Sometimes we do things that embarrass our kids, and sometimes we just embarrass ourselves. But always, on the spur of the moment and with Mom adrenaline coursing through our veins, it seems like a good idea at the time. Have you done something silly for you kids (or "to you kids," as they may feel)? Share in the comments on our Facebook page.

A parent support group and a parent people can't stop laughing with inspired our topics this week. Here's a road map to our conversation for your fast-forwarding convenience.

00:35 Intros and What's New With You? — This week, we've been keeping busy not winning the Hamilton lottery, not being very successful at public speaking, and not remembering to keep our lengthy Facebook discussions to the hours when Nicole is awake.

05:43 How Important Is It for Your Kid to Have Friends? — And is it important to your kid, or to you? We consider the problem of kids having no friends, kids having the wrong friends, kids caring not enough about friends or too caring much, until really we all just have to lie down in a dark room with a wet rag over our eyes. It is too much.

15:36 Chewbacca Mom — Fortunately, the Internet erupted this week with just the right thing to cheer us up: a mom laughing with unbridled glee at the Chewbacca mask she bought entirely for herself. We wonder what it is that caught everyone's imagination about this thing, just how for real it is, and why we can't seem to go viral like that. C'mon, listeners! Do we need to put on masks for you?

26:52 Interview of the Week — Terri talked with Robert Rummel-Hudson about another thing with the potential to make parents either smile or lie down in a dark room: getting kids with special needs involved in extracurricular activities. The result is often a successful inclusion experience with large dollops of cringeworthy not-wonderfulness.

29:42 Shameless Self-Promotion — Amanda has an article on "8 Multisensory Techniques for Teaching Reading"; Terri wants you to visit her blog Parenting Isn't Pretty, which may or may not have a new post today; Nicole shares a Q&A on inclusion; and Catherine recommends Fun Ways to Exercise With Your Kids and Family, which you should just think of as ways to play.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

We're down one regular podcaster this week, as Amanda has no voice to speak of or speak with, but our old friend Katherine Lee, who writes about parenting for verywell.com, kindly stepped in to give us a fourth. Here's a road map to what we talked about for your fast-forwarding convenience:

01:15 Intros and What's New With You — We've been staying up late podcasting and cleaning up after dogs and watching PBS ... and now that we're up and ready to broadcast, we're interrupted by SOS calls from school. But we'll soldier on and chat as best we can.

5:33 School Transitions — One of the things we're chatting about is those transitions that don't get as much attention: the pre-K to K, K to 1st, and elementary to middle school jumps that are probably more meaningful for parents than kids. (Cue up Track 1 on our Cry Playlist if you need to.)

16:14 Spanking — How is spanking still a thing? As Katherine has written, new research is pretty resounding in the conclusion that spanking is both harmful and ineffective. We talk about why the message is not getting through and the things the Internet does to make research look unreliable. (Watch the John Oliver segment Katherine mentions.)

28:24 Interview of the Week — We don't have Amanda in person, but we have her in a prerecorded interview with her husband, Jon, who chats with us once a month on parenting kids with special needs. Today they're talking about time management — who's good at it, who's not, and the balancing of inattention and routine.

38:53 Shameless Self-Promotion — Katherine has articles on the spanking study and how to handle your child’s mistakes that will be up on verywell.com when verywell decides, “Oh, very well”; Terri has gone forth and tumblr'd again, this time with stuff the Internet needs; Nicole reminds us that we can still take her online course on inclusive education; and Catherine shares an article on what not to say to your sports kid.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Don't be calling us hoarders! That there is an heirloom! Even if it does look like an ancient typewriter, or a dusty teapot, or a grizzly-bear part. Show some respect! And tell us all about your family heirlooms, in the comments here or on our Facebook page.

Is it getting kids to brush teeth, finding lost items, forcing breakfast consumption, general sloooooowness, or getting your own lazy butt out of bed? Listen to our morning challenges and then confess your own in the comments here or on our Facebook page.

Since carpooling schedules so often interfere with our efforts to schedule podcast recording times, we thought we'd take some time today to talk about carpooling instead of doing it, and throw in some thoughts about other things we remember from our long-ago childhoods. Here's a road-map of our conversation:

01:12 Intros and What's New With You — Does the five-second rule apply to licking up delicious things you've accidentally dripped onto your electronic devices? Discuss.

