Time to pack away the white shoes.
Hope everyone has a great long weekend.
August 28, 2008
August 26, 2008
Supernanny, Watch Out
Usually when you are looking to hire someone to work for you, you don’t go out of your way to tell them all of your idiosyncrasies. Rebecca Land Soodak took a different approach when she placed an ad on Craigslist. She began the ad with the words, “My kids are a pain in the [butt]“ Except that she didn’t use the word butt.
Um, ouch! I mean I think that about my kids sometimes, who doesn’t. But to type it out as the primary descriptive introductory sentence about my kids? That I am not sure about.
The rest of the ad, you can read the original ad here, was admittedly funny. I thought it was brilliant the way she laid out what the deal breakers were. How she explained what their family really was like. And she did find a nanny through the ad.
August 25, 2008
Best For Kids
I finally found it! It is the Real Simple Family magazine, page 47.
It is in an article about the best not-to-be-missed parenting websites and Handipoints was named one of the top three websites for kids. Out of the eleven other websites that were mentioned, I have only heard of a few. I am going to have to check them out.
And anyone who went to the Handipoints site via the article and then found there way here, Welcome!
Handipoints was also mentioned in Parents Magazine this month, though I have not gotten my hands on that article yet.
August 22, 2008
Most Parents Play Less Than An Hour Per Day With Their Children
In a new study that was commissioned by the toy company, Hearthsong, it was revealed that:
99 percent of parents with a child aged 12 and under believe that children’s play is important for a variety of reasons, but in a world in which the demands on parents’ time are considerable, only 38 percent of parents say they spend at least six hours per week in active play with their kids. One in six parents doesn’t even spend an hour a week, averaging fewer than 10 minutes per day in playtime with their sons and daughters.
The study broke down what people considered “playtime” and how they played with their children. I’ll admit it. I am not a big player. I rarely play blocks or cars or house. I do, however, sit and talk to my kids. I will do crafts with them. I garden with them. I watch them climb trees, swing on the swings, slide down the slides, and whatever else it is that they do while screaming, “Look at me! Look at me!” I occassionally play board games and card games. I go for bike rides with them and will play jump rope and other outdoor games.
But I was left wondering where I would fit in on this survey. What would I have answered?
So let me ask you? How do you define “play?” How many hours would you say that you spend playing with your child per day?
Also, Hearthsong is having a scholarship contest at their site:
To celebrate the inherent connection between play and learning, and in commemoration of the company’s 25th anniversary, HearthSong is sponsoring the HearthSong 25th Anniversary $25,000 Scholarship Sweepstakes. The contest, which runs until the end of December 2008, will award three college scholarships – including a $15,000 grand prize scholarship – as well as 25 other prizes. Winners will be selected at random from among eligible entries. (More details are available at http://hearthsong.com.)
It took less than one minute to enter. You never know, you might just be the lucky winner!
August 21, 2008
Whiplash
Did you see summer fly by? Where did it go I wonder? Seems like I was waiting, eagerly anticipating its arrival, and suddenly now it has gone right by. When was it actually here?
The nights have gotten cool. The sun is setting earlier. I have been bringing a jacket to wear at the football field every evening while I wait for my son to finish practice.
I remember as a kid that summer lasted for a long time. The days stretched out long and going back to school in Spetember felt like you had not seen some of your friends for years, not months. My son and I had made a list of 100 Things we wanted to do this summer. Sadly about half of them fell by the wayside. Some of them can still be accomplished through the fall, like kite flying, and I suppose we might feel like eating ice cream sundaes for breakfast in January.
This week I read about the author of the book, 100 Things to Do Before You Die, David Freeman dying at the age of 47. His book was the first of the 100 things books, other books followed by different authors in subsequent years.
“This life is a short journey,” the book says. “How can you make sure you fill it with the most fun and that you visit all the coolest places on earth before you pack those bags for the very last time?”
He visited about half of the places he wrote about in his book. The sad irony of his death, after running with the bulls and bungee jumping off of cliffs, is that he would die from falling in his own home and banging his head.
His friends and family said that even though he didn’t get to do everything on his list that he lived his life the way he wanted to, with no regrets. I love that sentiment. I told my son yesterday that even though we didn’t get to accomplish everything that was on our list for this summer, we had fun.
And really that is what it is all about.
Though I would not mind if time would slow down just a little bit. It is hard to smell those roses when they are flying by at warp speed.
August 20, 2008
Nature vs. Nurture
Before I had children I thought that boys and girls would be the same to raise. That if I treated them the same that the stereotypical gender differences would not be apparent. My boys would play with dolls, my girls would play with trucks, and we would be gender neutral in all that we did. I bought gender neutral toys. I has dolls AND trucks. I had kitchen sets AND workbenches. They played with both. Yet, the gender differences were still there. Why?
What happened is that I gave birth to actual live children who had minds of their own. And surprisingly, or not surprisingly according to this article at CNN, they behaved in stereotypical ways. And I don’t mean about the toys that they chose to play with, or their level of energy, or their propensity for destruction, it was the ways in which they interact with the world that drew my atttention.
My daughter likes to talk, about things like her feelings. She talks about how her friends feel. She also loves the written word and can spend hours just writing notes to people. This isn’t to say that my sons don’t do these things also, they do. It is just that they aren’t done with the same intensity.
