Back-to-School, Glory Hallelujah
This post is sponsored by Zappos. My kids went back to school last week, and not a moment too soon. This summer . . . it may have been one of my hardest yet as a parent. We were in the middle of moving and unpacking, our house was constantly full of construction workers, we didn’t have a working kitchen, and there wasn’t really a place for the kids to play. And in the midst of this I was still trying to work from home full-time. I was exhausted and the kids were bored. I think even they were . . .
The Gift of Education! (Or the Difficulties of Christmas Gift Recommendations)
This post was sponsored by Scholarshare. The older and more independent kids get, the more difficult gift-giving becomes at Christmas. As I've written before, we're working hard this Christmas to make it more about memories rather than things. This helps us keep our holiday spending within our budget, of course, but it also reinforces our belief that Christmas should be about more than just material stuff. But we're not hermits. And when our relatives ask us what the kids want for . . .
Kidizen: upscale clothing that is friendly to the environment and the wallet #shopkidizen
This post was sponsored by Kidizen Over the past few years I've been trying to be more conscious about our purchases. We have moved to fair-trade for many of our household items, and we've made efforts to make our purchases friendlier to the environment. We've also tried to be cognizant of the human rights issues in our purchases, avoiding products that are known to involve slave labor.The one area where shopping consciously has been a big struggle for me has been clothing. Fair trade clothing . . .
College expectations and the burden of debt
This post was sponsored by Scholarshare. To say education is important in our family is a bit of an understatement. Our parents were educators. Mark and I both have advanced degrees. Both of us grew up watching our fathers pursue Ph.Ds. We grew up with the expectation that we would go to college. But we grew up with another expectation, too: Both of us were made aware from the beginning that we would have to pay for our college education. All of it—room, board, books—was on our . . .
How to monitor safety issues while managing your own parental anxiety
This post was sponsored by Empowered SAFETY With my first child, I was really concerned about safety issues. Possibly even too concerned. I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac about my own health. I am a master catastrophizer, and having a child was just a new place to project some of that anxiety. I have been gifted with an overactive imagination, coupled with a propensity towards gloom and doom. This fatalistic creativity has led me to be a bit, ahem, DELUSIONALLY PARANOID, when it comes . . .
Money management with kids, and the power of matching
This post was sponsored by Scholarshare. For a recent birthday, one of my sons got a twenty-dollar bill from a family member. His eyes lit up when he opened the gift. He was excited about his newfound wealth. He pocketed it. A few days later, one of our neighbors came over after our kids had been playing across the street at their house. She had $20 in her hand. Guess who had just left his new twenty clutched in the sticky hand of the neighbors' four-year-old? My kids are . . .
Is a college degree still worth it?
This post was sponsored by Scholarshare. Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Neither did Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. But chances are, someone at my local Starbucks DID finish college…and now she's putting her degree to work making lattes. As for me, I attended both college and grad school. I have a master's degree. But do you know where the bulk of my income comes from these days? My blog. I didn't go to college to learn how to be a blogger, because blogging didn't exist in those days. I . . .
Lessons about maternal health from Merck for Moms
Sponsored by Merck for Mothers and BlogHer. A few weeks ago at BlogHer '14 I had the chance to attend a seminar given by Merck for Mothers on global maternal health. It was an eye-opening experience. We learned that every 10 minutes, a woman in the U.S. nearly dies from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Most of these deaths are preventable. That's why Merck created Merck for Mothers, a 10-year initiative designed to reduce maternal . . .
How to get kids to pack their own lunches
This post is sponsored by Blue Diamond Almonds. Kids are picky about food. I've gone one really adventurous eater (see my #FoodieJafta tag on instagram), but for the others, pickiness seems to be an inherent trait that they were born with. We can work our way around this pickiness at home—usually—but it gets tricky at school. I remember trading lunches with other kids back when I was in school. But with teachers and cafeteria monitors walking around and a much greater sensitivity to . . .
Teachable Moments While Saving for College
This post was sponsored by Scholarshare. I mentioned a couple of months ago that Mark and I had opened up Scholarshare 529 college-savings accounts for each of our four kids. With our oldest being nine years old, college really isn’t that far away. I know. We should have started saving for it earlier. Waaaaaaay earlier. But now that we’ve done it, we’re finding that it has become a great way for us to teach our kids all kinds of civic lessons related to college, money, and the . . .