Are there things your family routinely does that sometimes make you wonder, “How did we get here?” Maybe it’s a sleeping situation, a treat when you go through the drive-thru, going through the drive-thru — things that, once upon a time, you couldn’t even fathom doing. But now they are part of your daily life. There was
Last night Mary and I had a mommy-daughter dinner date. I often hear about the value of one-on-one time with kids, especially for kids in large families, but our family almost never does that sort of thing. Honestly? Between me and you? WHO HAS TIME? (Especially in large families!) But, as expected, dinner was really
Around this time of year, it seems from my end of things, kindergarten really picks up. The phonetic spelling kicks into high gear, and these little learn to read books show up in their book bags. The books are simple, repetitive, and short. It’s straightforward enough — sight words are repetition. They’ve got all the
My oldest kid is 10, and recently I’ve found myself in a phase of constantly looking for things that will inspire him to play. He can get a bit bored at playgrounds these days, and I can’t remember the last time he dumped all the bins in our playroom, looking for just the right plastic
Christmas was exactly two weeks ago. Doesn’t it seem so much longer? New Years Eve comes at the exact right time because it marks the psychological distance between December 25 and January 1. It’s like six days but MAN oh MAN does it feel like a year. A lot of our decorations are still up,
Merry, merry Christmas from the Kriegers! Merry Christmas, especially, from Anna’s bedhead and Thomas’s cowlick, and four kids who, when they find out that all kids aren’t forced to wait at the top of the stairs for their parents to get a cup of coffee and walk around aimlessly for a few minutes. Our Christmas
Anna has been in school for a little over a month, and even though I don’t hear a ton about what she does in class, I can tell she likes it. She’s always excited to go, happy when she gets home, and every now and then she says or does something that makes me smile
Let this go down in history as the first year I’ve ever rallied everyone for a family costume. I’ve always loved family costumes, but I never fully respected them until I had kids. So many opinions to manage! Mercurial! Unpredictable! Plus, I was just so, so tired for so, so many years. Now I’m still
Anna started preschool on Friday. After watching her siblings go to school every day for a month, and THEN after a COVID exposure pushed the school’s first day back a week, it’s safe to say she was R-E-A-D-Y to start school. As in, about to burst with excitement. She was so excited that I was tempted
Thomas started kindergarten, and can we just let that sink in for a second? No one believes me when I tell them that Thomas, the same kid who spent his early years scaling tall objects, flooding the bathroom, and otherwise giving his mother a heart attack, is joining the ranks of the educated. They especially