02:57 Carpooling (or Unpaid Uber) — While Catherine does more carpooling than the rest of us combined, we all have traumatic stories to share about driving carpool now or riding in carpool then.

14:53 Those Were the Days — Thoughts of being squished in the backseat with kids you don't like got us remembering more pleasant things about childhood, like eating disgusting food and spending money on silly things and reading all day and generally having no responsibilities at all.

24:46 Interview of the Week — An experience with an apparently unsavory book and a determination to get kids to read no matter what inspired Catherine and Terri to use this week's segment for a little chat on whatever works. Listen to more of their conversations on pop culture on Parenting Roundabout Round 2.

35:28 Shameless Self-Promotion — Catherine has an article for you carpool fanatics on dealing with dinnertime when you're never home for dinnertime; Terri has rescued her old "Love Notes for Special Parents" messages and given them a home on her Mothers With Attitude site; Amanda suggests grabbing her book On-the-Go Fun for Kids and bringing it on your next carpool adventure; and Nicole invites you to visit her Instagram account.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Appropriately for an episode on which we discuss illness, we have a podcaster down this week with laryngitis. We miss you, Amanda! And we've all done our best to talk more to fill your shoes. Here's a road map through our conversation.

0:49: Intros and What's New With You — Maybe you've heard, Nicole is writing a book? And writing and writing. And stressing. And blaming Terri and Amanda for not warning her. Which we totally did.

5:31: Parental Pride — A new survey from TIME For Kids and KidsHealth.org tells us that children who feel their parents are proud of them more often have positive relationships with their parents and exhibit more positive behavior traits. We took that survey as a jumping-off point for a chat on whether saying “I’m proud of you!” is the answer to all our parenting problems, whether it's okay to say "I'm proud of you!" to a grown-up, and whether we believe in surveys anyway. We're proud of you for making it through the podcast this far!

16:26: Sick Days — Something we're not so proud of is the way we have drastically misinterpreted our kids' actual significant health emergencies, from appendicitis to ulcers to a broken wrist. Sometimes, apparently, "Stop complaining and go to school!" is not, in fact, the right answer. We're proud of our kids for somehow still being alive.

27:52: Interview of the Week — In honor of spring finally being here (maybe ... is that snow in the forecast?), we're replaying an interview Catherine did last year with pediatric OT Meghan Corridan on the importance of outdoor play and some good ways to make it happen.

39:47: Shameless Self-Promotion— Nicole's too busy writing something that she will eventually shamelessly self-promote (have we mentioned that she's writing a book? She is!) to shamelessly self-promote now, but Terri mentioned her Special Needs News Twitter account @SNNewsTweets and Catherine shared a fun piece on how to get more out of playground visits.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

In our years of podcasting together, we've learned a lot about each other, but we've never talked about where we're from -- not California and Wisconsin and New Jersey and Maine, where we live now, but where our families came from before that, and our spouses' families. Listen to our family heritage and share yours in the comments here or on our Facebook page. Were our ancestors neighbors?

Speaking of peer pressure, among the things we've pressured one or the other of us to do this week are get up super-early, tell lies, and figure out something we've done that's worth sharing. But parent-to-parent peer pressure is a topic for another week. Here's a roadmap to what we talked about this time around:

0:32: What's New With You? — As we recorded this, Nicole was a day removed from yet another act of violence in her California community, Catherine was dealing with cross-country-traveling kids, Terri was worried that maybe she accidentally hit the mute button on her mic, and Amanda was coping with non-snowy snow days.

3:46: Peer Pressure — And of course, every day is a good day to worry about other kids pressuring our kids to do stupid and dangerous things. And, come to think of it, our kids pressuring other kids to do stupid and dangerous things. Let's everybody just do what feels safe for you, okay?

17:23: Two Truths and a Lie — Since this podcast drops on April Fool's Day, it seemed like a good time to play some tricks of our own. Each of us took a turn telling two true things about ourselves and one false one, and letting our fellow podcasters guess the fib. Play along at home!

27:01: Interview of the Week — Terri chatted with Robert Rummel Hudson, author of Schuyler's Monster and blogger at Fighting Monsters With Rubber Swords and Support for Special Needs, about those teenage milestones that we both long for our kids with special needs to accomplish and fear deeply that they will. Driver's license, anyone?

