Check out the blog post and then read our responses. Let us know what you think! Melissa SchoolsCaveat for the more timid: speaking up to other people’s kids can get you in trouble. One time at a public playground, some little sparkplug came running by me and was moved to give my rear end a hearty smack as he did so. He was about three. I called over to him, “Hey! That is NOT okay!” Enter, stage right, Momma Bear. She said, “Are YOU talking to MY child??”I wheeled around and said, “Oh! Is that YOUR child who smacked me on the bum just now? Yeah, I was talking to him.”Hmmm, how to make this …

Jillian SalleeWhen I was first asked to join the Patch Mamas, I was definitely a little nervous about opening myself up and sharing my thoughts and parenting ideas to the general public of Wakefield.  I am born and raised Wakefield, so I know people...lots of people.  All of a sudden, these people who I may just know casually around town are going to know my innermost thoughts, feelings, and secrets!  Ok, it’s not that dramatic, but I am putting myself out there.   I think I’m an honest person and when I write I tell the whole truth.  To me, there would be no point joining these brave women …

Melissa Schools Ah, nudity. I think any issues in our house with this topic boil down to what we struggle to teach our kids in general: discretion. There is a time and place for rough-housing, for instance. We try to instill our kids with the discretion to know that, say, tackling someone during the kids’ homily in the front of the entire congregation at mass is neither the time nor the place for it (Yes, it really happened. Sigh.). When our two oldest were still very little, there were regular nighttime performances of “Nature Boy,” often to the sound stylings of Ben’s guitar playing kiddie …

Regina MartineWhen I was a kid, the best 4th of July celebrations were at my Grandparents’ house in Long Island, NY. This was not the crazy, strip-mall filled, traffic snarled, suburban sprawl that covers most of the Island, but a sleepy little beach town on the north shore. Every July 4th the entire town becomes one big beach party, with a huge bonfire on the sand where each street meets the beach. Everyone would swim and barbeque all day, then at dusk, we’d head down to the water for the bonfire and fireworks. If memory serves, these were not professional fireworks shows, but amateurs who …

Laurie Hunt  I have such mixed feelings about rewards.  I highly recommend if you hit a wall with a really young child with something like potty training you do whatever it takes. As a matter of fact it is quite possible I promised one of my children a car for her sixteenth birthday if she would use the potty… parts of that dark time I have forgotten… To me rewards for older children are sort of like everyone getting a trophy or not keeping score in a game.  When my children get older and go off into the big scary world without me no one is going to reward them with “stuff” for good behavior…

Last year we wrote about our Dads - this year we decided to write letters to our husbands. Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there! “Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you're telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.” Bill Cosby Jillian SalleeDear Tom,  You do so much for me and for our kids and so I would just like to say thank you. Thank you for playing car wash with the kids when it’s bath time.  I think we all agree that you are the “fun” parent.  A little splashy, but fun. Thank you for reading The Sorcerer’s Stone to Lily then …

Jillian Sallee The past few weeks have been crazy busy with end of the school year activities. I am wrapping up my school year this week, the kids end next week, and then the summer schedule starts. It’s a lot of fun, excitement, and chaos wrapped up in a pretty little one month package! The day-to-day stuff with the kids doesn’t frustrate me too badly, it’s the deadlines and activities that make me lose my mind. Sure, I lose my patience with the kids like the rest of us...daily....but overall I’m a pretty calm person.   With all the stress building up in our house, I found myself last Friday…

Regina MartineIf life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing When you're feeling in the dumps, don't be silly, chumps Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing … Always look on the bright side of life. I am an optimist. I tend to look on the bright side. I always think that one way or another things will turn out ok and that I shouldn’t dwell on worrying about what I can’t control. Everything might not go as planned, but that doesn’t mean everything didn’t go pretty well. My husband is a pessimist. He always expects the…

Melissa SchoolsAs a follow up to my earlier tribute to my iPhone and its many useful wonders, including Waze (interactive gps), Facebook (duh) and Kindle Reader (too cheap to buy a real Kindle?), I offer for your reading enjoyment, a few more of my favorite things: Mmmmm, Google! Love you SO MUCH! You are the poor man’s Siri. I have NEVER plugged something into Google and NOT received a more-than-satisfactory answer/result. I do not hesitate to repeat that using Google to play “dinner-ingredient-roulette” saves dinnertime for me regularly. Simply plug in two or three food items and put the …

Jillian SalleeEven if you were one of the tireless Galvinize volunteers, you could not have missed seeing the Time magazine cover and article last week. The cover showed a 26 year old mom breastfeeding her almost 4 year old son.  There was an article that accompanied the cover that addressed the term attachment parenting and it’s champion Dr. Bill Sears.  True to form, the media ignited a controversy both with that cover and the article.  Win, win for them!              Listening to people talk and reading people’s reactions online, there were lots of aspects of the cover that bothered people…

