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A day spent at an amusement park can make your wallet feel like it’s taken one spin too many on the tilt-a-whirl.  Simple planning and a few insider tips will make you and your wallet feel a bit less spent when you head to Six Flags Great America and Hurricane Harbor in nearby Gurnee, Illinois.      For starters, peruse ...

I told Noah about the Vaseline on the toilet seat.  And about putting conditioner in the shampoo bottles.  I may even have mentioned the Saran Wrap my bunkmates and I stretched across the toilet seat in the cabin next door while everyone else was at dinner.   That one is a camp pranks best-hit.  An oldie but a ...

I became a parent nearly a decade ago.  A few blunders later, I’ve come to a few startling conclusions.    For starters, I learned early on that it’s politically incorrect to bring Happy Meals to the playground.  Who knew?  Take it from me though, the other mommies and daddies in the sandbox will hate you if you ...

Do I have “sucker” stamped on my forehead?  Am I a pushover?  Do I look like I was born yesterday?  Apparently the kids at our elementary school think so.    The morning I was slated to make my debut as a hot-lunch lady, Noah asked if I would sneak him an extra dessert at lunch time.    “No way pal. ...

 I don’t need any gifts for Mother’s Day.  All I want is a piece of Denny’s French toast smothered in butter and syrup.  With a dusting of confectioners sugar.  Oh yeah, and I’ll have fresh-squeezed orange juice, too, please.    I really don’t want anything else.     …But a side of peace and quiet would ...

Crocs and Croc-wannabe's are springing up everywhere again, which reminds me of an encounter Holly had with the fashion police last Spring.   “You got the wrong ones,” her friend announced, with eyes downcast at Holly’s new shoes.  They’re pink, plastic, and closely resemble those wildly trendy ...

The surest tip-off that times-are-a-changin’ was this simple statement:  “Mom, I need a new comb,” Noah announced one recent morning.  It could easily have been overlooked in those stumbling-around-to-get-out-the-door moments before school, but my ears perked up and I realized immediately that this seemingly benign request portends ...

I can feel the crankies coming on already, thanks to a good dream cut short by the appearance of a not so little person at my bedside before dawn this morning.  Noah, my nine-and-a-half-year-old, isn’t sure what woke him up and prompted him to climb into bed with us, but I have a hunch: an earthquake.   Measuring 5.2 on the Richter ...

Kids say the darndest things, and my daughter Holly is no exception.  Recently, Holly issued directions to my husband, who'd agreed to play a game with her.  She decided they should swap roles.  She'd play the parent, and he would play the child. ''Act like a kid,'' she instructed her father, then ...

Cradling my newborn should have brought me nothing but joy, right?  Shouldn’t I have been content to marvel at the miracle of Holly’s tiny fingers wrapped tightly around mine the night we brought her home from the hospital seven years ago?  So why was I a sobbing mess?   Because my firstborn, slumbering in the next room, felt a ...