39:36: Shameless Self-Promotion — So maybe we don't have anything specific to promote this time around. You should still seek out Amanda's work at understood.org, Catherine's at About.com Family Fitness, Nicole's at The Inclusive Class, and Terri's at Mothers With Attitude. Terri also wants you to check out the West Wing Weekly podcast, if that sounds like your thing, and a quote she loved from a Fortune profile of Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Whiteboards are trouble, y'all.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

We talked recently about giving your children constructive criticism, and since one of the topics that causes tension for many moms and daughters is makeup, we asked ourselves today whether there are cosmetological philosophical differences in our households. Do you have strong feelings about makeup? Comment here or on our Facebook page.

On today's Speed Round, we share those silly little traditions our families have built that make us unique, from punning together to guessing celebrity birthdays to including the dog in group hugs. What weird little things does your family do? Confess in the comments or on our Facebook page.

We'd love to give this episode some sort of click-baity title like "10 Ways to Give Your Kids Constructive Criticism That They'll Really Listen To," but we're afraid we haven't exactly figured that out yet ourselves. (Have you? Do tell!) Instead, we lament our failures in that area as well as other things that freak us out. Here's your road map through our conversation:

1:28: What's New With You — Nicole's book-writing is coming to the end of the "Hurry up and write it, we need immediately!" phase, and moving soon into the "What? Oh, yeah, that's in the queue. We'll let you know when anything's going to happen with that" phase.

3:44: What Scares You? — Fear of book deadlines is pretty rational. Fear of losing your temper in an embarrassing way? Rational enough. Fear of flying? Fear of bats in the house? Yeah, you may have a point. Fear of being in a swimming pool alone because of Jaws? All right, now you're just being silly. (Nicole's got a $10 bet riding on whether someone else shares that fear, though, so if you're not afraid to admit to such a thing, step on up.)

12:52: Now, Don't Take This the Wrong Way — Aw, who are we kidding. There's no way our kids are ever going to take our well-intentioned observations as anything but proof that we hate them and everything they do. Even when we mean well, and it's important, and other people are going to judge them, and there are social and physical consequences, it doesn't matter. It's all bad ...

27:45: Our Comeuppance — ... and we know that because we are also daughters, and we have also heard our share of motherly commentary, and we have also resented the heck out of it. For proof, we submit a segment of an episode from last year in which we made the very same complaints our daughters would be making now if they had their own podcasts.

35:56: Shameless Self-Promotion — But because we do actually know a thing or two, we pass on some sites you may want to check out: Amanda suggests an article on 9 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations With Your Partner, Terri points out that you can find our colorful pull-quotes on Canva.com, Nicole continues to recommend her online workshop, and Catherine invites you to find About Family Fitness on Facebook and also read an article about how to talk to your teen about weight issues.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Oh, hello. We're interrupting Nicole's paying of bills to bring you this podcast, on which we talk about other painful topics, like exercise and life without wifi. Aw, c'mon, join us, it's okay. We promise plenty of laughter with those tears. Here's a roadmap of our conversation.

0:58: Intros and What's New With You — Nicole may be paying her bills as we podcast, but Terri and Amanda are working hard to ignore their large piles of tax-preparaton documents.

5:00: What Type of Exercise Can You Stand to Do? — Well, we like to walk ... and do yoga maybe ... but mostly walk ... does sprinting across an airport count? ... and also walking on treadmills. Walking's good! So is a review by Catherine of Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin, which may help you understand your personal exercise habits or lack thereof.

15:28: What Can Your Family Not Do Without? — Wifi, of course. That's obvious. Electricity for charging things. But also books. Distractions. Routine. Heated seats. Goofy dogs. Canadian food? Yes.

22:50: Interview of the Week — Catherine talks to pediatric occupational therapist Meghan Corridan about drawing your child into drawing, using tools like Ed Emberley's book Goody Gumdrops and the apps Dipdap and Draw Along with Stella and Sam.