Tasha Schlake FestelMy daughter has a ridiculously long tongue and impressively stinky feet. My son has luscious eye lashes and funny pinky toes. Other than that, my children bear no physical resemblance to me whatsoever. With their blonde hair, blue eyes, and creamy skin, I might be mistaken for the frazzled nanny when I take my children out in public. They look nothing like me with my dark hair, freckles and hazel eyes. The fact that they look just like their father might be Mother Nature’s way of ensuring that I love them and that their father knows they’re really his. Luckily, my husband …

Melissa SchoolsWhat will be the legacy of our kids’ generation? This topic was kind of blowing my mind at first. I was reading articles and thinking and philosophizing, trying to distill it all into a catchy phrase, or a pithy word or two. Then I realized something: Our kids are still kids. Even the actions and decisions of teenagers and young adults out there can only indicate a trend or possible outcome. One random blog post I read stated that we may never know the legacy of a generation until we see their grandchildren. Interesting. Though that statement may seem to take away from the …

Tasha Schlake FestelOf all of the punishments doled out in my house, one you will never hear is revocation of television privileges. I mean, really. Who does that punish? That’s right: me, far more than the children. I’m pretty sure I could not make it through the day without my children “vegging out” in front of the boob tube. The television is my friend, but we have a tumultuous relationship. While I need it as a parenting tool like I need to exercise, breathe, eat salami and drink tequila to live, I also hate it and the things it has taught my children. When I was able to limit their …

Tasha Schlake FestelThe lights on the baby monitor started to flash, transmitting from my son’s bedroom where he was happily playing alone. Curious, I walked over and turned it up.“<grumble, mumble, indistinguishable sounds> f**k <more mumbling> f**king <grumble, grumble> f**k !” Um, what??? The kid was three. What the hell was going on up there? I walked to the bottom of the stairs to investigate.Me: Um, buddy? Is everything OK up there? 3-year-old innocent little boy from his room:Yup! I’m just playing! Me: You sure? What are you doing? 3-year-old apparently not-so-innocent boy, still from …

Tasha Schlake FestelSome might call it neglect. Others laziness. I, however, prefer to call it responsible parenting. I rarely take my kids to the doctor. Despite the mini crush I have on our pediatrician (and really, what mom doesn’t have a mini crush on her children’s pediatrician), my kids almost never go to the doctor. In fact, there have been some years when the only time we saw him was at my kids’ annual physicals, a mixed blessing, given the crush. It’s not that my kids don’t get sick. It’s just that I almost always wait it out. In a day or two, any illness generally goes away as …

Regina MartineCan I play Wii? Can I play on your phone? Can I watch Cupcake Wars? Can I play on Daddy’s iPad? Can I play chess against the computer? Ugh. We all know we are supposed to limit our kids’ screen time, but those little screens are everywhere.  However, in our house, the people who are usually parked in front of screens are the parents. My husband works at home several days a week, and I am a freelance graphic designer —so my kids think “working” means sitting in front of a computer. When I’m not working (actually, when I am working, too) I have Facebook open on my computer and I …

Note from the Wakefield Moms:Before we start our article this week the Patch Mama’s would like to welcome our newest member: Melissa Schools. Melissa is mom to four boys and is expecting child number 5 this fall. Melissa is an amazing person, and we are sure you are all going to enjoy getting to know her. Welcome Melissa! Did you know there was a middle name pride week? Did you know according to the Greek Orthodox tradition, nearly every day of the year is dedicated to a Christian saint or Martyr? When someone is named after one of those saints, that day becomes their "name day" and, …

Regina MartineAll of my kids have the power to drive me completely out of my mind, but right now, only one of them does it on a regular basis. They say seven is the “Age of Reason” — where kids learn how to compromise, how to respect others’ feelings, and how to understand how their behavior affects other people. My daughters became much easier, more reasonable, and more cooperative right around when they turned seven. My son will be seven on Saturday. Hopefully the end is near. This is not that they don’t all have their moments of irritating behavior, but I can say something like “you need …

Regina MartineI love school projects. I am a pretty creative person by nature, and I have a ton of craft supplies in my house, so projects are usually a fun diversion from regular homework. It also gives the kids a chance to demonstrate what they have learned in a fun interactive way. My kids are also pretty creative, and the two older ones are freakishly organized about schoolwork so projects are really never a problem around here. I might offer a little design advice, or help them here or there, but for the most part, they do all the work themselves. My only complaint is that my kids never …

Regina MartineWhen I was in the seventh grade, my best friend, Cari, was completely boy crazy. She would plaster the walls in her room with pictures snipped from the pages of Tiger Beat; Ricky Schroder, Jason Bateman, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, and many, many more.  Every week or two, she would tear the pictures down and replace them with whatever boy caught her fancy next. Sometimes they were celebrities and sometimes they were real, live boys from school. My obsessions never went as far as Cari’s. My biggest crush at the time was probably on her. Not in the romantic sense, but she was…