Relationships
What My Fingernails Know
When every fingernail on both of my hands has broken, I know it for sure: Summer is over. It happens to me every year over a two to three-day period. It’s a physical thing; parts of me grow brittle and fall off. Long before the leaves ever change to yellow or orange, my body knows: Autumn is in the house….
The Secret To Finding The Best Babysitters
The best babysitters are, of course, the ones who love interacting with your children and know how to take care of them in any circumstance. But now that my son is older, I have found that the best sitters – the one’s who not only take care of his physical and emotional needs – are the ones who like to linger around after my child (and usually my husband) have gone to bed so we can discuss life. And books!…
What Our Actions Teach Our Kids About The Earth
I try to remain optimistic, but I find myself wondering if our efforts are merely an exercise in too little, too late? As thousands of gallons of oil oozed into the Gulf just off the coast of my beloved former home of Louisiana, I found myself thinking about how the more we try to fix things, the more we muck things up….
Father and Son: Gone Golfing
My husband and my son have been on the driving range for an hour. I know this because I have been spying on them from my car. About twenty minutes ago, it started to rain, and I thought they would stop. But they didn’t. They kept on whacking ‘dem balls, oblivious. I never thought this day would come. …
Are You Cool With Coed Sleepovers
I have been hearing more and more about kids getting together en masse for coed sleepovers. Some parents have been very positive about these group adventures in nocturnal cohabitation and insist there is little to worry about — the kids are all just friends, no one is drinking or doing drugs or hooking up, that the kids just like to “hang out together” in their jammies; sometimes they even text while sitting next to each other on the couch! For many parents, there’s no discussion about it – coed sleepovers are out of the question. For other parents whose teens who are hosting and attending these boy-girl events, it’s merely a sign of the times, a natural extension of the ever-expanding platonic relationships between the sexes. Some parents are clueless; their child simply tells them he/she is going to sleep at a friend’s house, but the parents never call to check in with the host parents, so they have no idea the event is coed.
How do you feel about group, coed sleepovers; they seem to be the new “cool” thing? Yay or nay? When would you allow your child to have someone of the opposite sex sleep at your house? Could they share a room? A bed?…
Being Neighborly
Growing up, I knew everyone in my neighborhood. The girls across the street were my babysitters, and they let me sit in the funky purple bedroom and play with their Barbies. The older couple who lived next door to my parents had a tiny little poodle, and the Mrs Z. liked to watch me practice my gymnastics on the lawn. The neighbors on our other side were a little standoffish, but we understood this about them and still waved as they passed in their beige car. There was an older woman who nurtured a fantastic garden in her backyard. She taught me my first words in French: “J’adore les fleurs.” The people behind us had children, and my brother and I would stay out late playing kickball and running barefoot in their tall grass until it grew dark and we could no longer see the ball. I loved knowing my neighbors, and I suppose I have tried to reproduce similar kinds of connections no matter the type of community in which I found myself living….
Lessons From Folks Who Biked Across America
My former student, Rachel Timmons, and her husband, Brian Gottleib, recently finished biking across America. Yep, they biked 3,886 miles: starting in Florence, Oregon on May 14, 2010 and finished on August 6, 2010 in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Along the way, they encountered physical and emotional challenges so grueling, they weren’t always sure they would make it. …
What's with the Tats?
Why do you think so many Generation Yers (18-24 year olds) are getting tattoos? Clearly, having a tattoo is not a subversive act anymore as so many people have them. So what is getting a tattoo about? What is the allure?…
To Touch or not to Touch?: That is the Question
My son’s 11th birthday is fast approaching. He has not asked for a cell phone, but he has asked for an iPod Touch. In my mind, this device brings its own set of problems. It’s expensive. It requires Wi-Fi to send text — which is not always available. I worry about his grammar deteriorating with all the stoooopid abbreviations. He is only just beginning to learn the nuances of conventional grammar, and texting interferes with all of that. Texting will also open him up to the no-so wonderful world of cyber-bullying. Then again, having an iPod Touch would hold all his music and his old first generation Nano has long been maxed out. He could download free Apps and purchase some with his own money.
And it is the only thing he wants for his birthday….
The Blessing of the Ugly Casserole Dish
When my husband and I were opening our wedding gifts (fifteen years ago), we noticed someone had given us a used casserole dish. It was yellow and chipped; it was even a little dirty. I ranted: “Who would give us a used dish?!” I was astonished and pretty pissed.
Then I read the card.
The casserole dish had come from my Aunt Bea who was in her early 90s at the time, and quite ill. Still, she wanted to send us something. Her husband, whom she had loved dearly, had passed away by then and she was alone. In her beautifully written penmanship, she explained that a dear friend had given her (and her new husband) that very casserole dish that I now had before me over fifty years earlier. She apologized about the chips and dings, but pointed out that the dish had seen her family through the good years and the lean years. That casserole dish had fed them through The Great Depression, fed their children and grandchildren. She told me that – while she no longer cooked her own meals – she still cherished the dish, but now she wanted me to have it….