Thursday, April 25 marks the annual Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day. In 1993, Gloria Steinem and the Ms. Foundation for Women started the idea as Take Our Daughters to Work Day. It included boys in 2003, according to Wikipedia.  I included boys long before that. I never felt it was fair that I would get my daughter out of school for a day but not my boys.

I also took other people’s kids to work. At the time, I worked at an ad agency and taught classes at Mercyhurst College — now Mercyhurst University. My kids weren’t playing — they learned how to fill in information on Excel, help with research at the ad agency and then go out for a “Mad Men” lunch — well as “Mad Men” as you can get with kids under the age of 14.

At Mercyhurst, they got a peek at college life. They loved it, and so did my students.

Here’s a link to the official site. Here’s a 2012 article from Forbe’s with dos and don’ts for the day. Here’s a link to the foundation page.

Not everyone can do this, but if you can get your kids into your workplace even for a few hours, plan now. Give them something to do so they aren’t just watching you work. They can participate. Plus, you’ll share some memories — a nice thing when your kids are as old as my three in the picture, from left — my son, the doctor; my daughter, the CPA: and my baby, a college junior.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three and stepmom to three. 

When my husband and I got married 10 years ago and merged two families, he made a point of entertaining the kids with eggstra special egg chatter. This year, the kids are 21 and older and scattered around the universe. We will only see my two youngest on Easter, but we are eggcited. Here are a few eggsuberant words to liven up your day.

Chocolate-covered strawberries are not eggstravagant treats.

There is no such thing as eggstraneous chocolate.

I will have to count on eggstreme eggcerise to burn off the eggcelent chocolate eggs I consume.

The treadmill often eggsacerbates the pain in my knee.

A coconut egg is eggsactly what I want.

My niece in New Mexico won’t join us for Easter because she is eggspecting.

It’s eggsasperating when we don’t hear from some family members.

I need to eggsamine the peanut butter eggs.

Eggstract those jelly beans from the bottom of the Easter baskets.

If it keeps snowing, we’ll have to eggscavate to find the daffodils.

If the sun shines, it will eggceed our eggspectations.

Dinner will be eggsceptional — my sister makes lamb.

My brother makes German potato salad, and he eggsagerates how much work it is. (Well, not really — it requires an eggstraordinary amount of time.)

My brother and sister love to cook. I make deviled eggs, an eggsample of how much I love to cook. We eggsemplify a modern family.

When my husband reads this eggcerpt, he is going to eggsclaim that I eggscluded a lot of words, but I have to stop.

This is … eggshausting.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one. 

My new shoes

Last year, I wanted floral shoes in the worst way.

I never found a pair that were the pattern I wanted and in colors I would wear. Then Zappos stalked me all across the Internet and in my e-mails after I left things in a shopping cart on the website. I caved, and my husband encouraged it because he needed new shoes and found his old standbys cheaper at Zappos than anywhere else on the planet.

We bought shoes Saturday and they arrived Monday becasue they upgraded us to VIPs. I am wearing my new kicks today even though they are a little colorful for a snowy day.

And they go with purple, red, green and black, although not all in one outfit. I bought a pastel version of the same shoes. They are pretty springy, but it’s time for springy.

I think these were $55. What’s that song — “I can’t drive 55.” I’ll be singing that all day and dancing through meetings in these new kicks.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve eaten fish on Ash Wednesday and every Friday during Lent. I grew up in an era when fish was what’s for dinner every Friday — even when it wasn’t Lent. Or at least anything not meat was the Catholic menu. So mac and cheese worked too.

But as a fish aficionado — and my family will tell you I forced them to be aficionados even when they were too young to be ordered to eat fish, according to Catholic tenets — we religiously bought into McDonald’s Filet-o-fish sandwiches.

When we had six kids around the house, there were deals where these catches were 2 for $4. That was big news for us because many of the Eckert and Parker brood ate more than one sandwich … and fries. We tested out nearly every other sandwich on the planet, and returned to McDonalds.

This year, we discovered the Arby’s fish sandwich. Mmmm — they are 2 for $4, and the folks at Arby‘s in downtown Erie assure me that we can reel in that price until the end of April. Guess what’s for dinner?

In recent years, those talking fish at McDonald’s (if you watch the commercials) retailed for just shy of $4 each. Not at my house. McDonald’s heard my plea for mercy. Well sort of. On Friday, if you buy an extra value Filet-o-fish meal, you can buy an extra sandwich for a $1 — just on Fridays, but today, you can get the the new snack-size McBites for $1.

Gone fishing!

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

It’s always fun to discover what your kids remember about toddlerdom once they hit adulthood.

When my youngest child, Ryan Eckert, turned 21 yesterday, we talked about all the crazy things he did as a tot. He’d had hernia surgery when he was barely a preschooler, and he remembered how we tried everything to keep him inactive and entertained. He mentioned the “Bananas” show. I had completely forgotten that one. It was “Bananas in Pajamas” — they kind of looked life-sized bananas in prison gear,  but it was in syndication for years when he was a tot. If you click right here, it takes you to an interactive website. The show had Australian roots.

These big bananas had clever names B1 and B2. With Australian accents, they often had some adventures with teddy bears. I don’t remember the a-peel with a lot of jokes about peels or anything, but it did hold his attention. It was really simple — a lot like Gumby, one of my favorites. It was always on at a naptime.

Gumby had a long reign on Nickelodeon — it was primitive clay figure animation. The funny Blockheads — the goofs who always got in trouble — were the bad guys that Gumby coped with along with his horse Pokey, and dog, Nopey.