34:22: Shameless Self-Promotion — Catherine shares her whole entire website, About.com Family Fitness, which is full of exercise ideas; Terri plugs our Round 2 Parks and Recreation marathon and her new tumblrs IEP-izeit, Too Old for Cool., and, hey, Parenting Roundabout; Nicole touts our new Instagram account @prpodcast (which in fact appears as all lower case on Instagram and therefore does not require you to think of us as an oddcast); and Amanda shares the three-part series PlayerFM did about us cool and wise women.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

It's a week of looking forward at the responsible young adults our kids are becoming and looking back at the really bad TV they (and we) adored in the past. Here's a road map to our conversation:

0:49: What’s New With You? — We’ve got dogs, we’ve got scorpions and tarantulas, we’ve got illicit lizards, and we hope we don’t have bedbugs.

4:22: Big-Kid Milestones — While there's no equivalent of a baby book to enter them in, teens and young adults have plenty of firsts that parents rejoice over. We celebrated Terri's daughter's first solo call to AAA with remembrances of other older-child triumphs.

13:20: TV-Show Resurrections — Hey, have ya heard, there's an update to Full House hitting Netflix today! For kids who grew up loving the Tanners — like Terri's and Amanda's daughters, who have been counting down the days — Fuller House is a major TV event. But what about the family TV of our youth? When will we get our update on the Bradys, the Partridges, the Keatons, the Bradfords? (Though honestly, the less we hear about the horrifying children's TV Nicole grew up with in Canada, the better.)

25:14: Interview of the Week — Amanda talked with her husband, Jon, about IEP tag-teaming. Let's see one of those family sitcoms do that. (For more on IEPs, listen to an interview from last April with Robert Rummel-Hudson.)

36:03: Shameless Self-Promotion — Terri shared her shiny new tumblr blog, Amanda shared "10 Ways to Help Shy Children Self-Advocate," Catherine passed on her water-bottle organizing tips, and Nicole shares actual links to those Canadian TV shows she mentioned, Mr. Dress-Up and The Friendly Giant. Watch at your own risk.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

We know, we know -- your Facebook feed is full of politics, you have to block half your friend list, Twitter is becoming a minefield. We don't like talking about politics either. Our interest for today, though, is what to do if your kid is not so careful about the topic. If even that makes you nervous, use this road map through the episode to fast-forward right on past it to the topics that follow.

0:30: What's New With You? — Nicole is coming to us live from a fabulous ... soccer field full of Canadians in Las Vegas. Terri, meanwhile, is in parenting-expert limbo as her time as About.com's Parenting Special Needs expert comes to an end.

5:26: Kids and Politics — Inspired by a Boston Globe article that parodied talking to your kid about politics (or one politician in particular), we thought we'd chat about that for real. How do you get your kids to agree with your politics without pushing them there, and how do you keep them from barreling into school saying "My mom says ..."?

18:49: Job Options — Catherine's book-club discussion of what jobs they imagine doing led us into a chat about what work we'd do if we weren't doing the work we're doing now. Or maybe we could just skip right to retirement?

27:48: Interview of the Week — Catherine talks with grandparenting expert Susan Adcox about the big scary issue of money, and the conflicts that arise between parents and grandparents over financial assistance.

39:58: Shameless Self-Promotion — Terri is dustin’ off her old site, Mothers With Attitude; Amanda recommends using her book On the Go Fun for Kids: More Than 250 Activities to Keep Little Ones Busy and Happy--Anytime, Anywhere! to distract your kids from politics; Nicole hopes you're looking forward to her book, which she's working on when she's not hangin' in Vegas; and Catherine takes a stand on the issue of standing desks for kids.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

After talking about Terri's husband's cooking and meal-planning in a previous episode, we thought we'd see what the division of labor is in everybody's household, including the contentious issue of who exactly is allowed to load the dishwasher. (Note: Amanda mentions our group chat on parenting styles tomorrow, except what she really means is last week, because recording things ahead of time is confusing.) Share who does what around your house in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

In yesterday's speed round, we stole an idea from schools and proposed things we'd like to celebrate 100 days of. Keeping with that 100 theme for one more day, we wondered what we might have 100 of in our house. What do you have 100 of? Share your answer in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

Are we rockin’ minivans or SUVs? Or have we been able to downsize the size of our ride as our kids have gotten their own? Listen as we chat about our current vehicles of choice, and share what's getting you around in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

It'll be Valentine's Day before you know it, and in honor of this month of romance, we chatted about our own personal love stories. Listen in, and if you've got a good how-we-met story of your own, share it in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

It's been one of those weeks here in Parenting Roundabout land (an enchanted place that now spans four timezones), and so we come together for our group chat with a shorter attention span and a more meandering style than ever. But that's where your brain's at too, right? Here's a road map of this week's conversation:

1:43: What's New With You? — Join is in a moment of silence for Nicole, who has just had her parents in her house for FIVE WEEKS. And a moment of thanks for OnStar, which saved Terri from a very awkward conversation with a parking-lot attendant.

