Yesterday when I picked up T. from preschool, I stood outside with the father of T.'s best-friend-forever, J., while the girls played "Ariel and Flounder" on the front lawn. We talked about current behavior woes (4-1/2 seems to be a universal age for these complaints), and I thought about how much I'll miss the chance to share parenting stories with other moms and dads when T. [more]

This weekend was a long and difficult one, because we spent much of it doing the dirty work of parenting: enforcing consequences (also known as punishment). L. did hardly any work at school last week, and his teacher sent it all home ("Who's being punished here?" Scott wanted to know, which was a pretty good question), and we had to exact consequences on L. for a moment of extreme folly last week that ended up costing us $120. But enough said. Remember that adage parents like to pull out when they're discussing consequences with kids? [more]

The K-Man has recently emerged from that all-too-fun phase where he greets his friends by hitting them. Repeatedly. It’s like a precursor to first grade when we show affection with a lovely punch in the shoulder. K-Man would push, hit, punch and just about anything else. One morning, he drew blood with a well-placed thwack in the nose with his sippy cup. Nice. Like I said, though, he’s made it to the other side and is, once again, the best kid in the world. [more]