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The Happiest Little Elf
It’s that time of year again. With what feels like the blink of an eye, we’re back to celebrating the holiday season. It seems that with each passing year, as the kids get older, this special time of year seems to roll around faster and faster. I don’t know about you, but I dread the day when the kiddies no longer scamper down the stairs on Christmas morning and squeal with delight at the sight of presents under the tree. I never want the magic to end! Somewhere around mid-December of last year, my family was ready for Christmas, but it wasn’t quite ready for us. The tree has been…
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Inspirational Moms: Amy Norman and Stella Ma of Little Passports
One of the ways to teach our children to be compassionate and thoughtful of others is to teach them about the world around them. With knowledge and understanding of others comes an appreciation of the diversity that makes up our planet. I recently discovered a wonderful company called Little Passports that provides a fun and educational tool for parents to use that gets children excited about learning. I had a chance to interview the the two founders, Amy Norman and Stella Ma, both moms, and they talk about what inspired them to start Little Passports. Tell us what inspired you both to start Little Passports? Amy: I moved around a lot as…
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Presents – How Much is Too Much?
Can you believe Christmas is around the corner and the silly season is nearly upon us? Amongst all the feasting on rich food, indulging in plum pudding and hanging out with extended family, there’s the inevitable mountain load of new presents for the kids. It’s got me thinking lately, how much stuff do our kids really need? Deciding how many presents to give can be tricky. Most people would agree that kids today receive far more presents than we did when we were young. We love to see our kids’ faces light up when they receive what they wanted, but we don’t want them to develop an entitlement behavior…
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PBS Kids Curious George takes an Australian Adventure December 3rd
Most of us grew up reading Curious George and now our children are able to enjoy him on PBS Kids. Curious George is in its seventh season and is television’s number one series for preschoolers. They are opening their seventh season with a trip down under and animal conservationist Bindi Irwin is making a special appearance. I am so excited to see her continue the work her father, Steve Irwin, started years ago. This episode “Monkey Down Under” takes George and The Man with the Yellow Hat south for an Australian Outback Adventure. While The Man with the Yellow Hat goes sea cow sightseeing, George decides to stay behind to investigate a…
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Looking Back I Made the Right Choices After All!
When I became a mom, I immediately felt the push-pull between making the right career choices and doing what was best for my kids. On the career side, it was a time when flexible schedules, job sharing, or work from home were concepts, just beginning to creep into the work environment…and that’s if you were lucky enough to be working for a forward-thinking enterprise. No, if you wanted to become upper management material (and I did), you had to arrive before everyone else, and leave when you looked up from your desk and saw the janitor coming down the hallway. Then there was the pull from wanting to be a…
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Family Relationships: Handle with Grace and Compassion
Three years ago I moved back home to live with my mom. This is may be out of the ordinary for a person in her thirties, maybe not. What was out of the ordinary was the fact that she and my dad were also living together, as roommates, after almost 20 years of being split up. It was an opportunity for me to enjoy the blessings of a two parent home. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if it were as easy as that? The hard reality showed quickly. It was pretty apparent that my dad was still reactive and quick-tempered, at times downright cruel. My mom as result was defensive, cold. These…