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My brain is on a downhill slope. The reason? I turned 40 last month. Before you start rolling your eyes, take note: Back in September, scientists at the University of California-Los Angeles said that 39-year-olds are tops on standard tests of motor skills. After that, it truly is downhill.

I ran into a friend last night at 6:30 p.m. on her way home from work. While we were standing on the sidewalk chatting, her husband called to find out when she would be home and — the million-dollar question — what was for supper. My friend sighed as she hung up and admitted that she had been full of good intentions of putting a roast in the Crockpot that morning, but …

Then she asked, “Do you plan your meals ahead of time?” Ah, yes, one of those things that we all know we’re supposed to do (like reading to our kids 20 minutes a day and washing our hands for a full rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). But life just seems to get in the way.

When I got home half an hour later, I discovered that the National Public Radio show Tell Me More was featuring this very topic. (Checking out the transcript or audio file is 15 minutes well spent). The key line for me was from Aviva Goldfarb, author of The Six O’Clock Scramble, who said, “[T]he hardest thing for people about cooking dinner really isn't the actual cooking, it's the deciding.” Amen, sister.

If you haven’t been scouring gossip sites or reading Us Weekly, let me fill you in on a little something.

When you first hear the term “robotics,” thoughts of fun, high-spirited competitions and unique social and cultural interaction likely don’t come to mind.

That's about to change. Around St. Louis you’ll soon be hearing a lot about robotics.
 

Note: This is the third in a three-part series. Read part 1 |  Read part 2

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education does not regulate or monitor homeschooling in the state of Missouri, according to the department’s web site.

Additionally, neither the State Board of Education nor the department has authority to issue regulations or guidelines concerning homeschooling.

According to Michelle Clark, communications director for DESE, this lack of oversight would extend to unschooling, even though she had not heard of that education method.

With the snow starting to melt away and that big orange thing in the sky finally revealing itself, I’ve been scouring fashion magazines and websites with abandon, trying to get a taste of the trends for spring to plan my wardrobe for the upcoming season.

To get help in finding looks that are both fashion-forward and easy for a busy mom to pull off, celebrated St. Louis fashion stylist and personal shopper, Jan Leach of Jan Leach Style, shared with me five hot trends for spring 2011. And along with Natalie Woods, owner of Daisy Clover Boutique in Webster Groves, explained via email how anyone can pull them off so us moms can look and feel our best.

At the grocery store on Friday, my son was tooling around recklessly with his little mini-cart like he usually does … until he came to the floral Valentine’s Day display. He screeched to a halt directly in front of the roses and stared at them like they were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen in all his four and a half years.

We wound up leaving the store with a flowering plant (not roses, luckily!) that he carried out like it was a precious jewel. We propped it securely in the car for the drive home and he insisted we turn off the music so his plant could have peace and quiet. And he unloaded it from the car directly into a sunny window, with no prompting from me. He’s also been watering it and wondering when the large bud will join the two flowers that are already blooming.

Clearly this is a boy who’s suffering from a nature deficit!

This is the second in a three-part series on unschooling. Read the first installment in the series here

I can’t remember the last time I came home smelling like smoke. Or the last time I worried about my kids breathing in a bunch of smoke. Most of our friends and relatives who smoke hold off around the kids, and with the new city and county smoking bans, it’s going to be rare indeed for the kids to even see people smoking across the room.

So I wonder … will they be less likely to try it themselves? Or will they be more likely because it’s something exotic? Will it be like immunizations — parents who’ve never experienced a child sick with measles or whooping cough are forgoing vaccines against those diseases, and now the rates are on the rise.  Maybe my kids, never having seen a smoker puffing away despite a hacking cough, will be oblivious to the dangers.

Well, I finally did it. I went out and bought myself a minivan.

While my son was in the midst of a nasty stomach-and-respiratory virus the week before last, we left the doctor’s office empty-handed except for this piece of advice: Keep him hydrated.

Naturally, 7-year-olds with a fever, cough and queasy stomach are not inclined to go along with anything adults say, and my son’s immediate reaction was to say he wasn’t thirsty. OK, I thought. We’ll see. But when round after round of coughing racked his little body, I finally hit upon the idea of a drinking game.