A few years ago, Will was the kid on the beach afraid to leave his little chair and get his toes sandy. He used to scream about it being dirty. But children grow and change. Yesterday I watched at a distance as Will studied the periwinkles, hermit crabs and minnows that inhabit the tidal pools in this neck of the woods with his cousin. Separated by only a few months, it amazes me to see them play together. In a short span of time, they’ve grown from barely sitting infants to toddlers who weren’t quite sure how to play together to little boys who belted out songs on a little microphone last Christmas. They can now have conversations with each other. They’ve got opinions and ideas . . .

Time does fly, doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was the one playing with my cousins on the beach, exploring the pools and chasing the birds. Okay, maybe we didn’t chase birds because we were girls, but you get the idea. Now we’re the moms sitting at a distance letting our boys get a taste of the freedom that comes with childhood.

Read the rest of this entry…

Check out other Wordless Wednesday participants too.

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Have you read The Voice of Mom today? It’s moms, uncensored.

For the past few months, I have been doing a lot of behind the scenes work on something new and big. From a little idea that Cate O’Malley proposed to me months ago to conception, design and finally launch, it’s been a long, long road to get here. But now we are and I am so glad.

So, without further ado . . .

Introducing The Voice of Mom

Have you ever looked online for something and read product reviews but were left wondering whether it would shrink in the wash, standup to a real kid’s wear and tear, or really come in a durable fabric (cause you know a store isn’t going to tell you if it doesn’t — could you imagine? Made from the lowest quality fabric we could find because it saves our company a lot of money . . . yea, not going to happen.)? This is our answer to that. Reviews that really tell you if something works . . .

The Voice of Mom is a website dedicated to honest, candid product reviews of items geared towards moms, dads, kids and families. We’ll also be having occasional expert guest posters to share their expertise with our readers.

So, The Voice of Mom — Moms, Uncensored. Check out the site and visit often. We can’t wait to see you there!

I love – LOVE – the ease of food that can do double duty. For instance, a roasted chicken like the one mentioned on the Everyday Food blog today can be Sunday dinner, Monday chicken tacos, Tuesday chicken and rice and Wednesday chicken salad. Talk about a blessing for a busy, harried mom — or any uber busy person.

That’s why I love this beef recipe. It doesn’t take long to throw together and it can feed a family of four for three meals. It’s adapted from a cookbook that I’ve had for several years, but rarely used, called Better Food for Kids. My version makes it a bit fresher and more to my style/taste.

Since you use it in different dishes, we didn’t get bored eating ground beef three times in a week. Will and Paige gobbled up the shepherd’s pie and devoured the beefy calzone that I made with this (see below for directions). And the bolognese was a huge hit too. Read the rest of this entry…

Dear fellow preschool parents,

Yes, that was me on the first day of preschool this week — the one without the camera. Yes, I know, I was the only one without a camera on the first day of school. But I am okay with that. My camera — the same fancy, professional camera you were using — was in my car. It was a choice I made, not a mistake.

See, I could have brought my camera into the classroom and caught several artful shots of Will interacting with his new classmates. And I could have ducked low and raised up high for the perfect lighting so that the shots could someday be blown up big and adorn our walls. But if I did that, then I wouldn’t have been truly present for Will’s first day.

There will be other events for me to get lost in my mind, seeking just the right angle and lighting. But this was a day I just wanted to be present for.

Will and I have been talking about his first day of school for weeks. He counted down, first two weeks, then one week, then days. Well, this week, Will finally had that first day. And I was completely there.

Besides, it’s not as if I didn’t get any photos of the first day. See the photo up top? That’s Will when he didn’t want to leave school. He’d had so much fun touring the building, playing with the toys and coloring that he wanted to stay longer. Score. And a photo of my school-loving boy not wanting to go home? Priceless.

Don’t worry. Next time our kids have class, I will be shooting like nobody’s business.

Sincerely,

The Mom Without A Camera

I am up to my ears in leeks these days, but it’s not a bad thing. Parmesan roasted leeks are delicious. And sauteed leeks are versatile. But the recipe de resistance is potato leek soup. This comforting, pureed mixture of sweet leeks, starchy potatoes and flavorful chicken broth is warming on a rainy day. It’s like having two big arms wrapped around you — perfect for a cool fall evening … or a rainy night.

This recipe was inspired by one from Simply Recipes. A lack of certain ingredients dictated changes in execution, but the finished product was 100 percent awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I am making several more batches to freeze for this fall and winter.

Will and Paige both loved it too. Read the rest of this entry…

As they say, all’s well that ends well. But getting to that end was hell.

It all started early Sunday. It was a perfect-weather day here. I got the kids dressed and ready to go to the farmer’s market. The plan? Pick up some fresh bread, mozzerella, pesto, tomato and fruit and head to a nearby park area where Will would ride his bike and we’d have a picnic lunch on our bright flowered blanket. Perfect end of summer day.

That’s when I discovered that my beagles, Snoopy and Scrappy, were gone.

It’s certainly not the first time my dogs have outsmarted the electric fence. But this time was different. I couldn’t hear the jingle of their collars or any barked responses to my calling. After more than an hour, and driving around to look for them, I called my husband.

Hours passed with nothing. Read the rest of this entry…

When I was in the fifth grade, my math teacher was going around the room, asking all the students what they had for breakfast. She got to me and, without missing a beat, I said ‘nothing.’ Her whole lesson was thrown off by that revelation. What? A fifth grader who didn’t eat in the morning? Didn’t I normally have breakfast?

Well, honestly, no. It just wasn’t something I did, and I was okay with that. Occasionally I would have a cold Pop Tart just out of the package. And once in a while, I might have some cereal, but more often than not I eschewed breakfast. So did my mother. Eating in the morning? No thanks.

(My mother is cringing right now, coincidentally. She was mortified that I admitted to not eating in the morning.)

To this day, breakfast is a struggle for me. Cooking and eating is my last thought in the morning. I can barely make a cup of coffee — thank goodness for my Senseo. (Seriously, every busy woman should have one. Particularly moms.) Last year, I chronicled my attempts at learning to actually cook in the am (I went through a long spell where everything burned). I have since mastered scrambled eggs, omelets, pancakes and more.

When Cate originally posted these banana pancakes, I thought “What’s the big deal?” (Sorry, Cate!) But when she wrote about them again recently while highlighting a buttermilk pancake recipe on MyRecipes, I was intrigued.

The kids and I ate them last weekend. Then I made them again over the weekend. They are a perfect mixture of moistness, sweetness, and banana flavor. And they cooked up so easily. Total yum.

For the recipe — which you should print out and tape to the inside of a cabinet like Cate did. It’s. That. Good. — go to this page on Sweetnicks.