PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
October 22, 2008
Family van
Yesterday, in my Facebook profile, I wrote a note about how I was tired of people who care too much about cars. Then I sat down to write this column, which is about how, after four weeks on Craigslist, we've said good-bye to our poor, down-and-out Dodge Grand Caravan--the first car we ever bought together, and the one we used to bring both our babies home from the hospital. Then I thought I was living a double-standard, because clearly I care a lot about cars if I was going to sit down and write a whole column about one. [more]
September 10, 2008
Losses and gains
In each of my three sections of English Fundamentals this week, we read Mark Halliday's Young Man on Sixth Avenue, and in each class I asked students to come up with two or three conflicts they saw present in the story. All three classes came up with the good, but conventional ones: the Young Man vs. his inner self; the Young Man vs. society; the Young Man vs. life. In my third and final class today, a young woman raised her hand and said she saw in the story a conflict between gains and losses. [more]
August 5, 2008
Bag of tricks: the sleep edition
Over the summer, L.'s sleep habits have gone from bad to worse, and he's now crawling into bed with us in the middle of the night--something he hasn't done for four years. This is, in some ways, an improvement over the nervous shadowy figure standing by our bedside at 2:00 a.m. and frantically whispering to us, and a definite improvement over the terrified yelling at 3:00 a.m., but it's still not good. At L.'s eight-year appointment, his doctor told us that eight is a prime year for anxiety and night terrors. Eight, it appears, is a tough year. [more]
June 11, 2008
Too much
We've been having record heat for the past four days--triple-digit heat, in fact. When I open the back door in the mornings to put out the dogs (yes, dogs in the plural--we're dog-sitting my in-laws' early-rising beagle--I'm convinced he's part beagle, part rooster, actually), the heat hits my face like a blast from an exhaust pipe. The grass is brittle, the air is almost tangible, it hangs so heavily over everything. [more]
June 5, 2008
If not sewing camp, what about SLEEP camp?
Last night L. couldn't get to sleep until after 11:00, and then woke up twice with bad dreams. And T., who I hope so fervently is not gearing up for another migraine, woke up several times, thirsty and fussing in the middle of the night wailing that way small children have--the wails that cut through your dreams and shake you awake, to be worried and then grouchy, and then sleepless. I, of course, had to drag myself out of bed at 6:00 (still hoping to accomplish some work in the early morning hours--and look!--I am, I'm writing this post!) and T. proceeded to sleep until 10:00. [more]
- Tags: Sleep, Parenting Advice, Parenting, L. and T., Early Learning, Babies
May 21, 2008
A post in which I grouch a little about fruit
It's that time of year again--the time for endings and beginnings; for saying good-bye to classrooms and teachers and the old ways of an old school-year. I look at the second-graders at L.'s school and they seem suddenly all arms and legs and missing front teeth. They carry around Harry Potter books and beloved webkinz, and talk about big kid stuff like THIRD grade. At T.'s school the kids are coming into their own, suddenly, dividing themselves up by boys and girls; T. comes home with gossipy-like tales of who did what to her, and why. [more]
May 19, 2008
Friends to feed the soul
This past weekend was a little out of the ordinary for us in two ways: 1) we did a lot socially and 2) we slept in. The sleeping-in part is a little unusual, although one of the perks of having older children is that they do sleep more as they get older – even difficult, hands-on sleepers like ours. So don't despair, if you do have early-risers like we once had; even a year ago, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd wake, peer at the clock, and find it reading "8:15" and, better yet, discover that although L. [more]
- Tags: Work, L. and T., Kids, Friends, Food for Thought, Family Activities, Family
May 15, 2008
Camp, anyone?
On our kitchen table at home is a pile of catalogs and summer events calendars. I've been collecting them for some weeks now, and I leaf through them while I'm sipping my coffee, or eating breakfast. My head swims when I look at all the activities you can sign your kid up for during those summer weeks:
--Sewing camp (really!)
--Horseback camp
--Colonial camp (dress up like early settlers and make candles!)
--Music camp
--Chess camp
--Robot camp
--Doll-making camp (rag-dolls, not even American Girl dolls) [more]
May 5, 2008
Tooth and nail
On Sunday we had a total of 20 minutes of peace between the two kids. Those 20 minutes took place -- aptly enough, I suppose -- during Family Cook Night. L. was too busy chopping carrots and cucumbers (he even sliced a tomato, which was real progress for him! [more]
May 2, 2008
The spacing game
Last night, while dozing and resting with the kids during their respective bedtime routines (rituals), I realized yet another one of the many marvelous things about being a parent: It must be the only job (vocation? state-of-being?) where you can spend a solid 10 minutes with one child at bath time discussing the virtues of various body parts and, 45 minutes later when that child has drifted off to sleep, spend 20 minutes in a darkened room with the older child discussing evolution, the possibility of life in outer space, and the Big Bang theory.
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