parentpapers

Choosing Whoppers Over Cheeseburgers

2009-11-11T22:06:00.002-05:00

I learned today that those Nutri-Grain frozen waffles I give my kids are actually less heallthy than the low-fat toaster waffles and

Organization: The Blind Leading the Blind

2009-11-03T18:32:00.002-05:00

I am trying to help my son become more organized but it’s like the blind leading the blind. I’m sure he can see that someone whose desk looks like mine does shouldn’t be handing out tips on organization. My heart goes out to him because he has many of the same struggles I had as a kid: He forgets his homework, he does his

No Flu Shots For Kids

2009-10-27T22:01:00.003-04:00

I finally got around to calling my pediatrician about flu shots the other day. I was pretty sure I knew the answer and there it was: no flu shots and no swine flu shots and no appointments or waiting lists for the future. My older son R. applauded when he found out. But I’m concerned. In the past, my kids have always been at the

The Parent -Teacher Conference All Over Again

2009-10-20T22:53:00.003-04:00

It was the same old story at the parent-teacher conference. Disorganized. Not working up to potential. Having problems with math. It was very disappointing but I’m over it now. After all, it was decades ago when I was in junior high. My parents were concerned but I remained clueless about what my parents and teachers wanted from me until sometime in high school. Today I found myself sitting

Epic Morning Battles

2009-10-13T16:58:00.003-04:00

Epic battles! Dramatic face-offs. A race against time to achieve the impossible and a noble quest. No, it’s not Dan Brown’s latest novel. It’s my house in the morning where we are engaged in an epic battle with my son R. with daily face-offs, a race against time to get him to school on time and a noble quest: - an impossible dream - to get everyone moving while still maintaining our

2009-10-06T21:25:00.003-04:00

For those of us who never or rarely spanked our kids, it’s nice to have more ammunition: a study that says that spanking actually lowers kids’ IQS.The study by Murray Strauss, of the University of New Hampshire, found that the children ages 2 to 6 of parents who don’t hit their kids had IQ scores that were 2 to 5 points higher than kids who were spanked.This makes sense, Murray explains, when you

Parental Intervention In School

2009-10-01T21:47:00.004-04:00

How much should you intervene in your kid’s schooling?I have this dilemma with my oldest son who wants to switch out of a reading and writing workshop in middle school and take art or shop instead.I think his writing skills are fine but he suffers from lack of motivation. I suspect he ended up in reading and writing workshop because he doesn’t like to write and writes as little as he can. I’m

Longing For The Days of Time Outs

2009-09-28T21:14:00.005-04:00

What do you do when your older kids misbehave? You can’t put them in time out anymore and sending them to their room won’t do it.It’s enough to make you wish your kids were 4 again.We had to punish our 10-year-old this week and our solution was to take away computer access, TV and play dates for a week.But this turned out to be harder than you might think. One day, we had to sit for a friend’s

Latch Key Kids

2009-09-24T22:08:00.003-04:00

Today my kids were latch key kids. They let themselves in the door, did their homework and got very high marks on their first solo outing. I was the one who was a nervous wreck and flunked the test. Both kids biked home by themselves and then my 12-year-old biked with my 10-year-old to his piano lesson about a dozen blocks away, stayed for the whole lesson and biked back with him. Suddenly

When Is It OK To Leave Your Kid By Himself?

2009-09-23T17:38:00.004-04:00

When is it OK to leave your kid by himself?We’ve had this dilemma a lot lately. We left both boys home for back to school night at my son’s elementary school and I felt a pang when the principal said she would let all the parents get home to their babysitters.I was OK when we left them alone for local parties in the area too. When we take W. to his dance class or I run out shopping, I’m fine at

The Exercise Catch-22

2009-09-22T17:28:00.003-04:00

I’ve finally realized that I have to exercise in order to keep my sanity. At the same time, I’m finding that it’s virtually impossible to find time to exercise.I’m sure I could find a dozen articles telling me all about the benefits of exercise and they'll all say I should exercise 30 minutes a day. But none of them explain how to find time to work out. It is one of those infuriating Catch-

Role Reversal

2009-09-21T21:05:00.004-04:00

My husband is driving the minivan to pick up the kids every day and I’m taking the sedan to work. This makes sense because my husband is home and I have a new five-day-a-week copyediting job in addition to my teaching gig and it all adds up to a full-time job. So he’s picking up the kids from school and ferrying them to ballet and tennis and piano lessons. In other words, he’s me. It’s

Walking to School

2009-09-16T21:59:00.003-04:00

We live on a block where there are no sidewalks and cars speed down our street at 40 miles per hour. The sidewalk issue has been a contentious one here in Princeton. For us, having no sidewalks means it’s nearly impossible for us to let our 10-year-old walk to school by himself without putting his life at risk. This is what we tell ourselves anyway. We walk him to school every day and

Even Babies Discriminate Link

2009-09-16T21:57:00.001-04:00

The link to the Newsweek Story "Even Babies Discriminate" was wrong in my last posting. Here's the link: http//www.newsweek.com/id/214989/page/2

Do Babies & Kids See Race?

