It’s here! The gift guide to end all gift guides!!! Whatever holiday you celebrate and whoever you are shopping for, you should be able to find something on this list! We’re following the same format as last year: starting with some general categories, like “hottest new toys,” and “last year’s best sellers,” and then moving on to categories by age with Mazzy, Harlow, Jack and Neve’s current wishlists, as well as their favorite gifts from previous years. After that, I’ve got all the categories by interest, with a heavy focus on gifts that will appeal to big kids, tweens, teens and even some yo ..read more

It’s here! The gift guide to end all gift guides!!! Whatever holiday you celebrate and whoever you are shopping for, you should be able to find something on this list! I’ve broken up the categories a little differently this year. I included some general categories, like “hottest new toys,” “old school family games” and “toys to play with on Christmas morning.” FYI, Those toys are for big kids too– don’t forget to get them toys, even if they say they are too old for them! Next, I’ve got Mazzy, Harlow, Jack and Neve’s current wishlists broken down by age, but instead of putting every year’s pre ..read more

Yesterday morning, after I dropped the kids off at school, I set whatever I was planning to do aside and watched the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry. It seemed like you could not exist on the internet yesterday without doing so. There were a lot of allegations in there billed as “shocking,” but I didn’t find any of them that surprising. The more shocking thing was that Meghan and Harry said them out loud. Normally, I do not follow the Royal Family and I am not even close to an expert on the topic, but a few months ago, I listened to a five part series on the podcast “You’re Wrong About ..read more

Every year, I do the Mommy Shorts Halloween Costume Awards. This year, my awards were a little delayed because a) there was a very important election going on that diverted our collective attention and b) Instagram turned off “most recent” hashtags to prevent election misinformation from spreading, so I wasn’t able to see anyone who tagged the #mommyshortshalloween hashtag this year. I tried waiting a couple weeks and Instagram STILL hasn’t turned back on the hashtag. I guess that’s because people are are STILL spreading election misinformation. DAMNIT. The 2020 hits just keep on coming. So ..read more

Back in September, we attempted to go apple picking, like we do every year. But the parking lot was so crowded with people, we pulled right back out. We drove to another apple picking place but it was the same story. I’ve heard that some places have ticketed arrivals to make the fall festivities more COVID-friendly, but not in our area. So, we gave up and went to Fruit King, a roadside market and got a bag of apples there. Not quite as eventful but I guess it got the job done. They even had apple cider doughnuts. Based on this experience, I wasn’t even going to attempt a trip to the pumpkin ..read more

Last year, I wrote about Mazzy’s history of dressing up as badass women for Halloween. Harlow, on the other hand, has been all about fashion icons. She’s always loved an excuse to dress up extra fancy and has a penchant for layering on accessories (as a toddler, she carried a red purse over her shoulder everywhere she went), so portraying the fashion world’s most iconic looks on Halloween seemed like a natural extension. This year, we didn’t even have to buy a costume. We just used clothes in her own closet! First there was Audrey Hepburn, as pictured above. If you remember, that year, Harlow ..read more

This post was written by Liz Faria.  I’ve always been a Facebook person. It’s where I go to see what’s going on with my extended family, my friends, and my kids’ schools. It’s how I know whose birthday it is and what stories are trending. It’s even where I shop— I have a FB Marketplace addiction. I mean, the deals! But Facebook is also where I’ve gotten lost scrolling obsessively through comment threads that are a strange combination of appalling and appealing. It’s like a train-wreck. Against my better judgement, I can’t look away. Recently, it’s how I’ve been getting more of my ne ..read more

Most parents I know (myself included) are currently losing it, weighing whether to do remote learning or go back to school this fall. Those are the people who have a choice. Many districts have already said they are going full remote this year. Other districts are giving parents deadlines to choose between virtual, in-person and hybrid. There are the parents who need to send their kids to school (the essential workers and the people whose employers are requiring them to come into their place of work to keep their jobs) and the parents who could work from home and do distance learning, but kno ..read more

If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, it’s nearly impossible to be a part of any conversation (online or in person) that doesn’t immediately veer into “what the hell are we going to do about school???” territory. Confusion is everywhere, and nobody seems to have any good answers. The issue is front of mind the same way having a baby is “front of mind” in the middle of contractions— it’s painful, it’s happening, and there’s no opting out of it. Some parents have the benefit of knowing their school district’s options for the fall. But choosing from one of the proposed options (in-person, v ..read more

This post was written by Liz Faria.  Since the pandemic started, passing by padlocked playgrounds (without the laughing preschoolers, the line of strollers, the spilled snack cups, the tired parents sipping their coffee and the one toddler who is always having a meltdown on the slide), has been just another reminder of what we’re missing. But now, signs of life in my area are cautiously coming back. I live in Massachusetts, where coronavirus cases have been relatively low and stable. Other parts of the country are surging, and the picture may look very different from where you sit ..read more