There are good reasons why kids shouldn’t play tackle football. Starshine offers five: Smack. Crack. Thud. Grunt. Oof.
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Charting the puzzles and peeves of kid-herding — from Huggies to homework, Pilates to pinatas.
There are good reasons why kids shouldn’t play tackle football. Starshine offers five: Smack. Crack. Thud. Grunt. Oof.
Beanie Babies? Ha. Wii? Puh-lease. Starshine reveals the best toys EVER.
China’s formula fiasco feeds Starshine’s (gulp) guilt about not breast-feeding.
Life doesn’t live in the things that we have. It takes place in the things that we do.
Remember when you didn’t have to hire an elephant to fete a birthday?
Surely I heard him wrong.
“I think I’ll take the boys camping over your birthday weekend,” my husband had said, “and give you some time to yourself.”
As a freelance writer with two young sons and eight employers at any given instant, my “me-time” is confined to the shower and the car, driving to fetch someone from somewhere — not time for myself, just time by myself.
So his offer sounded absurd. I ran it through my trusty guilt check: I didn’t ask, he offered. They love camping, I hate it. It is my birthday.
I’m shocked by the lump in my throat as my family drives away. Is it instinctive grief over losing control of my flock? Or (gulp) a fear that I won’t know what to do with myself when they’re gone?
Few people know what it’s like to have a name as odd as Starshine’s. But Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii? She knows.
Through some terrible mutation of natural law, a four-letter word has become my young son’s all-time favorite utterance.
Despite what it looks like, Starshine swears she did NOT give birth to two Sarah Brightman-loving 68-year olds.
Powerless at the pump, the bus may be the exact change you need.