2009-09-14T21:24:00.003-04:00

Do babies discriminate between different races? Researchers say they do and that babies are more attracted to the faces of people who look similar to their own family.While babies and children discriminate between the races more than we might think, parents are still acting as if race doesn't exist or as Steven Colbert says, "I don't see race." I can understand why parents might feel they have

Photo Search

2009-09-11T19:26:00.003-04:00

I’ve been going through our photos and there are boxes and boxes of them from the time my husband and I were dating until W. was 3 and R. was 5 years old. Then they stop. There are very few photos of my kids as big kids. There are the school plays and the big occasions but I’ve concluded that we stopped documenting our kids’ lives when they hit kindergarten. Some of this is because we’ve

Cell Phone Pressure

2009-09-10T22:02:00.003-04:00

My younger son, W., wants a cell phone in the worst way. He has wanted one since he was 8. Now at age 10, he is outraged that we want him to wait until sixth grade, as his brother did, before we buy one for him. “It’s so unfair,” he complained to me the other day during a long tirade in which he whined, begged, pleaded and offered to pay half the monthly fee. When W. was 8, I just laughed

Watching Obama's Education Speech

2009-09-09T18:04:00.003-04:00

I was happy that my son, W., who’s a fifth grader this year, got to watch President Obama’s speech in school yesterday.I don’t know if any parents objected but W. said he didn’t think any kids in his class were sitting the speech out. Why would they? I fail to see why anyone would object to a president telling children how important it is to study harder, no matter what you think of his

Back to school

2009-09-08T16:32:00.002-04:00

It was the first day of school for W. and R. today and miraculously we managed to get everyone up and out of the house on time with no yelling. Yahoo! I’m hoping we won’t backslide into morning chaos, complete with yelling, crying and whining and I’m just talking about me here. Ha. If we can have this smooth a day every day we will be a happy family. R. was disappointed to find he had

Just Say No To Brownies

2009-09-04T17:45:00.003-04:00

I often think fondly of a book that came out a few years ago in which the heroine buys brownies from the story and then brings them home and attempts to make them look home-made by smashing the edges a bit and cutting a few irregular pieces.I was tempted to do just that yesterday when I stupidly agreed to make brownies for a teacher’s luncheon hosted by our local parent teacher organization on

2009-09-03T18:36:00.005-04:00

There comes a point every summer when I’m ready for my kids to go back. That time is now. My cute, fun boys seem a little bit less adorable at the end of summer, perhaps because they seem bent on annoying me to death.They have a number of tricks to do that. They’ve been switching the TV on with the sound low, they whine about taking trips to their favorite store, they call each other names and

Vacation lessons

2009-09-03T18:36:00.001-04:00

I just got home from our summer vacation on the Shore and when I picture my summer vacation, I picture myself sitting on the porch in a wicker rocking chair with my feet up reading the newspaper and sipping a cup of tea.That routine won’t work in my “real” life. I would have to stop working myself and my kids would go to school half an hour late with no lunches and dirty faces. And since that can

On Vacation

2009-08-25T10:55:00.000-04:00

Parent Papers is on vacation until Sept. 1.

Musical Memories for My Dad's 80th Birthday

2009-08-24T12:35:00.002-04:00

On Saturday mornings, the opera music would filter up to where I was still sleeping in my bright green room on the second floor. Was it “La Boheme,” or “La Traviata?” I don’t know. I only know it was loud and I was annoyed at losing sleep. But the music was beautiful and love of music was one of the great gifts that Dad gave me. In my memory, there was always music in our house. Dad would play

Vaccination Education

2009-08-20T20:21:00.002-04:00

The new swine flu vaccines will be available this fall and in all likelihood, my kids, who both have mild asthma, will be getting them. I’m not ambivalent about this at all really. If there’s a chance that it will keep them (and all of us) from spending the winter sick, then sign us all up. And since I learned today that August is “Immunization Awareness Month,” (Who knew?), I’m thinking about

Money Talks Postscript

2009-08-20T20:17:00.002-04:00

The boys went off on their own and came back with a fistful of dollars. So, I guess we've learned that they can be responsible (although they also got some help from a friend, I think).Then today my husband sent them off to the store with $10 and they biked to the store by themselves. This is a whole new era. Yahoo!