Ryan also recalled watching Ch-Ch-Ch Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers – the pair of chipmunks he met at Disneyworld. He was even a fan of Barney before his older brother and sister poisoned him on that poor purple dinosaur.

Well, there he is (above) at age 3 or 4 — he wore a Green Bay Packers jersey every year for picture day — and refused to open his mouth for a smile.

Here he is with me sharing an adult beverage — a legal one.  Wow, what I wouldn’t give for a few more moments of time with a baby who watched Bananas in Pajamas, Gumby and danced down the stairs singing and dancing to Barney’s “Special, Special — everyone is special.”  Sigh.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

While checking out some fun parenting blogs, I came across HEATHER SCHUCK from Glamajama. She has a blog that suggests 20 different ideas to kill time when you’re, well killing time, waiting for an appointment with the kids. One of my favorites from her list was playing “I Spy.” The “I Spy” book series includes at least a dozen books priced at $3 to $11, and my kids loved them. The authors and illustrators Jean Marzollo, Walter Wick and  Carol Devine Carson must be fun people. In Wikipedia, Marzollo says that ”I Spy” books have the same rhythm and rhyme as “Old Mother Hubbard” and rap — who knew?

We were also “Where’s Waldo” fans. There’s even a 25th anniversary edition “Where’s Waldo Now“– all by Martin Hanford.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

Snowshoeing is something you can do with the family — well snowboarding is too, but it’s not for everyone.

Snowshoeing, on the other hand, is on the rise. Ryan Alford of Snowshoe Magazine says it might helps folks avoid Seasonal Affective Disorder -read that here. He quoted research from the Outdoor Industry Association and SnowSports Industries America that the sport is on the rise, and it is in our family. My sister, two BILs and an SIL are all avid snowshoe fans.

Around my house, snowboarding was never all that popular. We still have a few boards in the attic, and many winters have come and gone with no one asking to rescue them. My daughter’s boyfriend, however, is a master at Blue Knob near Altoona, Pa.

My son’s girlfriend in Virginia Beach. She wants to see these snowshoes becasue she never really sees much snow. I’m going to give snowshoes a try this week with my buddy Grace Perhacs. I won’t have any great tips for you until after our adventure.

In the meantime, if you need some tips for where to enjoy snowshoe fun, Asbury Woods has it. Please call (814) 835-5356 for details. You can rents snowshoes there.

At Presque Isle, Shelter 1 near the Waterworks Ponds offers cross country skis and snowshoes for rent from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. Call 814-833-7424 for more info.

You can also check out some of the ski resorts for info on snowshoeing. And Cleveland MetroParks has loads of family entertainment including snowshoeing.

Here’s info from Dana Massing’s blog Cheap in Erie on free snowshoe walks at Erie Bluffs and Pymatuning.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

These are my boys smirking on Christmas morning a few years ago and laughing that they got the same shirt for Christmas. That kind of happens every year — the same shirt thing — because they both look handsome in the same colors and styles, and my daughter and I outfit them accordingly. We know they don’t hang out together. In fact, now they are age 20 and 26 and live in different states. So we often buy them the same things.

If you’re a mom or a stepmom, here’s a quick piece of advice for getting along with your kids. Choose your battles. You can’t be arguing with a toddler, child, tween or teen for weeks on end. For me, safety came first and neatness last — especially when I was a single mom.

And they questioned everything. When I taught my youngest to drive on the interstate, he was exceeding the speed limit. I warned that he would get a ticket, and that would pretty much prevent an early license.  He scoffed that there was no place for troopers to hide. “What — do you think there are tree cops or something,” he said.

Kids must never watch “CSI,” or “NCIS,” or “Person of Interest.”

“Radar,” I said. “Do you think I make this stuff up? Do you think I’ve never gotten a ticket? I’m just telling you they make rules so you follow them. We all have rules.”

And kids don’t always follow them. But the consequences do have influence — especially tickets. Kids learn from their mistakes just like we do. Make sure you have rules and consequences. And remember to reward good behavior — don’t just punish the bad. You need to make kids feel good about themselves every single day. It will make you feel good, too.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one. 

Kids often want to make a change. It happens in a lot of blended families — ours included. All of our kids are now age 20 to 28, so hindsight is 20/20.

I can confirm that it was a good decision each and every time one of the kids moved.  My kids’ dad passed away 13 years ago, so my kids were kind of stuck with my hubby and me, but we had a revolving door for my stepsons. It may sound silly, but it worked.

I was reminded of all of this when I read one mom’s struggle of  letting her 14-year-old daughter go live with her dad on Blogher.com.

The story is thoughtful and insightful — a great read and a reminder that kids are way smarter than we think they are.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

Happy New Year (and Happy Birthday) to the dozen plus people I know who share today as a birthday with me. Thousands who have birthdays around the holidays are blessed and cursed.

We holiday birthday folks are tough to forget … or easy to forget, depending on how you think of us. Somewhere around here, I have a picture of me wearing a top hat and diaper and ripping Dec. 31 off the calendar — I was a year old.

The picture at left is of me with an Oakmonter cake from Oakmont Bakery in Oakmont, Pa. My daughter delivered the cake and took this picture. We have a thing for Oakmonts in my family. I raised my three kids on Oakmont Avenue. And we visited the bakery because family members raved about it. We have been hooked on it ever since, and it’s easy to feel at home there.

This is more than the first day of a new year — it’s Bloody Mary Day. My handy calendar of useless holidays says we celebrate the birth of Fernand Petiot’s concoction — it dates back to 1920′s Paris. He later moved to the United States along with the legendary Bloody Mary. I hear “Mad Men” music.

Happy New Year! Here’s to holidays, birthdays and Bloody Marys.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.