Sometimes you have to go into the other room to laugh

Responsible parents know that it’s completely inappropriate to laugh at your kids when they say things that are disrespectful. Unfortunately, sometimes they say things that are so funny, you have to hide your head in a pillow to try to desperately hold onto the title of “responsible parent.”
Phillip (age 3) is going through a [...]

Sleep walking

I am NOT cut out to be a single mom!  Lannie comes home for the weekend today, and I am SO glad.  The kids have been extra emotional with their dad gone– especially Phillip.  It took me two days to get him to calm down.
Caleb and I have noticed that Phillip acts especially crazy right [...]

Dealing with a child’s grief

A sad amendment to the notes I wrote about Elizabeth’s second teacher change.  We found out last week that her teacher, Mr. Cowart, had been in the hospital with a very serious case of pneumonia since his leave of absence.  We also learned that he had battled cancer in the past and that it may [...]

Proud mom

I am so proud of Caleb’s efforts in school so far this year.  He has really been motivated to work hard, and he has come so far in just 7 weeks.  He finished reading Call of the Wild today, marking the sixth classic book he has read so far this fall.  It’s hard for me [...]

Having second thoughts

The plot thickens in the ongoing saga of Elizabeth’s school situation…
To bring you up to speed, she had to change teachers after the first week of school because her teacher was moved to third grade.  The explanation offered by the school was that there were not enough second graders registered to warrant the number of [...]

On being a mother hen

Caleb, my oldest “baby,” went to sleep-away camp with a church group for the first time last week. They went to Alabama for four nights, which meant there was no way he could come home even if he wanted to.
Caleb is usually a pretty independent kid, so we were not too worried about him, [...]

Most people in Memphis aren’t this rude

Subtitle: One of the few times I’ve seen my husband lose it in public
Lannie called me on the way home from work yesterday and wanted to go out for dinner. He had been seeing IHOP commercials and was craving pancakes. I already had dinner in the oven, but I saved it for [...]

One kid should be a lot easier than this!

My two older children are gone to “camp” this week– that is, Caleb is at a real camp, and Elizabeth is at a “camp” that my parents made up. Caleb has gone to sleep-away church camp for the first time (sob!). He left early Monday morning and will be home Thursday night. [...]

Decisions

After nearly two months of trying to decide what to do about school next year, we’ve finally decided to continue homeschooling Caleb. Elizabeth will go back to public school. I’m not sure what I expected from this homeschooling experiment of the last semester, but I certainly thought it would be temporary. I [...]

Red tape

I’ve been told that some people are intimated by me as a mom because I have three kids and I homeschool. Other people have been out in public with me and my kids and feel sorry for me (or the kids, I’m not sure). Neither of those people were with me and my [...]