Talk Is Cheap and Money Talks

2009-08-18T11:59:00.002-04:00

It’s always been hard trying to teach my children about the value of money but now that we have less of it, it’s become essential. The problem is when they don’t get to spend their own money, then they have no sense of the value of money. We’ve been talking to them about how we’re tightening our belts but talk is cheap and money talks. So today when I sent my kids off to an amusement park

The Queen of Mean Cracks the Whip

2009-08-17T22:40:00.005-04:00

This is the summer when I started to crack the whip with my kids. Or maybe it’s the summer I decided I was done with being the only cook and scullery maid in the household. For the first time, I’ve insisted my kids help clean up the house. I make them do dishes and sweep and I force them to (gasp) put away their clothes and neaten up the living room. “When are we going to be done?” they

The melancholy side of August

2009-08-14T13:27:00.003-04:00

I love summer but the last few weeks of August have this melancholy feeling. It’s still hot and sunny but I’m always aware that school is just around the corner and that our somewhat leisurely lifestyle is about to make a 180 degree turn. In just a few weeks, we will be tied to the calendar again. We’ll be driving our kids to piano lessons and dance lessons and whatever other activity my kids

2009-08-13T17:36:00.003-04:00

My son William’s camp had their talent show today and the 5th and 6th grade boys lined up with their cool shades on to dance and show off. There was my son Will looking cocky. Then the counselor shouted out to the crowd, “And here is Raymond DeVoe doing the worm.” Out Will came without so much as a correction and did a fabulous worm to much applause.Still, I felt a little sad for Will. Many

Dangers to Kids From Chlorinated Swimming Pools

2009-08-12T21:07:00.003-04:00

You worry about your kids getting ticks outside. You're anxious about whether they'll get sunburned. You wring your hands about their diet and you fret over whether you should get them off that darn computer. And now here’s one more thing to worry about: the pool.That’s right, the pool. The swimming pool that we’ve all been turning to in this hot weather. The place where you and your kids are

Camping: Rain, Bears, Outhouses, Oh My

2009-08-11T11:42:00.004-04:00

It was a camping trip that affirms all your worst fears about camping, while at the same time demonstrating once again why you keep coming back.Best time: singing songs around the campfire and making s’mores with seven boys who thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Worst times: an outhouse so malodorous and disgusting that we dubbed it “hell.” We had one beautiful night sitting by the campfire

The truth about camping

2009-08-06T22:28:00.003-04:00

Here’s the truth about camping. You spend days packing everything you will need to set up your household in the wilderness in any weather. You labor to pack it all up in what amounts to fitting an elephant into a dog’s cage. You slog away at setting the whole darned thing up in the wilderness. Then after two days, you do the whole thing again in reverse. I suspect this is why my sisters-in-law

Lazy summers

2009-08-05T21:38:00.002-04:00

When I was a child, summer was endless. We had a neighborhood of kids who played in each other's yards and came home at dinnertime, only to go out again when dinner was over until it was too dark to play.We played in the sprinkler. We splashed in the kiddie pool. We rode bikes; we played dress-up, school and house. We played long games of Monopoly and elaborate games of hide and seek. It was a

Family Meals: The Secret Weapon Against Childhood Obesity

2009-08-03T18:30:00.004-04:00

When everyone’s home, I sometimes feel like a short order cook. Lunch, dinner, breakfast, I cook it all up with a smile. Mostly.This means more dishes and more headaches. Today, for example, my older son and my husband both sat down to lunch late and Raymond had just a few bites of potato salad and a few mouthfuls of chicken. Sigh.But the good news is that children of parents who cook at home and

Found: One bag of mini marshmallows in my living room

2009-07-31T15:46:00.004-04:00

Found in my living room: one Lego truck, a set of cards, a computer game, three trucks, a matchbox car and a bunch of old birthday cards. Behind the couch there is a mass of toys that includes a wooden sword and cymbals. There are blocks rejected by my toddler nephew and there perched on the table is an open bag of mini marshmallows.I catalogue these items because this is what my living room

Mom Has a Boogie Board

2009-07-30T13:16:00.002-04:00

Watch out boys and girls, Mom has a boogie board. You can see her on trips to the shore trying to catch a wave and swerve around toddlers. Then observe as she tries to get up gracefully despite a mouthful of ocean water and a bathing suit full of sand. Having spent 10 years on the Jersey Shore when I was young and single, I count boogie boarding as one of the few adventures I can

Napping on the beach

2009-07-29T16:39:00.003-04:00

I just got back from vacation where I learned or relearned an important lesson: It's important to nap.I gave up the beach to nap and even an ice-cream cone to nap on this vacation. Of course, my deep growl of a cough that kept me and everyone else up all night had something to do with it. But it was a good lesson to learn.When we all discusssed what we learned on this vacation, Will said he

On vacation

2009-07-21T14:47:00.001-04:00

Parentpapers is on vacation until July 27.

