When do we lose the childlike ability to sleep through just about anything? Somewhere along the way in our journey to adulthood, we make the choice to stop giving ourselves fully to sleep. We refuse to let go of a partial sense of awareness even in the midst of our deepest sleep cycle.
I’m wondering about this today because the difference between the way I sleep and the way my children sleep was highlighted by circumstance last night. Electric, my four-year old son’s pet hamster, managed to chew his way from his plastic cage and make his way into the space between the bookshelf and the wall in the room next to my bedroom. The sound of the rodent squirming around was more than enough to ruin my night’s sleep.
Falling back on my innate primitive…
Around 6:20 tomorrow morning, I will be walking up my street (literally up, it’s a hill), where, at the top, I shall catch the school bus to my first day of school. With this, my high school years will begin, and yet another chapter of my life ends. But, with these four years of high school up and coming, I am beginning some new things that look like tons of fun, and am preparing for the four years of life some people consider the best.
- First of all, I have gotten involved in a new-to-me sport that is loads of fun: football. For my international readers, I am referring to American Football, not fútbol. I know the sport looks very dangerous, but statistically it is less dangerous than soccer (primarily due to the use of…
Webkinz World is a website in which you can ‘adopt’ a pet (represented in the real-world by a plush toy) that lives and moves within the virtual world. Webkinz eat, sleep, and play within the online realm of www.webkinz.com. This world is completely safe for the young ones, with interaction among the denizens of Webkinz World limited to preset phrases and no potential for the dissemination of your child’s personal information.
Webkinz World offers a host of games for young boys and girls, but it also offers something more: an arena for risk-free life lessons. Children must earn the currency of this virtual world, Kinzcash, by playing games or completing various tasks. Only when they have earned enough Kinzcash can they purchase items such as clothing, furniture, and food from the Webkinz store. Suddenly,…
We all want our children to grow up to be well adjusted adults in this crazy world. I even have an image of the type of woman I want my daughter to be. However, if I don’t model the person I’m hoping for, 18 years from now will I see me in the mirror or the image I have for my daughter?
As children are growing up, we strive to make sure they use ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ We even tell them to respect others and hold the door or say excuse me. Many of us struggle to ensure we don’t use foul language or offensive phrases in the presence of our children. This is all because we are molding them to be the person we want them to be.
When we say a…
Helping your child pack and subsequently move into college can be a huge ordeal. The whole process is typically very stressful, and that’s coming from the teen perspective. Here are a few tips to make the process run as smoothly as possible:
- Make checklists and keep questions to a minimum. Start a checklist at least a week before your child heads off to college. Many colleges actually provide checklists that you can use as a basic template. This checklist can constantly be edited. You might want to make some additions, but your child can also chose to eliminate items he or she finds unnecessary, without a huge verbal discussion about it. This also reduces the all-too-familiar question, “Did you remember to pack your [insert item here]?” The beauty of a checklist is that it’s all…
Laptop Lunches
