Tag Archives: medicine

What Do You Read For?

My mom has been staying with me for the last month recovering from a fall, and with little else to do, has been gobbling up my bookshelves almost faster than I can replenish them. I’m passing along all the books I think she ought to like, but I’m finding something odd. There are some books she just doesn’t like, books I loved. Why is that? After thinking it over for a little while, I came to a very important conclusion. Readers all read for different reasons. Some read to be entertained. Others, to be educated, or uplifted, or distracted, or … Continue reading →

Can You Teach a Child to Spit? (And Other Parental Challenges)

When we decide to embark on the joys and challenges of parenthood, many of us have no idea what we are getting ourselves into! We imagine rocking our beautiful, cherubic baby or taking them off to their first day of school, we may even prepare ourselves for changing diapers and getting to doctors’ appointments if we are realists. There are dozens of tasks and challenges, however that we may not even fathom. It does not take long for a parent to start to wonder “How in the world am I going to teach them THAT?” In my parenting journey, there … Continue reading →

Maneuvering Through the Preschool Pressure

As many of you know, I have recently been working with my two eldest daughters to help them make a plan for college. Things are starting to relax around here now that they have both applied to and gotten accepted into schools and are starting on their college paths. I have to say, however, that I had plenty of preparation for the pressures of college hunting and it hearkens back to trying to find a good preschool and get my children accepted and enrolled! When I was a child, preschool was something SOME KIDS did and it was either short-term … Continue reading →

Government Proposal on Student Loans

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With rising tuition prices, very few students attend college without some type of financial help. Government loans are one of the most common. However, they may not be as easy to obtain as they once were. It seems that once again the federal government is taking action in the issue of education. Recently Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut introduced a proposal that would stop lending institutions from picking and choosing which schools and students were eligible for loans. The proposal came about after an article was published that stated that several lenders had stopped allowing … Continue reading →

Summer School by Choice

When I was young, summer school was the kiss of death—it was something you had to go to if you flunked a class or did poorly in the year and it was not a reality that anyone wanted their friends to know about. With my children’s generation, however, summer school seems to be just another educational option and there are kids who take advantage of summer school to get ahead or to take electives that they do not have the time to take during the regular school year. This summer my son is going to summer school by choice—he wants … Continue reading →

Cynthia Nixon and Girlfriend to Marry?

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While one long time lesbian couple (Jodie Foster and Cydney Bernard) is rumored to have broken up, another fairly high profile lesbian couple is set to tie the knot. Cynthia Nixon, who stars as Miranda Hobbs Brady in “Sex and the City,” has revealed that she and her partner Christine Marinoni want to get married. Nixon has never been married, but lived with longtime boyfriend Danny Mozes for 15 years. The couple have two children together – eleven year old Samantha and five year old Charles. Nixon did not reveal her relationship with Marinoni for a long time, but now … Continue reading →

Spelling Matters for Parents Too

As focused as many of us parents are on our children’s education, we can sometimes be slackers with our own. Just because we have managed to get through high school or even college does not mean that the learning and improvements stop. How can we set an example for our children if we just throw up our arms and say “I’m a bad speller” or “I can’t do math”? We can still work on improving our skills and encouraging our children while we do so. I am not a naturally great speller. Fortunately, I do a lot of reading and … Continue reading →

A Caution About Introducing Children to Other Cultures

When I was a preschool teacher, I attended a workshop that challenged something I most loved to do. I was startled—someone was challenging something I believed was healthy and showed a commitment to diversity. As an adoptive parent, I now understand their point more than ever. I’ve always loved other cultures and try to show kids different customs, costumes and music from around the world. So I was very surprised when the workshop leaders criticized the “country of the week/month” held in many preschool and primary classes. The leaders pointed out that we often do this in a way which … Continue reading →

Should You Stop Checking Homework when They Ask You To?

There was a time when homework and schoolwork was a family affair. My kids would settle down at the dining table and we would work on things together or, if they did the work at some other time, they would inevitably ask me to look things over or help in some capacity. Somewhere around the end of middle-school, my role quickly diminished and by high school, it is very rarely that my kids ask me for help with anything. It is generally just requests to sign things or get certain items or materials they might need for a project. I’m … Continue reading →

Scrapbooking Layouts with No Journaling

Creating layouts with your photographs is definitely the point of scrapbooking. Having a scrapbook page or layout with no journaling goes against everything I teach, but sometimes it happens and sometimes a photograph speaks for itself. So how do you go about telling a story with only a photograph, and no journaling? To begin with, think outside the normal scrapbooking box. Get creative with your layout, choose embellishments that might help to tell a story. For instance, a close up of your four year old in Hawaii could be enlarged and placed on a page all on its own. Use … Continue reading →