It always begins as just another morning at the Hullman house. I pack the kids’ lunches, wish them a nice day, walk LY to his preschool and Eliana to her kindergarten, come back home… And that’s when my small (tiny, really) house, normally quiet and calm in the morning hours, is taken over by  camera, lights, action!  The race against time begins, as it always does on recording days of UpsideDown Parenting episodes; outside of buying flowers around the corner from my house, everything takes place between my four walls. No, Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! doesn’t apply[…]

As I re-emerge out of the ashes of our most recent post, maybe meeting you in the midst of your winter break, or in the midst of your flu (or both, God bless you!), I’m still dealing with some of the issues that brought me down a couple of weeks ago. I can choose to be bitter about the way my children are disturb my peace these days, or I could be…grateful?! Which makes me think: Do we have to be grateful for everything our kids do? I don’t know if we must, but I’m collecting more and more evidence that shows that[…]

I’m usually not a blamer. But today all I want is to point fingers at everything and everyone for my suffering. And especially at the holiday that just ended yesterday… And the carefree children who won’t go to sleep at night… The house that’s too small to contain all the kids AND their 7 sets of rain-boots… My ever-growing, now-homeless pile of reference books after I took them off the shelves to make more room for my children’s winter clothes… The kid who’s home from school too early today, eating into my quiet morning… The video that I was looking[…]

Just recently I’d completed 2 weeks of feeding my neighbor’s cat and watering her plants while she was on a trip to Europe. It wasn’t a simple matter; after all, I’m the woman who gave up on growing anything other than my children in my small city home. I learned early on that I can either raise kids or plants, because (experience, experience) one of them is prone to get totally neglected. I’m also the mother who has yet to figure out how to shop for her children’s winter boots and coats before they come home soaking wet. So why[…]