SPOILER ALERT:  This post contains teenage cynicism about Santa Claus.  True believers should not read what is printed below. Now then.  My husband and I indulge in the movie Badder Santa every December.  In fact, we own the DVD in all it’s raging, inappropriate glory.  And we laugh at it all.  To preserve a little dignity, we each drop a quarter in a jar every time an f-bomb is dropped and donate that amount to charity.  (Note to the Bad Santa-uninitiated:  the sum we have collected by the time the credits roll is pretty impressive.) Given that this movie crosses the…

Remember when every flip-phone cell provider wanted to up sell the fabulous technology of text messaging? I used to roll my eyes at the practiced spiel and respond, every. Stinking. Time: Thank you, but no, I’ll never use it. I thought texting sounded like something only a teenager would indulge in, because what adult is going to flip open her phone in the middle of a busy work day to check for a text message from her bestie? Well. Never say never, right? Now we text all the freaking time, and love the ease of rapid, on-the-spot communication. We even…

(Hey, friends! If you are like me and despise those tediously long narratives that introduce the recipes on the internet, I did my best to keep this intro short and sweet. But if you are strapped for time just scroll to the recipe below. I won’t feel hurt if you do, I promise…) I can’t wait for March 14, 2028. Not because I’ll be nearly a decade older, but because it will be a memorable Pi Day. This date, 3-14-28, is the universal constant pi out to four decimal places: 3.1428. Yes, I was nerdy enough to go divide 22…

My watch is a step/stair counter. I put it on the moment my feet hit the carpet. Dedicated? Maybe. Weird? Definitely. But I consistently log 1000 steps (including stairs) before 7 am and I haven’t even left the house. This is because I am held hostage by my 12-year-old daughter and her sleepy-head inertia. Getting her out of bed and out the door in the morning requires crossing the house to trudge up and down the stairs more times that I like to admit. My daughter is at “that age” where the teenage sleep pattern shifts to night owl who…

Raise your hand if you liked P.E. when you were in school. Anyone? Anyone? www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP0mQeLWCCo Now raise your hand if you thought P.E. was a stupid waste of time and made you hate the idea of exercise. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdqjPCynGUc Ok, whew. Even Bon Jovi agrees. There were many, many things I did in school that pegged me as unpopular (band, theatre, honor roll…), but hating P.E. wasn’t one of them. The fact that every non-jock had to take Physical Education did single out us nerds but even the athletes hated P.E. (but were smart enough to join a team to get…

She looks at me. I wonder what she is thinking, as I can see her wheels are turning, trying to process what I’ve said. She seems at a loss for words, or is unsure she should say what is on her mind. She responds with yes when I ask her if she’s ok. But as I reflect back on this talk with my daughter, I realize something: She was nervous. My daughter had received a surprisingly low grade in math, one that shocked us both. It appeared her grade suffered because of missing work, work my daughter insisted she completed…

“I have to go, I have to go, I HAVE TO GO!” She danced a desperate jig as she made her way to the back of the line. I leaned in and whispered. “Is it number one or number two?” “TWO!” “Ok, everyone, let “M” to the front of the line!!!” Crisis averted. Problems with a mean kid, struggles in math class, number one or number two, there are many situations where a kid needs an advocate. But what does that mean, exactly? According to Google dictionary, an advocate (noun) is: a person, such as a protector or proponent, who…

It was the most powerful moment of the evening. The reality. The pain. The raw, honest emotion only a mother can feel when her son has been traumatized. My husband and I were attending a Durango Diaries event, and the floor was open to the audience after a panel of three told their personal experiences with bullying. The microphone passed to the mother of the young man who told his story of repeated public persecution at the hands of his once-friends, and how he turned the trauma into community outreach. She said she knew something was going on with her…

I recently read an article posted on CNN.com “Her son died. And then anti-vaxers attacked her.” The antivaxers found her Facebook page and began posting a verbal assault on this grieving mother: You killed your child. You deserved what happened to your son. This is all fake – your child doesn’t exist. This is beyond cruel. Let me go out on a limb here and say those who lash out in such a cowardly yet public manner are those who have barely a budding twig to stand on. They are people who take a weak position and have no real…