They may sit for hours and draw or color, but usually the words that they chose to write are their names and descriptions of their drawings. Bubbles coming out of the mouths of their drawings are very popular, especially if they say things like “BURP” I am not sure that my daughter has ever drawn a picture of something with a noxious cloud coming out of it’s mouth (or butt).
Last summer we were at our local beach and my kids had found other kids to play with. The boys were digging and splashing and being loud. The girls were too for a time. Then one little girl said to my daughter, “Let’s go lay down on our towels and TALK!” and all the girls were so excited over this idea. “Yes! Talk!”
In all my years of parenting I can honestly say that I have never seen boys say to another boy, “Let’s talk!”
August 18, 2008
Munch, munch, munch Munchkins
We are in the midst of a new parenting dilemma over here. My oldest son is on a diet. This is not because he is overweight. Far from it, in fact. He was three pounds over the upper weight limit for his football team. Three pounds.
That doesn’t seem like a lot to lose, but when you are an adolescent boy who lives for eating carbs, it is torture. And a torture that you must share with every member of your family.
We gave him the choice. He could do nothing and not be able to play in any of the games, which makes all of the practices seem like a big waste of time if you ask me. Or he could cut back on some of the junk he eats and up his exercise. Either way we let him know that it was his decision.
It has been very eye opening for him. This morning our contractor who is working on our house brought over a box of Munchkins for the kids. My son, like most normal children, loves donuts. He had his hand digging into the box when I stopped him and asked if he knew how many calories those munchkins have and in turn how many miles he would have to run to burn them off.
We looked it up and 4 Munchkins have 300 calories. I then asked him if he felt like running three miles to burn off those Munchkins. On top of the two miles he is already running daily. Is it worth it?
He decided that it wasn’t worth it. But not before a whole lot of moaning and complaining. He has big plans to catch up on his junk food eating once football season is over.
August 17, 2008
Exciting! News!!
The latest issue of Real Simple Magazine has named HandiPoints as one of their Best for Kids list of Best Parenting Websites. I have yet to see the issue, but I am going to pick one up next time I am in the store.
All of us have known for a while now how great Handipoints is, but it is nice to have the recognition from a well respected magazine. Confession time: I LOVE Real Simple. It is one of my favorite magazines. I have a weakness for containers, organizers, pretty things. And lists, I love lists.
August 16, 2008
Do You Know Why Humpty Had a Great Fall?
Nursery Rhymes, we all teach them to our kids, just like our parents taught them to us when we were kids. But do you know the meaning behind most of the nursery rhymes?
Many nursery rhymes are associated with actual historical events. The only one that I knew about was Ring around the Rosies which is about the Bubonic Plague that was ravishing Europe during the middle ages.
Ring around the rosies: refers to the rash that would typically appear at that the onset of the illness
Pocket full of posies: refers to people filling their clothing with sweet smelling flowers and herbs because they believed that disease was carried through bad smells
Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down: refers to cremation
London Bridge is falling down has pretty obvious historical meaning. The bridge was constantly falling down after catching on fire. Over the years it was built and rebuilt using better materials of the day. When it was completely rebuilt in the 1960’s,
the London Bridge of 1831 was transported, stone by stone, to Lake Havasu in Arizona, USA. I had no idea! Did anyone else know this?
Other rhymes I had never heard of their meanings, but isn’t that one of the beauties of the internet? Instant information . Although, just because you read it on the internet doesn’t mean it is true. (I know, like that is a surprise.) Most of the information regarding the historical significance is speculative.
Humpty Dumpty refers to a cannon? I had no idea.
The nursery rhyme Jack and Jill has been claimed by a village in Somerset according to one website, but another website which explains that historical context of nursery rhymes, doesn’t agree.
It is interesting to read about the various nursery rhymes, some of which I had forgotten about until I saw them on the list.
August 14, 2008
Bringing the Consequences Home
I had an incident with one of my sons a couple weeks ago where my son was being somewhat rude to his coach. Rude in that he wasn’t paying attention and was being a jokester. Just really being an all around pain in the butt. I was on the sidelines watching it all transpire and was tempted to march over there and tell him to knock it off and pay attention, but really that seemed like it was overstepping my boundaries.
After a few minutes of it the coach finally got annoyed and sent him to run a lap.
When practice ended I asked him about it and he felt bad. He thought he was just having fun and didn’t realize he was getting carried away. I gave him a talking to about being respectful and left it at that. With the understanding that if it happened again there would be consequences at home.
I knew he felt contrite because he didn’t ask what the consequences would be. Don’t you love when kids do that? Like they are weighing the consequences against whatever it is they could potentially do wrong. Surely my kids aren’t the only ones who ask.
A few years ago I had a different son who got in trouble during practice, the situation was similar except the child in question was old enough to know better. When he got home I made him write a letter of apology to the coach. Mostly because I did not want the coach to think I condoned this behavior. Youth sports are riddled with parents who think that their children are perfect.
So what do you do if your child gets “in trouble” with a coach or teacher? Do you leave it there? Or do you impose consequences at home also? If you do, what sort of consequences do you impose?
