Photo by Cafe Cynthia

Time is flying by way too fast. So, so fast. Flashback six years ago from tomorrow. Me sitting at my aunt's dinner table trying to soothe a screaming infant (he was always colicky) in one hand while trying to shovel stuffing and mashed potatoes into my mouth with the other. Yes, I soon became a master at cutting food with my fork with that one.

Thanksgiving dinners are different now, much more sane. My son and his little cousins all sit at the "kiddie table" by themselves now, since there's never enough room for all of us at the table at any of my relatives' houses. There's much more fooling around than eating going on over there, but at least mommy gets to overeat in peace, and for that I am SO thankful!

Other reasons I'm thankful for my big, beautiful, boisterous big kid:

Photo by 920Wendy

CafeMom TheTravelMama (aka Colleen Lanin) is an expert at traveling with kids, but only because she's had her share of past fiascoes to learn from along the way. Colleen is a travel writer and founder of the Travel Mamas blog, the resource for everything and anything related to traveling with children.

Today the mom of 20 month year old Leo and 4 year old Karissa shares three of her own biggest traveling disasters and how she learned to prevent them the next time she hit the road:

Fiasco #1: Kids Tend to Throw Up

You never know when motion sickness or the stomach flu may strike. During a road trip to an amusement park, my preschooler, Karissa, woke 20 minutes before our destination and announced from the backseat, "I'm gonna throw up!" I whipped around from the passenger seat and frantically searched for any type of vessel. I grabbed a box of Kleenex, ripped the tissue from it, and thrust it beneath her chin, narrowly evading a smelly disaster.

Photo by  RAZmom88

It's hard enough raising one teen -- but three?! Welcome to RAZmom88's wild and wonderful life. Check back every Thursday to find out what drama or joy she encountered this week.

Fighting Siblings

My teens usually get along fairly well. A few times I've heard name calling, which I hate. They are all my babies and I don't  like when they hurt each other. So on Saturday, Andrea and Zack were really going at each other.

Andrea turned off the video game while Zack was out of the room. He came back and threw a punch at her, and she did a good job of blocking it. I was completely stunned.

Zack went in his room and Andrea in hers. I went in and talked to each of them. Andrea knew Zack would be mad that she turned off the game (it was a football game and it took him hours to get where he was).

Photo by JSVDP

Experts are always sending me stuff hoping for a spot in the Daily Buzz, and I usually just ignore them because the advice I get from the moms here is so much better.

But I recently came across this little "how-to" from Kansas State University child development expert Chuck Smith that I thought was pretty good.

He suggests three simple ways to teach your kids to be thankful. With Thanksgiving and the holidays coming up, I know this is on all our minds. (I, for one, am really tired of reminding my 6 year old to say thank you after a nice gesture or when someone gives him a gift. Is there a point when autopilot kicks in?)

As we all know, telling kids to be thankful just doesn't work. You have to show them, and hope your good modeling rubs off. I liked Smith's three simple and real suggestions on how to do that ...

Photo by Nadine254

If my house had a hallway like this, it would be my son in this picture. I have to be careful not to let him see this on the computer because he'll definitely get ideas.

Nadine254 snapped this shot of her 5 year old son, Jordan.

And then, look what her 3 year old Jayden did ...

Yesterday I reported that most bullying surprisingly takes place in the classroom, lunchroom, and other supervised locations of the school.

A lot of us wonder why teachers and administrators just don't make it stop. So I asked CafeMom beanielips, a public high school teacher, who explains that it's not always as easy as it sounds.

Your thoughts on this new research? Is the classroom really prime bully territory?

I am not surprised at that result. There is a lot of bullying that happens in supervised locations at some schools. Some are worse than others. It is also important to know that what used to be thought of as "kids will be kids" is now classified as bullying. I am sure that it was just as bad when we were growing up, but it was not tolerated because it was not acceptable in the culture of the school.

Photo by  RAZmom88

It's hard enough raising one teen -- but three?! Welcome to RAZmom88's wild and wonderful life. Check back every Thursday to find out what drama or joy she encountered this week.

Best Buddies

It has been rather quiet around our house in terms of the childrens' behavior and activities, not the actual noise level in our home. This is the house that never sleeps, meaning someone is awake and up in our house at all times.

Ryan was home from college last weekend and it made me think of the relationship between brothers. Ryan, 18, and Zack, 15, spent every night -- all night -- playing video games, watching football, and going on late-night snack runs. The bond between the two of them has been there for as long as I can remember.

If the state of cleanliness in my 4 year old's room at this moment in time is any indication of what I can expect when she's a teen, this clean freak mommy is in big trouble.

Already she changes her outfit about five times a day, but with each wardrobe shift those clothes never make it back into the drawers or the hamper. She also likes to collect teeny things -- plastic jewels, dolls, dogs, coins, beads, stones, leaves -- and has "picnics" or builds "houses" for them all over the floor.

So cleaning her room must be performed more like an archaeological dig than a simple grab-and-toss of the big trucks, spaceships and balls in my son's room. So she moans about cleaning because she says it's "too much work." Well, yah!

Taking extra long showers is one mysterious teen trait. Now I know that having a messy room is another. There's always the exception, but I giggled at how many moms in Answers actually used the same word -- disaster -- to describe their teen's room.

Cyberbullying is the buzz word these days, but let's not forget about the regular, old-fashioned, in-person bullying we knew as kids. It's still happening and one of the many disturbing things about that is that it mostly takes place in the classroom, according to a new study by the American Public Health Association. Not in unsupervised locations. But right under the noses of teachers.

I'm not shocked at this. I have firsthand experience.

This mean boy I'll call Tom Sawyer used to bully me in high school. Anytime I wore a piece of clothing the color red, Tom would call me a "Communist." If you were a teen during the Cold War era, you'd know how hurtful that insult was. Why Tom started doing this IDK. I guess because like all bullies he was a weak jerk and it made him feel good to pick on shy girls.

Photo by 1avon-mom

I love that my kids are only 18 months apart because they enjoy the same toys, games and activities and play so well together. Their closeness in age also means they fight really well together, specifically screaming, name-calling, punching, and hitting.

I've learned from other moms in Tween Titans that often this does not stop when they are older; the yelling and hitting just escalates to the next super-frustrating level.

Help for sibling rivalry is a common question on CafeMom, as are the typical remedies: time-outs, withdrawal of privileges, etc. One mom in a recent Tween Titans post said her friend actually duct tapes her two children back-to-back and makes them do things cooperatively for a few hours.