5:44: That Storm Was How Big? — You might have heard, it snowed a li'l bit on the East Coast last weekend. We talked about what counts as an OMG STORM! in our various parts of the country. (Visit the French Toast Alert System and a Facebook message from the Bangor Maine Police Department to laugh along with us.)

17:44: What's for Dinner? — A mention in last week's episode of Terri's husband's old-school paper-based meal-planning system inspired us to talk more about how food gets on the table in our houses. Debates over the appropriateness of breakfast for dinner, leftovers for breakfast, and calling ham Canadian bacon ensued.

28:50: Interview of the Week — Amanda chatted with her husband, Jon, about the various complicating factors of going to birthday parties with your child with special needs. (Like, should you go? And should you stay? And is it okay to give homework as a gift?) For more on over-the-top birthdays, listen to Amanda's earlier chat with Lexi Walters Wright on the subject.

39:46: Shameless Self-Promotion — Amanda shared an article on helping your child cope with taste sensitivity; Nicole shared an article calling for people to share their inclusion resources; Terri shared an article on 8 Ways to Make Parents of Children With Special Needs STOP Listening to You; and Catherine shared an article on active party games for kids.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and for our fun in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

We've noticed some contentious opinions online about the inflammatory issue of wearing shoes in the house. Are we shoe people, slipper people, sock people? Is it permissible to bring your own slippers to other people's house, or refuse to expose your socks to their floor? Share your shoe preferences and phobias in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

Yesterday we talked about bedtime routines, and today the subject of our quick chat is the stuffed animals or other comfort items our kids go to bed with -- and we lose or leave behind at our peril. Listen in, and tell us about your child's indispensable object in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

In a recent speed round, Amanda suggested that she would like a Fast Pass for her kids' bedtime, which inspired us to have this quick chat about what our kids' bedtime routines are like and what's particularly weird, wonderful, or time-consuming about them. Is there a notable bedtime routine at your house? Comment here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.

Since we know that our listeners don't have much time to read because of all of their grown-up responsibilities (though we do hope you've found 45+ minutes to listen to podcasts), here's a quick roadmap of this week's chat:

1:49 What's New With You: Finding gifs has become a major pastime for us, but one out of four of us hasn't quite mastered the art of pasting the right one in.

6:38: Topic 1—Do You Still Read?: After blowing past quite a number of efforts to seque by Amanda, Terri finally gets the message to start our first topic, which asks: Do we make time for book readin'? Do we think it's important? Do we make it a priority for ourselves, or are we so busy finding gifs that we never get to it?

15:49 Topic 2—Do You Have What's Required to Be a Grown-Up Adult?: Jumping off from a Buzzfeed listicle on the things you need to be a grown-up, we talk about what we've got, what we're missing, and what being an adult really means. (If you like the sound of Terri's in basket, it's on the Really Good Stuff site.)

27:18 Interview of the Week: Catherine chats with grandparenting expert Susan Adcox about kids and concussions, and shares lots of great information on how to recognize your child or grandchild has one and what parents and grandparents can do about it.

39:51 Shameless Self-Promotion: Amanda shares an article on "How to Help Your Tween Get the Writing Bug"; Terri selflessly promotes Barnes & Noble Readouts, which delivers book excerpts and a serialized novel to your Nook or Nook app; Nicole shares her site The Inclusive Class; and Catherine shares some articles on concussions: "What I Learned From My Own Kid's Concussion"; "Concussions - Symptoms and Signs"; Cognitive Rest; and "Safer Soccer: No Headers Before High School."

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our podcast and most especially for our spiffy new in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

The family that plays together ... probably gets annoyed at each other a fair amount of the time, especially if Monopoly is involved. We talk about our favorite and most hated board games, card games, and other family amusements. Are you a game-playing family? Share in the comments here or on our Facebook page, or tweet us @RoundAboutChat.