Posts Tagged Under family
Grandma’s House
I never really had grandparents. My mother’s mother and my father’s father died when my parents were still children. I only met my paternal grandmother once and my maternal grandfather passed when I was toddler.
Luckily, my children have a different life. They have three sets of grandparents: Nonna and Grandpa Elroy; Grammie and Grampie; and Grandma and Grandpa Tampa (because they live in Tampa).
This Christmas we are staying with Grandma and Grandpa Tampa. In fact, my husband’s entire family is here to celebrate the holidays. That’s two grandparents, four grown children, their spouses, and ten grandchildren.
Continue… »
Biological is Not the Definition of Family
It happened again on Saturday morning after Olivia’s ballet class. A woman I have never met before, the mother of another dance student, saw me with Olivia and Mateo and out of nowhere asked, “Are they really brother and sister?”
I gulped and took a deep breath, after which I smiled and replied, “They are now.”
This particular question is the one I get asked most often by all kinds of people—from strangers in the grocery store to teachers in my children’s classrooms—and the one to which I still haven’t found the correct answer. I’ve heard other adoptive parents recommend saying, “Why do you ask?” or “They’re not biologically, but otherwise, yes.” Although both of those options seem like good answers, I haven’t yet found a way to make them roll off my tongue. Continue… »
By Jessica O'DwyerDon’t Judge a (Face)book by its Cover
It seems to be trendy to express contempt for Facebook. “I would never waste my time with that,” or “why would I care that someone is buying a sandwich?” are a few common retorts I heard recently. It fascinates me that socially liberal people who gladly accept anyone based on their race, gender or age quickly dismiss others based on their technology.
When I tell them I love Facebook, I am immediately downgraded in their opinion as someone whose mental age hovers around puberty. Continue… »
By Paula ChapmanLost in the Snow
Families can sometimes suffer from too much togetherness. That was the case during our trip to Lake Tahoe over New Year’s.
We woke on the first morning in our favorite lodge to a steely gray sky, the air streaming with snowflakes. I couldn’t wait to step into the downy landscape. But first we stopped for breakfast to feed our boys, 9 and 14. Then we ran into a K-Mart to buy snow pants. We were already back in the car when my husband Dave remembered he wanted to buy board games for later. He and the boys returned to K-Mart while I sat and waited, worrying the beautiful storm would pass before I ever felt a flake on my face.
Crowded in the car cramped with snow gear, we drove slowly through unfamiliar roads searching for a hill where the boys could sled. They bickered in the back seat while Dave and I bickered in the front. Finally we found a quiet spot off a barely plowed road that offered a hill on one side and an empty campground buried under several feet of snow on the other.
By Laura-Lynne PowellMother Time is NOT the Same as My Own Time
We sleep and wake at odd times: our tiredness, we discover, has many layers.
-Tony Cohan, On Mexican Time.
Lately I have been feeling like every day is at least two days long. And in that space of time, I am not quite sure what happens. I don’t even know how it happens. It’s as though time is actually dissolving before my grasping hands. I wish I could momentarily step out of the earth’s gravitational pull and somehow slip through the gap of a day: An entire 24 hours devoted to my renewal and to the tying up of loose ends. Unfortunately, life does not give time outs, and I am deep in the midst of a space I like to call “Mother Time.” Continue… »
By Dawn YunSubsequents: When a Mother Loses Her Child
Subsequents
But there was something about this clinical-sounding label that lent a controversial tone to the chat rooms in the various bereaved parent sites.
I never weighed in on any of these conversations. I’m not the online chatting kind of person, frankly, which makes this site a bit ironic for me.
By Kimberley KwokA Foreign Visitor Teaches Us About the Language of Families
When we got a puppy a few years ago, my friend, Mary, scolded me.
“Just what you need. Another thing to take care of,” she said shaking her head.
Mary had heard too many complaints about my frantic life as a busy mother – caring for two active boys, keeping house, maintaining a job outside the home, volunteering for various charities.
She was right, of course. As soon as the puppy passed through the doorway it was as if another toddler had been set loose and my workload increased exponentially.
By Laura-Lynne PowellA Family Morning
This is how I start my day.
TV-Turnoff Week
My 7-year old son obsesses over television. When can he watch it? For how long? Can he have the cereal that looks like chocolate donuts? Please Mom, the commercial says the cereal is part of a nutritional breakfast.
I’m enjoying National TV-Turnoff Week. My family participated last year and is doing so again now. Numerous studies conclude that children are watching more and more TV and the impacts are negative. Children who watch lots of television are more obese, study less and are more likely to engage in violence than children who watch a little television. The cutoff between a lot and a little seems to be about 10 hours a week.
During last year’s TV-Turnoff Week, my family was more physically active. We went for more walks than usual and talked to neighbors. We planted flowers in the border of our front yard. We played card games and board games. Bottom line, we spent more time together talking and really enjoying each others’ company.
By adminMaria
On a walk last summer, I discovered a note left with some flowers at a park bench. The bench memorialized a neighbor who had died. The note, and I assumed the flowers, were left by the dead neighbor’s widowed spouse. Again, this was something I assumed because the note was a love letter expressing the author’s profound grief, but it was unsigned.
The tribute to the woman moved me deeply and on subsequent walks I noticed that as the seasons changed so did the flowers. There were mums left in the fall, poinsettias at Christmas, shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day. But there was never another note, never another clue to the identity of the person
who mourned so.
Until today.
By admin
