I think just about every couple has struggled with getting their sex life back to what it once was prior to having kids. This video addresses the problem in a very real way! (No worries, it’s not raunchy.)

Over at Slate, Tom Hodgkinson explores the idea of idle parenting. I tend to agree with his idea of making kids be more independent by having a lay about every now and then. I think it is no coincidence that my oldest son, who spent some time growing up with me as a single mother, is the most independent of all my children.

Most of the kids of single moms that I know are similarly independent. There’s just so many hours in the day and only so much one human being can do. So many kids of single moms learn early to do some taking care of themselves. My oldest son started out making his own lunch, which fostered an interest in cooking. At 15, he makes better eggs than anyone else I know. And that’s just a small bit of his cooking repertoire.

Obviously, you have to make sure what your kids are doing is age appropriate, but how about letting them take over some of the work?

Disclaimer: Not my kids, and no, I’d never cage my kids.

I’ve never taken my kids to a play area quite as, ahem, fun as this, but I do like to take my kids to the playground every now and then. It seems like the same types of kids are always there- you know them. There’s the shy kid who cowers in the corner and won’t play with anyone. There’s the bully kids who try to beat everyone up before anyone’s mom sees and comes over and throws a fit.

Then there’s those daredevil kids, the ones who are on top of the play equipment acting like monkeys. That would be my kids. I’m lucky, I haven’t had to deal with too many cuts, scrapes, broken bones and other injuries, but I’ve had to deal with a few. It’s funny, when my oldest son was a kid on the playground, I’d look at the daredevil kids and think, “What bad examples.” Now I’m the parent of them.

Tell me, Shak-ers, what sort of kids are your kids on the playground?

In his honor, I offer this:

I guess I was wrong, though. I’ve been struggling with toothache issues this past week, and I’ve been leaning heavily on my husband and oldest son to take care of the things I normally deal with. One of those things is dinner. My oldest son decided to cook tonight, while I laid down and rested. Yikes.

First he decided to make some pot stickers I had in the freezer. I’m not entirely sure what happened with them, but they apparently got burned on the outside and weren’t done on the inside. So then he decided to make mac and cheese. He got the first part right- boiling water, putting the macaroni in, letting it boil for several minutes. Then he even drained the macaroni. Right on track.

That’s when things went wrong, though. He then added six MORE cups of water, plus the milk and cheese sauce and butter. Sigh. Macaroni soup, anyone?

Mr. Ivy sent me this and it cracked me up:

They hate each other, it seems. I remember my brother and I fighting, but not with the kind of vitriol that my kids manage. All day every day, they come to tell me what the other person is doing. All the sibling rivalry advice I’ve ever read says to tell them to work it out amongst themselves. So, I tell them that, and they fight more.

If I had it to do all over again, I’d not have them at such spaced out intervals. With an almost 15 year old, an 8 year old, and a 5 year old, it’s a nightmare, the two youngest think they should be able to keep up with the 15 year old and the 15 year old is constantly embarrassed by their mere presence. But even the spacing isn’t the biggest problem, as the  year old hates the 5 year old the most.

Is it a bad thing that I cannot WAIT until they’re all in school and I’ll have more time to myself? Sigh.

…that I can almost understand this. (Posted Thursday because I saved, not published, like an idiot)

I was directed earlier today to a website called Really Bad Parenting Advice. I spent quite some time tee heeing about the picture I have up there, which they have captioned “See this, dips#*^? This is where you screwed up our taxes. Thanks.” That’s from Rule #41: Blame Your Kids For Everything. There are a lot of really funny posts there, and I added it to my feed reader so I can keep up with the bad advice.

Just an FYI: There’s some swearing and innuendo at the site. (Which makes it just THAT much better, ha.)