Columns » Robin's Chicks

Crazy Clean

Feb 082012

I’m not a particularly clean person. Don’t get me wrong, my kids always have clean clothes to wear, but they have to dig them out of a basket of folded clothes in the laundry room as opposed to removing them from their closet or drawers because I wash the clothes but don’t put them away. I leave breakfast dishes on the counter until dinner and I’ve developed a cleaning technique called Sweep-A-Meal-Later. SAML has saved moms across the country countless hours of frustration as we have all agreed to never attempt to sweep up fresh rice or soggy Cheerios off [Read more...]

What NOT to Do at a Book Signing

Ketchup Is A Vegetable, Newspaper Columns

Dec 152011

Please note my friend Jim, front row, who is wiping TEARS out of his eyes. God, it was bad. I went to my hometown of Jasper, Alabama last week to sign my book, “Ketchup is a Vegetable and Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves.” (Which, by the by, is currently top-rated #1 in Parenting/Humor on Amazon AND free to read for Amazon Prime Members. *flashes charming smile* DING! As you were…) Normally when we go home it’s for a quick trip to see my in-laws. We see other folks in passing but there never seems to be enough time to sit and [Read more...]

Another Reason to Love Real Books

Aubrey Said, Aubrey's Antics, Columns

Nov 182011

My first grader is a ravenous reader. Aubrey has been spotted a time or two by fellow church members, running to the end of the driveway in her bathrobe on a Sunday morning to get the paper. They thought my husband and I had trained her to bring it to us— the truth is, we’re lucky if we get to read it after she disassembles it on our kitchen table. Aubrey progressed quickly from Dr. Seuss to chapter books and I was a little skeptical when she asked to read the first book in the Harry Potter series. I agreed, [Read more...]

Halloween in Handcuffs

Newspaper Columns, Uncategorized

Oct 242011

Halloween gives you a lot of insight into people in general. It’s enlightening to see how people will dress when all bets are off and it’s socially acceptable to dress like Snooki from Jersey Shore. This year I have watched and listened to my daughters in silence as their personalities have poofed out of their little bodies and into real life like some sort of Disney movie. Aubrey decided three months ago for that she wanted to be a Southern Belle for Halloween. There was no princess dress that cut the mustard. No, that simply would not do, dahling. We [Read more...]

What’s Better Than An iPhone4S? Dry Shampoo.

Newspaper Columns

Oct 182011

What's Better Than An iPhone4S? Dry Shampoo.

No disrespect to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but I’m pretty sure I just discovered the most groundbreaking invention of the 21st century: dry shampoo. If you are a man, I don’t know that you can understand the full gravity of the implications of this marvel of modern science so I will spell it out for you. See, we women cannot wash our hair, rub a towel over it, go to sleep then walk out the front door the next morning. I mean, I guess we could, it’s getting close to Halloween and we could all band together to try [Read more...]

Writing Her Feelings Out

Aubrey Said, Aubrey's Antics, Newspaper Columns

Sep 222011

We’ve reached another milestone and I’m not sure I like it. After years of sitting in church sans children for seven years, my oldest has outgrown Children’s Church. It came as a total shock. I hadn’t even mentally prepared myself. One Sunday a few weeks ago, it just happened. Aubrey left to go to Children’s Church then came back and whispered, “MOMMA IT’S NOT TIME FOR MY CLASS YET.” And so it began. Now instead of leaning up against my husband, holding hands and listening to the preacher as my mommy induced PTSD takes a brief hiatus, Aubrey sits in [Read more...]