As the heat of summer burns off, the nights creep ever so longer, and the air turns crisp and cool, my family returns to our favorite fall tradition -- a weekend camping trip. Even with small kids, camping doesn’t need to feel like an impossibly miserable weekend sleeping on the cold, hard ground. With a little preparation, camping can become a fall favorite for your family too. Camping starts with a tent First, make sure you have the right kind of gear. Of course, you’ll want a tent. If you don’t own a tent, borrow one. Just make sure you practice setting it up in your own yard (and … [Read more...]
Do Kindergartners Really Need an iPad to Learn to Read?
Over the summer we received a letter from my future kindergartner’s school saying ALL kindergartener would be using iPads as part of the regular school day. These “device days” would take place throughout the school year and kids would be encouraged to bring their own tablet from home. They even had an acronym for it: BYOD - Bring Your Own Device. My acronym for BYOD was WTF, but I calmed down a bit and settled on OMG. Why would my kindergartner need to take an iPad to school? All I see her use it for at home is watching YouTube videos of other people opening toys (the pros call it … [Read more...]
What’s an At-Home Parent to Do When the Kids Start School
I’ve been home full-time with my kids for the past five years. This week, my youngest starts kindergarten. Those of you who work full-time may not realize what a huge transition time this is for at-home parents when their kids start school. This is the time we feel judged by people who think we’re home all day doing nothing. (This could be actual judgement from people or what we’ve imagined in our heads, either way, it’s all the same to us.) This is a time when whatever self-imposed pressures and expectations come to light as well. There’s a lot of uncertainty. Maybe that’s why I … [Read more...]
Swimming Pool Seasons with Kids: Heaven, Hell and All in Between
A swimming pool is definitely the best/worst kid activity of the summer. For every drop of enjoyment a pool provides, there is an equal and opposite negative reaction (just ask Isaac Newton). There is no better way to cool off and feel refreshed in the summer than flopping that beach bod you planned to acquire over the winter into an 83-degree shimmering oasis with your little ones. At the same time, a day at the swimming pool requires a near-constant reapplication of sunscreen on kids. Doing this three or four times without getting sunscreen in their eyes is tough – it’s bound to happen at … [Read more...]
Cold (and Often Long) Facts about Spring Youth Baseball
Youth baseball. A sport with varied skill levels. Some kids can knock the cover off the ball and others have never put on a baseball glove before (you can tell these kids because they always put it on the hand they throw with.) Baseball is a sport with no time limit, no clock. The games could last forever … literally. It is a sport played outside, during the unpredictable weather of the spring. Games rarely get cancelled, making for some interesting situations. This season, those windy 40 degree days made me thankful for the other 165 hours of the week I wasn’t sitting in a cold lawn … [Read more...]