I have a rather long commute and became bored with the available radio station offerings.  A few months ago I received an iPod Suffle free as a promotional item.  After searching around iTunes for a while, I came across the directory for Parenting podcasts.  One of the first to which I subcribed was The Croncast produced by Kris and Betsy Smith.  These guys are still my favorite.  While my wife watches her TV soaps, I download every MWF for the real life soap opera that is the life of the Smi... Read Full Story

The twins turned 7 this past weekend.  They opted for a family only party.  DS doesn’t care for lots of noise.  They wanted cupcakes so I found a chocolate gluten free mix which turned out great. I frosted them with a simple grenache.  They were quite good. They have grown three inches since fall, no wonder they are looking bigger!  We went to their first IMAX movie in 3D.  It was fun to watch them take the glasses on and off depending on the “scariness” of what was on the s... Read Full Story

Blogs and podcasts are full of the experience expressed by the author of the following post: why-im-homeschooling-my-kid-in-science-next-year It is also why it is unlikely our children will ever be educated in a traditional school environment.  Our DD would do great at filling out her notebook perfectly and doing great in  the course work as well.  However, our DS would never complete the notebook for top grade.  He detests busy work.  All work must mean something and add to the educational e... Read Full Story

While watching the news about the last minute shoppers and pictures of Santa at the mall, I was reminded of the story earlier this season about the shopping centers banning Santa from saying Ho-Ho-Ho.  And then I began to wonder… Does Santa take Lipitor? In order to be good role model for children, should Santa be forced to go on a diet? (Will he need gastric bypass surgery to maintain a healthy weight?) Should we set out carrot sticks instead of cookies? Will a skinny Santa ruin Christ... Read Full Story

We’ve been thinking about how to make the Thanksgiving Holiday more meaningful for the kids this year so that it’s more than just a big meal.  They’re now at an age they can begin to understand abstract concepts, take the perspective of another, and express themselves well both verbally and in writing.  So from now until Thanksgiving, we’re going to have them write down on slips of paper, one thing each day they are thankful for.  We’ll put the slips of paper in ... Read Full Story

The ability to read is basic to all other education.  We parents want to make sure that we are preparing our children for this all important skill.  A little about how we went about it.  The twins learned the alphabet pretty much on their own using alphabet blocks, educational videos, and just natural inquisitiveness.  We have read to them all along, but never asked them to read back to us or spent any time teaching them words.  Then they were reaching kindergarten age and we wanted to assess... Read Full Story

Christmas, Holidays, Toys, Commercialism, Frenzy, Stressed, Depressed, Food, Tax Deductions, … How many other descriptors is there for this time of year?  We are struggling with the question of what are the appropriate gifts this year.  The twins want several toys that can also double for educational uses with their home school studies, so those seem okay, not too much guilt there.  But which ones for Christmas and which ones do we save for birthday which is in February?  Which ones do ... Read Full Story

The twins will dress up as Harry and Hermine from Harry Potter tonight.  They have Hogwarts robes and wands to complete their costumes.  We will make the rounds in the neighborhood and collect scads of candy.  That’s the good part, so to speak. The bad part is that one has a nut allergy and the other has a corn allergy.  Tell me what candy doesn’t have either a nut or corn product in it? So most of the night’s take will go with me to work to share with coworkers, and we will... Read Full Story

I have added a new page to the site.  It presents the stages of ego development by psychology researcher Jane Loevinger.  It’s been extremely helpful when trying to determine what’s appropriate behavior; what concepts can they reasonably understand; am I being too demanding in my expectations, etc.  The list also incorporates Kolberg’s stages of moral development, to show that different developmental researchers have developed similar stages but with different emphases. What... Read Full Story

I keep having a gut reaction that there is bit of over reaction to the violations of the lead paint standards leading to the toy recalls.  So to either confirm or contradict this reaction I decided to do a bit of research. Upon reading the EPAs fact sheet on lead and children’s health, I notice there is a marked absence of any mention of toys as a leading cause of lead poisoning among children.  Rather, the primary environmental means of lead poisoning in children mentioned are paint du... Read Full Story