It’s Friday afternoon, and so we are making Challah. On the one hand, this is an easy process; I’ve been doing it for years, and I’m a well-oiled kitchen machine when I work by myself. However, I have kids, and they get snippy with me when I try to do things alone; they feel there’s a teaching opportunity here. The way they tell it, it’s my responsibility as a mother to include them in the ritual. They are probably right, so I don’t argue; I just sigh, and lay down some ground rules. Rule nu... Read Full Story

‘Please, unplug that toaster before you stick a fork in it,” I hear my husband say, and without looking, I know which child he is talking to. “But the bagel is stuck,” she mutters, after which my husband patiently explains what can happen when you poke around the toaster with a metal utensil. Crisis averted, I think, and not for the first time. Isabella is a brilliant, lovely, extremely creative, and wonderful child. All in all, she’s positively delightful; she is also one of the klutziest c... Read Full Story

If there’s one thing my kids are good at, it’s losing stuff. And when that happens, there’s only one solution: go ask mommy. Somewhere along the line, I’ve gotten the reputation of being able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. This is a blatant lie. I am no better at discovering where Mendel’s toys disappear to, or where Isabella’s favorite skirt is hiding, than the kids themselves. I just have more common sense. “When did you last have them?” I ask my daughter when she complains about hav... Read Full Story

Poor, sad. little Mendel You know it when the first brilliantly red (danger, danger!) note arrives from school, informing you that some school-age victims fell by the wayside. Strep throat, flue, swine-thingy; when a child gets sick, it is An Issue. Gone are the days when we just took getting sick during cold season for granted. Nowadays, we have to be warned about contagious situations, as if it’s any surprise that when you put sixty four-year olds in the same building, they’re going to inf... Read Full Story

Some days, being a parent feels like one long exercise in self-control. It’s like navigating a minefield, or walking In stilettos on a wet floor. Or wearing a big fluffy winter coat while shopping for porcelain figurines. You get my drift. No better time to drive this point home than the High Holidays: we recently survived another Yom Kippur, and although Rabbis far and wide will disagree with me, I often think the holiday is designed to remind my children of how much fun bad behavior can be... Read Full Story

“They’re just making fun of us because we work hard.” When I recently had the opportunity to interview Bob Holt and Mike Adair, the creators of hoops&yoyo, I also grabbed the chance to talk to hoops&yoyo themselves. After all, they are the stars. Since its 2001 inception, hoops&yoyo has grown to more than 200 online animations; www.hoops&yoyo.com generates over 250,000 visitors per month. Almost 50 million free e-cards have been sent since 2004; high time to ... Read Full Story

Any parent knows: what’s funny to our kids isn’t always funny to us. Case in point: my 8-year-old daughter rolls on the floor when reading yet another Captain Underpants book, but when I turn the TV channel to Colbert, she regards me as if I’m a little bit brain dead. My 4-year-old son Mendel watches a documentary about wasps eating cockroaches, and thinks it’s the most hilarious thing he’s ever seen, while I retreat to a different room, gagging all the way, wondering: what’s so funny? When i... Read Full Story

Do you mind? I am working. Your kids are still not back in school, and you haven’t bathed in two days. So you tell them: “Mommy is going to take a two-minute shower, please behave.” Before either one can emit a whiny “Why??” you dash up the stairs, and strip so fast it reminds you of the time Orlando Bloom spent the night. Oh wait; that never happened. Sorry.There are 1440 minutes in one day. Yet, when you actually try to take that shower, one of your kids finds it necessary to flush the toi... Read Full Story

“Mom,” my son asks, “are we werewolves?” “No,” I answer, “we’re not.” “Are you sure?” “I’m sure. We’d know by now.”He mulls this over for a bit, then wants to know: how does one become a werewolf? “You have to be bitten,” I tell him. “Will I?” “Probably not. Werewolves don’t like to live in the city. They like to run in forests and stuff.” At that, he seems both disappointed and relieved. Not once, however, does he ask that central question: “Do werewolves actually exist?” Conversations like... Read Full Story

Let me do it. You you you want to. When my 8-year-old daughter wants to let me know she is angry, and pulls out all the stops, she calls me names. In her opinion, the worst insult is “bossy”. Isabella doesn’t like bossy behavior. In other people, that is, since she herself has it down pat. Or maybe she’s just channeling me while she tries to keep her brother in line. Bossy can mean a myriad of things. It’s thrown at me when I tell her to clean her room, set the table, or pick up her dirty un... Read Full Story