Our cat peed on our bed again last night.

Marilee had a fever over the weekend.

Penny dropped her glasses in the gravel outside our house last week, and it took all day to find them. She missed her bus.

William got mad that he needed to get dressed this morning and he whacked me in the arm with his stuffed ...

I've written before about my recent experience in a parenting class based on Positive Discipline (rather than authoritative or permissive parenting). Apparently, this approach is really beneficial for kids with special needs. To read more, go to Parenting Style Has Big Impact on Kids with Disabilities. ...

I had a bad dream last week. Or maybe I was half-awake in the middle of the night, thinking about what lay ahead. All I know is that at two in the morning, for the first time, I was worried about Penny's upcoming surgery.

I shouldn't have been. It was the fifth time she would be "put under," and the ...

This guest post was written by my friend and colleague Jennifer Grant in commemoration of National Adoption Month. 

Huddled on the bleachers with other parents, thoughts dart around in my mind. What inning is this? Why didn't I bring gloves? Could I be getting frostbite through my coat pockets? I stomp ...

came out in September of 2011, and I embarked on a year of promotional interviews and speaking gigs from Virginia to Washington D.C. to North Carolina to New York City to Michigan to Chicago, and to various local venues in New Jersey and Connecticut. But this year, given our family's move, I decided ...

Our day started at 5:50, with William by my bedside. "Mommy, the only thing that will make me happy is if you give me a movie right now."

I squeezed my eyes shut. "William, is it six o'clock yet?"

"No. It was taking too long."

William knows two things: he is supposed to stay in his bed until 6:00, and ...

Yesterday, I tried to talk to my kids about the election.

William, who is four, was setting out a game based on Richard Scarry's Busytown. "So, William, do you know there's an election tomorrow?"

He shook his head.

"Do you know who our President is?"

"Obama," he said, without looking up, placing Huckle ...

William woke up at 4:47 on Sunday morning, even though we kept them up late Saturday night (watching Peter Pan) in an attempt to beat the Daylight Savings beast at its own game. Marilee has been crying in the 5:00 or 5:30 range the past three mornings. Penny has made the transition just fine. But all ...

I grew up in a household where every holiday deserved attention. Valentine's Day involved red heart-shaped ornaments with photos of me and my three sisters inside. At Thanksgiving, my mother brought out the stuffed pilgrims she had made by hand and the drawings we had done in grade school to commemorate ...

We usually rest on Sundays, well, as much as any family with three young children can rest. We avoid stores (except for yesterday, when, in preparation for Sandy we not only went to the mall to retrieve my computer but also went to Walmart, bought some wine at the liquor store, and secured a copy of ...

This month's cover story for Christianity Today profiles 50 evangelical women who "are profoundly shaping the evangelical church and North American society." And somehow, I made the list, along with 49 other women who pretty much all seem far more noteworthy than I do (say, Ann Voskamp, Rachel Held ...

It's starting to feel like home, with coats hanging near cubbies and routines for the morning (except this morning, when William woke up at 4:52 and Penny followed soon thereafter...) and the drive to school for William and Marilee and the bus pickup for Penny. They are starting to make friends. They ...

My day as a mom doesn't involve much thought about our government. I think about packing lunches for school, wiping counters, getting our kids dressed in clothes that are somewhat appropriate for the weather outside. I think about how many minutes of television William (age 4) has already watched today. ...

... what has it done to the rest of my family?!?

I think I've mentioned that in the past seven weeks we've moved, twice. First into very temporary housing, and then, three weeks ago, into a rental house. We'll be here until February when we move into our permanent home.

Five days into the second move, ...

A few weeks ago, I asked Penny if she wanted me to pray for her before she went to sleep. She nodded. I said, "Is there anything you need God's help with?"

She nodded again, and in the dim light of the evening, she began to talk: "I don't line up in school at the right time."

I said, "Okay. I can pray ...

The political conventions of 2012 made one thing clear: both parties want to woo the moms of America. As Lisa Belkin pointed out in the midst of the Republican convention, in his convention speech, "Mitt Romney used some version of the word ‘mom' 14 times." Romney's mom-laced speech came after both ...

We've seen a lot of family lately, and both my sister and my sister-in-law have children just about Marilee's age. Recently, as Marilee barreled down the stairs and refused to sit in a high chair and drank out of an open cup and said, "I want backpack!" and stumbled around with Penny's ginormous one ...

A few months ago, Parents Magazine and CNN hosted a joint luncheon with an array of moms in order to talk about the upcoming election. As a part of my new gig blogging about the election with parents.com, I had a chance to meet some awesome women and participate in a two-hour conversation with Soledad ...

Recently, William has become obsessed with money. I think it started when he received twenty dollars for his birthday, which prompted a trip to the toy store where he got to purchase something that he selected. He's been on a quest for more money ever since. He scoured the car for coins. He plays "look ...

We moved to our new, temporary, home two weeks ago. We will move again next week into a more permanent temporary spot. The final move is slated for February.

That much I knew ahead of time.

What I didn't know was that we were moving to a place without a phone line and where cell phone service is, well, ...