Spring Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is one only one […]
Read moreiPads. They are everywhere. And really what I mean is, television. It is everywhere. The boy watching Dora before hitting the ski slopes. The toddler engrossed in Jake and the Neverland Pirates as he waits for his dinner. The screen lights that shine from every car we pass. When did children stop sitting and […]
Read moreShh… Don’t tell anyone. For months, I betrayed my hero, Jim Trelease, the author of the much acclaimed Read Aloud Handbook. For a long time, I have said that I want to be Jim Trelease when I grow up. I mean, really, is there a better job in the world than talking and writing about […]
Read moreI love a good family vacation. Last week, we went on a two night adventure to Woodloch in Pennsylvania. We had heard great things about the place but had never been so we were not sure what we would find when we got there. Here is what we found… Ice skating… and ice lying. Snow […]
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The other day, Katherine was singing as she often is. “It’s always a good time!”, she sang loudly and repeatedly. Caroline gave her a look, more for the repetition of the singing than anything else but Katherine wisely replied, “What, something has to be good now!” If I could sell the girl’s optimism, I’d be […]
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As we settle in to February break, I thought I would share an article I wrote for this month’s Flager Parent. It’s all about fun ways to engage with children’s literature if cabin fever has made it’s way in to your house… 5 Bookish Ways to Banish the Winter Blues The temperature hovers around freezing. […]
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A few weeks ago, I wrote about our family’s first adventure on the ski slopes. We went again this weekend, having been one other time in between. As if often the case in this whole parenting thing, skiing has become so much more than just skiing for us. You see, Katherine took immediately to skis, […]
Read more“When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it.” – Charles De Lint (found in Katrina Kenison’s The Gift of an Ordinary Day) So with that in mind, […]
Read moreWhile my website was being beautifully updated, I took a bit of a blogging break. Since I’ve written, we enjoyed the most gorgeous snow storm. We haven’t had a storm with enough snow to play in a long time. Everyone was excited and ready for a weekend of shoveling, playing and resting. And of course, […]
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