Chaos is a little more chaotic than usual, as I am dealing with a bad back (translation: getting older). Since I am under strict orders not to sit and type, I have roped in some friends to help me over the next week while I recover.

Today's guest post is from my friend Sharon DeVellis, you may know her from her funny and poignant writing at the Yummy Mummy Club, or from her own personal site: Speed Skating Mom, where she writes about her own transition from couch potato to speed skater and challenges others to try new things. (Maybe she can teach me to skate after I recover?) Her post is about the disconnect between your motherhood fantasies and the reality that can sometimes be sweeter because of the struggle. And it has coloured icing in it.

My daughter is not a breakfast eater. She likes something light like fruit and I am lucky if she throws in a piece of cheese while I'm yelling: "you need some protein!" Sometimes she even sneaks out of the house without anything.

When my daughter walks out the door without eating much, I think: it's okay -- just this once.

My husband and I always knew we wanted our house to be "the house". You know, the one where all the kids congregate after school. The one where the front door is always open and the kids feel comfortable inviting their friends over to hang out.

And, except a brief period when the boys were obsessed with war games that we don't allow, we are that house. We welcome sleepovers and kids staying for dinner; our yard and basement are usually filled with many ages of kids.

We run out of cookies quickly, but the bonus is that I get to see my kids' friends -- who they are, how they interact and which ones I want around, and which ones I don't. In fact, having my kids' friends around has let me see that sometimes the ones I like at first are the most troublesome (aka Eddie Haskall-like). Conversely, sometimes the kids who I don't like at first grow on me and I can see that I missed something at first (aka Fonzies).

Here are my tips for being the most popular house on the block:

I have just returned from volunteering with Scientist in the Schools, in my son's grade three classroom.

I'm not sure that one day a term is really a way to make kids excited about science, though the leader assured me that as long  as the teacher continues with the themes, the kids learn scientific concepts throughout the term.

Well, that's a big if in a French Immersion classroom with a lot of kids, chaos, and other curriculum necessities on the list. I'm not so sure that kids are learning too much science in elementary schools. So science concepts sort of all into the we do at home bag. One thing that a primary teacher once told me is that the kids who bake with their parents regularly are farther ahead in math and science when they arrive at primary school.

Jennifer Garner is nodding alongside the chef of the lovely Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant as he waves around fresh-picked produce. Of course, the chef doesn't have a chance, no one can take their eyes off of the actress in her bright pink, non-kitchen friendly, silk dress.

I was all ready to be dismissive of the actress's cooking skills until she started asking the chef questions and adding in her own comments and I realized she really does cook! But what does she make?

Ceri Marsh spent a decade editing fashion magazines, including eight years as editor-in-chief of Fashion Magazine. She left her editor position after having her second child. Now she is chief cook and bottle-washer at Sweet Potato Chronicles, a sweet site about the ups and downs of feeding a family. She took time off from recipe testing to reflect on her role as a fashion editor...

I spent a recent evening indulging in a rare pleasure: a whole, quiet, post-kids’-bedtime hour consuming a fashion magazine. Heaven. The April issue of Vogue is their annual Shape Issue. I’ve been reading Vogue since I had the babysitting money to start buying copies at thirteen, but on that evening I thought, “What shapes, exactly?” Of course cover girl Rihanna is lusciously curvy and all the more beautiful for it. But other than Ri-Ri and a story on the Olsen twins (Short! Not model tall!), every image is of a super tall and super thin model. Super eye roll.

Before you shake your head and say that the creators of fashion magazines are at best nuts and at worst going to hell for making women hate their bodies – wait. Because until a year ago, I was one of them. For ten years I worked at a fashion magazine, eight of those as editor-in-chief. I didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, I made the Kool-Aid. Buckets of it. 

Thank goodness the holiday season is gone and now we can go back to our previously overly-scheduled lives with an extra dose of grumbling about all the food we ate. So even though some of us are living off of magic muesli, apples and almonds our kids still need to eat. And I find banana bread the perfect antidote to grey, want-to-be healthy January.

If I gave you a recipe for super easy cake that would use up the bruised fruit that is starting to get a bit stinky you would use it, right? You would bake it up in a few minutes instead of buying a frozen dessert at the local supermarket to take to friend’s, wouldn’t you?

Because having to throw out old peaches and berries is too sad to bear and you would rather whip them up into something delicious and impressive, right? And since the recipe calls for stuff you have in the kitchen, is totally foolproof and you don’t even need a mixer for it, it would be a no-brainer.

I love convenience. I will do anything to make my life easier. Anything but one. I don’t use a lot of premade frozen foods. I have the time and the ability to make most of our family’s snacks. But I understand that many families are not in the same position.

I’ve already made my position clear on pre-packaged Rice Krispie Squares and and my one pot brownies.I understand that baking isn’t everyone’s thing. But do you make your kids’ sandwiches or would you rather buy them frozen?

It was the social event of the summer last weekend. The kitchen was a disaster and with remnants of flour streaked everywhere, the water balloons were ready, the BBQ cleaned. It was the Alley Party!

Every year our street and the one behind us have an alley party. We pull out the camping chairs, folding tables, tikki lights and get together until the wee hours. The kids wait all year for the alley party, they run like packs of wolves up and down sometimes on bikes, often on foot armed with water balloons. It is a night when the rules are loosened, new alliances are made and the cost of each home and their lawn care gets discussed.