PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
March 31, 2008
Party magic
On Friday I wrote about how amazing it was going to be to have a weekend with the carry-over of the glorious 80-degree weather we'd had that day. In reality, though, the temperatures plummeted some 40 degrees and both Saturday AND Sunday were cold and rainy and blustery. We even lit a fire on Sunday--long after we'd thought we wouldn't be doing that again for months and months to come. But Scott brought in armloads of wood and the kids gathered around, jumping up and down as they watched the flames leaping up into the chimney. [more]
March 28, 2008
Getting ahead
It's just the perfect day outside today--clear blue skies, warm spring breezes, lots of birds chirping outside my office window. All of this adds up to make this good Friday Feeling even better--what better way to head into the weekend than to have the promise of the continuation of some truly good weather? [more]
March 27, 2008
What (not) to wear
I've been invited, for the first time ever, to a trustees dinner at the college where I work, and I don't have a thing to wear. I raided my closet yesterday afternoon in the hopes of discovering some long-forgotten chic pantsuit I never in fact ever owned, but all I came up with was one pair of black slacks and a stretchy top I think I bought 6 years ago for a wedding rehearsal dinner. Later that afternoon I went into work for a meeting and consulted my colleague/friend, who has been to such dinners before, about what I should wear.
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March 26, 2008
Food for thought
The other night I unwittingly created for my kids the "best dinner experience ever." Scott had a late meeting and wasn't going to be home until long past dinner, L. is still on Spring Break, and I had too much to do in the precious TV time leading up to dinner to even make dinner.
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March 25, 2008
It's not just a job
I brought my son to work on Thursday last week. He was just with me for three hours--tops. I wasn't teaching that day, so we ran some errands around campus, and headed over to the library to set up a film for my students. I seated him in one of the old squishy orange chairs outside the glass windowed media room, and while I cued up the film, I watched him hunched into the bulk of the chair, a little figure with crazy sticking-up hair and glasses, head bent over one of his train books. [more]
March 24, 2008
Double the memories
On Saturday some new friends came over to hang out and dye Easter eggs with us. They have two daughters, one who is nearly three, and the other not quite six months. While the kids busied themselves with paints and cut-off sponges, glitter and dye, I chatted with the mom about holiday traditions. She was raised Christian, and her husband Jewish; after much debate and discussion, they recently decided they would raise the two girls Jewish, but embrace aspects of the mother's Christian faith as well (especially with regard to Christmas). [more]
March 21, 2008
Out with the bad, in with the good
I thought I'd be too tapped out to write anything today--or anything in the slightest bit substantive, that is. This past week was a hectic, not-so-great week--you know the kind, where the fates seem to be conspiring against you from the minute your alarm goes off and you think--maybe I should just call it quits?
- Tags: T., Parenting, Lessons from Little Ones, L., Holidays, Arts and Crafts
March 20, 2008
Armchair dreams
Lately I seem to be experiencing lots of armchair wanderlust. I've been daydreaming about travel, about new places and old ones, too. I'd love to visit my sister in Rhode Island, my cousin in Boston, my closest girlfriend who lives near Seattle, my old roommate in LA. All week I've had encounters with people who drop by my office to tell me about faraway places and there I am listening, almost knee-deep in papers and book orders, on the edge of my seat, lost in thought for myself and excited for them. [more]
- Tags: Teaching, Moms, Character Sketches
March 19, 2008
It's a fish eat fish world
Remember T.'s fish Spike? The one that died last week, only 48 hours after we'd first bought him? A mere 24 hours after that, while we were still in Maryland with my parents, Scott called.
Molly had her baby! He declared, triumphantly, on the phone.
Who? I asked. Did we HAVE a friend named Molly? A friend expecting a child?
But Molly, of course, was T.'s other fish, a rotund orange one that Scott swore was pregnant when the kids and I brought it home from the pet store.
[more]
- Tags: Pets, Parenting, Lessons from Little Ones
March 18, 2008
Hard to be little
I have a song I sing to T. sometimes; I sing it to her when things just aren't going her way and she collapses, in a fit of anger and frustration--you know the kind that just makes a child cry and cry, because, as a little kid, there's often not much else they can do. I used to sing it to L. when he was small, but now that he's seven, he wants nothing to do with it.
It's so hard to be little,
It's so hard to be small
When you're tired and sad, [more]
