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Showing posts from May, 2019

BR Parents Blog: Parenting Advice from the Sopranos?

I was a high school senior when The Sopranos debuted 20 years ago. I lived in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, and didn’t have basic cable, let alone access to HBO to see the cultural juggernaut as it was airing for the first time. While I was aware of the show, I didn’t watch it even while I was in college and presumably could have found access. But thanks to the peer pressure of Twitter (more like FOMO), I decided to binge all six seasons available on Amazon Prime like some of my online favorites. Now I’m a basic, approaching-middle-age mom of two girls, which gives the series a different flavor than if I’d watched it when it first aired. The first season did feel like a time capsule to my high school days though, a time before cell phones or computers, with pagers and pay phones, CDs and low-rise jeans. But because of the time that has passed, rather than identifying with Meadow, who was about my age during the series run, I absolutely identified with the parent

BR Parents Blog: A Playdate Style Birthday Party

Birthday parties for littles can add up fast. For a few Benjamins, you can take them and a few friends to a bounce place or rent a bounce house for your backyard. We didn’t start big parties like that for my older daughter until she was about five. So when my younger turned three, even though she now knows about big blow-out parties, we decided to stick to a small, at-home party. I landed on the idea of playdate-style, which isn’t really a thing, but I think it should be! It may just be a label I made up to the way most people do parties anyway? With the cost of donut-themed invitations, rings, dollar store helium balloons and food, I was able to pull off the fun-for-my-daughter party on a small budget. (She had picked the donut “theme” from a catalog, and I filled that wish via Amazon and Mr. Ronnie’s Donut Shop!) Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

BR Parents Blog: Bunny Bunny Goes Missing!

It’s hard to know what toy your kid will latch onto, what will become the irreplaceable lovey or important, gotta-take-it-everywhere trinket. My older daughter never really did that with much of anything, but it’s a whole new world with daughter number two. This is her first year in preschool, and after the random bear I sent with her for naps didn’t come home one day, I carefully labeled a soft, sweet giraffe lovey with her name to be sure it would always be returned to her. That worked for the first semester, but sometime after Christmas, as she neared her third birthday, the giraffe lovey no longer cut it. She cycled through various stuffed animals and somehow settled on “Bunny Bunny,” a small, stuffed pink rabbit from Hobby Lobby. I don’t remember buying it, but my best guess is someone sent it to us in an Easter care package. It never dawned on me to label the bunny (or even really look at it carefully) until he went missing! Read the rest on the Baton Roug

BR Parents Blog: Pee Inside, Not on Trees–Please?

If you have to go potty, stop and go right away! Sometimes that’s easier said than done if you’re on a road trip with your littles or just out running errands without a potty nearby. The hassle of adding another stop can be daunting, but I believe in you! You can do it! A few months ago Brandon wrote about wanting to let his sons pee outside on trees in parking lots rather than deal with finding a bathroom. Maybe it’s the girl mom in me, but I still shudder to think anything but “EEEEeeeeewwwww, NO!” I’m not from Louisiana, but I did grow up in a rural area and know that a pee in the field is a thing, especially for boys. But in a city? In a parking lot? NO WAY. (And for the record, I don’t think peeing in a field is a great idea either.) Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

BR Parents: May 2019

As the Community & Education sections editor I wrote pages 16-25 of the May 2019 issue of Baton Rouge Parents Magazine . See the layout on the magazine's website . I also wrote Exceptional Lives: Making a Difference with Dressing .

BR Parents One Amazing Kid: Allen Duggar

After a grueling application process, Allen Duggar , a senior at Catholic High School (CHS), was chosen to represent Louisiana at the 2018-19 United States Senate Youth Program. Allen joined Louisiana senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy as one of the state’s two delegates in Washington, DC, for the annual program. Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

BR Parents Exceptional Lives: Making a Difference with Dressing

Receiving a chronic illness diagnosis at age nine was devastating for Maddie Plauche. But in the five years since, she has used that experience to make wonderful things happen for others. Now 14 and an eighth grader at STEM Magnet Academy, Maddie continues to deal with ulcerative colitis (UC), an inflammatory bowel disease that causes great pain and requires almost constant access to a bathroom. “She is a master of disguise and hides her pain very well,” says Brent Plauche, Maddie’s father. Maddie says she has several friends who didn’t know anything was wrong until she told them. Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .