Parenting Wisdom

I truly enjoy crafting, everything from crocheting to counted cross stitch to calligraphy. But I have a secret and it is time to come clean. Over the past few years it has finally become socially acceptable, so I am...

I hate cleaning my kids’ rooms.  The act seems so incredibly redundant that it is beyond off-putting for me. And, much like we see in Toy Story 4, they attach emotionally to some of the weirdest stuff. This is not...

I am not even 40 years old yet, but something about having pre-teens can certainly make you feel old. Constantly being blindsided by my kids' innocent but obnoxious comments about things they don't understand because they are too young has...

The purpose of the margins on a printed document is to make the important stuff stand out. It draws our attention to paramount information on the page. If the margins are too jumbled, too small or too messy, the...

Have you ever gotten to the end of the year (or just the end of the week) and felt like you didn’t accomplish all you wanted to? Were there dreams and goals and desires you had that just didn’t...

The only thing that is absolutely certain in life is change. This inevitable part of life can be extremely difficult to adjust to, whether the change is wanted or unwanted. Recently, my family has experienced a huge change as our...

Baking and eating special treats is one of my favorite pastimes. I have deep and fond memories as a kid of helping my grandmother in the kitchen. Mixing ingredients, stirring, rolling, patting, kneading. We had so many family recipes that...

If you’ve not yet experienced it yourself, it’s likely you’ve watched this poolside scene go down. The sunscreen application meltdown. The typical perpetrator includes a very wiggly toddler. Nearby, a stressed-appearing parent holds a tube of sunscreen. Soon they’re wrestling...

It’s been nine years since I made that fatal decision to join Facebook. Not to be dramatic or anything, but I use the word fatal because in a way, I feel like this particular social media platform has slowly...

Hello fellow COS mamas! I’m Paras Askari Longanecker, a mother of two wild young boys, wife to an adventurous guy, and practicing pediatrician learning to navigate the challenging yet rewarding world of being a working mom. Since moving to...