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A welcome note to any of my daughter's classmates parents who have found this blog. First, rest assure that I won't be blogging gossip here or anything I think is inappropriate for a blog so darn public. If you're the teacher, I will always bring my concerns to you before I ever write about it here. That said, back to our regularly scheduled ...

It's back-to-school time and I personally believe this is the real new year. This is the time for resolutions - yes, I'm that much of an academic nrrd. My life revolves around academic years. So what better resolution than to be more green?Eco-Friendly Families, a new book by Helen Coronato, gives you the outline for your whole family to lead ...

That's what my five-year-old daughter said as her daddy was rushing us to the basement on Monday night. She then burst into tears from fear. Jennifer, our resident parenting professional, blogged that we shouldn't pretend to not be scared around our kids. That we need to reassure them that we're scared too and that their fear isn't silly. *sigh* ...

My daughter loves to read ''And Tango Makes Three,'' although we haven't read it in quite some time. She loves penguins and thinks that lil Tango is ''oh, so cute!'' Through the book and other real life interactions I believe that she has a good grasp on the idea that families come in many different varieties. But I've been intentional in this ...

Over the Memorial Day weekend we ventured out to The Morton Arboretum or what some affectionately call, The Tree Museum. And boy were we lucky! First, it only rained for a few minutes and second David Rogers' Big Bugs exhibit was on show. Once we paid our entry fee I started to read the ''Bug Detective'' notebook that outlines which bugs are on ...

There are days when my husband & I joke around about shipping our sassy & (some days too) precocious daughter to boarding school. Thus it intrigued me to see the headline - No small plan: Public boarding schools for Chicago - in Friday's Chicago Tribune. Low and behold...the first time I've ever said ''Brilliant!'' about CPS. Yes, I know ...

The hardest part about raising a daughter has been watching my mouth. I swear a lot. I use the F-word A LOT. I also take almost any opening I get to say something negative about my body.''Oh these chicken breasts are huge!'' I bet they could at least button their shirt. As women, I think we all do this. As a woman who isn't a size 8 much ...

This action alert just popped into my inbox from MomsRising.com: Right now, more than 40,000 kindergarteners are home alone each day afterschool, with a total of more than 14,000,000 school-age kids on their own afterschool. Surprised? The reality is that most parents work now, and there are too few affordable and accessible afterschool ...

I haven't gotten my paczki yet, but we did vote this morning. There is a blurry photo of my daughter holding up our ''Thank you for voting'' receipt. We all got up extra early because I feared that with the snow coming in the evening others might wake early to connect the arrow and vote. But nope, no wait when we got there and it was quick & ...

Remember the days when you just needed patience and a dollar to see a movie? Well now all you need is patience and five dollars! Kerosotes Theaters have this nifty club ingeniously called, The Five Buck Club. I read about it on Gapers Block a few months ago, filled out the application, and within a week or so, my member card showed up in the mail. ...