Mommy Time

2009-07-14T13:55:00.001-04:00

Darn that Protestant work ethic and my Puritan ancestors! They have doomed me to run through the day trying to check off items on the to do list that runs through my brain like an endless tape: I should be applying for jobs, I should be writing, I should put away the boys' laundry, I should neaten up my room, I should put another load of laundry in.That's why it was so great for me to escape

No Kids in the Neighborhood

2009-07-13T13:55:00.004-04:00

One thing that's different for my kids is that we don't live in a neighborhood where there are kids to play with and that makes me kind of sad for my kids.When I was a kid, we just went outside and knocked on someone's door for a play date and then we would play all day. We'd go to someone's house and play for a few hours: I remember long games of Monopoly and some playing with Barbies (although

Helping My Kid Breathe Easier

2009-07-09T09:50:00.003-04:00

I spent much of Tuesday dusting, scrubbing, vacuuming and mopping my children's room in an attempt to help my younger son Will breathe easier.I'm no neatnick but my younger son had pneumonia about a year and a half ago and he still has mild asthma so when he gets a persistent cough, I get concerned. That's why we brought him to the doctor when his summer cold didn't seem to go away and he kept

Summer brain drain

2009-07-07T12:58:00.004-04:00

My children are complaining bitterly that I am torturing them and ruining their summer. Why? Because I’m forcing them to read for half an hour a day and spend 20 minutes working on math and writing.I’m hoping that by forcing them to fit in some work along with their splashing in the pool or riding the waves at the beach, they just might arrive at school in September with one or two thoughts left

The Next Generation of Nerds

2009-07-01T18:44:00.005-04:00

This summer will be remembered as the summer we unleashed the next generation of nerds when we all started watching, “Star Trek The Next Generation,” together.For my husband and I, this is a trip down memory lane. We’re so old and these episodes are so old that they’re new to us. I suppose we could have waited until actual senile dementia set in, then they’d be really new but generally we can’t

My Dancing Boy Sees Magic at American Ballet Theater tour

2009-06-30T16:51:00.004-04:00

My 10-year-old son Will got all dressed up in a suit and tie yesterday when we took a tour backstage at American Ballet Theater where our good friend Kathleen Moore Tovar was once a principle ballerina. And there on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera before the red and gold theater spread out before him like a jewel box, my young dancer got to take a bow. He also got to do a few leaps across

Explaining Michael Jackson's death to the next generation fan

2009-06-26T09:23:00.003-04:00

My younger son is a Michael Jackson fan. He discovered him himself through the magic of the Internet and something about his music and his dancing connected with him. One of his favorite presents at Christmas was "Thriller." (He also loved his Elvis CD. Go figure).I liked Michael Jackson myself when I was about 12 and he was cute and had the same voice range as me. But in later years, he seemed

First day of summer

2009-06-23T11:59:00.003-04:00

The task now is to relax into the rhythm of the summer now that my kids are out of school. That's more of a problem for me than my kids. They seem to have it down. As we speak, my older son is immersed in his computer games while my younger son blasts a CD. Ah summer.We tried to get into the spirit of things yesterday afternoon with a long walk into town for ice cream with two other

Dreading summer

2009-06-18T17:31:00.002-04:00

Would it be wrong of me to say that I dread the summer with my kids out of school for a whole month. OK, maybe dread is too strong a word. I just haven't gotten into summer mode yet and it feels like I've forgotten how to relax. I've spent so much time being the drill sergeant, I don't know if I can go back to being the recreation director.I know it will be fun having the kids home and they're

Swine Flu Blues

2009-06-16T17:08:00.003-04:00

If you're unlucky enough to have a kid come down with a fever right now, then you're likely to be told that your kid has to stay home for seven days. That means they miss their last week of school and their parents get them home for an extra day.My friend's son is just getting over the flu. No one can tell her if it's actually the swine flu but he has to stay home from middle school for a full

Playground Diplomacy

2009-06-15T21:43:00.003-04:00

I worked in a kindergarten classroom last week and monitored the kids while they were out on the playground. I was amazed once again to see all the energy, the imagination, the sheer wildness of kids on the playground. Then too, there were the hurt feelings, the tales of names being called and unfairness at the (pint sized) basketball hoop.So, I was delighted to see that when we got back from

