Tag Archives: emotional health

This is what happens when we unlock maturity

I had an incredible discussion with another #soccermom the other day.  The conversation meandered onto the topic of how we infantilize our children these days and how different it was when we were young.  We talked about the things we did long ago and more importantly, the character traits and skills we developed because of these differences.  We went on to identify some of the ways that behavior has inadvertently carried over into other things that were just silly… How suddenly, not just “coming home when the street lights come on” seems to have carried over into children who don’t use knives to cut their own food at age 12.

And that’s changed our kids… and their behavior… Continue reading This is what happens when we unlock maturity

Christmas Morning

Well, we managed to land in our garage at home at about 11:45pm Christmas Eve.  Papa was up until about 4am putting out the already-wrapped gifts and trying to fight the effects of the coffee he drank to keep him up while driving.

The children were up promptly at 6am and it went a little something like this… Continue reading Christmas Morning

Day 9: Honor our heritage

We are a MIXED bag at my house.  Husbeau is 100% Italian.  I am 1/4 Welsh, 1/4 Italian and the other half is a mix of Scottish, Irish, Alsatian (I’m gonna call “German” on that one based on the food, words and preferences of my grandmother) and “unknown” because my great-grandmother was a foundling.  So BigGuy is 5/8 Italian and then a bunch of “other European” and Girly is half Guatemalan and half completely unknown.  Her history is very much like my great-grandmother’s except they no longer call those children “foundlings” and they generally don’t grow up in a hospital setting like my great-grandmother did.

So what do we honor today…?  Continue reading Day 9: Honor our heritage

Day 6: St. Nicholas

St Nicholas by GE MullanMy family has long tried to separate gifts from December 25th.  It. Is. HARD. people. Do you remember my post from last year about the elf?  Well, here we are a year later and Girly is still pretty much all in.  I woke to the squeals of delight and joy a few mornings ago when Husbeau apparently placed our elf.  She’s all in… the tooth fairy, the Halloween fairy (who takes their candy and swaps it out for a toy), some other fantasy characters that escape me at the moment and… Santa.  Continue reading Day 6: St. Nicholas

Waxing reminiscent of my dreams today

October 11, 2012… it was a stunning day.  Girly was a month away from being 4 and BigGuy was 8–on the cusp of 9.  I was so discouraged–having lived in Illinois for 2 years and not feeling like I had “fit” anywhere really.  I ran into someone I knew loosely and she invited me into a small circle of families that changed my life for a while in a way that has changed me forever.  See that picture?  That was the second time we were all together.  Let me tell you what this group was like–what made them so incredible… Continue reading Waxing reminiscent of my dreams today

Someone asked why we homeschool

On a local forum, a mom asked us to share the reasons we homeschool and she was particularly interested in hearing from parents of kids old enough to be in the public schools.  My post was apparently too long for Facebook… Continue reading Someone asked why we homeschool

Dipping our toes in the public schools

It’s scary, y’all.  Very, very scary.  I think people who have been involved in the schools don’t really give much thought to the countless types of information you hand over to them… being on their radar; but I am keenly aware of it.  Suddenly, I realized just how NOT on the radar we were until now.  It’s just kind of weird.

But for us, that’s really only a small part of it… We have much bigger issues here… Continue reading Dipping our toes in the public schools