It had been many, many years since I had read The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoesby Du Bose Heyward, when we got it out of the library last year. And I was like, "GET OUT OF MY HEAD, children's book from 1939 about how to become the Easter Bunny!" Because,...
What do you do when you want to blog, but you ALSO really, really want to take a bath and hit the sack? Why, fish something out of the mailbag of course. It's already written and at least one person in the universe is interested in the answer. Today's question is from...
It's the million-dollar Christmas question, right? And I've been asked it many times in the lead-up to Advent and Christmas: Do our children "believe" in Santa Claus? But . . . I don't think it's the right question. Hang in here with me. Seriously, let's look at what...
There are people who have blogs who eventually learn that there are things you're just not allowed to write about on the internet: vaccines, spanking, breastfeeding in public, crying it out, etc. I am not one of those people. And I get a lot of reader questions...
Question: How do you stop the fighting between your kids? What do you do with them? I've tried many things like separation, spanking (which I hate but it sure works on my older one!), toys taken away, stickers toward new toy for good behavior, etc. but I get the...
Motherhood is a full time job. But there's never much to actually SHOW for all my work at the end of the day. The things I cleaned have been messed again. The food I prepared has been eaten. The laundry I washed has been worn. And, as much as my full time job is...
In my post about how we do and do not shelter our kids, I mentioned that we choose not to shield our kids entirely from pop culture influences. As with most things, we try to find a middle ground. We don't have cable, but we do have Netflix. They mostly don't listen...
I got this mailbag question a week or so ago, and responded to it. Since then, my Cryin' Babies Go To Bed post was shared on a parenting forum, to GREAT misunderstanding, confusion, concern, and general unpleasantness. Sometimes I kind of forget that my blog is...
It often seems like we, as parents in a modern world, have two choices. We can . . . a. shelter our children from the world, safeguarding their innocence, and protecting them from knowledge and experiences that might be confusing or damaging to them or . . . b. expose...
There are many ways to potty train. There are many sides to choose: early vs. late, fast vs. slow, potty chair vs. toilet. Some families use charts, or treats, or threats, or bribery. There's camp undies, camp pull-ups, and camp nothing at all. Whatever gets the job...
Mailbag time! Question: I came across one of your mailbag questions and thought I'd ask you for your advice as well. In a month or two, we would like to put our two daughters (2 1/2 and 8 months right now) into one room together. By then, the baby will be sleeping...
Before school started up this week, I did a major tidy up of the playroom and the desks in the kids' rooms. We do our twice yearly clean outs during advent and lent, in which we select things we don't love or use all that often to donate. That's not what this was....
I've written about kids in Mass. A lot. My thoughts are well known on whether churches should have cry rooms (against it) or breastfeeding (for it). But when Haley asked me to be a part of a blog carnival about kids in Mass, I just KNEW that if I really thought about...
They have taken the word "naughty." They have taken it and made it about ridiculous Halloween costumes. It's gone so far that it feels off somehow for upstanding citizens to even say the word. It did for me, anyway. It seems like "bad" is the word most commonly...
New motherhood is a beautiful thing. There's nothing quite so glorious as a sweet squishy brand new little person, full of possibilities. Everything is new and wonderous and you are experiencing it all for the very first time.New motherhood is a terrible thing....
I let my kid pick up trash. Other people's trash. In public places. It's our own weird little apostolate. I didn't always, of course. I was a first time mom once, too, trailing after my kid at the park, saying, "No, no, honey. Don't touch that. That's yucky." But I've...
With my first baby, I carefully followed the little table in the book they gave me in the hospital that tells you exactly which food to start with, and in which order to introduce other foods. I sat Jack in his highchair and watched as he tongued back out the little...
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. A secret known only to everyone who knows me in real life and all the people who like Catholic All Year on Facebook but no one else. Sometimes I put the Bumbo on the table. Okay, maybe it would be more shocking coming from...
My Day in the Life post inspired a lot of comments, and a lot of questions. So, I'm starting an occasional series called How We Roll to answer them. I would say that my children are very independent, compared with the general population of two to...
On Thursday, the husband's Aunt Maureen passed away after a battle with lung cancer. On Sunday afternoon we were all in Chicago at the wake. A real, no kidding, Chicago Irish wake. The whole family and close friends, kids included, spent the afternoon and...
Discipline. It's a scary word that conjures up images of switches behind the shed and nuns with rulers in hand. But I'm here to tell you that it's the thing that makes me not only love my children, but genuinely enjoy being around them. We live in a Chicken Little...
When my eldest son was in preschool, I made the mistake of handing the buck to the Pope when it came to some of our parenting practices. When Jack would ask why he couldn't watch a particular show that his friends were watching, I'd say, "Well, we're Catholic and...
First things first, can you spare a moment to say a prayer for Bonnie's son and Micaela's friend? And now for the quick takes . . . --- 1 --- Heather sent me a link to an article that claims that the eldest children in big families are exploited by their...
Here's why I don't like babywearing: 1. I can't physically do everything I'd be able to if I had a baby who slept in a swing or bassinet: like sew, or exercise, or bathe, or unload the dishwasher, or not be touching someone. 2. It can get a little achy. 3. They...
I mentioned this technique in a post in which I used it on Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and MTV, and I can't remember hearing much about any of them since, so I'm going to assume it was a big success and they've all decided to turn their lives around. In which case,...
It's pick on three-year-olds week here at Catholic All Year, which is odd since I don't even have a three-year-old right now. But I have had five three-year-olds previously, so I can say with some level of expertise, that those guys are generally up to something....
Guys? I need everyone to promise not to tell Grace about this post. She pretty much explicitly forbade its writing. But I wrote it anyway. INTJ and all that. Here's the thing: I really DO think twos are better than ones, and better than threes as well. I have written...
Kaitlin from More Like Mary wrote me asking about how we deal with toddlers' picky eating habits. I fired off a quick email back to her before I remembered the super-frustrating food allergy issues her family is dealing with. Our family does not have any allergies or...
I'm pretty sure you're going to want to thank me for these awesome links, so: --- 1 --- I wasn't surprised when my Open Letter to Breaking Bad and Flannery O'Connor inspired other posts, but now I'm going to go ahead and take credit for the existence of a whole new...
Well, since at least 1812. That's when the Grimm brothers set out to scare the dickens out of generations of children. But clearly these stories, and the concept that scary stuff is good for kids, existed well before they started gathering the stories up. What we...