Helicopter Vs. Free Range moms

2009-06-11T10:14:00.003-04:00

I have always veered between being a helicopter parent who hovers over her kids forcing them to do homework, practice the piano and eat their vegetables to the nonchalant parent who lets them have a messy room and eat candy and watch "The Simpsons."Now it turns out that the relaxed parent, the "free range" parent that Lenore Skenazy has popularized, is back in style, according toa recent column

Baseball mom

2009-06-04T11:17:00.001-04:00

Like most families, we are overscheduled and crazed and that means that I’m crazed. Work, work, work. Drive, drive, drive, Shop, shop, shop. Cook, cook, cook. I feel like a hamster on a wheel sometimes. Then there’s baseball and I have no choice but to take a breath. You can’t beat sitting outside on a beautiful day watching your kids play a game that is both leisurely and exciting. This is

Substitute Stories

2009-05-28T17:02:00.002-04:00

I substituted in eighth grade Civics yesterday and the day before it was eighth grade band. It was fun if you consider being a combination of a cop and a drill sergeant fun.Teaching band was humorous because A. I don't play any instrument other than the piano and B. There are a ridiculous number of students in band. In the first few periods, we watched "West Side Story." Even then I had to walk

Mom's False Alarm at the Hospital

2009-05-26T16:17:00.002-04:00

I was away on the Shore with my mother on Sunday when she complained of chest pains. "I'm sure it's nothing," she said.I tried not to freak out but at age 72, I think you have to do something about chest pains so I urged her to go to the doctor. OK, I insisted she go to the doctor. She took some aspirin and then said she would take the train home. Fortunately, my uncle stepped in and said he

Bad Grades

2009-05-21T14:29:00.002-04:00

When your child comes home with bad grades, you feel like you've failed as a parent too, so when we got an interim report that my older son was getting a D in math we hit the roof."You either don't understand it or you're not studying," I snapped. "Which is it?" "I am studying," he insisted. "Then you must not understand it." "I do understand it."It turns out that he has failed a couple of

My Bad News Bears

2009-05-19T14:09:00.003-04:00

I've been spending a lot of time watching sports and it's been exciting, heartbreaking, painful and exhilarating.I'm talking of course about Little League baseball. My two sons are playing on the "sky blue team" with their dad coaching and it's been a great season despite the fact that they lose every game.In the beginning, they would get a few hits and then several strikeouts. They'd have

Teenage attitude

2009-05-18T17:41:00.003-04:00

I got to observe young teenagers at work today when I taught eighth grade science and now I'm scared. They are so full of hormones and attitude it is terrifying.I know a lot of it is swagger. The boys swagger around the girls and act out, the girls giggle and whisper around the boys. It's kind of funny. If you turned off the soundtrack (and who wouldn't want to turn off the soundtrack?), it

Lockdown with kindergartners

2009-05-14T18:21:00.003-04:00

When I got the call to substitute teach a kindergarten class, I was eager to accept. What better place to start than with the littlest kids in the school? I thought. I'm pretty sure I can take any kindergartner and at that age, they don't even know about spitballs.But that was before I ended up being in lock down - a code gray with a class full of 5 and 6-year-olds for 20 minutes.It turns out

The Case of the Missing Uniform

2009-05-13T17:16:00.004-04:00

I could hear that my son was in distress from the tone of his voice. It was something between a wail and a whine with a bit of a sob thrown in for good measure. "Mommy," he pleaded. "Can you find my blue uniform? I can't compete unless I have it.""Are you sure I don't have it?" I asked him. "Yes." "Check your gym bag and your backpack right now," I demanded. Shuffle. Shuffle. "It's not here.""

overscheduled kids

2009-05-12T13:55:00.004-04:00

I have always railed against parents overscheduling their kids. Kids need time to be kids, I argued. They need time to run around. They should be out playing hide and go seek, not zipping from activity to activity.But now my sixth grader is on the track team at his middle school, he's playing Little League and he's taking piano lessons. My fourth grader takes ballet three days a week (yes ballet

Putting kids to work

2009-05-05T11:29:00.004-04:00

I'm putting my kids to work. I'm not forcing them to get a paper route (do they even have those nowadays) but I am insisting that they do more to keep the house clean and help out with chores.We instituted this new policy after a busy week in which the house went from untidy (OK), to messy (bad), to embarassing disaster.I'm no neat freak. Ask anyone. But when it gets to the disaster point, it

Free Range Kids

2009-04-28T12:38:00.004-04:00

Remember the writer who let her 9-year-old kid travel on the subway by himself? She gave him a pocketful of quarters and a map and a $20 bill and let him make his way home in New York. She immediately was labeled as a terrible mother.Now Lenore Skenazy has written a book, "Free Range Kids: Giving Our Kids the Freedom We Enjoyed Without Going Nuts With Worry," (whew!) in which she details her

Olive Kitteridge and letting go

2009-04-24T11:10:00.002-04:00

My book club happened to pick Elizabeth Strout’s “Olive Kitteridge” as our selection this month before it received the Pulitzer Prize. We felt very smug about our discriminating literary tastes after it got the award. The book is a series of interconnected stories about a large, 60-something woman who is very blunt to the point of abusive and who both adores and is mean to her husband and son.

