Last night was the season finale of Lost, and I mentally checked this one off the list and breathed a small sigh of relief. I'm a little sad to see our favorite shows end, one-by-one, for the summer, but I'm actually kind of happy, too. I think our list of shows we follow has gotten unwieldy over the past few months and I'll be glad to trade most of them in for longer evenings on the porch, and dinners at the pool.

I tallied up our recent schedule of our nightly TV habit and came up with this: [more]

This past weekend T. went to a birthday party, and while I was digging through our collection of used gift bags to put the present in, I discovered one from T.'s birthday back in January. The bag still had the little gift card attached to it--you know, the card you never read because so many people thoughtfully leave it blank because they know you'll want to reuse the bag? And kids always seem to make their own cards instead of writing their names on those microscopic gift bag cards--I know mine do. [more]

I'm tired. It's been a Long Week--maybe it has been for all of you? So instead of a somewhat coherent (?), post, I wanted to throw out something I've been pondering and see what you, wise internet people, think about this. [more]

We love traditional sayings and folklore expressions at our house. Sayings are easy for L.--and for children in general--to grasp. They are comforting, short, pack a lot of meaning into a few words, and are easily remembered. We have a saying for almost everything around here. Things like:

A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Two heads are better than one
Where there's life, there's hope
If at first you don't succeed...try, try again

And this one we've been using quite a lot lately:

If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb. [more]

I've been thinking a lot lately about House Rules--or, namely, about how they are often not followed at our house, despite having many of them. We had a lot more success with House Rules when the kids were toddlers. Rules like don't touch the outlets, or no climbing on the tables, or don't walk out the front door without a grown-up, or no chewing on toys that don't fit into the end of a toilet paper tube. Those rules were all easier to enforce in the old days, when the kids wore diapers and listened to us. [more]