I just spent the better part of an hour shoveling off my driveway. With the majority of the snow forecasted to hit later tonight, the least I could do to help my husband was shovel off the two inches that had already collected. It wasn’t too hard thankfully, being the light, fluffy, dry snow. I figure I’ll let my husband shovel the other 10 wet inches tomorrow morning. I know he’ll thank me for getting rid of that difficult first batch. After all, he could’ve ended up shoveling twelve. Shoveling snow while it’s snowing is a lot like raking leaves when it’s windy, or doing laundry for that …

The phone rang late at night last week. You know late night or early morning phone calls don’t usually contain good news. I walked slowly to the phone, picked up the receiver, listened to the words on the other end. A tear rolled down my cheek. It’s the kind of news no parent really wants to hear - is scared to hear: Snow day. Again. Like children all over New England, both my kids were hoping this would happen, my daughter pulling out all the stops and using every “good luck” moves she knows. She put her pajamas on inside out and backwards, licked a spoon and shoved it under her pillow, and …

The other evening my older daughter offered to give my youngest daughter a shower. Well, maybe she didn’t offer. Maybe I strongly suggested she offer. Whatever inspired her to help me, she did wash her sister up while I made dinner. There was some three-year-old crying, but I figured there was soap in the eyes, water in the ears, you know, the usual shower-time horror.  20 minutes later, everyone is at the dinner table, all shiny and shampoo-y, when I walked by my youngest daughter and noticed something on her head. I am nothing if not obsessed with my children’s hair and what may or may not …

It was a great Christmas for our family this year. Especially for my son, who indeed got the only thing he asked for: an iPod Touch. Yes, in a non-mediocre mom move, I even purchased the 4th generation. The boy was indeed happy with his one large gift and all its infinite possibilities—a Pop Tart sized piece of technology that does just about everything except his homework. But I'm sure if he looked hard enough he could find an App even for that. Seriously, there's an App for everything. But alas, the beloved gift isn't without drawbacks. Instead of arguing over what kind of video games he …

I'm forever hearing stories about the infamous blizzard of '78 which essentially paralyzed the region and forced hundreds (if not thousands) of people to take up snow shoeing and cross-country skiing. Neighbors on my street who lived here during that fateful storm regale me with anecdotes about dragging sleds to the market around the corner for food and other necessities, gathering in the few homes with a generator for warmth, and how fun it was to have more than a week off from school and work.  The blizzard that hit us a few days ago wasn't quite the story-telling epic of this decade, but …

Yesterday afternoon I took advantage of an hour of kid-free time and splayed out all the Christmas presents I have purchased for my kids to date. And then I headed for the spiked eggnog. Every year I limit how much money we spend on each child. This is in addition to Santa Presents of course, because we all know that Santa and his elves makes all those high priced gadgets and dolls he leaves for our children, and that he is not bound by budgets or mortgages. He's been around so long I'm pretty sure his posh candy cane mansion has been paid off for quite some time. This year, $200 sounded like…

This year I decided to divorce a few of our family's Christmas tree "traditions." Traditions being the polite term for what is more aptly described as "forced family bonding time." I headed into the season at a relatively fast clip this year; my holiday decorations were up before the Thanksgiving turkey was cold in the fridge. But a week into December those tree ornament boxes lining my hallway were wrecking visions of clean living space dancing in my head, so I asked my husband: "When should we go pick out the Christmas tree?" "Why don't you stop by that place down at Five Corners; any tree …