Columbine Shooting Anniversary

2009-04-20T15:40:00.003-04:00

Today is the anniversary of the Columbine shootings in which 13 people were killed and 24 injured. Since then we've had the shootings at Virginia Tech in which 32 students and teachers were killed and earlier this month we had the shootings at the Binghamton, N.Y. immigration center in which 13 were killed and four were injured.In the wake of the Columbine shootings, there was a lot of searching

Easter Bunny failures

2009-04-17T11:45:00.002-04:00

I used to be thrilled with being the Easter Bunny. It was so fun to buy the baskets and find thelittle toys to go in them. I loved seeing the thrilled look on my kids' faces when they woke up when they found their baskets. It was the next best thing to Christmas.But then they got bigger and the thrill was gone. They weren't as thrilled with the little toys. They like the candy but it doesn't

Volunteer Work and Mommy Meltdown

2009-04-03T11:37:00.002-04:00

I was a bad mother this morning. The kind of bad mother who yells and screams at her kids and makes them cry. The kind of bad mother who could put her kids into therapy for a very long time. I blame myself for not being more organized. I blame my kids for having the same disease I have so my older son announced that he needed clothes for track two minutes before we left, then told a friend to

Cheating Web Site for Kids

2009-01-29T16:14:00.004-05:00

I got a call from my older son's French teacher today. It seems a boy passed R. a note and it turned out to be a printout from a website all about cheating. R.'s not in trouble but she wanted to let me know and she also informed the vice-principal and the guidance counselor. The site is http://www.rajuabju.com/literature/how_to_cheat.htmand it reads exactly like what you might expect from a

Frugal Parenting: Tips to Save Money

2009-01-27T14:14:00.001-05:00

Working mothers know how to cut their own expenses. Maybe they don’t buy that pair of shoes or they bring a lunch to work. But it’s harder to cut back when it comes to your kids. You need to feed and clothe them, even if they are eating you out of house and home and growing up a size every month. But there are practical Clothes: Shop for clothes at consignment shops, used clothing shops and

Classes Watching Obama or not

2009-01-18T20:20:00.003-05:00

My older son's middle school is having an inauguration ball for Barack Obama's inauguration. Students are asked to dress up and given a formal invitation.This is great! This is a historic moment and they should be paying attention to this huge moment in our nation's history. Schools around the country are marking the event as well they should. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/01/16/

kids and comedy

2009-01-12T12:13:00.004-05:00

You don't usually think of kids either doing stand-up comedy or going to shows at comedy clubs. You think it's all about having a few drinks, listening to a usually raunchy comedian and hoping you don't get picked on by some guy whose stand-up routine is both mean and funny.But now there's a new twist to the comedy club with Comedy N'Kids where kids go to the Gotham Comedy Club in New York and

Healthier Cafeterias

2009-01-09T11:44:00.004-05:00

About 19 percent of children in the U.S. are obese and the fare usually served in cafeterias: macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches and pizza isn't helping. One school in West New York, N.J. has a pilot program to help the 600 kids at the school eat healthier.Each week, Chef Fred Rothschild, comes into classrooms to teach students about new foods and have them taste them and even prepare

Home Sweet Cave

2008-12-29T17:00:00.002-05:00

We have spent the last few days in a cavelike existence. After Christmas and all the stress Christmas entailed, we felt the need to stay home, play with all the toys, watch movies and eat popcorn. I have actually gotten to spend some time reading a book and the newspaper every day. I have also slept very late in my cave. I think I was recuperating from all the husting and bustling and it is

huge holiday stress

2008-12-18T19:01:00.003-05:00

I have succumbed to holiday stress. Between ferrying the kids to piano, volunteering for my choir's silent auction, trying to buy gifts online, picking up my husband from the train stationa nd then driving my other son at ballet, I could feel my heart pounding and my stomach churning and I could swear I sensed my blood pressure skyrocketing.It probably started with my online shopping trip to

Christmas shopping

2008-12-17T12:54:00.003-05:00

I do everything at the last minute so it's no surprise that I generally leave Christmas shopping until a couple of weeks before Christmas. I am trying to be zen about this because it seems I will never be one of those women, like one good friend, who has all of her shopping done by now and all the presents wrapped, labeled and under the tree.I'm OK with the last minute shopping but this year is a

