Durability In Children

Small children are durable. Perhaps not all small children, but certainly mine are very durable. They run full tilt, fall flat on their faces in the gravel, and if you compliment the speed they attained before the fall, they pop back up with a smile and take off again without any notice of the scratches on their knees. I am an older mom. I take these spills with what is apparently a degree of calm that shocks other people. I see persons leap up to rescue the poor fallen waif, when all I see is a perfectly normal learning experience. … Continue reading

Memories of Childhood

Over at A Woman’s Place…Depends On Her Vocation, she posted on the determination of her little one in hunting for the hidden gifts.  This made me smile as I recalled a time my brother and sister and I managed to FIND the Christmas gifts about a week before Christmas. Our Dad had quite the challenge to convince us that because Santa could not possibly get to EVERY house in one night that he often chose some parents to be helpers and take an early delivery of the Santa presents. They were quickly re-hidden and we didn’t see them again until … Continue reading

End of an Era: Encyclopaedia Britannica Out of Print

This is the end of an era.  The LAST print edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been made and when the stock runs out, there will be no more print editions. I feel like crying because my grandchildren may never know the joy of paging through a huge encyclopaedia, looking up a topic for school, but browsing as you went along, reading articles on many many interesting topics on your way to the one article you needed for that report. I feel so sad because the tactile joy of handling a well bound volume is vanishing from the landscape. My … Continue reading

Imagination Play and Children

I love the incredible imaginations of Children.  It is amazing to listen to little children and to watch them play. They are truthful in their responses to what they see and hear around them.  They take to prayer with ease because they haven’t the adult’s skepticism.  They are beautiful! A good parent will encourage their children to use their imaginations.  We buy them toys that encourage the use of the imagination.  Pots and pans to pretend to cook, tools to pretend to build things, legos to build whole worlds of imagined spaces, dolls to pretend to be parents,  workbooks and … Continue reading

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving this year was quite non-traditional. We made pot roast in the crock pot and are enjoying it as leftovers. Very low key and relaxing! I’m grateful for my family. I was sorry to miss the traditional fun at my sisters this year but this pregnancy has me staying home so as to avoid becoming over-tired. Looked like everyone had a good time. I’m grateful for my immediate family in particular. My husband Gary is a great blessing to me. I love my kids so much, all of them. My eldest who forgot to call his mother on Thanksgiving … Continue reading

Space shuttle and Apollo program

I remember the first moon landing.  It was a VERY big deal in our family since we are natives of the home town of the first man to walk on the mood.  Neil Armstrong grew up in our community and everybody was up watching the first landing on the moon. I remember that the arrival on the moon and the first moon walk impacted the mind of our culture in a way that nothing else in my short life had.  We were no longer a people who had never left the planet, we were suddenly a people who could someday … Continue reading

Libraries

I recall the library in Wapakoneta Ohio as a kid, it was wonderful with lots of books and a librarian who would help you find something if you simply couldn’t find it.  I remember the smell, the quiet peace, the card catalogs I loved so much, the wonder of books.  The pleasures of a library can get deep into your mind and stay with you for life. My collection started with books given to me as a child, or books chosen from bookstores or book order forms sent home from school.  The books multiplied and my mom humored me and … Continue reading

Evolving skills Pt 2a: technology shock

Everyone has heard the phrase “Culture Shock” where a person from one region moves to a new place and the differences in the culture of the new place are difficult for that person to understand and they have to struggle to adjust.  Meet “Technology Shock” where the simple machines of my childhood have been eclipsed by technology I never imagined. A year ago I dove into the fun of looking for a new sewing machine.  I recalled that years before there were the two choices of sewing machine and/or serger and I toyed with the idea that owning one of … Continue reading

Evolving skills pt 1: nostalgia

I remember my first sewing machine, it was tiny and you turned the crank to make the needle rise and fall.  I recall bugging my mother for pieces of fabric so I could try to make something.  I don’t recall ever having much success, and the later “sewing machine” that used a glue cartridge was not much more successful.  But those early toy sewing machines started something deep inside me that no matter what I went on to do, never died out. Later, I learned more about cutting out from a pattern in a 4-H project I never managed to … Continue reading

Glasses:bifocals

Bifocals are a kind of rite of passage for many of us. The nearsightedness requires glasses for driving or seeing the blackboard, but until later age, when the little parts of the eye begin to stiffen and resist change, there is usually no need for bifocals. There are the age defying lenses that hide this by a continual change in the lens, sliding gracefully from distance to close-up without that tell-tale line but they don’t work for everyone. So along come the bifocals and close behind a second pair with just the reading lens. Last week I picked up a … Continue reading