There was a time when the thought of cooking with my kids would send me running toward the nearest take-out pizzeria. The longer time it takes to prepare a meal, the general mayhem that ensues when kids are in an enclosed space with kitchen tools and yes, the inevitable mess, just had me scared.

As in many households, my husband and I divide the tasks needed to keep the home running. While we definitely have the odd disagreement about who does what, we generally play to our strengths and take on the jobs we tend to be better at. The problem is that, like most moms, I think that I have strengths in MORE parenting areas than my husband…and so I’m a bit hard on him when things aren’t running “my way.”

Ever wonder what Valentine's Day may be like from a man's point of view? Check out the perspective below from guest blogger, Alan Kercinik, author of AlwaysJacked.com.

As we approach Valentine’s day, I think back to those moments of exchanging valentines at school, first crushes and when I fell in love with my husband. Ah, those butterflies in your stomach, the anticipation of a first kiss and of course, hearing those little three words…

No matter how much I love being a parent, I’ve found almost every kid inevitably goes through some phase that causes a parent stress. Whether it’s refusal to potty-train (been there, done that.), temper tantrums (been there, am still there) or experiencing social pressures from school or elsewhere (soon will be there), we all go through periods of parental anxiety. I’m told these stressful phases pass with time and I will end up laughing about them. So in an attempt to self-induce my first chuckle, here’s my latest mommy stress…

This week, I was sitting in a meeting discussing one of Clorox’s bathroom cleaners. Yes, I know, in any place other than the Clorox building, this would be a serious conversation killer. But during our discussion, I discovered that a lot of us have strange cleaning idiosyncracies. How can we not when, love it or hate it, cleaning is part of our weekly (or, ok in some cases, monthly) lives? Read on to discover some quirky cleaning behaviors.

When someone in my house gets sick, the entire flow in my household is interrupted. It’s hard enough to get dinner on the table and chores done when everyone in the house is healthy. Throw a sick family member into the mix and it really throws a wrench in the plans!

With awards season almost upon us, below is an entry from guest blogger, Susan from BusyBeeLifestyle.com, with tips on how to throw glamorous awards season parties. Yes, just because some of us mommies run around in yoga pants at home doesn’t mean we can’t glam it up for awards season, right?