Endings and Beginnings

2008-12-17T12:38:00.002-05:00

I'm in mourning over the loss of my parenting column, Family Matters, for the Times of Trenton. But I am trying to move forward with my blog which has been sorely neglected for the past several months.I wrote my column for more than eight years and started it when my son W. was just 10 months old. One of my first columns was about my trip to Washington with a friend for the Million Mom March in

schools out for the summer

2008-06-20T08:47:00.002-04:00

School's out for the summer but it's not the same as it used to be. Granted, I've been looking forward to school being out almost as much as the kids. No more lunches to make at least for a little while. No more homework enforcement. No more morning arguments. But this summer will be different because I'm teaching so that knocks out a lot of the relaxation and the boys are going to camp.

Little League

2008-04-04T10:20:00.003-04:00

My boys just started Little League and my husband is thrilled because one is on the Mets and the other is on the Yankees. My husband tries to go to all the practices and help out on the games, I'm just the keeper of the schedule and head cheerleader. I hate to complain about such an all-American tradition but it's a headache. It's hard coordinating schedules for two teams and R.'s coach had

Protecting Your Child from Predators on MySpace and Facebook

2008-02-20T10:07:00.004-05:00

A teacher in Robbinsville, N.J., was arrested last week for allegedly transmitting sexually explicit pictures of himself to a 14-year-old student, according to a Times of Trenton article. Police said the teacher, Daniel P. Corvino, 31, sent pictures of himself masturbating, using a web cam to broadcast pictures of himself over the past year. He was charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact

Family meals

2008-02-15T12:05:00.003-05:00

It turns out that family meals are the cure for almost everything that ails American families. Kids who eat meals with their families eat better and have better eating habits. They are less likely to be drug and alcohol dependent, smoke. They're less likely to be depressed and suicidal. (Some of this is documented in an article in ChildTrends Data Bank, http://www.childtrensdatabank.org/

2008-02-15T12:05:00.000-05:00

Rude child in school

2008-02-15T12:00:00.002-05:00

I received an email from my younger son W's teacher this week. It seems he's been very rude to her over the past week or two. He had to stay in during recess recently and then last week he suggested that a student "peg" a foam dice at the teacher. I was very apologetic to the teacher and we had a talk with W. We realized that his desire to be the class clown and amuse everyone was probably

Dilemna of the anti-gun mom

2008-02-07T15:10:00.000-05:00

When my kids were little I could protect them from violence on TV and video games and I could prevent them from ever having guns or violent toys of any kind. But since then, I've been falling down a slipper slope. I let them go to lazer tag games even though it clearly involves kids firing at each other. Why? Because it's fun and I don't want to be so politically correct that I won't let them

piano lesson nightmares

2008-02-05T11:06:00.000-05:00

Both my boys are taking piano lessons and our piano teacher is a friend who is a wonderful musician but an impatient teacher. I've always thought this was OK because R. and W. need someone to light a fire under them. But our piano lessons are torture so sometimes I wonder whether they should be taking lessons or at least taking lessons with this teacher. R. has to be poked and prodded to

School Play Rejection

2008-02-01T11:54:00.000-05:00

My older son, R., tried out for the school play, "Alice in Wonderland." He's a shy, quiet kid who was never interested in acting but his school had a Shakespeare workshop and he loved doing that so he jumped at the chance to be in the play. After he tried out, my friend, who is helping to organize the play told us, "Raymond was great. He was really fabulous." But he didn't get a call-back

School Daze

2008-01-29T11:51:00.000-05:00

R. has always struggled in school, although struggled doesn't seem quite the right word because the truth is R. has always spaced out in school. He has fun when it's something he enjoys - science, art, gym, recess. But for the rest he's very passive and all this is probably typical of kids with ADHD.The truth is he's doing much better. He's not way behind the class but he still sits back and

Too Stubborn

2008-01-25T10:23:00.000-05:00

My older son, R., is too much like me. He gets a vision of what he wants and then he will not be deterred from his vision. So when we had the idea of saving a few pine needles from our Christmas tree in a little box he went on a 20 minutes search. That meant we couldn't read before we went to bed (we're on the last chapters of Harry Potter). I kept offering him boxes. Finally I realized that

Homework nightmares

2008-01-23T14:02:00.000-05:00

Last night, my son R. had a homework assignment in which he had to write a letter to Ruby Bridges. It seems they had watched a move in school about Ruby Bridges, who was the little six-year-old girl who had to have U.S. marshals walk her into her all-white school. At 6:30 R. said he wanted my help. I was cooking dinner but I got things started and then we looked Ruby Bridges up on the Internet.

