Parenting
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Play :: 8 Fun Earth Day Activities
Tips to Celebrate Earth Day: Earth Day is on April 22nd this year. This day is a wonderful opportunity to share with our kids the beauty of nature, and the importance of preserving and respecting our environment. It’s so much fun to get our kids involved in the natural world, or even bring a bit of nature inside. Here are 8 fun Earth Day activities to enjoy with your kids. Grow some seedlings: This is really fun and something I do regularly with my children. At the moment my son has a little pot on his bedroom windowsill with baby carrots growing in it. He started by…
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Family :: An Interview with My Grown-up Daughter
Instead of reading this mom’s memories and reflections on what it was like to raise my children, I thought you, dear readers, might be more interested in my grown up daughter’s perspective. So I worked up a few questions and sat down with my daughter Molly in what I told her was a “no holds barred” interview on growing up with me as her mom. To be honest, I knew she liked me so it wasn’t much of a risk, but I was surprised at her favorite memories (some seemingly insignificant moments), and what were the most important ways I helped her get through her tough middle school years.…
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Parenting: Are You a Dream-Stealer?
“Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.” ~Marsha Norman Are you a dream-stealer? Do we as parents put limitations on our kids because of our insecurities, self-doubt and other related issues we had when we were growing up? Do we start to allow the negativity from ignorant thoughts of others to creep into our minds and put a fence around our abilities as parents? Surround Yourself with Positive Role Models: A very powerful leader and role-model said to me recently, if you want better things for yourself and to be a better person, surround yourself with others who you believe are better (at something)…
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Kids :: Teaching Your Kids to be a Bird Sleuth
Springtime brings new life and chirping birds among other things. I just love to look out my window and see our resident hummingbirds stop by for a visit. My daughter and I went to the nursery last week specifically looking for plants to attract these adorable little birds and hope to have even more visitors stop by! Our family likes to go on nature walks and lately I have been able to get my six year old more interested in the birds we come across on our walks. This got me thinking about how to further her education about nature and birds and in my research I came across a great organization that…
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Parenting: The Importance of Acceptance
As many of you probably already know, April is Autism Awareness Month. As the mother of two children on the Autism Spectrum, I am happy that efforts have been, and continue to be, made to draw attention to this group of disorders which, as a new study suggests, affects 1 in 50 school-aged children in the United States. However… awareness is simply not enough. I’m fairly certain that most everyone in the world has heard of autism. So, while April is Autism AWARENESS Month, I will spend this month promoting ACCEPTANCE. The Importance of Acceptance: It is not enough to just know that my kids have autism. They need you…
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Geek Club Books Celebrates Autism Awareness Month Facebook Party
We will be helping to spread the word about Autism Awareness Month by hosting a facebook party where goodies will be handed out to show support for the special needs community. Come join us for a couple hours on April 17th! The lovely Jodi Murphy of Geek Club Books will be our sponsor for the Autism Awareness Facebook Party! Her autistic son, Jonathan, is the inspiration behind Jodi creating Geek Club Books. She wanted to create a character that teaches children the importance of being yourself and embracing others differences. Her whole family is involved in Geek Club Books! Her daughter wrote the story and Jonathan is providing the voice-overs. Her app and book will be…