Category Family
Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign
When I read the prompt for this week’s photo challenge, to post something “foreign”, this picture immediately came to mind. A relative of my husband took this picture when various members of the family were staying in a refugee camp in Thailand in the early 1980’s. They had fled from Laos, and were hoping to […]
Birthdays
It’s been a whirlwind of a day, and I hope to have time later tonight to sort through all of it and have some deeper thoughts…for now, I do want to at least acknowledge the special day we are having here. My dear, beautiful mother and my sweet, gorgeous little girl both celebrate their birthday […]
Octoberfest
October is a festive month in our family: my father-in-law’s birthday is in the beginning of the month; my mother-in-law’s comes next towards the end, and my mom and my daughter share a birthday three days after my mother-in-law’s. Because we all live within two hours of each other, we’ve started celebrating all four of […]
Some Considerations for Grade Skipping
I’m trying to sort through all the questions our family attempted to answer when we were wondering if skipping a grade was right for L. Here are some we thought of that might be helpful to someone else, too: 1. Is the child emotionally ready? 2. Does the child make friends easily/adapt to new situations […]
Our School Experience
In the past few weeks, I’ve had three different friends ask me about L.’s experiences in school, as their own kids faced the possibility of skipping a grade. This post is a synopsis of the past few years for us and L. as a student. My hope is for parents to find the right solution […]
Gratitude Lists
Before I began this blog, I made a practice of posting a gratitude list every night on my Facebook page. Some nights, I could have easily typed out dozens of different things from the day, and other nights, it was an act of true discipline. I kept doing it because it was good for my […]
Little Piano Man
Getting a child to practice a musical instrument isn’t always easy, as many know, either from their own experience as children or with children of their own. When L. was in second grade last year, he had the opportunity to begin piano lessons right at school, taking a 30-minute lesson once a week from one […]
“She’s Warming Up to Me…”
“She’s warming up to me,” said my husband, V., to me the other night, speaking of our nearly three-year-old daughter. Is this a strange thing for a father to say about his own little girl, for whose life he has been present since she entered the world? Strange, but I totally understood what he meant. Both […]
Bucket Swings and Bucket Lists
Part of our daughter’s pre-bedtime routine is recounting what was fun about the day. I love hearing what she remembers and what she really enjoyed. What I think is funny, though, is that sometimes she forgets the difference between reality and wishes, because she tends to name one or two things that we didn’t actually […]
Running the Race 
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