PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
October 27, 2009
Irony and indecision
Irony
pronunciation: \ˈī-rə-nē also ˈī(-ə)r-nē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural iro·nies
Etymology: Latin ironia, from Greek eirōnia, from eirōn dissembler
Date: 1502
the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning
OR
Spending weeks and weeks debating whether or not you should get the H1N1 vaccine for your children, making the decision to go ahead and do it, then finding out that you can't get the vaccine anywhere, even if you beg and plead, and wring your hands.
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October 13, 2009
Declaration of independence
When I teach the first semester of Freshman Composition, I usually assign a particular reading to my students--one dealing with the question of public space, what it is, how it can be altered, and who alters it. [more]
October 6, 2009
Family-friendly?
If you are a working parent, is your company family-friendly? Take a minute to think about what you think family-friendly really means--in your ideal world (we're not talking reality, here). You can make a list, as I make my students often do in class, whenever I want to challenge them to think about a topic. Some things I would put on my list would be:
1. Good affordable health care benefits for families (including dental and vision)
2. Flexible work time
3. Extended leave for pregnancy/illness
4. Ability to bring children to work on school breaks [more]
October 5, 2009
10 ways you can tell you're a parent (even at a rock concert)
1. You feel smug because your cool low-slung Levis with the hole in one knee still fit and your daughter looks at you and says, "Oh no, Mama! You need to sew that hole!"
2. The only binoculars you can find to take to the concert are your nine-year old son's night vision ones.
3. You bring them anyway.
4. You empty your pockets for security at the concert entrance and find: a kleenex, chapstick, one acorn, and a rock shaped like a light saber.
5. The only chapstick you could find to grab out of the car before the concert was your daughter's cherry-berry lipsmackers. [more]
August 20, 2009
Convergence
This made me smile yesterday:
T.'s take on winter science! The hypothesis she was testing? Whether or not frozen rocks would turn to ice.
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July 29, 2009
It was the worst of times, it was the best of times
Not long ago, L. surprised us out of the blue by telling us that the happiest day of his life was when T. was born. He then went on to recount, in great detail, the facts of T.'s birth ending with his first sight of her, as she lay between my legs. He really meant it, too, because he witnessed her birth--right there, up close and personal, while Clifford the Big Red Dog played on the wall-mounted hospital room television. He's never talked much about her birth before. He was, after all, only 3 1/2 years old at the time. We hadn't planned on his being in the room when T.
July 27, 2009
Here we go again
It's here. The first day of fourth grade for L. We took him school supply shopping on Friday and, some $180 dollars later he had a new backpack, new trapper keeper, new pencils, new ruler, new gym shorts and we had bags of supplies we had dutifully purchased to take in to the class. I completely understand the egalitarian motives behind issuing massive class supply lists for each family, but by the time I pushed the cart outside Target I felt that familiar sinking hollow feeling in my stomach that comes from spending large amounts of money in a short time. [more]
- Tags: Special Needs, School Daze, Parenting, Moms, Dads, Children
July 21, 2009
Thanks, George
When we took L. out for his birthday dinner earlier this month the conversation turned, as it always does these days, to his latest obsession: Star Wars. He had just watched Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones (when did Star Wars get so complicated? It has taken me forever to get my mind around the fact that there are no longer just three movies) rented as a birthday treat, and his head was still spinning from the film. [more]
July 2, 2009
Trial by fire
As soon as you become a parent, you learn that there exists an ever-growing, long, long list of verbal (and non-verbal) utterances that can strike terror into any parent's heart. You learn this early on, the very first time your baby wakes you in the night with an unusual-sounding cry, or later, when your toddler is on the rampage and a long, long silence is punctuated by a high-pitched, sing-songy "uh-oh". [more]
June 22, 2009
Twice lucky
I got lucky this Father's Day weekend--I had my dad with me for part of the day on Sunday, and my husband, of course, for all of it. I got to be my dad's daughter for most of the weekend, and to help my kids make the day special for my husband. [more]
