Parenting Tip of the Day:

 

Always get all your ducks in a row — even (especially) when you are in a crappy place.

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Some friends are more compliant than other friends, and conversation is overrated.

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Parenthood requires an honest reframing of one’s spiritual beliefs.  Nirvana is reached in that brief moment when the dirty clothes hamper and clean clothes laundry basket are both empty.  Nirvana is short-lived, if not unattainable.

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Explain to your three year-old before you arrive at the party that the phrase, “party pooper,” has nothing to do with actual feces.

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Kazoos were invented by the devil, and are distributed to children by advocates of filicide.

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Before reprimanding your child, it is wise to clarify her intentions:

Me: Please don’t whine at me.

Child: I wasn’t whining at you.  I was yelling at you!

Parenting Tip of the Day:

The pretend tears that are elicited by telling a pretend story about a pretend bear that eats a pretend family at the request of a real three-and-a-half year old, last just as long, and are just as loud as the real tears that might have ensued after sharing a nonfiction story with the same plot.

Parenting Tip of the Day (Pet Edition):

Time to clean out your underwear drawer? Leave the drawer slightly open, and then lock your cats in your room alone:

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Thinking outside the box may, in fact, be overrated where privacy is concerned.

Parenting Tip of the Day:

When you are three, and you haven’t had a nap, and you don’t like bubbles in the bath, this constitutes bubbles, and crying is necessary.