Month: April 2018

I’m always interested to see what catches my children’s eye when we attend community events. Kids are notorious for zeroing in on random things. (We’ve all seen the toddler play with the box a gift comes in while totally ignoring the gift, right?) Last weekend the kids and I spent several hours at Shaker Village… Continue reading Family Outings: a Mix of Shared Experience and Individual Pleasure

I don’t always appreciate Mother Nature’s sense of humor. A couple weeks ago, I traveled to Durham, North Carolina to witness and celebrate my cousin’s commitment ceremony. She and her partner are millennial hippies and it was to be an all-day affair out on a farm, replete with music, food, and yard games. I had… Continue reading Survival Guide for a Wet and Windy Spring

When I was in elementary school, I had a pen pal in Australia. Her name was Sara. For reasons I no longer remember, Sara briefly attended my school while her folks were in the States and she and I wrote to each other after she returned home. We kept in touch on and off for… Continue reading Pen Pals Reveal the Joy of Writing in a Texting World

I’ve been thinking about how we teach our children. Beyond the classroom, what (and how) are they learning from the adults in their lives? My children’s current favorite movie is Wonder. I have mixed – and entirely selfish – feelings about this new obsession. On the one hand, it’s clearly an incredible movies for demonstrating… Continue reading The Children Are Watching – And Learning