By Leah from Working on Motherhood and A Girl and A Boy

Now that I have almost an entire year of parenting under my belt, I finally feel like I’ve earned the right to throw out advice to anyone, at any time, and at 90 mph, like an automatic ball-pitcher gone haywire. Heads up! I’m coming straight at you! After all, what better way to make mom friends than to tell them exactly how to parent, right?

Okay, obviously unsolicited advice is not what moms want to hear, and least of all when they’re new moms trying to navigate the perilous landscape of parenthood on top of being sleep-deprived, strapped onto the roof of the Hormone Express, and worried that their insides and outsides have been rearranged beyond repair. What new moms don’t need is someone telling them what to do or, worse, someone telling them that they’re doing it all wrong. What you need is love, support, encouragement, respect, validation, and, okay, maybe a few gentle nudges from someone who’s been there. (That’s me!) Oh, and you probably also need a shower.

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By Nadine from Martinis for Milk

“Play Batman with me Mommy,” my almost-five-year-old son,Nate , calls to me as I’m caught checking my Blackberry again. I look up at him, wanting to make him happy, but completely clueless. “OK, but you’ll have to tell me HOW we play Batman.”

I have a dirty secret. I don’t know how to play with my kids.

While my husband creates intricate games and stories in moments, I seem to be missing that gene. But he often works nights, leaving me home alone with two kids under five. Here’s how I get creative with quality time.

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By Sherry of Chaos Theory

There are always rough transitional moments when the school year starts back up; getting up early and rushing everyone out the door, getting back to the grind of homework, and regular bedtimes to name a few.  However, one thing that always seems to strike fear into parents is the thought of having to pack a school lunch.  Many schools offer up hot lunches, but they’re not always appealing and the truth is they cost a lot more than a lunch you prepare and send yourself.

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By Samantha from Back To Me

When we got pregnant I had a few fears about our impending bundle: the wee one would be colicky (check!), would rage against the car (dodged that bullet), and would be a bedtime h8r.  In fact, the sleep issue was the one I was most concerned about so I made sure to read up on ALL the sleep solution books I could get my water retaining hands on.  The main theme?  GET THEE TO A ROUTINE AND QUICK, WOMAN.  This was a no-brainer for me as it made complete and total sense.  Routines help kids feel secure, know what’s coming next and not throw them into a rabid frenzy with each bed time transition.  So that is what we did.

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By Metalia

Considering that I don’t celebrate Halloween (I’m an Orthodox Jew) I’m probably the last person that you’d expect to be writing this piece.

HOWEVER

We have a holiday called Purim that takes place a bit later in the year, but involves—nay, REQUIRES—awesome costumes, as well. I take a bit of pride in putting together what I think are good costumes for my kids every year, and what’s more, I’ve learned something new each year, and so with Halloween rapidly approaching, I thought I’d share a few of my best tips with you today.

1. Take advantage of your powerless kids while they’re young.

As time has gone on, I’ve upped the ante for myself, so to speak, to the point where I feel like I have to outdo last year’s costumes each time. However, for this first point, I’m going to take you back a few years, to my son’s first Purim. Being a new mom, I wanted to dress him in something cute and cuddly and soft, and I had bought him an adorable cow costume (HALF PRICE right after Halloween, thank you very much) a few months earlier. And really, if I tried to dress him in that today, I think he’d roll his eyes at me and/or throw a huge, “NO”-filled tantrum. But back then? Haha, sucker. Mama wants a cowbaby, and she is GETTING a cowbaby. There’s only so long that you can get away with this, so strike while you can, and fulfill all your vicarious costume wishes while they’re one or two years old.

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By Angella of Dutch Blitz

1. Use Whiskey

No, not the beverage; the word. If you try to make your kids smile by telling them to say cheese their smiles will look, well, cheesy.  If you have them say “whiskey” (or “monkey” if you have an adverse reaction to whiskey), their smiles look more natural.

2. Shoot Them (Off-centered)
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By Jim Lin from The Busy Dad Blog

I thought I was broken. At 4 years of age, one’s assessment of everyday situations pretty much oscillates between extremes. “You’re my best friend” vs “you’re my worstest enemy in the whole wide world!” “This is my FAVORITE food!” vs “YUCK, that’s disgusting times infinity” “I’m Superman; watch me fly” vs “Uh oh, I’m broken. I’m gonna die.”

Sitting on the toilet constipated? Conclusion: broken.

Luckily my mom was there with prune juice, STAT! As I sat there on the bowl sipping this nastiness between rounds of sphincter-robics, mom said “See? You need to eat vegetables.”

And until I discovered coffee, I was damn good at making sure I had at least some form of fiber entering my system on a pretty consistent basis to ensure regularity. I haven’t really touched a vegetable or fruit for about 20 years now, but when my son Fury was born, I chose to adopt the parenting platform of “even if all else fails, at least my kid will eat right.”

