month’s contribution to Hallmark’s “Life Is A Special Occasion” campaign! (Perhaps you should grab a cup of hot cider, and possibly a sedative. This post is about puberty.) I have found that I mentally divvy up the lives of both of my boys into neat little “eras”. It’s easier for me to keep the details of their respective childhood experiences straight if I can associate what I’m trying to remember with the circumstances of a specific period of time. Lucky for my tired brain, they have always been vastly different people and each of them have a unique set of eras, with only two exceptions.…

  • My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  Too Funny To Ignore

    No Self Esteem Issues Here…

    I’m happy to report that after this exchange in the car with J yesterday, it has been confirmed that there are no self esteem issues in this house. None. Nada. Zilch. Me: “Oh, the leaves are changing. We need to see what Julesie’s availability is in the next couple of weeks so she can take your senior pictures. Do you have a nice sweater you can wear?” J: “Boy, DO I. I have a sweater so ugly it’s going to be great.” Me: “Wait, I don’t want you to wear an ugly sweater in your senior pictures.” J: “It’s ugly, but in a good way.” Me: “What does it look…

  • Reflections on Parenting

    The Knowing Is One Thing; The Realization Is Another.

    I had the extreme good fortune of being able to spend some quality time alone with Jim this weekend. Much of Saturday was spent just taking care of things around the house, and in the evening we went out for dinner and a movie. I think it was over steaks at Texas Roadhouse when Jim said, “You realize, don’t you, that in a year it will be like this almost all the time…just us?” And while I knew that already–we’ve talked about it for years, how we’d be in our mid-forties when the kids stopped living at home full time–at that moment the realization truly hit me like a ton…

  • Random Thoughts

    The Ask

    Homecoming weekend is coming up, and that means there’s a dance on the horizon. J and his girlfriend will be going, but only after he executes “The Ask”. Asking a date to attend a dance these days isn’t a matter of just, well, asking. It’s a big production which is only limited by the creativity and the resources of the person who is doing the asking. D once presented a friend with a huge, ten-pound chocolate bar which was covered with a homemade (and adorable) wrapper that said, “HOMECOMING?” He asked his prom date to the dance by arranging to be a guest on the high school morning news brief…

  • I've Got Mad Skillz,  Too Funny To Ignore

    It’s The Most Wonderful Night Of The Year…

    Maybe it’s not the MOST wonderful, really, but it’s pretty high on my list. Tonight is Curriculum Night at J’s high school. I adore Curriculum Night. In our school district, Curriculum Night in the high schools means that you follow your kid’s schedule (with each period shortened so the whole schedule fits into a two-hour time block) for the evening, taking in presentations from each teacher about what’s in store for the year. Because I loved high school so much, Curriculum Night is like a trip back in time. It’s probably mostly in my mind because a trip back in time to my high school days would be a really,…

  • My Kid Has Mad Skillz

    And Then There Was Graffiti Art.

    Something I have learned throughout my life and over and over again is that creativity begets creativity and that it runs in the family. My mom, my sister, and I are all very, very creative, in very different ways. Mom is an artist, a painter, and a quilter. Julesie is a photographer, a graphic designer, and a hobby chef. I am a paper crafter, a cake-baker, and of course, a writer. So it shouldn’t have surprised me when J, who plays guitar and has become quite good at mixing music with DJ equipment, showed talent in an entirely different category over the summer. “Mom,” he said, “I want to show…