Many people get married and have kids right away, because that’s what’s expected.  We chose to wait, instead. In fact, we waited so long that when we told my husband's parents we were having a baby, my mother-in-law said, "oh, we’d given up on you!" It was funny, but it was also a reminder of the common pressure most people feel from family, or friends, or even society as a whole.It was important to us to be sure that raising a family was something we both wanted.  Just deciding to start a family was a nearly four-year process!  Even after we decided that we'd like to have children, we waited…

For me, the arrival of fall heralds great things! It means apple picking, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. It’s pumpkin flavored muffins, donuts and coffee; homecoming weekends and football. Fall also brings changes.  It marks the end of summer, and a time when most kids are heading back to school or preschool, and of course Christmas is that much closer.  With that in mind, I wanted to take this column to share some of my favorite things about fall. Autumn weather is so invigorating.  The cool, dry air is a welcome relief from late summer's overwhelming heat and humidity, but most days are still…

While catching up on-line recently, I noticed a lot of posts about football season starting. The pictures of friends with their little Pop Warner stars, and Soccer stars, got me thinking about school and sports, and brought back some good and not so good memories. I was never a jock growing up.  I participated in sports, but had other areas of interest that took my focus.  For example, I really enjoyed playing soccer.  But because I was not a typical jock, and therefore did not fit in, I allowed another girl on the varsity team to intimidate me into quitting. When that happened, I felt like a…

Last week, my co-columnist Jenn wrote an article about different parenting styles.  The funny thing is, I was actually working on my article about the same thing for this week, and so I’m going to build on her theme.There are so many different types of parents out there.  Jenn mentioned a few of them in her article last week, but I’d specifically like to focus on one she didn’t mention: “free range” parents.  “Free Range” parents are part of a bigger movement called “Slow Parenting.”  While I am interested in some of the ideas behind “slow parenting,” it was the “Free Range” stuff that really…

The end of June always brings a wave of changes.  Children are graduating and moving on, be it to another grade, or college, or into the world.  And almost always these things cause us to reflect back on the same period in our lives. This past Monday was my son's Kindergarten graduation ceremony.  He and his class got up in front of parents and relatives and sang songs that they'd learned in Kindergarten, to celebrate that they were “moving up” to first grade. Then there was the slideshow.  A wonderful presentation set to music, with photos of all the Kindergarten classes.  I don’t think …

On Monday, we will celebrate Memorial Day. Government buildings and offices are shut down, and many people have the day off.  Many retailers greet this as the official kick-off to summer and offer all kinds of great deals.  There will be barbecues, parties and a quite a few parades, including Tewksbury’s!As a member of the Friends of the Tewksbury Patriotic Activities Committee, I’m here to let you know that Memorial Day is about so much more than that.  I want to take my column this week to remind everyone why we celebrate Memorial Day.John McCrae wrote “In Flanders fields” in 1915, where he…

The last few weeks have been wonderful!  Spring is here, and it's been great spending sunny days out playing with the boys.  Kids need to burn off excess energy, and what better way to do that than riding a bike or playing at the park with their friends?  But let's face it: this is New England, which means anything can happen.  Winter is tough enough, but with the rain and chilly days, it can sometimes feel as though spring and summer don't exist. So, what to do when you're stuck inside on a rainy day?  Get creative!  Turn lunch into a picnic: take a blanket and spread it out on the living …

People who know me know that my life is an open book. I'm comfortable talking about my personal life with family and friends.  My husband is the opposite, in that he does not discuss details about our marriage with anyone but me.  So when I mentioned the topic of this article to him, it was natural that he raised a skeptical eyebrow.  I assured him that I would not be spilling intimate details of our love life on the web, but that I felt it was a topic that other moms might like to read about.Before we had children, my husband and I took spur of the moment getaway trips.  We would go to …

We own a television, though in this day and age you almost don’t need one. Cable TV can give you 500 channels or more, but a connection to the Internet provides news, television shows, movies, video games; pretty much anything you want.  It's amazing how much things have changed.People born after 1980 might not understand this, but back when there were just three networks and no cable, TV was a common experience -- TV events linked people together.  I remember watching “Roots” with my family.  I rushed home from school to watch Luke & Laura get married on General Hospital. I waited along with…

I don’t remember when I became a positive thinker, but I know it’s changed my outlook on life.  I never see the glass as half empty any more. It may sound simplistic, but I’m thankful for what I have.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still have negative thoughts, but I refuse to let them bring me down or drive my life. When something bad happens, I don’t sit there, wringing my hands thinking, “why did this happen?”  Instead, I make the best out of the situation.  Even when life throws the toughest curveballs, I know there's nothing I can’t handle.  If I look hard enough, I know I'll find the positive …

After a recent visit from my mother that involved lots of free childcare, I started thinking about what makes a family. It’s much more than simple biology or genealogy. It’s really about the bonds we share. When you're a stay at home mom, you don't get sick days. You don’t get vacation time. You can't knock off work early to schedule personal business or run errands.  Children don't give you time off. It’s times like these that I recognize how fortunate I am to have both a mother and mother-in-law who are able and willing to lend a hand. This has helped me do things like go to doctor's …

Before my husband and I had children, we donated money to charity.  Our philosophy was simple:  if we’re fortunate enough to have, we should share because someday we might be less fortunate.  Volunteering was a time commitment we couldn’t make, so why not just send some money and be done with it? Then we had children.  Suddenly I realized that everything we did mattered.  A lot.  When you become a parent, everything you do sets an example, intended or not So we rethought our approach to charity.  Instead of giving money, we started looking for ways to give time and energy, and set an example …