And I rocked it.

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By Jen of Quarter Life Crisis

The thing I loved the most about breastfeeding when I was on maternity leave was the ease. When I needed to feed the baby (read: ALL THE TIME, it seemed), my milk was always just ready to go. It was the perfect temperature and consistency, and I didn’t have to fuss with formula and bottles. If I needed just a few more minutes of precious sleep in the early morning hours, my husband would bring the baby into our bed so I could nurse him on my side while I continued to snooze. And thanks to a recent law passed in my state making breastfeeding in a public place a civil right, I could feed my baby wherever, whenever.

The plan was to breastfeed for up to a year, for the bonding experience and health benefits it provided my son, yes, but mainly because I didn’t want to pay for formula on top of all our other newly acquired baby expenses. As my maternity leave came to a close, and I started to prepare for my return to work, continuing to breastfeed suddenly seemed difficult. I began to feel a little apprehensive about the prospect of pumping at work – would it interfere with my workflow, would I be able to produce enough milk for my son’s insatiable appetite, would my co-workers look at me differently as I made the twice-daily trek to my make-shift lactation station?

All were valid concerns, but fortunately for me, the answers were mostly no, mostly yes, and definitely not. I got lucky in that my employer was extremely supportive of my endeavor to continue breastfeeding. Before I came back to work, I sat down with my boss and let her know my plans. I was very clear about when I would need to pump (once in the 10 a.m. hour, once in the 2 p.m. hour), and that if it ever interfered with meetings, I could easily adjust my schedule. Cognizant of the time I’d spend away from my desk and work, I proposed a shorter lunch break to make up the time. Thankfully, my boss wasn’t too concerned about the time it would take to pump. “Just do what you need to do,” she said.
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More to come on this, but there are some ingredients you should really try to have on hand at all times, in order to give yourself some quick and easy dinner options without needing one of those 5:43 p.m. supermarket runs.  Those last-minute dashes end up being expensive, exhausting, and creating a household full of hungry, cranky people.

So, here’s the start of a list of things to keep in stock at home, with the following recipe in mind:

In the pantry:
canned beans (cannellini, garbanzo, black beans, kidney — pick a few of your favorites)
canned tomatoes (crushed, whole, diced — your choice)

In the fridge:
onion
garlic
flour tortillas
cheese (I have nothing against the pre-shredded bags, they’re great in a pinch)

Fast Mexican Tortilla Lasagna

If you don’t have cumin, don’t worry.  If you want to use basil instead of oregano, go ahead. Swap kidney beans for black beans, if you want.  You can also use leftover shredded chicken or pork instead of the beans.  This is a very forgiving recipe.

1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 (16-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (28-ounce) can peeled tomatoes, drained and chopped (1/2 cup juice reserved)
1 (16-ounce) bag shredded cheddar cheese
4 (8-inch) flour tortillas

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Heat a large saucepan over medium high heat, and add the oil.  Swirl it around, then add the onion and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook, stirring for 2 more minutes, until tender.  Add the oregano, cumin and chili, stir for a minute, then dump in the beans, tomatoes, and juice.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

Lightly oil or spray with cooking spray an 8-inch-round cake or baking pan. Spoon in a tiny bit of the tomato-bean mixture and spread it around.  Place a tortilla in the pan, ladle in 1/3 of the tomato-bean mixture, sprinkle over 1/2 cup of cheese, and repeat three more times.  Sprinkle over the rest of the cheese. If you like a browned crust, leave uncovered, otherwise cover with foil.  Pop it into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.  Cut into wedges and serve.

Katie Workman is the Editor in Chief and Chief Marketing Officer of Cookstr.com , a website devoted to great, tested recipes from chefs and cookbook authors, so she knows her way around the kitchen.

OK, so we got home at 6:30 on Sunday night, a bunch of misc. ingredients in the fridge, and my younger son, Charlie, says, “can we make a stir-fry?”  I am such a cooking nerd that the mere prospect of one of my kids suggesting a meal, and asking to participate in the preparation, kicks me into high gear.  So, stir-fry we did.  And here’s the thing: for the first time I let my 6 year old use a big sharp major knife, and cut up all the chicken.  I hung out by his side the whole time, and figured out a way to make it a lot less likely that he would lose a part of a finger.  I let him use a real knife, but instead, of holding the chicken with his hand, I had him hold it steady with a fork, kind of like when they learn to cut their own food at the table, but in this case it was prep cutting.  Told him he must NEVER let his eyes move away from the knife.  And by god, that child cut one pound of chicken breasts into small bite-sized pieces.  Very proud of himself, he was.  Not to mention his mother.

Here’s what we did.  Now, if you were to use any half of these ingredients., you would still have a great stir-fry - we just happened to have a bunch of veggies ready to go.  If you’ve never made a stir-fry, the first time is scary, two is interesting, three is getting confident, after that you’re on your way.
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