By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 Ham salad sandwiches. That’s what the school cafeteria lunch menu listed for Wednesday’s meal, which meant I’d be packing three lunches for school the next day. Ham salad? Those two words shouldn’t even go together. Did Michelle Obama sign off on this menu? Doubtful, I pulled the lunch-making necessities out of the fridge and started smearing mustard on six slices of bread. I pack lunches in the evening and stick them in the fridge overnight for one important reason: We’re not morning people. I’ve heard there are real live people who are razor sharp and even cheerful early in the morning. At any other time of day, I’d say I admire […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 Today was my scheduled day to read picture books to our daughter’s first grade class, a fact I remembered minus one important detail – the time of the reading. After working in my home office for a few hours this morning, I checked to see what time I was supposed to be at the school, fairly certain I had an hour or so before I’d need to go. I sifted through my inbox until I found the right email and then – NO! The email said I should be in the classroom ready to read at 10:15 a.m. It was, at that very moment, 10:02 a.m. I had exactly 13 minutes […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 I stood there for five minutes holding a pair of scissors, staring down at the big white box that had been in our hall closet for more than 14 years. Encased in a plastic sleeve, the box has moved with us over the years, and it always finds a place in the deep recesses of the closet we use the least. Today I took the scissors to it. The box held my wedding dress, and I nearly talked myself out of opening it. After you get married, one of the first things on your married “to do” list is to get your wedding dress “professionally preserved”—which means you pay a ridiculous […]

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Dear Mystery Appointment Person, Even though I have no idea who or what you are, I’m sorry. If I left you waiting or wondering why I didn’t do what I must have said I’d do, please know that I didn’t mean to not be in the right place or do that thing we probably talked about – whatever it was. Let me explain. For three days now, I’ve been staring on and off at a note I’d scribbled down on my jumbo-sized “to do” list which sits next to my laptop. It says “THURSDAY – NOON.” That’s all it says. When I wrote it down, I’m sure I knew exactly what it meant. It must have made so much sense […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 My favorite humor writer, Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry, is famous for the line “I am not making this up.” He uses it when writing about things that are so absurd that any sane person would assume he’s taking creative liberties with his description when, in fact, the description happens to be ridiculous AND true. I thought of Dave’s famous line when my daughter spotted a toy recently and brought it over to the shopping cart to show me. “Mom, this is kind of weird… and gross,” she said, holding it up for inspection. The toy is called “Poopsy Pets,” and it’s part of the Moxie Girlz line of dolls made […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 I’ve heard horror stories about how some spouses constantly butt heads with their in-laws. And I’m lucky because I don’t have those war stories. I love my husband’s family and he loves mine, and we’re blessed to get along the way we do. But there’s one tiny bone of contention between my husband and my mother, and I land squarely in the middle of the debate. Perhaps you can be the judge. The question revolves around the proper loading of a dishwasher, and the issue comes up after we have Sunday lunch together and start the clean-up process. In this corner is my mother, who has never once loaded a truly […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 For years, mothers have been expected to wear several hats to get the child-raising job done – cook, nurse, teacher, chauffeur, psychologist, housekeeper, event coordinator and detective. But I had no idea that “administrative assistant” would become such a big part of what I do each week. It turns out that my kids – ages 12, 9 and 7 – need a full-time secretary to handle the reams of paperwork that modern-day child-rearing requires. They bring papers home almost daily that litter the kitchen counter tops until I round them up, fill them out, sign them, attach checks to them and put them back into their corresponding backpacks. I just finished […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 If you’d asked me a few months ago if I’m the kind of person who loves sweets, I’d have said no. And even though I didn’t know it at the time, that response would have been a big ol’ lie. I would’ve answered “no” because I’ve always been able to walk right past a bowl of candy without hesitating. Even a plate of cookies won’t break my will. Chocolate fudge? Nope, I can do without it. Upon further investigation, however, it turns out that yes – in fact, I am a raging sugar junkie even though I don’t crave what we traditionally call “sweets.” Here’s the thing: Sweets aren’t just for […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 Tomorrow I’m going to attend a luncheon and speak for 20 to 30 minutes to a room full of people. I’m headed to bed early tonight in hopes I’ll be rested and on my “A game” tomorrow. But we all know the night before a speech is often a restless one. I’ve wasted so many hours lying in bed the night before an event thinking about how much I need to go to sleep, unable to stop internally replaying my presentation over and over again. The fact that I’m doing the speech at all, though, is a big deal for me. When I say that I was painfully shy as a […]

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3 Yesterday, as I was standing over the stove stirring boiling macaroni noodles, I asked a question my family hears a lot around our house. “Wonder what I should write about this week. You guys have any ideas?” When you have a weekly writing deadline, you often pick the brains of those around you, hoping to find a seed of an idea that might grow into something bigger once you give it a little time and attention. Sometimes that happens, but most of the time the family members just stare back at you, shrug their indifferent shoulders and say, “I dunno.” Then they go back to watching cartoons or ESPN. People who […]

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