Teens and Drugs: The Danger of Generational Forgetting

2008-01-18T10:14:00.000-05:00

OK, I may have jumped the gun on the dangers of the new drug salvia. After talking to a couple of drug experts, I don't think salvia is necessarily the next marijuana although it seems to be getting some hype in the media. So, that's the good news.And there's also good news in a recent study that found drug use by teens is much lower than a decade ago. Lloyd Johnston, one of the lead researchers

New Drug

2008-01-16T12:02:00.000-05:00

I'm always amazed at how little I know about drugs today but I can't blame myself. Our generation just isn't familiar with today's new-fangled drugs. Why in my day, kids had to make do with marijuana. There was none of this ecstacy around. But I know I shouldn't be joking about such a serious topic especially one that freaks all of us out.I attended a talk by teens about drugs in the middle

Mom is the hammer

2008-01-15T09:43:00.000-05:00

A friend tells me her 3-year-old always wants Dad to put her to bed. Mom tucks her in with a kiss but Dad gets her water, sits by her bed and cuddles. Dad's more fun at bedtime. Since this is my friend's third child, she's determined not to go through the same prolonged nightmare putting her third child to be so she makes it short and sweet. In her house, she's the enforcer, or as she puts it,

Daily Dose of Exercise

2008-01-14T10:24:00.000-05:00

Every weekday I get up and walk with two of my friends. We walk three or four miles into town and back from 6:15 to 7 a.m. Then I come back and do about half an hour of yoga.I have to brag about this because bragging rights and feeling virtuos are two of the immediate benefits to exercising but I can't really get all "more in shape than thou," because this daily routine is new to me.I have tried

pneumonia

2008-01-13T08:04:00.000-05:00

My younger son has pneumonia but he is by far the bounciest kid with pneumonia you've ever seen and now he has no temperature and is almost back to his old self except he is pale and has trouble catching his breath sometimes.Pneumonia is scary because it can be such a serious illness. My son has bacterial pneumonia. The way I understand it is this: Normally we all breathe in all sorts of

Jealousy

2007-12-14T09:20:00.001-05:00

My older son wrote a school paper that was all about how stupid he thinks his brother is. I discovered it as I looked for a ruler with his brother and I quickly moved it so he wouldn't see it. I was absolutely devastated that he would write such things. My older son at first said I shouldn't have been looking at it. But then I pointed out that he left it out on the desk and his brother could

Ballet boy

2007-12-10T21:31:00.000-05:00

My younger son, Will, is a ballet dancer. He begged us to take ballet at age 6. We had taken him to see "the Nutcracker" each year and when he was maybe 4, he had two little girlfriends who would dance around reenacting the Nutcracker. "You can't play with us because you're a boy," they informed him. "But the Nutcracker is a boy!" I told them. "Didn't you see the Nutcracker? There are plenty of

The Mommy trap

2007-11-28T12:16:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine told me about a full-time job in government that had a good salary and benefits. (Imagine!) But I did my usual, "Thanks but no thanks" response because I'm so entrenched in my life working part-time and balancing kids and other activities. I'm sure this is a trap. My husband is a freelancer too and we could use the additional salary and while I'm doing much better financially

Reading Study

2007-11-20T22:05:00.000-05:00

As a lifelong reader myself and the mother of two somewhat reluctant readers, I was struck by the National Endowment for the Arts study that came out this week on Americans reading habits, "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," http://www.nea.gov/news/news07/TRNR.html The report found that Americans are reading less in almost every age group over the 20 years from 1984 to

2007-11-20T21:49:00.001-05:00

ADHD studies

2007-11-15T10:02:00.000-05:00

I was happy to see an article in the New York Times on Tuesday, Nov. 13, that cited several studies showing bad behavior early in children's school careers doesn't doom they later in life. The studies . The studies found that children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD have a delay in brain development rather than a deficit or flaw. That explains why many children "grow

2007-11-12T15:31:00.000-05:00

In Princeton Township, N.J., there's an effort to become a sustainable town. That means we use up fewer resources, we try to come up with guidelines to be less wasteful and more environmentally friendly etc. I'm fully behind the idea and went to the first meeting with my own two cents. I advocated for sidewalks, so we could walk rather than use the car and I also advocated for banning plastic

2007-11-08T14:46:00.000-05:00

I went to a cocktail party for Dress for Success yesterday,http://www.dressforsuccess.org. It's a group that provides suits for poor women who are going on job interviews and a whole week's worth of office clothes once they get the job, as well as job training and support. They just opened a new office in Mercer County, N.J. They showed a very touching video of women who have been helped by the