My six year old daughter is standing across the room, putting together a salad to go with the dinner I’m making. She’s put some mixed greens in a bowl, added dressing and croutons, and is gently tossing it with a pair of tongs. She’s being helpful, learning valuable cooking skills, and is more than happy to take on this role. It’s a very sweet scene, and as I watch her, I feel grateful to be her mom.
Chocolate bars, wrapping paper, spaghetti dinners. Been there, done that.
I have two favourite things about ‘Family Fondue Night’. One, is the chocolate fondue for dessert – which we’ll get to in just a bit. But the other – and perhaps the best, even better than chocolate – is the time we spend as a family.
Last month I wrote a piece for The Mabelhood on the Great Screen Time Debate which generated some great online conversations among parents and caregivers on exactly how much TV is “too much”. It also highlighted the fact that, for some parents, avoiding screen time altogether was impossible and unrealistic.
My kids have often encountered little friends along the way who seem to have a few “quirks.” The kid might not have a formal diagnosis, but as I say to my kids, “let’s make sure we’re extra patient, there’s something ‘up’ with this little friend.”
Thanks to Justin Bieber I have perfected a look that is part sulk, part confusion, part sex appeal. You know the look I’m talking about it, the one he uses when he’s being photographed in public or discussing calculus. I use it every time my husband wants to talk about money and honestly, I thought that was all I’d ever learn from the Biebs.
My two boys are scared of dogs. I thought maybe they’d grow out of it with time. They didn’t.
It has been 20 years since I graduated high school.
Picture, if you will, the perfect mom. She isn’t too young or too old, and her two beautiful children are the requisite 2.2 years apart in age. She’s not too frumpy but also, not overly made up. She’s dressed in comfortable yet stylish clothes, walking her carefully groomed kids to school (on time!) with her own hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. A healthy lunch is tucked into each child’s monogrammed backpack, and later, she’ll drive them to soccer or piano lessons in a gleaming white SUV.
If you ever see any of my social media posts, you won’t find pictures of fancy, made from scratch desserts or dishes. Cooking from scratch is not something I’m very good at. My skill set is closer to burning the Campbell’s soup to the bottom of the pot so badly that the pot ends up in garbage.