Children  TV control, movie reviews for kids, ADD?? Travels with Charlie..make  travel easier for children  who hate change (and the  adults who travel with them).

Piano.... a family game.

Come on into the kitchen and family room.  They used to be separate rooms, but we've knocked down a wall.  There's no television in our family room, nor in the kitchen.  Instead, we've added a piano, a board game center have reintroduced the concept of a family supper hour.

I've actually prepared real meals lately - I don't know what's come over me.  In our kitchen we can microwave EVERYTHING, but we like sitting down evenings and talking about what's new. Sunday night, we have a mini-piano recital and over dinner share information on what's the most interesting thing we've done that week.  College applications for a grown son, horseback riding lessons for the youngest son, in-line skating again (4th year in a row) for mom are the highlights so car.

In the background there is the sound of  our dogs barking, much to the chagrin of one particular neighbor. Occasionally we can hear the sound of kids skateboarding on the street,  neighbors talking and music from the CD or NPR (WYSO), but no television (a plus!)  If only we could teach the dogs or those lazy cats to mop the floors and throw in a few loads of laundry.

Every kitchen should have this, I suppose.  So, you think you know what foods fall into the 5 basic food group?.   No doubt you've left a couple of important things out, such as:

Ben and Jerry's  Cherry Garcia, to name one. Visit their site and find several more flavors of ice cream.  You can even order them (by phone) and have them ice packed and shipped to you.  More than that, Ben and Jerry's page offers a lot of useful information about dioxin contamination (one source is the bleach used to whiten the paper cartons other people's ice cream comes in), as well as a fun area for kids,  plus info on Greenpeace and the Ben and Jerry foundation.

Chocolate surely you knew this is one of the basic food groups?Go ahead, take a taste (no calories!)
 

Confessions of An At Home Mom ormy youngest isn't even 10 yet (and my oldest is 32....what was I thinking?)

      I am more than a little reluctant to start telling tales that rave about being an at home parent.  To do so would be tantamount to criticizing myself for all the years I worked full-time and struggled to be a full-time mom, too. During those years, and there were many, I spent a lot of time agonizing over the fate of my children.  In addition, I felt guilt about my job performance.  There was never enough time to do both jobs right.  There also was no choice, for reasons I won't go into here.  So, I consoled myself, and talked with other working parents about the quality of care of gave my sons.  In truth, the two of the older children have grown into interesting men.

   Still, writing about what it is like to be a full-time, at-home mom seems like pointing out to my first and second born that I didn't give them what I am giving their young brother.  Not to mention that  I'd be betraying all the .....continued

ADD  ... for real or not?

Traveling with an ADD Child... Oh, my...I love to travel and in fact, in order to stay home, I'm starting a tiny little business, travel related -- essays, books, games  and other interests for travelers.  As I grew up, we moved all over the place, following my father's career. I was able to adjust to constant changes.  My older sons travel well, but since he was a toddler, my youngest child has had difficulty traveling.  That's rather a euphanism - he has temper tantrums, trouble sleeping, and a generally unpleasant attitude the first time he goes someplace new.   Once he gets comfortable, he's a delight. It's getting him there.   One of my desires is to be able to travel with him, and for him to find it a pleasurable experience.  But how to do that?  I have a plan, and hopefully it will work....continued

           That love of singing has translated over to piano, something that surprised me as he doesn't easily do 'new things' - an admitted fear of failing holds him back. His piano teacher is gentle, and here we treat piano not as a chore, but as something fun to do, together.

            That's one of the reasons I think piano works for us - it isn't something he does, but something we  do as a family. Yes, I started relearning piano - I took lessons one summer when I was eight, and again very briefly when I was 15.   Now we can sing together, and do mini-recitals for friends and family members. If you can't play, then pound a drum or sing a tune, hmmm and clap if nothing else.

          But it really isn't too late to learn something new.  I'm a little slow,  It takes me 20 times as long to learn a new song as it takes my son, with his agile, sponge-like mind.  Which pleases him greatly.

 We are incorporated music into one of the ways we are making our trip abroad easier for all....continued

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Back to the Fifties and Sixties

Will our kids look back at today and think these were the good old days?

I don't know, but for now, the Fifties in CyberSpace offers a Comfort Zone for some of us frazzled by the Swinging Sixties, the Disco Seventies, the Me and Mine Eighties and the Zooming Nineties.

Maybe music became more hip after the fifties, but those songs bring back great memories. Think back to the Fifties  and early Sixties when (in my childish memory banks anyway) life seemed a lot simpler.

I was too old to watch Captain Kangaroo, but my sister wasn't (so I looked over her shoulder).

Leave it To Beaver   and all the happy, functional families of the fifties (leave my illusions alone) bring back fond memories to me.

Mickey Mouse I watched the Mousketeers. I still know all the words. These links are all from the same site. And there's even more. If you visit, drop a note to Candace. She's doing a great job!

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans have their own home page. I'm kind of partial to these two. Every time someone tells me how odd it is that a girl (me) is named Dale, I remember this series.

In addition to a my affinity for the 50's, I am reminiscing about my old high school days. Did you attend Stratford High School?  If so, get ready for a class reunion next year! E-mail me for details.

Genealogy
And I thought this would be boring.  Of course, my sister and mother have done all the work so far, but I was busy. Now they're busy and I'm trying to figure out what this all means.  (Note - though with fair weather, I'm much more likely to be out in-line skating rather than working on the computer).

There is a connectedness to other people in doing this, a realization that you never know who might be a fifth cousin twice removed.  What would those immigrants who came to America think if they could see their descendants connecting through the internet?

Caring for your children's future is somehow connected to respecting and connecting with those who came before us. Start with my Genealogy Index.   And you can, visit Family Tree Maker online and search for some of your ancestors!  There are numerous books on Genealogy - here are just a few, from the shelves of amazon.com in the Genealogy Books room...

IQ Tests  and Personality  Tests for Fun and Relaxation

Why do I do best with tests I don't understand taken after midnight following a hard day at work?

http://cech.cesnet.cz/IQ/IQ-test-e.html How I managed to get over 54 on this one, I'll never know.  It uses a side of the brain that isn't in use, in my system. I couldn't understand the logic behind most of it, but my score came back as 135

http://www.brain.com/iqhome.html  Easy easy easy.  This is my kind of thinking.

http://www.iqtest.com/   This one is easy, too.  These are the kinds of tests I like!

http://www.keirsey.com  Take a personality test, and learn about different personalities, too.  This excellent test is very similar to the Myer's Briggs test, but you can take it yourself.  Me?  I seem to be INFJ.
 

I still hold that this is a rather novel use of a perfectly good room, but then I do admit I like a good meal.  And once in awhile I enjoy cooking.  But with four cooks in the family already (my mother, my sister,  my second and third sons) why not just be the one who does the dishes?

*(if you must cook, try to find this out of print book: The Campus Survival Cookbook. I don't care if you're not in college anymore...this is cooking made easy.  Another book we use a lot, which is still in print, is The Gradual Vegetarian by Lisa Tracy...

A good, fall back cook book is the I Hate To Cook Book.  It's been around for a long time and has some easy, quick yet tasty recipes in it! Go ahead and search for more cookbooks (now that you're thinking of them) here:

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